Neither woman broke a smile.
"Ah, but these two can pace Athrogate," Pratcus said.
Davis Eng laughed and so did Calihye, and Parissus a moment later. Could anyone truly pace Athrogate?
"He's got a fire inside of him that I've never seen the likes of before," Calihye admitted. "And never does he run faster than when there's a hundred enemies standing in his way."
"But we're there, right beside him, and I mean to pass him, too," Parissus said, allowing her pride to finally spill forth. "When our fellow hunters look at the board outside of Ironhead's, they're going to see the names Parissus and Calihye penned right there on top!"
"Calihye and Parissus," the half-elf corrected.
Davis Eng and Pratcus burst into laughter.
"Only because we're being generous on this last kill," said Davis Eng.
"It was a giant!" both women said together.
"After that," the soldier replied. "You two were dead before you got to the wall, had not Commander Ellery rushed out. That alone should negate the bounty."
"So says yourself, bluster-blunder!" Calihye roared in defiance. "We had the goblins beat clean. Was your own fellow who wanted a piece of the fight for himself. He's the one Ellery needed saving."
"Commander Ellery," came a call from the doorway, and all four heads turned to regard the important woman herself, striding into the room.
Pratcus tried to appear sober and respectful, but giggles kept escaping his mouth as he tugged hard to tighten down Parissus's bandage.
"Commander Ellery," Calihye said in deference, and she offered a slight bow in apology. "A title well-earned, though all titles seem to fall hard from my lips. I beg your pardon, Commander Ellery, Lady Dragonsbane."
"Given the occasion, your indiscretion is of no concern," said Ellery, trying not to appear flushed by the complimentary use of her surname, Dragonsbane, a name of the greatest renown all across the Bloodstone Lands. Technically, Ellery's last name was Peidopare, though Dragonsbane immediately preceded that name, and the halfelf's use of the more prominent family name was certainly as great a compliment as anyone could possibly pay to Ellery. She was tall and slim, but there was nothing frail about her frame, for she had seen many battles and had wielded her heavy axe since childhood. Her eyes were wide-set and bright blue, her skin tanned, but still delicate, and dotted with many freckles about her nose. Those did not detract from her beauty, though, but rather enhanced it, adding a touch of girlishness to a face full of intensity and power. "I wanted to add this to the bounty." She pulled a small pouch from her belt and tossed it to Calihye. "An additional reward from the Army of Bloodstone for your heroic work."
"We were discussing whether Athrogate would be pleased when he returns," Davis Eng explained, and that thought brought a grin to Ellery's face.
"I expect he'll not take the demotion to runner-up as well as Mariabronne accepted Athrogate's ascent."
"With all respect to Athrogate," Parissus remarked, "Mariabronne the Rover has more Vaasan kills to his credit than all three of us together."
"A point hard to argue, though the ranger accepts no bounty and takes no public acclaim," said Davis Eng, and the way he spoke made it apparent that he was drawing a distinction between Mariabronne the Rover, a name legendary throughout Damara, and the two women.
"Mariabronne made both his reputation and his fortune in the first few years following Zhengyi's demise," Ellery added. "Once King Gareth took note of him and knighted him, there was little point for Mariabronne to continue to compete in the Vaasan bounties. Perhaps our two friends here, and Athrogate, will find similar honor soon."
"Athrogate knighted by King Gareth?" Davis Eng said, and Pratcus was bobbing so hard trying to contain his laughter at the absurd image those words conjured that he nearly fell right over.
"Well, perhaps not that one," Ellery conceded, to the amusement of them all.
Something just didn't feel right, didn't smell right.
His face showed the hard work, the battles, of more than twenty years. He was still handsome, though, with his unkempt brown locks and his scruffy beard. His bright brown eyes shone with the luster of youth more fitting of a man half his age, and that grin of his was both commanding and mischievous, a smile that could melt a woman on the spot, and one that the nomadic warrior had often put to good use. He had risen through the ranks of the Bloodstone Army in those years during the war with the Witch-King, and had moved beyond even those accolades upon his release from the official service of King Gareth after Zhengyi's fall.
Mariabronne the Rover, he was called, a name that almost every man, woman, and child in Damara knew well, and one that struck a chord of fear and hatred in the monsters of Vaasa. For the ending of his service in the Bloodstone Army had only been the beginning of Mariabronne's service to King Gareth and the people of the two states collectively known as the Bloodstone Lands. Working out of the northern stretches of the Bloodstone Pass, which connected Vaasa and Damara through the towering Galena Mountains, Mariabronne had served as tireless bodyguard to the workers who had constructed the massive Vaasan Gate. More than anyone else, even more so than the men and women surrounding King Gareth himself, Mariabronne the Rover had worked to tame wild Vaasa.
The progress was slow, so very slow, and Mariabronne doubted he'd see Vaasa truly civilized in his lifetime. But ending the journey wasn't the point. He could not solve all the ills of the world, but he could help his fellow men walk the path that would eventually lead to that.
But something smelled wrong. Some sensation in the air, some sixth sense, told the ranger that great trials might soon be ahead.
It must have been Wingham's summons, he realized, for had the old half-orc ever bade someone to his side before? Everything with Wingham—Weird Wingham, he was called, and proudly called himself—prompted suspicion, of course, of the curious kind if not the malicious. But what could it be, Mariabronne wondered? What sensation was upon the wind, darkening the Vaasan sky? What omen of ill portent had he noted unconsciously out of the corner of his eye?
"You're getting old and timid," he scolded himself.
Mariabronne often talked to himself, for Mariabronne was often alone. He wanted no partner for his hunting or for his life, unless it was a temporary arrangement, a warm, soft body beside him in a warm, soft bed. His responsibilities were beyond the call of his personal desires. His visions and aspirations were rooted in the hope of an entire nation, not the cravings of a single man.
The ranger sighed and shielded his eyes against the rising sun as he looked east across the muddy Vaasan plain that morning. Summer had come to the wasteland, though the breeze still carried a chilly bite. Many of the more brutish monsters, the giants and the ogres, had migrated north hunting the elk herds, and without the more formidable enemies out and about, the smaller humanoid races—orcs and goblins, mostly—were keeping out of sight, deep in caves or high up among the rocks.
As he considered that, Mariabronne let his gaze linger to the left, to the south, and the vast wall-fortress known as the Vaasan Gate.
Her great portcullis was up, and the ranger could see the dark dots of adventurers issuing forth to begin the morning hunt.
Already there was talk of constructing more fortified keeps north of the great gate, for the numbers of monsters there were declining and the bounty hunters could no longer be assured of their silver and gold coins.