The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars

MATHER’S BLOOD

“Oh, but you’re a quick one!” Mather Wyndon cried out, leaping a fallen log and cutting a fast turn about a sharp bend in the trail. He spotted the creature he was pursuing, an ugly and smelly goblin, far ahead, scrambling up a steep hill and over a wall of piled rocks.

The large man lowered his head and started straight on, but he stopped fast at the sound of a cry to his right. He cut behind a tree, grabbing its solid trunk to help break his momentum, and pivoted about, his fine elvish blade glowing with an eager white light.

Out of the brush came the second goblin, running wild, running scared, holding its crude spear-no more than a sharpened stick, really-out wide in one hand, in no position to throw or to stab.

The creature wasn’t up for any fight, anyway, Mather understood as soon as he saw its features, twisted into an expression of the sheerest fright. That was the secret of fighting goblins, the seasoned ranger knew. Catch them by surprise, and the cowardly beasts would scatter, all semblance of defense thrown aside. Mather smiled as a second creature burst out behind the goblin, a huge beast with the lower body of a horse supporting the upper body of a man: a centaur, five hundred pounds of muscle, and this one, Bradwarden by name, was merely a boy, Mather knew.

A boy, but an impressive sight no less!

Hardly slowing, howling with glee, the young centaur ran up the goblin’s back, trampled the ugly thing down into the dirt, then, as he came up above its head, he lifted his hind legs and stomped down hard, splattering the goblin’s skull.

Mather didn’t see it; having all faith in his half-equine companion, the elven-trained ranger was already in pursuit of the first goblin, running hard up the ascent, then leaping atop the stone wall, and then leaping far from it with graceful fluid movements. Mather was closer to fifty years of age than to forty, but he moved with the agility of a far younger man. Though he had spent the majority of his life in the harsh climate of the Timberlands, serving as silent protector for the folk of the two small towns in the region, Dundalis and Weedy Meadow, he felt few aches in his old bones and muscles.

From the top of the ridge, Mather saw spread out before him a familiar vale of man-height spruce trees, triangular green dots among a field of white ankle-deep caribou moss. And there was the running goblin-and indeed it was a quick one! — scrambling along, cutting sharp corners about the trees, stumbling often, and half the time turning right around in a circle as it tried to keep its bearings in this vale where all the trees looked the same.

Down went Mather in a rush. The goblin spotted him and squeaked pitifully, then ran in a straight line away, to the south, and up another slope. As it neared the top, the foliage changed back to deciduous trees, small growth and scrub. The goblin slipped into one tangle of birch and peered back anxiously.

“If you’re waiting for your friend, you’ll be waiting a long time, I fear,” came a voice behind the goblin. Mather’s voice.

The creature shrieked and scrambled out of the birch, one step ahead of the ranger, one step ahead of that deadly blade. The goblin went around a large trunk, but Mather was the quicker, coming around the other way, cutting off the escape. The goblin lifted its club and, forced to fight, tried to assume a defensive position.

Mather’s blade swerved left, then right, and the goblin’s club moved with it, in line to block.

But Mather knew Bi’nelle dasada, the elven sword dance, and the goblin did not. The side-to-side movements were naught but feints, for this fighting style, so unlike all the others of the day, focused on the movements forward and back. His lead foot perpendicular to his trailing, bracing foot, his front knee bent and his weight out over it, Mather waved the blade again, and then, before the goblin could recognize the move, before it could react with the club, before it could even blink, Mather’s elven blade, Tempest, stabbed forward, seeming to pull all of his body, extending, extending, past the goblin’s meager defenses, through the goblin’s torso, to crack hard against the tree trunk behind the creature.

Mather let go of the blade.

The goblin did not fall, even as the last life left it, held firmly in place by the embedded sword.

Mather glanced to the south, down the slope to the tiny village of Dundalis, nestled in the vale beyond. The day was early and bitterly cold, and none of the folk were about, though Mather could see the glow of the morning fires through several windows. They wouldn’t see him, though, and wouldn’t know what he had done here this morn. They knew nothing of goblins, these farmers and woodcutters. Indeed, goblins were rare in these parts; this trio were the first ones the ranger had seen in several years. But that only made them doubly dangerous to the unsuspecting folk of Dundalis, Mather realized. Goblins were not so difficult an enemy when they were caught by surprise, as Mather and Bradwarden had done. They were cowardly creatures, and purely selfish. Thus, when surprised, they would simply scatter. But if they got the upper hand, if they ever found Mather and Bradwarden’s camp instead of the other way around, then the ranger and centaur would indeed find a difficult fight on their hands. And if the goblins ever managed an ambush on the sleepy town of Dundalis…

Mather shook the unsettling images away, but not after wondering if he should try, at least, to better educate and thus prepare the folk of the village for that grim possibility. The notion merely brought a chuckle to his lips. The folk would never listen. To them, goblins were but fireside tales. Mather looked at the dead creature. Perhaps he should bring it and its companions into the town to show them. Perhaps…

No, the ranger realized. That was not his place, and the ramifications of such an action could be disastrous-everything from scaring half the folk back to the civilized southland to bringing an army up from Palmaris, a force that would despoil all of this nearly pristine land.

Let the folk remain oblivious. And of the ranger, their secret protector, let the folk continue their perception of him as a mad hermit, an eccentric woodsman, to be shunned whenever he ventured among them.

Better that way, Mather thought. He was performing as the elves had trained him. As he had learned all those years ago in the elven homeland of Caer’alfar, he did not take his satisfaction in accolades. Mather’s strength came from within.

He grasped Tempest in both hands and yanked it free, then wiped the shining blade on the ragged clothes of the fallen goblin. He grabbed the ugly little creature with one hand and went down to the north, back into the pine vale, dragging the goblin behind him. By the time he found Bradwarden, the centaur had the other two goblins the pair had killed this day piled with a mound of sticks and dead branches, ready to burn.

“The first kill was mine,” Bradwarden insisted later that night, while he and Mather feasted on venison stew.

“The goblin’s blood stained Tempest,” Mather answered, though his tone showed that he hardly cared for the credit.

“Ah, but it was me arrow that sent the thing sprawlin’ to the ground,” the centaur reasoned with a big slurp to catch a piece of meat that slipped out the corner of his mouth. He wasn’t successful, though, and the venison hit the ground. Bradwarden, with hardly a thought, scooped it right up and popped it back into his mouth. “And lyin’ there, as it was, ye’re finding an easy time killin’ the thing. Too easy, I’m thinking, and so the kill’s me own to claim.”

“I will split the kill with you,” Mather said. “A goblin and a half for the each of us this day.”

The centaur stopped chewing and eyed the ranger unblinkingly. “Two for me and one for yerself,” he argued.

Mather couldn’t suppress a smile. He had known Bradwarden for nearly five years now, and the young centaur’s overblown sense of pride and wild spirit had been a true amusement to him for all that time. Bradwarden was just into his thirties, which equated to the same stage as a human teenager. Oh, how he acted the part!

“Take two for yourself, then,” Mather teased. “After all these years, it seems appropriate that you finally best me in something, even if it is but a minor battle with a trio of weakling goblins, a trio I’d have an easier time killing myself.”

Bradwarden recognized a challenge when he heard one. He dropped his bowl of venison stew-but cupped it as it hit the ground, catching a substantial part of the spillage and rushing it right back to his waiting mouth. He nodded his chin in the direction of the tree stump at the side of the small encampment.

Mather smiled and shook his head. “You’ll only get angrier,” he remarked, but the centaur was already on his way. With a feigned sigh of resignation, Mather climbed to his feet and rolled up his right sleeve, then took his place opposite Bradwarden and placed his elbow on the stump.

They clasped hands, and the centaur began to pull immediately, gaining a quick advantage. But Mather, the muscles of his forearm bulging with strength from all the years he had spent squeezing the milk stones to make the elvish wine, locked his arm in place and turned his wrist over the young centaur’s. Within a matter of seconds, Mather understood that he would again win their arm-wrestling, and he put a smug smile over his straining companion. The ranger figured that he would enjoy the victories while he could, for his strength was on the wane, while Bradwarden was growing, and growing stronger, every day. Bradwarden was twice Mather’s weight, but the centaur would likely gain that much again within a couple more years. Even now, so young, the centaur could beat almost any human at arm wrestling, though his human arms were undeniably his weakest asset.

But Mather Wyndon wasn’t just any human, was a ranger, was in fact, the epitome of what a human warrior might achieve in body and soul. Slowly but surely, the centaur’s arm slid back and down toward the tree stump.

Bradwarden’s eyes went wide in apparent shock as he looked over Mather’s shoulder. The ranger, expecting a goblin spear to be flying at his back, glanced around-and the centaur pulled hard, nearly pulling Mather’s elbow out of joint and slamming the ranger’s hand hard down on the tree stump.

With a howl of pain and outrage, Mather, realizing the ruse, spun back on Bradwarden, and now it was the centaur wearing the smug smile. “Two for me and one for yerself,” the centaur said. “And now ye’re beaten again.” And then he was off, spinning and bucking to ward off Mather’s rush, then galloping across the encampment and into the forest.

Laughing all the way, Mather followed him as far as the edge of camp. “Have your victories, then!” he shouted. “I’ve got the stew, and that makes me the winner!”

“And what would you know of any victories?” came a melodic voice from behind, a voice like the tinkling of sweet bells, or the drift of perfect harmony on summer breezes through a forest. At first, Mather stood as if turner to stone, stunned that someone, anyone, had been able to sneak up on him so. As he considered that voice, that familiar voice, he came to recognize the truth, and his smile was genuine and wide indeed when he turned about to face the speaker.

She sat on the lowest branch of a tree at the side of the camp, her delicate legs dangling and crossed, her nearly translucent wings fluttering behind her. “Blood of Alturias,” she said derisively, a taunt Mather Wyndon had heard so many times, a reference to a deceased distant cousin, one who had been an elven-trained ranger long before him, one who this particular elf, Tuntun by name, had apparently consider far more worthy of training than she had Mather.

“Tuntun, my dear old friend,” he said dryly, feigning resignation, though it was obvious that he was overjoyed to see the elf.

“Never that,” the elf replied.

“My mentor, then,” Mather replied.

“Hardly.”

“My teacher, then,” Mather agreed.

“Unfortunately,” came the curt response, but Mather understood the joke behind it. Tuntun had been, perhaps, his most critical instructor in his years with the elves, and, despite the fact that she weighed nowhere near to a hundred pounds, had bested him many times in sparring matches. Keen of wit and of skill, the delicate elf had put more than a few bruises on Mather Wyndon, body and pride!

“What brings Tuntun so far from Caer’alfar?” Mather asked. “And does she come alone?”

“Would she need an escort in these lands full of bumbling, stupid humans?” the elf replied.

Mather bowed, granting her that. Indeed, he knew that Tuntun could pass all the way through the human lands and back again, stealing food wherever she chose, sleeping wherever she decided was most comfortable, without being spotted once by anybody.

“And why am I so blessed with your visit?” the ranger asked.

Tuntun half-jumped, half-flew, down from her perch, going at once to the cauldron and sniffing it, then curling her features in obvious disgust.

“Were you just curious as to how I was getting along?” Mather pressed. “It has been three years, at least, since I have seen you or any of the Touel’alfar.”

“That is the joy of training rangers,” the unrelenting Tuntun went on. “Once we are done with them, we set them back to their own kind and do not have to smell them again.”

Mather let it go with a chuckle. He knew that behind the gruff words and constant insults, Tuntun, perhaps more than any of the other elves, truly cared for him. Tuntun, though, had always equated any show of the softer emotions with weakness, and both of them understood that weakness could quickly spell disaster for one working as a ranger.

“And yet here you are,” Mather said, his smile as unrelenting as Tuntun’s insults, “come to share my meal and my company.”

“Come with news,” Tuntun corrected. “And to see how you fare with the child of Andos and Dervia,” she added, referring to Bradwarden’s parents, whom Mather had never met.

“Bradwarden grows stronger each day,” Mather replied, and even as he spoke, as if on cue, a beautiful, haunting music drifted on the breeze. “And his piping improves,” the ranger added.

Despite her demeanor, Tuntun smiled at the sound of the centaur’s distant music, a wondrous tune indeed, and nodded her approval. “He has his mother’s gift for song, and his father’s strength.”

“A fine companion,” Mather agreed. He sat down and picked up his stew, then, and Tuntun did likewise, lifting Bradwarden’s abandoned bowl. Neither spoke for a long while, both just enjoying their meal and the continuing melody of Bradwarden’s piping.

“I am returning to Caer’alfar,” the elf explained much later on, after Mather had told her of his more recent exploits in the region, including the fight that day with the goblin trio. “I meant to go this very night and should not have veered from my path to speak with you. Too long have I been away.”

“But you did come, and with news, so you said,” Mather replied.

“Do you remember when you were a child?”

“When Tuntun used to stop me from eating my meals hot, or even warm?” Mather returned with a grin.

“Before that,” the elf replied in all seriousness.

Mather stared at her hard. He had been only a few years old when the elves had taken him in, rescued him from a mauling by a bear, nurtured him back to health and then trained him as a ranger. He didn’t remember the bear attack, just the elves’ retelling of it. Try as he might, he could remember nothing of the time before that, other than small uncapturable images.

“You had family,” Tuntun explained.

Mather nodded.

“Younger siblings, and a brother who was born some years after you left them,” Tuntun went on.

Mather shrugged, hardly remembering.

“His name is Olwan,” Tuntun explained. “Olwan Wyndon. I thought you should be told.”

“Why? And why now?”

“Because Olwan has decided to make the Timberlands his home,” Tuntun explained. “You will know him when you see him, for there is indeed a resemblance. He rides north with his family and two other wagons, headed for the settlement called Dundalis.”

“This late in the season?” Mather asked incredulously, for few ventured north of Caer Tinella after the beginning of the ninth month, and here they were, halfway through the eleventh, and those who knew the region were somewhat surprised that winter had not begun in earnest. It was not wise to be caught on the road during the Timberland winter.

“I said he was your brother,” Tuntun replied dryly. “I did not say that he was intelligent. They are on the road, two days yet from the town, and a storm is growing in the west.”

Mather didn’t reply, didn’t blink.

“I thought you should know,” Tuntun said again, and she rose up and straightened her clothes.

“And am I to tell him, this Olwan, who I am?”

Tuntun looked at the man as though she did not understand the question.

“About my life?” Mather asked. “About who I am? That we are brothers?”

Tuntun held her hands out and scrunched up her delicate face. “That choice is Mather’s,” she explained. “We gave you gifts: your life, your training, your elven title, Riverhawk. But we did not take your tongue in payment, nor your free will. Mather will do as Mather chooses.

“To tell him that I was trained by elves?” the ranger asked.

“He will think you crazy, as do all the others, no doubt,” Tuntun said with a laugh. “We have found that the Alpinadoran barbarians to the north and the Toi-gai horseman to the south have oft been accepting of rangers, but the men of the central lands, the kingdom you call Honce-the-Bear, so smug in their foolish religion, so superior in their war machines and great cities, have little tolerance for childish tales. Tell Olwan your brother what you will, or tell him nothing at all. That, you may find, could prove the easier course.”

“They’ll not make the towns before it breaks,” Bradwarden said to Mather, the two of them watching the caravan of three wagons trudging along the north road. They were still ten miles south of Dundalis, half a day’s travel, and Mather knew that the centaur spoke truly. Tuntun had returned to him before dawn, warning of an impending storm, a big one, and also warning him that she had seen quite a bit of goblin sign in the region. Apparently, the trio Mather and Bradwarden had killed were not the whole of the group.

Mather had not disagreed with either grim prediction. He too, had noted signs of the impending storm, and of the goblins, and all of this with his brother making slow time along the road to the south.

So Mather had come out, and Bradwarden with him, to watch over the caravan. When he looked to the western sky, dark clouds gathering like some invading enemy, and when he felt the bite of the increasing northeastern wind through layers of clothing, he thought it a good thing indeed that he had not waited for their arrival in Dundalis.

“I cannot go down to them,” Bradwarden remarked. “Whatever ye’re thinkin’ ye might do to help them through the storm, ye’ll be doin alone.’

Mather nodded his understanding and agreement. “And with the weather worsening, I fear that Dundalis might become the target for the desperate goblins,” he said. “So go back and look over the town. Find Tuntun, if she is still about, and make sure that you keep a watch.”

With a nod, the centaur galloped away. Mather continued shadowing the caravan, silently debating whether he should go down to help them construct some kind of shelter or whether he should just hope. Another hour, another couple of miles, meandered by.

The first few snowflakes drifted down; the wind’s bite increased.

And then it hit, as if the sky itself had simply torn apart, dumping its contents earthward. What had been a gentle flurry became, in mere seconds, a driving blizzard of wind-whipped, stinging snow. Mather continued to watch the wagons, nodding his approval of the skill shown by the lead driver, the man bunching his cloak against the cold and forcing the team on.

Another mile slipped past slowly. By then, three inches of snow covered the trail.

“You can get there,” Mather said quietly, urging the wagons on, for now they slowed and men scrambled together, likely discussing the possibility of stopping to ride out the storm. But they were southerners-likely not one of them had ever been north of Palmaris, which was some three hundred miles away-and they couldn’t appreciate the fury of a Timberland snowstorm. If they circled their wagons now and huddled against the storm, they might find themselves stuck out here, with no help coming from Dundalis, or anywhere else, for many days, even weeks.

Winter would only get rougher. They’d never survive.

Mather pulled the cowl of his cloak low, as much to hide his face as to ward the cold, and rushed down to join the group. “Are you looking for Dundalis?” he asked in greeting as he approached, yelling loudly so that the men could hear him, though they were but a dozen feet from him.

“Dundalis, or any place to hide from the storm,” said the lead driver, a large and strong man, a man who, as Tuntun had said, bore some resemblance to Mather Wyndon.

“Dundalis is your only choice,” Mather replied, running up to grab the bridle of one of the horses. “You’ve got five miles to go.”

We’ll not make it,” another man cried.

“You have to make it,” Mather replied sternly. “Even if you must desert the wagons and follow me on foot.”

“But all our possessions…” the man started.

Mather cut him off and looked directly at Olwan as he spoke. “To stay out here is to die,” he explained. “So tie your wagons together, front to back, and drive your teams-and drive them hard.

“I can hardly see the road before us,” Olwan replied.

“I will guide you.” As Mather finished, a haunting melody came up about them, music carried on, and cutting through, the howling wind.

“And what is that?” the stubborn man on the second wagon yelled.

“Another guide,” Mather replied, silently applauding Bradwarden, understanding that the centaur was using the music to help Mather keep his bearings.

On they went, against the driving snow, against the howling, stinging wind. Mather, his body numb from the cold, pulled the lead horse along, kicking through the piling snow. Several hours passed, and still they were a mile away, and now the snow was a foot deep all about them and before them, and the afternoon was fast giving way to evening.

It grew colder, the wind only increased, and the snow did not relent.

Mather hardly knew where he was, the snow stealing landmarks. He plodded on, yanking at the reluctant horses, and then he found he was not alone, that his brother, with equal determination, was beside him, pulling hard.

“How far?” Olwan yelled. Mather hardly heard him.

The ranger glanced around, searching, searching, for something, for anything that would give him some indication. Then he saw a tree, and he knew that tree, and he recognized that they had but one climb to go, a few hundred yards and no more. But it would be a difficult climb, and by the time they capped the last ridge, darkness would be deep about them.

They fought and scrambled for every foot of ground. At one point, the trailing wagon slipped off the trail and hooked on a tree root. They thought they would have to cut it free, but stubborn Mather, now thinking of this storm as an enemy, would not surrender anything. He went behind the wagon and grabbed it with hands that could hardly feel, and with strength beyond that of nearly any living man, began to lift.

And then he was not alone, Olwan beside him, setting his legs and his back and hauling with all of his strength, and somehow, impossibly, the two brought the wheel over the root and shoved the wagon back onto the trail.

Mather glanced at Olwan, at his brother, at the strength of the man’s body and the determination on his face. He wondered then what feats they two might accomplish together, allowed himself to fantasize about the two of them hunting goblins in concert. Perhaps he could give give to Olwan some of the gifts the Touel’alfar had given to him. Perhaps he could tutor the man on the ways of the forest and the fighting styles that would elevate him above other warriors.

But that was for another day, Mather promptly reminded himself as Olwan returned his gaze and smiled.

“We did well together,” the man said, a voice strong and resonant.

Mather smiled in reply. “But we’ve a ways yet to go,” he reminded, and they each went right back to work, urging on the horses, pulling hard the wagons, and somehow, against the odds and against the fury of the storm, they crested the ridge and rolled and slid into Dundalis proper. Mather pointed out the common house.

“You will be welcomed there,” he assured Olwan.

“Are you not accompanying us?” the man asked incredulously.

“This is not my place, though the folk here are friendly enough to those who come in peace,” the ranger replied.

“Where, then, will you go?” Olwan asked. “Which house?”

“None in town.”

“Surely you don’t mean to go back out in this storm?”

“I am safe enough,” Mather assured him, and with a smile and a pat on the man’s arm, the ranger started away.

“And what is your name?” Olwan called after him.

Mather almost answered, but then considered the possible implications of revealing a name that might be familiar to Olwan Wyndon. All of the townsfolk knew him merely as “the dirty hunter,” so that is what he replied. With a smile to assure Olwan once again that all was well with him, he melted into the snowstorm.

And what an entrance the winter had made! Snow piled and piled, blown into drifts twice the height of a man, whipping and stinging so ferociously that Mather could hardly see a line of towering pine trees, though they were barely twenty yards away. He crawled under one large specimen, its branches wide, the lower one pushed right down to the ground by the heavy snow. With fingers that could hardly fell, he fumbled in his pack for kindling and flint and steel. Soon he had a small fire going. He wouldn’t get much sleep this night, he realized, for he had to keep the fire burning and had to tend it constantly to ensure that it did not ignite the tree about him.

But that was his way, his calling, and as his hands began to thaw and to hurt, he accepted that, too, as the lot of a ranger. He would spend the night here, and in the morning, would dig himself out and perhaps go to Dundalis and speak with his brother.

Perhaps.

The snow continued that night but lightened, and the wind died away at last to a few remnant gusts. On one of those gusts came a cry of anguish that sliced the heart of Mather Wyndon, a scream of pain and fear from a voice that he knew well.

He drew out his sword and used it to lead the way through the tangle of branch and snow, pushing out into the frigid air, trying to orient himself and determine the direction of Bradwarden’s howl. The wind was from the northwest still, and it had carried Bradwarden’s cry, so Mather set out that way, circumventing Dundalis, the smoke of the many chimneys thick in the air. Soon he found a path cut through the drifts-by goblins, he knew, though he could hardly see on this dark night. He didn’t dare light a torch, fearing to make himself a target, but he understood his disadvantage here. Goblins were creatures of caves and deep tunnels. They could see much better in the dark than even an elven-trained ranger.

Mather was not surprised when he came through one large drift and caught a flicker of movement to the side, a missile flying straight for him.

He sent his energy into Tempest, and the sword flared with angry light. He brought the blade whipping about, intercepting the hurled spear and knocking it harmlessly aside, and then slashed back, deflecting a second.

The third got through.

In the brutal cold, Mather hardly felt the impact, but he knew it was bad, for the spear had caught him in the side, under the ribs, its tip driving front to back. When he grasped at the bleeding wound, grabbing the shaft to steady it, for every twitch sent a wave of agony rolling through him, he felt the slick point of the weapon sticking out of his back.

He hardly realized he was lying down now, on his back in the snow, staring up at the descending flakes, and suddenly, so very, very cold.

Movement nearby, the goblins rushing in for the kill, brought him back to his senses, made him understand that death was imminent.

But not now, Mather determined. Not like this. With a growl, he snapped apart the spear shaft just above the wound entrance and fought away the surge of blackness that threatened to engulf him. Growling still, teeth clenched in sheer determination, he closed his hand upon Tempest and lay very still, waiting, waiting.

Three goblins came upon him, laughing and hooting, and then howling in surprise as Mather sprang up at them like a cornered wolverine. He whipped and stabbed Tempest in a furious flurry, hardly bothering to aim, and when his sword flew above the closest ducking creature, leaving it an opening on his left side, he simply punched out his free hand with all his strength, connecting solidly on the goblin’s jaw and launching it to the snow.

Mather let his rage take him, knowing that if he stopped and considered his movements, if he played out this fight with insight and thoughtfulness, his pain might overwhelm him. Thus, he was surprised mere seconds later, to find that all three goblins were down, two dead and the third groaning. Mather moved for that one, thinking to make it tell him where he could find Bradwarden, but then he heard the centaur cry out again and marked the direction well.

He killed the goblin with a clean stroke.

And then he fell to his knees, the waves of pain buckling him, the dark and cold weakness creeping into his every joint. He looked down at the bloody spear stump. He wanted to pull it out, but understood that the barbs would take half of his belly with it. He wanted to push it through and knew that soon he would have to, but he understood that to extract that point now would be fatal, for he would likely bleed to death before he ever found help.

He looked back in the direction of Dundalis, peaceful, oblivious Dundalis. Not so far away, he thought, and he realized that he could make it there, and that someone there would tend to him, his brother, perhaps.

Bradwarden cried out again, and Mather took his first steps… away from Dundalis.

Half blind with pain, his limbs numb with cold, he plowed on. His blood came thick in his mouth, that sickly sweet taste promising death.

He spat it out.

Purely focused, beyond pain and weakness, he knew where he was and could guess easily enough from the direction of Bradwarden’s cry where the goblins would be. On he went, refusing to surrender to the pain and the cold, refusing to die. He tried to pick his path carefully but wound up having to burst right through snow drifts, the wet stuff only increasing the cold’s grip on him. But on he went, and some time later, he saw a campfire, and then, as he neared, saw the silhouettes of several goblins, and one large form, balled in a net and hanging above the camp, above the fire.

He could only pray that he was not too late.

The goblins had their eyes turned to Bradwarden, the centaur squirming in the heat and the smoke as flames licked at him.

And then Mather was among them, and one, and then another fell dead to Tempest’s mighty cut.

The others did not flee, though, as goblins often did, for they outnumbered this obviously wounded man seven to one, and in this snow and in this cold, they had nowhere to run. On they came, howling and hooting.

A feinted slice, a turn of the wrist and a straight ahead stab, and Tempest took down another.

Mather backhanded away a club strike from the right, but a third goblin, running right over its dying companion, thrust with its spear, inside the ranger’s defenses. A quick retraction of the sword severed the spear shaft even as the point dug into Mather’s shoulder, but the goblin thrust took the strength from his arm.

Quick to improvise, Mather simply grabbed up the sword in his left hand and stabbed the goblin in the face, then brought it about powerfully to take a club from an attacker at his left. The ranger pivoted to square up with the creature. With a roar of defiance against the blackness that edged his faltering vision, he brought the sword up in an arc and then down diagonally atop the goblins shoulder, so powerfully that the enchanted silvered blade slashed through the creature’s collarbone, down through its spine, cracking ribs apart and tearing flesh. Another growl and Mather rolled about, the fine blade finishing the cut, exiting the goblin’s other side and dropping the two bloody pieces to the snow.

But four other goblins were about him in a frenzy, two whacking at him with clubs and the others stabbing him with spears.

He connected with one, or thought he had, but took a thump on the back of his head that sent his thoughts spinning, that brought the darkness closer… too close.

And then Mather knew. He could not win this time. Through blurry eyes, he saw the goblin before him slump into the snow, but took no comfort, for another spear found him, digging into his hip.

He knew that Bradwarden would die if he went down, reminded himself of that pointedly, and that thought alone kept him on his feet. He blocked a spear thrust but was hit again on the side of the head. He staggered away, somehow managing to hold his footing. But now one eye was closed, and darkness crept at the edges of his other eye, narrowing and blurring his vision to the point where he could not even see his enemies, could see nothing at all except the pinpoint of light that was the goblin’s fire.

Mather made for the light.

The goblins pursued, hooting and howling, stabbing and smacking the defenseless man through ever step.

But on he went, determinedly putting one foot in front of the other, stepping, stepping, feeling no pain, pushing it away, burying it under the mantle of responsibility, as a ranger and a friend. He hardly saw the light now, but heard the crackle of the fire and knew he was close.

He was hit again, on the back of the head; the blackness swallowed him.

He felt himself falling, falling, thoughts of Olwan and the times they would not share, and he thought of Bradwarden.

Mather roared one last defiant roar and forced himself to stand straight and tall. He swung about, the slicing Tempest forcing the goblins back and that buying him the time he needed to turn again to the fire, to look above it, and using more memory than vision, to aim his cut.

He felt the sword bite at the supporting rope, felt the rush of weight as Bradwarden dropped before him, brushing him and throwing him to the ground.

Then, from somewhere far away, he heard the centaur’s outraged roar, heard the goblin’s shrieks of fear, heard the trample of hooves, the cries of pain.

And then he knew… peace. A cool blackness.

It all came back to Mather in that last fleeting moment, memories of his childhood before the Touel’alfar, his times with Tuntun and the other elves, his days silently protecting Dundalis and Weedy Meadow, unappreciated, but hardly caring.

Doing as he had been trained to do, acting the role of ranger, and of friend.

And he had this night.

Olwan Wyndon, his wife, and their infant son, Elbryan, slept peacefully that night in Dundalis, they and their companion family, the Aults, warmly welcomed by the folk. Listening to the wind howling futilely against the solid common house walls, the rhythmic breathing of his loved ones, Olwan knew he had found his home, a place where his child could grow strong and straight.

He didn’t know that he had lost a brother that night, didn’t know that any goblins had been about, didn’t know that any goblins even existed.

It would stay that way for Olwan, and for all the folk of Dundalis-save the very old, who remembered goblins-for more than a decade.

Following the trail of carnage, Tuntun found a tearful Bradwarden piling stones on Mather’s cold body the next morning.

“It’s the only place,” the centaur explained, referring to the thick and well-tended grove about them, a special place for Mather, where the trees had blocked much of the snow. “Riverhawk’s place for all time.”

“Blood of Alturias,” Tuntun spat, using the insult as a shield against emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. How many times had she said that to Mather over the years?

And how many times must she watch a friend, a ranger, die? There were never more than six rangers at one time, but Tuntun had lived for centuries, and had witnessed so many of them put into the cold ground. None had hurt more than this one, hurt more than Mather, the boy she had personally trained, whom she had cultivated into so fine and strong a man. She thought about her own mortality then, the long, long years in the life of an elf, and, ironically, a smile crept across her delicate features.

“A man might live but a day’s worth of life in an entire year,” she said to Bradwarden. “Or a year’s worth in a single day. Riverhawk had a long life.”