Previous Post The Book of Beasts Chapter One: The Inheritors of Jethro In which Valden and Annwyn encounter wolves of different kinds.     The wolf tracks were two days old. That put them about the time the lone predator had savaged the child in the fields near Coombe, leaving a crippled boy and three dread goats in his wake.     Valden followed quickly and quietly, slipping through the heavy undergrowth as he’d been taught, tracking as he’s been told.     The villagers of Coombe had been no help really. Their mixture of folk tales and hysterical stories of sightings had located the beast anywhere within a five mile radius, had made it fifteen feet long with glowing red eyes. But the desperate hope they’d eyed Valden with had made him more determined than ever to catch the wolf, even if it hadn’t been the quest set him by his Ranger-Master.     The young man stopped abruptly. He was on the edge where the land fell sharply down towards the river valley. The faint traces of wolf-pads continued towards the water, but there was a new unfamiliar track crossing them: a man.     The new trail was made only a day or so since. At one point the footprint had actually erased a paw indent below it. What made it unusual was that the forest walker had not gone barefoot as the peasants of Coombe did, nor with his feet wrapped in skins or rough cloth, nor even in carved wooden sandals. This was a proper bootprint, shod and nailed and well-cobbled.     Valden considered for a moment the possibility that Master Gorwin had sent another ranger to trail him, to see how he fared in his test; but another ranger would wear the same soft-leather boots that Valden did, to travel silently in the woodlands and to run fast. These were heavier, stouter footwear, the property of a lord.     The new trail ran east-west along the height of the ridge. Valden was tempted for a moment to turn and see where it led, but his duty was to find the wolf. He left the human prints alone and followed the wolf-trail down to the water.     Valden of Rookwood was a young man, no more than fourteen summers old. He’d grown a lot in the last year that he’d spent with the Rangers, so much so that Master Gorwin had given him new clothes to replace the ones that came too short on arm and leg and chest. Now he wore the same brown and green that all the Rangers dressed in and kept his long hair filleted as they did. If only he could find the wolf, save the village, pass the test, he would be a Ranger in truth.     The wolf-trail petered out at the river’s edge. A cunning old beast, the wolf had used the water to mask his tracks. He could have emerged anywhere along the thorn-choked embankment, maybe even swum to the other bank.     When it became clear that the trail went cold Valden turned round and climbed back to the ridge to start again. More than half a day’s efforts had been in vain.     There were the rich man’s tracks again. One man, alone in the forest without escort. Tall, by the measure of the strides, and confident in his abilities.     On a whim Valden turned right and traced the footsteps back the way the man had gone. He could perhaps satisfy his curiosity and pick up a fresher wolf-trail at the same time. The tracks took him to rocky ground where they vanished. Valden gave up and tried backtracking west then south along the top of the ridge, tracing where the stranger had come from rather than where he’d gone.     It was near to sunset when Valden found the clearing where the crows gathered. The fat black birds were pecking at the ground where blood had soaked the grass. Again Valden found wolf-tracks, much fresher imprints from yesterday at the latest. Some of them were made with bloody paws.     The ground told the story. There’d been a fight here, the rich-booted man versus the savage killer wolf. Blood had been spilled, a lot of blood. And then the rich man had walked away along the ridge.     Valden cursed his inexperience at reading the marks. Master Gorwin would have been able to tell the whole tale at a glance, recounting the steps, the blows, who was injured and how, just from the churned up ground and the pattern and taste of the blood. Valden could only speculate. Had the stranger fatally wounded the wolf or taken some injury himself? There was no wolf’s body nearby, and apart from the blood that had attracted the crows there was no gory trail of a wounded animal to follow.     When the wolf pounced at Valden it made no sound and gave no warning. Only the tiniest rustling of the undergrowth warned the trainee ranger in time for him to roll aside. The savage monster’s jaws closed on empty air and it bounded past and turned for another attack.     Valden’s sword and dagger flashed to his hands. For a moment he glanced at the nearest tree, but climbing would mean turning his back for too long on a cunning and lightning-fast enemy. Instead he took a defensive stand, longsword holding the beast at bay, short knife ready to stab in from the side when the wolf attacked.     Something was wrong. The huge great beast already had a savage wound along it’s side, a great rend that showed its innards. No blood came from it, except for old stains that crusted the pelt. Nothing could live with an injury like that.     Yet the wolf attacked again.     It came in fast and low, following instincts to try and cripple before it killed. Valden rolled aside and came up in time to slice a gash across the beast’s muzzle. It seemed not to notice the harm, to feel no pain at all. It kept pressing in. Valden gasped as its teeth tore through his arm.     He kicked the beast back and rolled away again. His arm burned but he could still use it. Only a flesh wound then, painful but bearable. He hefted his sword once more, raking another gash to match the one already marring the wolf’s side.     The wolf was already dead. It kept on attacking.     Valden’s mind was locking pieces of puzzle together as he fought. The wolf had been what he’d expected until yesterday, a mere savage beast that had developed a taste for human meat in human settlements, a danger to be hunted and put down. Common ranger business. But then it had encountered and been killed by that unknown traveller, and now it continued as some kind of ravening undead creature. Was it too great a stretch to think that the stranger had something to do with that?     The wolf came in again. Valden took a step back and brought his sword down across its neck, a slashing blow rather than a stab. The blade cut deep into the beast, half-severing its head. The wolf staggered. Valden struck again.     Until the monster was completely beheaded it didn’t stop struggling.     Valden caught his breath and bandaged the bloody gash on his arm. He cleaned his blades on the fur of the monster. Then he noticed the amulet on the ground where it had fallen from the wolf when the beast’s head was severed. It was a carved wooden talisman with a rune like a letter A, on a plaited thread of hair.     Valden didn’t want to touch it. He picked it up with the point of his dagger and dropped it into a cloth from his backpack. The Ranger-Master would want to see this.     For a moment Valden even wished that his sister Annwyn was there, to see what she would make of it. But Annwyn was safe away from undead wolves and mysterious talismans. ***     Annwyn of Rookwood was tending the herb garden when Novice Caila came to summon her. “Mother Superior wants you in the chapter house,” the timid girl reported. “You have visitors.”     Annwyn gladly dropped her trowel, rose from her knees, and shook out her skirts. She seemed to spend far too much time on her knees at the Convent of St Bridgit; prayers every three hours from three a.m., scrubbing floors, tending to the gardens. The sisters believed that humility came from surrender, and Annwyn had never really mastered the trick of it.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who is it?” she asked Caila eagerly. Messengers meant letters and news. Perhaps her father had written to her, one of his long eloquent descriptions of tiny domestic details from home? Small things and small events which had bored the sixteen year old girl when she’d lived in Rookwood now seemed important to her inside these convent walls. Or perhaps it was one of the terse, infrequent messages from her younger brother. Maybe Valden had taken the test?     Apart from one short, polite missive from Richard Thaneson, apologising for his brother, all Annwyn’s correspondence had come from her two kin.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Two men,” Caila replied, happy to share gossip. Inside the ordered walls of the convent small incidents caused big stirs. “One tall and broad, one short and wiry. Soldiers, by the look of them, or guards. They came with horses.”     Annwyn puzzled at that. “Well, when I go see Mother Superior I’ll know what this is about,” she noted, as much to herself as to the novice.     St Brigit’s was not a big foundation, hardly more than a hall and a chapel and some fields, endowed by the old Earl of Conisburgh in his dying days when heaven had been much on his mind. There were sixteen nuns, three novices, and six girls being raised and educated in the sister’s care. Annwyn was one of those girls, resident here for over a year now since her father had decided she needed tutoring beyond his ability; and perhaps because Artos Thaneson was paying the growing beauty far too much attention for a father to feel comfortable about.     The two visitor’s were Thane’s men. They stood in the chapter house with Mother Superior and two of the senior sisters, drinking water from the well. The smaller one seemed quite at home in the cloistered environment. The bulky one looked uncomfortable surrounded by formidable holy women.     Mother Superior’s face was grave. “Annwyn, these men are from Thane Edris of Rookwood. They are the bearers of sad news.”     Annwyn’s heart fell. “My father?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sorry, mistress,” said the shorter man. His fingernails were grimed with dirt. “He was found two days since, in the woods. A wild animal.”     Jethro of Rookwood was a scholar as well as a scribe. He often wandered the meadows and woodland around the village where he’d retired, collecting plants or feathers to study and write about. Or he had done.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What kind of animal?” demanded Annwyn.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A wolf, the Thane thinks,” the messenger reported. “There’s a hunt on. But the master sent us to fetch you home.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And my brother?” Annwyn asked. There had been quite a quarrel between Valden and Artos Thaneson. That was why father had felt it politic to send his son to apprentice with the rangers.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nobody knows where he is. Those rangers come and go.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know where he is.” Annwyn had Valden’s last terse message in her document scrip back in her little postulant’s cell. “Can we send word to him?”     Mother Superior looked doubtful. The foundation was small and the lay hands would not be keen travelling into the wilderness that was Bedegraine Forest.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The master will send word if you know where to send it,” the smaller man – he named himself as Truro and his large comrade as Londis – declared. “But our orders are to fetch you. There are affairs to sort. Your father’s property.”     Alone in all of Rookwood the scholar Jethro owned his own house, paid for from a gift by the Earl himself in reward for years of loyal service. While not rich, Annwyn’s father had enough to live comfortably at his profession, and to set aside a good dowry for his only daughter and an inheritance for his son.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You must go, of course,” instructed Mother Superior. “Tomorrow we shall arrange for Sister Katarin to travel with you.”     The idea of the dour aged novice-mistress escorting her home made Annwyn shudder. “I don’t think I can wait that long,” she answered quickly. “There are things that must be done, arrangements to be made. Word must be sent to Valden. Time is pressing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sister Katarin will see you safe to Rookwood and safe back here,” Mother Superior insisted.     So that was it. The nuns cherished hopes of her returning to St Brigit’s and taking the veil. Was it because she was now an heiress or did they genuinely believe she had a calling because she could perform a few minor blessings? If they knew what else Annwyn could do, secretly, after studying her father’s books of magic they might have a different opinion.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need to return today,” Truro said bluntly. “We have no leave to stay away overnight. If we go now we can be back at the Thane’s manor before nightfall.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But the girl cannot travel alone,” objected Mother Superior.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She won’t be alone,” answered Londis, speaking for the first time. “She’ll be with us.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll take care of her,” promised Truro. “That’s what we were sent for.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll go gather my things and change into travelling clothes,” Annwyn declared, settling the matter. She went to pack her possessions – all her possessions. She didn’t intend to return here again. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Interesting,” said Ranger-Master Gorwin, looking at the talisman on the cloth that Valden had laid before him. “Interesting indeed. What do you make of it, Tarvil?”     The ranger’s chaplain leaned closer, squinting as he examined the carving on the tiny sliver of wood. “It’s necromancy, all right,” the tonsured warrior judged. “Black magics straight from hell. I’ll need to look at it a little closer.” He touched the rough wooden cross hanging round his neck then picked up the piece.     Valden found himself holding his breath. The young man had returned to camp with a mixture of excitement and foreboding. He’s laid the proof of his wolf-kill at his tutor’s feet and had told the strange story of the undead creature. Master Gorwin had thought the matter serious enough to take immediate action.     Brother Tarvil muttered something in Latin under his breath, maybe the Te Deum or something like it. His frown lessened as he dropped the amulet back onto the cloth. “It was cursed alright,” he reported. “Nasty stuff indeed. The sort of thing I’ve not seen for many a year. I’ll need to send word to the Bishop that we’ve a sorcerer active in these parts again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What sort of curse?” blurted Valden. “How?” He knew something of magic – his father used it in Rookwood, far from the prying eyes of a church that often didn’t distinguish between white magics and black. He knew how powerful magic could be.     Tarvil eyed him reflectively. “That’s the thing. This curse was aimed specifically at you. Specifically. You did well not to touch this thing directly, and to bring it straight to me.”     Tarvil did a quick check of people who might hate him enough to curse him with necromancy. His mental list had no realistic candidates. Artos Thaneson, perhaps, but he was more likely to settle things with a sword than a magic talisman.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The curse is lifted now?” Master Gorwin asked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“In part,” the ranger-chaplain answered. His eyes had a glint of mischief in them. “There’s one part I left intact. If young Valden wears the amulet now it won’t blight him; but his enemy will know where he is and will be able to direct some monster to do him harm.”     Valden scowled. “What kind of monster?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I have no idea. But if you ever touch that talisman then you’ll soon find out.”     Gorwin slowly smiled. “And here was I thinking things would be boring in camp until the new rangers got back from their tests. How many folks do you think we could round up by tomorrow night?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe three dozen?” ventured Tarvil.     Valden caught on fast. “You want me to activate the remains of the curse. So that the monster will come to get me – here in the ranger camp.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“With thirty of us with bows ready to welcome it,” agreed Gorwin. “Are you game, Valden?”     The young man began to grin. “Depends. I brought you the wolf and the talisman and saved the village. Did I pass my quest?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think we’d have to count that as a success, yes. Welcome to the guild of rangers and foresters, lad.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then I think I can provide some sport for my comrades tomorrow night.” ***     Annwyn rode beside Truro. Londis led her horse.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did you bring everything with you?” Truro asked her carefully. “You might not be returning to the Convent of St Brigit.”     Annwyn knew that was true, but it annoyed her that these messengers might be making decisions for her – or their master might be. “I have not yet chosen what I shall do after my father’s affairs are settled,” she replied.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If you go back there then the nuns will want your money,” Londis contributed.     It felt good to be out of that course grey homespun and back into a gown that fitted and didn’t itch. “It will be my choice,” Annwyn insisted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Thane will look after you,” Truro said slyly. “Your father was his friend. He’ll take you into his household.”     Annwyn didn’t cherish the idea of living under the same roof as Artos. “I have a house.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can’t live there alone,” answered Truro. “Not safe.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have a maid,” answered Annwyn.     Londis sniffed. “That Moranna girl? The tinker’s lass? Nobody’s seen her since your father died.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Moranna? She’s run off again?” It was two years since the wild serf’s last disappearance. She was getting too old to play the vagabond urchin-beggar now. A child might travel safely where a young woman could not. Then again, alone in Rookwood without Jethro’s protection, maybe the servant had thought it safer to vanish once again.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nobody can find her,” said Truro, perhaps a little sourly. Had someone been looking then?     They travelled on down the track, making for the old road that the Romans had carved. The first sounds and smells of spring were in the air. It would have been a good journey if it had been for a different reason, in different company.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You packed everything?” Truro checked again. “Any papers and letters you might have had from your father?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Of course,” answered Annwyn, feeling uneasy.     The sun was high in the sky now. Annwyn’s body clock, attuned to the calling bell for worship told her it was past noon.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re thirsty,” Truro said. “You’ll need a drink.” He pulled a flask from his saddlehook, unstoppered it, and handed it across to her. “This is the good stuff,” he promised. A half-filled wineskin also dangled from his saddle.     Small miracles, Annwyn remembered. That was what Mother Superior had called the gifts some holy men and women were granted in response to prayer. The sisters had been most pleased the first time Annwyn had manifested the blessing of healing. In the last few months she’d extended her repertoire to include purifying food and quelling fears and detecting the onset of disease. In theory at least, her gifts should include the one she needed now.     Detect poison.     Annwyn felt a prickle down her spine. The drink she’d been offered was tainted, she was sure of it. Truro was trying to poison her.     She pretended to drink, wiped her lips, handed the flask back with thanks. They rode on.     Annwyn’s mind was racing. Were these men really from the Thane? She didn’t recognise them, but then she’d been away for over a year. Wouldn’t the Thane send people she knew with such terrible news? And yet Truro and Londis knew about Moranna.     For a brief moment Annwyn regretted not waiting to travel with Sister Katarin. Then felt relieved that she didn’t have the elderly nun to worry about.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you feeling tired?” Truro asked her after quarter of an hour. “We’ll stop the horses so they can rest and feed. You can sit down quietly for a while. The road must be very fatiguing for you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am feeling a little exhausted,” Annwyn lied. She let Truro help her off her mount and settled herself down with her back to a tree. The men seemed to expect her to go to sleep, so that was what she feigned.     Arcane words burned in her mind, the spell she’d studied so diligently this morning, as she secretly studied every morning. She’d chosen her favourite today, the magic of the cantrip. Many sorcerers dismissed the spell as a parlour trick – knocks, whistles, tiny movements, changes of colour or temperature, but never enough to cause anyone harm. Annwyn believed those mages lacked imagination.     While Truro and Londis checked through her satchel she quietly intoned the magic words and made small, covert gestures with her fingertips. The magic flared within her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is she asleep yet?” asked Truro. “We’ll need to search her too.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No hardship,” leered Londis. “She’s very pretty.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’ll fetch a good price with the Saxons,” agreed Truro. “But first we need whatever papers she had from her father. Our orders were very specific.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nothing in the bags?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll take everything. Our employer can work out what’s significant and what’s not.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can we search the girl now, then?” anticipated Londis.     Annwyn concentrated. She wanted a rustling in the bushes across the clearing, as if someone was hiding there.     The bushes rustled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who’s that?” demanded Londis, drawing a blade.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Quiet,” snapped Truro. “It’s only sleeping draught. We don’t want the girl awake yet, till we’re ready to question her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s someone over there. I can hear them. I saw the leaves move.”     The large and the small man moved closet to the thicket, spreading out to bracket it.     Annwyn sprang up and raced for the horses. She jumped on the first and grabbed the reigns of the second and jabbed her heels in hard.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey!” shouted Londis, turning and seeing her.     Truro made a desperate lunge for her. She kicked him off and spurred her horse to a gallop, leading the second one behind her.     A bright thrown dagger sliced through her skirts, close enough to draw blood from a scratch on her thigh; then Annwyn was out of range, away through the trees, racing from her would-be kidnappers. She kept going.     But what next? Back to the convent, to await new plots? To Thane Edris to demand explanation for the behaviour of his men, if they were his men? To Rookwood, to investigate her father’s death, if he was indeed dead?     Annwyn thought for a moment, then spurred her horses west, towards the deep forest of Bedegraine.     Towards the ranger camp. ***     As the sun dropped low over the mighty Pennine mountains the ranger camp quietly vanished. Tents were folded and stowed, fires were quenched, camp detritus burned in pits and the turf replaced over them. Rangers travelled light and left little sign of their passage. After tonight they’d want to be somewhere else.     Valden checked his weapons again, even though he’d only checked them fifteen minutes before: the longsword his father had given him when he’d been sent from Rookwood; a sharp combat dagger; the great long bow that Gorwin had cut for him until he was full-grown and could make one for himself.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t be nervous,” the Ranger-Master told him, noting his fidgeting. “This is how every warrior feels before battle. Alert, cautious, anticipating. Alive.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Alive,” agreed Valden. He’d never felt so alive.     There were over thirty rangers ringed around the clearing, in amongst the trees, but Valden could only see five of them. All of them turned their heads to listen as a chirp like birdsong warned of someone coming. Rangers kept good watch.     A few moments later another warble told that the intruder was not a threat. Five minutes after that, one of the men led a woman and two horses into the camp.     Valden blinked with surprise. “Annwyn?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your sister Annwyn?” asked Gorwin, recognising the name.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Valden!” called the girl, sliding from her saddle and running over to him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’s wrong?” asked her brother, realising how unlikely her sudden appearance was.     Annwyn quickly and efficiently summarised her strange adventure with Truro and Londis.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Most peculiar,” frowned Ranger-Master Gorwin. “I’ll have the patrols keep a lookout for those two.” He rubbed his beard. “I wonder if this had anything to do with the curse against you, Valden?”     This was the first Annwyn had heard of any curse, so that prompted a recap from Valden about the wolf and what came after. “And that’s why we’ve cleared a killing ground tonight,” he concluded. “I’m to activate the amulet and we’ll see what comes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And this is a typical ranger plan, is it?” Annwyn scowled. “Using my brother as bait?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I volunteered, Winnie,” Valden said.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t call me Winnie,” Annwyn said. “And the days when you could distract me from telling you that you’re doing something stupid by calling me that are long gone.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t need to distract you now. I’m a ranger, one of the guild. I don’t need your permission to fight evil. That’s what rangers do. Protect the helpless. Protect the land. Explore and discover. Tonight we’re going to do all three.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Young Valden is correct,” agreed Gorwin. “We’ll remove you to a place of safety first, of course.”     Annwyn folded her arms. “I think not,” she replied. “If my little brother is going to go into danger then I’ll be with him to drag him out of it.”     Gorwin was about to object, but Brother Tarvil had been watching the young woman closely. “Let her stay,” he urged. “I think she’ll be all right.”     Annwyn shot the ranger-chaplain a raised-eyebrow look. He smiled back at her and touched his thumb to the cross around his neck.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right,” hissed Annwyn. “Let’s do whatever it is you’re going to do.”     So it was that brother and sister found themselves alone in the centre of the clearing. Annwyn said a prayer of blessing and then Valden touched the amulet.     Nothing happened.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did I do this right?” Valden wondered.     Annwyn squinted at the little wooden chip. “There’s no curse on it now,” she discerned. “You’ve discharged it somehow.”     Minutes passed. The sun moved lower over the treeline, vanishing behind clouds. The forest light turned towards blues and greys. Shadows thickened around the ambush clearing.     Annwyn looked up suddenly, although Valden, trained to hear the sounds of stealthy movement in the forest environment, heard nothing. His sister clutched his arm and pointed to a darker patch in the eaves of an ancient oak. A pair of dark silhouettes detached themselves from the shadows and shifted towards them.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’s that?” demanded Valden as his arrow passed right through one of the approaching blurs. “They’re not even solid!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Shadows,” Annwyn answered, remembering things she’d learned at her father’s knee. “Death moulded into nearly-human shapes.” She lifted up the pewter crucifix the nuns had given her. “Back!” she commanded. “In God’s name, go away!”     The shadows flickered closer, ignoring her. She was too new at this. Her faith was too small. Another of Valden’s arrows sliced through a dark outline to no effect. Other shafts from the hidden rangers were equally useless.     At the treeline Brother Tarvil raised his cross also. “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be no more!” he proclaimed. The shadows seemed to explode, as if a giant thumb had smeared an ink-stain.     Valden turned to his sister. “Did you do that? And if so, how? And what were those things? The curse brought them, right? Is that the end of it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It… wasn’t me,” Annwyn confessed. She’d felt the surge from the ranger-chaplain just before the undead had been destroyed. “But yes, that was what the curse called up.”     Valden was gladder than ever that he hadn’t handled the talisman before. “I really want to meet this necromancer,” he admitted, gripping his sword-hilt. “Really badly.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anyone who can bind shadows isn’t someone we want to meet,” noted his sister. “Leave this to Brother Tarvil. He seems to have a knack.”     The sport was over. The rangers began to emerge from their concealment.     Then Valden noticed something strange. Across the clearing the grass was bulging, rising in a hump like a moletrack, moving towards him. Even as he shouted warning to Annwyn a fin broke through the turf, like a shark rising from the ocean.     Valden had no time to reach for an arrow. Instead he pulled sword and dagger and stood between whatever it was and his sister.     The beast was huge, far larger than a horse, and it smelled of rotting meat. It was shaped like an armadillo, but with predator’s claws. A great ridge rose on its back like a beetle, a crest raised high for combat. It broke through the ground scattering clods of turf everywhere and came straight for Valden.     The air was heavy with arrows from every side of the clearing. Most bounced off the monster’s armoured hide. A few penetrated a little into its thick skin.     Valden struck with both blades, but they were turned aside by the thick carapace that protected the monster’s head.     Annwyn rolled away, but even in the heat of the moment she couldn’t help observing. “Valden!” she called. “Behind it’s neck! Where that ridge comes up, there’s pink skin!”     The beast lunged towards the boy again, barely even noticing the attacks that came from all quarters. Some of the rangers had dropped their bows and were emerging from the woods with swords and axes; too slowly.     Valden jerked backwards as beaky jaws closed where his head had been a moment before. Then he jumped forwards again, planting a foot on that armoured nose and somersaulting over the crest of the neck-ridge. He landed on the monster’s back and stabbed sword and dagger into the pink flesh exposed by the raised war-crest. The dagger barely penetrated but the sword went deep.     The land shark made no noise. Instead it whirled round, trying to dislodge the young man who was clinging to the embedded sword.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Valden, it’s not alive!” Annwyn called out. “It’s undead! Another necromancy!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh good,” replied her brother as he clung grimly to his sword-hilt, trying to be thrown to the ground. It would be death to tumble now.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Saw through the spine!” Annwyn shouted. “That’s where the animation magics usually lodge. That’ll stop it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sure, no problem,” Valden called back. “I’ll just do that now.” He gritted his teeth and held on. Some of the rangers arrows skittered too close to him for comfort. He stabbed again with the dagger in his left hand, gaining enough purchase to pull himself up so he could press the sword in deeper.     He went for the spine.     The monster made one final lunge as he severed the bone, then fell heavily on its side. Valden tumbled free and rolled to his feet in a fighting cat-stance. “Next?” he said.     His sister hit him. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll escort you as far as forest’s edge,” promised Gorwin, “to the king’s road. From there’ll you’ll have to travel alone. Our authority ends at the borders of Bedegraine.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll manage,” Annwyn assured him. “I apparently have a ranger to escort me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I’ve got a nun,” added Valden with a teasing smirk. “And I’m not afraid to use her.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need to see what’s really happened back in Rookwood,” Annwyn went on, ignoring her sibling. “Whether father really is dead. Who Truro and Londis really were. How all of that connects with an undead wolf and an undead…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Boolay,” replied the Ranger-Master. “Or land shark. They’re very rare. This one had been dead for some time, which is why it was so easy to kill.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was easy?” objected Valden.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, we need answers,” concluded Annwyn. “And all the trails seem to lead back to Rookwood.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So that is where we’ll go,” declared Valden, with a grin. *** Continued… *** Copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

A fun adventure story that seems to set up one of those epic quests kids are constantly finding themselves caught up in these days. I'm eager to see where this leads, though if they're fighting a bulette (even an undead one) at first level the road's only going to get tougher. Wouldn't an ankheg (sp) been enough of a challenge?