The Crimson Hunters Read online

  The Crimson Hunters: A Dellerin Tale

  The Crimson Collection vol I

  Robert J Power

  THE CRIMSON HUNTERS

  First published in Ireland by DePaor Press in 2019.

  ISBM 978-1-9999994-3-8

  Copyright © Robert J Power 2019

  All characters, names and events in this publication are fictitious and the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or localities is purely coincidental.

  The right of Robert J Power to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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  www.RobertJPower.com

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  For Jan.

  Without you I could never have written a line and without you I never would have wanted to.

  You are my muse, you always have been.

  1

  At the Far End of Nowhere Good At All

  Derian hated many things. Today it was the rain. The droplets were bigger and heavier here than anywhere else in the world. Was that even possible? Perhaps the source’s energy affected them. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation, so he went with it. Derian believed in ignorance. He considered it a powerful tool whenever he didn’t understand why things occurred the way they did. Blaming the source was the finest use of ignorance because the source was invariably responsible for unexplainable things.

  A tree branch hanging lower than the rest caught him off-guard and scraped his cheek, drawing blood. Wonderful. He hated nasty branches. To the fires with them all. Except for the ones that stayed out of his way. He had no problem with them unless they wanted to start something.

  As well as the weather, jutting branches, and his life, Derian also hated running through depthless forests pursuing feral demons. Much to his annoyance, this was exactly what he was doing this miserable morning.

  The lecherous demon broke away from the path, uprooting a tree as if it was nothing more than a stalk of wheatcorn. Derian charged after it, leaping through the splintered wreckage as it fell around him without breaking stride, and he received another painful slap from a branch as he did so. Stupid branch. Stupid lecherous demon. Stupid rain and all!

  It was a hard life being a mercenary these days. Probably because he wasn’t a very good mercenary. Derian was about as imposing as a drunk munket defending a jar of honey—and just as accomplished. It wasn’t his fault he was unimpressive; it was the source’s. Smaller than a tall man and far thinner. Some might say he hadn’t fully grown into himself, while others might suggest he was a skut of a thing. His greasy hair was brown, cut to his shoulders. His simple brown eyes were like a chestnut, his nose was as attractive as most noses, and his jaw hid behind an attempted goatee. The goatee was red, and he didn’t understand why.

  He had no title earned to his name, nor any decent scars to display. Worse than that, he had done nothing extraordinary in this miserable world to merit either. Perhaps were he to march these lands a little longer he might become more impressive. But who really has the time to master a craft these days?

  He thought himself young—only twenty years old if he believed his father. Three years had been ill-spent as an apprentice in the worst mercenary outfit to march in the Seven Kingdoms of Dellerin. They weren’t the worst because they were brutal, vile, or dishonourable curs. Oh, no. That would have been something. Instead, The Crimson Hunters were just rather useless at any form of heroism, ability, or accomplishment.

  “Get the cur! Get the thurken cur and… I don’t know… Hit him in the…” The voice cried from far behind him. The sentence’s ending may have included imaginative profanity, but it was lost in the wind, the turn of the leaves, and the howling of the hunted monster beating up another tree as it fled. Perhaps the beast also hates branches, Derian thought. That would be one thing in its favour. Derian pursued the demon alone, and he wondered if this had ever been part of the plan.

  “Keep up, idiot!” Derian shouted to his comrade far behind.

  It was a two-man job. No. It was a ten-man job, but there weren’t ten members to call upon, so they gave Natteo and Derian the honour of performing above their usual level again. Derian couldn’t help thinking that this included a generous measure of running.

  He cleared another fallen tree but tripped slightly on a branch with ideas above its station, twisting his ankle awkwardly. He stumbled, and a shard of pain shot up through his leg. He almost gave up there and then. No, no, spit on that, a little voice inside his head whispered. It made a good point as enduring this misery was still the best opportunity they’d had these last few days for catching the beast. Catching and killing the beast would keep them polished for the rest of the year. He felt a crack, and then a pop—though it might have been a cracking pop in his ankle—and he bit down the pain and continued running.

  Derian thought it a strange thing that Natteo could not keep up with him. Life had gifted Natteo with many skills—like running and avoiding unpleasant tasks. He was Derian’s best friend and absolutely nothing else, despite Natteo’s attempts at seducing all men foolish enough to engage in conversation with him. Natteo liked to inform Derian, where possible, that the reason Derian never needed to fight off his charms was that Derian was not his type. Because he was ugly.

  A good friend.

  They were similar in age, but you wouldn’t think it. Natteo had a young face with aged old eyes and a devilish grin. He claimed to be a poet first, a lover second, and when he had the time, a mercenary third. Derian wasn’t jealous of his brazen confidence, wonderful charm, and good heart at all. Not one bit.

  Natteo had likely slowed to a leisurely jog by now, taking in the grey flowers, counting the unsettled birds, or watching hissects buzz around as they avoided the bulbous rain drops amidst the ruin of felled trees. Natteo was inclined to notice things like this, or worse, talk about noticing things like this. Having spent most of his life in the grey structures of Castra, depthless forests were a thing of splendour to him. Even if they shared the same colour.

  Crash!

  It flung aside another tree, and Derian thought it strange that the beast would prefer to knock a tree from its path instead of running around it. That’s how demons behave though, isn’t it? he thought. No consideration for the world they’d broken into. Tree in way, stupid tree, knock tree away. No more tree in way.

  Another crash followed.

  Demons behaved anyway they felt, and all Derian could do was learn as he went and then, hopefully, he would improve with every mission. That’s how any inept mercenary became great, earned a few scars, and earned a proper title. Like Lorgan to a lesser degree.

  For every step the lecherous demon took, Derian needed to take two painful ones, yet still, he kept up. The beast was as wide as a cart and as tall as its driver, and it looked like it had been thrown together by a drunken god who favoured leathery skin containing bulbous muscles and an overabundance of thick blue veins. Its stumpy legs were the same length as Derian’s, yet somehow the monster stayed upright; it charged forward as though in a perpetual flow of tripping, like a drunken munket after it had consumed an entire jar of honey. Somehow, though, it never fell over. Instead, it used its massive long arms to keep its balance.

  Perhaps, also, its free-flowing manhood, easily as long as Derian’s arm, assisted its ungainly navigation.
Derian was disinclined to think on that matter any more than he needed to—even if the loud slapping sound of monster-horn against muscular limb and muddy ground was more than enough for his ears and thoughts.

  Like all monsters, its face was a gruesome description of unrivalled evil. Thin slit eyes, dark and grey, and sharp, pointed ears upon a bald grey head but with ill-fitting incisors in an unsuitably small mouth, Derian wondered if the pain of teeth continuously breaking through its own lips was the reason behind the current rampage it found itself on. Perhaps the flaming arrow in its right shoulder might also have been a contributing factor, but a plan was a plan. Even a bad one. Even a good one too.

  “DO IT NOW?” Derian roared to those hiding in wait, somewhere ahead down the valley. Only now, in this desperate rush, did Derian realise he should have listened more to the plan.

  He hated demons, though killing one would earn him and his comrades some renown. Killing a few hundred might earn him his own title, and wasn’t that the most important thing for any half-named mercenary? A lecherous demon wasn’t even a proper demon, anyway, he seemed to recall. Although it was, really, in the same way that a cat and a tiger were both beasts of prey. A lecherous was a servant to the greater evils of the source realm—a ghoul fortunate enough to slip from the unnatural realm into the living world. A lecherous answered to a master. All demonic beasts did. Greater masterful demons with intelligence and will. Grand demons. That’s what he’d studied, anyway.

  According to the bard’s tale, there were once seven of them; they had terrifying unnatural powers, horns, claws, and all that spit. He hadn’t seen one, and he wasn’t alone. In fact, most living mercenaries had never seen a real grand demon. Some said they were dead, slain by a wild old warrior a millennium before the source revealed itself. Some believed the old warrior still lived as a god—eternal and restless, living off the souls of the fallen. Wise and wary. Bored as bark, Derian imagined. This was peasant drivel, and nothing was worse than peasant drivel, peasant talk, and peasant understandings in the mercenary world.

  Many rebels believed the seven demons were all under the command of The Dark One, twisted to do his bidding, but Derian didn’t believe that either, for demons transcended the will of man. The Dark One was human, godly, and terrifying as he was.

  Derian wondered if the seven demons and the seven gods were the same entities. He wondered if the demons had killed the seven gods or if there had never even been seven gods. He believed in the seven demons of the source. He wondered if there were more than seven. He wondered if they were increasing in numbers ever since they opened both doors between the worlds long ago; perhaps the strapping male demons mated with pretty looking lady demons and made loads more little baby demons. Demon younglings? Youngemons? Demonlings?

  Perhaps Kesta was correct in suggesting that his mind wandered at the worst of times. Whatever the truth turned out to be, he doubted the world would ever know how many demons walked between worlds. However, any fool with thoughts on the matter would agree that a grand demon could tear an entire battalion of soldiers to a million shreds in one swift attack; a grand demon would burn an entire region to ash in one sway of its claw. He’d never heard of a mercenary group killing one. Not even in any of the fictional tales of those groups like Erroh’s Outcasts or Heygar’s Hounds. Maybe he’d be the first, and everything would be far easier after that.

  “Where are you?” Derian shouted again, slipping through the roots and branches of yet another upturned tree. His ankle had stopped hurting, but the rain still poured down upon him through the growing number of openings in the forest’s canopy. As he sprinted, the world blurred into one vision of grey and exhaustion, and he looked for familiar landmarks in this desperate chase.

  He knew he should have paid more attention on the walk up the valley, but Natteo’s stupid ramblings about the perfect arrow leaf had distracted him. Was it possible to become stupider when speaking on stupid matters? The scenery all looked the same at this pace. Forest was forest at the best of times, and this thurken forest was just another stupid thing about this spit of an island.

  In this region, the attractive green of any normal tree was now ashen grey—as though all hope and life had been stripped from each tree’s surface, like a painter’s scribbles before producing timeless beauty. Even if these trees still bore fruit and grew larger with every season, he thought it an omen of bad things.

  He knew why this deathly grey happened. He was certain that someone had told him. It was very important, he remembered. He had it on the edge of his mind. The land was grey in some parts because… because…?

  Ah, spit on this. Stupid rain, stupid demon, stupid life.

  Chasing an excessively well-endowed demon through a rainstorm in the middle of a miserable grey forest of dreariness was a new low in the young life of Derian the Unspectacular. And he’d thought being a member of the Crimson Hunters was the lowest anyone could ever truly go.

  Perhaps the run would have been better without armour. He slammed his sword’s pommel against his bronze chest plate and cursed aloud, creating the perfect suggestion of a pursuing mob. The beast didn’t look back, but it did roar a painful retort before upping its pace and smashing an extra few unlucky trunks out of its way as it charged on. So far, so good for Lorgan’s plan. Then again, many of Lorgan’s plans appeared solid. That’s why most people agreed to them. Problem was, all plans could turn on their head in a moment’s notice. Derian had little understanding of the complexities of probabilities—he couldn’t even spell the word or most other words—but he understood that Lorgan’s plans turned on their heads far more than probability demanded. Perhaps that was another reason why they were such a wretched outfit.

  “Grrrr arrrrrgh!” Derian shouted, adding to the illusion that there was a big group of monster hunters behind the beast. Keep running, he willed in his mind, and the lecherous demon continued its fateful charge for a dozen more breaths before breaking free of the grey forest and heading out into an open dell that Derian didn’t recognise at all. He feared another change of plans was in his near future.

  At least it’s out in daylight, he told himself. For as brutal and terrifying as most demons were, they suffered under the burning heat of the sun. Daylight stripped a demon of its fight, so any day was a good time for hunting them. However, the clouds above were heavy with irritating droplets. The demon was suffering some fine burning, and he thought that was polished and all, but it was still a little overcast for any lasting, debilitating damage. There would be some fight to come.

  Out into the torrential downpour he sprinted, and he met wild grass as high as his waist. He followed the beast as it sprinted through the open, looking for the most appealing of trees to uproot and make its escape. There cannot have been many enticing trees to choose from because the monster slowed at the edge of the dell and leant forward to draw air into its monstrous lungs under the shade of a weeping oak. The burning arrow in its back was long since extinguished, and it appeared less a volatile projectile intent on scaring the beast into a charge and more an irritating splinter of wood.

  “Oh, spit on me. Don’t turn around. Keep running,” Derian hissed under his breath, coming to a swift stop a few lengths from his quarry. This wasn’t the plan. The demon shouldn’t have stopped. It should have kept running in hoodwinked fear, until they sprang the trap and tore it to pieces. That was the plan.

  Far behind, he heard the low thumping of the young Castrian following in the wake of destruction. The demon must have heard the solitary plodding steps as well, and it turned its head. Derian couldn’t read body language on a beast so basic, but he would swear he read the expression on its confused face as the truth came upon it, and he felt the turning of the tide. Or to be more precise, the turning of another of Lorgan’s well thought out, ill-fated plans.

  2

  The Gang Fight a Monster

  “Set the fire at the entrance and smoke the bugger out of the cave. They’re stupid beasts—a little noise, and a
couple arrows as it passes, and it’ll charge brainlessly right down the valley. Me and Kesta will wait all cosy like,” Lorgan had said, and he’d seemed so reassuring.

  “What if it smells the smoke and ventures deeper into the cave?” Natteo had asked. His tone had suggested deference, but there’d been a spark in his eye. Derian had known this, Lorgan too, but he’d still feigned a smile and answered.

  “Then we’ll try something else, but I’d bet my life the cur takes flight towards fresh air, and once we get it running a while, it’ll tire nicely in the daylight, and that’s when we have our chance.”

  “I don’t think I want any involvement in this part of the plan. Unlike yourself, Lorgan, I’ve never been much of a runner,” Natteo had said, in that same tone.

  Natteo had a wonderful ability to say the wrong thing. He also had the wonderful ability of finding out exactly what that wrong thing to say was. He also had the ability to find the exact wrong moment to say that exact wrong thing. Admittedly, Derian was equally gifted in this practice, but that was more so by accident. Natteo had willingly mastered the art.

  “Listen, you little–”

  Kesta had placed her soothing hand across Lorgan’s chest and calmed him in one easy manoeuvre. For all the incompetence in the Crimson Hunters, Kesta was the worst mercenary of them all. She had a warm heart and an easy temper. Her sword skills were dreadful, and she had no feel for the work. That didn’t stop her, though.

  Derian liked her. She had great hair. Derian knew this because Natteo always said it when he braided it for her. It was a service he provided any time she desired—so most of the time. She had brown braided hair and it matched her skin. She was as old as Lorgan, and though her smile was warm and infectious, somewhere along the way, life had struck her a blow or two. That said, anyone her age was likely to have suffered a few awful blows. Life had a nasty way of hurting all in Dellerin, and Kesta merely kept her scars deep within. She kept the group together, and she had lasted in this outfit far longer than any other. Derian suspected the Crimson was the level of her ability. She’d started the mercenary life later than most.