The Blackfire Annals: Chasing Ghosts

Carsten did not wake up until late in the evening, and he was not entirely displeased with the realization. He looked about, seeing that all of his things in his room were in order. He slid his jerkin on over his head, though he decided to leave the armor behind. He did not put on his gauntlets, either, only slipping on his socks and slipping into his boots. He did not take his sword with him, but still tucked a throwing knife into his belt. Not that he anticipated being attacked, but it never hurt to take precautions. In addition, he took his moneybag and the satchel he carried with his maps, charts, and fire-starter kit inside.

The crowd in the inn had reduced in the passing hours, but there were still a few patrons there. Some dwarves (not Brownbeard clan members), some dark elves, and a few minotaurs were still drinking and eating and otherwise engaging themselves at the inn’s tables. He went up to the bar and asked the older man what they had to eat. He shrugged.

“Not a great deal,” came the answer. “A few narhol steaks, and some Kynilji venison on top of that. A few cooked vegetables and some hard bread. It isn’t much.” Carsten grinned.

“I have not eaten something good for about twenty hours. I frankly could not care less about how ‘good’ others deem the fare.” He tossed six copper coins on the bar. “I will take the venison and bread. I could go for some cider if you have it.” The innkeeper nodded and disappeared into his storeroom, and he was gone for a while. Carsten sat, his stumpy legs swinging idly as he waited, listening to the conversations around him. Three dark elves were sitting three tables away from him, and they were closest. From what he gathered, the three of them were hunters. He found this odd, that there were two females and one male. Generally, dark elf hunting parties were male-only groups, and the few females who took part in it usually cut the image of professionals. These hunters however, appeared fairly new to the trade, given the lack of wear on their clothes and boots. Two of them had knives in their belts, and all had clips for quivers on their left hips or backs, but bore no other weapons.

“…heard that the pickings in these parts are slim,” the male was saying. He had brown hair with green-dyed streaks in it. Like most dark elves, he had luminescent eyes, his the color of the ocean. His skin was bluish, and his cheeks marked with yellow clan paint. “We should probably move on.”

“It’s the snow phantoms, and make no mistake,” put in the older of the two females. She had black hair with dyed violet braids, and her eyes glowed green in the dim lighting of the inn. Unlike the other two, she had milky white skin, and her face had an almost angelic appearance that belied the supple strength that she possessed. The clan markings she wore were blue, and they followed the line of her cheekbones. “They’ve already put some other hunters out of business, and plus they killed a few newcomers in the business, including a good friend of mine. I’d like to have a crack at them myself, but they’re just so hard to find.”

“I think we could lay traps for them,” the younger one said, grinning. She had black hair with reddish streaks in it, purplish skin, and dark eyes. Her face was painted with yellow marks, similar to the other elf across from her. “They’re animals. How hard can they be to capture or kill?”

“It isn’t clear how stupid they are or aren’t,” the male answered. “The last thing we want is to end up like those other hunters we found on the way here.”

“Would that really be wise?” The older one asked. “Are we really sure that we want to do this?”

“We need to balance the environment back out,” the male replied. “The snow phantoms have never come south of the Waste border before. That they have worries me greatly.”

Carsten looked up, seeing that the innkeeper had returned with the food and some cutlery. The dwarf ate hungrily, enjoying the venison. The innkeeper had not been entirely honest when he had said that the food was bad; the seasonings were done just right, as Carsten knew from experience that Kynilji meat could be bland and tasteless. Also, the bread might have been hard, but dwarven loaves were famous for breaking outsiders’ teeth, so Carsten would not complain. The cider was warm, and drinking it felt like ingesting liquid fire, a pleasant sensation given the cold weather. In addition, he had not eaten for about eighteen hours, so the food probably tasted better than it actually was. From the sound of it, though, his employment opportunities were severely limited here, and moving on might not be necessarily better. Hunts in the Outlands might soon become ancient history if these fiends of the Waste stayed. Carsten quickly finished his dinner, thanked him for it, and headed upstairs to his room. He could use some sleep, he thought.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the dark elves were discussing their plan. “We can’t go at this alone,” the male said. “We’ll need help.”

“And where do you propose to get more hunters?” The younger female asked. “Good ones don’t come cheap, and we’ll want them to come up north. Most won’t agree with that, owing to the risk of living on the Waste border.”

“Plus, we’ll want someone with experience,” the older one put in. “Most of the hunters up North are new, so we can’t recruit there. Most of the guilds are bad places to look, since those hunters have contracts with blasted fine print.”

The innkeeper’s daughter had slipped up to their table unnoticed and intended to remove their plates. Upon hearing this conversation, she felt it necessary to interject.

“I know that other innkeepers have said there are other hunters in their houses. You might be able to get some of them to come with you.”

The male dark elf looked at her. “Do you know how many?”

“There’s one besides you here. He doesn’t say much or come down often, but he looks tough. He has the room next to yours, and he said he’d leave tomorrow morning, when you were going to. Wallace said that he has two, a minotaur and a Sythlin with nothing better to do. The inn two buildings down has a goblin hunter and two more dark elves, female twins, I heard.” The dark elf nodded.

“I’ll take that into consideration,” he said, leaving a gold coin on the table. “Thank you.” And one by one, he and his sisters filed upstairs.

Carsten had decided to sleep in his gear, but decided that he could use a hot bath first. Thanks to a little dwarven innovation and dark elf accelerant, most places in the Outlands had running water, and Carsten certainly enjoyed the fact tonight. The water seemed to burn away the pain and tension from his joints, and he reveled in the feeling. Once he was finished, he started putting his stuff back on. He had gotten everything but his chainmail on when the knock came at his door. He went over and was about to look through the peephole when he realized something: someone who is four-foot-seven cannot look through a view hole designed for someone five feet tall or taller.

“Who-oh, blast. Sorry for the wait.” Grumbling, he grabbed a chair and hefted it, bringing it over to the door. Standing on it, he could easily see through the hole, and he recognized the dark elves that had been talking at dinner. Or rather, the male one. The females were nowhere to be seen.

“What do you want?” Carsten winced. That was rougher than it had to be, you dunce.

“I was told that you’re a hunter,” the dark elf said. “We’re looking for some help.”

Carsten hopped off the chair and dragged it away from the door. Walking back, he flicked the lock into the open position and swung the door open. The dark elf blinked, taking in what he saw. A red-haired dwarf in a dark blue leather jerkin with a necklace of assorted teeth around his neck. His face had a scar that split the left side of his lip in an ugly red line. Pity, that. He might even be close to attractive without it.

“You’re a…dwarf.” He said finally.

“And that’s a problem?” Carsten asked.

“No…” the dark elf answered, “but there are troll teeth on that necklace. And a few faelynx teeth, too.”

Carsten grinned. “Do you like it? I figured the bodies took up too much space, and heads rot eventually. This still keeps a record of kills, seeing as no one can get close enough to a troll to do dental work.”

The dark elf raised his arm, sliding something out of his sleeve. It was a similar arrangement of teeth, although with a few less than Carsten had. Still, the dark elf clearly had another one on his left wrist, so maybe he had killed more beasts than Carsten had.

“My village has done that for years,” the other explained. “We use them to keep a record of kills. A hunter’s record is called his Yiltheni. I didn’t know dwarves did the same thing.”

Carsten shrugged. “We don’t. It was just me. Most dwarves don’t hunt, and the ones that do usually go for heads.”

“I see. Well, how did you take down those trolls that you killed?” Carsten closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Accidentally the first time. The brute attacked me while I was out tracking a faelynx that had been killing the narhols, or big goats, that we farm at home. Or I should say the women mostly farm; most of the men forge weapons and tools or plow the fields instead of tending animals, while some hunt, though there aren’t many. I don’t know if he was waiting for me, but it sure seemed like it. All I had was a sword and a knife, so I had to get close to kill him. The monster tried to smash my head with a large sapling, and he about did it. Came from behind and swung for me sideways, but he was off by two inches. When he overstepped and went off-balance, I turned and slashed his leg tendons so he couldn’t stand. Still, he could hit, and he backhanded me so hard into a tree that I thought he’d broken my back. For a second, I couldn’t stand, but I needed to, so I got up and went at him again. Then, I climbed up his back, stuck him between the shoulder blades, and lopped off his head.”

“But troll’s hide is so tough, you’d be hard pressed to do that,” the dark elf pointed out. “Isn’t decapitation unlikely?”

Carsten grinned. “True of most weapons. However, dwarf-maiden steel splits troll bones like an axe splits wood. Cut his head off in two swings.”

“And the other?”

“That, I…don’t want to talk about. I fought harder with that beast than I want to remember. Gave me this,” Carsten said, pointing to the scar on his face. The dark elf nodded. That was understandable. He had fought a troll as well, although it had been a wood-troll, not their Arctic cousins. Nevertheless, it had been a horrific brawl, and he had nearly died in the ensuing melee.

“We’ve been looking for hunters to help us with a problem we’ve been noticing. There’s a new species that has recently been causing problems for hunters. In fact, it’s outsmarted and killed some of them.”

“And you want the glory of being the first hunter to do the same to them?” Carsten asked. “You do know that these…things are most likely extremely dangerous, right? That we would be putting ourselves at great risk?”

The dark elf smiled mischievously. “Are you scared, dwarf?”

Carsten’s eyes narrowed. “No, I am not. I am asking if you understand the chances that you want to take. I am happy to kill anything that is not sentient or is dangerous, but I want to make sure you want to do this and don’t have reservations. If you have second thoughts about this, don’t bother trying.”

The elf bristled. “Are you saying I’m a coward?”

“No,” Carsten responded. “I am, however, saying you need to be completely sure that you want to do this if you even want to try. Are you? And do you know why you are doing it?”

The elf looked confused momentarily. “Why does my motive matter?”

“Improper motives, if recognized late, may lead to hesitation. Hesitation kills confidence. Without confidence, you will not be able to finish what you started. I do not mean to sound patronizing or make generalizations, but I have seen it time and again. So, I will ask a second time. Why do you want to kill these things?”

“Because they ruined our ecosystem. If we don’t set it back in balance, this could create huge problems,” the elf replied.

“And you think that killing a few monsters is going to fix the imbalance?” Carsten asked. “The Outlands are an impossibly vast area to fix just by spearing, shooting, and mounting these creatures. Plus, I do not believe killing them is a permanent solution. Those that die may not return, but that will not prevent their relatives from making the journey as well.”

“How can you be certain that more will come?” The elf asked.

Carsten shrugged. “They have never come south in recent memory, have they? And no other Outlanders have seen them, have they?” The elf shook his head.

“I do not know,” he answered. “To be honest, our sages cannot remember them. None of them could, and further, we still have no idea what they are, despite the fact that they’ve ravaged more land than we even have.”

“I was attacked by five frost dragons on the way here. I have never seen their kind before, and I could not be sure if they were related to the phantoms.”

“And these dragons? You killed them?”

“Sadly,” Carsten replied, “I had to. They were such magnificent beasts, too…”

The elf nodded. “It is such with many animals, but we have no any choice in most situations. Also, I do not quite know if they are phantoms or not. Truth be told, a lot of the attacks I have seen closely match smaller dragon attacks, but I lack hard evidence.”

“Then do you know where they strike?” Carsten asked. “Can they be trapped?”

“Yes, I can tell you where the attack, but as for trapping…well, I do not know,” the elf admitted. “But we can only try.”

“So that is really your proposition,” Carsten said. “You want to hire me.”

“Yes,” the dark elf said. “I am by no means wealthy, but I can pay you the standard rate of fifty a job.”

“Will this be treated as multiple jobs?” Carsten asked. “We do not know how long it will take. So…”

“Every three kills count as a job,” the elf replied.

“Make it two and you have a deal.”

The elf nodded. “Done.”

Carsten stuck out his hand and the dark elf took it. “Agreed. My name is Carsten, by the way.”

“No surname?” Asked the dark elf.

“Not that I would share,” Carsten said quietly. The elf shrugged.

“Luthe Thornroot at you service,” Luthe said, bowing low. “We leave tomorrow. Is that acceptable?” Carsten grinned, tightening his belt. A sudden, mischievous light had come into his eyes

“My friend, the hunt is afoot. I say we start tonight.”