The Lost Ranger, page 1
THE LOST RANGER
THE TETHER BOND: BOOK 1
DAN MICHAELSON
D.K. HOLMBERG
Copyright © 2023 by ASH Publishing
Cover art by Tom Edwards
Cover design by Damonza
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Author’s Note
Series by Dan Michaelson
Similar Series by D.K. Holmberg
CHAPTER ONE
A soft splashing in the water was the only hint I had of the dusa.
Slowly easing the long pole out of the swamp, I shifted my feet on the wide planks of the raft while watching the water. The thick-hided dusa could blend into the water of the swamp, but they gave off telltale signs of their passing. A burble of water that shouldn’t be there. An occasional bubble reaching the surface and popping, releasing a bit more swamp stink into the air. And the dark gleam of their eyes when they emerged above water.
“See one?” Grellum whispered.
I didn’t dare move to look at him, shifting the pointed end of the pole toward the water—and the dusa. “Not too far from us,” I said. “Just have to keep the little bastard from tipping us.”
Even small dusa could be heavy enough to tilt the raft. We had to be careful. Between Grellum and me, we had enough weight to balance the raft were the dusa to make a jump, but I’d rather not wrestle the damn thing if I didn’t have to.
“How big is it?”
“Probably a small adult.” Which meant it would be about the same size as either of us. One mistake and the dusa could pull either of us down. We weren’t their prey, but they didn’t care about that. Like old Churan said, poke a dusa, suffer its wrath. “Can you slow the raft a bit?”
I didn’t turn to see his reaction, but Grellum usually took direction well enough. When it came to this sort of thing, I needed him to follow my lead, as he couldn’t see well enough to be of much use otherwise.
The swamp around us had thinned as we neared the town, though the cypress trees still draped up and over us, shading the foul-smelling brackish water. Without a breeze today, the air was almost too still.
The dusa slipped closer. I saw it as little more than a slight bubbling of the water around its head, like the swamp had suddenly developed a current and burbled past buried stones. Churan’s lessons from when I was younger always came back to me at times like these. Aim for the back of their neck. Drive down with force. And hold.
The raft slowed as Grellum slipped his pole all the way down into the swamp. We’d been moving at a decent clip most of the morning, and neither of us had expected to see one of the dusa in this part of the swamp, so close to the town of Bastrop. They tended to avoid populated areas and hunters after their prized meat and tusks. I’d take the meat—slow-cooked dusa was about the tastiest thing I’d ever had—but the tusks were more valuable.
The dusa angled closer.
What was it doing?
There was no reason for it to veer so close to the raft. Most of the time when we hunted dusa, I had to chase them. I couldn’t recall a time when we had one actually chasing us like this.
“Something is off,” I muttered.
“Is it close? I feel like it’s getting closer.” Grellum’s voice took on an anxious pitch despite the quiet whisper he still managed to maintain. Leave it to him to get worked up about coming across the very creature we came out to hunt.
“Just give me a moment,” I hissed.
The water burbled, followed by a soft pop.
Shit.
“Get to the middle of the raft,” I said, no longer bothering to temper my tone. “There’s another one.”
“Two of them?”
I slipped my foot along the boards of the raft, locking my left under the leather strap nailed to the edge, getting into a better position so that I could look around the swamp. The first dusa I’d seen still made its way toward us, but it had slowed. There had to be another. I’d heard something in the water behind us.
Had I come out to the swamp with someone else, we might be excited about the possibility of a second dusa. Finding one usually took quite a bit of time—and luck. A second was a prize that would feed me for an entire month. But Grellum couldn’t see well enough to help, and even if he managed to spear one, I couldn’t count on him to hold it down long enough.
There.
The small bubble of swamp water caught my attention.
It was little more than a soft burp of water, but the stench of the swamp drifted with it, mixed with the unmistakable musk of the dusa.
Water parted around it as the dusa started to crest the surface of the swamp.
“Aw, damn,” I muttered. “Hold on. This might get a bit messy.”
“For who?”
“Us?”
I stabbed into the swamp with my pole and pushed with as much strength as I could muster. The raft slipped along the surface, but the soft splash of the dusa chased us. Now the distinct low rumble of a grunt followed it.
The splashing intensified.
“They sound like they’re close, Neb,” Grellum said.
He’d moved to the center of the raft, which was for the best. He could balance more easily, and I didn’t have to worry about one of the dusa slipping to the raft and pulling him off. He wouldn’t be able to see it coming well enough.
“Hold out your pole and stab at anything that moves toward you.” I drove my pole down into the soft bottom of the swamp, forcing us forward. It wasn’t fast enough to keep us ahead of the dusa, but it bought me time to try to come up with an alternative. “I think we’re going to have to climb. Get you into one of the trees, then I can try to bring one of them down.”
Or both.
That would be ideal, though I didn’t know if it would be possible. Even one might be more than I’d be able to manage right now, though if I had to choose which of the dusa to target, the bigger boar was the real prize. I hadn’t gotten a good look at him, but if he had tusks to go along with his size—
The raft tilted.
“Neb!”
“Jump forward,” I called out, slipping more of my weight to the front of the raft. We’d have to time this carefully, as the dusa might try to tip us one way, then another. They could be tricky like that. “I need your weight on this part of the raft.”
The dusa were getting aggressive. We didn’t have much time left before they lunged at us or capsized the raft. Either way, once we were in the water, we’d be an easy target.
A splash too near the raft caught my attention, and I jabbed my pole toward it.
A loud grunt was my reward, but when I pulled my pole back, I saw no blood on the end. The hide was too thick to pierce there, even tipped with a hunk of sharpened whipstone that would be valuable anywhere. In the swamps, we used it primarily for dusa staffs.
I drove the pole back into the water. Jabbing at the dusa had bought us a little time, and thankfully Grellum had moved to the middle of the raft, but he didn’t have anything to hold onto there. He’d laid himself flat, holding his pole pointed out ahead of him, though it left his backside exposed.
Another splash came close and the raft tilted toward the back.
Was the damn boar beneath us?
We were nearing a wide cypress but would still have to time it perfectly. Not only for me, but for Grellum. I couldn’t count on him knowing where to grab.
The boar pushed us, and we teetered to the side.
Driving the pole down, I corrected our course and shifted the raft slightly. A bit of foul water splashed up toward me, soaking my sleeve.
“I’m going to need you to get onto your knees,” I said to Grellum.
I heard him moving, but he was too slow.
Another splash, this one louder than the others and followed by a quick shout.
Grellum had fallen in.
His arms thrashed in the water near the raft, but I’d pushed off right before he’d fallen, and the raft went gliding away from him. I jabbed the pole down into the muck, trying to shift the position, but I didn’t think it would be fast enough.
The dusa kept gliding toward us, only the eyes visible. I jabbed my pole at the boar again, knowing it wouldn’t pierce the thick hide but needing to distract it long enough for Grellum to make it back aboard the raft. We didn’t have much time before the dusa grabbed hold of him and pulled him under. The boar would be too strong for Grellum to break free, and more than I’d be able to wrestle down, either.
“Grab my hand,” I shouted, trying to get Grellum to calm down. “I just need for you to reach out and grab for me.”
“Neb?”
“Follow the sound of my voice. You have to—”
The water splashed again, too close to Grellum.
I didn’t have much choice now.
As the dusa began to rise above the water, I jumped.
I had to time it as well as I could, though it wasn’t just about timing. It was about placement. I had to find the thinnest part of the dusa’s hide and jab the whipstone tip through it. Churan had taught me well, wanting me to master the technique so that I could spear any dusa that I encountered, but it was more than just technique. I had to settle my pounding heart, and I had to find a way to keep the dusa from pulling me down once I stabbed it.
Drive down with force.
I jabbed as hard as I could, forcing the whipstone point into the dusa’s neck. As soon as it struck, I felt it begin to pierce the hide, sliding in. With proper technique, I could snap the creature’s neck, end his suffering, and prevent us from getting hurt. Grellum shouted something, but I didn’t have the time or patience to pay attention to it. I had to focus on forcing all of my weight down on the pole that now served as my spear. I pushed, holding tightly to the end, wrapping my boots around the midpoint, and then was thrown free.
I splashed down into the foul muck of the swamp. I had the spear still.
The dusa had thrown me free.
I grabbed for Grellum.
“Come along,” I snapped, holding onto the spear.
I had managed to break through the dusa’s hide, but had not pierced it enough to do harm. He was still out there. And there was the other, probably a sow, which would explain why they were traveling together. If they had offspring…
A loud, heavy grunting came toward us. The water splashed and I jabbed blindly, driving my pole toward the disruption in the water.
Grabbing onto Grellum’s arm, I forced him to follow me back toward the raft.
“Where are they?” Grellum couldn’t hide the panic in his voice, and I didn’t expect him to. I felt the same panic rising within me.
“I don’t know. Just keep moving.”
“Where are you leading me?”
“We have to get the raft, then we’ll get to one of the cypress trees.”
“Let’s just get into the tree. If one of the dusa gets a hold of us…”
If we lost the raft, we would be as good as dead anyway. We needed the raft to get out of the swamp.
There was another burbling of water and I jabbed with my pole, driving the end of it forward, and heard an angry grunt.
I lunged forward, grabbing for the line spooled on top of the raft. When I managed to snag it, I pulled Grellum with me, surging toward the nearest of the trees. I had the line wrapped around my arm when the raft started pulling against us, dragging in the opposite direction.
The dusa was below it.
“Oh, no you don’t.” I wasn’t about to let the dusa snag the raft and pull away from us. I yanked on the line before remembering that I hadn’t tied it all that tightly to the leather straps, and started to panic when it began to slip. At the base of the cypress, I shoved Grellum. “Climb. Feel for anything that you can hold onto.”
“I can see well enough to climb the damn tree, Neb.”
I didn’t argue, but I also didn’t often know how much he could see and how much he couldn’t. Ever since his accident, it was hard to know whether he could see much of anything.
He started climbing. I jabbed underneath the raft, and it dropped back down to the water. When I reached the raft, I yanked on the line but started to feel something near my legs. I kicked off and scrambled onto the edge of the raft just as the smaller of the two dusa sprung free of the water, gliding closer to the raft. It nudged its snout up against my leg, raking one of its long tusks along the edge. I pulled away, but not before feeling it rip through the fabric of my pants.
I scrambled onto the raft, getting to my feet as quickly as I could, holding onto my pole, and aimed at the dusa while checking my leg. Thankfully, there was no injury. Swamp rot could be rapidly fatal.
She was close enough that I could jab her.
I stabbed, but the footing on the raft was terrible, and I slipped. I hadn’t anchored myself the way that I should have, and as I slipped, I nearly fell backward but managed to catch myself just before going overboard. Rather than stabbing the sow, I managed to splash toward the water, kicking the raft away from me. Thankfully, I still had the line wrapped around my wrist; otherwise, the raft would’ve drifted away. I stood precariously on the edge of the raft, leaning on my pole, the line slowly slipping loose of its knot before I managed to pull it back under my feet and settle onto it once again.
I jabbed the pole down again, gliding the raft toward the cypress tree. Grellum had already climbed into it.
Making sure the line remained secured, I kept the other end looped around my wrist and had readied to jump when the massive boar came surging out of the water.
CHAPTER TWO
The boar was enormous.
Dusa were ugly creatures that thrived in the murky swamp waters. In this part of the world, the only predators they had were people like me. There were plenty of other critters that lived in the swamp, even in the water, but most of them left the dusa alone. Even the local sevil constrictors left them alone, though I’d once found the remains of a larger snake that had tried—and failed—to consume a dusa.
I managed to grab hold of a low branch just as the dusa crashed into the raft.
The line pulled against my arm, but I’d secured it enough that it didn’t pull free. The line ripped at my skin, but it didn’t hurt the way my leg did.
Dangling on the branch, I hung for a moment, aware that my leg dripped water. I didn’t know if dusa could smell blood, but some claimed they could. Given our predicament, I didn’t want to take the chance.
Still, I couldn’t help marveling at the dusa.
Six tusks protruded from its snout, larger than any I’d seen on any dusa. Dusa were strange animals. They acquired more tusks the longer they were alive. Four was the most I’d ever seen. Five was rare. Six…
One of the tusks had a broken point and a jagged tip that would likely rip through any part of me. Even a single tusk like that would be a prize to some who liked to work with the bone. Six of them… that would be enough of a prize to pay for a year of lodging.
My gaze drifted to the whipstone tip of my pole. I’d already tried to stab this dusa once and failed. A little blood trickled from where I’d poked him, but not as much as I would have expected. I didn’t think I’d ever seen one this size before.
Beady black eyes looked at the raft, as if it were disappointed that I’d managed to jump free. Small ears that were folded against its long, wrinkled head tilted out slightly as it sniffed.
“You coming up, Neb?”
I swung my body up, angling toward the branch, still clinging to my pole. I couldn’t lose that. We might be able to fashion something out of the cypress tree to get back, but the whipstone had a certain value to it that I wouldn’t be able to replace easily without catching one of the dusa.
“Just a minute,” I said.
Lying along the low branch, I shimmied my way forward until I found a stout section I could loop the line around and secure so that the raft wouldn’t float away. Once done, I debated how I might still come out ahead. The smaller dusa would have provided meat, but the boar… that was where the money was.
“What can break a dusa tusk?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the bull. I didn’t need him to get too close to me, but I also didn’t want him to get bored and disappear. I needed him to stay here until we decided what we were going to do with him—if anything.
