The Hunt For Revenge, page 1
The Hunt for Revenge
The Immortal Apprentice Trilogy
Book One
James E Wisher
Sand Hill Publishing
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Author Note
Also by James E Wisher
About the Author
Copyright © 2023 by James Wisher
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.
Edited by: Janie Linn Dullard
Cover art by: B-Ro
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Prologue
Harper Gale stood in front of her mother’s memorial, head bowed, hands clasped in front of her. A simple wooden plaque carved with Mom’s name and the date she died marked the spot where Mom’s ashes had been spread. It was nothing fancy, but Harper and her father had carved it together and their tears had soaked the wood as they worked. Those tears consecrated the plaque in a way that no priest with his holy water could hope to match. Or so Harper believed.
They’d chosen a little hill within sight of their cabin as Mom’s final resting place and Harper came out every day to pray.
She raised her head and made the sign of the inverted sword. “Branik protect your soul.”
“You know your mother worshipped the goddess Lady of Healing.” Her father’s gentle hand settled on Harper’s shoulder.
“I know, but if Mom’s soul needs protecting, I’d prefer Branik do it. Besides, I follow Branik and I assume he’d be more likely to hear me than the goddess.”
“Maybe so. Hard to believe it’s already been a year.”
“A year and twelve days.” Harper finally turned to look up at her father.
He stood a good head taller than her and had a brawny build appropriate for an ex-soldier. A scruff of beard covered his face and a leather patch concealed the empty socket of his missing eye. She’d never forget him coming home from his last deployment, when that horrible wound was still fresh, the scarring around it red and angry. She’d been a little scared but did her best not to let it show.
Today he wore his green-and-black hunting leathers. That meant a trip into the woods. Ordinarily, Harper would join him and the Parrville Rangers, but today she had to get her beaver pelts ready for the fall fair. The buyers would be here for the annual trade market this weekend and she hoped to get good coin.
“You never come to pray.”
“No.” Dad had a faraway look in his eye. He always got that look when he thought about Mom. “It’s not my way. I honor your mother’s memory in my heart. She lived a good life and her soul has become one with heaven. She’s moved beyond our mortal cares. We serve her memory best by following her example.”
She knew he didn’t mean it as a criticism, but his last sentence stung all the same. Harper’s mother had the patience of a saint. Which was lucky for Harper, who had the patience of a drunk teamster and a vocabulary to match. Her father never tried to change her, Branik bless him. She was already eighteen, so change seemed unlikely at this point.
“Are you going after that bear that’s been raiding the farms near Tom’s Creek?”
Her father nodded. “It’s getting bolder by the day. Best we deal with it before someone ends up dead. I may be back late.”
“I know. Bears are tough. Took me two days to track down and finish off my first one despite putting my first arrow through its lung. Remember Mom’s expression when I brought the pelt home?”
Her father chuckled. “Who could forget? Her sixteen-year-old daughter, who she thought should be chasing boys not bears, comes up the path dragging a pelt that weighed half as much as she did, dried blood on her face, grinning from ear to ear. She was horrified. I couldn’t have been prouder.”
Harper hugged him. “I love you, Dad.”
He hugged her back. “I love you too, sweetheart. Hopefully tonight we can have fresh bear steaks for dinner.”
Harper wiped her eyes and smiled up at him. “Can’t wait, Dad.”
Chapter One
Dawson Gale slipped through the evergreens, an arrow nocked and ready on his bowstring. His green-and-black uniform blended perfectly with the dappled shadows. The spicy aroma of spruce and pine filled the air. He breathed deep and let out a silent sigh. He loved the woods around Parrville.
As sheriff it was his duty to keep the people safe, and patrolling these woods was a big part of that task. At least he used that as his excuse for taking daily hikes in the wilderness. In the ten years since King Irving granted Dawson’s request to leave the legendary Montage Rangers to become his hometown’s sheriff, the most dangerous thing to happen was the arrival of a group of overly ambitious bandits that wandered into the area three years ago.
Dawson, along with a group of six archers he’d dubbed the Parrville Rangers in honor of his old unit, had made short work of them. The rangers acted as his deputies when necessary, but they mostly worked at their regular jobs farming and hunting in the fertile Parr River Valley.
A twig snapped and he turned right, shooting a harsh glare at Tobias, the nearest ranger. Though only twenty-five, Tobias could handle both a longbow and a sword with equal skill. Pity his woodcraft was still so lacking. Today Tobias, along with the rest of the Parrville Rangers, was dressed in the mottled leathers identical to Dawson’s that served as their official uniforms.
At least they weren’t hunting bandits. If they had been, Tobias’s carelessness might have gotten someone killed.
No, today’s prey was a rogue black bear that had attacked several farms near the forest. It killed livestock and one man’s wife barely made it inside their cabin when it showed up at their farm. That sort of thing couldn’t be allowed, thus today’s hunt.
An earlier sighting by one of the farmers led him to believe this was the right area, but so far they’d seen neither tracks nor scat. If the bear had been in the area, it must’ve moved on already. Of course, that was the thing with hunting. There was never any guarantee that you’d find your prey.
A short, piercing whistle stopped him midstride. The whistle sounded like a blue jay that had its neck wrung. The only ranger so poor at that signal was Barrett Boyd, their oldest member. At almost fifty he had four years on Dawson himself. Barrett had been hunting in this forest before Dawson left to join the rangers and knew his way around better than anyone.
Dawson and the rest of the group hurried over to join Barrett, who crouched beside a gnarly jack pine.
“Did you find tracks?” Dawson asked.
“Yep, but not bear tracks. Men come through here and not that long ago.” Barrett pointed out a boot print outlined perfectly in a patch of dirt free from pine straw.
No hunter would be so careless. It was a matter of pride to leave as little sign of your passing as possible. There was no tread on the boot either. That, combined with the depth of the heel, argued riding boots. No one with any woodland experience would wear that sort of thing hiking or hunting.
“Not a local,” Dawson said at last.
“Nope.” Barrett spat a line of tobacco juice into the needles.
“And not alone.” Tobias stood about ten feet away. “Looks like a fair-sized group came through over here.”
Dawson gave Barrett a clap on the shoulder before moving to join Tobias. Sure enough the ground cover had been badly disturbed. Whoever passed through, they weren’t woodsmen. No effort at stealth had been made. Even foot soldiers in the army had better woodcraft than this.
“What do you reckon?” Tobias asked.
Dawson shook his head. “Wish I knew. Though I suspect the mystery men are the reason our prey hightailed it out of here. We won’t be killing any bear today.”
“What do you want to do?” Barrett asked.
“No one’s come through town in the last week,” Dawson said. “Despite their lack of stealth, I doubt whoever they are wants to be found. That makes me think they’re up to no good. We’d best track them down and have a chat.”
Following the mystery men’s tracks proved no challenge. Even with one eye, Dawson could tell where the group had gone. What he couldn’t figure out was why some of them were shuffling along. It looked like they lacked the strength to lift their feet off the ground. Everything about the current situation made him uncomfortable.
He couldn’t have been more relieved that Harper was home scraping and stretching beaver pelts. His little girl had grown into a fine hunter, but whatever was going on, he didn’t want her mixed up in it.
Noon came and went, but the rangers had yet to catch up to whomever they were following. The signs were getting fresher, so the strangers couldn’t be that far ahead of them.
Dawson had never been this deep in the forest before. The trees were so tall and thick that the sun barely penetrated to the floor. A chill ran through Dawson that had nothing to do with the weather.
He raised his right fist, signaling a break, and motioned Barrett over. While the others drank from their waterskins he asked the older man, “Have you ever been to this part of the forest before?”
“Nope. None of the hunters come here. It’s got a bad reputation. The last group to come this way never returned. That’s just a story, you understand? This was back before my time. Your grandfather might’ve known the people involved. Pity he’s not still around to tell us about it.”
Dawson nodded. His grandfather and namesake had been a legendary hunter a hundred years ago. Dawson’s father told stories about his adventures, but he’d been dead ten years when Dawson was born. That was a shame, since he would’ve loved to hear some of those stories firsthand.
His index finger unconsciously traced the side of his eye patch. The last time he went somewhere taboo it had cost him plenty. Hopefully things wouldn’t be same this time.
In any case, he couldn’t let some old superstition keep him from doing his job.
After a quick swig from his own waterskin, Dawson made a circle in the air with his right index finger, signaling everyone to get back into formation. They set out again with him in the lead.
Less than an hour of hiking later, voices drifted through the trees. Dawson again signaled a halt and he cocked his head to listen.
“It has to be here!” an angry male voice said. “Keep digging.”
“Are you certain you translated the text correctly?” a second voice, also male, asked.
“As certain as I can be given that it was written nearly seven hundred years ago. The tower is here, so the urn should be as well. It’s just a matter of searching until we find it.”
Dawson turned to Barrett and mouthed the word, “Tower?”
Barrett just shook his head. He clearly had no more idea what the strangers were talking about than Dawson did. As far as anyone knew, the wilderness ran for fifty miles north of Parrville with nothing resembling civilization to be found.
Dawson grimaced. Only one way to find out for sure. He pointed at Tobias and the two men nearest him, then gestured for them to circle right. He sent the remaining men left. When they’d moved out of sight, he took the arrow off his bow and returned it to the quiver on his back. Next he unstrung his bow and slid that into the holder on the side of the quiver. Lastly he loosened his sword in its sheath.
As far as he knew, these people had committed no crime. Dawson didn’t want a fight if it could be avoided. But as sheriff, it was his job to know what was going on in the area, so he had to at least make contact, introduce himself, and find out their business.
Satisfied that his men should be in place and that he’d made himself as non-threatening as possible, Dawson strode forward toward where he’d heard the voices.
Forcing his way through a particularly thick patch of white cedar, Dawson emerged in a clearing nearly as big as the entire town. There was a foundation along with a line of rubble he guessed represented the remains of a four-story tower.
Two figures in gray robes entirely inappropriate for walking in the woods stood overseeing the work of a dozen ghouls that were busy digging and shifting stone out of the way. What they hoped to find, beyond the mysterious urn they mentioned, he couldn’t begin to guess. But if they were using undead for labor, it meant trouble. No one in their right mind kept the vile things around.
He debated withdrawing, but one of the ghouls stopped digging, sniffed the air, and stared right at him.
No choice now.
“Hello!” Dawson said.
Both men’s heads snapped up and they glared at Dawson. Neither of them had a strand of hair on their head, though the larger of the two did have a long goatee that had been formed into a dagger shape. The rest of the ghouls stopped their digging and focused on Dawson with faintly glowing red eyes.
“Name’s Dawson Gale and I’m the sheriff of Parrville. I was out hunting a rogue bear when I cut your tracks. Since no strangers had visited town, I was curious who was out here.”
He waited for either an introduction or an attack.
“My companion and I are researchers,” the man with the goatee said. “A wizard once called this ruin home. We’ve come to see what knowledge can be recovered.”
Dawson nodded. So far this was going better than he’d hoped. “Interesting. I didn’t even know this ruin was here. Are you two affiliated with the college in Montage City?”
Goatee nodded. “Are you familiar with it?”
“Somewhat. I served in the military and spent my share of time in the capital. Can’t say I enjoyed it, but when you’re in the service, no one asks your opinion about that sort of thing. Who did you say you were?”
“I didn’t say.” Goatee’s eyes narrowed. “We have a lot of work left to do here, so if you could leave us in peace, Sheriff Gale, we would be most grateful.”
“Sure, but I really will need your names. Also, you’re using undead for labor. Raising and keeping undead for any reason, even simple labor, is illegal. Since this is your first offense, I don’t have to run you in or anything, but they will need to be destroyed.”
Goatee shook his head. “Pity. Had you simply walked away, I would’ve been content to let you go. Now, I fear, you’ll need to die. Kill him!”
The ghouls surged forward in a wave of rotting flesh, fangs, and claws. The stink from their breath turned Dawson’s stomach. He’d fought undead before, but only twice. They weren’t especially common in Montage, thank Branik.
Dawson drew his broadsword and swung, cutting the first ghoul in half.
Arrows arced in, hammering into the ghouls’ flesh but doing them little real harm.
Dawson took the head of a second ghoul with his back cut. He’d gotten his sword as a reward from the king, but seldom had a chance to use it. The blade was made of silver steel, highly effective against undead and demons.
Unfortunately, no matter how effective his sword might be, a dozen ghouls was a tall task.
He danced back, severing a grasping claw as he did so.
The crack of lightning confirmed his fear that the unnamed researchers were wizards.
Dawson cut down another ghoul, jackknifed out of the way of a claw that would’ve gutted him, and spun to avoid another swipe that passed so close to his face that he could see the dirt under the ghoul’s nails.
The situation looked bleak. He had no idea how his men were doing. The arrows had stopped hitting the ghouls, which was fine since they weren’t doing anything anyway.
He ran a ghoul through then slashed at another one to drive it back.
They needed to retreat, but if Dawson turned his back, the ghouls would tear him apart. He worked his way over to a large pine tree at the edge of the clearing and put his back to it.
Fighting defensively to buy time, he racked his brain trying to come up with a plan.
A few seconds later an invisible force struck him.
Every muscle in his body locked up.
The last thing Dawson saw was the fang-filled mouth of a ghoul closing in on him.
