A Man Called Dog
John would have crossed his arms over the pommel of his saddle, smiling with contentment, except – he didn’t have a horse. None of them did. Their poor mounts had broken free from their hitch at the base of Borbidan’s Rest. Thus their march back, along the Elfride to Ciddry, had lasted damned near a tenday. The journey was enjoyable, however, for a number of reasons.
First, they were alive. Always a good thing.
Second, John had not been overly impressed with his now-lost gelding – the infernal beast had snored as loudly as Vath, and no creature under Shaundakul’s stars had a right to leave such an unbroken and prodigious trail of excrement in its wake.
Third, and most importantly, Baphtemet was dead.
Or banished, according to Kellus, though John was uncertain just what that entailed. It did not matter, truly. The southlander was fairly certain Baphtemet would not be found frolicking in the seedier brothels of Pell, which was where John intended to be just as soon as humanly possible. Baphtemet might have been a counselor, a wizard, a lich, a demon, or a devil – so long as he wasn’t a dancing girl, the bard was satisfied.
After nine days the party had returned to Ciddry to the fanfare of…well, nothing. No one paid them much mind. They weren’t even a novelty any longer – the mud-smeared farmers and homely-faced townsfolk had seen them come and go a number of times. John was confident their success against Ippizicus and Baphtemet would – eventually – reap them some measure of fame. But such a reward proved elusive, at least for the time being.
Oh, for certes, Baden garnered his fair share of curious looks. The Axemarch dwarf had re-entered Borbidan’s tomb after Baphtemet’s death. He now was encrusted – head-to-toe – in the sigil-covered black plate of the now-dead dwem. He even carried Borbidan’s dwarven war axe, his former weapon all but forgotten where it lay strapped to his back. And the former dwem raider’s shield, replete with silver and platinum skulls across its face, also became part of Baden’s martial accoutrements.
And speaking of Baden – John had always thought the dwarf a bit odd. He was too melancholy, for one. But now the little stump* was downright weird. John had heard the dwarf speaking to himself no less than four times since they had departed the Balantir Cor foothills. Baden seemed to refer to himself, or his imaginary friend, as “Ilvar” – a word John was intimately unfamiliar with, even though the bard knew a smattering of the dwarven tongue.
Poridel had thanked them – with words only, to the world’s eternal shame – and had the audacity to suggest they make haste to slay yet another demon. As if that wasn’t enough, John found himself nodding in agreement with his companions. This demon-killing bit was beginning to grow on him. Doubtless, some day, it would make for a fine song.
And did the eminent Tower Sage gift them, at the very least, with six horses to replace those the party had lost? No – he gave them but one. And his name was Dog Bigby.
***
John walked alongside the results of Poridel’s questionable benevolence. Dog Bigby was an odd sort. His nose was pushed to one side of his face – the consequence of stopping a thrown tankard in mid-arc. He wore a beard, but his chin was so badly scarred that most of his face below his lips was covered only in tufts and patches. He shared the same level of cleanliness as Breof and the other Ciddry farmers – that is to say, none. His teeth were as brown as his boots, his breath as foul as the stench of Ippizicus, and the man had about as much tact as a shoehorn.
Bigby, it seemed, was an accomplished tracker and traveler. He earned what few coins he possessed – John had lifted his purse, inspected its meager contents, and re-tied it without being noticed – escorting people along the Great Coastal Road. So it was that while Bigby ferried the party northward toward the Duskingdell, he had also accepted a pair of crowns from an overweight matron and her hired hand enroute to Lonely Heath.
Lady Mavis resembled an over-tall and over-weight dwarf. Her attendant’s good looks matched his personality – non-existent. Yet John was always one who favored the fairer sex, and he had tried, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to garner a smile or two from the newcomers. After being rudely told to “cease his pattering” while the group shared a cheerless dinner in the town of Mapple, John had given up.
So be it - if he could not make the lady laugh, he would make others laugh at her expense. Enter: Dog Bigby. Bigby, apparently, laughed at anything and everything. John tested his theory by, once, fabricating a story that made no sense whatsoever and held not a shred of humor within it; Bigby had howled with mirth long after the party’s campfire had turned to embers.
So it was that John found himself marching northward across the Reaversward with Bigby beside him. Occasionally the man would scout ahead, oft-times accompanied by Raylin, but – upon his return – Bigby gravitated toward the bard.
“No offense,” John said, “but your name is rather odd.”
Bigby nodded sagely, as if he had heard as much many times. “T’not even my name, to tell it true.”
John waited for him to continue, realized Bigby wasn’t a practiced conversationalist, and hence prompted him, “Do tell.”
“Me mom named me Themblintul, but me dad never liked it. Said it was too hard to say. Said he was tired from working the fields, and damned if he’d be bothered by saying a hard name when he come home at night.”
“Ah…so your father named you Bigby?”
Bigby frowned. “No, was t’not him. He called me many things – ass-chin, horsehead, dunderface, bullocks-“
“I see,” John interrupted. The bard had no doubt Bigby would continue the litany until they reached Duskingdell if he were not stopped. John cursed himself for a fool for having started the conversation; he should have just sung some limerick about a harlot and a gnome. “So, then, how did you get the name Bigby?”
Bigby frowned again, an expression that seemed familiar to his face. “I canna remember, friend John.”
They walked in blessed silence for the better part of an hour before Bigby slapped his thy so hard that John nearly tripped from startlement. “It was Bigby!”
John rubbed his eyes with exasperation. It was nice having a companion who enjoyed his lies, but the bard wasn’t sure if it was worth this amount of pain. “Yes, yes – your name is Bigby.”
“No,” Bigby laughed as if John were the one making no sense, “I hired onto a caravan down by way of Cymeria some time ago. And there was this fat man, our cook, and his name was Bigby.”
“So,” John nearly wept, “how did you get his name?”
Dog Bigby frowned. Before the large man could speak, however, John’s hand shot out to cover his mouth. “Forget I asked.”
And to think, John mused, I had also planned to ask him how he had gained the ‘Dog’ part of his monicker. Now I would sooner have my skin tacked to the palisade of Corm.
The party, which had been traveling upon a slight upslope for the better part of the day, finally reached the crest. Below them, to the north, the land declined into a gray morass of thickets and scrubs. Bigby motioned for them to halt. “Best to camp a bit yonder, off the top of this here hill so that the wind canna freeze our manhood.” The guide ignored Mavis’ glare. “There be other places to camp, for sure, but t’not better than this. T’not for some way, at least.”
Raylin studied the land before eyeing Bigby. “The lands continues downward for some time, no? All the way to Calahen Creek?” The Larrenman looked to his companions. “These are clanlands, and not my own.”
“Aye,” Bigby said. “Five leagues, mayhaps a bit more. Down there the ground turns as foul as rucken undergarments. We’ll cross at the Dusk Ford. Another day o’ walking after that and we should hit the outskirts of the Duskingdell. That be where I’ll drop all o’ ye off.”
“Not all of us,” Mavis sniffed.
“Well, no,” Bigby allowed, “t’not you and yer man.”
Baden grunted. “What in the name of mithril is this word you keep saying – t’not?”
Bigby frowned. John didn’t know who he wanted to kill first – their guide or Baden. The tracker showed brown teeth. “’Tis me own word. I made it.”
John set off down the hill before what could only be a horribly frustrating explanation commenced. Bigby was quick to catch him. “When we stop, friend John,” the man asked, “I was wonderin’ – if t’not too much trouble – if you could sing me a song or two whilst we make camp.”
John’s face brightened, a stark contrast to their drab surroundings. “Certainly, Bigby, certainly.”
Taken on the whole, John thought, Dog Bigby is not that bad of a fellow.
***
“He is an ass,” Baden hissed.
The dwarf stood, feet shoulder-width apart, and stared through the darkness in the direction of the camp. The above canopy shunted most of the light but steady rain, but it also blocked the starlight. The moon had yet to rise.
Bigby had not let them light a fire, though he was characteristically ambiguous when it came to divulging his reasons. “Why did Poridel even send him with us? By Moridin, it is not as if the Duskingdell is hard to locate – even for us who have never been.”
Kellus nodded. “Patience, friend, patience. The sage had heard ill rumors of the road ahead. Bigby has made the journey hundreds of times, and the hilt of his sword is stained with sweat, the blade well-cared for. We may well be thankful for another fighter amongst us.”
Baden spat and looked to Amelyssan. “And what say you, elf? Mayhaps we should strike off on our own, I am thinking.”
Amelyssan rested upon a staff he had purchased in Ciddry. His golden-hued eyes surveyed the silent woods around them. “We have but a day left, friend. Poridel is no fool, though – I admit – his estimation of Bigby seems overly inflated.”
“Overly inflated!” Baden echoed the elf with a huff. “The man’s a fool! Bigby, not Poridel. He listens to John all day long, wanders ahead once in a blue moon, then sits on his ass and tries to sing the bard’s lyrics instead of helping make and break camp.”
Kellus smiled softly. “Is he an ass because he listens to John, or because he offers little help around the campfire?”
Baden opened his mouth, then closed it. The dwarf smiled in spite of himself. “Both, if you must know.”
Amelyssan produced a rolled sheaf of parchment from his belt pouch. He uttered a word and the end of his staff suffused with light. Kellus watched the elf unroll the scroll and frowned, “Should we be reading that now? Your light marks our position for any eyes in the forest that may be watching.”
Amelyssan held the paper before him without looking up. “Vath and Raylin are on watch. If anything lurked within these boughs, they would know it.”
Kellus decided it wasn’t worth debating – the light was already evident. He and Baden pressed forward to, again, read the parchment Poridel had given them.
...the scrub was thickest upon it and it took two full hours of clearing the top, mostly from Gomlor’s dwarven axe, before we discovered the stone door – the real entrance - deep-seated within the turf and covered with the sigils of the Lost Elves. Ju’thethian believes the runes are both warning and curse, but his arts were not capable of a true reading. The human from Mith, a small fishing village, claimed to know the gist of the signs. She suggested we leave the hill undisturbed but Agemem would have none of it...
…Agemem had the right of it when he spied the gouges. The dwarf confirmed his thoughts and we set about the heavy task, the bodies of our comrades standing a watchful vigil in the outer room beyond the false...My back nearly broke from the effort yet soon the way…
…and then I finally understood! The Lost Elves hated all men, the sages and mages of Valudia most of all, so that was the first…third came the Pe-…and lastly, I’m certain of it, the greenish Arn moss, for they hated their brother elves but least of all...yet I persuaded Agemem to wait until I could replenish my spells and record these words…
Baden sighed. “It tells us nothing.”
“It tells us everything,” Amelyssan countered. “We just do not understand it. Yet.”
Kellus rubbed his forehead. “I dislike riddles.” When his friends offered no comment, he continued. “Let us review everything the sage told us about this parchment.”
Amelyssan nodded. “This sheet was a page from the Bullhide Tome. Its author was Boddynock Nigel, a gnome, and a Mage of the Sunset Tower in Valudia. Written in – what was the year? - 637 D.R.”
“Seven hundred years ago and more,” Baden offered.
Amelyssan continued, “Poridel believes the rest of the book is unimportant – at least to our current situation. I agree. This parchment,” the elf tapped the paper with a tapered nail, “whispers to us across all these Ages. Clearly, the author and his band met with misfortune within the Duskingdell, in the very barrow we now seek to enter.”
“How do we know Ral is within?”
The elf shrugged at Kellus. “We do not. But Poridel believes it.”
“Poridel,” Baden growled, “had no idea where Baphtemet was - until we told him. And he was conveniently absent during our troubles with Aramin.” The dwarf threw his hands in the air. “Honestly, friends, I like the man – I do. But all he did was give us six men to sacrifice and told us how to summon Ippizicus.”
“And because of it,” Kellus offered, “the ape-demon is now slain, at least upon this plane.”
“With no help from Poridel.”
Kellus shrugged. “Were it not for him, Ippizicus may have returned to hunt us when we were unawares.”
“Or he may not have returned at all!”
“Enough.” Amelyssan’s voice was soft. “Poridel is no Aramin; he is not a traitor. He tells us what he knows, and he tells us what he does not. If the former is not enough to trust him, the latter definitely is. We have agreed to slay this third and final demon.”
The elf staked his staff in the dirt before looking up. “Let us talk now of how it can be done.”
“Well said,” Baden allowed, his own voice calm. “The others will want to discuss it as well.”
Amelyssan replaced the parchment and extinguished his light before the three set off toward the camp. Suddenly, Baden halted. “Hold, please.
“You cannot see my face in this blackness, I know, but – if ye could – you would see that I am worried. We have survived, all of us, through…through events that, by rights, we should not have. I am no coward, you know me well, but I do not like having questions hanging above us whilst we plunder a barrow of the Lost Elves.”
“Nor do I,” Kellus agreed readily enough. “Amelyssan, I am of a mind with you when it comes to Poridel. But I am less certain of his man, Bigby; even the most learned of men can err when labeling friend and foe.”
“True,” Amelyssan said. “What do you suggest?”
“First,” Baden interrupted, “we get Bigby away from that woman and her lackey; these talks are not for their ears. Then the lot of us surround our happy guide and put some questions to him.”
“Such as?”
Baden spread his hands, somewhat at a loss. “I’m not sure. But if he’s traveled these lands as often as he claims, then he may know more than he’s telling.”
Kellus folded his arms in the darkness. “Good counsel, friend Baden. Poridel, for all his faults, is not one to jump at shadows. If there are rumors of evils being done on the Weedsea, as the sage stated, then such tales must stem from more than banditry.”
***
“On your feet, Bigby.” Baden kicked the toe of their guide’s boot.
Bigby sat up, rubbed sleep from his eyes, and swiveled his head around in the darkness. “My turn on watch, eh?”
“Aye,” Raylin answered. “But that is not why we wake you.”
“Oh?” Bigby stood and rolled his shoulders. His odd quirks and strange personality sometimes made it easy to forget how large a man he was. Bigby laid a hand on his hilt, spat phlegm dangerously close to Baden’s feet, and squinted. “I canna see ye.”
“I know,” Baden answered gruffly, “else I may have had something to say about how close your spit came to my boots.”
Bigby laughed quietly. “A wee bit grumpy. Me dad used to-”
“Not now, Bigby,” John said, not unkindly. He pulled back the shutter of a lit lantern only a finger’s width. It was enough illumination for Bigby to see that the entire party stood around him. Mavis and Huarto, her guardsman, still slept. John closed shut the lantern, and the world plunged once more into blackness.
John cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was with a half-whisper. “We are concerned, friend Bigby, about the road ahead. Our friend and yours, Poridel Poriden, spoke highly of you. He said the road hereabouts was unsafe, more so than normal, mayhaps.”
Baden and Vath could see Bigby’s guarded nod, but the others only waited quietly for his response. John sighed. “Now, friend, is when you answer us.”
“What is your question?” Bigby’s voice was still light, and hushed, but held a hint of steel.
John stared at the ground, and Baden answered. “Tell us about the rumors.”
“T’not wise to be talkin’ of such things at night.”
“We are not children,” Kellus answered, voice even. “Answer the dwarf.”
Bigby scratched himself. “I ain’t one for books and the like, and I canna say I know much o’ history, but Master Poriden says such things have happened before.”
“Such things?” By now, John was accustomed to having to prompt Bigby for every answer.
“Such things,” Bigby repeated. “Beasts, but not beasts. They roam the Weedsea. Mostly to the north, hard by the Bramble River, but mayhaps some are down this way, now. Master Poriden thought it best I take ye as far as the Duskingdell, maybe help if we get into a pinch.”
“You have seen these things?”
When Bigby next spoke, his voice held a trace of a heretofore unheard emotion. “I have. Lost a friend and the folks we was escortin’. Big brutes, and smart. Smarter ‘an any animal should be.”
Raylin spoke into the darkness. “What do they look like?”
“Wolves.” All eyes turned in the direction of Vath.
It was Bigby’s turn to ask a question. “Aye, wolves - but how do you know?”
“I hear them.” Vath stood and looked across the vast expanse of plains behind them. “They sound like wolves.”
“They ain’t wolves, half-troll.” Bigby reached behind him, found his bedroll, and sat down. “I could fashion a road o’ wolf pelts from here to Mon Mith from the numbers of wolves I done kilt.”
Vath turned back to the group without comment.
“Best get dressed, friends, and right quick.” Bigby began to pull on his boots. “Woman! Get yer arse up, and your little man with ye!”
Mavis screamed, sat bolt upright, and clutched the cover to her ample bosom. “W-what?”
“Yer arse.” Bigby stood, stamped his feet into his boots. “Get it movin’.”
“Now hold one-” Baden began, his tone dangerous.
“No,” Bigby answered, “I canna hold. If the half-troll hears howling, it may be wolves. But it may t’not. I’m paid to get you to the Duskingdell, and to the Duskingdell I will get you.”
“Wait, please,” Amelyssan reached out, found Bigby’s arm, and squeezed it. “You said Poridel mentioned that these things happened before. Did he say when?”
“I canna remember.”
“The Time of Huntings?” Amelyssan released his hold in the ensuing silence. “That was it, wasn’t it? The Time of Huntings?”
Bigby nodded, realized the elf couldn’t see him, and answered, “Aye, I believe it was.”
Amelyssan looked as if he was a child, and had just heard a particularly frightening ghost story. At John’s urging, the elf spoke in a soft voice. “Ages ago there was a period of years wherein men were hunted like prey. The dwarves shut themselves within their mountains, the elves within their fortresses among the boughs, and the humans within their towns. Walls were built, ditches dug, and knowledge, trade, and travel fled the land. It was a time of darkness, a Time of Huntings.”
“Throw open the shutter of that lantern, John,” Kellus said quietly. The priest began to gather his gear, and the others followed his lead. “We have slain demons, friends – we can slay wolves.”
“Not wolves,” Amelyssan answered, “but wolven. And worse, mayhaps. For the Horned Hunters, called Dreth, would lead wolven packs-”
“Enough, friend.” Kellus voice was at once gentle and firm. The priest looked to Bigby. “Time for you to earn your coins, friend. We follow you.”
Bigby nodded. “The lantern can stay lit until we be out of these trees. On the plains, there will be enough starlight to see by. Stay close – each of you. No scouting, and no straggling. These – wolven?” Bigby looked to Amelyssan before continuing, “These wolven are silent trackers, for the most part. If they be howlin’, methinks they have yet to gain our trail. So don’t let them sounds steal yer courage.”
“And if they go silent?”
Bigby grinned, though his eyes shone with something other than amusement. “Why, then, draw yer swords and stop runnin’ like a rabbit. We’ll need to become wolves ourselves.”
“I’m slow.”
Bigby measured Baden. “Lose the armor.”
“Never.”
The big man shrugged. “Then – for now - we move at yer pace, or whoever be the slowest.”
Bigby turned and began to lead the group from the shelter of the trees. He spoke as he pushed away brambles and branches. “Me dad used to say, ‘Make decisions when you have to make ‘em, and not before.’ But he was never much for smarts. So I went ahead and made mine now.”
John ducked under a branch. “And what have you decided?”
Bigby stopped, turned, and eyed Baden. “If the dwarf canna keep the pace, then I will stay with him. The rest of you strike north. Don’t worry about your trail – these things track with more than eyes and scent. If you can reach the Dusk Ford, cross it, and make a stand. Mayhaps you won’t need to, but – if you do – ‘tis as good a place as any.”
“I was wrong about you, Bigby.” Baden returned the big man’s stare.
“T’not nothing to be worried about, stump. Most folks are.”
* There are a number of racial epithets within the world of Ostia Prim. While such terms are unequivocally in bad taste, and most often derogatory in nature, the way they are used is often the measure of whether one is giving insult or not. Some of the more common terms include stumps (dwarves), pointers (elves) and groaners (half-trolls).
