Ash walked alone, as he always had and, as he surmised, always would, one foot in front of the other down the muddy road, each step sinking into the mud under his weight as the village behind him shrank to the horizon and fields of grain transmuted into dry savannah. Absentmindedly, he ran his calloused thumb over his first ring, the oldest, worn upon, fused to, the index finger of his right hand. Dull grey with flecks of burnished bronze coloration, it was thick, stocky, with a large circular stud facing outwards. He took a moment to glance at the late summer sky, blue skies dotted with rifts, black voids opening and closing like the mouths of dying fish. His hands rested on the straps of his pack, keeping them tight as he walked. A rift opened in the air above him; some creature slipped through, hindquarters dangling in the air as it scrabbled for purchase at the ground of some other world. It failed and fell through the air with a beastial cry, landing on the ground with a wet thud. Ash’s pupils narrowed into slits as he wordlessly slid his sword from its scabbard. He held his breath and listened; there was no sound but the soft rustle of the prairie grasses in the gentle breeze. In a smooth, practiced movement, he adopted a defensive stance and slowly advanced with a slick rolling gait that masked his footsteps in silence. The creature lay in a bloody heap, unmoving, the stalks around it flecked with red. It was the size of a large deer, with four muscular limbs and covered in thick black feathers. It’s wide, toothy jaw hung open, eyes unblinking and unseeing. Ash returned his blade to the sheath on his back. He crouched down, keeping his knees off of the bloody ground, and examined the body. The meat was pulped, worthless. It had landed face first; most of the bones were shattered, but the femurs were intact enough. He drew a wide, cleaverlike knife from the small of his back and used the thick blade to scrape the bones clean. Reaching inside his vest, he withdrew a length of black cloth. He wiped down the knife, then returned it to it’s home at the small of his back. He rose, returned to the path, and continued on his journey, bones in hand. First one, then the other, he cracked them in half, sucked them dry of marrow, and discarded them at the side of the road. They would lie there, forgotten, as the Hunter continued on, alone.

Lamia was a small village eking out it’s continued existence at the edge of a thick forest, squatting at the bank of a rushing river. A shepherd glares at Ash as he attempts to corral his sheep; they had caught his scent on the east-flowing wind, and fled, bounding away, bleating. The village was quiet, as most were. Fisherman heaved their nets into the river before wrestling them out, teeming with the day’s catch. Nearby were fields of wheat, which the watermill ground into flour. Ash walked to the largest house in the village, a wattle and daub structure with copper shingles, a notable feature. The door is painted a deep dark green; the paint flaking where the wood met the ground. The Hunter slipped the sling of his quarterstaff off his shoulder and rapped it against the door, holding it horizontally in both hands as he waited for the response. The door cracked open, revealing the face of a middle aged man with a salt-and-pepper hair and beard, a beaten hat wilting on his head.

“Alderman?”

The man’s dull blue eyes travelled from Ash’s boots to his face and back again. He opens the door, steps out, and closes the door behind him.

“Good day, Good Hunter.”

“Tell me about the job.”

The man gestures to the woods behind the village. “There’s goblins in them woods, sire. Been a right nuisance, always have, but…”

There was, rather inevitably, a shrug as the man raised his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

“What changed?”

“There was a lass, Aoife, who went to gather mushrooms in the forest. Always went with a hunter, Joseph. He ran up, scared out of his wits, sayin’ that the goblins snatched up poor Aoife.” the man said, hands pulling at the hem of his tunic. “We roused the lads, near turned the forest upside down lookin’ for her. Found a cave that stunk of something awful, everyone knew it a goblin cave. Joseph was a skinny little lad, he was the only one who could squeeze through. Never came back.” He pulled his hat off, wringing it in his hands. “I wasn’t about to let anybody else go.”

Ash nodded.

“Good thinking.” He turned his head, looking out at the forest. “These goblins, what’d they look like? They speak?”

The man shrugged again.

“Sneaky little bastards, goblins. Never caught them.” He looked up at the Hunter. “What’d the difference be?”

Ash shrugged.

“Might be.” He changed the subject. “Where’d they live?”

“Joseph made himself a little hut there.” The man pointed. “Aoife was a spinstress, lived alone.”

Ash nodded.

“See what I can do.”

“Bless you, sire.” the man replied, nodding frantically with his whole body.

“Your name?”

“Oh. Um, Jeffery, Sire. Jeffery Brooke.”

Another nod.

Ash said nothing else, just turned and left. The man watched him go.

Ash started at the hunter’s hut. It was small, simple, with a thatched roof that badly needed to be refreshed and a door that squeaked as Ash opened it. The interior was musty; dust covered the floor and, despite his absence, the scent of the man’s sweat hung in the air. A rough hewn desk and chair sat in one corner; in the opposite corner was a bed of similar quality. On the desk was an assortment of knicknacks; glass paperweights and rocks with holes in them, a handkerchief, a brass and glass ring, an inkpot, pen and a tattered leather notebook. Ash opened it; a diary. Experience had taught him to start at the last page, dated over a month ago. It started with self-flagellation for not writing sooner, then details of a successful hunt, and ended with promises to write more often. So much for that.

Ash flipped through the rest of the journal. Nothing suspicious. He tossed the notebook onto the desk and turned his attention to the bed. He searched it and found nothing. Disgruntled, he left, shutting the door behind him.

Aoife’s shed was nearby, short, squat, surrounded by what once had been a herb garden but was now an overgrown mess. A scruffy orange cat watched the Hunter approach, hissing as he came to the door. Ash ignored it, it was a common enough occurrence. The door opened, reluctantly, with a creak. The interior was dusty and cramped, with the bed, spinning wheel, chest, stove, and washbasin vying for space. A slight scent of mint hung in the air. A set of shelves hung above the bed, the first bowed under the weight of several aging books. The second held once-treasured keepsakes: A music box, locket, and a small mother-of-pearl cameo box. The locket was gold, the craftsmanship middling. The engraving upon it read ‘With all my love’, flanked by a stylized A and S. Inside was an aging oil portrait of a young man, with brown eyes and a wide smile. The painter’s grasp of the human form left something to be desired. The cameo box held two locks of brown hair, tied with red ribbon. Ash shut the box with a gentle click. He turned, left the village, and entered the forest.

The trail was easy to find, formed where several pairs of booted feet had stamped footprints into the forest floor. At its end there was, as promised, a cave. Ash squatted down and peered inside. The floor was covered with dirt and mud, tracked in by its occupants. Ash frowned, then pulled his pack from his shoulders. Reaching inside, he pulled a small leather-wrapped bottle from it’s depths. He left the pack, with his sword and staff, hanging from one of the high trees nearby and stepped into the cave. As the shadows darkened, he uncorked the small bottle and dabbed the paste inside upon his scaled forehead, where it glowed softly in the dark. By it’s light, he located the hole through which Joseph had passed through, leaving behind a scrap from his tunic that had torn on the rocks. Ash paused, listened, and smelled. The air was still inside the cave. He drew his knives. In his right hand, a wide, cleaverlike blade from the small of his back. In his left, a spearhead dagger, made for thrusting and parrying, from the scabbard on his right forearm. He wormed his arms and head through the opening and, inhaling sharply, dislocated his shoulder to fit through. The ceiling was low, the walls roughly scarred from being widened. Fragments of the crude stone tools used to do so peppered the floor. Ash felt his pupils widen, the bioluminescent paste on his forehead giving him just enough light to see. He continued deeper, further into the cave, knives at the ready.

A discarded torch laid ahead, snuffed out. The coppery smell of blood hung in the air. A trail of it lay, old and dry, on the rough stone floor, disappearing around a bend. Ash paused at the edge of the stain; he had fallen here, bled out, and his body had been taken. Knowing goblins, he wouldn’t find it.

He could smell them, their scent layered underneath the blood. He heard a sound, a series of soft clicks, nails on stone. Ash moved as it came around the corner, crushing it against the cave wall, driving his forearm into its neck before it could make a sound. His blade slipped between the third and fourth rib and came out the other side, digging into the rock behind. It’s weapon clattered to the floor, the sound ringing through the cave. Hearing movement, Ash withdrew his blade, black with blood, and let the body fall to the floor. He surged around the corner, finding another goblin armed with a bow. The weapon was crude, the arrow crooked, but the tunnel was narrow and Ash’s frame filled it. The point hit his gambeson but didn’t penetrate; he used his momentum to knock the goblin over, pin it down, ribcage cracking under his knee from his weight. He stabbed downward through the eye and his foe went still. He pressed on. He had lost the element of surprise, and three others charged at him through the tunnel. The first swung his weapon, a billhook, probably stolen from the village. Ash caught the blade with his dagger and swung with the blade in his right hand; arterial spray filled the confined space. Following through, he struck the second with his right elbow and it fell to the ground, stunned. Ash pressed his advantage, skewering the third with his dagger. The goblin sagged against the cave wall, weapon clattering to the floor. There was a crunch as Ash finished the second goblin before it could recover, slamming it’s head against the floor. He surged forward, driving his blade into the third goblin’s neck, and it crumpled to the ground.

There was a sudden terrible silence in the cave, broken only by Ash’s rapidly slowing breathing. He pushed the corpses aside with his boot. The stale air became thick with the choking, cloying, coppery smell of blood. Ash pressed on. Ahead, the tunnel widened into a cavern. The Hunter slowly stood to his full height, the top of his head just barely brushing the rough rock ceiling. There was another smell in the air, hiding underneath all the blood. In an alcove, he found it: a terrible, misshapen pile of flesh, rank and wet with slimy excretions. Left alone, the spawning nest would birth yet more goblins; Ash turned and returned to the corpses, looting whatever he could find. One had a dagger, human-made, leather scabbard dirtied by it’s previous owner but nonetheless relatively intact. He continued his search, adding the billhook to his take. He also found a necklace, made of an engraved brass charm on a leather thong, and a plain gold ring. Squinting, he read the inscription in the dim light. To A, with love. -S. He tucked the personal effects into his pocket, then reached down and took trophies from the dead goblins; a collection of ears that he wrapped in a worn, stained cloth. He retraced his steps out of the cave, pupils contracting in the outside light. He retrieved his pack and staff from the tree, and retrieved a reinforced brass flask. Ash piled the corpses together around the spawning nest and emptied the flask over the arrangement. Flint and steel struck each other in the darkness, and the darkness was no more, the cave filling with putrid black smoke as the flesh burned away. Ash left the cave and watched the black smoke rise into the midsummer sky. Jeffery Brooke, the alderman, approached through the forest and watched with him.

“It’s done.” Ash said, holding out the macabre bouquet of ears. The man recoiled at the sight.

“Right. Yes. Of course.”

He cleared his throat. “And, um…”

Ash scattered the ears into the forest and reached into his pocket.

“Nothing to bury.” he said. “Found some personal effects. Looks like Aoife’s wedding ring, Joseph's knife, and a necklace which could belong to either. Think it’s Joseph's, though.”

The alderman nodded mutely and quietly pocketed the items, then tossed Ash a coin purse. Inside was a hodgepodge of coins, all different denominators and currencies, several varieties of exotic coinage visible.

“Raid someone’s coin collection?” Ash asked.

“Joseph was trying to gather one coin of every currency. Wasn’t much use to anyone, so…”

Ash took the pouch without another word. He slipped it into his pack, shouldered it, and started down the road. Jeffery Brooke watched him go until the Hunter disappeared into the forest.