Ash opened his eyes. The sky was clear, the sun just breaking over the horizon. A hare sat, nibbling at some vegetation, watching Ash with a weary eye. Hares are fast, but Ash was faster. Fresh meat made the best bait, after all.

The door to the smithy was made of heavy hardwood and freshly drenched, the better to keep the heat in and the fire where it belongs. Ash’s knock made it ring like a drum. It was answered by a short, cross-looking man in a thick leather apron, thick, stocky, scarred fingers wrapped around the doorframe, piercing Ash with an icy stare.

“Mind if I borrow that?” he asked, pointing at a hammer whose head was the size of his head. There are a lot of things you can find in a village which aren’t technically weapons, at least until you killed someone with them, like pitchforks and thatching knives and billhooks and hammers. Hunters carried weapons that gave maximum usefulness for minimum weight; versatility was key. Good enough for any monster, but never the ideal weapon. It seemed like they would have to do, as the blacksmith shut the door in his face.

Lacking any other entertainment, the whole village gathered to see Ash work. He knew there would be cheers no matter the outcome. If he fell another Hunter would pick of the contract; as far as they cared he could be dragged down into the dirt for no extra charge. His unused weapons and nonessential equipment lay at the base of the tree he slept at. The villagers kept away, as if his very presence had poisoned the land. Ash approached the field, slotting his dagger into his quarterstaff, carrying the Hunter’s Spear point down, the steel cap on the opposite end resting against his left shoulder blade. His Scalebreaker Mace lay in its tubular sheath along his right thigh, the dead hare hanging limp from his belt, his leather cap upon his head, the chinstraps hanging unfastened, the mail renforcement cool against his scalp and neck. Hunters rarely wore helmets; most beasts lacked the intelligence, let alone the ability, to target He flexed in his armor, rolling his shoulders, a satisfactory silence sounding from his discmail gambeson and the waxed chainmail underneath. The sky was cloudless. He crept silently onto the field, the rolling heel-to-toe gait embedded deep within his muscle memory, the smooth movement carrying him forward like a dancer onto the floor. Once in position, he brought his spear to bear, throwing the dead hare into the air. It landed with a wet thud, and for a heartbeat there was silence. The ground in front of Ash erupted, the monster taking the bait. A tunneler, as expected. His lessons flashed through his mind. Insectoid. Four to eight legs. Typically blind. Mediocre sense of smell. Circular jaw ringed with clawlike mandibles. Dangers limited to aforementioned jaw and attacks with its tail, if present. Ash drove his spear through a insectoid kneecap, a crunch like the smashing of a thousand eggshells heralding a spatter of viscous pickle-green fluid as the creature sagged rightwards. Ash twirled away from a clumsy swipe of its segmented tail, cracking the shell on a second leg. The monster turned to face him, its mandibles clawing blindly for his flesh. He buried the point of his spear deep down its throat, bracing the opposite end in the fertile soil, trapping the tunneler as it writhed. The mace leapt into his hand, brass-wire-wrapped handle nesling into its familiar home in his palm, bringing down the X shaped flanges down against the beast’s thorax again and again and again until the writhing turned into slow, erratic twitching. Ash levered his spear onto the ground, flipping the corpse onto it’s back and corkscrewing the blade free. A halfhearted cheer went up, the majority of peasants returning to work. Three stayed: the black-clad widow, eyes vacant, the tavern girl, smirking, and the Ealdorman, who very much seemed eager to get the whole business over with. He tossed Ash a coin purse as he approached. Inside was a hodgepodge of coins, all different denominators and currencies, several varieties of exotic coinage visible.

“Raid someone’s coin collection?” Ash asked. The village elder glanced at the widow, beckoning Ash out of her earshot.

“Old man bram and his boys were trying to gather one coin of every currency. Wasn’t much use to anyone, so…” His voice trailed off, his shoulders shrugged. The two of them glanced in tandem at the widow, a question asked and answered. Ash took the coin, another weight on an already heavy heart. Ash jerked a thumb at the corpse, olive ichor seeping into the ground.

“I’ll butcher it, see if I can find anything to bury. No promises.” The Ealdorman nodded.

“Tunneler blood won’t hurt the harvest. Might even help it a bit. Bet I can find a craftsman who’ll buy the scales off you. I’ll try and send someone I trust but a fair rate is about a Trader’s Silver a firkin. Won’t rot, but pigs’ll eat it.”

“Pigs’ll eat anything.” Ash nodded. His gaze returned to the widow.

“I’d like it if some of it went to the victim’s families.” With that, Ash stalked off, back into the field, for the dirty and thankless job of battlefield cleanup.

“Thank you, hunter.” Ash turned back. “For giving a damn.”