Out-Dweller

4. Glamorwood

4

Glamorwood

It was not until they were almost out of town, following Main Street northwest toward the forest-covered hills beyond, that the old woodsman finally revealed his name. It took Raedrick finally straight-out asking, instead of the polite half-question Julian had tried in the office.

The old man squinted at Raedrick as though surprised for a heartbeat or two, then shrugged. "Name's Dewey." He left it at that, focusing his attention on the road ahead.

Julian exchanged glances with his friend, who shrugged and smiled slightly, clearly amused. Julian was inclined to agree. The old man was eccentric, for sure. But, looking at the signs of more decades than most men ever saw on Dewey's face, Julian figured he had earned the right.

They passed the last buildings on Main Street, and with them the road's paving stones. Just like that, Lydelton lay behind them and they were strolling through rolling grasslands that stretched on as far as Julian could see off to east. To the north and west, though, evergreen trees loomed a mile or so away. Even at the outskirts of the Glamorwood, the trees were tall and proud. Julian knew men went into the woods from time to time to harvest lumber, but they were either very careful about it or the forest grew back very efficiently; he could see no sign of logging's impact on the woods. Maybe they simply were not close enough to notice.

But as they drew nearer, the pristine look of the forest remained, and Julian was forced to conclude the logging men simply went elsewhere. It was a large forest, after all.

The road ended at the edge of the forest in front of a low building. Constructed of carefully placed stones that were held together with mortar, with a thatch roof that looked freshly changed-out, it looked as though it had stood in that place since the mountains had first come to be. A small sign hung next to the narrow wooden door that was set in the middle of the building's front wall. It read, "Ranger Station".

Julian blinked, surprised. "There are Rangers stationed here?" An icy shiver of concern raced down his spine as he waited for Dewey's reply. The Rangers were officials from the Kingdom. They would certainly have heard of Julian and Raedrick's status in town, and of their past. And they would certainly have reported it.

Perhaps this place was not to be home after all.

Glancing to his left, Julian saw a similar concern on his friend's face, though Raedrick hid it well enough that only someone who knew him as well as Julian did would be likely to notice.

Dewey snorted again and shook his head quickly before spitting onto the ground in front of the door. "Ain't been a Ranger here in thirty years," he said, "and we don't need none, either. They all left, reassigned some place down south, but no replacements ever came in. Town still maintains their station though." He paused, then turned away from the building and gestured for Raedrick and Julian to follow him into the woods. "Good riddance. Come on."

The tension went out of Julian's body in a rush, and he found himself drawing in a deep breath. Had he been holding his breath there for a minute? He was not sure.

Beside him, Raedrick's grin returned, this time far more warm and comfortable than Julian would been able to manage right then. Their eyes met.

"Surely we would have heard of their presence before now," Raedrick said in the oh-so-calm voice he used back when he was the Squad Leader.

That voice really irked Julian sometimes. He snorted. "You got worried too," he said, then turned to follow Dewey into the woods.

The bright afternoon sunlight became muted by the Glamorwood's canopy, leaving only the occasional beam of brightness streaming down to the earth below. Between the slender trunks of the evergreens, the ground lay covered in a loose layer of fallen pine needles, lending a faintly sweet aroma to the woods and muffling the trio's footsteps as they proceeded inward, and upward.

The hills that would soon become the mountains that marked Glimmer Vale's northern boundary began as just simple rolls in the terrain, but soon enough they became more steep. Before long, Julian found himself covered in sweat and breathing heavily at the effort of following Dewey higher.

And the old bastard did not seem to notice, or struggle with, the climb at all.

"Not much farther now," Dewey said over his shoulder, his tone level and his breathing slow and measured, as though he were taking a leisurely stroll along the lake.

Julian had to force himself not to grind his teeth. That would take more energy than he could afford to use, right then.

Beside him, Raedrick grunted. He looked just as wiped as Julian felt; a small comfort, that. But at Dewey's words, the weariness seemed to drain from his features, replaced by the sharp focus he always got when he was preparing for action. Julian took a deep breath and tried to follow his lead. It would not do for the Constable to be anything but professional while on the job, after all.

They topped a particularly steep rise and stepped into a small clearing where a jagged boulder lay half-buried In the turf, surrounded by a small cluster of bushes. As he rounded the boulder, a new odor assaulted Julian's nostrils. Metallic, sickly-sweet, rancid. A mixture of the smells from a latrine and a battlefield, and beneath something else. Something...unwholesome, sickly.

He stopped, coughing as the odor seemed to hit him like a physical blow.

"Gah," Raedrick said, giving voice to Julian's thoughts.

Dewey nodded gravely. "Don't often encounter a smell like that, less'n something big's died and rotted. I figgered it was a predator's kill, but..." He gestured for them to continue onward, and pushed his way past the bushes on the other side of the boulder. Julian followed, and quickly wished he had not.

Julian was no stranger to death. He had seen it, and dealt it out, on a dozen or more battlefields. Had knelt with the dying as they gasped out their final breaths, patched up the wounded in the mud. Horror had almost become commonplace during his time in the Army, so he thought he was prepared to handle whatever Dewey had to show them. But this...

Blood was everywhere, coating the ground, the bushes, the trunks of the closest trees even though they were nearly twenty feet away. The body, if it could be called that, lay in bits and pieces, strew around as though it had been somehow ground up and then spread like manure on a farmer's field. At first glance, only the presence of torn clothing, one impossibly intact boot, and broken but recognizable hunting equipment would have even told Julian this had once been a man.

"Gods be merciful," he breathed.

Dewey shook his head. "They sure weren't to this fellow."

"Was it a bear?" Raedrick's voice was hushed, almost reverent.

The old man shook his head again. "A bear don't attack a man, not less'n he's mad or injured. An' if he did, he wouldn't leave it like this."

"Mountain lion?"

Dewey just snorted and shot Raedrick a look like he was daft. "Lions don't leave meat untouched." He gestured over to the side, past the blood splatter, where a deer carcass lay, intact and untouched except for where the hunter had evidently dressed it out before he had been killed.

Julian frowned. That made no sense. Scavengers should have made off with that carcass, or at least bitten off parts of it, by now. And Dewey was right: why would whatever killed the hunter have left the deer untouched? "What, then?" he asked.

Dewey shrugged. "Told you, ain't never seen nothing like this." He looked down at the bloodied remains and pursed his lips. "Poor bastard."

"Where's his head?" Raedrick asked.

Julian stiffened and looked around the clearing quickly. Raedrick was right. Pieces of the body were everywhere, but none of the pieces could have been the man's head. Where was it?"

Dewey scowled and pointed over Raedrick's head.

Julian turned and looked where Dewey pointed. In a little nook near the top of the boulder, higher than he could have reached if he were standing on his tip toes, lay the man's head. He was not young, but not old either; probably approaching forty. His hair was long and wavy, dark brown and pulled back from his face by a leather headband. His mouth was locked into a soundless scream, his face frozen in a rictus of pain and utmost horror, his dark eyes wide and locked forward.

The dead man's expression made Julian's blood turn to ice water, and all the more because he recognized him from an occasional night at The Oarlock.

"Baelin," Julian breathed.

Dewey grunted agreement.