Orc's Bane : Ranger's Codex Episode 1 by Ed Knight

Author:Ed Knight [Knight , Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Codex Books
Published: 2023-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

June the 16th

Before my audience with the king, I ate a hearty breakfast and spent a good hour in his archives, for there was a certain piece of information I now felt I must know. It was not easy to find, but once I had it, it seemed an invisible badge of honor upon my breast, or else a suit of armor that might protect me from what was sure to come. A piece of information that might yet save the innocent peasants of Greyheap and the orcs of The Vahl. For I had little doubt that Antil would seek revenge on the orcs, and the orcs upon that little hamlet, and their centuries-long tit-for-tat would resume its predictable savagery.

As Lord Antil and I took our seats in his council chamber, he made no attempt to hide his shock at the state of me. Several bruises colored the right side of my face and neck a deep shade of purple, and a good deal of the left side had turned to scab from Delin’s dragging me at speed across a cave floor. My hands too, were a mess of rope burns, and my eyes as dead as those of a statue for want of sleep. Redfriend again had prevailed, but it did nothing to make one look healthy—its effects benefited the chewer and not the viewer, as some liked to say. Mostly me. I liked to say that.

“You look a sight,” Antil said simply, the initial horror at sight of me fast fading. Perhaps he recalled hiring me to find someone who had ripped a girl’s throat out, and thus forgave a bit of roughness about my edges. But Lords are always shocked when you come back battered and scarred from their woods. They all think rangers invincible to the perils of the wilderness. Invincible, that is, until they pull up our dead bodies from rivers and caves.

“Yesterday was very unkind to me, my lord,” I said.

“But you are alive.”

“She could have been yet more unkind. But I’m afraid she was even more cruel to you than me, my lord.”

He leaned forward eagerly, the silver-shot beard nearly toppling his cup.

“So you found my son? But failed to bring him back?”

I hung my head a moment, considering my words carefully. Lord Antil’s reaction was out of my control, of course. But I wanted to be sure he at least understood the truth, before flying into the inevitable rage, depression, or rampage that would surely follow.

“Yes. But you might not think him your son.”

“Speak plainly, Cade,” he said, the shadows beneath his brow seeming to darken, “and only of facts. I care for nothing else today. Where is my son?”

“I have many facts, Lord Antil. It’s only a question of their right order. But I will do my best. First, I have spoken with your son, and though in quite a state, he was not quite mad for the entire duration of our conversation. This is what I learned from him, at

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