Bounty for the Taking: Book One

By K.W. Jackson

A mission to assassinate an orcish king, the spirit of a great demiurge wants a new body, and ogre raiders with a bounty on their heads for the taking. The three brothers Skarsayer are drawn through action and adventure towards a life-shattering revelation.

A Tale of Khara Thel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.W. Jackson
• Release date: Jul 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781476106823

K.W. Jackson

K.W. Jackson is a IT professional from Melbourne, Australia. He is married with one son and lives in the eastern suburbs under the shadow of a long extinct volcano. Guitar, drawing, RPGs, computer games, vegetable gardening, organic food, cooking and of course reading are his many hobbies in between writing and drinking italian coffee. K.W. Jackson struggled for over 17 years to complete his first book but that opened the gates for all the rest. For anyone reading this know that: "Do not ever, ever, give up on achieving your dreams. Life is too short."

Book preview

BOUNTY FOR THE TAKING

Book One

A Tale of Khara Thel

Copyright 2011, K.W. Jackson. All rights reserved to the author.

Smashwords Edition

http://kharathel.com

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CHAPTER ONE

The office of the chief clerk took on a dim resemblance to the troll’s den Atriaxe had returned from. Black oily smoke hung in a haze from a tallow lantern gave the small room a similar aroma to the den - that of burned fat and wood ash. Atriaxe crossed thickly muscled arms over his mail-armoured chest and breathed shallowly to avoid the disturbing odour.

Atriaxe was there to collect the bounty on a clan of swamp trolls that had been harassing farms on the southeast fringes of Coffin Hill. There had been eight of the massive slavering creatures, although most were younglings, infesting a stinking cave on the edge of a stretch of wetlands. Small swamps and mires that ran in patchy strip north-south for a dozen leagues. The trolls had stolen cattle, knocked down houses, burnt barns and murdered five families. When a group of a dozen militia had banded together to hunt them down, the trolls killed the men and their horses, and roasted them all over a fire pit in a feast that probably lasted for days of gluttony. When the trolls were done with the meat, and split the long bones for marrow, they had tossed the ravaged remains on the dung-heap.

The clerk glanced over his wire-rimmed spectacles that sat precariously on his raven like nose. The huge bounty hunter that sat before him had just killed eight trolls, on his own. A thickly muscled giant of a man with long blood red hair that was remarkably clean for one of his ilk, fine mail of the best steel in the realm, showed he was at least mildly successful before this venture. A huge canvas and leather frame pack sat on the worn wooden floor beside the man’s chair, which was remarkably holding his impressive muscular weight.

The clerk gulped as the bounty hunter sighed and then began to count the heads on the cobbled courtyard a storey below them. Troll heads were even more ugly in death: leering in their rictus, long purple tongues protruding between sickly yellowed fangs. A pair of militia-in-training looked on in awe, each troll head as big as their teenage torsoes, the fangs as long as their fingers. The braver of the two walked forward and poked at one of the heads with his poleaxe, knocking it over, the coagulating blood leaving a sticky imprint on the cobblestones. The two young men looked at each other and then up at the clerk’s window. The less brave one pointed and they trotted off.

The skinny clerk cleared his throat and said, ‘I count eight.’

Atriaxe grunted, 'Yes. Eight.'

It was obvious. He had killed them himself. All this formality was irking him and he was exhausted after hauling the heads back on a hastily built travois the size of a royal bed.

The clerk began scribbling on a piece of parchment and carefully blotted the page with an ornately carved ebony tool leaving the imprint of the seal of Coffin Hill. He reached over the low oak desk and handed Atriaxe the parchment. The bounty hunter took the piece, his hand dwarfing the clerks three-fold, and began reading it silently.

‘I hope it is to your satisfaction,’ stated the clerk rather blandly.

‘Aye,’ he answered in a similarly bland tone.

Bounties were hardly ever negotiable but one gold crown per head was a good rate. The eight pieces of gold would cover his expenses and afford him a horse of the necessary stature, the trolls having eaten the last beast. He slowly stood and clunked his head on the rafter above his seat. The clerk winced in sympathy and Atriaxe rubbed his head with a scowl. He reached for his pack, slung it his shoulder and extended his hand to shake the clerk's own. The clerk simply put a money pouch in it and bade him farewell.

Atriaxe snorted in amusement, ‘Farewell then.'

Outside the office of the clerk the steward of the fort met Atriaxe at the top of the stairs. His face was flushed and taking great breaths. An an older man that had turned to fat after being quite heavily muscled. He had been struggling up the stairs with Atriaxe’s armaments; a dozen pilums bought from the markets of Phrad in a leather spear-quiver; a heavy steel tower shield etched with magical symbols of resilience; a long slender Spear of Piercing that was payment for a bounty near the mountain-top town of Schwedt; and a war-axe with a shortened haft and its blade forged by his eldest brother, Staifcairn.

Atriaxe took the war-axe first and proceeded to kit himself up with the other weapons. There was a routine to the process and the steward of the fort seemed rapt in the fluidity of Atriaxe's movements. He heard the sound of lowered voices behind him and turned to see the two young militia trainees that were in the courtyard pointing in awe and whispering to each other.

The steward turned and yelled, ‘Get back to the training hall ya’weak pricked sucklers. If I catch,’ but they were off and running like frightened deer before he could finish the order.

Well disciplined, thought Atriaxe.

The word brought back painful memories of his youth and they flooded back. His eyes losing focus as he moved through the routine of donning his gear and his thoughts returning to the past.

*****

It was the summer of his thirteenth year and Atriaxe was in the kitchen helping his mother’s cook, Neena, with the boar for Evening feasting. His father was coming home after three long years of crusade. Atriaxe had grown over two feet since the dawn of manhood. Cavis his older brother was returning from his fifth year at Kliom Nagar, the infamous fencing and knife-fighting academy, and from what the letter had said he graduated with highest honours. He had missed Cavis and his mischievous adventures. Although he had another brother, Staifcairn, Cavis was the only one who had any time for Atriaxe. Axe they often called him.

‘All the subtlety of an axe through the head,’ his father had once said during a wrestling match at the fair.

‘That's because he has an axe through the head,’ taunted Staifcairn.

He too had just returned, but from his first year at Rhastavon College, a college that trained archmages. The same college that all the royal sages of the Kindgom of Iron Claw graduated from.

Axe sniffed in wishful reminiscence of the fun he had with Cavis and continued to pull open the boar’s ribs by hand. Neena was busy chopping the vegetables and occasionally stirring the soup. He stared at her big rump, at least he would not be distracted by the rotund woman's figure. Jeela, Neena’s eldest daughter came prancing in the servant's entrance, a basket full of wild strawberries clutched to her pert breasts. Jeela’s figure was a definite distraction.

Axe turned quickly to avoid being mesmerised by what he found to be her erotically hypnotic body and looked for the offal pail. It was right where he left it, by the leg of the bench. He reached inside the boar’s abdominal cavity and scooped out its bloody innards in both arms and deposited them in the pail with a very wet splonk. This was good; he was barely affected by Jeela’s presence. Hokket, the stable hand came in after Jeela, the delay because he removed his manure coated boots. If he hadn't Neena would have knocked him unconscious with her rolling pin, she'd done it once before. Hokket was a ruggedly handsome young man of twenty years just older than Cavis and four years younger than Staifcairn. Jeela and Hokket had obviously been together for they both shared some long coy smiles at each other. Again it was lucky Neena did not see for she surely would have killed him with her cleaver. She still upheld the notion that all her daughters were of virtue but Staifcairn had had his way with all of them at least once, ‘The lucky beast.’ Axe added accidentally aloud. Neena looked around one eyebrow raised. Axe turned away and dug his fingers under the boars hide.

Hokket was watching him with an intensely smug grin on his face for he knew that Atriaxe had a crush on Jeela. He sauntered over to the large boy, six foot four inches tall, as broad as a door and thick-limbed as an oak, yet very inexperienced at only just thirteen years old. Hokket, after brawling at the local pub for the last three years, was definitely not.

Hokket leaned in close and whispered to Axe, ‘I saw ya lookin and I knows ya know me and Miss Jeela been a tupping.’

Axe tore the hide off the boar with one quick pull, the tearing of the tissues made Hokket’s smug expression waver at the feat of strength but only for a split second. Axe dumped it in the offal pail and reached down for its handle.

Hokket was just starting ‘She was sweet lad. Sweeter than finest honey!’

Axe bit his lip, the jealous anger rising like a tempest's fury. He walked out the servant's door into the side yard and made his way to the kennels. Hokket stepped into his boots and followed. Axe knew if he could beat Hokket he would not be punished by his father because of the servant’s obvious want of a confrontation, but Axe did not know if he could beat the much more experienced Hokket. He kept walking trying to think of an assault that would be unorthodox enough to break his face but not give him a chance to defend.

Hokket saw the red flushed cheeks and flexing jaw muscles of the large boy before him. He knew he was having a profound affect on the lad. Hokket desperately wanted to show his superiority to Jeela and prove that Atriaxe was just a boy not a 'cute young man' as she had said. Hokket wanted all of Jeela to himself not just her body.

‘We often talk about ya. It's good to laugh before…’

But that was as far as he got. Axe had been carrying the pail with one hand on the handle the other holding the boars hide on top of the innards. When Hokket continued on that path of attack Axe slipped his hand under the pail and pivoted on his left foot extending his left arm into Hokket’s face planting the pail over his face like a fodder bag, but then it all went wrong Hokket’s feet lifted off the ground and the momentum combined with Atriaxe’s strength broke the mans neck with a loud crack. Hokket’s body fell to the ground briefly twitching before lying stil.

A laugh came from the corner of the house and Axe turned in horror to see Staifcairn standing there arms crossed over his chest a big grin on his even statuesque features. The platinum silver of his fringe lining the dark green robes he had earned from the Rhastavon College. The robes were a reward for graduating as an archmage and gaining entry into the elite Inner School.

‘As subtle as a meat axe up the backside,’ he sniggered.

Axe looked at the ground trying to shrink away. A piercing scream came from the kitchen, Jeela came running out and pawed over Hokket’s body trying to illicit a response from his lifeless corpse. She looked at the pail of pig offal and sat back on her backside staring in dumbfounded shock at Axe. Axe wished he could disappear, avoiding his father’s wrath and the taunts from Staifcairn. He ran into the woods behind the estate, legs pumping rapidly carrying him away on long youthful strides. Blood pounding in his ears as his breaths became quicker and deeper.

Behind him Staifcairn dipped his left hand in an arcane pattern and whispered a few subtle words of finding magick that would allow him to track his youngest brother. Then he approached to wake up that idiot, Hokket, or so he thought.

*****

Atriaxe was distracted out of his flashback by the familiar sounds of battle. Steel ringing on steel, the shrieks and cries of the wounded and dying and the powerful battle cry of a troll. He ran down the stairs and took them four at a time, running faster and faster, he shouldered the door open. Timber split and snapped as the door was wrenched of its hinges and Atriaxe emerged at the front of the fort.

The stench of fresh human entrails slammed into Axe, physically slowing his pace, and then he saw the soldiers of the fort, dressed in byrnie-chain, fighting the biggest troll he had ever seen. The troll was close to thirteen feet tall, thick dusky green scales covered its great wiry bulk, turning aside the frequent thrusts and slashes of the six remaining guards. In its left hand it held the torso of the captain, his sword arm still flailing at the beast’s ribs, and in its right hand it held what appeared to be a battering ram, eight bastard swords rammed through the iron reinforced head creating a very deadly looking mace. Around its feet were the smashed bodies of at least another six militias, but it was hard to be sure. The pieces strewn around the bloodied stones could easily be miscounted and Atriaxe did not have time to worry about that.

The troll was bellowing a single crude word, over and over as it smashed the soldiers darting around it, looking for way to wound the beast, into bloody grenades, sending limbs as shrapnel. The last soldier left alive frantically crying out for help as he leapt and rolled away from the huge trolls swings. The great mace ramming holes in the earth, each blow a basso collision of kinetic energy. The troll caught sight of Axe and pointed a huge finger the size of Axe’s meaty forearm at his face.

‘You!’ It bellowed in a crude semblance of the Ferromaine tongue. ‘I will end you!’ It roared.

Axe shuddered in fear as the troll took a huge stride towards him covering six of a normal mans paces. How could this beast recognise him - unless there was one clan member he did not find. Atriaxe reached for his holstered war-axe and tore it loose from the thick leather. Instantly it burst into blue-white flame, lightning dancing through the eldritch fire but motes of ice fell from the aura. Holding the fearsome weapon in one hand, Axe circled on the trolls off hand-side, biding time to remove his wall shield.

Time is always short in battle. The troll swung the mace in a lethal swooping arc, the blades hissing through the air with a malignant whispering. Axe frantically ducked almost smashing his face into the ground in the effort, the mace narrowly missing his head. The troll recovered quickly and swung a low backhand at Axes knees. He tried to leap back but the strength of the troll gave too much speed to the blow and one of the swords caught his thigh bursting the chain mail and ripping a large gash in his leg.

Axe reeled from the wound, his vision temporarily clouding from the pain, his leg throbbing in agony as warm sticky blood ran into his boot. Just managing to maintain consciousness Axe instinctively leapt deep to the left, the troll’s mace hammering into the ground where he stood a fraction of a heartbeat before. A great thump vibrated through the earth and Axe looked back to see the troll wrenching the mace from the clay beneath the topsoil. Seizing this opportunity Axe swung the burning war-axe in a wide powerful arc cleaving into the trolls exposed ribs. Bone and skin exploded in a sizzling cloud of gore, sticky black blood boiling