6: Rash

Don't be rash.

Tadeo's words from earlier that morning echoed in Leiyn's mind. The lodgemaster had first said them to her five years before, when he'd pulled the moss-green ranger's cloak about her shoulders and officially initiated her into the Wilds Lodge. He'd repeated the advice often since, particularly before solo patrols.

No matter how often he said it, however, the lesson never seemed to stick.

Leiyn tried not to imagine what Tadeo would think of her as she crept to the cliff's edge and peered over. She'd timed her approach well: the Gasts were just entering the meadow below, and in a few minutes, they'd be directly beneath her with no cover but a few sparse pines. What little wind was present that day blew toward her, carrying her scent away from those she stalked. Behind her, the bright afternoon sun blazed down, ready to blind any who glanced her way. She hid in plain sight.

Leiyn grimaced and pushed away her mentor's warnings. I'll be as rash as I must. She had to be, for the good of all frontierfolk.

She had to do what Tadeo never would.

In one hand, she held her ash longbow. With a heavy draw weight, arrows shot from it would fly true over hundreds of feet, making it well-suited for picking off targets at a distance. It was the ideal tool for handling a company of warriors from a high vantage point.

If it comes to blood.

She had little doubt that these Gasts weren't a merchant caravan, but a war party. They were certainly dressed for it. Weapons hung from their saddles: javelins and hatchets and their iconic macuas, wooden cudgels fitted with obsidian shards that the natives wielded like swords. They wore armor, thick layers of leather and cloth, some of which had been adapted from the colonists but were painted in their traditional patterns of colorful spirals and waves. 

The Gasts rode their usual mounts. Axolto, or draconions to colonists like herself, were beasts twice the length of a woman and formidable in girth. From all Leiyn had heard, they originated from the parched plateaus on the far side of the Silvertusk Sierra. The draconions' rough skin, ridged and hard as copper, came in striped and spotted patterns of sand-orange, night-black, and sun-yellow. The crests upon their heads showed more variety, the vibrant colors ranging from sea-blue to blood-red. Spines erupted along their backs and tails, though presently most were lying flat, as draconions only raised them when threatened. Where their riders sat was a curious absence of spines, as if they'd been bred out over centuries of domestication. Though their natural protections seemed sufficient, some of the Gasts had further adorned the massive lizards with armor of bones, some from creatures Leiyn could only guess at.

She recognized the symbol of a darkly hued cat painted over the chests of many of the Gasts. Jaguars. Rumors of run-ins with the tribe came to mind. The Jaguars were held to be responsible for some of the worst raids the Titan Wilds had ever seen. Countless skirmishes, many of them fought by rangers before Leiyn's time, had plagued the Lodge's early years. And just five years prior, they'd been accused of the Rache massacre, the butchery of an entire extended family of colonists. Though rangers had pursued the perpetrators, none had been caught, and no Jaguar had been seen since.

Leiyn gripped her bow tighter, chest warming with anticipation. After twenty-five years, the time to claim vengeance had come.

The Gasts numbered just under two dozen, and encompassed both men and women, some old and graying, others so young they were but smooth-faced boys and narrow-hipped girls. At the sight of such ill-suited people to a war party, she questioned if her rapid assessment was accurate. Was this truly a war party or did she only wish it to be?

They're here to kill. They must be. They were Jaguars carrying weapons and wearing armor. She didn't know all the barbaric ways of the Gasts; perhaps people of any age participated in their bloody raids.

The man who rode at their fore—their chieftain, she presumed—was the surest sign of their ill intent. He was powerfully built, arms heavy with muscle, and a neck thick enough that Leiyn doubted even a bear could break it. His head was shaved, putting on display the spring-leaf green tattoos that covered all of the exposed skin on his face and arms. His draconion, in contrast to the others, was completely black, and he rode the beast with the confident slouch of a hunter in his territory. 

I am the hunter here, Leiyn promised the Gast, a cold wrath burning through her.

Just behind the chieftain rode a much older and frailer man. Even if his position in the procession didn't clue her into his role, his garb and staff certainly did. The elder was a shaman, a witch among the natives. Her lips pulled back in a silent snarl. Shamans were responsible for many a Baltesian's death. During the last war between their peoples, shamans had roused the titans and drove them against the colonists and their cities. One fortress, Breakbay, still lay in ruins, the lingering titans making it too dangerous to approach, much less resettle.

She ground her hand against her bow's grip, wishing it were the skinny man's neck instead of wood and leather. Yet another part of her quailed at his presence. She drew in the edges of her secret shame, the mahia she'd been cursed with since birth, and hoped it would be enough to keep her hidden. She resented how little she knew of the witchery she shared with the shaman, and hated it all the more for the fear it stirred within her.

Shamans had taken everything from her. This day promised to be her chance to even that score, if she seized it.

The Gasts were nearing her position; it was time to ready her trap. Drawing back from the edge, she withdrew a broadhead arrow from the quiver at her hip and nocked it. She knew better than to draw yet, for another of Tadeo's oft-repeated lessons echoed in her mind: Never draw unless you mean to shoot. She might have over twenty shots to take. She couldn't afford to waste energy on an amateur error.

Their voices echoed up the bluff. The thrill of the hunt coursed through her, and hunger for vengeance came with it.

Don't be rash.

Wracked with battling emotions, Leiyn sought the calm of her years of training and stood, raising her bow to the ready. Though she hated to speak their language, she shouted down at those below in the Gast commontongue.

"None of you move!"

The Gasts jerked around, crying out in confusion. Their draconions raised their spines and flashed their crests up at her as they startled. Only their chieftain didn't seem surprised as he slowly raised his head toward her. He squinted as he stared up, the sun behind her blinding, just as she'd planned.

"Ranger," the Gast called up to her in Ilberish. "I expected your kind earlier." He spoke her people's tongue well, with only the barest accent. His voice was harsh, as if he'd smoked a pipe since he was a babe.

Leiyn ignored him as she coolly observed the rest of his company, ensuring none had split off to flank her. Forty feet above them, it would take a while to find a way around, but even the slightest mistake could spell her death now.

"What's your name, Gast?" she called down, relenting to using her own speech.

"I am Toa Acalan."

"You are traveling unlawfully through Ilberian lands, Chief Acalan. By your dress, you come with violent intent. Unless you have documentation legitimizing your travel, you and your people's lives are forfeit."

She prayed to the Saints and the wild spirits that they wouldn't have a writ. It seemed impossible that they could. The governor would never allow a Gast war party into Baltesia. A single native could travel without documentation so long as they soon visited an official, and even a family might be permitted through. But a score of Jaguars in a band, armed and riding their volatile mounts, promised too much death for her to allow them past.

"No need to draw that bow, Ranger," the Gast chieftain called up in his grating voice. "I am retrieving your paper."

The urge to riddle him with arrows almost overcame Leiyn as he leaned over and reached into one of his satchels. It was too small to hide the hornbows Gasts were famous for, but she still didn't trust his swift acquiescence. She kept a careful watch on the others, but none of the party seemed to be edging away or moving for their weapons. By all appearances, they were submitting to her authority.

The chieftain spoke as he ruffled through the bag. "Our peoples need not be suspicious of one another any longer. It has been over sixty years since the war."

"And yet your kind keeps raiding and killing mine." 

The Jaguar chieftain only glanced up in response, then straightened. In his hand, he held a piece of paper that rustled with the wind. 

"Here is the writ. Would you like me to go up there to show you, or will you come down here?"

Leiyn's bow gave her answer.

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