Garon Greenleaf

Garon Greenleaf
By Andrew Masonj

I track my quarry with unerring accuracy. He blunders about the woods in search of game, unaware that I am near him. He’s hunting to provide food for his family back in Brightwater, and being hunted for sport. I warned them that Orcs were in the area. I told them there was a small raiding party down from the mountains. I told them that I would try to defend them, to fulfill my sworn duties as a protector. The time has come. I set an arrow on my string and draw it back to my cheek. I take a deep breath, and before I let it out two arrows have found their marks. I told them they would be safe, but now two arrows of Orcish make are buried in a man who sought only to provide for his family.

I lied.

Life as a Ranger has been good for me, ever so good. I am a friend of the wild, a bane to Orcs, and I kill when I please. Or rather, Orc raiding parties kill. They sneak down from their mountain holes and brutally hack apart their victims with crude bladed weapons, taking trophies and carving the sign of their barbaric God, Gruumsh One-Eye, into their victims. No one’s ever seen any sign of them but me, but no one thinks to question that, for where the stockade ends I am master now. There was another, a man named Lightfoot who was my master. He taught me about the long history of Orc raids around our town of Brightwater. He taught me to track, and shoot, and move silently through the woods. He taught me the Orcish language so that I could communicate with prisoners and read what was written by the few truly literate Orcs. He taught me to recognize the sign of the Orc God Gruumsh. He died with a punching dagger through the throat once I had learned enough of the Ranger life.

I wailed like a child at his funeral. Poor Lightfoot! With him at last fallen to the villainy of the Orcs, I was the only Ranger for miles. With him gone, no one in Brightwater could contradict me. On the trails and in the deep woods in between, my word was law.

. . . .

Nobody knows much about me. They know that I am a Ranger, and good at my job. They also know, or rather assume, that I am a good and kind man. In truth, they’re not far from the mark. I am at my core a good person, and I show kindness to all who deserve it. Its just that so few people are deserving. Its true as well that I do occasionally harvest a member of the community I am sworn to protect, but even that’s a service. There are simply members of any community that do a more competent job as worm fodder than as consumers of air.


And even among the undeserving masses of Brightwater, I recognize that there are those less deserving than others. Like Orcs. One long winter during a particularly tough raid on Brighwater I stood atop the battlements for 24 hours straight launching arrows at Orcs. Many thought it was because I hated Orcs. And I do. What they fail to realize is that I hate most humans for their ineptitude just as much as I hate the Orcs for their savagery.

For the longest time I thought that as I had been born in Brightwater, so would I die in Brightwater. I was happy doing my jobs as protector and cullmaster. It has been said that mortals suppose and fate disposes. So it was with me.

“Garon! Ye must come! Something terrible’s happened!” This from our local “boy who cried Orc”. He was near the top of my list of people who needed to cease breathing sooner rather than later.

“Now slow down there, Roderick. Please just tell me what has gone wrong so that I know how best to help.”

“Its Matt Hampstead! He’s mad! Gone and killed them all. His wife, his little boy, even the baby girl!”

This was unexpected. I made a mental note that if there was anything less than a slaughter Roderick would move to the top of my targets of opportunity, and if he was telling the truth he’d get moved down a few slots. I am just.

“Well, this certainly sounds like something that needs my attention. But if I have to shoot, and I hope I don’t, I’ll need that arm. Kindly refrain from pulling it off my shoulder.”

I have killed in cold blood. I have seen predation in the wild and been a predator among men myself. What I saw still shocked me. Matt was covered in blood from the neck of his shirt to the soles of his boots, carrying a long knife that I presumed to be the murder weapon. He was calmly piling corpses in his front yard. Just as Roderick said, there was his whole family. On the bottom was the largest corpse, which must be his wife, on top a smaller one which must be his son, and he was just laying a tiny one that must be his baby girl on top. Like he was putting her in her crib. Only she was dead. Very.

First came shock, then disgust. Blood lust was one thing, that I could understand. How anyone could be so sloppy as to display their handiwork was something I couldn’t. And the children! The girl was obviously too young for there to be any surety about whether or not she was worthy of continued existence, and the boy, the boy had been studied by me and deemed worthy of his daily allotment of air, water, and food. He disgusted me, but Matt couldn’t be killed now. He had a lot to answer for. But if he could be made to answer first, and made to attack me later...

“Matt! What have you done?! Why would you do this to innocents?!”

Hearing this, Matt turns around and throws me a bow. “Garon! The Ranger what’s too good for the rest of us is come to help me clean up. Y’like what I’ve done so far? Not so neat as your work, but I got less need to stay quiet about it, this being a borrowed body. If you like, come seek me in the woods. I’ll be in that clearing where the Orcs got that poor man from the village not long ago.” Having said that, Matt shoved the knife up under his sternum to the hilt and pulled it out again. “Missed me heart on that one. Ah, there it is! See you soon, Garon!”

And so he fell dead.

“Garon! What was that about? Did you understand a lick of what he was saying just then?” Asked the mayor of our small town, a man who trusted me implicitly and did his job competently. Thus far these qualities had kept him off my cull list. The next few minutes would determine whether or not he stayed off it.

“There can be no question that the man was mad. He seemed to think that his body was borrowed, that the force controlling his actions was hiding itself away in the woods. Likely it was just insane rambling, but we cannot ignore the possibility that there was a grain of truth. I’ll go, and if something lurks in the darkness, I’ll find it and bring you its head.”

“Go then, and Gods speed you. One atrocity like this is bad, but if the creature who did this still lives...the thought stills my heart. And be careful! Few’s the man or beast that can surprise you, but there are some..”

And so it was that Cyric Sharp, Mayor of Brightwater made it onto my cull list. Very near the bottom. He seemed to be ignorant of any incriminating statements made in the last moments of Matt Hampstead’s life, but once there is the slightest doubt about whether or not a man will threaten your work, you must prepare yourself to kill him. It is only prudent.

Five minutes later I was walking out the town gates, headed toward the place where my last victim was efficiently slain and brutally hacked apart. By Orcs of course. I wondered how this unknown quantity that had so effortlessly pushed a basically good man to murder and then suicide knew of my other profession. Was he a Ranger like me? A Druid who watched me in animal form?

Lost in my musing, I didn’t realize that I had come to my destination until I felt a dagger at my throat.

“Ah! Good! So good of you to join me! I’ve looked forward to your little visit to a humble agent of disease for so long! I’ve admired your work! Cunning, so very cunning it all is. And with your honed senses and woodland mastery you’ve eluded not only capture but suspicion. Except by me. Rangers are sneaks, yes. But nobody sneaks like a sneakthief, and I am a master smirking sneakthief indeed!. So cunning blaming it all on the Orcs!”

“Charming. Before we continue, could you remove your blade from my throat?”

“Oh. That. Most unkind of me! There, now let us speak face to face. You, I know are Garon. You may call me Gout.”

In all the years since I killed Lightfoot I had never been bested in the woods. Seeing this “Gout” did not make me feel better about it. He was a late middle aged man, bent at the shoulders over his blade, skin thin to transparency and parchment white in some places, calloused and red in others. He was dressed in rags that looked like they had been stripped from diseased peasants, and smelled even worse than they looked.. The only thing that kept him from immediate destruction was that he had done to Matt Hampstead. I had to know how that worked.

“Put off by my appearance are we? Oh, these clothes might not look like much, but they’ll turn a dagger blade, never you doubt. One of the fringe benefits of being a practitioner of my particular magical profession. I’m sure you’re intrigued! Dressing in rags as a benefit! Looking like a plague victim is also a benefit! Each symptom you see is a weapon in my arsenal. Right now at my disposal I have ringworm, 23 varieties of cold, a nose infection, a few minor plagues, and a truly nasty one. Perhaps you’ve heard of cholera? A nasty death indeed! Causes the bowels to run like water until you’re a dessicated husk! Now, you’ve seen me and you’ve seen what I did to Matt Hampstead. I have brought you here to offer my services as a teacher. I see great potential in you, and I’d like to offer you the chance to kill in a way no one will ever suspect. Through disease!”

Having heard what he had to say, I stepped back, put an arrow on my string, and pulled it back to my cheek. “I’m sorry, but I came here to find out about Matt Hampstead. Kindly tell me what exactly happened there, and I might let you continue breathing. Best be quick about it though, I don’t know how long I can hold this string.”

“Oh, I was right about you! You’re even more cold than I had thought possible! But about Matt, the village man! He’s not a murderer! Oh yes, I know you saw the bodies, but I know the truth. I had control of him, and its possible I could have made him kill his family, but instead I merely told him to sleep while I did it! He woke up, all bloodstained and bleary with a bloody knife in his hands. And I told him that he did it! Oh it was beautiful! I got the pleasure of killing his darling family, and I got to make him believe he did it! All the demons in all the hells could torture him for eternity and he’d swear it was him!”

This was a control, a level of power I had never dreamed of. To take control of another’s mind...I had heard such things were possible, but now I had seen it. “And you say I could become a magic user like you, a cancer mage?”

“Oh yes my dear boy! That’s why I’ve come here! I am getting older, you see, and I’d like a legacy! Generation upon generation of mages dedicated to the spread of disease, poison and corruption. A family tree whose goal it is to wipe out entire forests of family trees. Ah, the carnage, boy, think of the carnage!”

I had suspected before, but now I knew. This man was not stable enough to be allowed his allotment of air for much longer. But he did have something I desired. The power to weed the community of Brightwater without resorting to overt violence. “Very well then, I will accept what you offer me. When do we start?”

“Oh, that’s the best part, my young student! We’ve already started! The moment we met I gave you a disease! For to control disease, you must first be ravaged by a disease! I gave you something that won’t kill you, oh but for a few days you’ll wish you were dead! Off you go then! Come see me here when you’re ready, I’ve made my home in that cave over there!”

So I went. Leaving the clearing, my nose began to run. By the time I reached the stockade it had stopped, but I could feel the pressure building. Right outside the town gates I hocked and spat, ejecting a green chestnut streaked with blood. The mage had given me his nose infection.

The first thing I did when I got into town was to tell the mayor what was going on. He liked to be kept informed because he dreamt himself my superior. “I found a cave that looks like it holds the answers we seek. I know not whether its man or Orc that lives there, but whoever it is cursed me with a sickness and it will be a few days before I can go back out.”

For a solid week I sneezed and it set off explosions in my skull, I could hardly breathe during the day, and I was up at least 3 times a night hacking up blood and gunk. But at the same time I was busy. Gout needed to be taken care of, and I knew how. I never left the house while I was sick, just planned my next encounter with Gout and built traps. Finally, one day I coughed up a green gob that was just a little smaller than my fist, and I knew I was getting better. The day after I went to see Gout.

“Ah! Good! Good to see you! I was watching you, and oh, you were miserable! The hacking, the spitting...what was it you were working on, hmmm? Little trap? Trapping a bear are you?”

“A man, actually. How did you know about that?”

“That disease was a friend of mine! He talked to me! Let me know how you were and what you were doing! Oh every time you hacked and spat, I knew how big the lump was! And all the time...focused on a goal. You must be quite persistent indeed! Now..about the rest of your indoctrination...Tell me, have you ever been bitten by a poisonous creature?”

“Many times. Never had one do me harm though. I took small doses of all the local venoms until none could affect me. Why?”

“Oh my, dear boy. I’m, afraid you’re about to get very uncomfortable! You must have SUFFERED from a poison if you wish to inflict that suffering on others. Just take my hand for a moment.” I did not trust Gout, but he was offering me the hand he used to wield his dagger, and so I clasped it with my right while my left slid to the hilt of my hunting knife, concealed in my vest. I knew that if he moved he would breathe his last before he got his chance to strike.

“Oh, dear boy, how slowly you learn! You’ve seen what I can do! You know I’m a master smirking sneakthief! And you seek to stab me! A gift for your impudence!”

His hand remained cold, but mine began to burn and shake uncontrollably. The tremors moved up my arm, to my shoulder. They reached my head, and the ground lurched toward me. There was a sharp pain in my side, “And a kick to make the poison stick!” The last thing I heard was Gout’s uncontrolled laughter..

I woke up covered in mildewed blankets, conscious of my incredible pain and a layer of filth on my skin that felt 6 inches thick.

“Oh good! Good! The sleeper wakes! I do apologize for that, but it IS something that had to be done. So glad to see you’re getting better! For a while there I was afraid I’d have to find a new first apprentice!”

As I slipped beneath consciousness again, I thought of game on foot, and I smiled.

The next time I woke up I was still filthy, but this time I was ravenous and parched as well. Gout was as happy as ever. “Glad to see you awake again! Its been a tense few days, yes it has! After you woke the first time I knew you wouldn’t die. Question was whether or not you’d ever wake up again. I had it all planned out !Had you remained asleep, you would have been my puppet! With no will of your own, you would have made a versatile puppet indeed! But you’re awake, and I suppose that’s even better! A puppet is good, but an apprentice is so much more interesting! A puppet never would have thought to try and stab me!”

“About that...I was only being cautious. Our relationship thus far hasn’t been one to inspire friendship. You started by slaughtering a family I deemed worthy of continued life, then sickened me, and then you nearly killed me. Such things tend to make me keep weapons near to hand.”

“Cautious! Prepares to stab me, and calls it CAUTIOUS! Oh, dear boy, that is hilarious! Look what “caution” has got you! Oh, you can tell me all you want about how you were just going to DEFEND yourself, oh but I know different! I know what a killer’s eyes look like, and you were ready to kill old Gout! Foolish! Foolish in the extreme to think you could get an advantage on me!”

“So it would seem. Rest assured I shall not make that mistake again. You are my obvious superior.” At least half of that was true.

“Yes, so I am. Now, you must be hungry! The brink of death is a hungry place after all, and you haven’t eaten in a few days now. Oh, I’ve been forcing some water on you, but asking an unconscious man to eat is a good way to kill him. And so uninteresting! Yes, if I had wanted that I would have poisoned you some more. Or planted my dagger in your heart! What a joy that is, to thrust right between the ribs and into the heart and watch the light...oh but I digress. Here, I have water and iron rations. If you want better food, feel free to catch it. I hunt human exceptionally well, but deer not so much.”

I ate, and slept, and the next morning Gout woke me.

“Wake up! The time has come to train! You must learn the ways of the Cancer Mage! Or...I could kill you now. Come to think of it I love the idea of having a new cancer mage around, but it has been such a dreadfully long time since I killed. Tell me, dear boy, which do you prefer?”

I sat up on my bedroll. “Let us train. I have not suffered your impudence, your disease, and your” and then everything went black.

When I woke up, Gout was crouching in front of me, holding something wrapped in leather. My head felt like it would burst.

“This is what we call a sap. It’s a leather sack filled with sand. Oh, it doesn’t look like much, but this is what I used for your little lesson in respect. Always with the sap, you have to strike precisely, and while your opponent isn’t looking. That’s the first lesson of the cancer mage: You must be able to strike silently and with deadly acuuracy. Tell me, dear boy, where would I strike with a sap to incapacitate my opponent? We know of the head, but where else?”

“The genitals I suppose. That will drop your opponent.”

“Pitiful! Is that truly the best you can do? You have been killing as a hobby for how many years? And you tell me something any six year old could come up with! For shame! Give me something better or I shall geld you myself right now!”

He began advancing, slowly. I knew that I couldn’t evade him for long being tangled in blankets on the floor. Fortunately for me, fear is an excellent motivator. “The knee! Back of the knee! Opens them up to further attack on points higher!”

Gout slowed further , but didn’t stop. “Good. Give me more if you ever wish to have heirs.”

“The side! Between the top of the hip and the bottom of the rib cage! No bones there to absorb the strength of a blow!”

This time Gout did stop and sheathe his knife. “Excellent, dear boy. It seems you shall remain a boy after all. When you strike that area, what you’re hitting are the kidneys. Don’t know what they do, oh but the pain you get from a victim by striking there is exquisite! And unless they’re armored, they’ll fall prone, which is where the fun really begins! Another good area to hit is the neck. Strike it just right, and your opponent will be unable to move, but still awake. I cannot begin to describe the joys that inspires!”

For the rest of that day we spoke of body structures as they relate to killing. I knew before that any weapon to the chest was likely to kill in a few minutes and that any sharp weapon to the belly was likely to kill in a few days, but Gout showed me a whole new world of possibilities in the incapacitation and killing of people. Better yet, having butchered animals for food and people for sport since I was a child I knew that much of what he was telling me could be applied beasts as well as humans, animals as well as humanoids.

For dinner, Gout had me catch and prepare two rabbits, insisting that I stalk and kill them as if they were human prey, using only my hunting knife. Rabbits are naturally fleet of foot and alert, so you’ll only ever get one chance on a rabbit’s life, but when you can kill in one stroke all you need is one chance. The first two got away, but where there are two intelligent enough to run, there are more too stupid to see danger coming. Just like with humans. And just like with humans, those undeserving of life found themselves gutted. Of course I don’t eat human. After all, I AM civilized.

Normally, Gout couldn’t seem to shut up, but since the lesson on attacking vulnerable anatomy, he had been unusually withdrawn. After we disposed of the remains from dinner he finally broke the silence. “Now, dear boy, comes the critical moment. I have a friend I’d like you to meet.” Upon saying these words, an oily black tentacle shot through the rags over Gout’s stomach. “Ah, there you are, Sweet Poison! Say hello to the man!” Before I knew it the tentacle shot toward me and buried itself right below my ribcage. “Good! Sweet poison likes you! Oh, dear boy, you really are lucky for he has a mind of his own and could have killed you at any time! I find it exhilarating to have a friend within me who can kill on a whim! And so shall you! For Sweet here has just given you a seed which will in time grow into a friend of your very own! Oh, the fun you two shall have!”

The force of the impact knocked me off the back of the log I had been sitting on. I stared up at the moonlit sky, feeling a slight pulsing sensation in where the tentacle had struck me. It couldn’t be. What I felt was just the throbbing sensation that can follow any wound. In fact, there was no tentacle. Gout had pushed me. Or maybe used that damnable sap again. Felt so tired...knew I was going to pass out soon...and I knew at my core that a seed had been planted and my life was forever changed.

I awoke in the morning, soaked through with dew and chilled to the bone, sore from passing out sprawled on rocky ground. I got up and stretched, and went to find Gout. Very soon I would have all I needed. I found him just inside the entrance to the cave, sharpening his dagger. “Ah, good! Our dear boy has gone to sleep a ranger and wakened a Cancer Mage! Hail to thee, o maggot of disease! Oh, so very soon I’ll give you your very first diseases, the very first venom in your stinger! How wonderful it will be to see you kill for the very first time with your very own disease!” With this he grabbed my forearm. “Here! Take this! And this one! This is your final test, maggot. I will give you every disease I can grant this day, and if you sicken you are no maggot of mine, just another dear dandy boy Ranger playing at disease! And oh, the joys of cholera! With that you shall destroy cities if you are a maggot true! Or at least the slums of cities...damned Clerics and Paladins keep those who can pay healthy...oh but this disease, and this one, and every other disease I’ve just exposed you to will kill the wealthy and the poor, healthy and sick, holy and unholy, for you see my maggot death claims us all eventually and disease is death’s top sneakthief! And there you have it my maggot! Every disease I can grant you this day I have.”

With that, Gout fell to his knees, gasping and panting for breath, and I stood transfixed. Gout told me that he had just given me many diseases, and I knew he had. I could feel them coursing through the very fiber of my being, and it was exhilarating. In my mind’s eye I saw the carnage I could inflict and knew that it was good. Disease sang a sweet song in my soul and I saw the weak and the stupid falling like cows before a butcher’s sledgehammer. I saw vast power just waiting to be grabbed.

And I saw that the time was at hand.

A minute later the new diseases I had acquired were murmuring contentedly in the pit of my being, and Gout had recovered from his exertions. “Dear Gout! Master! I am your maggot indeed! You have shared so much with me, and I feel I must share with you. As I hunted for our dinner last night, let me hunt for our pleasure today. I know of a village man who will be out right now cutting wood. Likely using the flat side of the ax too. Taking him won’t be hard and it will be one less dullard in the world. Come, we must move quickly if we’re to have him properly marked by Gruumsh One Eye!”

I knew that between the blatant subservience and the promise of fresh blood Gout would come with me. We set off with me leading and Gout not far behind, both of us gliding through the forest with not so much as a sound. I gambled on him showing me some deference in my home territory, and as usual I won. When we neared our target area, I signaled a stop and conferred with my associate.

“There’s a clearing just ahead where our man cuts wood. I suggest we separate. I’ll go straight ahead this way, and you circle around behind that largish tree over there and head straight for the clearing from there. I’ll cover your attack with my bow, you take him, and I’ll arrange for his death by Orcish raiders.”

With that, Gout hissed a “Yessss” and moved toward the tree I had indicated. As soon as he was away, I started towards my target. As he was rounding the tree, things went wrong for him. There was a tripline buried in leaves and dirt, and when he stepped on it, tension was released from skeins of rope buried in a small pit, burying a spiked board in Gout’s back. The force slammed him to the forest floor, knocking the wind out of him. An arrow in the back of the neck and another in his left lung made sure the wind never came back.

As the light left his eyes, I lifted Gout’s head by the hair and slit his throat. Though dead, he still bled considerably. I then began sawing through windpipe and tendon, muscle and bone until the head came free of the body. I had promised Cyric Sharpe the head of the force responsible, and I would deliver. Once that was done, I would go on an expedition to the mountain holes of the Orcs. Harvesting humans was something that required a light touch, all must be judged properly before one is selected for a new career as worm’s food. With Orcs I could push my newfound abilities to their limits without fear of harming one who was worthy of life. Sweet disease sang in my veins, and I would share my new gifts freely with my enemies to advance my own power.