KnightofShadows
Knight of Shadows ~ Keeper of The Balance
Sant lay by the small cook fire, stretched out on a warm wool blanket. He was basking in the relative silence, listening intently to the few voices of the desert. The wind was low and quiet this night, only a vague whisper mounting now and again. The sky was clear and cloudless, and the stars were sparkling diamonds in the black void of night. The air was chilled, but no more than was the norm for a clear desert night in the Gallagon.
The only other sounds were the intermittent skittering of the low desert life, insects, and the tiny rodents hunting the barren sands for a morsel. Hoping they themselves would not be on the menu for the next ranking critter of the wild.
Even Rath was quiet, having settled into his night torpor, head tucked under wing and still, perched high up on the small ledge of the wall in the deep crescent shaped hollow that was their makeshift shelter, formed by the never idle collaborative hands of the wind and sand.
Quiet, serene, constant and peaceful. A fitting environment for a Ghost, he couldn't argue that.
He was unsure exactly of when he'd earned that name, but he recalled the first encounter that he'd heard the label used to describe him.
It was in the screams from the mouths of desert poaching vermin, as they scrambled away from the felled desert cat they had been in the midst of skinning. The legend had begun some 500 years ago, it was difficult to recall exactly, though more difficult to forget really.
He had seen fear in men before, all too often. However, this fear, was of a different flavor. The fear of the supernatural, and it was as he came to realize, often of a bowel loosening intensity for those with little fortitude.
Sant chuckled at the memory. So panicked were the poachers that for a moment he thought they had perceived some other more imminent danger than what he presented. After all they numbered five to his one. He had even pressed himself flat against the ledges canyon wall and scanned for what had spooked them. It wasn't for a moment that he realized, he posed the sole threat and that their terror was spawned by his having dropped his magical cloaked guise, making it appear as though coalescing from the very canyon wall.
The pause in his confusion had given the braver of the vagrants the stomach to arm themselves, and the whiz and skitter sound of a few wayward arrows struck the cliff wall and reverberated through the canyon with their shouts and curses. Sant had smiled and laughed to himself when the realization had struck that they for whatever reason had made him out to be more than what he was.
It was in that moment, he realized, that the untold years of his actions against the vile poaching scum such as this, that he had become just what they named him. He was Ghost of the Gallagon Desert...
It seemed, that over the generations since his patrolling of the Ghallagon had begun, the whispered tales of such encounters, whether spoken over ales in the Outland taverns, or around the campfires of the nomad tribes, had lead to the legend being born.
He had decided he liked the moniker, as he quickly came to realize the power it truly held.
He had done nothing other than let himself be glimpsed, and inspired a wholesale panic.
This he knew, was going to be fun...
He drew back from the cliff edge, and circled back down the edge of the canyon out of sight from the still shaken poachers. Then scanning the far side, he had taken a running start and launched himself, drawing on the spirit magic of the Desert Cat boots he wore.
They had been made for him centuries ago, by the Night Hag herself, when he was still a slave to her power. Before he had discovered the inner power of towering will inside him, and taken her head in celebration of its discovery.
The boots had been less a gift, and more a tool for her enforcer at the time. They were made with hide he had provided, but they represented the only such kill he had ever enacted, and he told himself, not a willing action of his own.
The leap carried him high across the gap of the narrow canyon, some thirty or more feet to a graceful landing on a small ledge on the far side, silent as a cat.
The move had placed him perfectly at the exposed backs of the poachers who were still craning their necks, trying to get a glimpse of a target whispering fearfully to one another in their guttural common.
Sant reached back, and drawing three finely fletched ironwood arrows, drove two lightly into the loose sand at his feet, notching the third in the same motion, and raising 'Crowfeeder' the savage Ironwood bow which was his birthright, sighted down and overdrew. He wanted this to hurt...
The release was fluid and the arrow struck home, right at the nape of the neck of one of the three poachers armed with bows with a sickening thud.
The second arrow found its mark in the heart of the next target, revealed as he had turned to face his screaming friend in panic, as he pitched forward, face into the sand thrashing.
The second of his victims dropped his bow, clutching at the black arrow protruding from his chest. His knees buckled and he collapsed backward to the ground screaming in fear.
The third bowman had spied him now, had drawn back full with a bead on him.
Sant stood firm, for he knew something the poacher did not.
It was in that moment, that a blur of black motion drove into the poachers back with raking talons, and the triumphant caw that Rath so mockingly keened.
The man flinched terribly, the shot went wide, and Rath climbed back into the sky with a few forceful flaps of his broad black wings cackling his staccato caw.
Sant's third shot found its mark as the man came out of his crouch, trying to recompose himself.
The shot took him in chest, and he staggered back two steps with the force of it, a low gurgling sound emanating from his lungs. Clutching at the arrow in pain, Sant met his eyes, watching the fear take him as he collapsed to the desert floor in the recognition of his death.
That was the end of it...
Sant had decided beforehand that two would live to tell the tale, to continue the spread of fear and word of their encounter, in hope of further discouraging such nefarious activities.
The two remaining men were already sprinting toward the canyons mouth before the last man had hit the ground. Wailing in fear they fled, without so much as a backward glance.
Sant slowly made his way down to the canyon floor, and gave a whistle of acknowledgement to Rath in both thanks, and a call to roost. "Rath was always good in the clutch", Sant mused "and without him I'd go mad out here by myself."
He doubted any of the three still had life in them, the Desert King scorpion venom should have seen to that by the time he made it down. Hard to stay alive when you're not breathing...
He would clean up the mess, and salvage what he could from both the carcass of the cat and whatever he might make use of, from the meager possessions of the damn fool poachers.
"Food for the crows, aye Rath?", "Let the legend grow!" Sant thought...
Sure... He had realized then, that the legend had evolved as naturally as from anything else that men encountered, of which they had no real understanding. They knew nothing other than fear, and he could imagine how that had come to pass. He had certainly done enough to inspire such, over the last few hundred years. Defending both the noble wildlife like the Desert Cats and other treasures of the vast sands of the Ghallagon, and the solitude and sanctity of what he called home.
The myth had developed, as most do, from the seeds of truth germinated with a strong pinch of imagination.
He couldn't stand poachers, driven by their greed and with no respect for the true majesty of the creatures they hunted. Their waste, their bravado and their stupidity. They came into his world, and brought chaos with them, trespassing through the Half-Giants domains and stirring up their anger and thirst for blood, leaving the spoils of their hunts with wasteful negligence and callous ignorance. They were too foolish to even be discreet about their efforts.
Sant disrupted their ranging every opportunity he had. He had made it his purpose, and he had certainly grown to need one, out here alone as the centuries passed.
He had avoided killing when there was no need, though he was not the least bit hesitant given any reason, to end their forays into his world with extreme prejudice...
It would have to be his mercy that had spawned this myth, and he was glad for it. It was certainly going to make his efforts easier, and with hope, it would lessen the losses of his fellow denizens of the sands, like the majestic Desert Cats.
They weren't the only treasures sought out here in the desolation of the whipping wind and stinging sand, but they were the most revered to him. Majestic creatures, apex predators with the all the tools and skills to ensure they remained so.
They were hunters extraordinaire, and to a Ranger such as he, a thing of beauty. Their speed across the sand was unmatched, their strength immense, and their ferocity to be feared.
There were few fool poachers who dared truly hunt them, at least not without numbers on their side. Most relied on traps and the bait of Desert Hare, another valued commodity for their pelts and their value as bait for the cats.
He was glad now, that he had let as many poachers escape as he had over the years, the guilt of it had been lessened in his heart.
It became a game for him from that day forward. He guessed it had always been so, but he was thankful now, that finally someone was keeping score...
Ghost of the Gallagon, umm... a lot. Poachers few, but always a few too many...
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