His hair was long and gray, his beard not so long and still showing hints of the darker colors of his earlier years, and his great and thick mustache stood out most of all. He wore a tri-cornered cap, one he had fashioned, one that had been considered unique when he had fashioned it. Long and narrow, it trailed back from a roundpointed front to a flattened back that was just a bit wider than his head, and he kept a black feather along its right side, bent low to follow the line of the hat.
At one of Vanguard’s archery contests half a century before, one won by young Jameston, of course, the man had received more than a bit of teasing regarding his rather unusual cap-until, of course, he had explained that the pointed front allowed him to properly line up his shots. Within a few months, and to this day, the Jameston, as the hat was called, was quite common among Vanguard’s hunters, thereby adding to a legend that needed no enhancement.
It was said that he was of Alpinadoran descent, or mixed blood at least, but his long nose and protruding brow spoke of ancestors along the southeastern coast of Honce. His eyes were green, and his smile, though a bit snaggletoothed now, was infectious and strangely disarming, given the man’s imposing stature and often withering glare.
He was smiling now, as much out of curiosity as anything else. “This far north?” he asked himself (a not unusual occurrence) as he moved far enough down the side of one mountain to better view the combatants in the dell below, which included men, apparently Vanguardsmen.
Now more interested in the fight, which he had presumed to be another skirmish between the various troll or goblin tribes, Jameston quick-stepped closer, but to a higher perch with a better view.
His first instinct at that point was to charge right in, for a quick glance made him realize that the small group seemed sorely outnumbered and sure to be overwhelmed. Before he had taken a step, though, he understood that such impressions didn’t begin to tell this tale. The goblins, with a dozen lying dead already, were the ones in need of support.
Jameston drew Banewarren from his shoulder and set an arrow on its resting string as he watched the play. One man in particular, dressed in black from bandanna to boot, had the old scout nodding with approval. The man raced the length of the line, leaping and spinning, his thin sword cutting graceful and precise lines through the air and through the goblins alike. Wherever that man passed, goblins fell dead, and though an Abellican monk stood back from the action, ready to heal this man or any others who needed his magical services, Jameston doubted he’d expend much of his healing energy on this one.
A second, burlier figure crossed the black-clothed man’s wake as he rushed out to the far left of the human defensive formation, and Jameston smiled even wider. For this one, Vaughna por Lolone, he surely knew. “Crazy V,” he whispered, her nickname, and he laughed aloud as she lived up to it yet again, throwing herself with abandon into the midst of the goblins.
Jameston moved to find a better vantage point, testing the pull of Banewarren with every long stride.
Vaughna carried two iron hand axes as solidly as if they were extensions of her living arms. She punched out with her left, lifting the angle of the blow to clip a goblin forehead and jerk the creature’s head back. Her second hand came in fast at the exposed neck, but she had flipped her axe into the air, hitting the goblin’s exposed throat with her stiffened fingers instead.
As it staggered back gasping, Crazy V put her face right in front of the beast’s, opened wide her eyes and mouth, and screamed wildly. As she did, she blindly caught her descending axe, dropped her shoulders back, and delivered a chop into the goblin’s side, bending it over in pain.
Crazy V drove across with her left but brought it up short, evading the wounded creature’s flimsy defense. For she stepped out with her left as she swung and pivoted on that foot, bringing a trailing right-hand backhand all the way about to chop the goblin almost exactly across from the first serious wound.
Then she spun away as if to leave but turned about suddenly and unloaded a barrage of chops, left and right, on the creature, melting it into a pile of torn muck.
Blood-spattered and unbothered, Crazy V twirled about and sought her next target, and even took a step that way before an unusual, red-feathered arrow whipped into the goblin and sent it flying into a tree, where the arrow drove through and pinned the dead thing upright.
Crazy V’s face erupted in a gleeful look of recognition and she yelled again, just because. Only one man in this region was known for such fletching. She rushed off to find something to hit, because she knew that between this Highwayman and his sword and their newest arrival, there soon would be few remaining targets!
Bransen was careful that his dance did not venture too close to the ferocious Vaughna; he always took pains to avoid that one. It had nothing to do with his personal feelings, though the crass and crude woman often left him shaking his head. Rather, it was because her fighting style was so unpredictable, so out-of-control, it could interrupt the flow of his own, meticulous motions.
He stayed nearest to Brother Jond, both to ensure that the monk was free to continue his gemstone healing and the occasional magical offensive strike and because of the friendship they had forged in previous battles.
The remaining two members of the strike force, a middle-aged crusty old warrior named Crait and a redheaded young bull named Olconna, fell somewhere on the spectrum between Bransen and Vaughna. Neither could match his grace or her ferocity, but both performed an effective enough combination of the two.
Bransen, out of targets now that Vaughna had charged into the middle of the goblin line and had, predictably, broken it, sending goblins running every which way, paused and managed to glance over at Crait and Olconna, fighting side by side behind Brother Jond.
Crait dodged one blow coming in at his right, and moved so far to the left that it appeared as if he had opened himself up to a devastating spear thrust. But when the goblin took that opening, it found only Olconna’s shield, and the creature’s failure allowed Crait to fast-step forward behind his partner’s block and plunge his bronze short sword into the goblin’s chest.
Crait rolled to the left after the kill, sliding right in front of Olconna, his sword and shield slashing and bashing, but only as a ruse.
For he kept going and Olconna rushed into the void as he passed, and the goblin couldn’t refocus its attention fast enough.
Bransen nodded his admiration. These two had been fighting together for a long time now, and had made quite a name for themselves farther to the east and north, where the battles along the coast had been more scattered but no less fierce.
This one was over, at least, or soon to be, and Bransen leaped past Brother Jond and charged off Olconna’s right flank in fast pursuit of the now-fleeing onsters, hoping to get at least one more kill.
He managed two, and fast closed on a third when a red-fletched arrow beat him to the mark, throwing the goblin to the ground. Bransen looked around to spy the archer, but no one was in sight, and none of his friends, still back in the dell some twenty paces behind him, held any bows.
He finished the squirming goblin with a stroke to its neck, then rolled it enough so that he could push the beautifully crafted arrow right through. When he arrived back with his friends to present it, he found Brother Jond holding a similar one.
“Our day’s gone brighter,” Vaughna explained, in that voice of hers that always seemed to be on the edge of hysterical laughter.
“It is him?” Olconna asked, his voice thick with unabashed awe.
“Aye, that’d be the mark of Jameston,” Crait answered.
“Jameston Sequin,” Brother Jond explained to the obviously confused Bransen. “A hunter of great renown, who splits his time between Vanguard and Alpinador. It is said he knows the trails better than any man alive, and it will prove a fortunate turn for us if he is indeed about.”