The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

The town of Rakaens was built on a butte on top of a ridge.

It dominated a small river valley studded with stone pillars, set against a backdrop of high snowy mountains.

The main attraction, for Krow, was the massive hanging bridge that was the main entrance to the town. The bridge was made by the living roots of a tree planted on the mountainside.

"Hookfig trees," Jamutaltei informed her niece and Krow, who was pacing their cart on a mule.

A caravan guard, on a mule.

Not even an old nag of a horse.

Not even a war mule.

Krow felt he could not hold up the name of a caravan guard like this, so he called himself the primary designated weapon-carrier instead.

After Gysavur's concerns, there was no way the others weren't armed.

The green-spine mule, according to the stableman in Cerkanst, was called Bluebeard.

It wasn't blue. It had no beard.

The draculkar refused to tell him the reason for the name, but said it was the best mule they had.

Krow bowed to his expertise.

"They were deliberately planted here for this specific purpose," Menrike's aunt continued, "The lord of Rakaens at the time, when Rakaens still had a lord, was aligned to the floral element. He wanted a bridge he could attack with."

Practical.

Krow nodded in appreciation. A floral-element-aligned high-level mage could easily hold enemies hostage on the living-root bridges, and use the trees themselves to protect the citizens.

Apart from the main bridge, there were other root-bridges radiating from the ridge the town was on toward some of the pillars. There were houses on top of the larger rock formations, and…a Temple?

They moved closer to Rakaens, and Krow saw the horizontally bisected circle, dark against the pale sandstone of the Temple doors.

It was the simple symbol of Pravdakyr of Destruction, the Truthseer. Pravdakyr was usually depicted as a golden dragon with closed eyes, blind.

The isolated nature of the Temple was now understandable.

Pravdakyr Temples were temples of judges and advocates. Not every town had one permanently and, from stories he heard, there were instances that the temples cropped up mysteriously in a town or village only to disappear after some time.

Presumably after solving some injustice or mystery or other.

They weren't very welcomed, mostly because the advocates of Pravdakyr would interpret the law creatively. And no matter what was fair, they searched for Truth above all, rather than simple justice.

For a temple of the Truthseer to seem rooted in Rakaens, said very interesting things about the history of the town.

The eight full farmer's carts from Cerkanst, pulled by a motley collection of mertail goats, white-dappled bulls, and a couple of dusky donkeys, clopped onto the massive woven-root bridge.

The deck of the bridge was surfaced in wooden planks – not living, disappointingly.

It was eight metres wide, in two parts. The first part of the bridge spanned the 80 metres from the mountainside to a pillar that held another hookfig tree, woven roots of two trees tangling together.

From that pillar the second part of the bridge reached toward a massive twenty-metre tall stone gate, well over a hundred metres away.

"Rakaens in a free town," murmured Jamutaltei, at her niece's question. "But it once held a great fortress. The Sun-gate and the Rosetower are all that remains of that stronghold."

It looked like it was Menrike's first time in the town as well.

Krow assumed the Rosetower was the single pale-colored crenellated tower that rose like a crowned sentinel on the butte, majestic, the other towers deliberately built lower on the formation to keep it in prominence.

The town was larger than both Karukorm and Baaturik, with eleven towers in all.

Krow hadn't realized earlier that it was a major town.

But now, from the traffic on the bridge alone…

If this wasn't a fantasy world, he'd be scared stiff imagining the weight of all those carriages and wagons on a hanging bridge.

Like most towns and villages he'd seen nearer the border of the draculkar nation, Rakaens had a proliferation of non-tower buildings.

A flash of motion caught his eye.

A form launched from a pillar in the valley below.

A galedrifter!

There was a whole stable – he recognized the platforms built into the pillar. His gaze lingered.

To fly again on a galedrifter, he couldn't wait.

"The pillars are carved," he noted in surprise.

Jamutaltei nodded. "The House of Darvalad was a prominent house, and the histories of its members are carved into the stone around the town."

"There are houses carved there too, aunt!"

Krow tapped his knee against the mule's flanks, to move closer to the woven rails of the bridge.

"Rakaens rules over the whole of the valley. This is the last major town in this area before the vargvir lowlands."

Menrike wrinkled her nose at her aunt's explanation. "That's why it's so defensible?"

Krow blinked, glanced briefly at the girl.

It was not an observation he expected a spoiled miss to make.

He knew the history between vargvir and draculkar to be contentious, but it appears the backstories were colorful enough that a child raised in a highland city, the capital and safest city no less, was taught enough to understand the need for defense in a borderland town?

They moved under the Sun-gate – the single opening was twice wider than the root-bridge. On the structure, above the entrance, were windows. Defenders could decimate any enemy fortunate enough to reach the gates, with dropping rocks alone.

Past the Sun-gate, the main market square was large, centered on a fountain topped with carved marble statues of two draculkar, male and female, armed and martial in demeanor.

Krow slowed the mule's pace, making certain the carts were all accounted for.

Huh, that was easy. Why can't horses be as easy to ride as a mule? He patted Blue's neck.

When he reached the last cart, he paced the speed of the carts again.

"We're going past the market," he noticed. "Are we not staying in the caravansaries there?"

Hulach, the owner of the field Krow destroyed while fighting a Silverstripe Tasseline Serpent, drove the last wagon.

At hearing Krow, he chuckled. "The village head has a friend in town who lends us a small courtyard every time we come by. It's safer than a spot in a large caravansary. We'll rest there for today and do business tomorrow."

Even though they started from Cerkanst at first light, it had taken eleven hours to reach the town. Sunset was only a few hours away.

To reach their accommodation, they had to traverse a smaller root-bridge to a pillar closer to the town than the others. It had a tower on the summit, surrounded by six or seven residential buildings, and stairs spiraling down the pillar to another set of houses and gardens below.

They entered one of the wooden gates to a large house, moving to a smaller courtyard on the side.

"Ah, Jamultaltei!" The moment the cart train was inside, a voice boomed from a doorway. "You have come again, I see, to enliven this old one's tedious days!"

"I am happy to be an enlivening point in your dreary retirement life, uncle," stated the draculkar woman in her usual reserved tones.

The draculkar laughed. "As usual, so polite! Why don't I have a daughter like you, eh? What do you say, leave that dour old prune's side and come live with your uncle!"

"I would be glad to."

"Really?" The old draculkar blinked.

"Provided you survive the inevitable fight to the death that will occur when father comes to claim kidnapping."

"Tchah! That humorless bore would really do it. " He eyed the younger draculkar woman, amused. "You'd do it too, being his daughter. Haha!"

"I'll thank you for the compliment, uncle."

"Oho?" He noticed Menrike looking at him with wide eyes. "And who is this?"

"My niece."

"And I also definitely do not want to live with you!" Menrike stated immediately.

"Menrike."

"Uh, but I will be flattered, I'm sure..." Menrike backtracked. "If ever you offer."

Krow tried not to laugh.

The host blinked, quivered, then bawled loudly and clutched at his heart. "Agh, the pain! Am I so irredeemable, cursed to never have a little girl descendant?"

Their welcome was warm.

The host immediately served spiced iced tea to all the twenty-three people who came to Rakaens, bid them all welcome with a booming voice.

Hulach nudged Krow. "You've not been to Rakaens before, yes? Look."

The stones of the Rosetower, bathed in the light of the sunset, glowed a pale red color delicately distinct against the vividness of the dying day.

Krow smiled, delighted.

Welcome to Rakaens.