Heart of a Huntsman

by Liam Reese

  Pain flared in Keluse’s chest, a deep ache that made her feel sick when she said that. Ranyor waded through the waist-deep water and climbed up the bank, stripping water from his body with his hands. Keluse felt her eyes crawl over his body as he stood before her, utterly naked.

  “Really?” Ranyor asked, his tone skeptical.

  “Yes! Most of them were giving you little looks, invitations. Don’t tell me you don’t see them!” Keluse shouted.

  “There is only one woman I see,” Ranyor replied calmly. “She sits before me, beautiful and proud.”

  Tears rolled down Keluse’s face then. Hot and unstoppable. She hugged her knees, rocking as she sobbed. She felt Ranyor’s strong arms around her and leaned into him.

  “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I don’t mean to be jealous, but when I saw her... I mean, she’s all curves and breasts...and what am I in comparison?”

  “Everything I have ever wanted,” he said simply.

  Keluse stared into his eyes, her own tear-reddened and wet, astonished at his words.

  “Why?” she asked. “I don’t look like them. I’m more like a boy than a woman!”

  “I recall a bathtub in which you were a woman,” he said, rubbing her back. “I dreamed of your silken hair and smooth skin every night after that. I loved you from the first, even in Gravistard when I coaxed you from beneath that hill,” he laughed. “Do you recall? You told Morcath and I to surrender as you were coming out?”

  Keluse smiled, her mood lightening a little.

  “Yes, then Besmir shot you,” she said, reaching to touch the puckered arrow wound in his chest.

  Her thoughts turned to Besmir, laid low in his tent, and tears threatened again.

  “What’s going to happen?” she asked. “To Besmir? To us?”

  “I cannot say what Besmir’s fate may be,” Ranyor said. “As for us, our children will be beautiful beyond imagining.” He grinned at her look of surprise. “And rich also. We shall have a long, happy life filled with grandchildren who love us.”

  “You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, haven’t you?”

  “Maybe,” Ranyor said, smirking at her. “How does it sound?”

  “Perfect,” Keluse whispered as her lips found his.

  16

  Even the wind cut into him as his eyes fluttered open. Biting, acid grit rasped over his skin, burning and cutting in equal measure. A thousand needle points pierced his back from the ground. Sky the color of complete depression, starless despite the lack of sun, stretched across his vision and he sat up, looking around in horrified shock at his surroundings.

  What looked to be a field of ash stretched as far as he could see, crystals glinting in the light that came from an unknown source. Blank and featureless with neither tree, hill nor building to be seen, Besmir turned a slow circle to see if he could detect anything at all.

  Pain rippled up his arms as the hostile wind scoured at his body, and he held his hands up to shield his eyes. Shock chilled his whole system when he saw they were a translucent grey color.

  “What…?” His voice sounded hollow and weak in the savage air.

  He looked around, searching desperately for someone, anyone to help him, but the bleak, blank grey revealed nothing. Every step sent waves of agony up through his feet, the needle-sharp ground, like broken glass, shredding the skin. When he looked, however, his ghostly skin remained intact. He could feel pain without injury.

  Trudging through the ashen horror with the very elements ripping at him, Besmir felt panic grabbing at him. What had happened? Was this the afterlife, or some torture Tiernon had conjured? Why was he here?

  He remembered taking over the stag, hurling it at the battlemage as he had done with the birds and rats. A rain of objects had been thrown at him too, people from the tent town doing anything to protect themselves. Then the jarring shock as his antlers had slammed into Tiernon and the satisfying crunch as something gave inside his uncle. Besmir had thrown his head, tossing the king up in the air, released his hold on the stag...then woken here.

  Acid grit sawed at his naked flesh, and a moan of pure anguish left him as he trudged over the broken glass ground, not knowing if he would ever find anything or anyone else.

  It did not matter if he folded his arms; the wind managed to reach every part of him, grinding against his flesh relentlessly. It ripped at his eyes, scoured his nose and throat, burned within his lungs, turning him into a throbbing mass of pain. Every step sent ice-cold needles of agony shooting through his feet and legs, driving him towards the edge of madness.

  Time stretched out as he trudged through the endless grey, directionless and without hope of any kind. Nothing changed. Day and night remained the same colorless, dull grey, featureless and lifeless as far as his eyes could see.

  Weariness tugged at him, but there would be no sleep in this hostile place without some kind of shelter, so Besmir concentrated on putting one foot before the other, his head down to keep the air from ripping at his eyes.

  After what may have been minutes or centuries, Besmir noticed the ground had sloped upwards a little, a slight incline he was now climbing. He looked up to see an immense hill rising before him, occupying the whole of his vision and climbing into the miserable sky. Despair ripped at him as he began to climb, stumbling as the gradient increased until he was forced to crawl. The ground stabbed into his palms and his knees when he fell, sending savage jolts of agony up his arms now too.

  His life became an endless toil of climbing this hill in relentless, searing agony. Throbbing, burning pain tore at every piece of him constantly, and his screams rolled dully over the uncaring landscape as he toiled.

  The summit revealed itself to be exactly the same as the rest of this place: flat, grey and featureless apart from a finger of rock that exploded skywards in the distance. With no other option, he stumbled on towards the monolith, hoping someone else might have made their way towards it.

  Time became meaningless, blurring as he made his way over the needle-sharp ground towards the rock. As he neared the thing, Besmir’s eyes picked out shapes in the distance: pale, dull things that circled the base of the tower endlessly, looking similar to himself.

  It was not until Besmir had drawn nearer to them that he realized they were nothing like him. They were twisted, vile things, malformed and skewed horribly. Besmir wondered if they had changed due to the exposure here, but dismissed it, as these things were obviously not human.

  Trunk-thick legs supported a body that looked almost square, with numerous appendages that might have been arms, tentacles or wings, for all Besmir knew. Blunt heads lifted to sniff the air, baying when they caught his scent. As one they turned blind eyes on Besmir, screaming and ravening as they started a charge at him.

  They flowed from around the pillar, from holes in the ground and caves in the bottom of the rock finger, boiling from the landscape like ants from a nest. Each had a loping gait, using their odd arms to steady and propel them over the ground at a horrible rate of speed.

  Besmir fled into the grey with the awful sound of their hunger gaining on him in every passing second. His lungs burned with the poisonous atmosphere, and the searing agony from his ravaged feet made him hobble.

  Something cold and wet grasped at his ankle, and he screamed in fear and panic, wrenching his leg away from whatever had him. More pain tore through his muscles as the thing refused to let go. Powerful and desperate, it grunted wetly as another of its kind grabbed at him too. Besmir stumbled, falling to one knee as they swarmed over him, ripping and biting at his translucent flesh.

  Teeth ripped at his neck, his belly, his legs. Waves of rippling agony exploded from each wound, fire tearing screams from his ragged throat, as he thrashed weakly for escape. Wet appendages held his arms down as cold mouths bit his fingers, severing each.

  Yet somehow, even though the beasts ate pieces of him, they seemed to remain to be eaten again by another mouth. Besmir’s world became nothing but searing agony as
the monsters ripped and tore at him endlessly, his screams whipped away by the acidic winds.

  Thoran woke feeling a little better, and to sun pouring in through the window. As soon as she moved, her muscles screamed in protest, evidence of the ordeals she had been through. Sharova had shifted and now lay with his arm over her protectively, a position that made her feel safe for a few seconds. His breaths came somewhat more easily and his heartbeat was stronger, but he remained unconscious and oblivious to her shaking him.

  Reluctantly she rolled from beneath his arm and got unsteadily to her feet, weaving like a snake about to strike before finding her balance once more. She sipped water and honey, feeling the liquids refreshing her almost immediately. Sharova moaned and shifted, the tattered shreds of his clothing peeling back from his wounded leg.

  Thoran went to him, unwrapping his leg to see the infection had subsided a little. She smeared some more honey on his leg and wrapped it in the last of her improvised bandages. She sighed, looking at him, knowing she had to leave to find more supplies.

  The hallway outside was as still and silent as she recalled, but Thoran still kept to the edges of the passageways and hid in as many shadows as she could, bare feet slapping on the cool stones. She ducked into an open door after listening for any signs of life, searching for anything that might be of use. A massive bed, plump and luxurious, commanded one of the rooms, and Thoran dared to lie down on it, reveling in the softness of the feather pillows. She imagined this was all hers, a home she could share with Sharova if he wished, and her eyes had just begun to droop again when she heard the soul-wrenching scream.

  Nothing human could have made the sound. It was a drawn-out, bellowing wail that carried on for at least a minute. Thoran felt the hairs rising on her arms as she listened to it, one fist jammed in her mouth to hold back the scream that needed to break free. The howl trailed off eventually, leaving an echoing silence to ring in the empty halls and corridors.

  Paralyzed with fear, Thoran could do nothing but remain where she was, all thoughts of Sharova forgotten for a second as her mind whirled around, conjuring horrors that might have been the source of that scream.

  Time passed, and with no further howls, Thoran’s mind convinced her she had imagined the sound. She rolled from the bed to continue her search of the rooms. One cupboard was filled with linen, and she grabbed a large sheet to make fresh bandages from. Moving back into the main room, she found some old bread that could be revived with water. She paused, considering her options.

  Why carry everything back there when I can bring him here?

  Sharova moaned when she tried to lift him, the pain from his burning infection still obviously horribly bad. His eyes cracked open, rolling towards her without recognition, but he did not fight. With despicable slowness, she guided Sharova to the new suite she had discovered, putting him on the bed before sinking into a comfortable chair, spent. She still had to return for the honey and bottle, but was relieved to see this room had a large barrel in the corner, filled with rainfall. Water could be directed into a large tub set beneath it, and a hearth sat under that so the water could be heated. Thoran’s chest tightened at the possibility of having hot water to wash with, and she made a note to look for flint and tinder on her scavenging treks.

  She opened the door to their new suite without listening for danger and almost died when she saw Tiernon hobbling along the corridor away from her. A cold spike of agony shot through her chest when she saw him, even as her mind tried to understand how he could still be alive with such injuries.

  The king dragged one leg along the stone floor. Limp and at a horrific angle, she could tell it had been broken by some massive force. His royal robes were ragged, torn and soaked in bright red blood from some injury she could not see. Thoran held her breath as he rounded a corner then ducked back inside the room, slipping the door closed before one of the cold creatures passed and saw her.

  She swallowed and went back inside the suite, shaken and worried.

  “Get better,” she whispered in the direction of the bedroom. “Please get better soon, before he finds us.”

  Tiernon felt the ends of his broken leg grinding against each other, flame licking up his leg from the wound as he dragged his broken body along the Hall of Kings, hanging on to the facsimiles of his ancestors for help.

  “Do not look at me that way,” he hissed in agony.

  His great-grandfather looked back with dead stone eyes, remaining silent as Tiernon moved on, wincing in agony every time his injured leg moved in the slightest.

  Not far now. Not far and I can use the altar.

  “T’noch, aid me!” he called to the uncaring hall.

  Rage built in his wasted chest when the hateful thing did not appear. There would be consequences. T’noch would pay for abandoning him after the stag had charged him.

  Tiernon still could not believe what had happened. After realizing the boy Besmir was indeed his nephew, he had been further shocked when a flock of birds had dived at his barrier. Rodents had done the same, and then people had been throwing things at him, draining his power and blinding him with the flashes. He had been unable to take down the barrier for fear of being injured by the things that were thrown. At the same time he could feel his power being drained, the barrier slipping from his mind. Desperately, he had lashed at Besmir with hate, but something, some animal, had charged him. Nausea had hit him as his thigh had snapped along with some of his ribs, the beast’s horns piercing his chest deeply. He had just managed to bring himself back here before his body had hit the ground, possibly killing him. T’noch had disappeared when the stag hit.

  His thoughts had allowed him to get to his room without noticing the pain, and he fumbled at the door, almost falling in his need to get inside. The altar greeted him like an old friend, tendrils of love radiating from it towards him. Tiernon let himself be carried over to lay on its smooth surface, feeling the cool surface through his clothes.

  Instant relief flooded him as the altar infused him with power, healing his wounds and easing his breaths. Yet his leg remained unhealed, the altar using itself up to heal him.

  “Woman,” he growled. “Come here.” He gave the order before he remembered she was locked away.

  He sat up painfully, grunting and wheezing, to stare at the empty cage. The king blinked a few times before he realized he had left her in the throne room. He rolled from the altar, screaming when his leg jarred against the floor and bending double as sickness rolled through him from the agony.

  “Attend me!” he bellowed to the empty palace. “Where is everyone?” he cried in puzzlement.

  Tiernon started for the door, looking for anyone who might be able to assist him. The corridor outside was still and silent, dust motes floating from his passage earlier.

  “Hello!” he shouted. “Your king needs you!”

  Getting no answer of any kind made Tiernon’s rage grow. Every slow, painful footstep he took brought thoughts of dire murder to him, and he actually felt a flutter of pity for the poor soul he met first by the time he reached the throne room.

  Something is badly amiss.

  His eyes picked out the ragged shape of his throne, the drapes hanging behind it partially fallen and the tall candelabra that had tipped over, scattering dead tapers across the marble floor. Why no one had bothered to clean and restore the room was beyond his comprehension, and he hobbled over to the cage he had the woman in, prepared to ask her what the situation was. Seeing the gate hung open, the cage empty, Tiernon raged, screaming epithets and cursing anyone he could think of.

  “T’noch!” he bellowed. “T’noch, where are you?”

  Nothing but silence met his ears, and he hobbled across to sit on his throne, exhausted and confused. Concentrating with difficulty on his memories, Tiernon tried to look back on what may have happened here. The palace ought to be filled with servants, ambassadors and dignitaries, their wives and children. There should be music and laughter, food and life, but something ha
d changed this place into a tomb.

  His brow furrowed as he sought the answer that so easily eluded him.

  “It was I...” he muttered eventually. “T’noch took my mind...but I killed...people...to feed the altar.”

  Understanding came in the form of a memory of wide eyes and pained screams as people died in agony, their lives flowing into the silver and wood of the table.

  T’noch! It was a construction of that vile monster!

  Hunger gripped Tiernon’s stomach, grumbling deeply, and he wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. Dragging himself wearily to his feet, Tiernon began the long, painful trek towards the kitchens.

  My guards! Where are the six?

  The king continued his journey in utter confusion, racking his mind for any memories that might be there.

  “Where are you going?”

  The voice was simultaneously hideous and welcome, a necessary pain he must endure. It brought reason and gave him the answers.

  “T’noch,” Tiernon said in wonder. “Where have you been?”

  “I believe it is a lost cause,” Zaynorth stated flatly. “You all saw his capabilities here, and now Besmir has been laid low...” He spread his hands in defeat.

  A meeting had been arranged for the senior members of Besmir’s court. Zaynorth, Herofic, Ranyor, Keluse, Norvasil and Suranim sat around a rough table in Besmir’s pavilion. The king himself still lay unconscious in another area, Arteera attending his body.

  “Yet I doubt Tiernon will take this defeat lightly,” Herofic muttered. “He is likely to return with an immense force to destroy every woman and child here. We should be ready at the least, if we are not to go on the offensive.”

  “Offensive?” Suranim gasped. “We are simple people, farmers and servants for the most part. Even with the training and weapons, we are not an army.”

  “We should pack this place up and scatter to the four winds,” Norvasil said darkly. “Some might survive Tiernon’s vengeance by means of luck.”