“So, tell me, Nathelion,” the man asked after his chuckles had died away. “Your name has left me uncertain. I’ve never heard its kind before, truth be told, and certainly, I do not recognize it as a commoner’s name. Yet you do not look to be of noble blood.”
“And I am not,” Nathelion confessed, happy to be free of that pretense at least. “I am the son of two poor farmers. The name... Perhaps they had put the wrong mushrooms in their stew when they decided upon it. I never knew theirs.”
“Indeed?” the knight asked. “So, you were orphaned early. What happened to you?”
“I was...taken to a cloister and—”
“Raised by warrior monks,” the knight guessed, “who taught you their way of arms.”
Nathelion let the assumption stand, though he’d hardly refer to old Jarwyn as a warrior monk. The thought almost made him smile. “And you?” he asked instead. “I heard you were a commander of the Lions of the Pass.”
“Yes.” Sir Conrad turned his eyes to the blade again. “For five years. And before that, I was ten years a knight of the same order. I have fought more skirmishes in the wastes of Rurhav than I care to recall. Add battles in the Harp to that. And I, more than anyone, can tell you that you have chosen a dangerous path. Especially when the autumn is so early and so harsh. The northerners will be turning greedy eyes southward.”
“I must say that you have not given the impression of liking your task very much.”
Sir Conrad grunted at him. “I have another I should be protecting rather than acting as bodyguard to a traveling moinguir. The countess may disagree, of course.” The knight’s voice was laced with resentment.
“You don’t sound like you like your countess much either.”
The grin on Sir Conrad’s face seemed a half-snarl. “She is blacker than sin,” he said with a conviction that startled Nathelion. “Look past her charms, and you’ll find what her three late husbands did. She’ll keep pulling in courters, though. Too many fools stare themselves blind on her pretty face and full bosom. You may have thought her frail and harmless between her two bodyguards, but her poison kills the strongest beast. You’re lucky you’re not the kind of man that awakens her appetite, or you would surely have stayed longer in Silverstream than planned.”
Lucky? Nathelion thought, recalling the woman’s looks. A taste of that would bloody have been worth a bit of poison.
“She likes the chivalrous and genteel, reveling in that show of manners and nobility as if it were more than theatre and as if she were more than an actress. Whenever I see a young knight swooning over her, I know he is in greater peril than he’ll ever be on the tourney grounds. The people are flustered by the murders in the streets, but if they looked to the castle, they would find their monster. Perhaps it frightens them more.”
“You...you are rather outspoken about—”
“It makes no matter,” Sir Conrad said. “She’d be a blind fool if she didn’t know what I thought of her. She is not blind, Nathelion. The owl is a better sign for her than you know. Do not be fooled when she acts like she is clueless and mild. Her heart is rotten; her mind is not.”
“And if she is as sinister as you say...” Nathelion was surprised by how reluctant he was to believe it even though he’d had nothing from the countess but a look and a smile. “You still remain in her service?”
“She has ways to ensure the loyalty of her subjects,” Sir Conrad said grimly.
“Even yours?”
“Even mine.”
There was a moment of silence after that final utterance. “You should be glad that you have nothing more to do with her. You are quite free to go to Kast-Harnax or elsewhere.” The sharpening stone began to travel along the blade again.
Nathelion almost thought he had a chance to reveal that they were not going to Kast-Harnax right then and there. But the silence was allowed to stretch, and with it, the moment passed. He rose instead, walking away to his own spot where he could recline against his saddle.
Only Tim was still up and about, practicing diligently with his sword. Until Sir Conrad tells him to stop? Nathelion did not envy him. He was tired and moody and desired nothing so much as some sound sleep. He sighed, stretching out under his tree, every muscle sore and weak, and watched the dark clouds above. Then he moved himself and his saddle closer to the fire and lay there instead.
Nathelion was in some state of half-slumber when he dimly heard Sir Conrad’s voice. “Tim...one hour...first watch...”
Watch? Watch against what? Nathelion thought fleetingly. Of course, the kobolds... He drifted into sleep. And with it came the nightmares.
11
The Beast Within
Molgrimin had become wise to the abyssal presence in the world after Alwarul had opened his eyes to it. It felt as if he could finally put a name to a shadow that had followed him for a long time, perhaps before it had been masked by the misery of his own failure. Something was coming; he knew it.
He found himself staring into the flames of the fire, looking into its burning soul and seeing only his own. Memories were with him, and grief. He remembered. Treachery, dishonor...and exile.
“The bear has him!” his kin screamed in the distant, echoing waste of remembrance. “The bear!”
Those screams were full of fear. They followed Molgrimin as he made his way through the depths of Kast-Harnax.
“Molgrimin, nay, ye musn’t!” A stout smith stepped in his way. It was Varnal, the moinguir who had taught him the way of the hammer. Always stern and steadfast, now he seemed puny before Molgrimin, his hard face marked by fear. Molgrimin growled wordlessly. The name of the moinguir did not matter to the bear. An obstacle of flesh.
“Stop him!” a woman screamed, but to no avail. Words had little meaning to the bear, and none dared to hinder his rampage.
“Ye can’t stop him!” a wiser man shouted back, his voice shaken by the things he witnessed. “The bear has him! Good Lawaldon, look at his eyes!”
And they did see his eyes. It was a fiend they saw.
“Get back, ye all!” an old man warned. “The gods turn their eyes from where the bear walks!”
“Bring the runemasters!” another urged. “Bring the runemasters here quick!”
“To do what?” one voice screamed out. “The bear does not obey the runes! The bear only obeys its hunger!” And he spoke truly, though the beast did follow a certain scent.
“Where is he headed?”
“By the gods, he is going to the temple!”
Molgrimin did not listen to their shouts; he heard them only as a buzz. He walked steadily beneath the high, cavernous ceiling of Kast-Harnax, which glittered like a starry sky with its crystals and gems. And he minded none of the fools save those who got in his way.
Two guards came from nowhere, both wearing the most splendid moinguir armor, thick, gilded steel adorned with the visages of the gods, which stared with eyes of rubies and sapphires. Their matching helmets turned their faces into the likenesses of boars. They both carried hammers that were solid metal, shaft and head, and yet it was not Molgrimin who balked. The bear growled, and before it, the guards trembled. Molgrimin left the two guards unmoving in his wake, and his hunt resumed at once.
“He is going to the temple! By the gods, the wedding!”
That word reached the bear through its rage.
The wedding. Yes.
The fire crackled over the blackening branches. Flames rose violently into the air when the pile they fed upon collapsed. Molgrimin did not blink as ashes and cinders sprayed. Nathelion was lying close to the fire. Humans could not abide the cold. The warrior seemed fast asleep, lying with his sword at his side, one hand hugging its silvery grip as if he would use it to battle some foe of his dreams. Molgrimin envied him. He envied his prowess; the little he’d seen already suggested skill transcending all mortal bounds. More still, he envied his honor.
For that man did not bear the guilt that Molgrimin bore. He was a warrior who did not obey an i
nner beast, a perfected champion of the blade and of the mind.
Molgrimin was terrified of the danger that was all around them, the threat that none in the world could escape. Even in his shame, he was terrified, which made him a craven and worse. But Nathelion seemed unbothered. The man had overcome this world. By the gods, it was glorious. Molgrimin felt undeserving of the honor to accompany such a champion. He was the furthest thing from a hero. He was damned.
In Kast-Harnax, he had been a terror to his own people, just as he had become a terror in the world of men. At first, when his sentence had fallen, he had thought that he could change. That he could prove in this strange world that he was not a feral thing but a warrior with the noble traits of his bloodline. He had been a fool.
The bear had not left him, and as soon as it was awakened, the tall folk came to suffer the wrath that Kast-Harnax would no longer contain. How much anguish had he caused? So many memories of violence. He was a monster here as much as anywhere. Aye, and the world could not escape him.
The knight exchanged a few words with his squire, and then the man swept himself in his cloak next to the fire. The rasping sounds of Sir Conrad sharpening his sword had been present so long that Molgrimin had begun to no longer hear them, but now the silence became thick. The squire still practiced with his sword in the chill air. He looked like he would tire soon, executing the patterns with less and less conviction. No doubt, the boy thought his life harsh, following the knight’s tutoring. And no doubt, he would never be cursed with the shame that was Molgrimin’s.
He could remain seated no longer, so he got up and furiously brushed the dirt from his clothes. The bear growled somewhere within him. It must not awaken now, not among his friends. Never again among his friends.
“Where are you going?” Timothy stopped swinging his sword to look at Molgrimin.
The bear stirred in its slumber, and Molgrimin felt his face beginning to change. “For a walk,” he said stiffly, and then he added, turning away to the trees, “Don’t follow me.”
The boy did not. Indeed, the squire seemed more confused than anything. Molgrimin stalked away through branches and reaching shadows. He followed no direction, did not even seek a comfortable path. Time was not his, but anger was. He forced his way through the underbrush and let the twigs and needled branches whip at his miserable face. They might add to the scars that already covered the countenance of one who was born for war and for destruction.
When he burst into a shadowy clearing lined with tall and black pines that rustled loudly in the hales, the bear awoke. Molgrimin screamed. He rushed to the nearest pitiable tree trunk and let his fists hammer upon its feeble bark. “Why am I a monster!?” he roared to the sky and the gods and the abyss, too, if it listened. He pounded on the hard, cold tree. “Why did you make me into a beast!? Ye gods, dare ye not answer? Come and meet the fiend that ye put on this earth and gave a name and a life to throw away!”
His fists were beginning to ache terribly. He started kicking instead, continuing his assault on that silent, soulless thing that championed the gods. His toe hit unfavorably, and he growled with pain before he head-butted the tree with all the might in him. He fell backward among the fallen, brown needles, his brow throbbing. For a moment, he just lay there.
The winds appeared to grow louder, the branches screeching when they whipped and lashed in the howling gusts that went through the whole clearing. Fear came uninvited to Molgrimin’s heart, and his breaths slowed. He rose slowly from the ground, but when he came to his knees, he froze. He was no longer alone in the clearing.
He felt the eyes on him, the eyes and the presence of another — an indomitable presence. Molgrimin turned, and before him stood the bear.
It was a looming shadow, a beast of utter darkness and utter rage, its eyes burning red and eternally, and all things disappeared from the world save its terrible form. Every shadow and every tree was gone in the blink of an eye, while the beast’s breath rose like mighty clouds in the air. Molgrimin froze, even though moinguir never freeze. His blood was ice. The beast breathed steaming gusts that blew in his face, reeking of the blood and the flesh that it so loved to devour.
“You can kill yourself, moinguir,” the bear rumbled darkly, “but no one can banish himself. I will not leave.” The voice seemed to come from the beast, though its mighty jaws moved not. It just stared at him, and he knew that the words lay in those burning eyes. “I shall always be here.”
“Wh-Why?” Molgrimin stuttered, overwhelmed.
“Why?” the bear repeated. “Do you seek meaning, or do you seek cause? It is no matter. Follow the chain far enough, and links shall hang in nothingness; your meaning dies, and your cause is without cause.”
“What do ye mean?” Molgrimin asked uncertainly. “I have a cause!”
The bear chuckled. “Yes, Molgrimin, we both know what true meaning is. Meaning is through our hunger...” The beast opened its mighty jaws, showing rows of sharp teeth, each one longer than Molgrimin’s fingers.
“What are ye doing?” Molgrimin asked, seeing that hungry maw approach him. “I don’t fear ye, ye ugly beast!”
“You do,” the bear said. “You still do.”
The jaws shut around Molgrimin’s ankle, and he screamed as flesh and bone were ripped and broken. He kicked the bear with his free foot. To no avail, for the beast was unflinching. It tore long strips of flesh from his body. The paws mauled him. Claws sank deep into him and slashed through his insides, while its maw continued to bite into his shoulders, his stomach, his arms. Molgrimin screamed. At first, he thought that he was screaming for help — but he was not. “Die!” he roared as he wrestled with the bear, and his growl was as ferocious as the beast’s even as he died. “Die, ye sorry beast! Die!”
“Hold him!” a voice echoed through the great hall, stern and decisive, and Molgrimin saw that it was no longer the bear that he struggled against but chains. “Hold him, I said!” the officer shouted again, his ornate armor glimmering with diamonds and white gold in the light of the mighty braziers that burned along the walls. His beard was heavy and long, a mass of intricate gray braids with a hint of gold still in them. He was an aged officer, as hard as the mountain rock, but his eyes were full of uncertainty — now that they saw the prisoner. Now that they saw Molgrimin.
He had been brought into that hall by six strong moinguir who pulled at the chains that bound him. They were heavy steel chains, each stretched in an opposite direction to hinder his movements. Yet as he roared and thrashed, the moinguir slipped over the floor and nearly dropped their critical safeguards, scrambling to wrestle control over him again. Fear was in their eyes. Some kept a steely silence, and others were gaping and breathing hard — but the fear they had was the same. Fear of the bear.
Molgrimin roared anew, and the commander snapped another order, pointing for the guards by the doors to drop their heavy axes and help in the efforts to restrain him. Together, they brought him still before that throne upon which his father sat.
King Mauroc Goldenfury was an old moinguir with a white beard that fell well below his feet, yet despite his great age, he still seemed strong enough to grab a battle axe and do it justice. He was not clad in steel, though, but in rich furs and good woolens. A crown with seven tips for the Seven Peaks rested upon his white mane, yet the ornate crown with its diamonds and sapphires was not what gave him gravity. No, the authority lay in his eyes – golden eyes that had now gone hard and unforgiving.
“I know he is your son, Farrihin, but look at him! He has become wild now. The bear has taken him. He cannot remain unfettered.” It was Thalduywan who spoke, the runemaster now giving his father counsel. He was standing next to the stone throne. Catching the fair-haired moinguir’s scent made Molgrimin snarl, and he pulled on the chains hard enough to set his captors cursing. But Thalduywan showed no fear. He did not need to so long as those chains held. “He is a beast now, Farrihin. He will cause more shame to the family if he is set free.”
Mol
grimin roared, wanting to tear the moinguir apart — he who had only recently been adopted and had now turned father on son as brother on brother. He roared, but no words came. Only rage, and it could not serve him when he was chained.
“For what he has done...” Thalduywan shook his head in feigned grief. “The judgment is yours to make, Farrihin...”
Mauroc long remained silent, his golden eyes looking down without pity. Then he said, “He was your brother, Molgrimin.” It was not a shout, yet there was strength in his father’s voice that still made it seem like one, and the sternness in Mauroc’s face was as stone.
Molgrimin only growled in answer, though within him, there was some recognition and a grief that would not surface. The bear was mad with rage, and the chains rattled at its wild attempts to be free.
“Have you truly succumbed so to the bear?” It was more a statement than a question. “The gods are cruel,” Mauroc intoned somberly, mercilessly. “I have lost two sons this day.”
Thalduywan did not smile; he was too cunning and too self-controlled for that. Molgrimin alone could see the satisfaction in the runemaster’s brazen eyes, where all others would see only grief and regret. “What shall be done with him, Farrihin? He is of your blood still, you must not forget.”
Molgrimin snarled at the man, snarled with the silent promise that everyone knew to be true. The bear did not answer to the runes.
“He shall be fettered, as you say Thalduywan. This beast shall not roam my halls, and he shall not bring shame to our name.”
Somewhere, Molgrimin laughed. You wished me dead, runemaster. He could see the frustration on Thalduywan’s face, the slight tension around his lips and eyes. A bear alive with hunger for his blood — it would keep any runemaster sleepless.
“You are wise—” the runemaster began, but King Mauroc was not finished with his sentence.
The Unchosen: Book One of The Queen Beyond Page 13