by Dan Brigman
“I’ll not discuss my story with him in the room. I needn’t have him listening,” stated Melek in a tone brooking no compromise.
“Fine. I see nothing wrong with allowing that condition. It will give me the opportunity to listen objectively to either side of the story.”
“I will wait at the tavern to be called upon,” Loken rasped without waiting for leave from Malkari.
“Do not become too intoxicated, Loken. You will need to be fully coherent if I am to listen to your side of the story.”
Loken raised his eyes to meet Melek’s face, but his friend stared outside into the clear morning. Loken read no emotion on the stony face. Melek had resumed his normal firm countenance. My fate is sealed, Loken thought in a moment of extreme clarity. He quickly opened the door and exited the room. After he softly shut the door, Loken turned and stepped loudly enough on the hallways’ wooden floorboards to allow the men to hear his departure.
The two men inside the room turned to face each other as they heard the footsteps grow fainter. Sudden realization of something bothersome passed over Malkari’s face. Melek noticed the worrisome frown alter to the more careworn expression which normally lined the Alterator’s face. He stood and paced to the still-unconscious stranger. After expertly checking various parts of his body he sighed in relief, then walked to the basin of water.
“If it is any consolation, the man will probably arise by the end of the day. I believe he will be thoroughly confused, so I will need you to be completely candid with me in order for me to be prepared for whatever outlandish story I am going to hear from your friend. I do not think I have ever witnessed such hatred in anyone’s eyes before a few moments ago, or was it fear which sparked your actions?” Malkari’s voice trailed off as if he were asking only himself.
While Malkari spoke, he soaked a rag in the basin’s water. He wrung it out and walked back over to the man. Malkari placed the rag gingerly upon the man’s forehead before peering at Melek. He seemed to stare at nothing with a semi-surprised expression blanketing his face. The Alterator cleared his throat as he sat back down. Melek’s focus returned, allowing him to finally speak.
“Yes, fear is part of the struggle between me and Loken. Fear clouds his mind. He was alone in the hills for a short time. When he came back to camp, I could tell he’d changed. Something took hold of his mind in the hills. I’ve done my best to not kill him. I worry for the safety of the clan, especially now that we are home.”
“Ah,” Malkari uttered in a ponderous tone. “While I do not know the entire story, I trust your judgment. Yet something stayed your hand. You know the clan’s rules as well as anyone. Do you think that Bregoth will forgive you once this has been told to him?”
“I trust keeping this to yourself for now is not possible?” A slight shaking of Malkari’s head nearly forced Melek to turn his gaze. Forlorn hopelessness fell over his mind as he finally tore his gaze from the Alterator’s eyes.
“What’ll happen now?” Melek asked as he looked outside into the steely gray clouds.
“I imagine that based on your word alone and Loken’s behavior, Bregoth will have to do his duty. He has been acting very strangely since you two arrived with the foreigner. I could not discern what the difference was, even with the assistance of my runes, yet your story validates his behavior. Fear is an emotion not seen often enough in the clan, so recognizing it quickly enough is not practiced, even by those who have traveled outside our borders.”
Movement from the unconscious man caught Malkari’s eye as a shrill yell could be heard coming from the first floor. Both men turned to glance at each other’s suspicious faces.
“Check downstairs, now,” Malkari growled in a voice that took Melek back a step. “Your daggers are under your bed.” He nodded toward the bed Melek had been lying on less than an hour ago.
Without hesitation, Melek burst toward the bed in a frontward roll. When he struck the bed sideways, the four legs screeched atop the floorboards. Melek’s momentum slid the bed a few inches to one side, allowing the daggers to be plainly seen. His left hand grabbed the daggers just as he jumped to his feet. After a blurred leap to the door, Melek grabbed the handle and glanced at Malkari. Determination lined the Alterator’s face as he stood almost behind Melek. Malkari had pushed his cloak back to allow his arms freedom of movement; he held his left hand aloft.
“If you enter this room before I leave, you will die,” Malkari stated, his words’ fierceness matching his blue-gray eyes. His eyes burned with conviction like a forge’s intense flame. Melek nodded firmly and opened the door to depart. He sighed heavily after leaving the room; Melek felt a palpable weakness lingering from his illness. A hint of light from under the door briefly flared, then suddenly winked out to leave the short hallway cloaked in darkness. As he was trying to shunt the tiredness away, a sheen of sweat coated Melek’s forehead. He stuffed one dagger into his belt and held another by the blade in the other hand. He felt along the wall with the empty hand as he shuffled down the hall. Melek nearly fell forward when his foot reached empty air.
Another shrill, terrified voice rang into Melek’s ears. This time the voice was abruptly cut short. He strained to catch any movement up the stairs, but only the collapse of something heavy in another of the building’s rooms reached his ears. Cursing to himself, Melek stalked down the stairs as swiftly as possible without chancing to break his own neck. He felt himself step on the first landing, turned, and maneuvered down the last set of steps. His rapid ragged gasps reminded him that despite his partial recovery from the illness, the quick actions of the past few moments taxed his body.
The steps stopped as Melek noticed a sliver of light issuing from a crack at the slightly ajar door at the end of the hallway. Melek waited impatiently to let his vision adjust. The doors to either side remained closed, and he could not see anything else at the end of the hallway presenting danger. As he waited, Melek slowed his breathing and wiped the beads of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. With a deep inhalation, he tossed aside any thoughts of danger to himself and ran at the door. At the last possible second, he kicked the door backward with one vicious snap kick. The door burst off its hinges as it hit the wall in the vestibule. Melek scanned the room for movement. To his horror his eyes fell upon something which stoked the anger in his mind to a frenzy.
Bregoth lay lifeless in the middle of the vestibule. A growing pool of blood spread from a gruesome wound that had nearly torn the man in two at his abdomen. Many of the clan leader’s insides had spilled out onto the floor. Melek thought a few flies already appeared to be buzzing around the new corpse. How do the flies find the bodies so quickly? Melek brushed away the unwanted thought before noticing Bregoth’s ghastly face. It held a grim visage of disbelief revealing that he had been wronged in some way.
Melek’s mind raced, despite his frozen stance. Very few men could kill so effectively. No weapons of that lethality could be located in the room. The coward, flashed through Melek’s mind. Tearing his gaze from the body, he noticed the front door stood wide open, shifting slightly with the in-draft of wind. The door to his left hung partially open, which led to the meeting room. If memory serves, Melek thought as he attempted to recall all the details of a house he had spent very little time in over the years. He kept his dagger poised to toss while he moved around the corpse. Careful to not get any blood on his boots, he stepped into the meeting room’s open doorway.
Melek had no time to be grateful for an accurate recollection as he saw a blurred figure escape from the large room. The blur streaked into the opposite open doorway and shut the door too quickly for Melek to catch details.
“Blighting filth,” Melek muttered as he stalked around the massive rectangular white oak table. Matching wooden chairs had been pushed underneath the table to save as much walking room as possible. Still, only enough room remained for one person to walk abreast comfortably alongside the table.
Despite the room’s purpose, few decorations adorned th
e walls. A map made of parchment hung on the wall detailing the known world, and adjacent to the larger map hung a smaller map of the Molston Hills and its environs. Bregoth had marked all the trade routes in deep black lines and outlined further to distinguish which merchants took each route. Three square windows lined the outer wall, letting diffused light into the large room. A simple white porcelain jar filled with yellow flowers sat in the middle of the table. The jarring sound of breaking glass in the next room brought Melek’s focus back to the circumstances at hand.
Melek vaulted to the tabletop and scampered across its surface. His size always belied his grace to those who did not know better. Never underestimate your enemy. The thought flitted through his mind as he readied to jump from the table. As he jumped to the doorway, Melek caught a glimpse of the reason for the scream he had heard moments ago. Shock washed over Melek as he saw fully what lay upon the kitchen’s floor. The body of Bregoth’s wife, Marceline, lay on the floor in her own blood. At first glance, Melek saw her body’s brutal wounds. A long open wound had nearly cut her in two from the shoulder to hip. Viscera and gore spilt out on the floor. The sight of another brutally murdered person in the span of a few heartbeats shook Melek’s being. The world tilted, spinning around the edges of his vision. His eyes settled on the wound and bored through the body for what seemed to be days; his mind simply froze.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The repeated sound of metal striking metal pulled Melek out of his daze. Melek shook his head, hoping the motion would reclaim his wits. Instead, sounds of fighting outside the building released him from the fugue. Forget this brutality! People are dying while you stare like a blight-wracked fool! Melek scolded himself. Looking upward he saw a shattered window directly over the kitchen’s wash basin. Many pieces of glass lay strewn about on the floor and a few glistened in the frame with dripping blood. Good. Hopefully he’ll bleed to death, thought Melek, malevolence flooding his mind.
A few armored men ran past the room without looking inward. Their breathing sounded ragged from the running and battle; a long gash was slit across the first man’s right cheek. They all held long swords at the ready, and Melek recognized each of them; some were men he had known for most of his life. What are the guards fighting? Melek mused.
A blinding flash of yellow-white light streamed outward from the second story and within a breath the building shook violently. Dust and pieces of ceiling plaster broke loose, covering sections of the floor. The shaking ended as quickly as it had started. Melek turned on his heel, then followed the way back up to the Alterator’s room. Before racing up the stairs he spared a precious few seconds to close the front door and bolt it shut. I don’t need onlookers seeing this murder yet. He turned, vaulted over his leader’s corpse, and ran down the hallway. Melek leaped four steps and took the remainder of the steps three at a time.
Halfway up the stairs, the building shook again; the wood beneath Melek’s feet groaned as the clan leader’s home lurched, nearly knocking Melek to the floor. Melek’s adrenaline-fueled reflexes allowed him to barely keep his balance. In the span of a few heartbeats he stood at the Alterator’s door. Melek stared warily at dim light filtering from under the door. A sudden cry of anguish beyond the door spurred Melek back into action. He lowered his right shoulder and slammed into the wood with all his momentum. The impact forced Melek to stumble as the door exploded inward like a detonated bomb. The pieces sprayed the small room haphazardly. Bits of wood settled on every flat surface.
Melek blanched when he saw who stood over the stranger. Defying Melek’s expectations of the stranger still in a near-coma, the man’s eyes widened in mortal terror. Finally, Melek thought in misplaced frustration. Loken stood adjacent to the stranger’s bed with his personally-crafted greatsword hefted in a position for a coup de grace. Melek discerned immediately from the surprise upon his friend’s face that the door’s destruction had more than startled him.
Loken’s face shifted from surprise to shock as a dagger flew toward him from the doorway. He blurred and positioned the sword in front of the dagger to deflect the blade harmlessly into the floor. Dodge this one, Melek thought as his second dagger left his hand in a perfect toss. Loken’s attention remained on deflecting the first dagger.
To Melek’s gaze the second dagger seemed to slow considerably during its flight toward his friend. The first dagger had deflected languidly off the greatsword to stick near a body on the floor. Meanwhile, the second dagger struck his old friend in the chest. An audible grunt escaped from Loken’s mouth, and he slammed backward into the wall, blood spraying out of his mouth. Melek noticed offhandedly that Loken’s chest and face appeared to be burnt to near-total blackness. Before Loken could react, another dagger stuck into the opposing side of his chest.
The massive greatsword clanged to the floor when Loken lost his grip. Loken dazedly peered at the floor where the Alterator laid. With his body sprawled underneath the window across the room, Malkari seemed dead. I didn’t intend for any of this to happen, Loken cursed inwardly. His eyes caught the blurred movement of Melek picking up the fallen sword as he rushed to Loken. He could feel blood seeping down his chest, yet he could not move freely. He felt himself stick to the wall before wincing. Melek reached out to grip one of the daggers.
“Loken, I hope you’ve prayed to your gods because you’ve seen your last day.”
“Aye, I’ve prayed for forgiveness for what I have done.”
Loken stared through his pain at Melek’s face. Unmitigated rage stared back at him. Loken understood he would receive no mercy at the hands of his friend. His speech slurred as he pushed the words through the blood on his lips. The taste of iron became stronger as he felt more blood come up his throat. The shadow in his mind stirred, then laughed. Loken bit back a sob at the madness chewing at his mind.
“The only forgiveness you’ll have is at the end of this sword.” Melek nearly spat the words through clenched teeth.
“Make it quick.” Loken sighed. The release from the blackness would reach him soon.
Melek spat, his eyes burning, as he complied with the request. Loken viewed the swift blurring of the sword’s metal and Melek’s hands, threaded with veins and gripping the sword white-knuckled. Then darkness overtook his senses.
Loken’s severed head hit the wooden floor with a splat before it rolled underneath the window overlooking the main street of the village. The two daggers could not hold a lifeless body, and the corpse slumped to the floor. Blood spurted from the neck for a few moments as the heart slowly stopped pumping.
Melek sighed in strange relief as tears slipped down his cheeks. The weight of his action fractured his mind. I’ve just killed my best friend. The thought floated disconnected from Melek’s being as he glanced concernedly across the room at the unmoving Alterator. Malkari’s eyes remained closed, yet Melek finally noticed the slightest movement of his chest. He turned to face the stranger still lying semi-unconscious upon the bed. Near-imperceptible shaking of his head caught Melek’s full attention. No, not now. Why now? He thought as his mind filled with despair. Your life better be worth the actions I’ve taken to save it. Still staring at the man, Melek stepped over to Malkari. He checked for a heartbeat and detected a strong pulse.
Then Melek’s instincts saved his life. He rolled backward in a ball just as the temperature dropped precipitously. Melek’s frozen breath came out in a gasp, as the room’s air froze the sweat and blood on his skin. A breath later an intense wave of heat washed over Melek’s back. He rolled to his feet and shouted, “Stop! He’s dead!” Melek slipped the last dagger from its leather sheath on his right hip and prepared to throw it. Melek’s nose took in the odor of burnt wool and smoke and he realized that his cloak was alit. As he patted the cloth, Melek watched Malkari stand to his feet with a look of apology tinged by fear.
Malkari seemed to be without pain as he stood with his hands turned downward in the universal stance Alterators take to show they will not attack without warning. Mele
k caught his gaze and nodded in recognition. “As you can see, the man’s dead. I’d only hope that his sins do not bring eternal torment.”
“I doubt his last actions will be under his accounting,” Malkari replied when he saw the head on the floor close to his feet. “His eyes met mine before he struck me down. I saw nothing of him. It was as if his mind had been taken over. And he did not kill me as he could easily have done. The assault I unleashed upon him should have at least incapacitated him, but he didn’t seem to notice the damage to his body. Instead, he just laughed and struck me across the head. Not for the first time, I thought death had claimed me.”
Malkari licked his lips nervously. He studied the detached head while he had spoken. Suddenly, he tilted his head as if waking from a dream then walked to the cabinet and grabbed a clean towel. Just as quickly, he threw the towel over the lifeless head. The discarded towel began absorbing the blood pooling on the floor.
A grimace of disgust nearly caused Melek to empty what remained in his stomach. He closed his eyes and heard Malkari say in an apologetic tone, “Do not feel guilt at ending your friend’s life. You did what was necessary.”
The stench of spilt blood assaulted Melek’s nose, and it was all he could do to keep what remained of his composure. As he inhaled deeply through his mouth, he heard from across the room the scraping of wood against wood. He must be opening the window, Melek thought.
“Thank you,” he muttered.
Thoughts of relief fled Melek’s mind; yelling and cut-off screams erupted into the room when the window slid open. His gaze shot up and he saw confused disgust upon Malkari’s face. If not mistaken, Melek believed the tumult outside sounded like a battle.
“What is going on?” Melek asked in a curious tone.