by David Estes
Now, as the morning light crept across the lush western plains, Henry removed his shirt to study his chest. “Aye!” he screamed, peering at his skin. The day before he’d noticed black specks. At first he’d thought they were dirt, but when he’d tried to scrub them away, they refused to budge. Today they sprouted from dozens of spots in his skin, a fine layer of hair from the top of his chest all the way to his navel.
The topography of his chest looked different, too. Less flat. Harder and more pronounced.
He flexed again, chuckling when the muscles beneath his skin responded, fluttering.
Did one always become a man so quickly? he wondered to himself.
Although he wanted the answer to be yes, he knew in his heart there was more to the changes wrought on his body in just a few short days since he’d last seen his mother. Her chanted words seemed to haunt his steps, like dark shadows closing in.
Their hearts will fail, their lives will end,
But yours will last, it will extend,
Beyond all measure, on land or sea,
From skin to skin, from teeth to teeth.
Whose lives will end? he wondered now. And how will mine extend?
Fang of wolf and fur of bear,
To warm, to change, to save, to tear,
A climb to the mount, a jaunt through the wood,
Their fates will be yours, to help them is good.
Help who? Mother? Are you there? Help who? The fatemarked? What does that even mean?
As usual, the only response he received was the chirping of prairie birds and the rustling of long grass.
He sighed. Suddenly, the tiny hairs on his chest and face didn’t mean so much. Not without her. He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. It was as if he’d emptied out his reservoirs, and there was nothing left to refill them with.
“Men don’t cry,” he said aloud to comfort himself.
He packed up his camp and walked on, in no particular direction. Little did he know, his feet were guided by a force more powerful than any the world had ever known.
Three years earlier
When they returned to Knight’s End, everything was the same and yet entirely different. In a way, the sameness was a comfort, even when Henry’s peers—who’d all grown even taller and bigger in the few months Henry had been away, while he’d hardly grown at all—gave him a swift beating. He’d even smiled as he’d wiped the blood from his nose.
He was home. That was all that mattered.
And yet so much had changed. Not Knight’s End, but his mother’s place in it. At first she was the lost Fury returned, bringing words of wisdom from an ancient people who were known for their devotion to their own deity. But soon she began to share the words she had spoken in the dark, the words Henry had written on hundreds of sheaves of parchment. Her prophecies.
She spoke of war, of arrogant rulers across all four kingdoms, of unrighteousness, of the coming of infants marked with ancient powers…
The king denounced her position as one of the Three, and his decision was quickly confirmed by the other Furies.
Shamed, cast off, his mother should have faded away. In fact, Henry tried to convince her to leave the city that no longer loved her. She refused.
Instead, she took to standing on walls and steps, speaking to the people, trying to convince them of what was to come. Trying to persuade them that soon the world would have need of those bearing what she called fatemarks, strange birthmarks that would give the bearers great powers. The power to choose good over evil. The power to change the world, to right its course, to bring about peace.
The people threw rocks at her.
Henry couldn’t leave the house, nor would his mother let him.
For a while, that was the worst of it, until his mother began speaking out against the furia and the Three who led them. Her next target was the king, who she said was leading the west into darkness.
Charges were levied.
A trial held.
She was convicted of all charges, including treason.
Three weeks after his mother’s death
Henry’s powerful legs churned beneath him, propelling him forward, a breath of cold air washing over his skin. He could sense the fear slashing through his prey, a white-tailed elk with a beautiful six-pointed rack of antlers atop its head, sitting like a dark crown of bone. It was strange: he could hear the animal’s heart beating and the rush of blood through its veins as he closed in.
It darted left, but he was already moving in that direction, anticipating the maneuver. He took two more long strides and then pushed off, throwing his body into the air. The elk glanced back and released a squeal. Henry landed atop its back, extending his muscly arms and wrapping his strong fingers around the beast’s neck, snapping it with a deft jerk of his hands.
He landed hard on the animal as it collapsed, dead.
He rolled off the dead elk, looking away. Breathing. Just breathing.
He felt desire, temptation, the urge to bare his teeth and rip into the animal’s flesh, to tear and grind.
The feeling scared him more than anything, and yet felt completely natural, a contradiction he was still trying to make sense of.
He watched his breaths take shape in the form of vaporous ghosts, soaring overhead. As he’d moved northwest, the weather had grown colder and colder. Having not planned to travel northward, Henry was woefully underprepared for the drastic change in temperature, his britches and long-sleeved shirt thin and full of holes and already stretched beyond its limits, tearing in places.
But Henry wasn’t the least bit cold. In fact, he seemed to grow warmer as the temperature dropped. His skin was now covered by a tangled layer of dark hair, curly and thick. It coated his cheeks and chin. It sprouted from the neckline of his shirt. When he removed his clothes to bathe in a pond or stream, it was everywhere. Somewhere beneath the hair were bulging muscles and thick bones, though he couldn’t see them anymore. He could feel them, however, and Henry still felt as if it was someone else’s body rather than his own, which was supposed to be skinny and weak and prone to fatigue. Now his body never seemed to tire.
There was no doubt in his mind anymore: His mother had done something to him with her strange poem, when her eyes were rolled back in her head. She had changed him somehow, inexplicably. He was faster, stronger, even taller. Though he’d run out of supplies a week ago, he had no problem catching game on the prairielands.
I am a killer, he thought now, as he stared at the mountains looming to the north. Due to his weak stomach, back in Knight’s End he couldn’t have stood to watch a butcher do his grisly work. Now he was doing far worse, and enjoying it.
What am I, Mother? What have you turned me into?
He couldn’t hold back any longer, twisting his body and sinking his too-sharp teeth into the elk’s hide, ripping away a layer of skin and burrowing his way into the raw meat, blood spurting onto his lips, dripping from his chin. The sight of blood used to make him nauseous—now it only spurred him on.
He didn’t stop until his hunger was satisfied. Henry took what was left of the meat and tied it to his back, once more moving in the direction of the Mournful Mountains. Though he knew the animal was heavy, he barely felt the weight.
As he walked, his feet caught his eye. They were at least twice as long and wide as they’d been when he first departed Knight’s End. A week ago he’d been forced to cast his boots aside when they grew too small, bursting at the seams.
The hair that grew on top reminded him of…
Wrath. Did I really just have such a thought? I’m a man, a human, not some wild beast.
Right?
“I have fur,” Henry said aloud, cringing at the sound of his own voice, which was too deep, too rough, a rumble originating from somewhere deep in his chest. It was the voice of a stranger.
It’s just hair, he immediately thought, vanquishing his dark feelings. And it’s my voice. I’ve become a man, that is all. Mother helped me become a
man.
Around midday, Henry reached a pass through the mountains, a frozen river cutting between the cliffs. Raider’s Pass, he thought. The pass’s history was well known, the stories of valor, victory and defeat sung by famous bards across the Four Kingdoms. Henry wondered how much blood had been spilled into the river, washing all the way to the Burning Sea.
Sighing, he slung down his load. Using the elk’s thickest antler, he chipped away at the ice, until he was able to reach the stream beneath. He drank, relishing how the icy water burned his throat on the way down. He felt alive, more alive than he’d ever felt before.
Next, he ate the rest of the raw meat, before tossing the bare bones to the side. The elk should’ve been a week’s worth of food, but it had barely lasted him half a day.
He tried not to think about what that meant.
Where am I going? he wondered instead. Thus far, he’d just walked, letting his legs carry him whither they would. Here, for the first time since he’d left Knight’s End, he felt like he had a choice, that he was at a crossroads in his life.
Henry was a westerner, and now he was at an important border between kingdoms. The northern kingdom was on the other side of the pass. Alternatively, if he crossed the frozen stream, which was known as the Snake River, he would be in the east. At the present there was a tenuous peace amongst the Four Kingdoms, but that didn’t mean you could always expect safe passage across borders, especially between the east and west, where tensions were always high.
I could turn back, he thought. Go back to Knight’s End. No one will recognize me now. I can start a new life. I can be anyone I want to be.
That’s not what Mother wanted for me.
It’s my life.
Am I really arguing with myself?
Mother? Are you there?
I am here, child.
Mother?
You have done well, sweetness. Her voice was the same as before, like an echo in his head, but softer now, as if it was fading. Henry didn’t want it to fade.
I haven’t done anything.
You left your home. That is something.
He’d never thought of it that way. I think I might go back, Henry thought to her.
It is your choice, she returned, and he could tell it’s not what she wanted him to do.
Is it?
Yes. Fate will smooth out the wrinkles, regardless of what you decide. You can go back, live a simple life. A long life. A good life with no regrets.
But not an important life, Henry thought, reading between the lines.
A good life is still important. The life I paved for you will be a lonely one. I will not force you.
Which implied that she could force him if she wanted to, even from the grave. His mother was dead, but not irrelevant, he realized.
Suddenly, the path under his feet was as obvious as the mountains that flanked him. I will go north, he thought to her.
There was no response.
His mother was already gone.
The pass was straight and narrow, a sliver of gray sky pouring mist down from above. The mountains on each side were like the shoulders of giants, jostling for position. The ice-sheathed river groaned beneath his heavy trod, but didn’t crack—it was thick and strong.
Like me, Henry thought.
Though he felt a tingle of fear running along his skin, it wasn’t like before, when it used to consume his every thought, making him hide from his tormentors. He didn’t know what the north held for him, but he would face the future head on.
Some instinct gave him pause, and he stopped, tilting his head back and sniffing the air. A faint odor tickled his nostrils. Smoke and sweat.
A sound pricked his ears, so distant it might’ve been from another land entirely.
Without thinking, he dove for the ice, feeling the whoosh of air zip past the space where his head had occupied only a moment earlier. The arrow whistled just high, its sharp downward angle slamming the sharp tip and half of the shaft into the ice. Henry stared at the black shaft, which twanged back and forth as it settled.
I’m under attack. The thought, though true, startled him. He was no fighter, having avoided the constant scraps that boys tended to engage in while growing up, trying to best each other. Running and hiding was his preferred method of dealing with such conflicts.
And yet running was the furthest thing from his mind now.
Rage swelled up inside him, as hot and thick as boiled tar, shooting strength into his bones, power into his muscles, adrenaline into the blood rushing through his veins.
He didn’t want to run. Not anymore.
He wanted to fight.
The moment he made the decision, everything seemed to slow down, time coalescing into a focused window of light through which Henry looked, seeing the world like he’d never seen it before.
The next arrow came in lower, but Henry was already rolling away, watching the dart’s path, retracing it back to its source: a shadowy cleft in the mountains. A cave perhaps, or at least a crawlspace large enough for a human.
Finishing his roll, he pushed to his feet, charging for the edge of the frozen river, where a steep cliff flanked the waterway. Another arrow ripped past, sliding against his shoulder and slicing a shred of fabric from his shirt. He was prepared for the next dart, snatching it from the air with hands that were too big to be his, and yet were. With a roar that sounded inhuman to his ears, he snapped the shaft in half, tossing the shattered pieces aside.
He reached the cliff, momentarily protected from his attackers.
He breathed.
He raged.
He marveled at his own poise, wondering at how he had caught an arrow from midair. If he hadn’t been the one to perform such a feat, he would’ve believed it impossible.
Suddenly the impossible seemed not only possible, but a foregone conclusion. I will defeat them. I will.
He started climbing, his bare feet and hands finding purchase on rocks that, to the naked eye, appeared unclimbable. When he reached the lip, he peered over the embankment, zeroing in on that dark space from where the arrows had originated.
Men were pouring from the shadows, gripping swords and spears, charging down the mountainside. They wore thick wool coats and heavy trousers as their dark boots pounded across the sloped terrain, kicking up powdery snow. Six, seven, eight…
A dozen. Two more.
Fourteen men. Bandits. Trained killers who slaughtered their victims and took all they had. These infamous raiders give this very pass its name.
I have never fought before, Henry thought. Unless, of course, he counted the times he’d been cornered in the alleys of Knight’s End. Those encounters always ended in black eyes and bloodied noses.
This time he felt no fear.
With a powerful pull of his arms, he threw himself over the cliff and sprinted toward his enemy.
Most of the men stopped, shocked by the unexpected attack. They weren’t used to such willing prey. Several, however, continued running, smiles curling their lips, their dark eyes gleaming with anticipation.
Still Henry ran, closing the distance rapidly.
The first raider approached, spear held outward, aimed at Henry’s heart. Henry blinked and the world slowed once more, until he could see the way the spear bounced up and down with each of the man’s steps, until he could see the individual drops of snowmelt dripping from his chin, the way the sunlight reflected off the whites of his eyes.
The man cried something unintelligible, shoving his spear forward. Henry slapped it away with naught but his hand, swinging his other hand, which was now curled into a fist, in a round arc. His knuckles slammed into the man’s face, and he heard an audible crack as bones broke. The man’s nose, his cheekbones, perhaps his jaw.
The bandit went down like he’d been struck by lightning, unleashing a high-pitched howl of agony. The rest of the men stopped, their mouths agape, staring at their comrade writhing in the snow.
Henry stared, too, in awe of what he’d d
one. And then he bent down slowly and retrieved the man’s spear. He had never used one before, and his newfound instincts offered no assistance. He raised the spear and broke it over his knees, throwing the jagged pieces to each side.
“You want to play, stranger?” one of the bandits, a thick-chested man with a heavy red beard, said. He wore a red scarf around his head, something that seemed to set him apart from the other men, whose clothing was all dull grays and browns. Their leader perhaps. “Nobbs. Hogbarn. Steppers. Take him.”
Three men moved forward. One was significantly taller than the others, and yet Henry realized he was just as tall, easily able to look the man in the eyes, which were narrowed and focused. The other two were shorter, aye, but muscly and battle-scarred.
A few weeks earlier Henry would’ve run at the sight of any of these men.
Not anymore.
The tall man spun a sword in a graceful arc, like he’d done it a thousand times. The other two prodded with spears, moving in on the flanks. The swordsman is trying to distract me, Henry thought.
So instead he faked left and then charged right, slipping past the reach of the spear before the wielder had time to react. He smashed his forearm into the man’s throat, sweeping out his legs with his foot. Gasping, the man went down.
The shuffling of feet announced the other spearman’s arrival from behind. Henry ducked, using his thick body as a catapult, throwing the man, spear and all, over his shoulder. Screaming, the bandit tumbled down the hill, unable to arrest his fall as he slipped over the cliff and down to the ice-covered river below.
Henry knew he’d injured his first two foes badly. But this third one was almost certainly dead.
Something about the difference took his breath away.
Not in a bad way, however. If anything, it excited him. The power was intoxicating. He controlled life and death. His own. These men’s.
As the taller man charged, sweeping his sword back and forth, something snapped inside Henry. He was fire. He was fury. He was blood and ash and bone and, above all else, he was death.