by S J Hartland
Kaell thumped his head against the wall until blood dripped onto his shoulder. He deserved this. This cell. Punishment.
In his dreams that night, Kaell stood on the edge of a line of trees, unable to move or speak, unable to look away as the blurred shapes of men strained against tall, blond figures.
Tendrils of fog swirled, muting the shriek of metal against metal, dulling the screams. Until the shapes became huddled men and the grey cloud absorbed every sound except a pitiful weeping. There was only that weeping.
“I’ll avenge you,” he cried.
“How?” Their voices edged with scorn.
“Somehow,” Kaell said. “Somehow.”
Light blinded him. Raggamirron grabbed his shoulder. “Two months of this. I’ve had enough. Put aside your stupid pride and let him reward you. In return, you need only obey.”
Kaell thought about the raven-haired girl from his dreams. Did she wait beyond death? If he roused Archanin’s fury so the ghoul god killed him, he could join his dead comrades.
“I will obey,” he said.
They took him to that hall of drifting shadows and golden, leaping flames, of vaulted marble pillars cradling an arched roof. Smoke from braziers oozed sickly incense.
Ghouls crowded onto fur-covered benches or leaned against walls. At the sight of Kaell, voices faltered. They all watched him, their gazes expectant but cold with suspicion.
His escort dropped Kaell on his knees before Archanin. The ghoul god leaned from an ornate chair of gleaming bronze. “Kaell,” he said. “You are welcome.”
Kaell said nothing. He bit down on anger. Did Archanin trick him? Or did he save his friends?
“I am free, Kaell,” Archanin said. “For the first time in centuries, I can leave this dread place. Because of you. I would reward you, a reward worthy of what you gave me.”
Kaell lifted his head. His captors clamped his shoulders as though afraid he’d rile up.
“The only reward I desire is the gift of death. I disgust myself.”
A shocked murmur snaked, trapped like a flitting moth by circling walls. Archanin rested back against cushions, his expression complacent. “I can be patient. You are young and yet to understand how precious my gift of life is.”
Gift? This fallen god had made him a monster, a cursed thing of darkness that must die. He belonged nowhere. Not here, nor with men and women. Not with his lord. Archanin had robbed him of everything.
His despair exploded to fury. Breaking free of the guards, he sprang at Archanin like a rabid dog, snarling, fingers clawed as he gripped the ghoul god’s throat.
Archanin grabbed his arms and hurled him off. Kaell skidded into a pillar. He bounced and sprawled, arms and legs splayed. Guards seized him. They dragged him up by the arms.
Archanin reared over him. He shook his head, his tone mild as he said, “Ungrateful child. I wish to honour you, to cherish you; let you serve me as a warrior.”
Blood from his torn lips clogged Kaell’s mouth. He spat it out. Spat out words too, his hatred with them. “I despise you. I will never serve you.”
“Lock him up,” Archanin said, still calm. “No, beat him.” He smiled. “Beat him so I hear his screams everywhere in this castle. I shall enjoy that.”
They stripped and beat him again and again, ghouls with hard faces and harder fists, yelling at him to submit. He spat blood and shook his head. Each time, they left him bleeding on the floor of that dark, empty cell.
Kaell could only roll onto his back, his mouth dry with suffering, waiting for that gentle embrace of blackness. His new body healed quickly; hardly a blessing when his captors returned to bruise and punish his flesh once more.
The third day, or perhaps the fourth, Raggamirron appeared. He tossed Kaell a tunic and pants. “You are stubborn and wilful. But your god takes pity on you.”
“What?” Kaell lifted his head off knees.
“You need blood. Come.”
Kaell didn’t move. “I’m done with your filthy blood.”
“Defiance takes strength, Kaell. You’ll weaken if you don’t feed.”
“Good.”
Raggamirron smoothed the folds of his tunic with a palm. The darkness hid his expression, but sadness edged his sigh.
“You won’t die, if that’s what you think, child. Without blood your flesh will slowly decay, your bones rot, but there will be no release from this life.”
The words struck Kaell with dread. If he couldn’t starve to death, how could he escape the burden of what he had become?
Shaken, Kaell reluctantly rose, dressed and followed Raggamirron into a passage of age-blackened stone lit with candelabra burning high on racks.
A faint breeze stirred his dirty hair, but the air smelt of nothing as though the walls dampened not only sound but scent. A hush beat so loud he clenched his teeth.
They passed wooden doors. At the sight of sunlight chinked beneath, a sharp flare of hope shook him. Sunlight burned all but the oldest, most powerful ghouls. A few minutes of pain, intense perhaps, then an end. Oh gods, an end.
Raggamirron thrust a knife to his throat. “Will you run?”
“To where?” Kaell said.
“That’s true.” Raggamirron searched his face. “Where would you go?”
With another heavy sigh, he shoved the knife into his belt and grabbed Kaell’s arm to drag him on. A woman lighting candles bowed.
“Who are they?” Kaell asked. “That woman, the girl Caitlyn. They’re not ghouls.”
“They are the Varee.”
“What?” Kaell stopped to stare at him. “The Varee are thieves, slavers. Do you mean they serve him? Archanin.”
“Yes.”
Kaell trembled with anger. “Is Thom a Varee village? Did they entice us to these mountains so you could slaughter us?”
“The world beyond the gorge is complex, Kaell.” Raggamirron took his arm again. “The Varee, including the villagers of Thom, are our lord’s chosen. For centuries they’ve served him. In return, Archanin protects them.”
“That ambush. I should be dead,” Kaell muttered. “I should have died with my friends.”
“Archanin demanded we take you alive.”
“Why? Because of my blood? What’s so special about it?”
Raggamirron did not answer.
“Who am I?” Kaell’s shoulders hunched. His breast ached.
His lord had always evaded that question. As a boy Kaell shrugged it off, his interest at once moving on to the excitement each day held, the prospect of mastering a new parry or reading a story about a warrior or battle from Telor’s past.
They reached a timber-beamed hall with high windows shuttered against daylight. It was dimly lit by sparse torches in cressets. Kaell absorbed its aromas of candle wax, smoke, drying herbs … and blood.
His body quickened with hunger, an appalling reminder of what he was. Groaning, he pressed his palms to his belly.
Raggamirron nodded slowly. “You’ll learn to control that craving in time.” He bid Kaell sit at a table. A bowing servant set a jug and cup down.
“Drink.”
Kaell drained the cup. He slid a look behind. No guards. Just Raggamirron.
“Who am I, Raggamirron?”
The ghoul sat opposite. “It’s for Archanin to tell you.” He nodded at the jug. “More.”
Kaell picked up the jug. His knee hit the table.
Reflected in polished metal, his eyes were no longer green but as black as buffed obsidian. As black as a ghoul’s.
He spluttered a bitter laugh. No one need tell him who he was. He was a monster.
Raggamirron grasped his arm. His face creased in concern. “What? What is it?”
Kaell smashed the jug into Raggamirron’s face. The ghoul crashed back. His wooden chair broke apart as it hit the ground.
Kaell leapt up and ran for the wooden doors. An astonished servant stared after him, his dropped bowl clattering on the floor. Raggamirron yelled for guards.
“Y
ou! What are you doing?” A man blocked him. Kaell shoved him aside. He reached the doors, rattled the handle. Locked.
A clamour broke out. Running feet pounded. Raggamirron stumbled towards him, clutching his head. “Kaell, this is useless. Stop.”
Kaell hurled his weight into the doors. The wood splintered. He scrambled through shards into daylight, his breath snapping out in relief.
Across an expanse of lawn, wind rippled a river’s turquoise surface, its cool breath teasing fingers in his hair. After the heavy stillness of closed-in passages, the perfumes of grass, may bushes and spidery, yellow wildflowers intoxicated.
Water lapped a boardwalk. Bobbing boats strained against anchors.
Spring. The season of budding blossoms, of shooting green leaves on boughs, of song and verdant life. The wrong season to die.
Kaell tilted his face to the sun. “Turn me to ash,” he cried. “Let me die.”
Hands grappled at him. Kaell threw them off. A fist struck his chin. Stunned, he reeled. A second blow knocked him flat, sun beating upon his face. It must burn him. Must.
Men, not ghouls, yanked him up and pounded his midriff. He doubled over, wheezing.
“Yield.”
Kaell broke free, stumbled to his knees, tried to crawl. “Let me die. Just let me die.”
Men pinned him. He thrashed in a frenzy that quickly emptied his body even of ghoul strength. Only then as he panted, exhausted, did they pull him up to bind his wrists.
His captors marched him inside and surrendered him to ghouls. As they forced him back to that hateful cell, Kaell glimpsed a figure watching.
“Arn,” he whispered, not believing. Why did this ghost torment him? He shouted, “Arn!”
Ghouls flung him into the cell. Kaell fell face down. Hands bound, he used an elbow to roll.
Raggamirron stood at the door, blood dripping from his temple. “That was futile.” He tore the torch from its bracket and turned. “Think about that as you rot.”
Kaell thumped his trussed fists on stone. “Daylight. Raggamirron, why aren’t I dead?”
“You have his blood, fool. A god’s blood.”
Raggamirron doused the torch, leaving Kaell in darkness once more.
The beatings began again. The ghouls took to their task dispassionately, their punches to his face careful and well placed. But his body they pummelled. Relentlessly. Brutally.
Hands tied, Kaell could only curl to protect his midriff. That forced them to stretch him out, a canvas for fists as they painted his flesh a mottled purple and red.
Beneath the vicious rhythm of blows, his thoughts blurred. Then fell apart. Sometimes Kaell wasn’t sure when the battering stopped. When it started again. The nightmare of pain only rolled on and on and he could not escape it.
“That’s enough,” someone said from the doorway. On elbows and knees, Kaell peered up through sweat-drenched hair. A guard smirked. “You’re summoned.”
The other ghouls dropped him. The newcomer yanked him up and half carried, half dragged him to Archanin’s rooms. At the door he freed Kaell’s hands. “Go in.”
Kaell lurched inside. From the carved wooden chests and chairs, thick carpets to divans bright with silk and velvet cushions, the chamber seemed unchanged. Light from torches in sconces menaced moon-streaked shadows. An owl in trees hooted.
Archanin reclined in a tall-backed chair, a goblet in one hand. He jabbed a finger at a ghoul at his feet, her arms and legs spread like a beached starfish.
“I should take your heart. You served me poorly, Tristana.”
“Forgive me, lord.” The prostrate Tristana sobbed. “I shall keep a closer watch.”
“Do so. If she slips away again, I shall not be so lenient.”
The weeping ghoul clambered up and scuttled through a curtain to a side door.
“Kaell.” Archanin stretched his long legs. “From your blood dripping onto my rug, you remain stubborn. Don’t you tire of pain?”
Kaell clamped a palm onto his thigh. Blood oozed between fingers. He swayed, weak and disorientated by blood loss and hunger. “I prefer pain to serving you, monster.”
“That’s very naughty.” Archanin’s tone was a parent’s correcting a wayward child. “Why invite my anger? My patience is not infinite.”
“I don’t fear you. There’s nothing left you can take from me.”
Archanin smiled.
Pain threw Kaell to the floor. He screamed, his body ripping inside, his mind collapsing to a haze. Then it swept away. Fast. Flat on his back, Kaell stared up at rafters, weeping.
“Why make me punish you?” Archanin drained his cup. “You gave me a great gift, Kaell. I want to repay you. In return I demand only obedience.”
Kaell had no breath to answer. He shut his eyes, frightened by what happened. He could not withstand even minutes of what Archanin put him through. Yet to die, he must force the ghoul god to hurt him more than that.
Panting, he struggled to his knees. “I won’t give it.” He braced. “Do your worst.”
When pain did not pummel him, he cast his captor a puzzled look.
Archanin offered a careless shrug. “Your game is obvious. I’ll admit to a grudging respect for your courage. Come and sit by my feet.”
Kaell made no move.
“Must everything be a battle? Shall I call my guards just to drag you a step closer?”
“No.” Seething with resentment, Kaell crawled through smeared blood to kneel before Archanin. The ghoul god cupped his chin. “Let me look at you.”
“I am what you made me,” Kaell said tonelessly. “A beast belonging nowhere.”
“You belong here, Kaell. You always did. In time you’ll understand that. Then you’ll regret this foolish bid to seek daylight to die.”
“I only regret the sun didn’t kill me.”
Archanin sighed. “This battle of wills is tiring. I made a mistake, Kaell. I was impatient for your obedience and love. Now I’ll do what I should have all along. Keep you close until you appreciate me and my gift.”
“There’s that word again. Gift. This is no gift. I don’t even understand how you changed me? Why am I different?” He paused, his heart skidding and skipping. Words crept out in a scratchy whisper. “Who am I? You promised to tell me.”
“I will—in time. I won’t lie to you, Kaell, not like your lord. How poorly he treated you. Punished you by withholding his love. Such a cold, distant man.”
“You’re wrong,” Kaell muttered. “Everything my lord did prepared me to fight, to be a warrior.”
“A warrior with no defences against magic. A warrior he abandoned to his fate. You should hate him, not me.”
“He didn’t abandon me. He thinks I’m dead. He must.”
Archanin touched Kaell’s bruised jaw with his fingertips. “Do you believe he’d come for you Kaell, if he knew you were here? Do you really think this man would come?”
“Yes.” Kaell lifted his chin. “Yes, he’ll always come for me.”
Archanin laughed. With the back of his hand he stroked Kaell’s cheek.
“How fiercely you defend him. He begins to take shape for me, this man you love. By reputation he is a formidable swordsman. The Varee fear him.”
“He’s the best bladesman I’ve seen.”
“Is he? Such awe in your voice. Perhaps when I take the castle of Vraymorg, I won’t kill him until I’ve brought you together one last time. What will he see when he looks upon you, Kaell? The boy he raised? Or some perverted version of that boy he could never love.”
Torchlight spilled around Archanin like pooled rays. It fell on golden hair, on a cruel, knowing smile.
Kaell turned away. Despair squeezed his heart. It was as though his ribs caved in, trapping breath.
Once his lord might have come. Before. Not now. Not if Vraymorg knew what Kaell had become. A sob forced its way up his throat where air could not.
The guard returned with a bowl of water and cloth.
Archanin gestured. “Cl
ean him up, Dharam.”
The ghoul washed and bound Kaell’s wounds then soundlessly left.
Archanin gripped Kaell’s chin again. “I still see rebellion in those darkened eyes. Soon you’ll forget why you’re angry. You’ll forget that other life. Time means nothing now.”
He leaned, his hand at the nape of Kaell’s neck to draw his head close. His lips brushed Kaell’s mouth. He edged his captive’s tunic off his shoulder, his fingers caressing bare skin.
So easy to surrender. So easy to close his eyes and let these hands, these lips bring pleasure rather than hurt. To feel something, anything, other than this misery and loneliness.
Kaell pulled away. “I know what I let you do. I can’t hide from it, but it won’t happen again.”
Archanin sat back. He considered Kaell not with anger, but regret. “You’re so young.” The ghoul god carefully unknotted his hands. “Until that childish outburst, I forgot that.”
With a sigh, he pressed his head into the chair. His gaze softened as it dwelled upon the shadows. Lamplight, candlelight highlighted the planes of a near-perfect face, on eyes unnaturally, shallowly blue. Yet gloom thickened in corners, the room closing in.
“I thought you might be the one.” Archanin’s voice was low and uneven. “You’re lettered. More than a brute warrior. But you are a child. A child cannot know or understand me. You cannot be the companion I seek, that man or woman, a sophisticate to share all I am.”
Repulsed, Kaell drew back. Not at the thought of a male companion. But his captor was a ghoul god, his enemy. How could Archanin imagine he would ever want to understand him?
Archanin stirred and snapped his fingers. This time Dharam carried a long chain inside.
“This is where I chained the last one,” the guard said as he stooped to shackle Kaell’s ankle. “A bonded warrior no older than you.” Dharam smirked, bowed and left.
Kaell tugged half-heartedly at the chain. “What’s the point? You said I’ll never be what you want.”
Archanin touched his cheek. “You freed me, Kaell. Your blood oath destroyed Roaran’s magic binding me to this ruin. My gratitude is deep. I will take the time to win you. How valuable a warrior with your skills will prove when I conquer this land.”