Chapter Eight
Forge Mount stood high within a wide valley, but it wasn’t much of a mountain compared to the peaks that created the valley wall. The mount was a squat, rather long hill. A small settlement rested below it, and a crumbling castle lurked on a ridge on the side.
The temple was in clear view as the army wound down the pass toward the lonely rise. The crown of standing stones claimed the topmost peak of the hill. It seemed a small formation from where they observed, but the educated observers knew the stones were immense blocks three times taller than a man. The crumbling castle, larger by far, was still less impressive. It did not illicit awe.
“Those are coming down,” Abbot Vehre said resolutely.
Next to him, the witch Thali glowered. “You aren’t doing it with her this time. I can cast the same curse.”
“Not as well. You know that. Just come up and stand with us. Or better yet, add your curse to it. We’ll gouge the earth of the evil.”
“It’s not evil!” Thali objected. “I’ve said it over and over. Even my powers come from it.”
Vehre rounded on her. “If it’s not evil, why does it permit what Marun is doing?”
It was the same argument as before. They were just repeating themselves. But this time, Thali tossed in another point in her favour.
“I don’t know. Maybe it does want the war, but it wouldn’t if the men here weren’t so unreasonable about letting women wield the power that is their right by nature.”
“If that’s true, why are you helping us instead of the Shadow Master?”
“Because he’s evil! He is! He’s using the power for his own gains, and he’s called the worst sort of creatures to help him. He’s done … he’s done unspeakable things, things that vibrate through the earth, things we feel beneath our feet. They’re chilling and vile.”
“The goddess is letting him,” Vehre insisted. “Why is she letting him?”
“I don’t know! It’s neutral. Whoever gets to the power first wins. How’s that for an answer?”
Privately Vehre didn’t think the power was as neutral as Thali thought. Eight years ago, the sect of earth worshippers in Winfel had been adamant that the Great Mother wanted this war. There was nothing neutral about wanting a war. But there was no use repeating this to Thali. He’d tried already. The evil beneath her feet somehow did not seem malevolent to her. She’d accused the earth worshippers of Winfel of misguided fanaticism. He couldn’t convince her otherwise. He loosed a heavy breath of frustration.
Hearing him, Thali shook her head with equal annoyance. “Look! If the goddess really wanted this, she’d have spoken to us too, wouldn’t she?”
He responded with grim disbelief. “You’ve admitted to deep reservations concerning the Shadow Master’s methods. If the power beneath the crust of the world is responsible for his actions, I seriously doubt it would want anyone with your uncertainties slowing his progress from within his own camp.”
“Oh, damn it, Vehre!”
There was no point continuing. Vehre placed an apologetic hand on her back. “I have to go back to the brothers now,” he said.
“Come to me tonight,” she whispered.
He nodded and lowered himself off the wagon seat. He couldn’t help agreeing. He loved her. “Brother Herfod, you blessed fiend,” he said as he strode away. “I had no idea I was such an idiot.”
He smiled, but sadness tinged the expression. He felt remorse for the hostile behaviour he’d bent upon Brother Herfod in the past and was still disturbed over the loss of this man he’d once hated but had come to admire immensely. Abbot Vehre was convinced the gods would rescue Brother Herfod. Samel saw the angel daily now. Samel was convinced as well. Together, he and Vehre had said as much to the king, but Ugoth had only stared at them and then said, “Of course.”
That was it. Of course. After making this flat acknowledgement, he had turned his back on them and marched away.
As a result of the king’s unnerving combination of despair and certainty, Samel had ceased praying for Herfod and begun praying for the king. Ugoth no longer smiled. He no longer joked. He spoke only when necessary. A powerful sense of menace exuded from him. Samel had said he’d turned completely gryphon. Vehre had stared at his Turamen brother and demanded what the hells he was on about.
“You’ve never heard the legend?” the Turamen monk had asked. “The gryphon legend of the Ulmeniran royalty?”
“No! Tell it,” Vehre had snapped.
The legend was pretty much like any of them: fantastic, entertaining and completely unbelievable. It began with a troubled princess. She fled her abusive husband and lost herself in the mountains. A stranger found her frozen and near death and guided her to safety. When she recovered her senses, she perceived that the cave within which he had carried her was littered with the bones of his victims. Her saviour was a beast, a ravenous monster. The princess, being a beauty, wasn’t eaten but ravished, and of course she got with child.
Her husband found her eventually. Unsurprisingly, the beast, a gryphon, ate the unfortunate fellow. As the legend went, the princess sickened without the attention of her own kind. The gryphon took pity on her and placed her back with her father. She bore a son, and years passed without a sign of the beast. Then one cold day, it flew down from the sky and demanded to see its offspring. The gryphon absconded with the boy for three days. The mother cried to the gods for assistance, but to no avail. Eventually the father and son returned; only now both were gryphons.
“And the cloak pin that King Ugoth wears is said to have been given to that first son,” Samel had ended. “Each king of their line has the right to wear it and to bear the black standard with the golden gryphon picked on it.”
“I don’t see your Ugoth turning into a beast,” Vehre had said.
“Oh, Brother Vehre!” Samel had cried. “He has done! There’s no humanity left in him. He watched it fly off with Herfod.”
Vehre had patted the saddened monk on the shoulder and prayed with him for Ugoth, but at this moment as he looked ahead, Vehre didn’t think the prayers were amounting to much. Ugoth was to the side of the army, his stallion standing on an outcrop of rock above the column. His Majesty’s eyes were impersonal as he observed the passing monks. He called no greeting, made no gesture of friendliness. He stared down as if watching for something to strike.
Vehre caught his attention. The gaze was piercing and cruel. The king turned away. The dismissive movement reminded the abbot of a disdainful predator.
“Yes, Samel,” Vehre said, finally in agreement. “That’s all gryphon.”
Quietly, he prayed again.
***
The alert sounded. Rapidly, more voices raised it. They had been sighted.
Marun looked at the sky. Yes. There they were, one with a burden. “Call a halt,” he said to King Quei. “Set up camp.”
“We delay almost a day’s worth of travel!” Quei growled.
“It matters not. The enemy marches for Forge Mount and will progress no further.”
“And how do you know this? From a whore and a traitor! Neither can be trusted.”
“Call the halt!” Marun shouted. “Do it!”
Quei barked the orders, but Marun didn’t heed the organized tumult that followed. He could see the figure in the harpy’s grasp more clearly now. It dangled lifelessly. Black cloth hung off it like rags.
“Kehfrey!” he whispered. Be him! Be him!
He kicked his stallion out from the column and raced it up a low rise. He wrenched the reins and forced the horse to wheel about. The harpies spotted him and altered course. He dismounted. The closest harpy shrieked. His stallion bucked and reared. He released the reins and let the horse flee back to the army. At his feet, he pulled up the unnatural shadows of dark magic.
The first harpy landed and hopped one-footed for balance. She was missing a claw. Her flapping wings forced her stench onto him. He grimaced.
“Freedom!” she croaked.
“T
he man first,” he countered.
She looked down at his feet and hopped back several yards. The shadows had thickened the moment she had alighted. “Free the queen!” she uttered raucously.
“The man first!” he shouted, to which she glared resentment with her ugly yellow eyes.
The second harpy landed. She hopped to the edge of the coiling darkness. “Marun’s boy!” she spat.
“Give him, then.”
“Freedom!”
“The man first!” Marun snarled a third time. “You will suffer if he was misused by you or your sisters.”
“Not used!” the queen croaked. “Not used! No life in him! No rise!” She laughed at Marun. “No rise! Useless!”
“I told you not to touch him!”
“Must breed!” the queen’s second shouted. “Must have daughters!”
“Not by him!” he roared. “You bitches! Bring him down!”
The queen screamed at the third harpy that continued to flap furiously above. The third descended and dropped the limp figure face down on the earth. Marun rushed forward. The queen’s second lurched in front of him.
“Freedom!” she shrieked.
Marun sent blackness at her. She screamed, urinated, and flapped aside. The stench multiplied tenfold. Accustomed to the foulness of ghouls, Marun ignored the reek and darted the rest of the distance. He knelt to the back of the body.
The figure was slight for a man, but lean and muscular. His clothing had been reduced to strips of black silk hanging off his shape. Daggers strapped to his limbs held the remaining scraps of cloth in place. He had been scratched and bruised by their handling, and grimed with their filth. Marun rolled the limp form over.
“Oh!” he cried. “Oh!”
He was beautiful! He was beautiful!
“Freedom!” the queen screamed. “Free me! Keep oath!”
Marun couldn’t take his eyes off him. Without turning, he pulled the chains from out of his tunic. He found the correct talisman by feel alone and snapped it off. The three harpies screeched in unison. The wind of their wings battered him. Their combined stench was an attack in itself.
“Kill!” the queen shrieked.
Marun smiled. The darkness leapt up and lashed them all, freezing their limbs, their wings, their very marrow. They screamed in panic. He never turned his eyes from Kehfrey’s face as he listened to them die. He smiled softly down at his love, bent and kissed cold lips, only to pull away hastily. The harpy stench was on Kehfrey. His taste was foul with it.
“Bitches!” he shouted. He rose in fury. They were still dying, scrabbling at the earth in an effort to crawl away, their grey wings fluttering ineffectually. “Bitches! You put your lips on him! You fouled him!”
“Mercy!” the queen croaked.
His eyes almost black with wrath, Marun shouted a thunderous no. The darkness leapt man high and swallowed them completely. They stilled. Grimacing yet with wrath, Marun lifted Kehfrey off the ground and carried him down the rise. He shouted for his servants. They rushed forward.
“Get bath water heated,” he said. “Get it done quickly!”
They hurried back into the milling army. His pavilion had already been set up. He eyed it eagerly. His servants were wise to have done so. He would have killed for a delay this time.
King Quei thundered up on his mount. “Is it him?” he asked. Quei couldn’t see the face; the head was turned into Marun’s shoulder. Despite the filth, the hair seemed like flames. No, like a strange red metal, burnished and bright. Copper did not match it, nor did bronze. It was a vibrant, inhuman red. Quei had seen nothing like that colour on any of the pitiful victims Marun had tortured.
“Yes, it’s him,” the sorcerer snapped. “Get off your horse.”
Quei dismounted. Marun slung Kehfrey over the saddle. “He’s a slight fellow,” the king commented. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-two,” Marun said. He indicated that Quei should lead his mount onward. The king tugged the beast into motion. Marun kept a hand on Kehfrey’s filthy thigh to steady him.
“Twenty-two. He’s a grown man. I would not have thought it by his size.”
“There are such things as slight men.”
“He’s got a build on him though, doesn’t he?” Quei remarked. “And a stench.”
“The harpies tried to abuse him.”
“Not much use to them. You spelled him obviously. I’m surprised he survived the journey with them.”
“He’s much tougher than he looks,” the sorcerer said.
After a short silence, the Stohar king glanced behind and asked what was on his mind. “Those harpies? Are they dead?”
“Yes.”
“Are they smart enough to fly still?”
“It’s an instinct,” Marun said. “Ghouls work on instincts first.”
“As you say,” Quei replied. “Just so long as they don’t start eating or copulating with any of us.”
“I’ve willed them to remain there. Just order your men to keep off.”
Quei acknowledged the gruff advice with a grunt. He looked back once more, at the three ominous and very still figures that stared down from the knoll; then they arrived at the pavilion. Marun pulled the unconscious man into his arms and carried him into the tent.
After they had disappeared from view, Quei gazed pensively at the little boy they’d found earlier that day. The child stood to the side of the entrance, his neck roped, the end held by one of Quei’s men. His hair wasn’t very red. He had been the best they could find.
“Take him to my tent,” Quei directed eventually. “I’ll keep him as a servant.”
“Won’t he object?” the soldier whispered.
“Not anymore,” Quei said flatly. “He has what he wants now. Take the child along. Then help those servants get the bath. He’s going to kill someone if it doesn’t arrive quickly.”
The soldier barked orders and dragged the child away from the tent as others rushed over to the wagon to unload the tub. Quei breathed in and grimaced. There was harpy stench coming off his saddle. He spat a curse. His man would be up all night rubbing the putrid reek out.
He stared a moment at the pavilion entrance. He’d seen the captive’s face just before Marun had disappeared within. It had been a striking face, the eyebrows, lashes, and facial hairs almost as red as those on the crown, a bit darker, a bit less metallic. The features, though masculine enough, had been beautiful. For the first time, Quei understood why Marun had been so obsessed. The boy must have been remarkable as an adolescent. Now he was magnificent.
Quei pulled his stallion about. He had an encampment to see to and no time to concern himself over Marun’s perverse interest in this odd captive. He marched off, but even then mused upon that very inhuman hair. He’d have a look at the fellow later when his eyes were open. If they were a certain bright green, then the hair on Marun’s pet would make perfect sense.
***
Marun set Kehfrey on the canvas floor. For a long while, he could only stare. The reality of Kehfrey’s adult features fought with the memory of the child in Marun’s mind. The face was slightly more narrow, the softer curves of childhood lost. The eyebrows had grown in somewhat thicker, and the eyelashes had become exquisite fans, the roots almost brown, the tips a crimson arc. The jaw was firmer than before, but the lips, the lips were the same combination of sweet curves and arrogance. If anything, the adult face made of them a better temptation, and Marun wanted desperately to set his teeth on the fuller expanse of the bottommost, to suck the flesh in and taste the power beneath. But harpy filth and harpy stench had to be eliminated first.
His hands shook as he reached for the first of the leather straps. Soldiers entered bearing the tub. Marun started and turned toward them. A sweltering anger burst from his skin and set a wind flying through the tent. Tiny wisps of shadow whirled to the corners. The men set the tub down and dashed from the pavilion. Marun recovered his self-possession.
“Yes. The bath.” Once more, his hands reached
for the strap. He unbuckled it and pulled the weapon off. He reached for the next. His fingers caressed dirt-encrusted skin. The flesh was cold, icy. “I know it hurts,” he whispered. “You will be warm again soon, after I’ve seen to this.”
He pulled the second strap off. He worked down Kehfrey’s body until he had every belt removed and each scrap of soiled fabric set in a pile, and then the first of the buckets of water arrived. The water witch arrived with them.
She glared down her nose at Marun. Dressed in man’s garb, she was so thin as to be bony. Her skin almost hung off her in places; there was no flesh beneath to fill it out. She was a phenomenon among her kind, and a threat to Marun’s rule. She had a grasp over the one element he could barely manage, an element that had kept him a slave on a ship for two years. “I heated the water for you,” she said.
“Get out.”
“I wanted to see what he grew into.”
She walked forward to peer down at the young man who was the Shadow Master’s obsession. Marun glowered, but did not challenge her again. He needed her. He had come to her over the matter of Ufrid’s delay. She had spelled the scroll capable of bringing a flood, a feat he could not match.
“He’s exquisite,” she commented without any apparent emotion. Behind her, the servants continued to file in with the buckets. They worked quickly and without speaking.
“Yes,” Marun said, looking down at his prize. “He’s exquisite.”
“How will you control him?”
“Get out!” he said a second time.
“Answer me! I will know this, or I will not be here tomorrow! Do you think I have forgotten how perilous he is? He is filled with the opposing power.”
“I can control him!”
She laughed raucously. “You lost him! He refused to return!”
Marun rose to his feet. “I have the means to control him!”
“How? Say it, or I am quits!” Darkness welled at his feet. She looked down and sneered. “She won’t let you take me. I am her second. If you fail, she will work through me.”
Bound in Stone 3 Page 31