The Hungering Saga Complete

by Heath Pfaff

  The rounded balancing poles grew gradually more difficult to navigate as you reached the end furthest from the beginning. I was just beginning to navigate the most difficult portion of the course and I felt a wall of determination forming inside me. I decided that I would, at long last, reach the end of the course. I had made many an effort to defeat the foul obstacles, but this time I was determined to succeed.

  "Don't fall." Wisp's voice called, mockingly from my left. She had apparently maneuvered all the way around me while I made my last two or three moves forward.

  I ignored her and pressed on, spanning the wide distances between the steps with every bit of skill I could muster. I knew that it was in me to finish the course. I increased my speed as I went, not exactly by intent, but simply because I found that my balance seemed to better stay to my center if I kept moving fluidly. Each footfall brought me precariously close to disaster and each leap to cover a greater distance or height between poles forced me to make my next move a little faster. Before I even knew it, I had reached the end. The last jump I made brought me down nearly five feet and out four from the previous rounded step. To land on a pole width no larger than a man's palm and curved, from such a distance, was quite a challenge. I hit the low obstacle with a good deal of speed and had to bend over and grab the surface of the wood to keep myself from teetering forward and off. It was not a pretty touchdown, and as my hands scrambled for purchase I tore one of my fingernails free, but I broke my momentum and stood up on the last balance step in the set for the first time in all my months of practice. Kye, I thought with a rush of pride, would have something to be happy about.

  "Next time, faster, and don't use your hands to break your momentum. Your legs need to be enough." Malice commented in what seemed a gruff manner, but I could tell that she, too, was proud of my accomplishment that day. "Run to the sparring yard, grab two swords, and make yourself ready. Today we're going to start teaching you the sword." I nodded and went to get the gear for practice. I had wondered when we might move on to weapon training. I had seen the Knights of Ethan in practice a few times, though not very often, and they almost never bothered with weapons. Most of them, though, had some form of clawed hands which made a fair substitute for a sword. I remembered that Tempest had used a sword when he defended Kye and me from the Shao Geok, but over all he had seemed more comfortable dispatching them by hand. A sword though, helped even the odds against a superior-sized force and extended a fighters range in combat. Even the Knights of Ethan needed to know the basics.

  I located the practice weapons in short order. They were all designed to emulate two handed swords, heavy weapons that could be quite difficult for a normal man to wield with much grace, but were favored by the much stronger Knights. As I grabbed two of the weighted wood weapons, I realized that they were far heavier than a blade I would have ideally chosen for myself. I knew my arms would grow tired quickly and my form would suffer for it. That meant that Malice would likely be leaving me with more than a few potent reminders of the effects of bad form.

  I handed one of the wood weapons to Malice who took a moment to instruct me in the proper way to hold a sword. To my surprise, rather than simply beating me with her own weapon, she used the practice blade to illustrate the way she wished me to wield the ungainly block of wood. Once she'd shown me the basics, she instructed me to work at them, repeating the movements over and over again. I quickly realized the sword lessons were not going to be of much more interest than had been hand to hand training. The only fundamental difference was that now I had a heavy weight I had to hoist around. Malice worked me through several different stances and maneuvers until the sun hung low in the sky, and my arms were burning fiercely with built-up acids. Before she dismissed me for the night, however, she sent Wisp back to her guard station and waved me over to have a private conversation.

  Once she was certain we were alone, she said in a very low voice, "Silent has disappeared. That night we spent together in my rooms was the last night any one saw him. He reported to Wisp in order to switch shifts and then vanished immediately after."

  My eyes opened wide. I was surprised to hear that. I had noticed he was absent, but could hardly believe that he had gone entirely missing. "He's not out on mission?" I asked, though I knew the answer already.

  "No. He is permanently set for guard duty with you, only to be relieved by Wisp when it is necessary." Malice's voice held a brittle edge that I thought might be worry.

  "Have Knights left their post before?" It was a poor question, but I knew little of how the Knights were organized, or what their rules were regarding the abandonment of a post. I don't know why, but I assumed that Silent must have left of his own volition.

  She shook her to indicate a negative. "Any Knight who abandons his post would be immediately hunted down and punished. As you should well know by now, we are a very strict order. There have been hunting parties out for the last two days, but they have turned up not so much as a single track or sign that Silent has left the Fort. I was told not tell you, but I felt you had a right to know."

  "Thank you, Malice." I appreciated her honesty, though I knew if anyone ever found out just how much Malice had told me, about Silent - and more so about the reality of the Knights of Ethan - she would probably be in considerable trouble. At that moment I swore to myself that I would never do anything to compromise her trust in me. "What do you think has happened to him?" I regretted the question as soon as I saw the expression on Malice's face as I asked it.

  "Three weeks ago, another Knight went missing. We later found his body, decapitated and disemboweled, in the woods several miles from here. A month before that, another of our number vanished in the night and we've yet to find her." Her answer was tight lipped, worried.

  "What?" I asked incredulously. "Something is killing the Knights of Ethan? ...Is it the enemy?" I had to use the phrase "the enemy" since no one had yet identified who or what "the enemy" was.

  Malice shrugged. "I don't know, Lowin. No one does, but they are searching. You should also be weary; as you are a in training you could be a potential target. If you notice anything suspicious, alert me at once. I felt you should know about Silent's disappearance, though, since you are one of his friends." I nodded my reply, grateful to have someone willing to talk to me, especially when that someone took a great risk in doing so. I hadn't realized it until she'd said it, but Malice was right, Silent was one of my friends. He was one of the few people that had always had a smile for me over the long four months of training, and I was genuinely worried about him.

  Malice turned to go back to her apartments for the night, but she stopped after a few steps and turned toward me, looking around once more before she spoke. "How have you been?" She asked, and I could tell by the way her expression and voice softened, that it was not a question she felt would be easy for me to answer. I wasn't sure how to reply at first, mostly because I didn't really know how to feel about all that had happened. With Kye's time dwindling so quickly, I found myself both sad and angry at the same time, but most of all I felt like nothing I did much mattered anymore. In the not too distant future I would lose any purpose to go forward, and now Silent was missing as well.

  "I'm not well, Malice, but I am trying." I finally said, not wanting to lie, but also unwilling to tell Malice that I felt like the world was all too quickly running into oblivion.

  The tall female warrior nodded. "I'll tell Kye, when next I see her, how well you did today. She'll be happy."

  That made me smile. "You're a good person, Malice." I said, and I meant it.

  She smiled and gave a short, sharp laugh. "You don't have to flatter me now. I was already going to tell her you did well." With that, she turned and walked away.

  I walked back to my room lost in deep thought. There were so many different problems assaulting me that I hardly knew where to begin in tackling them. Silent was missing, and Kye's time was running out so fast that each passing minute terrified me more. I desperately wanted he
r to be in my room when I got there, but I knew that was an unrealistic hope. She was being watched quite closely, and while she could safely make excuses to visit Malice, she couldn't be seen coming to see me all the time. I desperately wanted to talk to her, only she could calm the rush of chaos that threatened to consume me.

  "You spearing Malice, too? You get around a lot for a trainee." Wisp's voice cut through my concentration, and I glared at her. She laughed in the sharp, derogatory way that she could when she was trying to offend. "Don't think you'll be mounting me, boy. I'm no whore like the purple eyed bitch or that cunt of a trainer. I'd rather go naked to the stable and let the pigs have a..."

  Whatever else she might have been about to say never cleared her mouth. "Then why don't you do so, and plug at least one of your filthy holes." I snapped, the words ripping free from me with all the force of the bottled up turmoil within me. I knew they were a mistake even as they cleared my throat. There was a flash of motion and I was suddenly two feet in the air, my back slammed against the door to my room with such force that I heard the boards bend.

  "What was that, you piece of stinking hound shit?" Wisp's voice was full of rage, her black eyes boring deep into my own with such a fearsome hate I wanted to shiver at my very core, but I wouldn't let myself. Her cold, draconic hand with its razor claws squeezed so tight about my throat that I struggled to pull breath. "I could sever your head just by squeezing your neck a bit more," she whispered, and I judged that she was trying to decide whether or not she might do just that.

  "...wouldn't have to look at your ass of a face...anymore." I spit the words out through my constricted throat. She roared her rage and slammed me back against the door again with such ferocity that this time the boards actually did crack.

  Her free hand came up in a blur and she raked it down across my field of vision. Suddenly there was blood pouring down my face, running into my eyes so that I could barely see and I realized then that I might die, that Wisp might kill me. I wondered if my death might free Kye from her magical binding. I didn't think so, but I realized that I would not have to see her die now. I smiled despite the terrible pain it caused my ravaged face.

  "It looks like your face is the one that we will be thankful not to have to see anymore." She spat venomously. There was a sudden rush of activity and I felt myself fall the ground in a heap, my back against the door. I tried to blink the blood from eyes, but every time I managed to make some headway, the sticky red liquid built back up almost immediately. Though I couldn't see, I could hear voices.

  "What do you think you are doing?" A sharp, authoritative voice demanded, and there was violence in the words. It was Malice.

  "He... he insulted me... I was just showing him..." Wisp's voice came and, to my grim satisfaction, there was a tremor in it.

  I heard the sound of a blunt impact and something heavy hitting the ground. "He is a trainee, and you are a full Knight of Ethan. If you can't take an insult from a young boy with one tenth of your ability, you are a discredit to all of us."

  "You're just protecting him because you like it when he fuc-" I heard another impact followed by a deep groan.

  Malice's voice came again, calm and as cold as I'd ever heard it. "I'll be filing a report on your misconduct and recommending that you return to a second year training regimen. It's obvious that you do not have the restraint needed for a member of your office."

  "Ethaniel will hear about..." Wisp began, but Malice's voice cut in over her again.

  "Yes he will. I have served as his master of instruction for one hundred and four years, Wisp. That is sixty years longer that you have been alive. Believe me when I say that I know Ethaniel, and know what he expects from his Knights. He will, indeed, hear about this. You are dismissed from duty until you receive official word of judgment on your actions." Her words had a finality about them that dared Wisp to speak out again. She did not, though I did hear her get up and walk away. Malice came towards me, barely making a sound as she approached. I could sense her bending down over me and then I felt one of her clawed hands brushing back the hair from my face.

  "Damn it!" She cursed with a fierceness that startled me. "I heard the commotion and came as fast as I could. I'm sorry, Lowin."

  I shook my head, not sure whether or not I was happy. In death I might have at least escaped my worries. Malice's strong arms lifted me from where I lay against the door and she carried me into my room. She did her best to clean the blood and mess from my wounds, but as my vision came clear I could see that she was more than a little distressed by what she saw. "I need to get Merrywin." She whispered softly to me. "She'll need to put in stitches, and maybe some healing salve. I'll be back in a few moments, try not to move too much." She pushed a clean cloth torn from my bedding against my face. "Hold this tight against the wounds until I get back." She got up and I heard her leave.

  Never one to listen when I thought I could get away with it, I got up from my bed and stumbled my way blindly to my closet, opening it to expose the small mirror that was there to aid in my shaving. I took the cloth from my face and stared at my face in the mirror. There were four distinct, jagged lines running down my face. Each was quite deep and oozing blood copiously. My lips were cut all the way through, leaving them to hang in flaps. I sighed, and blood followed my breath out onto the mirror. I walked back to my bed and lay down, covering my face. I had not considered myself attractive before, but now there was no question in the matter. Kye would be upset, I thought, as I lay bleeding.

  Merrywin and Malice were back in short order, and even Merrywin winced when she saw the damage beneath my once white, now red-soaked, scrap of bedding. She pulled a needle and thread from a bag of medical supplies she'd brought in with her. Malice stood at the edge of my bed, watching the process.

  "I sent for Kyeia. I felt she should be made aware of the situation, since she has a vested interest in your health." The tall female warrior said. I was aware that Malice had actually sent for Kye merely for my benefit, but her pretext was well established. A Bound One would indeed be interested if there was a threat to the life of her prospective Knight. "Once she arrives, I will take up station outside your quarters for the night, Lowin. Tomorrow there will be a new guard assigned for the watch detail."

  I nodded my thanks, not wanting to speak with my lips that hurt fiercely.

  "This is going to be quite painful, and it's going to take a while." Merrywin said, bringing my focus back to the immediate problem at hand. "I wish I could do something for the pain but I don't have anything readily available and we need to get these wounds closed up quickly." With that, she went to work with her needle and thread. The pain was terrible, and there were multiple points where I thought I might lose consciousness, but I forced myself to remain aware. Each time the darkness threatened to creep in on me, I focused my eyes on Merrywin who was deftly working her needle with practiced skill. I had a difficult time keeping track of what was happening about my room, but I was vaguely aware that at some point Malice left, and was replaced by Kye who was kneeling at the edge of my bed, a pale, distressed look hiding just beneath the calm facade she wasn't successfully pulling off. In all, there were more than eighty stitches by the time Merrywin had completed her work.

  "It looks bad now," I heard Merrywin say as she finished. "But once the wounds close up it won't be so bad. You're going to have scars, I'm afraid, but fighting men and women have scars. You'll be alright. At least you're a fast healer, and the salve will help that even more. Just make sure to spread it on the wound if it starts to grow dry, once or twice a day should be enough." She left then, leaving me with a sealed container of the salve for my wounds. As she left, Kye rushed to my side and took my hand in hers. As she drew nearer to me, I could feel the outpouring of worry and hurt from her. She didn't speak, just held my hand and cried softly. After a time, she kissed my cheek gently, and whispered softly. "I love you, Lowin. I must go, but I'll try to come see you again before the week is out."

  "I love
you, Kye." I said, the words hard to understand coming from my tattered mouth. Fresh tears formed in Kye's eyes as she got up and left. I desperately didn't want her to go. I really wanted to talk to her about everything and anything I might, just to keep her in the room with me. The room was quiet for a time but I was only alone for a few minutes before Malice came back into the room, a ghost in the darkness of the night. I knew it was her immediately. I had spent enough time with her that I had learned the subtle characteristics of the way she moved. She sat on the side of my bed and put one of her powerful hands on my chest. For a time we just sat like that, quietly sharing the night. After a time she spoke.

  "We fight so hard for our ideals and our causes that sometimes we forget that which is most vital. What does it mean to be a Knight, if one must protect those who are important, from those who are supposed to be our allies? Lowin, do we deserve this power that we hold, power scavenged from the lives of others? I don't know anymore. Surely not all of us do, and if not all of us, than do any of us? The cost is so... terrible, the result so unpredictable. Are we just monsters?" Her voice held a sad note of reflection, and a sincere sense of confusion. I wasn't sure what to say to her, so I put my hand on top of hers and squeezed firmly. It was a gesture I hoped told her that I didn't know the answers either, but I trusted her. I hoped it sufficed in place of words. I could feel the flesh around my wounds swelling uncomfortably against the stitches.