by Heath Pfaff
"We should be ready to fight." Malice's voice was quietly serious, and I could sense the tenseness in her posture, a stance that would not be perceivable to those who did not know my green-eyed friend well. Beneath her shifting cloak, her body was coiled and ready to launch into action.
I readied myself for a confrontation, willing my magic claws to fine points, and quietly stretching my muscles beneath my own cloak. The tattered magical fabric had seen better days. It now had several holes from my fight with Whisper of the Mist, and still had the patched places where I'd been impaled fighting to rescue Kye. It looked worse than I did, but I guessed it was probably doing its job better than my body was after all the abuse. My heart skipped a beat, as if to verify that line of thought, and I was forced to consider whether or not I would even be useful if the situation came to blows. The stench of rotting meat came to me then, taking me full in the face as an errant gust of wind blew across the bridge towards us.
Tyvel remained oddly quiet, which I found to be a surprise, since he was usually quick to weigh in with an opinion in tense situations. I noted it mentally, but didn't say anything aloud. Voicing suspicions about the traitor would have to wait until we had better worked him to our advantage. Besides, we didn't know what the consequences would be for Kay if we were to confront Tyvel about his part in her abduction.
It didn't take long for us to determine the source of the smell of death coming from the massive bridge. Bodies were strewn all across its surface, most in various states of dismemberment and mauling. How much damage was from the battle, and how much was from animals preying on the corpses after the attack, I could not be certain, I was not well studied in making such judgments.
"How long have they been here?" I asked no one in particular.
"A matter of a few days. . ." Tyvel began, but Malice cut him off.
"Three weeks, maybe a little longer." Malice said firmly. Tyvel lapsed into silence. "This amount of putrification would take at least that long.
"Yes, that is what I meant, a few weeks." Tyvel said, before floating off and seeming to take studious interest in the chaos about us.
I did not believe for a moment that he had simply misspoken. He had been intentionally trying to mislead us as to how long the men on the bridge had been dead. I wondered why that was. What benefit would it be for him to lie about such a thing? What was he trying to hide?
I looked across the great length of the bridge. From our side of the structure, it was only just possible to see the far side, but I guessed that we would find it similarly strewn with corpses along its entire length. If those at the other end of the bridge had been alive, they would surely have been aware of the carnage at this side by now, and would have to come to bury their comrades.
"Come quickly!" Tyvel called, hovering over the body of one of the fallen several feet away.
Malice and I went briskly to his call, eager to see what it was that had so excited our traitorous companion. He was standing above a figure wrapped in a deep black cloak.
"These are the things that attacked our home, Lowin. These monsters. . ." He pointed to the black cloaked figure, and for the first time I noted that the arms and legs of the cloaked figure were those of a Fell Beast. Malice stepped in close and nudged the creature onto its back with one of her pawed feet. It turned over exposing a face too rotted to make out much detail. The eyes were gone, so it was impossible to tell if it had been a Knight of Ethan, but the face did not look exactly right. We needed to see more of the monster, but neither of us wanted to do what was necessary.
I took a deep breath and stepped towards the corpse, drawing a short knife from the belt of the dead beast to do the task at hand. I ran the knife along its torso, attempting to cut away the cloak and clothing, but the cloak resisted my knife. The fabric was enchanted. Someone had spent a lot of money in paying for a fabric that could hold such a spell. There was a huge and grizzly blood stain on the front of the cloak though. Apparently the spell had its limits, much as the magic on my own cloak did.
"The fabric is enchanted." I told Malice and Tyvel, though I was mostly speaking for Malice's benefit.
"He is most likely a king's man, then. Such fabric does not come cheap." She said.
"Of course he is a king's man!" Tyvel said tersely. "I told you, he is just like those that attacked Wisp and took Kay."
I shifted my grip on the knife in my hand, ignoring Tyvel's indignant reply, and thrust with the force I knew would be required to puncture the magical fabric. My knife broke the threads this time, and I drew clothing and cloak apart with the sharp blade. Beneath his cloak was a tabard bearing the kings insignia, and that also fell away at the passing of my knife. In a minute I had reached the corpses torso and discovered the alarming truth.
"He is a Fell Beast all the way through to his neck." Malice said, the shock obvious in her voice. It was true. Whatever kind of creature the man before us was, his body was that of a fell beast everywhere below his neck line. He was far more monster than man. What magic was the king playing with that would create such monstrosities?
"When did the king start dabbling with experiments like these?" I asked, looking directly at Tyvel. He had been a researcher for the king, and since he was supposed to be our ally, it was only right that I ask him.
"I have never seen, or heard of, anything like this before. My studies were mostly with the Uliona and human lines. I know nothing of what this creature is." The ghost-like entity attempted to assure me, but his words rang false. I couldn't be certain that he was lying, though I was disinclined to trust him because he seemed far too eager to bring our attention to the fallen man. He knew more than he was willing to tell. I pulled the dead man's cloak closed, and covered his face. I had no intention of burying the creature, but it was only right that I do something, since I had violated his corpse by cutting the cloak free. I stood, leaving the knife with the body.
We proceeded cautiously across the bridge. The scene of battle was obviously stale, but that didn't mean that someone could not have stayed behind. The massive number of casualties amongst the bridge guards was reason enough to not rush blindly ahead, so we picked our path slowly, ready to fight if need be. We came across more of the strange Fell Beast and man hybrids as we crossed the swiftly running water. The roar of the rushing Iol Adjot was almost deafening. We saw no Knights of Ethan until we reached the far gate, which stood wide open just as the first side had. It was there, beneath the gate arch, that we found the bodies of two Knights, though they were only identifiable by the remnants of cloak that hung about them and the specially crafted swords that lay uselessly at their sides.
They had both been viciously mauled and torn apart. What little remained of their bodies had obviously been intentionally desecrated by the attackers. Of the two Knights, the female had been stripped naked, her head removed, as well as her clawed hands and feet. The similarity to what had been done to Wisp was not lost on me, and a single look at Malice confirmed that she was thinking along the same lines.
Malice walked over to the corpses, and pulled what remained of their cloaks over the bodies, her face pale. She took a moment to unfasten their sword belts, and handed one to me before fastening the other on herself. She retrieved their weapons, which had been lying on the ground, and wiped them off on the fabric of one of the other fallen fighter's tabards before handing one sword in my direction.
"I don't like to rob the dead, but they will not need the steel, and we might." Malice said softly. I nodded my agreement and put on the sword. The weight was familiar, for the blade was a sister to the one I had carried for some time. I felt at home with the familiar weight drawing downward on the leather sword belt.
I looked at the now shrouded bodies that lay on the ground, new questions rising to the forefront of my mind. Why would the king's men, sent to kidnap my daughter, also assault the king's own bridge crew? That made no sense. The entire situation was not right, and I suspected that Tyvel knew more than he was telling.
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nbsp; "These had to be the same attackers that struck our home. They killed in the same manner. If our attackers were kingsmen, why did they attack their own men at this bridge?" I asked aloud, for it was a question that needed to be asked, and could safely be asked even without raising Tyvel's suspicion. It was a question that anyone with half a mind would be considering.
"I can't figure it out." Malice said, her face drawn, her eyes forlorn. To fight and kill in the line of battle was a terrible though sometimes necessary thing, but the monsters that had fought upon the bridge, and then later at our home, had seemed to delight in their acts of brutal murder. Even if we were not allies to the king or his men, we were not so heartless as to approve of what had occurred upon that ill-fated bridge.
"Perhaps the bridge was not under the king's control." Tyvel said, after a period of quiet.
"These men all wear the king's emblem on their tabard, and the Knights of Ethan were carrying regular swords, not the broken swords of Lucidil's men. No, these men who were defending this bridge were the king's own. So why did those that were sent to our home kill these on the bridge?" I pressed the question again.
"I do not know. The king can be callous at times. Perhaps that is a question best left unanswered." Tyvel said, sounding for all the world as if he were as confused as the rest of us. I nodded my head. I intended to ask the king when I finally met him exactly why he had seen fit to kill his own men in such a way. Tyvel might not think an answer was necessary, but I would not leave such a question unanswered.
"We should get moving. There is nothing here but death, and we have another week of running before we reach the capital." Malice said. I knew she was right, but I still felt guilty about leaving all of the bodies upon the bridge as we'd found them. Something terrible had happened on the Iol Adjot River, and the aftermath ate away at me in some intangible way. None of the details seemed to fit together quite as they should.
We passed cautiously through the final stone archway, alert for any attack that might fall on us, but we encountered nothing. Whatever had killed the people on the bridge was long gone. That did not make me feel any better about the situation. Had the king ordered his own men killed at the bridge? If he hadn't made the order, then had those monster-men done it of their own volition? That was not a pleasant thought. Those men had my daughter. I found myself breaking into a run. The more I encountered horrors, the more I feared for Kay. Even if she was not killed, would her mind ever recover from the horrors she was being forced to live through? Malice fell in at my side, and Tyvel hovered near. I couldn't afford to wait any longer. I would get to the capital as fast as I could make my feet go. It was time to get Kay back, and finally get some answers.
Kreo was the capital city of the human lands, and truly a marvel of human craftsmanship. The city was large enough that standing atop one of its highest towers, a person could not see all of it from one edge to the next. For much of its history, Kreo stood as the only human settlement, a fortification against the world that lay beyond its walls, but the sons of men had spread, their need for more land and more space forcing them beyond the safety of their stone boundaries. At first Kreo had expanded with them, and that was why there were four levels to the ancient city. After each major expansion the residences erected a new outer wall, the previous walls becoming physical subdivides that eventually were used as societal districts.
The city's army, once a force only enlisted to guard the walls, had grown huge out of necessity. They needed enough men available to protect the massive perimeter, and to keep peace among the ever-growing population of citizens. However, the kings of men grew tired of having but one city to govern, and they began to grow their armies larger, and to send them out to conquer more land. The beasts of the world were pushed back, and the city of Kreo became the capital city of man, and the permanent home of the king.
I had never seen Kreo before, and I found myself duly impressed by the sight that sprawled before me as we came over a hill crest to find the massive metropolis strewn below us with the chaotic grace of an artist gone mad. I could see some semblance of order amongst the sections of the city nearest the wall, the newest established area, but as one looked further towards the center, the streets became less organized, a labyrinth-like mash of curving streets and maddening architecture, a testament to a city that did not intend to grow as large as it eventually did.
At the center of it all stood the king's castle, a massive brooding building that reached high into the sky. It was a fortress to rival any ever built, or so I thought then. There was much in the world I still had not seen.
We approached the castle gates cautiously, unsure as to what we should expect for a greeting when we arrived. My anticipation caused a mix of dread and hope. I desperately wanted to find Kay safe and sound, but Tyvel's strange behavior over the past few weeks had not instilled in me a sense of any great confidence. I had the distinct impression that the situation we were walking into was far more complicated than it seemed.
The line of traffic at the gate was less than I would have suspected. There were five carts before us in a neat line, and absolutely no people gathered around the entryway, as one would normally expect at the gates of a city of such a magnitude. Generally people gravitated to city gates, setting up stalls to sell food and souvenirs to people waiting in line to gain entrance. There was good business in it, but here were only five solitary carts and their one or two man crews. The man in the rear carriage spotted us, and his face went as white as Tyvel's.
"Knights of Ethan, make way, make way!" His voice was suffused with a timbre of fear, and he moved his cart aside with more speed than I would have thought possible by looking at the two sickly Reave Haulers he was using to pull his load. Reave Haulers were a variety of two legged lizard, powerful and intelligent beasts, and preferred creatures of burden for most of the kingdom. They were generally docile so long as they were fed, but male and female alike had a nasty crown of spines around their skull that could cause trouble for those who mishandled them. However, the Reave responsible for pulling the man's cart looked as though they had long since lost any will to fight. They looked old, tired, and as weary as I felt.
I did not try to stop the carts from clearing way, as I might have done under other circumstances. I was in a rush, and any speed advantage gained was well appreciated. I turned to see what Tyvel might be thinking of the whole situation, but found, for the first time in weeks, that the ghost was conspicuously missing. He had hovered about us constantly since I'd been injured by Whisper of the Mist.
"Because we cannot see him, does not mean that he is not here, somewhere. I'm sure Tyvel would not abandon us in this situation." Malice said, obviously having noticed my eyes searching for the ghost. It was a warning, I knew, not to say anything I might only say in front of my green-eyed friend.
"This is true. He is never far gone." I said, trying to imply that I agreed with the sentiment without saying more than was necessary. We approached the guards.
I recognized the eight figures at the gate immediately, and I guessed Malice did as well. They wore black cloaks, designed much as our own were, though without the shifting colors that marked us. The hands and feet that showed beneath those cloaks were Fell Beast in nature, and the faces that were uncovered in the early daylight were those of human men. Their eyes were human, not those of the Uliona, like the Knights of Ethan, the Broken Swords, and whatever it was that Malice and I had become since separating from the others of our kind. Their human eyes, though, shone with feral light, as if something barely controlled rested behind those glassy orbs. We drew close, and as we did the black cloaked warriors drew their swords, fine forged black-steel blades. I guessed them to be inferior to the borrowed blades we carried, since black steel was inherently more brittle, but they were still fine weapons.
"Who are you?" One of the creatures asked, stepping forward, and I noticed as it talked that its mouth was full of vicious cutting teeth, though they looked as if they'd been haphazardly cra
fted into the monster's maw. Its voice was a little above a raspy whisper, projecting further, but with the same airy growl.
"I am Lowin Fenly, and I'm here with my companion, Malice. We've been summoned by the king." I told him, standing up straight, and placing my hand on the hilt of my sword, but not yet drawing the blade forth.
"It is the betrayer. . ." A voice said from the back of the group of black cloaked figures.
"Oath breaker. . ." Uttered another.
"The fallen-exalted has come." Yet another voice whispered.
The man-creature who had first spoken to us growled again, "He waits for you. He has waited eagerly for your coming, Lowin Fenly and companion Malice." He gestured for us to enter, and we did. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as we passed through the group of black cloaked figures. I felt their eyes like knife points on my flesh, and knew that only the command of the king restrained their terrible violence. These were the beasts that had killed Wisp, and taken Kay away. I wondered if it were any of the very same creatures that surrounded me then. Again I contemplated what magic had made them, and what such a terrible existence could possibly give to them to make it worth their loss of humanity.