The Hungering Saga Complete

by Heath Pfaff

  "Since she has been here, she has proved to be an invaluable asset to us." Weaver said, as Telistera finished her story. "We lost the capital, but we held out far longer than we would have without her aid, and thanks to her, we managed to save a good many civilian lives."

  "I wish only that more of us remained to aid the cause." She said, and her words were heavy, weighted by a great sadness. I wondered just how many of her people had escaped her homeland on the one surviving ship. I couldn't imagine what a terrible loss it must be to lose everything you'd ever known.

  I felt I should say something, though I found myself at a loss for words. What did one say to someone who had lost the very root of their world?

  "You exemplify the bravery of your people." I said, though the words felt hollow and insincere in the face of Telistera's tragic story.

  She nodded once. "I do not tell my story to win sympathy, but to help understand the nature of the enemy that we face. The Hungering are terrible, and they will not stop so long as their king stands."

  "Then where is their king? If we kill him, we can end this quickly." I said, thinking the answer was obvious.

  "That is part of another, shorter, story." Lucidil said, gesturing to Ethaniel. "Why don't you tell us all how you came to be as you are now, and what those extra eyes mean to us."

  Ethaniel stepped forward, as imposing a figure as ever before, maybe more so for the gray eyes that sat on his forehead just above his brow line, starring with a murky, fog-like, animosity. He wore no cloak. Instead, his wings were wrapped about his shoulders, falling around him much the way that a cloak would. He was one of the few Knights of Ethan I'd seen who did not frequently wear one of the shifting cloaks, though I noted that King Lucidil no longer wore his.

  "I am not as adept a teller of stories as Telistera, and there is little to tell." Ethaniel began. "We found it while we were preparing the capital for the rush of the Hungering that we knew was fast approaching.

  "It was a black thing, a creature that seemed more smoke than solid. Its form shifted and churned, as though not firmly set in reality, and it skulked in the darkness of the castle. We'd gotten reports of people seeing it in hallways, and encountering it in their rooms at night, but we took it to be the jitters of a people who feared the coming of the Hungering, that was until the time we caught it spying on the king in the his own hall. I was there that day, and though it tried to escape, it could not out pace me.

  "It attempted to leave the audience chamber, but I grasped it tight around the neck, though it was difficult to hold onto because it seemed that its neck might vanish beneath my hands at any moment. It was like holding on to slick sand that moved of its own volition. I had never seen a creature of its ilk before. It was black and wiry, smaller than a man, but far stronger than I would have believed possible in so slight a form. Smoke, like that which seeps from its eyes even as I wear them now, crept from its skin, vanishing into the air around it, though it did not feel hot to the touch. Indeed, it was cold against my hands. As I grabbed it, it screamed out to me, 'Please, do not kill me. With these eyes I can see far and wide. I know what evil comes! I will tell you all if you spare my life!'

  "Lucidil overheard its outburst and bade me to bring it closer, though I felt doing so was a risk. I questioned it, asked it where it had come from, and what it intended. It said that it was a creature of the far south, but that it had been driven north by the need to find safety, for it feared the coming of the Hungering. It was seeking a safe place, and it had thought the kingdom of men would be the safest, the king's own castle safer still. Its story rang false.

  "We did not trust it. Its eyes were full of betrayal and evil, but we didn't wish to risk losing its ability to see far, if it really had such an ability at all. Weaver forced it to prove the power of its eyes, and so it did. It predicted when and where the horde of Hungering ships would arrive. We imprisoned it, and waited for its information to prove true. True it was, but that revelation left us with another problem.

  "We knew that the dark thing, a creature which called itself a 'Shadowlin,' could never be trusted. Though it cooperated with us, we were certain it had ulterior motives. However, we wanted the information its eyes could provide. The solution to that difficult situation was simple. I, being the first and strongest of the Knights of Ethan, agreed to take on its most prized aspect, as I had taken on so many others.

  "The binding process was difficult, since the Shadowlin did not wish to cooperate. It fought tooth and nail, killing some of those involved in the process. We used blood, its black blood and my red were combined, and each of us tied to the other through its consumption, as there must be a bond for the process to work. Once the binding was done, our most skilled surgeons cut out its eyes and placed them on me. Of course, we could not remove my Uliona eyes to do so, so they had to be placed elsewhere." The gray eyes on Ethaniel's forehead almost seemed to burn black for a moment, as though they were sentient, and aware of the attention cast upon them.

  "The magic worked. The Shadowlin creature died, and I was left with its eyes and its ability, though the magic is difficult to control. I am still struggling to adapt it for ready use. I cannot control when the visions come, or what I will see. I get glimpses, small portions of the whole picture, and I cannot be certain exactly what I am meant to learn. The eyes have proved themselves valuable. With them I was able to give early warning to the city, and we were able to save many people. In time, I will master this vision." He said the last with determination, but his face seemed weary. His face, I thought, hardly seemed the proud image of nobility it had once been.

  He continued. "More importantly, I believe we can use the eyes, once I've mastered them, to find the Hungering king, and put an end to our enemy once and for all. As of now, we do not know whether the Hungering ruler is on our land, or still in the lands of the Tett. Until we know that, we are lost."

  "Ethaniel will succeed." Weaver said. "As will we all. Our situation is dire, but we can still win this. There are still 15 Knights of Ethan, including those of us in this room and. . . ."

  I couldn't help myself, I was so startled by the king's proclamation that there were only 15 Knights remaining, that I spoke out of turn. There had been hundreds of Knights. "There are only fifteen Knights remaining?"

  "How is that possible?" Malice spoke from beside me. She sounded incredulous as well.

  "Our numbers have been severely reduced over the last six years. You forget, we have been at the front of every major conflict, and we cannot easily replenish our numbers." Ethaniel spoke. "Two of our current number are new enough not to have taken anything more than the eyes. One, in fact, only finished the binding process just before the fall of the castle."

  I found myself shocked again. "Just before the fall of the castle?" I looked to Lucidil. "Were you not the king at that time?" He had always proclaimed a strong hate for the process by which Knights of Ethan were made. He had told me that he lost a great love to the process, as had I.

  He nodded his head, apparently not seeing my point.

  "You did not stop this from happening? I thought you were fighting to prevent such. . ." I began, anger coming through in my voice.

  "We need those warriors now. Our entire land is at risk, Lowin. Would you begrudge our people the heroes needed to save them?" Lucidil looked at me as though I was a fool who did not understand the world.

  "You were fighting specifically to stop such an abuse of power, Lucidil. How can you change the entire nature of your cause? How can you stand as a king, and support the atrocities which you condemned before?" I did not back down. My ire was rising, and all eyes had fallen on me. Inside of me, somewhere in my mind, teeth gnashed as snow fell across a barren landscape. The Fell Beast had awakened.

  "Times have changed, the situation has changed. We need the Knights of Ethan more than ever before, and I cannot allow the cessation of the contract."

  My fists balled in rage, and that beast within me thrashed and howled, wanting to b
e let out. All eyes were on me, as if they all could see the monster that lay within. Those eyes - fearful, some worried for me, some worried for the king - but all troubled, spoke to the human part of me. I quieted my rage and turned my back on Lucidil, unwilling to meet his heartless gaze.

  "What are we to do now?" I said, letting the anger pass me. I had to remain calm if I was to see my daughter again. Lucidil would not allow me to come to dinner if I started trouble, and more than anything else I wanted to see my Kaylien again. The tension in the room fled as I resumed an outward calm.

  "I need to bring the brunt of my forces along behind the Hungering line. We are fortifying here, preparing for the onslaught to come, but I need the Shao Geok and my other allies from the South to circle around behind those forces so that we can break them into smaller groups and pick them off. The problem is that I previously ordered them to another location, and they are still en-route there now. I need to send a message to them, but the message has to pass directly through the Hungering line if it is to reach its destination in time." Lucidil spoke calmly, his eyes locking on mine as he finished his last sentence.

  "I need you, Ethaniel, and Malice to cut through the advancing Hungering army and warn the Shao Geok, and the armies that follow them. Ethaniel can use the information he gathers from his new eyes to better direct our forces, and the three of you can move quickly, and be almost certain to arrive intact." The king finished. He was not ordering me, though I knew the order was implied beneath his explanation.

  I nodded. "Alright. If that is what needs to be done."

  Lucidil smiled, relief obvious on his face. He thought he had a firm grip on me, but he hadn't been certain. His lack of understanding just how tightly he held me under control only further proved how little humanity was left in the red-eyed warrior. He held my daughter under his sway, and I could not betray him while that remained true. That he failed to understand that did not show him under the best light.

  "Good." Lucidil said, "I'll need you to be ready to leave at first light tomorrow. It'll be easier to travel during the day. For the remainder of the night you are free to do as you'd like. You are, of course, all invited to dine with my family at our pavilion. Dinner will be in a few hours." He said the last words, I knew, as a way of letting me know that I had behaved well enough to be allowed to see my daughter again. Inside me the Fell Beast growled menacingly into the quiet of my mind. "Noble, Malice, you two should familiarize yourselves with the camp. The other Knights will be pleased to see their number swell, even slightly, I'm sure." With that, I knew that we had been dismissed.

  I walked from the tent. Malice, Ethaniel, and the silver-eyed woman, Telistera, all left with me. Ethaniel walked away without another word, seemingly intent upon his own business. It was strange to watch a man who was almost a legend walk away, as though he were just another soldier in the army. I supposed, that technically that was all Ethaniel was, but he had always seemed to so far beyond me before. Telistera turned to address me before she departed.

  "Weaver speaks highly of you. He believes that you will save us all." Her eyes were deeply probing, but seemed to hold no aggression. "I look forward to hunting beside you in the future." She bowed to me, and then to Malice, and then she too departed.

  "I thought you were going to kill him." I said quietly to Malice once the others had gone.

  "I was, but you have no right to say anything. There were several times when I thought you might rip his throat out." She answered. She turned to me, and I could see concern beneath her beautiful green eyes. "Are you alright?" She was, of course, referring to Kay.

  I shook my head. "No," I answered honestly. "We have no choice, though. I am very tired of having no choice. . ."

  She nodded, once, sharply. "If anything happens to Kay, I'm going to rip out his heart." Her eyes held a dangerous determination.

  "If anything happens to Kay. . ." I let the words hang, because I couldn't be certain what I would do. I closed my eyes for a second, and an image of all consuming fire cutting through a great forest filled my mind. In the center of the woods, amidst the cinder and smoke, was a Fell Beast, with red stripes at its wrists and ankles, blood dripping from its teeth, and madness in its eyes. ". . . I will burn the world." The words came unbidden to my lips.

  The king's camp was quite the spectacle. A variety of different peoples from all across the land traveled about their business, cutting a wide berth for Malice and me as we moved between the tents. We were not really interested in seeing the sights of Lucidil's camp, but we were in need of some distraction from the situation we'd found ourselves thrust into. In better days, it would have been the dangerous mission ahead of us that most occupied our minds, but I knew that wasn't the case for myself, and guessed that wasn't the case for Malice either.

  "With only fifteen Knights remaining, Lucidil's forces are severely weakened." Malice said, breaking the silence that had fallen upon us shortly after we'd left Weaver's war pavilion. She was attempting to draw our thoughts to our more immediate problems.

  "The illusion of our immortality becomes more fragile by the day." I replied, willing to allow myself the distraction, if it could ease the pain of having Kay so close, yet still beyond my reach. "I never thought there would be a day when so few Knights still lived."

  "We are diminished, but far from weakened. The strongest, and most able of us, are still alive." A female voice said from behind us. Malice and I turned to face the new speaker, though the voice was instantly familiar to me. It was one I had not anticipated ever hearing again. Pale skin and a Knight's dark eyes sparkled in the dim evening light.

  "Snow. . ." I heard Malice say, even as her eyes met those of the newcomer.

  "Malice," Snow replied, bowing deeply to the green-eyed warrior, "it is my pleasure to finally meet you. I did not have the honor of training under your sword as did so many of my brethren, but I was fortunate enough to be given your position after. . ." The white furred Knight of Ethan seemed to consider her words for a moment, and then said, "...after you left."

  Malice nodded. "I've heard much of you, through reputation alone. They said that you were a prodigy of the blade, and of close combat. I'd thought at some point I would get to teach you myself."

  Snow smiled, and the expression seemed honest. "The Knights sent me to study with many different masters because they believed the more styles I learned, the better I would become. Hopefully that is true, because if I've ever needed to be skilled with a blade, it is now."

  Her eyes passed to me, and I suddenly found myself very uncomfortable, for all I could think of was our single night together not so long ago. She had not relished the task, but she had given herself to me, and I had, in turn, insulted her honor. She had been forced into the task, I learned later, and I still regretted calling her a whore. It had been an uncharacteristically brash action on my part.

  I had not known then that she was a weapons master. It was often difficult to remember, when looking at the face of a female Knight, that though they appeared like a maiden of sixteen or seventeen years of age, trapped eternally at the apex of their beauty, those women were also dangerous mechanisms of war. As part of their conditioning, the surgeons cut out the internal parts necessary for reproduction. It kept them from getting with child, which might interfere with their ability to fight, and eliminated the monthly difficulties women generally experienced. While they were still women, the female Knights were warriors first.

  "Lowin, it is good to see you again." She said, offering a small bow of her head. I felt my cheeks flush. For some reason, as I stood next to Malice, I felt as though I had betrayed my green-eyed friend, and that I still betrayed her by remembering my time spent with Snow. It was foolish, because Malice and I had never been anything more than friends.

  "Snow." I greeted my old acquaintance awkwardly, bowing my own head in a show of respect, for I did respect the white-furred Knight. If Malice respected her as a fighter, then I did as well, and I already held her in high esteem
for treating me as an equal, when everyone else had already condemned me as a criminal. She had been a small source of kindness in a world that had seemed devoid of all hope.

  Her eyes lingered on mine for a time, as though she was remembering something as well, and then she looked at Malice again, and her eyes first hardened, and then softened once more. She seemed confused, but the expression cleared away quickly. I wondered what passed through her mind.

  "You're right though. There are far too few of us remaining. We lost half our number escaping the capital, including some of the legends of our time. Ravage, Juggernaut, Mountain, and Tempest." Snow's voice had taken on an airy quality. She seemed far away at that moment, lost on a different battlefield, no doubt.

  That last name struck poignantly. Tempest had been the first Knight I'd known, the one who had come to retrieve me when I had been first drafted, and the one who I'd always first thought of when someone would say "Knights of Ethan." In the end, while I was imprisoned at the castle, he had hated me. That had hurt, but it had been expected. To know that he had fallen, that was hard to accept. The Knights of Ethan were supposed to be nearly indestructible. They had been the king's invincible army.