The Hungering Saga Complete

by Heath Pfaff

  The years passed, but the battle never shifted in our favor. We held our ground at times, and fell back at others, but we never made progress. In the third year after your imprisonment, on a routine inspection of the lines, a group of Hungering broke through our defensive front while the king was on patrol, and attacked in force. The king fell in the initial assault, before anyone could even get to him. He died on the battlefield, which is how I believe he would have preferred to meet his end. He was a brave man, for all that he was a ruler.

  The king had no heirs, for he had never taken a wife. It had always been his intent to choose his successor on merit, rather than through rite of blood, and so that is what came to pass. Of all his advisors, and all of those related to him through blood, he saw only one man that he felt stood even the slightest chance of carrying a victory against the Hungering. Lucidil was given the crown and kingship of the lands of men. There was no coronation, and there was no fanfare. No one questioned his right to rule, because no one wanted to take the position of king during a time in which the position would likely lead to death.

  Some suspected foul play in the king's death, as it seemed obvious that Lucidil, once an enemy to the crown, probably still retained his desire to see the downfall of the king, but I can say beyond a certainty that the king died as one only can in the random tempest of the battlefield. I watched the Hungering drag him into their holes myself, unable to reach the man who I had served under for nearly thirty years. We never found his body, but as you know the Hungering do not leave bodies behind. They devour every enemy that falls across their lines.

  Lucidil was not shocked when he was told the crown was to be his. He did not need any time to adjust to his new role, and he did not force any ceremony upon the people. Instead, he assumed leadership of the king's men in addition to his own, and the battle continued. There was no gap between the rule of the two kings. The fallen king had willed his leadership to Lucidil, and so it was done.

  "That is how Lucidil ascended to the throne, and that is why I serve him now. I am a king's man, whether I agree with his views and methods, or not. So long as he works to better the kingdom of man, then I will stand and fight at his side." Ethaniel finished his story.

  Hearing the tale play out from Ethaniel's perspective, and from the view of the king, I felt ashamed of the part I'd played in it all. I wondered if my intervention, my rebellion, had worked against the king, depriving him of the men he needed to stave off the Hungering attack. I had certainly not helped the cause.

  One thing still bothered me, though. It was a detail that I could not make myself forget. Why had Weaver not dissolved the Uliona contract that bound them to give their strongest and most powerful to the lands of men as sacrifice for the Knights of Ethan?

  "What of the Uliona contract? Weaver lost the woman he loved to that deal. How could he continue to use it, knowing the terrible cost it brings?" I pressed, not willing to give up on my outrage over that.

  Ethaniel looked confused. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Weaver loved the woman who he was bound to, it's why his eyes are so red . . ." I began, but Ethaniel shook his head.

  "I don't know what Weaver told you, but he was not bound to a woman, and he did not love the person he was bound to. In the history of the Knights, there have only been three cases where a female was bound to a male. You two," He pointed to Malice and me. "and one other Knight, a young woman, was bound to a male Uliona. Their love affair was discovered, and both of them were reprimanded. Two weeks later, we found them both dead in her room, wrists slashed. No, Weaver is not one of the three, despite what he may have told you."

  Waves of shock rippled through me. That news undermined everything I had believed about the nature of the Knights of Ethan, and corroded any last kinship I could have felt for Weaver.

  ". . . but his eyes are so vivid, the bond must have been . . ." I tried to explain why Ethaniel must certainly be wrong, but the mostly black-eyed Knight shook his head. My conviction faded.

  "Weaver was not going to ascend to the rank of Knight. He had proven unpredictable, and highly dangerous. He fought like a demon, and would put his life on the line for the others of his division, but the king, who was hand picking every candidate of Knighthood at the time, felt that making him a Knight was too great a risk. He forbade the transfer of the eyes to Lucidil, but the young would-be Knight refused to accept the king's decision. He tracked down his Bound One, tied him down, and performed the rite of transference himself. The Uliona's name was Reyn, and he had bright blue eyes, as pure and light as a summer sky. I remember him." As Ethaniel said the words, "I remember him," a pained look crossed his features. How many names and faces, I wondered, were imprinted on his long memory?

  "Once Lucidil had completed the process, we had no choice but to allow him to ascend to full Knight. He became a Knight of Ethan. We tried to move him away from the main fighting, to put him in a place where he could do less harm, so we made him a researcher. That is when he created the Lucidil fabric. He was brilliant, even then, and excelled at everything he learned. He rose amongst us, and though the Knights of Ethan carry no rank, he was considered a second only to myself."

  "He was so very powerful. His eyes, red eyes unlike any I've ever seen in Uliona, were like twin fires of determination. He fought well, he studied well, and he was ambitious. But he also lied, and stepped upon anyone who got in his way." Ethaniel's gaze was far away as he remembered.

  "Yet you follow him as king. . ." I said, having trouble believing everything I'd just heard. Everything I thought I knew of Weaver wasn't true. I couldn't begin to fathom his motivations.

  "I follow the king, and Lucidil is King." Ethaniel stated, much as he had before. He paused a moment before adding, "He was my friend, in those days, a man equal to myself, maybe stronger. I respected him, and I fought beside him. One cannot forget their friends."

  "Your friend is a monster." Malice spoke quietly. Her voice was not accusatory, and I don't believe she meant it as a slight.

  Ethaniel shrugged. "Are we not all monsters? Historians will judge us at some point, and what do you think they will write of you and I? What do you think they will write of King Weaver, the man who saved the kingdom of men?"

  "He hasn't saved us yet." I pointed out.

  The winged Knight smiled. ". . . But he will." There was a certainty in Ethaniel's voice that I myself did not feel.

  ". . . And I thought you said you were not a good story teller, Ethaniel." Lucidil's voice sounded from behind us, and as one we turned to face him as he pushed through the tent's entrance. That he had gotten so close without alerting any of us was a testament to his skills at stealth. Both Ethaniel and I had the ears of a Fell Beast, and our hearing was ten times as sharp as that of a normal man. He should not have been able to get so close without attracting some attention.

  "You surprise us all." The king said. I could not read the emotion behind his voice, if there was any, but at seeing the man who'd lied to me so many times in the past I felt a great surging of anger.

  "You've lied to me from the very beginning." I accused, for if I didn't say something, I feared I might explode with the rage the welled up inside of me.

  "I have." He said nonchalantly. "Sometimes the truth needs to be obscured to allow way for necessity. I needed you to serve me, and you would not have served my ambition if you didn't believe there was a noble cause behind it. If you would have served, you would not have done so with your heart, and you are a man driven by your heart."

  I remembered the look of profound pain that had filled his face as he'd told me of his past and the terrible events that had taken place up to the point that the woman he loved, the woman who I now knew had never existed, had been killed. I couldn't understand how he could create such a believable pretense of loss.

  "That look of pain . . ." I began, but Lucidil shook his head.

  "We all have painful moments in our lives. I simply channeled the emotions I
needed at the appropriate times." His red eyes seemed to almost flair as he looked at me. "You were easy to deceive, Noble, because you desperately wanted to believe in something. You seem convinced that everyone should be motivated by the same foolish sense of duty that drives you, but that is just not the way of the world. The world is a hard and terrible place, and you have to be hard and terrible to succeed."

  That he had lied was shocking enough, but that he could so coldly brush aside all of his mistruths, and all that he had done, shook me to the core of my being. I looked upon him now, and he seemed not a man, not a Knight, not even a mortal creature. All I could see was a terrible, dark monster for which everything, every person in the world was merely a tool of purpose. What ultimate goal, I wondered, could he be so set upon that he would give up the essence of his honor?

  "Why do you do all of this? What do you hope to achieve?" I asked him.

  "I want what all men want." He said, a smile touching his lips. "I want to leave my mark upon the world, and I want to be remembered forever. None of us can be certain how long the Knights of Ethan can actually live if not killed, so I want to make sure that, should I die, the world will never forget the name of King Lucidil." His eyes really did blaze then. He seemed on the verge of saying something more, but he closed his mouth and smiled instead.

  "You three, Malice, Noble, Ethaniel, you are essential to my plans." Weaver's red eyes fell upon the four-eyed Knight.

  "Ethaniel, you are strong, and one of the most skilled warriors I have ever fought beside. You are also, as you told Noble and Malice, one of very few that I would call a friend. I had thought us forever separated, but times have brought us back together, and I am happy for that." The king's red eyes next turned to Malice.

  "Malice, I was one of those who taught you the sword, before I even ascended to full Knighthood. You were a young girl then, and I saw potential in you, though I did not anticipate that you would come so far. Lowin has made of you something even more potent than you were as the sword master of the Knights of Ethan. When I look at you I see great deeds in the making. Strong men will fall to you, and empires will be broken at your sword. What is more, you are important to Noble, and that makes you important to me." Next, the fiery eyes sought mine.

  "Noble, they said you would be special. All of my spies reported the same thing. You continually proved yourself limited by only experience, and when I finally met you myself, I knew that I had encountered a warrior without peer. Right now you might not be ready to fight Malice or Ethaniel in single combat, but there will come a time when you will exceed them both. I see no end to your potential."

  "You three are the strongest amidst a group of unstoppable titans. I know," The king's red eyes beamed with excitement, or exultation. I couldn't be sure which, but I found it cast him in a frightening light, "that we cannot be stopped so long as we stand together. Who could possibly stand against us united? Together we can forge history."

  His words were spoken with fervor, but they struck me as being hollow. Weaver's ambitions, his dreams, were the dreams and ambitions of every king who had come before him, only made more spectacular by the power of his mind, and the strength of his body. Of course, knowing that made no difference to me. He was my king whether I liked it or not. He had my daughter firmly in his grasp, and that meant that I must serve him without question. For the time, as he fought the Hungering at least, I could fight at his command and not feel that I was doing the world a disservice, but how long would that last? I wondered what was to come if we defeated the Hungering.

  That was another problem. Weaver was so certain of his own victory, but we had made no progress against the enemy we faced. Indeed, the Hungering were pushing us back easily. The Knights of Ethan were reduced to a mere 15, and our other forces were being ground away at a terrifying pace against the wall of unending Hungering creatures.

  "What would you have us do?" I asked, looking to the table strewn with papers, plans, and maps, ignoring all that had been said, and all that had been revealed within that tent. The truth, terrible though it was, did not change the situation, and did not alleviate the need for me to do the duty I was to be assigned.

  Weaver nodded at me, that same smile touching the corner of his lips, as though my concession to his lies was a victory on some level. Perhaps, I thought, it was. I had not killed him, yet again, though he was a man who certainly had earned no respect or love from me. He saw my acceptance of my duty as an acceptance of himself, but he was wrong in that. I hated Weaver with a greater passion than I ever had before. I wondered what Malice thought of the situation. I had been too caught up in my own thoughts to pay attention to her reactions, and I found myself wishing I had the time to talk with her about all that had transpired.

  Lucidil walked to the table and unrolled a map, placing paperweights upon it at its corners to hold it unfurled. The map covered a wide stretch of land, including the valley we occupied, the capital city we had abandoned, and the areas surrounding those locations. Lucidil pointed to a spot on the map several miles beyond the walls of the fallen capital. He tapped the unrolled map.

  "The Shao Geok and the rest of my allies are en-route to this point. They have been circling wide for weeks now, traveling on orders to prepare a surprise rush at the back of the Hungering forces. The problem is that things have changed significantly since those orders were given, and I have not found a way to get a scout through the Hungering line to send new orders. What's more, it is vital that those forces, my hidden spear, have a very clear understanding of the lay of the battlefield. Since the Hungering burrow to attack and track by sound, we cannot rely on having scouts in the field reporting in, but we do still have a way of knowing where they are." Lucidil looked at Ethaniel.

  Ethaniel nodded. "With my new eyes," he gestured towards his gray-smoke filled sockets, "I can see things that are happening far away, whether I have a direct line of sight or not. I have not perfected this ability, and certain types of rock seem to disrupt its functioning, but I should be able to use this to help steer our army in the right direction once the battle begins. I can even see into the earth at times, if there is something alive for my eyes to focus upon. The problem lies in the fact that I need to reach our other forces intact, and to do that we have to cut a line directly through the center of the Hungering's primary military force."

  "Why don't we go around?" I asked, not understanding why it wouldn't be simpler to avoid the brunt of the Hungering's military.

  "The Hungering are currently spread between these two points." Weaver traced a line on the map. It was much larger than I had anticipated. "It would extend the journey, even for you, by four or five days to safely go out and around. In five or six days, if we do not have rear support, we will have lost this valley. If you cut through the center and travel as fast and hard as you can, you can reach my other army in three days, and in a fourth they begin their assault on the rear forces of the Hungering."

  "Ethaniel could fly there, taking less risk, and probably get there much faster." Malice said, a suggestion I hadn't even considered.

  Lucidil shook his head. "No, the wings are impressive, and they are powerful, but Ethaniel and I cannot fly for more than a minute or two. Even with our strength, flying takes too much energy. Ethaniel could make the trip by wing, taking breaks every minute, but that would put him alone in hostile territory repeatedly. The options have been considered. This is the best way."

  Lucidil took a quill from the table and scratched an "X" on the map. He then carefully traced the line of the Hungering forces. He waited a moment while the ink dried and then picked up the map and rolled it, slipped it into a metal carrying container, and handed it to me. I took it from him, and secured it to my pack.

  "What are we to do once we've delivered Ethaniel safely to his destination?" I asked, wanting only to be told that I could return to see my daughter, and to make sure that she was safely away from the battle that was about to explode all around us.

  "By that time
the ground rams will be in effect, and the battle will be fully underway. I want you to fight with those rear forces, and to eventually make your way back here." Weaver answered.

  "Ground rams?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

  "You saw them on your way in, I do not doubt. They look like a battering ram pointed at the ground." Weaver's brief description stirred my memory of the devices we had passed being built all throughout the camp.

  I nodded that I had indeed seen them, though I'd had no idea what they were at the time.

  "They pound on the rock, and confuse the Hungering's ability to navigate underground. They will come up to attack the ground rams, and we will kill them as they emerge. At least, that is the plan. They have not been tested yet." Weaver smiled, though even he looked slightly worried at the untested tool.

  "If there are no more questions. . ." Weaver began, but one question still remained for me.

  "There is one. . ." I said, and Weaver nodded.

  "Kaylien, you will take her far away from here, won't you? I want her to be safe." My question was more of a demand than a simple query.