by Heath Pfaff
Approaching footsteps, paws on snow, caught the attention of my acute hearing. I turned just in time to feel Malice put her arms around me. I found myself locked in her vice-like grip, bound by muscles that could forcibly bend a metal shield, or crush the bones of an enemy to dust.
"I thought you were dead when you fell." She whispered into my hair as she held me tight. I put my arms around her, and returned the gesture. It felt good to hold her.
"I feared the same of you and Ethaniel." I said as Malice pulled away, straightening her cloak about her and doing her best to put on her look of stern disassociation once more.
"When the ground collapsed," I continued. "I thought we were all together. Once I was down there, though, I couldn't find anyone."
"We jumped aside when the ground began to give." Malice explained. "I thought you were right behind me. It wasn't until the Hungering began to attack that I realized you hadn't made the jump when the area we were standing on broke free. Ethaniel and I fought up here for nearly a half an hour before Lucidil's army found us."
I looked across the quickly filling clearing at those gathered around us. I was incredulous. "How did they even get here? They were supposed to be much further north."
"Their commander detoured south to avoid a rough river crossing. They were about to turn north again when they came across a contingent of the Hungering. They've been following the Hungering line ever since, and it lead them here. It was fortunate for us. We wouldn't have lasted on our own. It was also fortunate for them, because our battle alerted them to the ambush that had probably been set for them."
I nodded at Malice's explanation. It made sense. The Hungering had sent far too many people just to stop the three of us, and now the reasoning seemed clear; those forces hadn't been sent for us. They had been sent to stop Lucidil's rear force, and had just happened to encounter us as well. It occurred to me that perhaps the Hungering forces had been sent to deal with both of us. If the enemy army had been sent for such a reason, it certainly must not have been as effective as they hoped. We had destroyed their entire army over the course of five or six hours. Were they simply attempting to buy time so that their main force could dig into Lucidil's defenses before we arrived? I hadn't considered that the Hungering might be using such sophisticated tactics.
"Where is Ethaniel?" I asked, noting I still hadn't seen the horned Knight, and eager to get my mind out of the useless circles it could run in trying to understand what the Hungering were doing.
"He's with this army's commander, telling him exactly what needs to be done so that we can meet up with Lucidil's forces. From here on out, it's going to be a hard fight." Malice answered.
It seemed to me that it had already been a hard fight. I wondered how many more battles I would have to survive before I could return to Kay again. How many more enemies would I need to kill? Would I be able to fight the darkness that was growing inside of me long enough to see the end of the war against the Hungering? It seemed to me that it might never end. I had lapsed into silence for a long time, and Malice was watching me.
"I'm sorry for. . ." I began, ready to make an apology for frightening her during our previous fight. I still remembered the look of fear that had been in her eyes.
"Lowin," She interrupted me. "your mouth is bleeding. . ."
I reached up and touched my lips, my hand came away bloody. I had feared it would be the blood of the Hungering I had bitten into, but the blood was red, and freshly warm
"What?" I asked the air, and did not expect an answer. I reached a finger into my mouth, and felt around. My front teeth were sore. I probed them with a finger, and one of my teeth fell out. It landed in the dirt before me. I stared at it for a moment in shock. A moment later a sharp pain ripped through the tissue beneath where the tooth had previously been. I reached back into my mouth. There was a new tooth in place of the old one. The tooth was long, and pointed, erupting from where my previously human canine tooth should have been.
Another pain ripped through my jaw as another tooth fell from my head, replaced by a jutting fang. Twice more it happened, until both my top and bottom jaws were lined with four sharp fangs.
"What is happening?" I asked Malice, hoping she would have answer, but she simply shook her head.
"I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before." Concern was clear in her voice.
I ran my fingers along the inside of my mouth, looking for any other loose teeth, but there were none. From the dark place inside of me, I felt a strange sense of exultation. What was I becoming?
"We're not the most organized force, but we are among the most skilled. If we can't break through the Hungering line, than it is likely that no one can." Said the tall Uliona man who was talking with Ethaniel. He was dressed in heavy plate armor and carried a sword almost as big as he was tall. His eyes were a vivid, shifting shade of orange.
Uliona warriors were exceedingly rare. As a race, the Uliona prided themselves on being passive. They did not fight, did not train to fight, and were not schooled in the ways of war. The orange-eyed warrior I was now staring at apparently had not been informed of the Uliona passivity. I had never seen a warrior, other than the Knights of Ethan, who looked so well prepared for battle. Even in his heavy armor, with his massive sword at his back, he carried himself as though he were dressed in every-day clothing. He moved like a man who feared nothing, and was burdened by nothing.
"Malice, Noble, this is commander Tairyk. He is in charge of Lucidil's forces while Lucidil is elsewhere. You can thank him for our rescue today." Ethaniel offered an introduction as we approached, though he had not looked in our direction. A chill ran down my spine, for I knew that he had used his hostile gray eyes to observe us; they did not need to face the way they were looking.
"You couldn't have arrived at a better time." I said as I bowed deeply to Tairyk, ignoring my momentarily discomfort. In truth, I wished he had arrived a few moments earlier, but I could hardly complain when I had not expected help at all. It was better that he had chanced upon us when he did, rather than not at all.
"We owe you our lives." Malice said, also offering a deep bow.
Tairyk laughed, and it was a loud and boisterous noise, unfettered in a way that was uncommon to hear. "You owe nothing, and I'm sure I could have arrived at a better time. How about yesterday? 'Could have saved you the bother of fighting these nasty beasties all together. That is the way of war, though. Things rarely ever work out ideally. I wasn't even properly following orders when we found you!" He barked some more laughter. "How is that for luck?"
"I got an itch to put a hurt on the Hungering, and decided to follow their line and kill as many as possible." He looked grim for a moment, though there was still a light of good humor behind his eyes. "I'm afraid good King Lucidil would have had stern words for me if he'd found out what I was on about." The orange-eyed man paused for a moment, and then a wide grin split his face. ". . . not anymore though! As it turns out, we stumbled right into the place he needed us most."
Even Ethaniel smiled in answer to Tairyk's open and friendly manner. It was rare to see a military man with a good sense of humor. They tended to be grim faced, and deathly serious. Of course, soldiering was an occupation that could easily sap the humor out of a person's life. How difficult was it to hold a smile while watching those around you cut down by the enemy? How difficult was it to keep laughing while your friends died painfully and alone on the battlefield? One could argue that not every soldier dies alone, but on the battlefield, everyone who dies, does so alone.
Tairyk's faced turned serious, though the humor never entirely left his eyes.
"They'll know we're coming. They communicate instantly, across great distances. If they haven't already, they will be preparing some nasty surprises for us. They underestimated us, or at least put too much faith in their pitfalls working, and perhaps if you three hadn't sprung that trap, we may have lost a great many men to them. It's unlikely that, when next we see them, their attack will
be so easy to cast aside. The Hungering adapt faster than any opponent I've ever faced." The orange-eyed commander said. For all that he could joke, he had a good grasp of the situation.
"We must do as much damage to their forces as we can, and clear a path through to Lucidil's camp. If possible, we want to sandwich their forces between our two armies and grind them away." Ethaniel noted grimly.
"That will take a lot of grinding." Tairyk replied. "They just keep coming. No matter how many we kill, it seems like there are always hundreds more. I've never seen a force so vast. . . . and their black drakes . . ." His words trailed off ominously.
"They do not fight well, though. They rely upon numbers to make up for their lack of combat skill." Malice added. "They are strong, but any reasonably skilled swordsman is more than a match for one of the Hungering."
Tairyk nodded. "This is true, but it isn't their skill that makes them deadly. While I would confidently pit any man or woman in my army against one of the Hungering in equal combat, it is rarely one man to one Hungering fighting. In this way, the Shao Geok have been our greatest allies. They can handle the hordes of Hungering, and break them apart so that the rest of us can finish off the scattered remains. It's a messy system, but it gets the job done."
His orange eyes scanned the woodlands that had fallen in around us once more as we marched. As long as there was light, Tairyk and his forces would keep moving. "They also make far better scouts than most of us. Their eyes are perfect for picking out the enemy amidst this tangle and mess, and they can move very quickly."
The army was moving at a hard march. The pace would be strenuous to a heavily burdened human after a few hours, but for Malice, Ethaniel and me, even after having run so far, the speed was effortless.
We finished our conversation with Tairyk and moved to the front of the traveling army. It was easy enough to keep ahead of them, and we served them best by providing an additional forward scout. Besides, Ethaniel felt that it was easier to use his gray eyes when beyond the confusing mass of moving bodies that made up Lucidil's army. We initially went separate directions, but once we had given ourselves some distance, I sought out Ethaniel.
"I'm changing." I said, not precisely sure how to breech the subject troubling me.
"We're all changing." He answered, looking at me with both sets of eyes. The black eyes, tinged so faintly with blue, held curiosity. The gray eyes were awash with malicious intent.
"Not like this." I said, and I pulled aside my cloak to expose my shoulders. I had discovered this new change shortly after my teeth had fallen out to be replaced by fangs. I had taken off my cloak and shirt to check the condition of my broken shoulder, to assure that it had healed properly, since I had been unable to rest it while the bone knitted back together. The bone, as always, had properly repaired itself, but I was startled to discover that the fur of my arms had spread to my torso.
My Fell Beast arms should have ended at the shoulder, where my human arms had been severed in the operation that bound them to me, but instead now the soft black fur extended onto my chest and back, meeting, almost like a collar, around my neck. The fur on my legs had similarly spread. It no longer stopped at my hips, but also lay across my lower back and across my lower abdomen.
"Oh. . ." Ethaniel said. He failed to completely mask the surprise that momentarily lit his face. I smiled at him, not a gesture of good humor, but showing off the four fangs that lined my mouth.
"What is happening to me?" I asked him, trying to keep the worry from my voice. It boded ill, that this transformation had come as a surprise for him.
Ethaniel looked away. "I don't know. What is happening to you has never happened to one of us before."
His words felt like a knife in the stomach. If anyone could explain to me what was happening, I had hoped that it would be Ethaniel. He was the oldest of us all, and the most experienced with our peculiar condition. If Ethaniel did not know, where else could I seek an answer?
"You must have some idea?" I pressed in desperation.
"I can guess, but Noble, you are as different from me, as I am from a normal man. We were created in the same fashion, but we are very different creatures." Ethaniel's voice was tinged with fatherly concern. I hadn't heard such tones from him since I'd first met the legendary Knight at Fell Rock, at the beginning of my training.
"Whatever you think, it is more than I have right now. Please. . ." I coaxed him. I did not understand what was happening to me. If Ethaniel, with his extra years, and greater experience, could add something to what I knew, it would be better than what I had.
He sighed, seemingly reluctant to give me information that he wasn't certain about. "It is possible that the strength of your bond with the Uliona whose eyes you carry has given you a stronger bond with all the other creatures that you have formed unions with since. That bond, while making you stronger and more powerful, might also be allowing the changes to your body, changes that happen to all Knights of Ethan when we take on new aspects, to continue long after they should have stopped." Ethaniel explained. "It's impossible for me to say for certain, because there has never been another Knight like you.
"But you're not only changing physically. . . am I right?" He asked, still not looking at me, though I could feel a peculiar chill at the nape of my neck. I wondered if he was using his gray eyes to watch me. I found the thought disturbing, though I suppose I shouldn't have. Those eyes, as menacing as they were, were just one more aspect of Ethaniel now, a man I knew was trustworthy and held no malice towards me. I pushed the discomfort away.
"Sometimes, when I fight, or when I get excited, I can feel the Fell Beast inside of me. It's like he is sleeping deep in my mind, and when I get agitated, he comes awake and tries to break free." I didn't want to try and explain things to Ethaniel, or to tell him how much I feared what was taking place, but I believed there was no one else who could give me insight into my problem.
"Yes. . ." He said, a strange smile touched the corners of his mouth for a moment, and then it was gone. He shook his head, looking dazed for a second. "Yes." He repeated. "You must beware of the Fell Beast.
"Is that what happened in our fight with the Hungering yesterday?" He asked, piecing things together far faster than I had thought he would. "When you almost struck Malice?"
I turned my face away from him, shame bringing fire to my cheeks.
"I wasn't expecting it to be so strong. The violence carried me away, and all I could do was ride the wave of darkness." I tried to explain, but I felt my words were inadequate.
"You killed hundreds of them, Noble. We wouldn't have survived that encounter if you hadn't downed so many. We were losing, and suddenly you came through them, roaring like a monster, and everything in your path fell away dead. Malice and I barely had to lift a sword as you cleared our way. It was a terrible sight to witness . . . but it was a beautiful sight to witness as well." I could feel Ethaniel's eyes upon me as he spoke.
". . . but you didn't stop. You cleared our path, and the road lay clear before us, but you kept killing. I called out to you twice, and Malice was calling you as well, but you would not reply. Finally, Malice approached you to shake you free, and I believe you remember what happened next." He finished his short retelling, and the shame burned into me all the greater.
"I don't know exactly what is happening to you, but it is making you far stronger and more deadly than you were before. It is making you more dangerous as well, not only to our enemy, but to us. You must learn to master your demons, or they will consume you. Remember, you are the ruler of your body and mind." Ethaniel said the last with an uncharacteristic determination. "Only you can control the power within you."
I looked at the dark-haired Knight again. His face was set forward, and his eyes burned with a strange light. I looked away, not sure what to make of his words, or his strange change of mood, but I felt that I wasn't meant to see the gleam in his eye. Was it really in my power to control the monster within me? I hoped that it was true, but I
feared the changes to my body, and the hungering darkness inside of me. I felt that if I did not constantly struggle with the monster I was becoming, I might very well lose myself entirely.
We traveled in silence for a time, running through the forest at a leisurely pace. I separated from Ethaniel and took my own route, keeping just far enough ahead of the line of Lucidil's army that I couldn't see or hear them. I could see neither Ethaniel nor Malice, but I knew they were both in the woods around me, scouting their own paths. Occasionally I would see one of the Shao Geok scouts, though they were surprisingly adept at remaining concealed when they wished to.
From behind me, a horn sounded. It called into the quiet evening only once, but once was all that was necessary. It was a signal that was universally known. The call to rally had been made. Someone had spotted the enemy. A moment after the first horn sounded, a second, but entirely different call tore through the air, coming from somewhere far in front of me.