by Heath Pfaff
"If you do not deliver the girl soon, we will resume our attack." The Blue said from where it sat, waiting.
"Give me twenty minutes." Lucidil's response was cold. He turned and followed after Fero, flashing forward like a blur.
Ferocity had almost reached the tent when Lucidil caught up with her. He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around to face him. Tears streaked down her face, and sobs slipped between her lips.
"Why are you doing this, Lucidil?" She asked, her voice shaking in her throat. "Why would you send our little girl away with those monsters?" Tyvel stood outside the tent, watching events unfold but unable to do anything in his hazy form.
"I am doing what is best for everyone." Lucidil snapped. "You have more sense than this, Ferocity. We have fought too long and too hard to die here. I will win this battle, and I will wipe out the Hungering forever, but I need more time to build up my armies. This will give me. . ."
Ferocity smacked him with all the force she could muster. The sound rang out through the night. "It is always about you. You want the world. You want to control everything. Well what about Trillia? What does she want? You're going to take that all away from her. She loves you, Lucidil. She loves her father."
"You will go get the girl and bring her here immediately. I'm not going to tell you again." Lucidil's voice was edged with malice.
"No. . ." Fero uttered, and she reached for her sword.
"You would raise your sword against me?" Weaver's voice was full of anger. "I am your king, woman!"
"Please, Lucidil, I love you so much. Don't make me. . ." Fero's sword arm shook.
Lucidil drew his weapon.
Tyvel vanished from where he had been standing, knowing already what was to happen outside. Ferocity was a strong fighter, but she couldn't hold a candle to Lucidil. When she chose to draw sword, she consigned herself to death. Tyvel appeared in the chamber in which his body was kept. It was as frail and old as it had been when he was first turned into the shade he'd been living as for so many years.
He turned to it, ignoring the stares of the guards in the room, and did something that he'd never thought to do again. He entered the body, and forced it back to life. The heart, withered though it was, started again, the blood frozen in stasis for so many years, began to flow. Tyvel was flesh and blood once more.
He rose from where he lay, forcing his old and decrepit body to work for him. It didn't want to. It was tired and nearing death, but he forced it to move anyway. Fero would hold her own for a time, but not for long. He hobbled into the tent in which Kaylien slept and made his way to her bed. The guards did not stop him since he still looked like the Tyvel they knew, even if he was moving like he was suddenly on his death bed.
"Child, please wake up, child." He whispered to her.
Kay stirred and looked up at the ghost-made-flesh. "You're all wrinkly." She commented in only the way the young can declare their observations.
"Yes, I am." Tyvel replied. "Now, I need you to do something important for me. Can you do this?" He asked her, the words becoming difficult to speak. His body was failing, and he knew it. The energy of his existence could only carry him so far.
"Yes." She said solemnly, understanding from Tyvel's tone that the situation was important.
"I need you to run out the back of this tent, and just keep running as far and as fast as you can. Keep running until you can't anymore. Don't turn around, and don't come back." Tyvel gasped, the words becoming increasingly difficult to form.
"Mommy and daddy will get angry." She said, looking dubious.
"No, I will take any blame for this. Please, child, run." Tyvel urged. Kay got out of her bed, and slipped her feet into her boots, pulling a cloak about her shoulders.
"Ok, but you'd better be telling the truth about taking the trouble for this." The little girl said, still looking dubious.
"I am." Tyvel assured her once more. Kay slipped out the back of the tent without another word. Her footfalls padded off into the distance. The guards did not chase her, obviously believing Tyvel had sent her on an errand. At least, the tired ghost thought, she'd have a chance. He turned from her bed, and began to rise, but a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Tyvel looked up into Lucidil's red, burning eyes. The king's free hand was wrapped around his sword hilt, the blade was dripping blood. Weaver had not a scratch upon him.
"I am surrounded by traitors, Tyvel, but you . . . I never thought you would betray me. Where is Kay?" He asked, his voice a snapping whip.
"She is long gone from here." Tyvel answered, and his heart pulsed hard in his chest. ". . . soon so shall I be." He added.
"You think I'll let you die so easily?" Lucidil's question was tinged with bitter anger. He lifted Tyvel's fragile body from the ground with his free hand. "Where is my daughter?" He called even louder. The servants in the tent were tucked deep into the corners, trying not to take any of the wrath from their enraged king. His red eyes turned to them.
"Where has she gone?" The king demanded, and they pointed out the back entrance to the tent. Lucidil smiled.
"Tyvel, you've died for nothing." He said, and plunged his sword deep into the dying man's gut. Pain exploded through his body as Lucidil let him fall to the ground. Thankfully, his heart gave out before he could feel the recently reawakened acids from his stomach begin to eat away at his wound.
Lucidil stormed out of the tent after Kay.
It's a short story, but an important one. I held Tyvel in a great deal of contempt for many years, but in the end he died trying to do what was right. I don't know if that alleviates him of his other evils or not, but I believe it allows me to remember the good moments with him without feeling the sting of his later betrayal. In the end, he tried to die a good man.
Fero - who I knew so little - died fighting for my daughter's life, and she deserves to be remembered as a hero for that. Under any other circumstances, she might have been a friend. I honored both her and Tyvel with a grand funeral ceremony, though I don't believe I did half-so-much as they deserved. Whatever else they were, they both died as heroes to me.
The Snow Song
Vol. 3 ofThe Hungering Saga
by
Heath Pfaff
Version 1.0b
The Snow Song is ©2009 by Heath Pfaff
All rights reserved.
This book is dedicated to
my friends, fans and readers.
I had done many things in my life -- fought in many battles, suffered many losses, and killed more men and beasts than I cared to remember -- but none of that prepared me for the task of being a king. It took me two years after the fall of Lucidil to gain the crown, for the manner of succession was deeply clouded, and with the threat of the Hungering seemingly passed, suddenly there was an abundance of men willing to take upon themselves the mantle of power. They, however, were lacking the one thing which was most important. I had the support of the man who had been the primary advisor to the line of kings for more than two hundred years. Ethaniel, first Knight of the Knight's of Ethan, and the most respected warrior of our land, stood in support of my ascension to the throne after the disposition of King Lucidil, the man whose death I had played no small part in.
Of course, I hadn't been a party to his death in order to become king. In truth it could have been said that I had played little to no part at all in Lucidil's demise. I had been lying on the ground, at the cusp of death, when the previous king was felled. Malice, a fellow Knight of Ethan, a lover, a love, had delivered the killing blow to the red-eyed king. Lucidil had not been a kind man. He had been a cold hearted killer, with his eyes set upon capturing the world. No atrocity had been beyond his scope, if he had thought it might bring him closer to his goal. His last such inhumanity had been his undoing. He gave my daughter, Kaylien, into the hands of the Hungering, a race of flesh devouring monsters from across the sea, in exchange for their agreement to leave our lands. She had been only six years old at the time.
The Hungering assured Luci
dil that the girl would not be harmed, but that had not mattered. In my eyes, in Malice's eyes, Lucidil had gone too far. We fought him, and when our defeat seemed definite, Malice struck with the last of her strength and killed the fiery-eyed ruler of men, leaving the land without a king. Unfortunately, Malice was near fatally wounded in the struggle.
I too, had been injured by Lucidil, but I recovered quickly, while Malice lay for months in a deep sleep from which I could not wake her. I stayed by her side for most of that time, fearing that she might pass into death if I left for more than a few minutes. When she finally did awake, however, she was changed. She still had the voluptuous body of a woman, but her mind had regressed to that of a girl of thirteen or fourteen. It was as though she'd erased all the bad parts of her life, and returned to a time when she was just a sweet, young innocent.
She was still a Knight in body, with powerfully clawed arms and legs, the result of replacing her human limbs with that of the nomadic and fearsome fur clad monsters of the frozen lands, Fell Beasts. Her eyes still shone a miraculous green, bright and vivid, shifting with her emotions, and broken only by the ring of white around the place where the pupil would be on a human's eye, but she was not the Malice who had been the master of swords for the Knights of Ethan. She still followed me, as she had almost as long as I had known her, but her attention had become like a young girl with a crush, and not like a friend whose council and companionship could help me through the hard times. I had never told her how much I loved her before she was injured, and I dared not do so in her fragile, innocent state. I did not doubt, when I looked into her loving eyes, that she would give anything to me that was in her power to give, but I could not accept any such affection from her while I knew that she was as timid as a child.
With Ethaniel's help, I finally took the crown, and began to build the ships I knew that I needed if I was to go after the Hungering, to bring back my lost daughter. I did so, however, with a heart weighted heavily by tragedy. My daughter was lost, given into the arms of a terrible enemy. If the Hungering kept her alive, I feared what would happen to her mind under such conditions. My love, my dearest friend, Malice, was diminished to a mere shadow of the woman she had once been, and everything else I knew and loved in my life was gone.
To make matters worse, I found myself in a world of double-talking and politics that I had never before experienced. All sought the favor of the king, but at the same time, all sought to gain control of the king. It was a constant battle with the nobles, and sometimes even the common people, in order to maintain some semblance of control, and I was ill adjusted to the task. Ethaniel guided me. My advisors guided me. It seemed, however, that I did little to guide myself. I wanted nothing more than to have my ships built so that I might set sail once more, and leave the kingdom, and my crown, far behind.
I hoped that time at sea, away from the castle and the unfamiliar world of the king's court, might aid Malice in remembering what she had been before Lucidil had nearly killed her. I wanted my family back.
I did not want to be the king.
I sat staring at Liet from across a table covered in scrolls and documents that I was supposed to be reading. The documents pertained to various business arrangements that would, in theory, aid the country in its attempt to recover from the massive damages that had been wrought by the Hungering. I had spent four years since becoming king, reading through the various offers and treaties from the human nobles, heads of clans, as well as those presented by the representatives of the other races of our land. All were eager to help, if they felt it would better their own standing. The greatest trick was determining which of the deals offered would aid the people at the least cost. For the time being though, I was ignoring all the various documents, and concentrating my efforts on the man who stood across from me.
Liet's eyes were hard. A barely restrained brutality lay just beneath the surface. He had once been a knight of the king, not a Knight of Ethan, but a human knight in service to the king. When I had escaped from the capital city after it was overrun with the Hungering, Liet had been one of the few humans to survive the ensuing battles. He had proven his courage and strength on multiple occasions, even fighting on after sustaining serious injuries. In the end, I left him in safety, or so I thought, at Lucidil's war camp, and departed to take care of other business. It wasn't until well after the old king's death, that I learned what had become of the brave knight, Liet.
Lucidil had Liet turned into a black cloak, one of the Black Patch Brigade, a creature with the body of a Fell Beast and the head of a man. Unlike with the Knights of Ethan, the black cloaks were shaped and bound by strong magics that dictated their behavior. The Fell Beast, being the greater portion of their body, held strong sway over the personality that resulted from the blending of forms. The only way to keep the black cloaks under control was to formulate strict restrictions into the magical process. Liet, the good, honest, and hard working knight whom I had fought beside, was merely a shadow behind the eyes of the creature that stood before me in my study.
Upon learning of his fate, I had ordered the cessation of all such magical research. Of course, I had not been king at the time, and my words were taken in stride. Once I put on the crown, however, I closed down the kingdom's magical research centers. The cost was too great, and the pay off too little. My choice to eliminate magic was not well met. The nobles, heads of various human clans, accused me of trying to make of myself a god. They believed that I had gotten rid of magical research so that nothing stronger than me was ever created. Others believed that by doing away with magic, I was allowing the country to weaken, and that it was only a matter of time before someone, led by a magically created army, would come in and destroy us all.
I, who had lost much to magic over the years, could not justify the cost that must be paid in order to create magical energy. For every magic, there must be a sacrifice. Even the enchanted lanterns used for most public lighting required a sacrifice of life, minor though it might seem to kill a calf to power several of the ever glowing lights, when that same calf was to be slaughtered for its meat anyway. Where does one draw the line between killing an animal for power, and killing a man for power? Lucidil, my predecessor, had lost sight of that line, and I feared that, should I allow magical research to continue, I might as well. Liet's fearsome eyes still bore into me, reaffirming my belief that magic came at too terrible a cost.
When I had closed down the research center that was responsible for creating the black cloaks, I had received threats against my life from a researcher referred to as Father. He was the head of the project and had worked closely with Lucidil during the creation and shaping of the process by which the Black Patch Brigade was produced. In the end it had taken mobilization of military forces to extract him from his offices, and he had sworn that he would have his revenge on me in some way unless we gave him his research back. I ordered the research documents destroyed, and Father exiled from the country. I often wondered if banishing the man was enough, but I would not bring myself to kill a man who had been doing what he considered a service to his country, especially not while I was still making use of those forces he'd created.
"How are you today, Liet?" I asked the black-cloaked figure before me. He did not respond.
"Liet, I asked you how you're feeling?" I repeated the question, much as I had every morning for the past two years. At first, after becoming king, I had been too distressed by the site of the changed Liet to even consider speaking to him. Over time, I realized that by avoiding Liet, I was paying him a disservice. I had fought beside him. He was a brother of battle. I ordered him to my private guard after that, intent upon showing him the respect his service owed him.
Liet did not answer me.
I sighed heavily. "Zet-grutkol-grutfen-gret," Liet snapped to attention. The ponderously long name was actually a number torn from a long dead language. 1,994. He was one of the last black cloaks, but there were still far too many. "How are you feeling?"
"I am ready and able to serve, my King." He answered, his voice the gruff growl that remained of his human voice after being joined with the Fell Beast. It was not the answer I sought, nor was it any different from any answer I'd ever received. I felt certain that Liet still existed somewhere within the mind of the black cloak, but trying to reach him had not proved fruitful. In the early days, I had spent hours at a time trying to break through to the core of his personality. As time passed, and my efforts were met with failure after failure, I'd fallen into a routine.
"From this point on, Zet-grutkol-grutfen-gret, I will refer to you as Liet, and you will respond only to that name. Do you understand?" I made my voice crisp and clear, letting the black cloak know that I was issuing an order. I had done the same thing previously, every single morning. The command held for a while, but eventually he would once again come to only respond to his Black Patch Brigade identification. Each time I had to repeat that order, it felt as though a hammer struck my heart. I wondered if he suffered, trapped inside his monstrous body.