It began not long after the Santoth had unleashed their twisted magic upon the Mein army. Nobody could say for sure just how the foulthings came to be, but it had something to do with ribbons of the Santoth's song unleashed on the natural creatures of the world, spells that drifted until they lighted upon some living creature. In most cases, the animals were so corrupted by the touch of the Giver's tongue that they died: lamed, malformed, burned or battered or torn one part from another. Many got caught in rips in the fabric of the world that passed through them and left them melded with other objects, joined with trees or stuck fast in rocks or half submerged in the earth. Their carcasses dotted the damaged ground, a feast for vultures.
At first they had believed any creatures touched by the sorcery died because of it. And because many human beings were so touched, many were led mercifully out of this life and on to the next. Nobody wished to see their loved ones live with that sort of corruption on them. The people of Talay, in particular, had always told tales of the lasting damage left by the Santoth during their first angry march into banishment. They took it upon themselves to ensure that their people did not spread any contagion among them.
Most of the burden, however, fell upon the Mein, as they had received the brunt of the sorcerers' fury. As the vanquished enemy, they had little say in their fate. Those who showed signs of contamination were killed, culled just as one might cull sick animals from a herd of livestock. Queen Corinn was firm in her orders on this; and from the first days of her reign few chose to disobey her-not outright, at least.
Dariel might have asserted his rights as a male heir, but he did not. A year after Corinn released their father's ashes and ascended to the throne of Acacia, she gave birth to the nation's heir. Soon after, they began to receive troubling reports. At first Corinn dismissed them as the nightmares of a frightened, fatigued populace. The Antoks had stirred all sorts of fears in people's minds, she explained, and the strange appearance of the Santoth had woken old superstitions. Magic had been unleased upon the world for the first time in twenty-two generations. Of course, the people again trembled at night and concocted stories of beasts that hunted them. Time would heal, Corinn said. The earth would come to rest again and the natural order would sew creation back into its tight weave.
But the reports did not fade as time passed. The sightings, which were sporadic for the first few years, grew more frequent, the witnesses more reliable. What they said differed in the particulars, but all their descriptions had made Mena's skin crawl with growing trepidation. In the hills near Halaly a herd of goatlike creatures cut a swath of devastation. Goatlike, the people said, but in truth only their heads resembled gargantuan likenesses of those animals. Their bodies were squat with numerous, malformed limbs jointed at random places, more like a spider's legs than those of any mammal. They were each as large as an elephant and insatiable. Fortunately, they ate only vegetation and were near as easy to slaughter as domesticated ruminants.
Other creatures had different tastes and were not so easy to kill.
The Bethuni spread stories of many-footed serpents that could both slither and run. At first the people thought them amusing, until they began to grow at a rate that frightened them into action. There was a lion with a row of blue eyes along its back, doglike creatures large enough to send laryx scurrying in fright, vultures so mutated by the bounty they had consumed that many of them could no longer fly. Instead they waddled, following their great beaked noses like bands of the plagued.
The people came to understand that these beings had been warped rather than killed by the Santoth. These they called the foulthings. Once Corinn acknowledged them, she ordered them hunted and destroyed. She charged Mena with this mission, giving her a small army and presenting the task as yet another way that her younger sister might carve her name into the pantheon of the Akaran greats.
Mena suspected that Corinn intentionally wished her to be kept busy and kept away from other affairs of the empire. But she could not put the unease she felt into enough order to decide what to do about it. Instead, Mena had set to the hunt. The beasts were real, after all, and who better than Maeben on earth to face them? She and her army ranged far and wide across Talay, from its shores, across its grasslands and deserts, into its hills and mountain reaches, through marshland and even to the great river that marked the boundary with the far south. That dry watercourse she did not cross. She had no desire to awaken the Santoth again. Nobody wished for that.
She faced the creatures one at a time as much as possible. She fought with the help of those in whose territory the hunt took her. It was with Bethuni huntsmen that she had set the fires that consumed the writhing, many-legged aggregation of snake creatures that had grown large enough to swallow dogs and sheep and even children whole. Balbara warriors marched beside her as they cleaned the land of vultures so fat their wings were useless. And with Talayan runners she had tracked the blue-eyed lion across the grasslands, running it to exhaustion before she killed it herself with an overhand thrust of a long pike. It was that act Melio had referred to earlier. Even exhausted and panting, the lion had been a fierce thing, its mouth a great cavern of fanged fury when it roared, its claws five scimitars as they slashed out.
Mena had risked her life to plant the killing blow. She had not truly needed to do it herself, but sometimes she could not control the impulse to. Sometimes she needed to offer her life for the one taken, just to see if her bill was due. Somewhere lurking in the back of her mind was the feeling that the many lives she had ended would someday ask for her own to balance the scales. She did not run from this. Indeed, at times she wanted to embrace it and accept whatever reckoning the spirits offered her. So far, they had offered none. Nine years had passed since the new violence that Corinn called peace had begun. So many times Mena could have died, and yet throughout it all she had rarely suffered more than minor cuts and deep bruises and sprained joints. Perhaps the Giver was saving her for something. Perhaps, but if so, why was he so completely silent, ever absent?
This thing they hunted now-this they had put off as long as they could. It was the third to the last of the giants. She knew of only two others, although she did not want to think of them just now. She had her hands more than full. Watching it approach filled her with fear as great as any she had experienced. It was not just the brute force of it; rather, it was the twisting of the natural order, the possibilities it suggested about what monsters could exist or might come into existence to plague the future. And it was the fact that it had been set upon the world by the very same sorcerers who had twice secured her family's throne. Because of that she felt she owed it to the world to see the foulthings extinguished.
What roared toward her, driven into her trap by torch-carrying Talayan runners, was a monstrosity that came with a shrieking entourage of hundreds of other creatures. Those in the horde were not themselves warped. They were what the Talayans called tentens, primates with long snouts and a carnivore's jaws. They were fierce and dangerous in their own way, but they had long lived on the plains. They ran mostly on all fours and were normally as content to eat groundnuts as they were to hunt smaller monkeys and rodents. No danger to humans as long as they were left alone.
The huge beast they followed ran on two legs in a waddling gait that was fast, humanlike, and more grotesque because of the similarity. Occasionally, it corrected its balance and expressed its outrage by bashing the earth with its knuckled fists. It was woolly-haired with a great brown-red mane about its neck, an ocher and blue snout, and a predator's forward-facing eyes. It stood three times a man's height at the crown of its head. Above this rose two circular horns that added yet another man's height. These horns were the only part of the creature of true beauty, a ridged perfection of form. Beautiful, yes, but not when worn as the headdress on the bellowing thing now closing to within a few hundred yards. Likely, the creature had once been a tenten-explaining why the troop followed it. Some speculated that it had eaten a corrupted corpse of a horned animal
and had thus grown horns itself. However it had been created, it was not natural and could not be left alive.
Melio and Kelis had reached their assigned posts. Earlier, they had established a series of piles of brushwood that were spaced in a widemouthed cone shape meant to funnel the foulthing toward a chosen area. As soon as the creature passed between the first of these outposts, the men touched fire to the pyres. Instantly they combusted in audible whooshes of flame and black smoke. The runners pressed on, near enough now that Mena could hear their shouts, bursts of sound peppered throughout the group, meant to further confuse the animals. She knew Melio and Kelis would be joining the runners, taking up their torches, adding their voices to the din. A little closer and another pyre went up, and another after that. Each successive explosion narrowed the pathway the creatures had and directed them toward Mena and the fifty crossbowmen she commanded, each of them with a second who stood just beside him.
"Ready yourselves!" she called, her voice as stern and confident as she could make it.
The crossbowmen began to extend their line, forming a widening U shape. They moved gradually as if they were not watching the animals speeding toward them. The bowmen walked with their weapons strapped to their bodies over their shoulders and around their waists. The bows were heavy, meant to fire a single, powerful shot. A second shot was unlikely since the bolts had to be loaded and the crossbows cranked slowly back to the ready position. On the bottom end of the U shape, the pairs positioned themselves behind metal rings that had been secured to the earth by long stakes.
It was into this area that the foulthing and its troop arrived in a cloud of snarling, dusty hair and teeth and anger. The giant itself was enraged. It danced about, smacking the ground, tearing up clods of dry earth and tossing them in the air. It bared its teeth, snapping at the sky. Its yellowed eyes shot rage out of them like a physical force. Standing on two legs, it spread its arms wide and thumped its chest. Around it hundreds of the tenten followed its lead. The cacophony of it, the turmoil, the nearness of such animal fury was almost too much to stand calmly facing.
But Mena made sure she did. She held them there for a few minutes, letting them settle into the space, asking her soldiers to be calm before they acted. Now that the animals were inside the U shape, the bowmen at the far ends slowly closed the open portion, making a great circle with the creatures in the center. The men took up positions around the rings nailed in place for them. The runners and the rest of the force spread out around the bowmen's circle, thickening the ranks. Only when all were in position did Mena lift her arm. It was nearly time, and if they all did as they had planned, it would be over in-
It happened before she had any chance to stop it. One of the bowmen shot prematurely. The bolt flew dead straight and with all the released energy of its slowly cranked, twisted cable work. The force of its leaving would have knocked the bowman off his feet, except that a second man clasped him about the waist and stood with his feet planted firmly. The missile trailed a thin rope. It spooled out with a hiss. The bolt slammed into the foulthing's chest, impacting its rib cage, and did not sink far. The force of it tossed the creature back in a sudden, rolling confusion of limbs and horns. When the tumble stopped, the thing was on its feet once more. It stood for a moment, confused and breathless, tenten bodies all around. Most of them still howled and bared their teeth; a few lay crumpled and broken from its rolling over them.
The foulthing grasped the bolt by the protruding shaft and yanked it out. The barbs tore through its flesh, but if it felt that particular pain it gave no sign. It focused on the bolt as if it were a living thing that might still harm it, and then its eyes played out along the rope that connected it to the cross bowman. With a roar it jerked the two men toward it, yanking them off their feet and dragging them on their bellies into the raging tentens.
The fools! Mena thought. They had forgotten what they were supposed to do. Who were these two? What she did then she did with instinctual quickness. She ran forward, drawing her Marah sword, yelling as she did so, hoping to draw the beast's attention. As she neared the first of the tentens she swung her sword in wide arcs that cut clean through fur and skin and bone. The animals jumped back from her, all teeth and snarls. She hacked her way at a dead run toward the fallen men. She found them writhing and screaming, entangled together beneath a biting, scratching mound of tentens. The animals did not notice her until she had hacked the heads from two, limbs from even more, split another down through the skull, and spilled the guts of another in a gush that coated the two men.
A wave of soldiers rushed to help her. She stopped them all with a slash of her palm. "No!" she yelled. She knew that if they continued it would break the formation. There would be no order and they would not be able to carry out the rest of the plan. It would be chaos and many more than just she would die in it. "No!"
They stopped, tripped over each other, stood stunned and unsure until she motioned them back. She had barely managed to do so before another tenten leaped at her. She ducked beneath it and sliced its leg clean off.
"Come on!" she hissed. "Get loose of it!" She smacked the bowman with the palm of her free hand and then stood upright. With the same hand she drew her short sword.
The foulthing was some thirty or so strides away. It had paused to watch her. For a moment it was a statue amid a whirlwind of motion. Mena saw something like intelligent curiosity on its face. Its eyebrows seemed to lift slightly; the corners of its mouth twitched. She had not noticed how human its hands were, long-fingered and delicate as they caressed the rope. She experienced the moment as one of shared silence. She almost felt the creature was going to say something, do something. But the moment was short-lived, and the foulthing spoke no words. It seemed to grow tired of studying her. Those humanlike hands yanked on the cord again.
When the line went taut, Mena caught it between her two blades and sliced through the rope. The beast was thrown off balance and went down again. Mena turned and pushed, dragged, and shouted the two men to their feet and back to the safety of the circle.
"Remember your rings!" she shouted. "Every second, tie the ropes down!"
With that, the princess raised her arm, then immediately let it drop. Before it even reached her side, her generals had shouted in answer. In the next instant a confusion of bolts and ropes flew at the foulthing from all directions. Many hit it-in the chest and groin, deep in its calf and punching right through its other ankle, in its lower back and just above, in the muscled flesh of its upper torso, in the neck. Several passed through the curve of its horns, the ropes tangling in them as the creature spun. A few took out the lesser apes, skewering three or four at a time before losing momentum. And the bolts that missed sped straight toward the opposing bowmen and troops. This was when the seconds came into play again. They shifted from pressing forward on the bowmen to pulling back against them. The ropes snapped taut before reaching the other side, and the crossbows, even if yanked out of their wielders' hands, were held fast by the sling straps.
Once the ropes were secured, archers stepped between them and lofted ropes attached to blunted arrows over the creature. Others retrieved them on the opposite side and anchored each end, further tightening a web of bonds on the foulthing, catching many tentens in the process. Mena watched until the injured and bound foulthing was pressed tight to the dry ground. She turned away as Halaly spearmen began to move into the circle, their long, narrow pikes able to impale the tentens at a distance. The auditory chaos was no less than before, but she knew the difficult task was over.
Melio found her walking slowly back toward the rock outcropping from which she wished to take in the horizon again, to see the largeness of the world and marvel at it. "You really must let others risk their necks on occasion," he said, grinning. "You're lucky your men fear you as much as they fear your death. If they didn't, they might have stormed in and messed everything up. But you know that. You managed to pull it off, and it still gives you no joy."
"How ar
e the two?" she asked.
"The two you rescued?" He tossed his hair out of his face and studied her. "I believe they are injured but will both live to tell of it."
"Any others?"
"Nothing but minor injuries, some bites." Melio touched her arm, turned her toward him, and pulled her close. "Mena, this went well. You should be pleased. Let's dance tonight as the Halaly do and be glad that there's one less foulthing walking the world. Think of it that way."
Mena accepted his embrace, welcomed it, and wanted to be folded into it for much longer than she allowed herself in public. But she did not think as he suggested. Not completely, at least. She would never forget the look in the beast's eyes.
That night, after the celebrations, she dreamed of the creature's stare. She woke unsure where waking events ended and dreaming began. She told herself that it was the dream that made her so uneasy, not the reality. It was not possible that she had seen intelligence in the creature's eyes. She had not heard its thoughts, not with her waking mind. It had not expressed a hatred for her and her kind that, in its reasoned, simmering potency, went far beyond that of any simple beast. That had been only in her dreams. Of course. Only in her dreams. Strange, though, that so soon after the event she could not easily separate the truth of it from her imaginings.
She decided to send a letter to the queen, declaring that they had one less foulthing to worry about. That's all she would say. She would keep moving. Keep believing.
CHAPTER TWO
In the offices that had once been her father's, Queen Corinn Akaran bent over her desk, arms spread wide and palms pressed against the smooth grain of the polished hardwood. The flared sleeves of her gown formed an enclosure of sorts, a screen that shielded the document from view on two sides. She was alone in her offices, but she knew-better than anyone else in the palace-that until she had eyes in the back of her head she could not trust that she was ever as unaccompanied as she believed herself to be. She favored this posture when she wished to focus her attention on a particular document, above which she would hang like a falcon poised to drop on a held mouse far below.
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