The scout was cooking the squad’s meal for the night. Meedryk helped him cut hunks of antelope meat into strips. Maribrae played her fiolys and sang softly on the other side of the flames. Jjarnee sighed and shifted, his heavy armor clicking.
“That woman,” he said. “She possess sorcery.”
Sage considered his words. It was always best to think about what Jjarnee said and meant before responding.
“She has something, for certain,” the scout said. He stripped one of his oranges to use the peel as seasoning.
“If she come to me,” said Jjarnee, “I give her anything her heart ask.”
“Why noh go to her.” Sage chewed an orange slice as he spoke. He gave Meedryk a slice and offered one to Jjarnee. “I mean, besides the fact that she’s almost nobility and you are nothing more than a smelly, foreign stout?”
“Where I from, woman come to man,” he said, taking the slice. “It is duty of me to look strong, and able to let out worthy breeding fluid.”
Sage nearly choked on his orange. “Please,” he said, coughing, “Never . . . ever repeat those words. And by the Blood of Anris, don’t tell me how you make yourself look capable of such a thing.”
“That hardest part,” Jjarnee agreed, standing. “I go release my waters now.”
The Hrethri walked behind the fallen tree trunk. Sage glanced at Meedryk. “It makes you wonder precisely what he means by that.”
†††
Aramaesia sat upon her haypad, her eyes closed to the world. She fought off the terrible scene of the dying Eridian and did her best to narrow her thoughts, to control the flow of the day’s events.
“Hello there, Maid Aramaesia.” It was Lord Aeren. “May I sit with you?”
She opened her eyes slowly, let the world enter her consciousness again.
“I am sorry,” he said. “Am I disturbing you?”
She stifled a sigh. “Not at all, Lord Aeren.”
He sat beside her, leaned back on his hands and stretched his legs forward.
“We must speak about Gracidmar some time,” he said. Aramaesia noticed the smooth tone of his voice. He had two voices, this nobleman. There was the voice of the scholar; incisive, level, clear. And there was this one.
“What would you like to know?” she asked. “We are a kingdom at war.”
“The war,” Aeren mumbled. “The war, the war, the war.” He looked into her face and smiled, a confident smile. “If all the women of Gracidmar are as beautiful as you, the war could be over in a day. You should simply send your women to The Front. Every Laraytian would put his weapons down and sue for peace.”
Shanks chuckled. “I thought the gracks were sending their women to the front.”
“Do you have a mate back in Gracid . . . Gra’Cima?” asked Lord Aeren.
Aramaesia played with a loose thread on her skirt. She glanced toward the tent where Grae and Hammer had gone to discuss the mission. “Tell me of Laraytia,” she replied. “Things I would not learn from books.”
Lord Aeren nodded, allowed himself to be diverted for the moment. “To know Laraytia is to know Galadance. Galadance, our northern neighbor, is our motherland. We Laraytians are a kingdom of malcontents. We fled from Galadance and fought so long and so hard against them that they granted us our lands, even though the lands we fled to didn’t belong to Galadance. They belonged to the Andraens. But that is another tale.” He slid his hand sideways until his fingertips touched hers. She waited a few beats, then shifted her position and lifted her hand from the ground.
“The Lalyrian Charter,” he continued, “states that we may rule ourselves so long as we keep the Durrenian savages to the west at bay. We are, officially, still a colony of Galadance. Although we like to pretend that we are fully independent. We have our own king and nobility, we pick fights with neighbors to prove that we are independent. We do everything we can to show the world how different we are from Galadance. But we are nothing more than an echo of her. We claim our own religion, but our gods are more or less the same as theirs. In fact, the only unique seasoning we have comes from the Andraens, whom we conquered.”
Drissdie joined Shanks and Rundle and the three started a game of shatterbones while they waited for Sage’s meal. But Rundle wasn’t looking at the dice. He was looking at Lord Aeren.
“We speak Galadane,” Lord Aeren continued. “Our lords create laws based on Galadane tradition. Our soldiers are taught Galadane theories and tactics. In fact, our officers are often sent to Galadance to study under Galadane military masters.” He was in his element now, warming to the topic, forgetting for the moment his other goal. The camp was tightly packed, so nearly every ear was listening. “We tried to make our own religion, but it was a pathetic effort. We stole Blythwynn from the Galadane, of course.”
Five feet away, Rundle Graen looked up from the dice again, his eyes slits. “Shut your mouth.” He said it quietly, but with enough venom to draw glances from those around him. The low, hair-raising growl of a mastiff that is approached while it eats. Everyone heard it for what it was. Everyone except Lord Aeren, who didn’t hear it at all.
“Blythwynn, goddess of mercy and forgiveness. The light in the darkness. Mother of All Life.” He smiled, his eye drifting to the bare flesh of Aramaesia’s shins. “And then there’s Lojenwyne. God of Justice. God of War. Bringer of Death. Blythwynn’s mercy must be tempered by justice, and Lojenwyne dispenses that justice. They are complete opposites. Lojenwyne, in reality, is a poor copy of Blythwynn’s guardian, Dendalur, in Galadane doctrine. He’s not even really a god in Galadance, but we took him, slapped a crown on his head, changed his name, and made him divine.”
“Shut your mouth.” It was louder this time and no less venomous. Rundle stood and walked toward the young lord. Aeren heard it this time.
“I mean no disrespect, soldier.” The scholar stood to greet Rundle. “All I’m saying is that if we want to be a free realm then we should act like a free realm instead of following Galadance like a little brother, wearing nothing but their handed down clothes and lapping up the same spiritual horse manure they’ve been dishing out for five hundred—”
Rundle’s blow was a good one. It caught Lord Aeren on the right cheek and took the scholar’s legs out from under him. He didn’t entirely lose consciousness, but he floundered and sat down hard, one hand held upward to protect himself. He had the belated sense to remain silent as Rundle stood over him, fists opening and closing, fury warping the soldier’s features.
“Shut your mouth,” Rundle called. No one save Aramaesia moved. She crawled to Aeren’s side and placed a protective arm around his shoulders. The archer glared at Rundle and Rundle returned the glare. “Tell him to shut his mouth.”
“I think we’re all clear on that, Rundle,” Sage said. The scout feigned nonchalance, his eyes on the roasting meat.
The bearded soldier, looked once more at Lord Aeren, who averted his eyes and held a warding hand in the air. “Shut your mouth,” Rundle said again, pointing a finger at the nobleman, then he returned to his seat.
†††
Rundle Graen was stripped of his chainmail, his gambeson and his dropshirt. Hammer tied a rope to the trudge’s wrists and threw the coil over a thick branch of an alder tree then pulled on the loose end until Rundle was stretched taught.
Grae bowed to Lord Aeren, who was still on the ground. The nobleman looked as if he were still gathering his senses.
“You can try Trudge Graen at Invaurnoth when the mission is complete,” said Grae. “But if you would allow me to keep him free and on the squad, I would be grateful. I need his sword. He will be supervised at all times. And we’ll give him five lashes now, if it please you.”
The nobleman’s cheek was already purpling and swelling. Aramaesia cradled his head on her lap and dabbed at the injured cheek with a wet square of fabric – one of the scraps cut from Maribrae’s skirt. At Grae’s words, awareness seemed to settle on the noble.
“No . . . ” he cried. “Abs
. . . absolutely not!” He stood woozily and stumbled toward Rundle. “Please do not . . . punish this man on my account.”
Hammer looked to Grae, then back to Lord Aeren. “M’lord. Trudge Graen knows the penalty for striking a noblemun.”
“And what is the penalty for forcing your way into a military expedition?” Lord Aeren replied. “I am an uninvited guest on this squad. I coerced Brig Barragns into letting me come and I will not have a man flogged and executed because of that.” He leaned against a tree for balance. “No one saw what occurred here tonight,” he glanced skyward. “Not even Blythwynn.” The nobleman placed himself between Hammer and Rundle. “I have learned in my short life that silence is sometimes the correct answer to a question. Sometimes I forget. It is good to be reminded.”
Grae studied the young nobleman for a time, then nodded solemnly. Hammer inspected Lord Aeren’s cheek. “Aye. That reminder’ll stay around a few days, for certain. Why don’t you come with me. I’ll see what I can do for it.”
Chapter 21
Surprise doubles your numbers.
-- From “The Arms,” Book II of Lojenwyne’s Words
Black Murrogar imagined that he’d been attacked by every ferocious species in Laraytia at one time or another. Thrulls and steam-breathing drasiks. Scaled brasomeurs and foaming-mouthed wulvens. And, perhaps the most vicious of them all, Ulrean’s Manae. He had come face-to-face with so many different enemies that he reasoned nothing could surprise him. But the creatures vomited up by the marshlands didn’t just surprise him; they froze him in place.
The animals were the size of ponies. Mole-like, with the slick coat of otters. They walked on all fours, their front limbs crowned with bulky yellow claws, each as long as his forearm. But it wasn’t the claws that had shocked him. It was the faces. Or more precisely, the lack of faces. Each creature had a squat neck and the suggestion of a head. But in place of facial features or snout was a circle of fleshy tentacles that waved in the air, like two hands held together with fingers fanned. Except the fingers of those hands were each as thick as a sword blade and as long as a man was tall. They undulated around the creatures’s heads like clouds of massive serpents.
There might have been a dozen of the creatures. Murrogar had neither time nor presence of mind to get a true count. They rose from every direction, bursting from the marsh and shrieking, tentacles spread wide and trembling. One sent up clods of mud and a spray of water two paces away. It dove at him, murderous claws high. A vertical slit at the center of the tentacles opened revealing sharp wedges of bone. Murrogar swung Thantos’s sword with two hands. He had no time to choose his spot. He simply swept the blade forward as he fell back. The long, trembling appendages curled around his head, warm and surprisingly strong. Thantos’s sword hacked deep into the creature’s chest. Cold marshwater bit at Murrogar’s neck as he hit the ground. The animal fell on him and shrieked like a burning horse, its body weighing far less than he would have expected. The stench of rotted earth belched from the vertical mouth.
Murrogar jammed the blade deeper into its torso. Claws scraped at his mail. The grip of the tentacles tightened around his head. He grabbed the end of the sword blade with his free hand for more leverage and sawed back and forth. Blood sprayed making the sword’s grip slick. He wrapped his legs around the creature, pulling it down onto the blade until he felt the body arch and shudder, and finally collapse. The tentacles fell to the mud and quivered. One of the fleshy appendages fell limply onto his lip and he recoiled. He threw the animal off and brushed at his face with bloody hands, scrambled to his feet.
The screams of men and women and the howls of the animals wove together in the thick forest sky. Sir Wyann had been busy. He’d bought time for the others. Two of the creatures lay dead. The knight raised his sword high, tentacles wrapping around his hands, and drove it through the squid-face of another.
The countess of Laudingham, standing to Murrogar’s right, screamed as one of the animals wrapped her in its appendages. The creature braced its legs and pulled the noblewoman toward its bony maw.
Ulrean scrambled up a thin willow tree not far from the countess. One of the animals raced after him, rearing at the base of the tree, its foreclaws shredding the trunk, tentacles reaching up toward the branches.
The young blond man who was somehow related to a baron knelt in the marsh a few paces from the tree, farther away from Murrogar than the others. One of the creatures had entangled him. The nobleman struggled, howled, and used a free arm to bash at the animal with a stone.
The duke was on Murrogar’s left. He had fallen and was on his elbows, scrambling backward and kicking. One of the animals that Wyann killed was at his feet. But a second approached, seized the man’s ankle with a pulsing tentacle and yanked.
Behind him the duchess wailed as two of the creatures approached her, snarling. Murrogar leaped over the duke and kicked at one of the beasts attacking her. He put all his strength into the blow and felt bones crack, turned to the second animal and hacked off the front quarter of its body. The severed head and tentacles splashed into the watery earth, leaving pink-hued circles of muscle and bone. The creature’s body convulsed and fell to one side.
The one Murrogar had kicked was still on its side. It grunted, then wrapped two tentacles around his wrist. He lifted a foot to smash the creature’s skull but more of the appendages lashed out and took hold of his ankle. He heaved against them and fell back into the smothering mud. More of the warm tentacles whipped at him, curling around his arms and binding his legs together. He tried to pull free but it was like struggling against thick ropes.
The duchess backed away, shaking her hands in impotent terror. He glanced up at her.
“Didn’t . . . think this through . . . properly,” he called. The animal rose to its feet, favoring the side Murrogar had kicked. He rolled and tried to thrust the sword at it but the creature yanked Murrogar’s arms away like a puppeteer, hauled his body toward the great vertical slit at the center of the tentacles.
Back to the womb. The wild thought entered Murrogar’s head. It ends where it started.
The bony ridges crashed together, clacking, then opened again. Tentacles spun Murrogar so he approached head first. The bony mouth clacked again. Murrogar shoveled mud at the creature with is elbow. It was all he could do. A fragment of wood in the mud struck the monstrous mouth and the gnashing ridges cut it in half as if it were eggshell.
Murrogar strained and howled, but the tentacles looped around him again and drew him ever closer. The wet mouth brushed against his hair. A trembling hiss of breath warmed Murrogar’s scalp. He jerked his head from side to side, feeling the bony ridges scraping his flesh.
“This ain’t how it ends!” he shouted. “I’m not going die like this!”
The tentacles spasmed all at once, then relaxed. The bony ridges settled gently on either side of his skull. Murrogar worked his arms free and sat up. The duchess stood over the monster, wobbling with exertion. A thick stone, wide-around as a platter, had crushed the animal’s skull.
He touched his hair, feeling slime from the creature’s gullet, nodded his thanks to the duchess and rose to his feet. The duke was still on his elbows, but the creature that had snared his ankle was gone.
“Murrogar!” Sir Wyann was on his arse. Two of the creatures were fighting over him, pulling him in opposite directions. “Murrogar!”
The countess of Laudingham was free and trying to climb into the willow. Ulrean held her hand and tugged. The last of their party, the young nobleman, stood at the base of the tree. He bobbed back and forth, keeping the trunk between him and two more of the animals.
Murrogar ran past Wyann, toward the tree. He howled at one of the creatures and waited for it to lash out at him, then cut the tentacles as they whipped in his direction. The thing shrieked and quivered with rage, snapped more tentacles at him. Murrogar severed those as well, holding the sword blade in one gauntleted hand for a faster swing. Only three or four tentacles remained and tha
t apparently was too few, because the animal fled, squealing.
The young nobleman toppled with a splat as the second creature finally lashed his legs together and yanked. Murrogar swung downward with such force that Thantos’s sword cut through the animal and buried itself two feet deep into the mud.
Sir Wyann’s screams became fevered. “Help! Gods above! Help me!”
Murrogar ignored him, helped the young nobleman to his feet and looked into the willow. A stench in the air indicated that one of the nobles had lost control of their bowels. “Anyone injured?”
The countess shook her head from a tree branch. Ulrean licked his lips beside her and gestured with his chin toward Sir Wyann. Murrogar rolled his shoulders and glanced back. The two creatures raked at the knight’s armor with their claws.
“You . . . you should help him,” said the countess.
Murrogar looked toward Wyann and nodded. “Yeah. I probably should.” The three of them watched the creatures rake at the knight. Their attacks looked vicious but Murrogar knew it would be difficult for animal claws to penetrate Sir Wyann’s steel plates and mail.
“I’m coming, Wyann,” Murrogar mumbled. “I’m coming.”
But before he could take two steps toward the knight, both of the creatures released their hold and bounded off. They stopped a few paces away and tore at the wet earth with their claws, working themselves into the ground faster than Murrogar would have thought possible.
But not quickly enough.
Something flashed from the forest, sending up a shower of water, and scooping one of the creatures into the air. Blood fell like a thick rainstorm as the Beast tore the animal in half and howled with such power that the swamp grasses rippled. The green dappling along the Beast’s body blared like molten rage. Shrieks rose from the nobles, chirps against the monster’s howl.
The duke and duchess were caught on the opposite side of the Beast. They could only cry out and stare in horror at Ulrean in the willow tree. Murrogar took a step toward them, then stopped and looked back at Ulrean. The Beast dug the other animal out of the earth and raked its talons over the hapless creature again and again.
The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part Two: Feeding the Gods Page 11