The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part Two: Feeding the Gods

by Roberto Calas

  Four or five bodies lay at the base of the slope. Above each corpse were five or six of the miserable ghouls, feeding. He bit his fist to keep from screaming and looked over his shoulder. He could not see his pursuers over the edge of the embankment, but he heard their barking calls. And so did one of the creatures below.

  The monster looked up, let out a croak and stood. The other creatures raised their heads at precisely the same time, turned to precisely the same spot. And Sage was in that spot.

  He moaned and shuffled madly across the embankment, his feet skidding on the loose branches and dirt. The fiends rose, hooping like rabid wolves, and charged after him.

  He tripped once, fell to the soil then vaulted onto his good leg and staggered on. A fast, clumsy lurch. He had a thirty-yard lead on the nearest creature, but he could hear them closing the distance. He scanned his surroundings as he ran, found a familiar hedge and adjusted his path.

  There.

  His shield lay half submerged in a pool of ferns. He scooped it up, slung it over his shoulder and continued his flight. The hooping of the monsters grew louder.

  He ran until he reached a long, steep hill. The horde was behind him, barking and hissing from every direction. Dozens of them pouring through the trees like a nightmarish flood. So close. So close.

  He began his ascent, knowing they would drag him down from behind. He could hear them clearly now. Could hear the snap of branches and leaves beneath their feet. He spared a glance over his shoulder and cried out. Two of the creatures had pulled ahead of the rest and were almost on him, their arms outstretched. He screamed as he crested the hill. His shoulders tingled, anticipating the jagged nails.

  And then three missiles sailed past, inches from his face.

  Shffoot. Shffoot. Shfffoot.

  At first he thought that some of the creatures had circled around ahead of him. He ducked as he shuffled. But when he looked down the slope he saw the most beautiful, cinnamon-haired woman firing a bow. Aramaesia. Next to her was the thick-jawed Hrethri cycling through his crossbows. They had found him.

  He heard cries behind him and risked another glance. The two nearest creatures lay on the ground, rolling, tugging arrows and bolts from their bodies. The long slope was too steep and Sage tumbled to the ground, made himself keep rolling.

  I’m alive, he thought to himself as he rolled. I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive . . .

  But more of the creatures crested the hill. He heard the steps behind him as the monsters clumped toward him.

  Chapter 30

  All there was to know of death, did little Lokk Lurius learn

  Taught as he grew, to kill, to slay

  To murder in every way

  What they failed to teach Lokk Lurius

  What he did not learn a’tal

  Was how to stop

  how not to kill

  t’was Lurius’s downfall

  A difficult lesson, a painful charge,

  to ignore that dogged call

  How does one teach the tiger wild, the tiger not to stalk?

  A lifelong struggle, it may be, for the killer Lurius Lokk.

  -- From “The Forest Beast of Nuldryn” by Songmaiden Maribrae Endilweir, unfinished.

  Grae studied the growing horde of creatures that loped behind Sage. Six, seven, ten, a dozen more of them ran down the slope. A scraggly vanguard of creatures. The fastest of them. Grae could hear many more on the other side of the slope. Scores of them would crest the hill in a moments.

  The wounded scout was halfway down, rolling and clawing his way toward the squad. He held his shield in his left hand still and it slowed his progress.

  “Hammer, take the formation!” Grae sprinted toward Sage, vaulting boulders, scrambling over moss-smothered logs and stones. Fiends that had been pierced through by arrows or bolts rose from behind Sage and continued their lumbering pursuit down the hill. But Grae reached the scout first, helped him to his feet.

  A creature wearing a silk vest launched itself at the two of them from twenty feet away. Grae let go of Sage and shouldered the creature out of the air. The impact sent all three of them to the rocky soil. Grae rolled to his feet and drew his dagger. He stabbed the monster in the stomach as it stood, noting that the creature already had a brutal stomach wound. He slit its throat and kicked the creature to the ground then reached back and unharnessed his shield. He placed himself between the approaching creatures and Sage, who sat hunched on the ground. Two. Three. Five of the monsters soared down the hill toward Grae. The vanguard was upon them.

  †††

  “They’re not gonna make it,” Hammer called. “Pick up the pace!” He raced forward, his shield high, his sword pointed downward and to the right. “Don’t break formation, these buggers are coming in ’eaps. And they got ’igh ground on us.”

  The unit advanced, the angled lines straight as they navigated around trees and stones. Every soldier focused, ready. The men loomed large and proud. Their breathing fast but controlled. Their blackened mail stark against the lush greenery. Black dragons smoldering on grey tabards. Shields at perfect forty-fives. Hammer nodded. Laraytian Standards.

  “Maid Maribrae,” he shouted. “Stay behind us, on the right. If anything gets through, don’t keep it a secret. Lurius! Lurius! Get in line!”

  Lokk Lurius had drilled with the men, but he wasn’t accustomed to fighting in formation. He glanced back at Hammer, his eyes invisible beneath the sallet’s visor, nodded curtly and slowed so the others could catch up.

  Grae was fully engaged when he and Sage were absorbed by the advancing line of soldiers. Four of the creatures lay at the brig’s feet and two stood before him. Shanks and Hammer cut down the standing fiends, allowing Grae to drag Sage a few paces back, behind the formation. Aramaesia gazed at them, her head tilted her lips pursed, before focusing again on the rushing tide of monsters.

  The dense central mass of the creatures was spilling over the crest of the hill, sweeping toward the squad in numbers that grew and grew, threading through trees and boulders. The men prepared themselves for the first real impact, a rowdy wave of fifteen or twenty of the monsters halfway down the slope.

  Grae helped Sage to the ground, near Maribrae and Lord Aeren, and joined the formation. “Archers,” he called. “Fire as long as you can, then work the wounded. If we’re overrun, draw and conquer.”

  “Goodbye Sage,” called Lokk from his position.

  Sage shook his head and tried to smile. “Don’t . . . be grim.”

  “Alright,” Hammer cried. The brunt of the creatures were less than twenty yards away now. “Let’s put holes in these things!” He looked at the approaching line of fiends, arrows thrusting from the bodies of several. The old soldier patted something that dangled from his neck, under his mail, and cleared his throat.

  “Give me a quick one, you bloodworms!”

  The squad shouted as one, loud and glorious;

  “Laraytia! Laraytia! Laraytia!”

  Two heartbeats of silence followed . . .

  . . .

  . . .

  And the world exploded.

  †††

  A wall of bodies broke against their shields with more force than any of them anticipated. The creatures were sprinting downhill, giving them momentum, but there was more to it. An unexpected strength in those grotesque bodies. The men fell back as the creatures struck their line, battering-rams of putrid flesh and swollen bones. The smell of them was enough to turn stomachs.

  Three of the monsters were inadvertently vaulted behind the line by the crouching soldiers. Meedryk set two of these on fire. They were too close for the pellets, so he used raw chemics, hurling powder and liquid onto them. The creatures screamed when the flames took to them, sounding like sows at the slaughter. They stood and ran aimlessly into the forest, their melting bodies reeking of burnt vomit. Meedryk covered his nose and mouth against smell, shook his head at the gruesome sights. Jjarnee, next to him, unslung a small war hammer and
caved in the skull of the remaining creature. The monster tried to stand again until Jjarnee crushed its head to bits of bone and blood while Meedryk retched.

  There were dozens of the monsters. Many rose from the ground after taking horrible wounds, confusing their numbers, making it difficult to count them all. The left side of the formation, where Lokk Lurius, Beldrun Shanks and Hammer stood, took the majority of the fiends. Shanks, with his battle axe in one hand and his shield in the other took turns using both as weapons. He pounded the creatures with the shield to knock them off balance, to give him room to work, then split them with the axe, as one might split logs. Bits of skin and dark green blood spattered the side of his face. He drove his axe blade into the head of a creature wearing a purple gown and the blow sent the fiend into seizures. Shanks laughed at its quivering, fallen body, then raised his shield and fought off the next in line.

  Drissdie and Rundle, were on the right side. They used long, winged spears to catch the monsters. The phalanges on the spearheads kept the creatures from sliding down the shaft toward them. Aramaesia peppered the spitted monsters with her broadheads. An arrow caught one of them under the throat and pierced the soft pallet of its mouth toward the brain, but still it fought. The shaft of the arrow was visible inside its mouth as it screamed, the fletching like a barbaric goatee. The arrows weren’t killing them. More and more of the monsters accumulated on the right side.

  Grae shouted at the apprentice: “Meedryk! Help the . . . ” He broke off and held his shield high. A knight with a hawk on his breastplate – what had once been a knight at any rate – pounded Grae’s heater with a thick arming sword. Grae shoved it back with the heater shield and continued: “Help the spearmen! I want those spears cleared after each thrust!”

  As he spoke, a mob of the creatures on the right side broke and loped around the flank of the formation. They charged toward Maribrae and Lord Aeren at the center. Shanks, momentarily without an enemy, peeled off from the left and met the creatures at the center as Maribrae and Lord Aeren stumbled backward. “This ain’t gonna work!” Shanks screamed. There were four of the creatures and only him to stop them. Another group of them were squeezing through the gap he had left on the left side of the line. Monsters came at him from both directions, pulling at his shield, some stabbing with swords, some slashing with knives. Maribrae and Lord Aeren backed stumbled back from the onslaught. “This ain’t gonna bloody work!”

  And then Sage was at his back, his sallet strapped on, his short sword out. The scout didn’t say anything, which spoke volumes to Shanks about the pain he was in. The two of them held the new front, slashing and shoving and grunting, Sage leaning against Shanks when he needed to.

  Meedryk recovered from his retching. He wiped at his mouth with a sleeve and stepped behind the spearmen, Drissdie and Rundle. The fiends were an arm’s length away here and Meedryk’s hands were shaking so badly that he could barely slip them into the oversized sleeves of his meridian cloak. His right index finger found the five metal nubs that identified the pocket with eliciam. His left found the single nub over the dryflan pouch. Just a pinch of dryflan and one tiny vial of liquid eliciam.

  A creature wearing a silk crimson doublet was impaled and howling upon Drissdie’s spear. Meedryk remembered to check the wind. Then, from the vial hidden in his hand, he flicked eliciam at the monster. An instant later he uttered the words “Vecara falune!” and flung the fine dryflan powder from his other hand. Where powder met spattered liquid, flames erupted. The creature went up like a straw man. It shrieked and wrenched against the spear but was spitted firmly.

  Some of the dryflan and eliciam had accidentally struck Drissdie. Flames roared on the back of the spearman’s tabard but he was oblivious to them. Meedryk patted at the flames with his cloak while Drissdie kept trying to elbow the mage away.

  Rundle Graen put his boot on the burning monster impaled on Drissdie’s spear and kicked it free of the barb. The creature burned and thrashed on the ground, its rasping cries slicing through the sounds of the battle.

  Meedryk covered his nose at the burning stink of it, turned his attention to Rundle’s spear. There were two creatures spitted upon it, so the apprentice burned them both.

  The monsters that died by flame didn’t rise again. But the others continued to rise. The soldiers slit throats, drove blades through hearts, cut off limbs and gouged out eyes, but the creatures would not stay down unless their heads were severed or their skulls cleaved. Again and again they rose. The sword blows came at a slower pace. Men grunted more. Labored breaths rasped like the saws of lumbermen. Everyone tired.

  Everyone except Lokk Lurius.

  The Eridian started breaking rank. Only a little at first. Just a few steps so that he could draw more opponents. Then a few more steps. And finally he broke away entirely, hunting the creatures down on his own, cutting swaths of blood and shrieks through their numbers.

  Grae tired to call him back, but the fighting was too intense and his breath was coming too hard to shout. He could only watch.

  Lokk Lurius was a dancer. Perfectly poised, his body taught but controlled. His only wasted motions were flourishes to his strokes. Flourishes that added a sense of style to his executions. Every slash, every hop, every duck, seemed choreographed. As if he had practiced this exact battle a thousand times. His movements conveyed no sense of urgency, no true exertion. Only elegance. Only death.

  He danced away farther, drawing many of the remaining opponents toward him. They fell before his whirling blade as if performing, like actors, falling an instant before the strokes reached them. They tried to rise again, but always he found a way to keep them down. Hacking off legs, burying his off-hand blade into their spines, stabbing both eyes at once to blind them. He was infinitely creative in his methods.

  The rest of the squad stopped fighting gradually as fewer and fewer enemies reached them. The grunts and clashes of steel ceased entirely. All sounds faded except those made by Lokk Lurius and his victims.

  The Eridian mercenary stepped behind a tree for cover. Two of the fiends came at him, one from each side, and he thrust one sword blade beneath each of their throats and upward. He crossed his arms as he did it, so the left fiend took his right sword blade. He finished the attack by whirling and beheading one of them, then taking the other’s right leg off above the knee. Lurius passed the fallen creature without looking, then casually crushed the monster’s skull with his heel while scanning for more enemies.

  A creature stumbled to its feet and charged. Lurius hopped to the side and gutted it, then stabbed the fiend in the throat as it fell. Before it hit the ground the Eridian hurled one of his strange swords at a scraggler that had risen near the rest of the squad. The blade wobbled in flight but struck the creature in the back, knocking it down. Lurius reached it on the first bounce, pulling his sword and cleaning the blade on the creature’s tunic while slicing its neck with the other.

  The rest of the soldiers stood motionless, their eyes wide. Drissdie pointed at the Eridian in astonishment. Lurius noted the looks on their faces, Drissdie’s pointed hand, and whirled. All of the creatures were on the forest floor. Some twitched but none rose. He turned back to the squad, a beam of sunlight catching his slitted eyes beneath the visor. “What?”

  Chapter 31

  Drissdie couldn’t see a thing ’cause that enormous helmet had gotten itself twisted round. He tried to turn the thing true but the thrull pounded him with a war hammer ’fore he could. Poor Drissdie, he said he screamed, but it were a private scream in that big steel bucket. The hammer took part ’a his little finger and dented the helm. I saw the lad ducking and spinning. Didn’t know what he was doing. The hammer came down again, spike-side first, and broke through the metal. It splintered Hannish’s skull, it did. Entered his mind like a horrible thought. Just the very tip. The barest bit of an inch sunk into his head. Just a tap.

  But it were enough to change him forever.

  -- Dultyn Ganarrd, hammer, Basilisk Company


  There was debate about burying the bodies and giving the warriors the Soldier’s Farewell. In the end, Grae decided to skip both the burial and the Farewell. Sending creatures like that to Eleyria, no matter who they had been, didn’t seem like a good idea. So they gathered the thirty-seven foul-smelling bodies in a pile and Grae ordered Meedryk to flash-burn them.

  Flash-burning required considerable preparation, but it was the most effective way to cremate bodies. They pulled one lord from the pile for Lord Aeren to study, then Meedryk spent nearly a full bell walking around the stack of dead monster, chanting and waving his hands. When he was finished, he warned the other soldiers away nervously and flicked his hands toward the mass of bodies. “Metasta Herai!”

  The mound of cadavers burned swiftly, sending up a vile odor that seemed to blend the worst parts of brimstone and feces. It took the space of a dozen heartbeats for the pile to dissolve into ash and chunks of charred bones, the bodies jerked and sunk toward the earth like snowdrifts melting at an impossible rate.

  The soldiers watched them. They’d seen the Expeditious Incineration before, but it never got any less impressive. They whispered as the hideous forms melted. Conjectured about what the monsters were. About how they became what they had become.

  “I don’t understand it,” Drissdie Hannish said. “Why were those things wearing the Cobblethrie’s clothes?”

  “You’re a frothing pizzle,” Shanks replied. “Those where the Cobblethries.”

  Drissdie’s eyes narrowed with thought. “How come . . . how come they look like that?”

  “That’s what people from Lae Duerna look like, Drissdie.” Sage sat on the ground rubbing at his injured leg. “You should see the nobility of Maulden.”