The duchess reached from the maple log past Thantos’ shield and took the hand of her lady retainer. Murrogar locked his hand around the retainer’s wrist and held her on the other side of the shield wall. He looked at the Duchess and shook his head.
“She is important to me,” said the Duchess. “She is as my sister.”
Murrogar ripped the retainer from the Duchess’ grip and shoved the servant to the ground. The woman’s torn dress flopped down exposing most of one breast.
“My lady!” The retainer was shrieking. “I’ll die out here!”
The Duke called to Murrogar from the log at the water’s edge. “Let her come Murrogar. I command it.”
Murrogar glared at the Duke. The lady retainer got to her feet, crying, and a chorus of other nobles called out to the Duke, pleading, pushing against the shields. Another nobleman tried to swing around the shield wall and was sent flailing downstream.
Murrogar hesitated, then drove his sword into the lady retainer’s stomach.
For a moment, the pleading stopped. The mad rush toward the log stopped. The shouting stopped. Everyone froze except for the lady retainer, who croaked and cut her hands on Murrogar’s blade. The old hero withdrew the blade and finished the job. The duchess screamed and lunged toward Murrogar but Hul held her back.
“Anyone else wanna switch groups?” asked Murrogar. No one replied. He looked into the eyes of the landbound travelers. There were servants and squires there. Craftsmen and handlers. With the exception of the minor nobility among them, these were people with skills. With purpose. He stared back at the nobles by the log and forced himself not to spit.
A horrible stench drifted on the air. There was no more time. A cluster of green phosphors streaked from the forest. Another scream. And then the landbound party was running. Sir Bederant stopped and tried to calm them. Murrogar got his attention with a whistle. “Lead them. Maeris is ten miles south. Thraen is fifteen to the west.”
Bederant and Murrogar locked eyes. Bederant glanced at his squire then back to the old hero. Black Murrogar considered, then nodded reluctantly. The knight shouted for the landbound party to follow him, ordered his squire to go with Murrogar.
The men in the river-bound party took hold of branch stubs and dragged the log into the river, the dying leaves on its few remaining branches rasping along the shore. They splashed into the cold waters.
Sir Wyann did his best to stay out of sight as he dragged the Eridian with him. He draped the unconscious man over a thick limb. The Count of Daendrys hissed at him: “What are you doing with that body?”
“He’s not dead, my lord,” whispered Sir Wyann. He strapped the Eridian to the branch with a sword belt. “He saved my life.” The knight secured the spearman to the tree and clung to the thick log as the currents moved it downstream. He clung with all his strength. He was still in his armor and losing his grip meant becoming a part of the Typtaenai forever.
Murrogar unslung the shield from his back and hung it on a branch. Then he lifted Ulrean onto his shoulders so that only the boy’s legs were in the water. The boy looked back in time to see the Beast through the trees. It plucked a woman from the running crowd. The creature drowned out her screams with a cry of its own. There were howls of terror from among the landbound travelers as they ran blind and tripping into the darkness. Sir Bederant chased after them, calling them to his side.
Ulrean looked away and his eyes caught those of the dying Eridian. The man lay motionless, strapped to a branch, with his cheek against one of the tree’s branches. And the man’s eyes glowed green in the darkness.
Chapter 17
It is true that a first degree Canlist is permitted sixteen integrants. But if a painter can create a universe of colors with only three pigments, then what can a Canalist do with just six chemics? Trust to Dryflan and Eliciam, Emulsion and Gelid, Vig and Effluvient. Use the others with wariness, as you would invite mercenaries into your home.
-- From “The Treatise Canalithian” by Sidare Moldrane
An old man lay dead in the Magician’s Guildhall of Tyftin. He sat in a chair, his forehead resting on a large book that lay open on the desk. Meedryk Bodlyn, apprentice magician in the Standards Mage Regiment, peered at him from the doorway. He was certain that the old man was dead. But he had spent the last thirty heartbeats convincing himself that it wasn’t so.
He’s sleeping, that’s all. Sleeping deeply.
The man certainly seemed dead. He was pale and made no sound nor moved at all. Meedryk took a deep breath, let it out slowly.
He’s not dead. Just go in you coward. How can you fight the Beast if you can’t even face an old man taking an afternoon nap?
Meedryk thought of his father. A brilliant scribe, but a man who’s fear of everything had confined him to a desk all his life, writing histories of places he would never see. Meedryk stepped into the room.
There was a staircase on the right rising to the upper stories. The dead mage and his cluttered desk were to the left. There was another chair just inside the room, by the staircase, and Meedryk thought of sitting in it until someone arrived. He didn’t like the thought of discovering a dead body.
Someone will find him eventually, right?
He set his equipment on the floor near the chair. The wood-framed pack rattled and jangled with the sundry tools of his trade. It clattered with flasks and mortars, heating plates and stills. Meedryk wouldn’t need most of it, but he had thought it better to include too much than to leave something vital behind. He shrugged his shoulders with relief. Then he slipped a leather haversack off his arm and set that on the floor as well. He sat and, after a moment’s thought, placed one leg over the haversack and pulled it close. He glanced toward the desk.
The old man was a magician. Not a clerk or scribe. He wore the meridian cloak of the magician class. The same type of cloak as Meedryk. Although it wasn’t a cloak really. Magicians thrived on misdirection, so they called it a cloak. In reality, it was a long, rugged white coat of canvas and leather. It had black leather tie cords running the length of the front right flap and holes to tie them to on the left. The old man’s cloak was loose, flowing and dark. It would take decades for Meedryk’s to look the same.
“Hello?” he called softly, his voice breaking. He cleared his throat and called again, a little more loudly. “Hello?” The old man didn’t move.
Meedryk soothed himself by touching the sixteen pouches on his belt. He identified each element, whispering its abbreviated name out loud. Dryflan. Eliciam. Emulsion. Gelid. He stopped there, remembering that he was low on Gelid. He would have to get more before leaving Tyftin.
He sent a nervous glance at the old man, then reached down to the haversack and withdrew a ragged bundle of papers from his bag. He set the stack on his lap and hunched over it. The papers were mold-stained. Bound with yarn. He smoothed the curling first page. A jagged tear formed the left edge, marking the spot where it had been ripped from its binding. Across the front of the page was a single word. The first letter, an S, was boxed and illustrated.
Subrevain.
He heard voices as two men on the street passed the guild hall. Awareness seeped into him. He stared in horror at the pages on his lap and stuffed them back into the haversack. A chill swept through him at the thought of being caught with the forbidden manuscript. He knew what would happen to him.
He remembered his instructor, Master Craen, taking him to the Mage’s Hall of Judgment in the city of Enaur. The council’s Master Magician had punished a magician that night. Meedryk watched as a tanner made dozens of small cuts onto the bound man’s body. The tanner then jerked the man’s skin off in large folds, as if he were undressing him. The pulsing, mottled mass of blood and mush beneath the man’s skin was something that Meedryk would never forget. He’d never forget the screams either. Particularly the ones the man made after they threw him into the alcohol tub.
“That man,” said Master Craen after the man’s screams faded, “showed a freebody how to
use eliciam powder to make fires. When the life finally leaves his pitiful body the mage council will transfer his spirit into a chunk of charcoal. For eternity. And his body will be given to the necromancer’s guild.”
Meedryk looked at the manuscripts in his satchel and once again considered burning it.
Chapter 18
“A trained war horse is always there. It never routs unless you do. It never strays, never balks in the face of an enemy. A trained war horse does whatever is asked of it, without question. What more could you ask of something?”
-- Brig Grae Barragns, Wolf Company, Maulden
Lojen’s Eye glowered high and hot above Grae’s squad as they set off toward Tyftin. The Brig and his hammer rode in the lead. Sir Jastyn and Maid Maribrae followed behind, the flanks of their horses brushing against one another. In the third rank was their new scout, Sage. And Beldrun Shanks rode at the rear, still manacled, and spitting the word ‘cock’ at Sage again and again.
“D’ya really think we should let the big man ride in the back?’ Hammer asked.
“You think he’ll run?” asked Grae.
“’sa fair concern, ain’t it?”
“You’ve seen that horse he’s riding, haven’t you?”
Hammer chuckled and they rode on.
The rest of their soldiers waited for them at Tyftin. Three more footmen, two archers, and a mage.
“It’s a wonder they let us have a magician,” said Grae.
“Where do you think they dredged him from?” asked Hammer. “I thought every spare mage was at The Front.”
“I’m afraid to imagine what kind of mage they would assign to this squad,” said Grae.
Hammer chewed at a strip of jerked hare. “Don’t much like ‘aving mages around. Readin’ my thoughts and such.”
“You don’t really believe they can read your thoughts, Hammer, do you?”
“Course they can,” said Hammer. “And they can give you warts just by lookin’ at you.” Grae said nothing and Hammer gazed past bushy brown eyebrows at him. “What? It’s true. You’ve seen ‘em yourself, Grae. Remember that wizard at Debney? Burned up thirty Durrenians just by pointing at them. ‘ad this way of looking at you. Like ‘e could see clear into your spirit.”
Grae shrugged. He didn’t know what to believe about mages. All he knew was that the good ones could be damned useful.
Tyftin was a large city. It sat beside the Mythaenthys, with towering white walls and a population of nearly thirty thousand within them. One of Sir Jastyn’s uncles was the Count of Tyftin. Another was the Thane of Tyftinshire. Both lived at Daun Faulen, on the western side of the city. So when the gate guards spotted Sir Jastyn, the group was waved through without a second glance. Sir Jastyn and his songmaiden begged off to pay a short visit to his uncle.
Meedryk Bodlyn, the magician assigned to the squad, waited for them in a chair just inside the door of the Canalist’s Guild hall. Grae knew that mages were sorted into their specialties. Canalist were general purpose mages. He wasn’t sure that was the best type of mage for the mission, but he wouldn’t complain. They had assigned him a mage and mages served a valuable function. The good ones did, anyway. Meedryk Bodlyn rose and saluted clumsily, sending his chair tumbling to the floor, and Grae wondered if this mage would serve any function at all.
“Meedryk Bodlyn?” asked Hammer.
“Yes, hammer,” the magician mumbled.
He was a boy, really. Not much older than a boy. Slight of build with poor posture and hair the color of dirty firewood. His gaze was everywhere except on the person speaking to him, and he wore one of those coats that magicians always insist on calling cloaks. But this coat had three small stars on the shoulder in place of rank insignia.
Grae looked to the magician’s arms. “You don’t have your bracers on, soldier.”
“I … I haven’t earned them yet, brig sir,” he stammered.
“What?” Grae asked.
Meedryk shook his head, his eyes falling toward Grae’s boots.
“The brig asked you a question,” said Hammer.
“I’m sorry… I’m not a mage yet,” said Meedryk, understanding now that it had all been a mistake, his placement on the squad. He wondered if they would send him back to Maul Kier. Back to the misery of his old unit, Peregrine Company. “I’m a mantic.” He glanced up, saw their confusion and sighed. “An apprentice.” Grae closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. Beldrun Shanks gave a short bark of a laugh. Meedryk cleared his throat: “I’ll be tested in another four months.”
Grae rubbed at the corner of his eye. “You’re not even a mage. Can you cast?”
“Yes.” Meedryk smiled nervously. His expression somewhere between nervous humor and a restrained indignation.
“Yes, what?” asked Hammer.
“Yes … yes I can cast,” replied the mage.
This wasn’t what Hammer had been after and he leaned in, but Grae intervened. “I’m a brig. You’ll address me as such,” he said. “We’ll discuss your merits later. Lace up your jacket, you look a shamble. And hurry it up. We have one more stop to make in Tyftin.” Grae turned and caught sight of the old man again, looked at Meedryk. “Do we need to talk to him?”
“He’s sleeping.” Meedryk almost shouted it, his voice shrill. “That’s why I didn’t check on him, brig sir. Because he’s asleep.”
“Easy boy,” said Hammer. “Do we need to sign you out or something?”
“No, hammer,” said Meedryk. “He’s not my master. I actually haven’t spoken to him, sir. He … he hasn’t moved much.”
Grae ‘s eyes fell on the old man again. “Hammer.”
“Aye sir?”
“Does he look a little pale to you?”
Hammer squinted, then clopped over to the desk. “Hey, you there. Old man.” He tapped him on the shoulder. Finally he grasped a handful of the man’s hair and lifted his head off the desk. He glanced at the face and let out a humph.
“How’s that for supper?” said Hammer, still holding the man’s hair. “He’s dead.” He let the head drop heavily onto the book and walked back to the squad.
“Poor man,” said Grae. “Let’s get moving. We’ve still got a long day ahead of us.”
Sage and Beldrun Shanks moved toward the door of the guild. Meedryk stood in shocked silence, the guilt rising like tears. When only Grae, Hammer and Meedryk were left, the apprentice spoke. “What … what about him?” he asked. “We shouldn’t just leave him here like that, should we, hammer?”
“Why not?” said Hammer, ushering the mantic out. “Someone’ll find ‘im.”
Meedryk cast one last look at the old man and wondered exactly what sort of squad he had joined.
Their last five soldiers waited at a tavern called Swift Waters. When they reached the tavern the stableman took Hammer’s horse, then reached for Grae’s mare. She stamped nervously and leaned away from the man.
“There’s a girl,” said Grae. He clicked his tongue and rubbed at her neck. The stableman stroked her nose as he took her. He swept his gaze across her with the canniness of an accomplished horseman.
“What a fine ‘orse she must ‘ave been,” he said.
“Still is,” Grae replied. He massaged her flank, seeing her now as the guardsman had. Noting the old scars, the dullness of the eyes. She’d gained most of her weight again, but her coat had never come back properly. It was flat and spare.
“Was she wounded?” asked the guardsman.
“She’s from Gracidmar,” he said. “One of their officers got caught on the wrong side of a skirmish line. Someone thought it’d be funny to draw him with his own horse.”
They had secured her to the tension chains, had forced her to pull her master to pieces as they interrogated him. After that, they simply left her there, a replacement for the worn out cob that had done the job for years.
“They don’t know about horses like this in Tenyth,” said Grae. “They didn’t treat her right.”
The mare had spent t
wo years doing nothing but pulling people apart. They rarely turned her out. Fed her only enough to keep her from dying. Whipped her until she didn’t care about whips anymore.
When Grae saw her for the first time, he could count every one of her ribs, could distinguish every swell and lump in those bones. He bought the beast for twice what she was worth and nursed her to health. He promised himself that someday he would take her to the foot of the Durrenian Mountains and set her free.
The tavern was crowded, but it was breezy compared to the Happy Pig in Kithrey. Grae was expecting three infantrymen and two longbowmen in the tavern. But he was learning that nothing was as he expected in this squad hand-picked by the Duke of Nuldryn. The disaster of the Chamberlain’s choices grew worse as he met each soldier. Grae first met a stout named Jjarnee Kruu, from Basilisk Company up in Maul Lawray.
Stout Kruu was originally from Hrethri, a kingdom far to the north known for bitter winters, bitter spirits, and bitter civil wars. Kruu was tall, only a few inches shorter than Beldrun Shanks. He wore a bulging, archaic breastplate with oversized spaulders at the shoulders and steel greaves on his shins. The man had wavy blonde hair, a thick soldier’s face and eyes creased by laugh lines. A ragged half-moon scar on one of his cheeks was evidence of a day when things hadn’t been so humorous.
Hammer assumed he was a footman because of his armor. Infantrymen were allowed to wear plated armor if they could afford it. But Jjarnee Kruu was no infantryman. He was an archer.
“Gonna have an unholy time of it in forest with that lead suit you got on,” said Hammer. “How can you fire a bow with that armor?” Jjarnee Kruu flipped his wood-framed pack and revealed a long crossbow strapped to the side.
The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling Page 8