“A crossbow?” asked Hammer. “We were told you were a longbowman. How in Blackblyth are you supposed to kill a beast when you only got one shot?”
Jjarnee reached down by his left thigh and swung a smaller crossbow around. It was slung on his belt, hidden behind a dangling war hammer. “I have second shot,” he said, smiling.
“So what?” asked Hammer. “Two bolts won’t bring down that creature. What are you gonna do after your second shot? Throw your breastplate at it?”
Jjarnee Kruu chuckled and reached for something hooked to the back of his belt. He held it up; an ancient, tiny hand-crossbow made of iron. “Jjarnee always have more.” The lines bunched deeply around his eyes as he laughed.
A young man sat next to Jjarnee, also from Basilisk Company. Thin and pale, with long blonde hair tied back and an asymmetric face made for mockery. He wore the Standards’ black chain mail and a leather coif with hanging straps. The black Basilisk badge was sewn crookedly onto his grey tabard. Hammer studied the man’s eyes and found a lack of focus in them, a lingering confusion that Hammer suspected was permanent.
Next to Trudge Drissdie Hannish sat Trudge Dathnien Faldry, a tall man with short, unevenly cropped black hair. He was another infantryman. Silent and fidgety. He wore no badge indicating what company he belonged with. Hammer had heard something about Trudge Faldry. The soldier had been confined to a purificery for almost a year. It was common to send soldiers to purificeries when they stopped thinking rationally. Surgeons and alhumerian mages treated their afflictions there with meager results. Hammer had never heard of a soldier coming back from a purificery. But whatever ghoulish cleansing techniques the surgeons had employed on the man seemed to have worked. Trudge Dathnien Faldry was quiet, polite and respectful, if a little jumpy.
The last infantryman was Trudge Rundle Graen. A dour, thick-chested soldier with black hair to his shoulders and a nose that had been broken many times. He wore a heavy beard that almost covered a long scar running from the corner of his mouth to the top of his cheekbone. He was from Griffin Company, far to the southwest, a company tasked with patrolling the Durrenian Range. Rundle Graen wore his mail tight, and blackened the metal of his sword in an homage to the hero Black Murrogar. Trudge Graen had painted Lojen’s orange sun device across his entire sallet in a gesture of devoutness. Grae knew soldiers like this. Inferno-men. Men who worshipped Lojen with a binding singularity. They made vows to never rout and to never back down from any quarrel. Hammer said that Rundle had been disciplined for fighting in the ranks, so it was a mixed blessing, this devoutness to the god of justice and war.
And finally there was Trudge Daen Hyell, an archer from Wyvern Company. Hyell was broad shouldered and tall like most archers, but his hands trembled when he held his cup and his shooting eye twitched when he spoke.
Grae shook each soldier’s hand. He looked them in the eye and welcomed them to the squad warmly despite the disappointment that settled over him. These weren’t soldiers. They were castoffs. Beldrun Shanks, a murderer and rapist. Meedryk Bodlyn a clumsy apprentice mage. Jjarnee Kruu, an armored crossbowman who could scarcely speak Galadane. Drissdie Hannish, an imbecile. Dathnien Faldry, a recovering lunatic. Rundle Graen, a surly brawler. And Daen Hyell, a twitchy-eyed, trembling longbowman.
Grae studied each of them as they drank and when he couldn’t suffer the dejection anymore he ordered Hammer to call the men out. Grae watched them file out. How long would men such as these last against the Beast of Maug Maurai?
Chapter 19
The ‘C-mark,’ or ‘seemark’ as it is commonly known, has grown in size over the years. At first the brand was roughly the size of a large coin. Those branded as cowards could cut away a portion of the skin of their cheek to remove the mark of shame. These days, a coward must remove much of his face to discard the mark, and those who do such a thing are assumed to be cowards anyway. There was a story of a man murdered by a band of lepers when he tore off the seemark and tried to live among them. It appears that the lepers did not want the stigma of a seemarken soldier living among them.
-- From, “A Modest History of West Nuldryn,” by Yurik Bodlyn
Murrogar heard a nightmare playing out behind him, back where he had left the second party. The Beast had stopped trifling. It was killing on a large scale now, a tempest of violence. Howls like thunder. Cries raining out from the travelers. It seemed to Murrogar as if all of them were screaming, the ones being chased, the ones torn into, and the ones left mangled and pleading for death. All soaked the forest with their cries.
Black Murrogar broke off a branch from the maple that they floated upon and hung the last lantern upon the stub. The wick was little more than glowing threads now. Here on the river, it wasn’t a problem. Blythwynn’s Gaze made it through the canopy in patches and lit everything in silver. But when they left the river they would be blind.
The travelers clustered close to one another on the fallen maple, half the party on each side. Ten adult nobles. Ulrean, perched on Murrogar’s shoulders, made eleven. Sir Bederant’s squire, straddling the log, made twelve. A spearman that Murrogar had allowed into the party drifted at the far end of the log was thirteen. Thantos and Hul clung to the tree opposite Murrogar, and Sir Wyann clutched the log with both arms at the far end. Sixteen. Sixteen people to look after.
Ten’s what I needed. Sixteen’s too many.
And then Murrogar caught site of something next to Sir Wyann, half hidden in the leaves of a branch. It was the Eridian spearman. Gods curse you, Wyann. The spearman lay barely breathing and Murrogar’s instinct was to wade over and cut him loose. To let the river take him home. But he remembered the Eridian’s bravery. The man had leaped out of the forest to stab at the Beast earlier that night. His actions had saved Sir Wyann, but Murrogar respected the spearman anyway. The old hero glanced at the nobles on the log, then looked back at the Eridian.
Seventeen people to look after.
He studied the Eridian’s withered skin. The swelling of his face. The man had been poisoned. His fingers twitched occasionally but he didn’t move otherwise.
Sixteen-and-a-half.
The river carried them on. No one spoke. There was only the storm of death behind them, the rushing of the Typtaenai, and the muffled sobs of Lady Genaeve Baelyn, daughter to the Count of Laundingham. She was one of the travelers that Murrogar had decided would live. He gripped the tree more tightly and thought of Bederant accepting his duty without protest, leading the others through the forest with a killing fiend at his back.
Bederant’s squire was hunched on the log. He caught Murrogar looking and stared back with tears in his eyes. Murrogar thought the boy was mourning Sir Bederant, but the boy proved him wrong.
“I don’ wanna die,” said the squire. “Are we gonna die, Murrogar?” His voice broke at the end. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand.
Murrogar stared downriver. There was only darkness down there. A nothingness toward which the maple log hurtled. “Yeah,” he said. “I think we prolly will. That monster back there ain’t playing no more. Maybe it’ll forget ‘bout us. Don’t think so, though. And I don’t imagine it’s going to give us the time to get to Kithrey.”
Sir Wyann spoke: “What is wrong with you? He’s a boy. You’re scaring the life out of him.”
“The boy needs to be scared,” said Murrogar. “Fear is your mind’s way of telling you to wake up. Of preparing you to do what you thought couldn’t be done. And most important, fear’s the thing that tells you to do what Black Murrogar says to do.” He gave the squire a wink then checked the lantern. It would be dead soon.
He caught the eyes of the Duchess, who stared at him with naked hatred.
Still angry about her servant.
Murrogar knew she would never forgive him, no matter his reasoning. The cries of the dying drifted down the river, faint and haunting. Screams like that could carry clear down to Maeris on a still night like this. He watched the shivering travelers in the water, struggling
to keep their arms over the log. All of them craned their necks to the side, back toward the riverbank. Back to where the monster made memories of their friends and servants. The screams wouldn’t end and the nobles could do nothing but listen.
Murrogar watched them flinch at the cries for a time then cleared his throat. He gazed downriver, toward the great void of Maug Maurai, and he sang. His voice was deep and powerful and far more polished than any of travelers would have imagined.
What does it take to win a cup of clay?
An iron shield?
A sword of steel?
It's the mettle lads,
It's the mettle lads
What must you bring to find a cup of clay?
A cloak and hood?
A spear of wood?
Just the mettle lads
Just the mettle lads
It was an old song about the Raging Eight. A tragic band of heroes that ventured into Durrenia to reclaim a holy relic of Laraytia. It wasn’t his first choice. Murrogar had wanted to sing “Lost My Heart on the River Blue” but he had changed his mind at the last instant. Losing your heart had a different implication in Maug Maurai.
The travelers turned to look at Murrogar. Their expressions told him what they thought about his sanity, but they weren’t looking back at the shore anymore. Murrogar’s voice masked most of the screams, but the distant cries could be heard in the spaces between his notes. And when those cries finally faded with distance, a new one began. The Eridian woke and began screaming.
He screamed as if burning ingots had been nailed into his belly. He cried out so loudly that one of his ears fell off, which didn’t seem possible to Murrogar, but there it was. The man’s ear fell onto the log and lay there like an eavesdropping leaf. Murrogar noticed a look of disgust on Sir Wyann’s face. Then the log struck a fallen cedar that jutted into the river.
The impact spun the maple and Sir Bederant’s squire lost his balance. The boy cried out and his hands clawed frantically at the tree trunk. He toppled into the icy water and the river swept him downriver. The great maple log creaked and stopped among the branches of the fallen cedar.
Ulrean had to shout to be heard over the Eridian’s cries: “He can’t swim!”
Murrogar looked downstream. They were on one of the river’s few truly deep stretches. Ten or fifteen feet to the bottom. He turned to Thantos and Hul, then roared at the nobles. “We’re in mail. One of you go!” But no one moved. They stared upriver, or at the maple trunk, or into the forest, but none met Murrogar’s gaze. “None ‘a ya?” he bellowed. “Not a one?”
Ulrean clambered down from Murrogar’s shoulders and onto the log. The old hero thought the boy wanted to be with his mother and father, but the child dove into the river instead. His parents cried out. Ulrean didn’t leap far enough and was swept into a submerged bough of the cedar tree, pinned by the currents against the capillary branches of the jutting limb. His hands pushed against the cedar trunk but the Typtaenai was too strong. Ulrean’s head dipped underwater.
Murrogar took a deep breath then lunged away from the maple log. The river pulled at him. His blackened chainmail sought the river bottom, but the old hero struggled and flailed wildly and found the boy’s foot. The Typtaenai pulled Murrogar down, and he took Ulrean with him until they were clear of the branches. Then he lifted the boy high and gave him a shove toward the riverbank before the thirty pounds of chainmail took the old hero down. Murrogar sank to the bottom, only ten feet or so. The stones at the bottom glowed crimson. A luminous algae of some sort.
River of Blood.
His feet found purchase against the slippery rocks. He fell to all fours and scrambled across the bottom, fighting the gale of currents that dragged him farther downstream. Fighting the burning crush in his lungs.
The maple had crashed into the cedar twenty feet from shore. If it had been twenty one feet Murrogar’s lifeless body would have joined the gleaming red algae on the river bottom. But Black Murrogar hauled himself out from the river and fell upon the shrubs coughing and sucking for air. He glanced toward the maple log. Ulrean had made it and was back with is parents. The Duchess was holding the boy tightly with one arm and crying, the Duke seemed to be lecturing the child, a warning finger in front of the boy’s face. A pulsing blue light lit their faces. The stone in the boy’s head was glowing.
Thantos and Hul helped Murrogar to his feet. The two had crossed the half submerged cedar tree in full mail to get to shore. The old hero glanced at the slippery cedar trunk then nodded once to his men and grunted. They smiled at the praise.
Thantos and Hul stripped off their mail and helped Murrogar out of his. All three carried their armor back into the river, tied the mail to the maple then shoved the great log free of the cedar. Murrogar took position next to Ulrean, who looked up at him, shivering in the cold night. The jewel tucked into the boy’s forehead had dimmed once again.
Black Murrogar nodded at Ulrean once and grunted, then unfastened a steel broach from his shoulder. He placed the broach into the boy’s hand. Ulrean didn’t need to study it. He had stared at the metal disk for hours on their wagon journey. Murrogar’s Black Bear sigil was carved into the metal. It was identical to the broaches worn by Thantos and Hul, and by Grim, who had been cut in half during the initial attack.
Ulrean tried to smile but he burst into tears instead. He sobbed and wriggled past his mother and threw his arms around the old hero’s neck. The child lay his head on the padded gambeson and wept. Murrogar patted him stiffly with his free hand then, after a moment, hugged the child tightly and let him cry.
Murrogar looked downstream and saw only darkness. They would never see Bederant’s squire again. He was certain of that. He had made a promise to Sir Bederant, an unspoken promise. But the boy had drowned minutes into Murrogar’s care. He gazed at the travelers, huddled against the maple log, shivering. At Ulrean weeping against his chest. The Eridian was silent again, likely dead. He thought of the Beast, enormous, faster than arrows, stronger than steel. And for the first time that night, Black Murrogar understood with certainty that none of them would make it out of Maug Maurai.
Chapter 20
The skies of Nuldryn were shredded that day by the tolls of Ulgrei Tauk. Messengers flew northward upon Dromese racing steeds, nay, upon the wind itself, their cries filled the gaps between the tolling bells; “The Mauldish come! The Mauldish come!” And ten thousand Nuldish footmen, an ocean of glittering mail and leather, armed themselves for the last battle. Lord Fliin Maunterae, Count of Maul Lawray, sat the left flank with two thousand of his pikemen. Sir Naughrei Gythnarik held the right, carrying eighteen hundred mustachioed free-cavalry from the South. How gallant the army appeared on the Byway. How invincible. To see them shattered and swirling, like leaves before a carriage, drove daggers through my heart.
-- From “A Nuldish Account of the Barrestian Rebellion,” by Fuen Cuillen
Kithrey was still two hours away, but Grae held them at the ruined tower of Ulgrei Tauk. It was an old, lightning-toppled fortification that once guarded the border of Nuldryn against Maulden, back when the two territories had their own kings. His squad was complete now and he wanted to start drilling the soldiers with his strategy to bring down the Beast. It would take hundreds of repetitions before they were comfortable enough with the tactics to be effective, which meant drilling at every spare instant.
But they had to contend with Beldrun Shanks first.
“Our squad is assembled.” Grae stood straight and proud before the men. He had thought long about the words he would say to them. “But a group of soldiers is nothing without –”
“What in Blyth’s cunt do you mean?” Shanks’ lip was curled upward. “This is it? These bunch of pink-fisted brown-fingers?”
“Shut your gapin’ portcullis, Shanks.” Spittle flew from hammer’s mouth as he shouted.
“I hope all of you left your best weapons with a mate,” Shanks continued. “Cause they’ll be lost forever where we’re going. Pay of
f yer debts. Won’t need money no more. It’s an old fashioned execution. Show ‘em yer throats. Let’s get it done and over quickly. I’ll take mine in the …”
“STITCH IT, SHANKS!” Hammer grabbed the man by the strap of his baldric and shook. The top of Hammer’s head scarcely reached Beldrun’s neck. “You keep talkin’ like that and by the Blood of Anris I swear it will be your execution. Do you understand me? Do you understand what I am saying?”
Shanks’ eyes burned into Hammer’s, but he nodded.
Hammer tried to shake him again, but the big man only swayed. “I want to hear it, you seemarken pizzle! Do you understand?”
Shanks nostrils flared, but he nodded again and spoke quietly. “Aye, hammer.”
Hammer gave the big man one final shove. “You an’ me, we’re gettin’ close to that ledge, Shanks.” Hammer waved a finger. “You’ll take a nasty fall if you don’t watch it. Take it to ‘eart. Take it to ‘eart.”
Grae abandoned his speech and set the men to drilling in formation. He didn’t have a wealth of experience fighting animals. He’d been faced with a few on the Front – massive bultanyons and steam-breathing drasiks mostly. But they were simply more enemies to contend with there. He fought them with whatever he had, however he could. How did one hunt a Beast in a forest? Not a boar or a scaly, horned runk, but a monstrous predator like the Beast of Maug Maurai.
In the end, Grae settled for a variation of an old Standards formation. The Northern V was used when confronted with a small number of fierce opponents. Two lines of men arranged in a V, capable of surrounding and enveloping the enemy. It was the best strategy he could think of for a creature that he knew almost nothing about.
Grae studied the scruffy group of misfits and shook his head. He might have had a chance if they had let him choose his own men. He ordered Hammer to split the men into two groups for the drill. Each group formed one wall of a V, facing inward with spears and swords, like a mouth ready to devour. Sage and the slow-witted Drissdie Hannish stood at the top of the right wall holding spears. Next to them, toward the crook of the V, was Rundle Graen, the bearded warrior with the sun-painted helmet. Next to Rundle was the knight, Sir Jastyn Whitewind. Rundle Graen and Sir Jastyn would use their swords to attack, Drissdie and Sage their spears.
The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling Page 9