by Brenna Lyons
The beasts fought the battle on the basis of Marclef’s lies, lies that ultimately cost the leader his life for his treachery. Veriel turned the leader and left him to me to kill. Thus, I became the first beast killer of the new war. The fact that Marclef faced the same fate he enticed others to embrace seemed to amuse the mad deceiver. In this case, I could almost agree that the destroyer of lives had only obliged one who sought to destroy his own life with his underhanded ways. Veriel and Resten left immediately from the battlefield to accomplish this task once they learned they had been lied to — and to try for Regana as their prize.
Resten tried for her first, killing Sibold in his bid to gain access to her within the stone’s keep. Veriel sent him to ground and returned to claim Regana for himself.
But, Regana was never one to accept a man’s rule. While the elders had been gone in their battle, she had left the protection of the stone to save Sibold. Veriel came for her before she had the master trainer inside the stronghold, but Regana did not accept his claim on her lightly. Taking Sibold’s blades from his dying hands, she threatened to plant them in the beast if he remained in her sight.
The idea seemed laughable. Regana played at battle with wooden weapons and even found herself in her share of barehanded matches with the older and much larger boys, but she was not a trained warrior. She was half the size of the beast she faced and human with only my amulet and blessing to protect her from his wrath. Moreover, unknown to any of us but herself, Regana was with child. Still, she refused to yield Sibold to the beast. She placed herself between Veriel and his prey, oblivious to the fact that she was the beast’s true prey.
In truth, Veriel laughed at her attempt, but he left her regardless. Whether he left to play another night — admitting some time later that she amused him with her threats and her stubborn spirit — or something about her unnerved him was unclear even to the end. He left her without incident, and she brought Sibold into the safety of the stone to wait for daybreak.
In the end, her valiant efforts could only delay Sibold’s death long enough for me to reach them and take my place as stone lord properly. In the intervening hours, the master trainer gifted Regana with his blades for her own protection and the protection of the innocents in their midst.
The fact that she nearly took Pauwel’s head as he entered the stronghold in the weak pre-dawn light was simply the final blow for us all in a very trying night. Perhaps, the fact that Regana was to be trained should have been apparent to us then, but without Sibold’s word or the stone’s comment, we could not know such a thing was in store for her.
Still, I had no idea of the secret vows that lay between Pauwel and Regana. As the choosing night approached, Regana became withdrawn and unsettled — volatile on a scale that disturbed me, but I had no clue of the origin of this strange upset save the beasts’ interest in her.
In reality, she became afraid, realizing that Pauwel could face death when her baby’s arrival proved their crimes. In a panic, Regana refused her place in the choosing, hoping to take dishonor alone and spare his life.
Pauwel was a printed man and could not choose another. In desperation, he confided his indiscretions to me and begged my mercy in judgment of Regana, begged for the one woman who eased his pain.
My shock was overcome by my anger, but I was calmed by my choosing of Bavin and that she would have me as her own. In truth, had his confession — or my discovery by other means — come at any other time, I might have taken a deathblow without letting my mind rule my curse.
Reserving my judgment until they could face me together, we returned to my lands to find Resten and Veriel vying for Regana yet again. NOTE: Again, there is a section destroyed by Gawen, as he wrote.
Pauwel killed Resten in her defense, and Veriel fled our combined strength. That in itself nearly sealed my decision to take my single blow and give Regana to him. Surely, I could not kill the first lord elder slayer nor lose him to the madness of losing one he was printed to.
The announcement of Regana’s gravid state shocked me, but it was even more of a shock to Pauwel. Regana had not told him of her condition out of concern of his reaction to their inattention to the details of checking her cycle of late, fear that Pauwel would come to me with a confession at a time when I would not be capable of showing mercy to either of them.
Still, Pauwel held his ground, waiting patiently for my judgment before accepting his blow gracefully and scooping his wife to him in joy for his son in her womb. Thorald joined them formally the very next day, though my stone-duty to protect her meant she retained my personal protection even in her married life. Pauwel did not question why he could not give her his amulet. It was a small boon to ask of him in return for Regana, his son, and his life.
Even with this new information about her, there was a puzzle about Regana that the stone intended us to solve. In the end, Regana solved it herself.
Rumors abounded about Regana — dangerous rumors because of her coloring and unladylike actions in the face of Veriel. Complicating matters were the jealous streak Riberta bore Regana for capturing the love of the warrior she wanted for herself and the half-mad stories Eberhard told which proclaimed Regana an evil omen.
With Sibold dead and Eberhard a madman, Regana went to the last remaining person with memories of her birth, Emecin, the midwife. Breaking her oath to Sibold at last, Emecin confirmed for Regana that she was Raga, the mother.
That fact was not enough to sway the villagers. Bermer, the oldest son in the family of blacksmiths, tried to kill her in the belief that her death would send the beasts away. Regana felled him, though Bermer was almost the size of a warrior and she large with Pauwel’s son. She ran from him, but he gained on her quickly and attacked her bodily and with intent to slit her throat. Bermer would have killed her were it not for the boy healer, Landric, who took the man’s life in her defense and brought her back to her lord for comfort and care.
Finding his game with Regana threatened and never one to blithely accept an interruption to his play even before he went mad, Veriel used and killed the fair Riberta, Wil’s sister, for spreading the dangerous rumors that almost cost him his prey. Then, Veriel orchestrated a full beast war on the village. Spanning days, the battle sought to destroy every villager who harbored thoughts of injuring Regana before Veriel played out his game. The people were executed in the most gruesome manners imaginable.
Intent on his game, Veriel came for Regana again. His threats to her and to Pauwel stated clearly, he left her presence, amused by Kethe’s threat to use blades on him in defense of Pauwel’s wife and son. To protect her from villager and beast alike, Pauwel and I undertook formal training for Regana as a stone chosen would.
Desperate now to minimize the effects of the sons of Raga, Veriel sought to use Pauwel in his plan. He defeated the strong young lord in battle and fed from him deeply until he controlled his will. His will not his own, Pauwel was forced to drink of Veriel’s foul blood, turning him to a beast.
Veriel brought Pauwel to Regana, believing that she would choose to let him kill her husband when posed the choice of accepting him as he was or death for him. To Pauwel’s dismay as much as my own, Regana tore off her amulet to cradle her husband to the babe growing within her. Undone by his own game, Veriel learned that turning Pauwel was a mistake he would live to regret.
As a printed warrior, Pauwel was not the puppet the elder had hoped for. Rather, Pauwel retained his love and all things that made him husband and warrior even as he was turned beast. Veriel lived to regret that night, forced to ground again and again and thwarted at almost every turn. By turning Pauwel, he did naught but create a more powerful barrier between himself and his prey. He could not hope to touch Regana while Pauwel lived as beast, and Veriel lacked the ability — perhaps because Pauwel was a warrior beast — to kill his adversary.
Still, the elder was determined enough to plague Regana at her son’s birth with threats of ending the only son of Raga. With Pauwel as beast, there cou
ld be no more sons from him, and so he protected his son fiercely, if anonymously.
Only the first cursed, Kethe and Bavin shared Regana’s secret of her beast husband. To the rest of the world, he was dead and Regana a widow. So it came to pass that at his birth, I granted Andris the amulet of his father’s personal protection and my own blessing, one of the many things Pauwel could no longer give his son as beast. Still, never a more doting father had I ever seen — in the early days before Andris was old enough to repeat what he saw, and Pauwel was still able to hold him and care for him as a father would.
In the meantime, Pauwel became the ultimate warrior, killing turned whenever he encountered them and sending elders to ground for up to a week at a time. The reservations the other first lords had with this strange arrangement were set aside quickly as the irony of the beasts’ folly became ever clearer.
Veriel tried to take Andris three times before he was a man and finally — on the young man’s first night.
NOTE: Yet again, Gawen destroys a portion of what he has written and begins again.
Driven to ground by one of his many turned, one of the many who did not wish damned by him, Veriel lost his opportunity to kill Andris before he claimed the seal of Lord KreuzStütze. The young warrior freed the injured high-level and won his seal, a most noble bit of generosity and caring that he showed the beast who had no wish for his damned life.
Knowing his son was lord and Regana safely in the care of myself and her son, Pauwel came to me when next he was seriously injured and begged me to free him. With a heavy heart, I did as he bid me. Regana wept for him, as the other first lords and I gave her husband a warrior’s burial.
It was our only chance to free Pauwel, the only chance we would likely ever have to defeat him and give him peace while Regana still lived to stabilize him and keep the warrior in him alive and in control of the beast in himself. Pauwel knew this sad truth, and so he sought death before the time when Regana could die and leave him a danger to all.
Had I known the results his death would have on Regana, I might have chanced the beast in Pauwel and denied him his respite still. My beautiful sister fell into a deep melancholy without Pauwel’s love. Andris claiming Ger’s daughter, Berna, as his bride cheered her but hours. News of their coming child barely touched her in her grief.
Little more than a year after her husband’s death, Regana could stand her isolation no longer. She slipped into the dark night with her weapons, and with nothing left to lose, she searched out Veriel.
She fought him as a warrior fights, without an amulet to protect her, seeking to find Pauwel in the warrior’s rest at her death. Skilled beyond even my comprehension, Regana sent the mad elder to ground for three days, but her own life was forfeit in return. Veriel fed on her and left Regana to bleed to death in the spot where once they played together as children, the ultimate show of disdain for the one he once called sister.
I failed in my stone’s duty to Regana. She was gone. I should have been able to stop her — or to save her. Still, I have no concept how that beast could feed on my own lands and not have me know that he was there. Perhaps, the stone was taking some measure of pity on Regana by letting her join her lord with no interference from me. I can only hope that is the case, though I fear it is not.
Regana was given a warrior’s burial by her lord’s side, together in eternity as they could never be in life.
With the wrath of Andris and myself looming, Veriel wisely backed from his assault on Raga’s family. After all, his own death would not come at the hands of a KlingeStütze or KreuzStütze. Veriel turned his attention to the young warriors of Jäger. His death was slated at the hands of that house, and so his brutality moved to them.
Excerpts from The Kaufmann Histories
The lost page
As penned by Rober Lord Kaufmann in 1497
When my uncle, Etienne, was struck down, I rushed to his aid. No beast had died by his hand that night. In the midst of a scene of fierce battle where Veriel left my uncle to die in a growing pool of his own blood, a wailing servant girl tried to keep my uncle alive, but it was not for the dying house lord that she wept.
Jacquine had been the lady’s maid to Caitrina de Leon. The fair Caitrina had been betrothed to her lord Jörg de Schmeidt, a man of German descent but powerful, wealthy, and a noble gentleman who won her father’s agreement to the match. Her tears were for Caitrina, mortally wounded in error by Etienne’s blade as he sought to free her from the beast Veriel.
The mad deceiver, using his forbidden human name, had enchanted the beauteous maid to him so completely that she fought my lord with a sword in hand to remain the beast’s alone. Never had Etienne seen such dogged determination for such a thing. It unnerved him to see such devotion to so foul a creature.
The young miss believed Veriel the perfect young lord, attentive and courteous, deep in his love and regard for her. He called his lady by German endearments — Geliebt and Regana, in his tender moments alone with her.
The maid knew not the import of such things, but we were chilled by the implications. Had this Caitrina been chosen and we lost our chance at an end yet again? She had not the look of a stone chosen, but Veriel had not the look of a true warrior either, though he bore the mark. In fact, her deep brown hair and sparkling blue eyes might well be compared to the anomalous appearance of the destroyer of lives. The only truth was in the marking, and that was something beyond our power to check, as Veriel had stolen his lady away with him before my approach.
Etienne mourned the woman’s loss, chosen or not, for his part in her exit from her human life, though I know it to have been honest error and not negligent loss. Worse, he cursed his inability to stop Veriel from feeding the lady on his foul blood and turning her from the light and goodness of her soul.
The stone has long foretold the dangers of a female turned. In his final tortured cries to the gods, Etienne begged forgiveness for what his action and inaction hath wrought on the world.
I only pray, as I bury my uncle and take my seal, that the name of Kaufmann is not forever synonymous with the heinous crimes the once virtuous Caitrina de Leon will surely commit in her altered state of being.
Having seen the foul deed and what her lady has become — and her lord always was, Jacquine has accepted my personal protection. Pray Veriel knows, if he ever dares come for her, he will find my blade ready to protect the girl with my life.
Excerpt from The First Book of Texts
By Gawen first Lord KlingeStütze, stone lord and master trainer
“The Rules of Sanction”
Part One (penned in 510 AD)
A warrior must be mindful always of the humans around him. More than human, less than damned; the cursed have the potential to do great good. Inherent in that potential is the ability to do great harm.
A warrior will have enemies, and to protect those humans bound by the stone’s sacred trust, the warrior will kill in honorable battle those enemies.
A child is never truly an enemy. He may be disarmed and even rendered unable to continue the present battle, but though the child of today may grow to be the enemy tomorrow, today he is naught but a boy.
A woman may be slain in battle only as a last resort. If she raises her blade against a warrior, he will first treat her as he would a child. Remember always that a woman battles most fiercely for child and home. Whenever possible, a warrior should seek his true enemy elsewhere and leave her to protect what is hers from less honorable men — and less dangerous.
In battle, unforeseen events will occur. In battle, innocents will often die. The warrior should never carry a battle to innocents that can be fought elsewhere. When there is no choice, the warrior must be mindful of the innocents in his midst. An innocent life taken in honest error is lamentable. One taken in negligence is unforgivable.
More than human, less than damned. The warrior must never forget that humans are powerless before him. This is not a reason for pride but rather a warning.
Humans are fragile things in that they are frail and unable to heal as warriors do as much as in that they fear and attack any perceived threat. Warriors possess the power to be perceived as a threat.
As the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so the pact is only strong as the trust imparted by its weakest to its strongest. For the safety of warrior and mate, no warrior may threaten that trust and live.
Warriors are cursed. Stone chosen or passed from father to son, the curse manifests in the same fashion generation after generation. Akin to the damnation of the beasts, never doubt the curse for what it is.
Blutjagd, the blood lust, comes first and foremost. Where the beasts are driven only by darkness, the darkness in a warrior’s soul will be very strong. The urge to kill the beasts is at its heart, for dark knows dark, as the warriors and beasts each sense the other and seek each to destroy the opposing dark.
Blutjagd in its purest sense is naught but good, but that is not only how it will make itself known. The gift of Blutjagd is also the ability to protect what a warrior holds dear to him and what he has a duty to protect, but there is a fierce streak in him that rivals his love and loyalty.
When a wrong is done by a human to him and his, a warrior must not allow darkness to rule him. Capital offenses require the ultimate price. Of that there is no doubt, but the price must be exacted on the one who has wronged him alone. Revenge is not something a warrior indulges in. The ones who have not acted against him are innocents. The pain of their loss is more punishment than they deserve.
If the offense is injurious but not capital, retribution should be taken in kind. If no injury is sustained, no blood may be spilled in return unless the guilty attacks in earnest.