The Deer King: Novella One

by Ben Spencer

  “No more of that,” the old woman said as Emmaline gasped for air. “Your anger may be honest, but dealing with it is a waste of my time and energy. Plus, I have a fondness for killing Harrish she-whelps, so don’t tempt me.”

  Emmaline tried not to show her shock. What the old woman had done was magic, pure and simple. Emmaline found her breath and, composing herself as best as she could, asked the first question that came to mind, one that she thought might shed some light on the old woman’s true nature. “Shayo called you Fecheholo. What does that mean?”

  The old woman took another drag off the bittirinu. The ember cast a fleeting light on her wizened face, which resembled a tremored ground exposed to a moment’s sunlight. Below, black feathers glinted.

  “Do you expect to live long, whelp?” the old woman asked, ignoring Emmaline’s question.

  “No,” Emmaline replied.

  The old woman grinned in appreciation of Emmaline’s honesty. “Odds are you’re right. You may catch me in a foul mood one day soon and I’ll do the deed. Or perhaps the priest will arrive and I’ll offer you up as a gift. Or—worst of all for you—the boy may tire of your presence and permit our people to tear you to shreds. But I’ve lived too long to take solace in odds. So I’ll keep my secrets to myself, lest the day comes when you use them against me. If your priest comes, be sure to ask him. He may tell you just before he cuts your throat.”

  Emmaline brushed aside the death threats. “Do you have a different name? One other than Fecheholo?”

  “No,” the old woman spat. The look on her face appeared to vacillate between growing tired of Emmaline and being amused by her.

  “What about the boy? Does the boy have a name other than Dachahelu?” Emmaline knew the segue was jarring, awkward, but she had to ask the questions that she wanted answered while she had the chance, before the old woman sent her away.

  The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, he does. Though it’s of no importance.” She paused. “The boy’s name is Notel.”

  Footsteps ached against the floor of the dew oak. Prala, seemingly summoned, had returned. His long, thin shadow devoured Emmaline’s, the dark floor of the tree turning darker still.

  “Tie her back up,” the old woman said to her brother. “She was of no help with the priest. Plus she tried to choke me, which was of no consequence, although her questions were a damn nuisance.” The old woman licked her lips. Eyed Emmaline devilishly. “Be sure to bring the boy to her tonight, and every night thereafter. Gods are fickle creatures. He’ll grow tired of her. I’m certain of it.”

  The Massaporans gathered again that evening. The same villagers that had spent the day pretending Emmaline didn’t exist coalesced in a demoniac mass behind the child with green-flame eyes, only to disperse into the expanding night when the child’s eyes went soft and he ran to Emmaline for comfort.

  Tonight, she tried to make a study of him. It was clear that he wasn’t like other children, for reasons above and beyond the obvious. He moved with a feral grace befitting a young animal of the woods, not a human child of one year, and the strength residing in his small frame was apparent even when he slept, the latent power like an unspoken threat against anyone who drew near. His hair was a thick, rich brown thatched with the debris of the woods, sticks and leaves and skittering insects, though on him the debris had a crown-like rather than a desultory effect. The antler nubs on the crown of his head poked through his hair like stony mounds. Emmaline desired to see his green-flame eyes, but now that he was in her arms he wouldn’t open them. She told herself that if she stayed awake she would be rewarded with a glimpse in the morning, but sleep came like a thief in the night and stole away her willpower.

  When the sun rose, he was gone.

  On the third day, Prala untied her from the tree. “The Fecheholo says you are free to move about the village as you please. But don’t be mistaken: if you try to run away, we will stop you. And if you’re too troublesome, I will kill you.” He refused to look at her when he spoke.

  When she wandered the village, the Massaporans treated her the same: their eyes took flight when she approached. Only the children made eye contact, but those daring enough to do so battled their conscience in the process, and in their subsequent guilt spurned her all the more. The little ones whose eyes could not be corralled were ushered away from Emmaline. She walked the village like a ghost.

  Or so she thought. Bored, she began tallying the strange triangle-shaped symbol carved into myriad surfaces around the village. Upon locating the fortieth—carved into a blood elm on the village edge—she ran her fingers over its many branching lines. She was lost in curiosity when a Massaporan man bearing a broomstick thwacked her hard on the offending forearm. Stunned, she cried out in pain. The indifferent Massaporan thwacked her once more while saying “rute, rute,” which she knew meant “no.” She stopped immediately and looked at the man, who, like the others, refused to meet her eyes. He continued threatening her with the broomstick until she moved away.

  She spent the remainder of the day nursing her wounds. Before sundown, Prala brought her a meal of venison and charred squash. The meal surprised her: she had assumed the Massaporans forewent venison for religious reasons. She wanted to ask Prala why deer wasn’t forbidden, but his granite demeanor dissuaded her. Chewing on the venison, it dawned on Emmaline that the old woman was the only person in the village who cared to acknowledge her existence. She was so lonely that the thought of being called before the Fecheholo again seemed appealing.

  In due time dusk arrived. On cue, the nightly ritual recommenced. Emmaline waited for the same scene to play itself out, but tonight the boy’s flaming green eyes refused to temper. The Massaporans grew even more frenzied with each passing second. Emmaline, unnerved, didn’t notice at first that the boy’s gaze was directed not at her, but at an unseen threat in the woods. By then the villagers were a bellicose mass, screaming and gnashing their teeth and making what Emmaline could only assume were terrible threats in the Massaporan tongue. Convinced that she was seconds away from being torn to shreds, Emmaline screamed the boy’s name: “Notel!” Hearing her, the boy’s consciousness shifted. The flames in his eyes disappeared. He looked around, and, for the first time that night, saw Emmaline clearly.

  He rushed to her arms.

  She tried to settle the boy down, but tonight he was restless and distracted. She, too, was agitated: fearing for her life had taken a toll. In an attempt to calm herself as much as the boy, she began singing soft lullabies. Without thinking, she launched into “Best Be Over.” Hearing the song, the boy reared back and fixed her with a spirit-world stare. Up close, she could see that the green flames in the boy’s eyes were the spirits of past Deer Kings flickering in and out of view. The visions were mesmerizing: the respective Deer Kings would flicker into existence on the periphery of the boy’s irises, war across their expanse, and then disappear into the pupils’ black wells. The same physical characteristics that distinguished regular men also differentiated the Deer Kings, but the similarities—an imposing antler rack strewn with greenery, spirit-world eyes, and a terrifying intensity—left no doubt that these different reincarnations originated from the same source.

  The images were so hypnotic that Emmaline was slow to recognize that the boy’s comportment had changed. He bristled with a dangerous energy, despite the fact that she had stopped singing the song almost immediately. She tried stroking his hair, but he jerked away from her with an animal violence, and, when she didn’t let go, seemed on the verge of attacking her. In desperation, she cooed his name, “Notel, Notel, Notel.”

  Saying his name worked like a charm. His rigid body softened in her arms. She watched with muted fascination as the visions in his eyes retreated into an invisible world.

  The night wore on. Emmaline continued to chant the boy’s name. Under its spell, the boy further relaxed, and at last fell asleep. Like the previous two nights, Emmaline struggled to fall asleep, but, unlike the other nights, when at last she
did, this time hers was a deep slumber.

  She awoke to a pale white sunrise. As expected, the boy was gone. She was adjusting to the waking world when she noticed a hubbub near the front of the village.

  The priest who had killed her father was trotting into the village on horseback.

  6

  Emmaline crouched beside the dew oak and tried her best to stay out of sight.

  The priest waited on an audience to form. In the meantime, he trotted the Rugarder back and forth, stirring up dust. The villagers obliged his wishes, emerging from their wood and clay houses to pay the priest his due. There was something of a song and dance routine to the proceedings, a sense that both sides had been through this before.

  Once everyone was assembled, the priest held aloft a blue-grey stone. Doido’s pebble. The priest looked the master of equipoise sitting astride his horse: no emotion seeped from his countenance. But when at last he spoke, anger flared on his tongue.

  “Go on!” he roared. “Bring me another imposter!”

  Murmurings in the Massaporan tongue. Emmaline wondered if the villagers understood what the priest had said. She searched the crowd for both Prala and the old woman. They both spoke Harrish, so she assumed one of the two of them would speak up if present. But they were nowhere to be seen.

  The murmurings quieted. From somewhere in the heart of the crowd a man walked forward holding the hand of a bawling, snot-nosed child. A scrawny half-formed thing. Definitely not the Deer King. Upon reaching the priest, the man picked up the boy and held him aloft in a sacrificial pose. The priest snatched the boy from the man’s outstretched arms like the boy was a rag doll. Sensing what was about to happen, Emmaline looked away, stricken with horror. Thoughts of her father raced like wildfire across her mind: had he too been a butcher like this? The reality of her father’s occupation hit her in a way that it never had before. Staring at the ground, she waited for the cries of protest from the crowd, but they never came. A distant thump. When she lifted her head, she saw the boy lying bloodied and lifeless on the ground, and the priest wielding a blood-dripping dagger.

  The priest fixed the crowd with a wild-eyed stare. His black beard flowed from his face in a brambly torrent. He looked like he would murder every Massaporan present if he could. He was so terrifying that Emmaline feared for the villagers, despite the fact that they had an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

  “No more games!” he shouted. “Now, bring me the real boy! Bring me the Dachahelu!”

  The villagers didn’t move. They stood as placid before the priest as they had stood frenzied in front of Emmaline, the only similarity being the peculiar power they possessed when coalesced. The priest, angered, loosed a war cry of frustration, “AAAAAHHHHHHH!” Then he began to turn the stone over and over in his hands. Emmaline heard the word Dachahelu rumbling off his lips like a rockslide. A few moments later he scowled. “Damn sorcery!” he shouted, but he cut his words short, returning to the chant. Without warning he began steering the horse in wild, unpredictable patterns, all the while staring at the rock like it was a portent he couldn’t quite divine. The villagers ebbed and flowed with the animal’s movements, careful to stay out of harm’s way. In a flash, the priest spurred the horse into a gallop. The beast knifed through the villagers as it headed directly toward Emmaline.

  Emmaline was too stunned to move. Her heart seized into a fist as the beast drew closer, the sound of thunder in its hooves. The priest sat atop the animal like a statue of the Bronze Titan on Felling Day, war and death etched in every crease and corner of his face. But then, to Emmaline’s surprise, the priest veered away without registering her presence, guiding the Rugarder down the length of the tree until he reached the gaping hole in the tree’s center.

  Once there, the priest dismounted. He stared at the blue-grey stone, perplexed, pondering whether or not to take the fateful step inside. But before he could make up his mind, the Fecheholo emerged from the aperture.

  The old woman looked chimerical in the light of day, an ancient being from another time and place. The feathers, it turned out, were indeed sewn into a cloak, but on the old woman they looked as real as if they had sprouted from her skin. The old woman’s wrinkles were pond ripples, her posture ramrod, her startling blue eyes cold ice. Standing beside the priest, the old woman was so small that she barely appeared to exist; only this contrast magnified her stature, for in her presence the priest stood stupefied, daunted by the sheer audacity of her presence.

  “Do you know who I am?” the old woman asked the priest.

  “Yes,” the priest replied. “You’re the Fecheholo. The Raven Queen.” His voice was low and deep, like thunder in a valley. His black eyes were burning coal. He looked discomfited by the old woman’s presence, but also somewhat unsurprised, as if he had expected her all along.

  “Good. You may look like an ogre, but it’s good to know you’re not as stupid as one. Or perhaps I’m assuming too much. Another question then. Are you stupid enough to try and kill me?”

  “If I must,” the priest replied, nervousness in his voice. “All said, I would rather you hand over the boy.” He motioned at the dew oak. “Is he inside the tree?”

  “Yes, ogre, there is a boy inside this tree. But we’ve already given you a different boy, have we not? Why do you need this one as well?”

  “You must give me the Dachahelu. This has gone on for too long. If I return to Olgard without killing the boy, they’ll send an army of thousands to murder every Massaporan in Wolfresh. Your people will be wiped from the face of Drey…Tsadanali.”

  The old woman laughed, a hearty cackle. “Why would they do that, ogre? We have killed no Stoneman. That was you.”

  “You killed his son.”

  Another laugh, this one harsher and louder than the last. “Yes, I did do that. But killing a young Havenese boy does not break the pact.”

  “You are harboring a demon, Fecheholo. You must turn him over. You break the Wolfresh-Potter Accord by keeping him from us. You know as well as I do that the boy must die.”

  The old woman grinned a vile grin. “I know many things, priest. I know that in the Temple of the Bronze Titan there were once two blue-grey stones, but now there are none. I know that you are Kern, the keeper of the Saving Stones, and that it is your job to safeguard the traitor Doido’s portents. I know that you lost one of the stones after retrieving it from the Stoneman Brutus Rain from Mossbane, whose son I killed. I know that you returned to Olgard and took the other stone from the temple without telling a soul, and that you hope the political distractions in the capital will delay a serious inquiry while you attend to your many missteps these last few months.”

  The priest winced. His intensity of purpose remained evident, but he also looked disoriented, off-kilter.

  The old woman continued, “But what I know most of all is that this boy, this Deer King, this Dachahelu…he will not die at your hands. Nor will he die at the hands of any other.”

  The priest stirred at this provocation. He unfurled his body to its full, towering height, looming above the woman like a turbulent thunderhead. “Move,” he ordered.

  The old woman ignored him. “I have a gift for you, ogre. Consider it an apology of sorts for tricking you with false offerings while keeping the real Dachahelu obscured from your sight.” She looked up and pointed at Emmaline. “There stands the daughter of the Stoneman Brutus Rain. You’ve met before, I believe.”

  The priest followed the old woman’s hand down the length of the dew oak with his black-hole eyes. He spotted Emmaline instantly. Emmaline felt the brutal chill of his recognition pass over her like a gust of winter wind.

  When the priest spoke, his voice was empty and dark, a cavern of sound. “Does she have the other Saving Stone?”

  “Of course not. I have the stone now. But she is yours to do with as you please. I advise you to take her as a gift and leave now, before you lose your life. But first, hand over your stone. You may leave with the girl, but you will not leave wi
th the stone. If you’re compelled to try otherwise, I’ll make sure you don’t leave at all.”

  In a flash, the tentative peace was broken. The priest reached for his dagger, but the old woman was faster: she raised her hand and touched the priest on his stationary arm, a cryptic word on her lips. At the sound of it, the priest’s face turned ashen, and his knees buckled. For a moment he appeared incapacitated, but then he summoned a reserve of strength and pushed the old woman off him and to the ground.

  The priest reached once more for this dagger, but this time an arrow sang out from the woods and lodged in his shoulder. Prala was standing at the tree line, bow in hand. The priest wheeled, saw Prala, and bellowed in frustration. Then the priest broke off the arrow near its shaft. He turned and cast his eyes at the hole in the tree for one last wanting moment. Jerking his eyes away, he cut his losses, and mounted the horse.

  Once again, he charged toward Emmaline.

  There was nowhere to run. Emmaline considered scaling the tree trunk and escaping to the other side, but the dew oak was too massive to quickly scale. She ran perhaps ten feet before the priest plucked her from the ground like a hawk snatching up a mouse. Using his good arm, the priest pinned her to his body and forced her to sit side saddle. She tested her strength against the priest’s, with expected results.

  Prala. Emmaline swiveled her head, searching for Prala at the tree line, fearful that he might launch an errant shot and kill her. As expected, he had notched another arrow, but he seemed disinclined to take the shot. Perhaps it was because they were out of range, but, whatever the reason, he simply stood there, watching them leave.