Coven Queen

by Jeramy Goble

  “It’s almost over,” I heard her say. But her nebulous promise of an ending only terrified me further. I began to shake.

  Further down the chamber, past the four figures, hovered something that resembled a human. But where a human figure would normally be defined, there were instead thin outlines of flowing ooze. The translucent shape changed and flowed randomly as it levitated above a wide, shallow pool.

  Even from a distance, I easily made out the genderless entity’s smile. Crammed with tall, jumbled teeth, the sickening sight widened and shrunk as gusts of air streamed through the Vacant Grave’s ancient heart.

  I felt my mother stir, and I realized she was trying to get me to stand.

  I shrieked, “No! No!” But her hands slid up under my arms and lifted me despite my ripping squeals.

  I came to my feet, though I would not put my weight on them. I thrashed around in my captor's arms. I slapped and punched her belly. I kicked her shins and stomped on her feet. I didn’t care who she was at that moment, and had long lost any concern for why we were there. I would cause harm to all who kept me in that room, with that thing, for a minute longer.

  Mother absorbed my feeble attacks with little effort. I continued my futile fight, pounding her stomach and hip with my fist even as she snatched my other wrist and dragged me further into the chamber.

  “Why?” I screamed. Any doubt that my mother intended me harm had been extinguished, every mirage of safety dissipated.

  I clawed at the damp stone, desperate to find something to cling to, to keep us from moving forward, but found only cutting edges that dug into my fingertips. I would find no ally here in the mountain. Still I continued to scrape at the ground.

  I yelped when something grabbed hold of my foot. I twisted around to see one of the lesser spirits behind me. Immediately after, another seized the other foot. A third spirit snatched my flailing arm, and Mother handed my other arm to the fourth. She fell in behind us as the spirits carried me head first towards the pool.

  For the first time since we left home, I could properly see my mother’s face. Her eyes remained fixed on the ground. I wriggled and pulled as I tried to decipher her betrayal in her features.

  The spirits were not looking at me, either. Their eyes, dark and empty below crumbling brows, were trained on their destination. The corners of their mouths curled down.

  “Mama! Mama!”

  I screamed too long, and too loudly. My voice leaped to the top of its register and then lost itself in thick, cutting whispers. She still would not look at me.

  I continued to twist and jerk. I screamed my pitiful whispers. I cried. Never had I felt so weak and worthless as in that moment.

  We stopped. The spirits flipped me over, and suddenly I was facing the ground. As soon as my eyes focused on the dirt and rock beneath me, we continued moving. At my feet, I could just see my mother’s legs, and to my side, the translucent, naked legs of the spirits holding me. I struggled and squirmed and strained to escape, and still I felt no sensation of the ghosts laboring to hold on to me. I would not find freedom easily, and I would never wish for it as fervently as I did that night.

  We inched closer to the pool, filled—I finally saw—with red fluid. We continued forward until my whole body, writhing hysterically, hovered just inches over the reservoir. The force of my attempted screams caused the liquid to ripple while the spirits ripped my clothes away. Silence eventually defeated my raw, hard throat. I could only relent and watch the shifting horror float to my side in the reflection of the pool's surface.

  I didn’t have time to consider what might happen next.

  The slicing began at the base of my neck. As I felt my skin being cut down the length of my spine, my mind spawned a new fear, full of terror and pain: I was being diced and carved, to what extreme even my imagination could not fathom.

  Just when I thought the procedure was going to continue around to the front, the agony temporarily abated. My naked body dangled helplessly above the pool of red, still suspended by the spirits’ formidable grips. Blood slid down my ribs and dripped into the pool, and still my mother did nothing.

  My cries finally crumbled to weak whimpers. At that moment, I knew myself to have been abandoned. At that moment, I could not have been further away from anything resembling goodness, light, or love. Or so I thought.

  There was one more step towards complete hopelessness, and I didn’t know I had taken it until it happened.

  The demon who'd torn the flesh along my spine began to move once more. Down towards my feet, near my mother.

  Metal slid across stone. Before I could register the slap of something hacking into her back, my mother’s body convulsed. She dropped her torch and sank to her knees. We finally locked eyes. Hers were flung wide from the despair of fading life, as mine were no doubt filled with the fear that my own end was near.

  The shade moved again, hovering before my mother, and then it sliced her neck deeply and wide before shoving her forward to spill her blood into the pool. I tried to scream again, but the spirits released my limbs and dropped me into the pool.

  They held me down, completely submerged. My mother’s blood mixed with the blood already in the pool, all of it seeping into the slash in my back as I splashed and flailed and drowned.

  I don’t believe I truly died—not fully—but cannot say for certain. My memory returns shortly afterwards, as if I had woken from a night’s sleep. I recall no dreams or feelings of lethargy, nor restfulness. Nor do I remember feeling fear or desperation when I woke up, despite still being surrounded by the entities that had caused me such horror. My mother, alive or dead, was nowhere to be seen. My head pounded as I sat up in the now-drained pool. The blood on my skin had been dry for some time; it cracked and flaked with each of my movements. My exposed back stung in the moldy air.

  The creature that had just slaughtered my mother bowed mockingly before me.

  “Your Majesty…”

  One

  Jularra couldn’t take it any longer. She shoved her finger down her throat, lurching forward and grasping for the trunk of a nearby oak. Her fingertips slipped into the ridges of the bark as she folded over, heaving and gagging, but nothing came up. She had waited too long.

  Fucking wine. Never again.

  She pondered her familiar promise, even as her head pounded with the realization that she had crossed the threshold between being drunk and hungover. She shushed her nagging conscience and peered deep into the forest for any hint of the solace she usually found in her coveted woods.

  A breeze parted the canopy, pelting her with a soft beam of light. She squinted, but was relieved when the brightness spared her swimming head. The reprieve gave her means to lie to herself, yet again.

  I haven’t had too much to drink.

  The early winter weather was ideal, especially for a hangover. The cold temperature and dry air were exactly what Jularra flourished in. On days like these, unencumbered by the heat's pointless oppression, she could walk and think freely, surrounded by fragrant reminders that the forest’s life was but suspended against the promise of future renewal. Amid the peace and comfort of the bare trees, some of Jularra’s better memories of her mother sprung to life and warmed her far better than any flamboyant summer sun.

  But her joy was interrupted. A stick snapped nearby; the pressure in Jularra's head disappeared, and her thoughts sharpened. Adrenaline and training replaced the soggy results of her late night.

  Deep breath.

  By the peak of her inhalation she had already spun in the direction of the sound and drawn her sword. Her leather scabbard kept the movement silent as she settled into a fool’s guard, blade pointed down, torso and hips turned slightly.

  Exhale.

  Her pulse steadied.

  Leaves crunched, and the tip of a blade crept around a tree ahead of Jularra. She had already identified where it would appear from; her ears and eyes had not failed her. The blade was clean and shiny.

  A pair of pristin
e gloves came next, followed by simple leathers and mail. The determined face of a young man was last to appear from behind the tree. The stranger locked eyes with Jularra in an unspoken challenge as he approached slowly across the clearing.

  He wants room. He shall not have it.

  Jularra stepped backwards and slipped behind an elder pine that wore decades of bear markings, but she was not hiding. She would deny the stranger the open area he sought until the advantage was hers. Nothing was said, and no expressions were shown as they prepared to fight to the death.

  Jularra continued walking backwards while keeping both eyes on the would-be assassin, always leaving a few trees between her and her opponent. He pursued her with increasing speed as she stepped quickly, and then slowly. She wanted him—this villain, this trespasser, this filth—in just the right place so that his view of her hands would be obscured at just the right time.

  Finally, when he'd closed to within a few feet, a tree blocked the stranger's view of her blade. A fraction of a second. That was all she needed. She lifted her blade.

  Jularra lunged around the tree and charged towards her attacker, catching a glimpse of his eyes. They were calm. Focused. He was not intimidated.

  He stepped around the tree and whipped his sword to the side, out of his plough guard, and met Jularra with a vicious middle hew. She countered precisely and deflected the soft bind. Once her sword had cleared his, she used her momentum from the block the propel herself and spun to meet him.

  No more sneaking amongst the trees.

  The assassin held his sword high and behind him in a modified roof guard. He stood firm and patient, all poise and silence. The queen took an extra breath to consider his discipline.

  She twirled her blade once to each side before scooping upward and slicing across at his gut. He sidestepped, and met her blade with the flat side of his. He grunted.

  Ah, I heard that! Weren’t expecting that, were you? Have you fought a queen before, you bastard? Or a member of Acorilan’s Spire?

  Her enemy retreated from the stalemate, slicing down before stepping back to change tactics. The queen pursued him with a thrust, but was thwarted by a sweeping block in front of his chest. As he parried, the tip of his sword caught the queen high on the inner thigh. She stumbled, but used the situation to her advantage by exaggerating the contact she knew he felt and feigning a greater injury than she had.

  As he finished his parry and prepared to counter, she pulled a dagger from her boot and plunged it deep into his groin. The assassin immediately dropped his sword and reached for his manhood. He had just started to scream when the queen shot up and shoved the point of her sword through his throat. He hacked and gargled and fell back into the base of a tree, jerking and writhing. The leaves crackled and crinkled as he bled out.

  The queen watched the life drain from the stranger. The pain and fear left his face as his focus drifted to the afterlife. His chest stopped moving. The hand that had begun reaching for the sword in his throat fell to his side.

  Jularra reached for her dagger and reclaimed it from his corpse. Her eyes remained locked on his chest. No movement. One last look to his eyes. Back to his chest. Dead.

  She crawled over to the assassin with her bloody dagger and reached up to feel for a pulse. After yanking her sword from the wretch’s neck, she finally allowed herself to let go of her focus on combat. Leaning against the same tree as her opponent's body, she reached for the inside of her thigh to take stock of her wound. The sting ripped itself into her mind as she explored the damage, and when she pulled her hand back, it was drenched in blood. The wound was deep, but she was confident nothing significant had been pierced. In addition to the laceration in her upper thigh, her tunic and undergarments had been cut, and the extra cloth she wore monthly—already soiled with menstrual blood—was now an additional annoyance. She glared at her attacker’s lifeless body, but eventually relented.

  “It could be worse, hmm?”

  Her chest felt suddenly constricted. She panted, craving air. Her head became twice as heavy as she fixated on the still form of her would-be assassin. Blood loss caused her racing heart to slow. She felt her energy dwindling. She was parched, and her stomach groaned with hollow hunger. She didn't know how much time she had before she lost consciousness, but she knew she had to start moving.

  She stretched towards her dead adversary’s satchel, but reflexively flung herself backwards when a sickening groan pierced the air around the dead attacker. Rapidly-growing arcs of pulsating energy protruded up and away from the body.

  The queen swallowed her exhausted surprise.

  A doppelcharm?

  The flashing arcs continued to strobe out from the body. First low, then higher, they crept upward until they reached the standing height of the dead man. After a few seconds, the flashes ceased, and a semi-transparent replica of the assassin stood over the body. The doppelcharm had detected the death of its wearer, and had his last enemy imprinted upon it. The fight was not over.

  Not everyone would have been able to recognize the doppelcharm, and the required knowledge was looked down upon by much of the world. But magic was literally in Jularra's blood. She was haunted and blessed by it. More than that, she was beholden to it. She was simultaneously grateful for and cursed by it. In the past, many of her nights were spent in the libraries of Morganon, or in the forests outside the city, studying and practicing a variety of magic. She dropped her useless sword and focused on her answer to the unnatural foe.

  As the assassin’s vengeance-ghost came to fruition, Jularra spoke a rapid incantation.

  “Woods of this world, hear my plea. Let my hands craft the life of the forest. I honor you and cherish you. Any who abuse you are my enemy.”

  The ending portion was particularly important: a note of respect, followed finally by a sworn promise to benefit the element she requested help from.

  While the assassin’s specter stirred, Jularra reached down and covered her wound with her hands. Sharp pain scraped through her body as she grabbed it, dragging the air from her lungs in a violent gasp. She filtered the pain from her mind. As she focused, her hands took on the faint image of superimposed tree branch tips, which expanded quickly and wrapped tangling green and leafy vines around her wound. Once her leg had been temporarily secured, the queen let go and claimed her normal hands once more.

  Jularra raced to think how best to combat the magic as she came to her feet. She stood slowly, testing the strength of her leg. It’ll do, she decided.

  She looked up to see the assassin’s ghost beginning to nock an arrow. Breathing deep, she focused this time on a ward of protection.

  “Warriors of the past, I have studied your ways. Wrap me in a dome of shields. Your wisdom will not die with me.”

  Dozens of ethereal shields folded outwards from the queen. They overlapped each other slightly, surrounding her completely. Then the arrow struck and the shield barrier crumbled. Before it disintegrated completely, she had already begun her next spell.

  “Creatures of the ages, bears and dragons. Produce from the depths a weapon with which I can dispatch my foe. Your descendants and cousins will always have a home in Acorilan.”

  The ground beneath the queen’s feet began to shift. She stepped back, keeping an eye on her approaching attacker. Sounds of tearing roots and grinding stones crept out through the rolling and tumbling soil. And then, at last, it emerged. A glaringly bright segment of some massive beast’s curved rib shot up and out of the ground before smacking down at the feet of the queen. A weapon of magical origin.

  Jularra launched herself at the scimitar-shaped bone. A crossguard of sorts was formed by two pronounced, bony tubercles just above the queen’s hand. The single edge and point had somehow been shaved sharp. The bone was petrified, and the weight felt good.

  She held the grip with one hand and the flat of the blade with the other, then parried upwards with no time to spare. Jularra looked up at the ghostly clone and saw no emotion in its foggy ey
es as she spun out from under the parry, slicing behind her as she did. The bone blade struck the ghost in its lower leg. Jularra stood up and stabbed the stunned shape in its middle, and the ghost slid to its knees before soaking into the ground.

  The queen remained standing long enough to watch the vanquished vision disappear, then stumbled back and toppled over. She landed hard near the body of her original attacker and huffed a sigh of exhaustion before gasping for air. Her eyes were blurry, and she blinked rapidly as the ground swallowed her bone sword back to a place or time she wasn’t familiar with. The leafy dressing around her wound withered and died away as well. She needed more permanent medical attention.

  The queen clawed at her attacker's pockets and satchel—both empty—before pushing his corpse away, glowering at the dead man’s face. “I hope you’re really dead now,” she muttered.

  She rolled her head back and rubbed her eyes before tearing off pieces of her lower tunic with which to haphazardly bandage her leg. Her monthly nuisance would have to wait. After sheathing her dagger and returning her sword to its scabbard, Jularra used a drooping oak limb to pull herself to her feet.

  “Queen Jularra? Jularra!”

  She snapped her head around, adrenaline spiking once more. She leaned against the tree just as her Chief Advisor, Korden, came into view.

  “What the hell happ…” Korden began before catching sight of the corpse.

  “An assassin,” Jularra replied.

  Korden looked at Jularra, but only for a moment. Clearly, the news didn’t come as too huge a surprise.

  The queen was more concerned with her advisor's defiance of her instructions. “What are you doing out here, damn it? You know I like to walk alone!”

  Korden slipped closer, between the tree and Jularra. He pulled one of her arms over his shoulders and started to help her down the mountain, back towards Morganon.

  “Well?” she asked, secretly grateful for his disobedience.