Guardian

by Jon Kiln

  “My people fear these ghosts,” Naavos admitted. He shrugged his shoulders. “Most of us remain in our settlement when the nightsun reaches full. We herd our goats into the pens and keep them there, so they will not be taken. But still, there are losses. The next day we find tracks, sign of the ghosts. It is a bad business.”

  “And you want us to… what, slay these ghosts somehow?” Though he was sure that whatever was stealing the goats was natural - some predatory animal, most likely, or even warriors of a rival clan - Zander was reluctant to pledge assistance.

  “The nightsun will be full in two day's time,” said Naavos. “This evening I will take you to the place called oasis of ghosts. You will see. And tomorrow you will return there as the sun sets, and be ready when these spirits emerge.”

  The chieftain sat back, resting his hands on his thighs. He frowned, considering. Then he spoke again. “If you succeed in slaying the ghosts, my people will owe you much. I do not expect this. But you are of the east lands. Your own clans are powerful and wise, are they not? I wish you to see these spirits with your wise eyes, that you may help me understand this danger to my people.”

  “That's it?” Artas clamped his mouth shut almost before the words were out, but all eyes turned to him. He felt his face flush, and stammered to cover his embarrassment. He looked askance at Zander. “I mean, it sounds perfectly simple.”

  “That it does,” agreed Zander, though he still had reservations. Naavos had told them that young men died trying to prove their bravery. Still, looking back to the tribal elders, he saw they had little choice if they wanted the clan's help in reaching Marawi. “Very well,” he said. “We will do this thing, Naavos.”

  19

  The dungeons of Castle Villeroy were dank and foul.

  Water dripped from the ceiling and trickled down the rough stone blocks of the walls. Droplets snaked their way over chain links and under the manacles binding her wrists. Her hair was soaked through, plastered down against her skull. Sodden clumps of white hair hung down her brow to leak rivulets down the sides of the once-proud, aristocratic face.

  The Duchess D'Anjou blinked the water from her eyes and gave her head a feeble shake, but the wet hair clung to her forehead and the ache in her shoulders flared in protest. The Duchess gasped, instinctively pulling against the chains from which she hung against the damp wall.

  Thick iron manacles chafed at her wrists. An iron band bolted to the stone circled her waist loosely, holding her in if not up. The Duchess' full weight hung from the chains bolted above, spreading her arms in a Y over her head. Her bare feet dangled a pace off the grimy floor.

  Her upper body was a mass of pain, from the tearing burn in the shoulders and underarms to the dull but no less insistent ache spreading through her lower back and upper arms. She sucked down a ragged breath and forced her head up.

  The Duchess was in a narrow chamber, fixed to one of the long walls. Five sets of manacled chains hung loose on the opposite wall. A heavy wooden door, reinforced with iron bars, dominated the shorter wall to her right. Torches hung in brackets to either side of the door, unlit.

  Now the door opened with shrieking hinges that had not been oiled in years. Light burst into the cell, spilling from the cramped corridor beyond. The Duchess squinted against the glare. There were two shapes in the doorway, dim shadows she could not make out. One of these silhouettes came forward into the cell, holding a burning torch. He touched the flame first to one, and then the other of the torches that hung beside the door. Then he turned and passed the torch to the other shadow. That one retreated and the door closed between them, leaving one man inside the cell and the other without.

  Her visitor approached closer and the Duchess recognized him at last. Not that she had harbored much doubt about his identity. Since she had been chained to the wall, none had entered the room. Not even her jailer had appeared to bring nourishment. Like most prisoners in the Villeroy dungeons, the Duchess D'Anjou may as well have died or simply ceased to exist. She fully expected to die here, of starvation or sheer exhaustion.

  Even so, she was not surprised that Harald had come. The usurper still had questions. Questions, she knew, which he dared not ask before an assemblage of the royal court. No, for the answers would reveal his duplicity. He would ask his questions here, in the shadows, amidst the foul stench of death and neglect to which he had consigned her.

  “Duchess.”

  Had there been moisture in her mouth, she would have spat in his face. She felt nothing but disgust for this man who stood before her, peering up at her shackled body with perverse pleasure. It was in his voice as well, a sick joy at seeing her brought low. Yet there was another note in his voice, one of uncertainty and perhaps even fear.

  Yes, thought the Duchess. Harald yet knows that his victory is anything but assured.

  She took comfort in that fact. Her own death was a certainty, she felt. But the usurper would not prevail. The Duchess clung to her faith in that, and her faith in her family. Myriam was young, but she had persevered this far. Accompanied by that gentle giant Ganry, she had escaped this madman and made her way to Castle Locke. She was free still, the Duchess knew. Else Harald would not be here now.

  And Hendon. That young man had been drawn to Myriam, or she to him. It did not matter. At long last, that line had rejoined the family. And Linz. The boy had been a surprise, though not a shock. The Duchess had known Myriam must pass through the forest, and there had always been the possibility of her encountering the Lake Men. It was good that Linz had come after her, joining them at Locke. But had they discovered his heritage? Had Myriam figured out the puzzle of the ancient mural? Would she find what she needed to find?

  Faith. The Duchess closed her eyes, turning her head as far away from Harald as she could manage, and clung to her faith. The usurper would be undone. She refused to contemplate any other outcome. Her own death was insignificant. She was an old woman. The D'Anjou line would not end with her. That was enough.

  She felt something cool against her lips. The water spilled into her mouth, nearly choking her.

  “Drink, witch.” Harald's voice held no joy now. He had seen her defiance, seen its strength. He recognized her faith, though he could not know its source. How it must vex him. The anger was there, in his voice. “Drink,” he commanded again.

  The Duchess allowed the water to wash down her throat. The cold spread down into her body, and she imagined she could feel it pouring into her stomach, trickling into her organs. There was a brief respite of the pain in her parched mouth and throat, but it did not last. She ached but she would not show it. She looked down at the usurper with undisguised contempt. Hanging disheveled and in agony, she faced the man in his rich finery and she sneered at him.

  “Whatever you want, usurper,” she rasped, “you'll not find it here.”

  Harald's smile was cold, almost predatory. His eyes blazed with anger.

  “So far,” he told her, “you have not been harmed. Oh, we've strung you up to the wall and left you to rot. To be sure. And you'll die soon, unless I should be convinced to spare you. I wouldn't hold out much hope on that account, were I you.”

  “Death is the ultimate destiny of us all,” said the Duchess. “Only the manner of its coming is uncertain.”

  “How right you are.” There was a dangerous undertone in his words now, soft and silken in its menace. He stood very close to her. She could feel the heat of his rage radiating. The Duchess squirmed away, pressing her back to the slime-coated wall.

  “Your death,” Harald continued, “may be the result of starvation, thirst, and neglect. Or I might have my jailers beat you to death. They're quite good at it. They can make it last for days, you know. Days and days of unyielding pain. Does that interest you, witch?”

  “Nothing you have to say interests me, usurper.”

  Again that cold smile, those burning eyes. “You will tell me what I want to know.”

  “I think not.”

  “You will tel
l me where to find my wayward niece.” Harald continued as if he had not heard her denial. “And you will tell me about these cursed stones.”

  She could not quite hide her reaction.

  “Yes,” said Harald. “I know of the Stones of Berghein. What I don't know, witch, is the nature of the threat they pose. How your wretched granddaughter expects to use them against me. But you're going to tell me all I need to know. You think you will not. You think you can resist.”

  The usurper rose up on his tiptoes, bringing his grinning face within an inch of her own. His breath was fetid with sour wine. His skin shone under a fine film of sweat, the skin waxen and pale. His lips curled in a disgusting sneer and he stroked the Duchess' cheek with two fingers of one hand.

  “You are mistaken, witch,” he promised. “You are going to talk. And you're going to talk soon.”

  20

  Dawn was yet three hours off, and the floating village of the Lake Men was still and quiet. The exterior lanterns had all been extinguished when the last fishing boats returned to dock, and the waning moon cast a pale light over the pilings and boardwalks. A mist had risen off the water, thickening into a foggy shroud around the wooden buildings of Halawa.

  Inside those huts and houses, the people of the lake slept. Soon they would wake. Men would rise yawning and stretching, ready for another day in their boats. Their women and the children too young for the boats would start the daily chores. So it had been for uncounted generations, since their distant ancestors sank the first wooden piling deep into the water and the silty bottom beneath. And so, many of these people imagined, would life continue on into a future as vague and misty as the fog which now surrounded their modest city.

  The waters of the lake lapped at the pilings with tiny splashes. Occasionally, a louder splash sounded somewhere on the lake as a fish jumped or a water dragon lashed its armored tail. From the distant, muddy shores came the night call of insects and other creatures. And, on the wood plank streets of Halawa, there was another sound. It was a soft clicking, scritching, scratching type of sound, as of nails drumming against a wall or the claws of some creature loping over an unfamiliar and artificial ground.

  In their suite of rooms in the chieftain's house, Myriam and her companions did not hear this sound. The princess was not asleep, and neither was Ganry. Likewise, the boy Linz lay wide awake on his thin mattress. Only Hendon had found slumber this night, and his dreams were restless and fitful. He moaned softly in his sleep and turned over and then back again. In the common room at the center, Ganry sat beside the open pool in the floor and slowly sharpened the great sword Windstorm's blade.

  Elsewhere in the house, the chief of the Lake Men lay abed with sweat on his sleeping brow. Clay’s skin was flushed, his breathing shallow and ragged. Beside the chief’s bed, Clay’s sister Lisl dozed on a cushion. She had not left her brother’s side for several days, ever since he began to weaken. She shifted in her sleep, troubled by an old nightmare.

  Unheard by any in the house, an exterior door slid open on its track. A shadow slipped into the chief’s house, shrouded by the seeping mist. It crept through the hall, as it had done each night for the past week.

  In the guest quarters, Ganry slid his whetstone down the length of his sword. Windstorm had belonged to his father. The Grimlock-forged blade was all he had left of that life. He cared for the sword the way another might care for his children. Cleaning and maintaining the blade was a kind of peaceful meditation for Ganry, whose vagabond life offered few other avenues of relaxation.

  The scrape of stone on steel calmed him. Each motion was precise and mechanical. Ganry likely could have performed the task in his sleep. As he often did, the warrior allowed his thoughts to wander as he worked. Pondering the chain of events which had brought him once more to this hidden place, Ganry did not hear the faint scraping of the door that opened, or the almost inaudible click of claws on wood as a shadow crept down the hall.

  But he heard the scream that came a moment later.

  Ganry leaped to his feet seconds before Myriam burst in from the adjacent sleeping chamber. Linz came rushing out behind her, his eyes wide with fright. The princess grabbed hold of the young boy. He struggled against her, mindless, his only thought to reach the source of that scream: his mother.

  “Linz, wait!”

  Ganry threw open the door, leaving Linz to Myriam. Sword in hand, he pounded down the corridor toward the bedchamber of the chief. Rounding a corner, he saw that the door stood open. A massive shadow fell through the door, slanting across the hall. Ganry never slowed down as he charged into Clay’s room.

  He took in the scene within at a glance. Lisl stood by the wall, hands clapped to her face, mouth open in a soundless scream. Her terrified, bulging eyes were fixed on the creature standing stooped over the bed.

  The creature was as tall as Ganry, perhaps even taller. Its scaly, greenish-gray skin glistened wetly. It stood upright on two thick legs that ended in large, three-toed feet. It had a stiff tail, covered with the same scaly hide and tapering to a point behind it. Its arms bulged with muscle. The clawed hands gripped Clay by the front of the chief’s nightshirt, lifting the limp form bodily from the bed. The monster’s head was a flat, triangular wedge with a gaping maw bristling with jagged teeth. Baleful eyes rolled madly atop the head.

  The Rooggaru snarled when it saw Ganry. It released Clay, and the chief flopped lifelessly back on his bed. Ganry had no chance to see if the chief yet lived. The monster turned and rushed him, claws scything through the air.

  ***

  Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Hendon shuffled out into the common room and stifled a yawn. His eyes fell on Myriam, still holding the struggling Linz.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We heard a scream,” the princess told him. “Ganry went to investigate.”

  “It was my mother,” cried Linz, wrenching his whole body back and forth in the effort to escape Myriam’s restraining grip. “The Rooggaru! The Rooggaru is attacking my mother! Let me go!”

  “Help me, Hendon,” Myriam shouted over the boy. Hendon rushed over, still blinking away sleep. Putting himself between Linz and the still-open door to the hall, he got down on his knees and took the boy by the shoulders.

  “Linz,” he said, catching and holding the boy’s eyes and not raising his voice. The lad’s struggles began to subside, though he still pulled half-heartedly. “Linz,” Hendon repeated. “Listen to me. You must calm down. Nothing can be accomplished by rushing blindly into the unknown.”

  “But…” Linz was panting with exertion. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. Hendon realized the boy was on the verge of tears. “The Rooggaru … my mother…”

  “Ganry will stop… whatever it is,” said Myriam. Her eyes flashed up, catching Hendon’s. He could see the princess was skeptical about this Rooggaru. Still, something was happening. There had been that scream. The princess frowned in thought. “Go after him, Hendon. We’ll stay here.”

  Hendon nodded, then returned his attention to Linz. “You will stay here with Myriam?”

  Snuffling, Linz said that he would. Pausing only to grab his stout walking staff from where it leaned against a wall, Hendon rushed out into the corridor. Sounds of struggle reached him from around the corner. Hendon hurried toward the sound, frightened of what he might find when he reached Clay’s room.

  Just as he rounded the corner, Ganry came backpedaling out of the Lake chief’s bed chamber. The large warrior’s sword flashed in the dim light, cleaving the air in the narrow hall. Snarling and snapping its jaws, a seven foot monster pursued him. It lurched, dodging the swinging sword, and swiping out at Ganry with the fearsome claws of its taloned hand.

  Hendon drew up short, jaw dropping open. Like the others, he had been skeptical of Linz’s story of the Rooggaru. Though they had seen many wonders, Hendon simply had not believed there could be such a creature. But here it was, standing before him. It was very much like one of the water dragons that inhabited the lake,
though with the longer limbs of a man.

  Ganry slashed at the Rooggaru again, and the dragon man ducked the attack. Bent forward almost double, the creature charged. There was no room to retreat or dodge aside in the cramped corridor. Ganry stumbled back, checking his mighty swing and attempting to bring Windstorm down and around in time to check the Rooggaru’s assault.

  “Ganry!”

  Hendon started forward, but there was little he could do to help his friend. Ganry crashed against the wall. Wood splintered under the impact, but held. Windstorm flashed. The Rooggaru howled in frustration and pain, staggering back from its human prey. The Grimlock blade had bitten reptilian flesh. Thick, black blood dribbled down one of the dragon-man’s arms from a shallow cut below the shoulder.

  Panting, Ganry sidestepped away from the creature and adjusted his two-handed grip on Windstorm’s hilt. The creature snarled a challenge, opening its triangular jaws wide and snapping them shut with incredible force. Its eyes blazed hatred. Shifting its weight from side to side, it held its scaly arms out to the sides and hissed.

  “Stay back, Hendon,” Ganry called over his shoulder. “I’ll handle this beast.”

  Hendon shook his head in amazement. “But what is it?”

  “It’s Linz’s Rooggaru, I suppose,” answered Ganry. “But whatever manner of beast it is, it bleeds. If it bleeds, it can die!”

  So saying, Ganry leapt forward. Windstorm lashed out. The Rooggaru’s sibilant hiss became a shriek. The creature threw itself aside, slamming into the splintered wall where Ganry had hit a moment ago. This time the strained timber gave way beneath the fresh assault, and the Rooggaru broke through.