Beautiful Beasts

by Nicholas Knight

  ~ ~ ~

  When Loretta came to, they were no longer alone.

  Her father stood over her, his beasts surrounding them both. To the side stood Conde Rodriquez, his face an inscrutable mask as his gaze bore into her. He held aloft an electric lantern that lit them all in a golden glow. Her father was yelling at Sirena and Gage. Both of them looked…not frightened as she expected. Remorseful? That was close but not quite right.

  She started to rise to her feet when one of her father’s beasts, the one with the curly purple hair and broken black nose leapt upon her and drove her face first into the dirt. How dare it!

  Loretta struck out with her anima and found…nothing. Her mind told her that she was willing it to pierce this beast’s spirit and force it to yield, yet nothing happened. It was like reaching for her gun only to discover she had no hand with which to grasp it.

  Blind with rage and panic, she struck out with her elbow, aiming for the beast’s head. Her attack was easily deflected. But it allowed her to twist enough, faster than she would have thought herself capable, so she was able to kick up at her attacker who went flying as Loretta’s knees crashed into her ribs with a crunch of breaking bones. No sooner was she free than two other beasts were upon her, driving her face back into the dirt hard enough to make her see stars.

  She made to call out to her father, but when her mouth opened, no words came out. Only a growl. Her blood froze in her veins. She tried again, tried to demand that someone explain what was going on, but again, no words came out. Only growls and snarls.

  Her mouth felt wrong. Too full. Too sharp. Her teeth. Something was wrong with her teeth.

  She struggled against the two beasts’ hold but couldn’t pull free. As she did, a lock of hair came free of its styling and fell across her face. At first, she did not notice anything different because it was still dark, even with the conde’s torch. When she did, her entire body fell still.

  Her gorgeous black hair was a deep, vibrant shade of blue. No, she tried to scream. No! No! No!

  All that came out of her throat were growls and snarls. Trembling now with terror, she pulled a single hand free from confinement. It was covered in blue fur and sprouting wicked claws from the fingers. She made a chocking gasp, and, in desperation Loretta reached for her father, grasping his ankle as she looked up at him, silently pleading for his help.

  Father!

  He looked down at her and kicked her hand free, disgust curling his lip.

  Loretta fell limp in the dirt as her world shattered.

  Chapter Two

  The Third Chance

  Step by heavy step, Sigmund hauled himself up the hill, not bothering to brush aside the whip-like boughs of the weeping willow near the top. All was silent save the call of nearby birds and the incessant whispering of the river that flowed below. The hilltop offered a great view of the winding waters. Sigmund paid it no heed, his eyes only for the three piles of stone stacked atop the slight mounds of earth. The poor quality of the tombstones made him wish he’d spent his youth learning under a mason instead of on the docks.

  He dropped both the trout and the fishing rod he’d been carrying carelessly to the ground before taking a seat on the stump he’d positioned nearby for just this purpose. The graveyard smelled of fish. Or perhaps that was just him. It was hard to keep track out here. Days stretched on into miniature eternities while weeks rushed by in a blur. Time was as fluid as the nearby river, and Sigmund Moreau felt the fatigue that settled upon him every day press against him now like a palpable force.

  He was unwashed and unshaven, his cloak more grey than black, and spattered with mud, and his boots squelched. He’d need to prop his feet up by the fire tonight or risk getting sick. He stared at the graves, reaching out with his anima for the roots that had once bound him and the beasts that now lay in the ground, and found nothing. He’d heard some soldiers who had lost limbs could still feel them, as if they were not truly gone. He envied those men. Perhaps getting sick would not be so bad after all. Anything would be better than this hungry, heavy emptiness.

  No one ever warned young keepers what losing a beast felt like, let alone what losing all of one’s beasts felt like. The first time Sigmund had lost his entire menagerie he thought only a part of himself destroyed. The second time, Sigmund knew it was more than just a part.

  The not-quite-crunch of boots on grass announced a newcomer’s arrival. Sigmund’s hand went for the gun beneath his filthy cloak. He was alone out here, completely isolated, but old habits died hard. The weapon, a 20-gauge four barreled howda pistol, was as clean and oiled as the owner was grungy. It slid from its place at his side smoothly but slowly, the sheer weight of it preventing a quick draw if one intended subtlety. Once free, the weapon began to shake. The element of surprise was lost. Sigmund stared at his trembling hand for a moment, then let it and the weapon fall to his side.

  “I don’t know what’s more pathetic,” barked a familiar voice. “You, or that abomination masquerading as a gun.”

  Sigmund bolted upright, coming to attention. Almost as soon as he had, he regretted it. Silently cursing himself, he deliberately allowed the tension to bleed from his shoulders and holstered the weapon.

  “I need to use buckshot,” Sigmund said, voice hoarse from disuse as he turned around to face Conde Valentin Rodriquez. “I can’t aim for shit anymore.”

  The conde stood straight, his coat and trousers cut and styled in an outdated military fashion that his sternness somehow turned fashionable. His mustache was whiter than Sigmund remembered, and his hair, which had been allowed to grow out, was pulled back into a short ponytail that the sniper never would have allowed during his fighting days. Perhaps age had softened him, then.

  “Four barrels,” Rodriquez scoffed, eyeing the firearm with disgust. “With the recoil on that thing you’ll break your wrist trying to get off the extra shots before a beast rips your throat out.”

  Then again, maybe not even time itself could bring the veteran knight down.

  “If you find the sight offensive, you’re free to take your leave. Or shove those barrels up your ass.”

  “I tolerated your disrespect and insubordination during the war for three reasons,” Rodriquez said. “First, you were effective. Second, you were actually funny then. And the third reason is in the ground behind you.” The conde narrowed his eyes. “Do not test me, Sir Moreau. You are a knight keeper of the Queendom of Freutsche and you will act accordingly.”

  Or what? Sigmund wanted to ask, but held his tongue.

  “I never left a squire behind to fall prisoner during the war,” Rodriquez continued. “Not even the stupid ones. I’m not about to start now.”

  Sigmund took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure whether he was angry or not. Feeling anything apart from that gnawing emptiness weighing him down had become harder and harder the longer he’d been here. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Let’s start with dinner,” the conde replied, glancing at the trout Sigmund had dropped. “I did ride all the way out here to see you, and, since you are pretending to be a fishmonger, I see no reason you should not act the part. Hop to it.”

  Sigmund grunted but began walking back to where his simple cabin and barn, which doubled as his workshop, waited for them. Doubtless the conde had already found it and taken care of his horse. Rodriquez had always taken care of what was his, be it a tool, a subordinate, or a beast. It made his visit all the more painful.

  “Hers is the one on the left if you care to visit,” Sigmund said as he walked past the conde.

  The stiff expression on the man’s face turned stony. “No. No, I think not. The company of the dead is not for the living. And she is dead. Best let her rest.”

  Sigmund had no response for that, and so said nothing as he led Rodriquez back down and around the hill, only to come to a sudden halt when he saw what awaited them.

  The conde had arrived by motorized carriage.

  How had h
e not heard the thing approaching, and since when did the conde trust a machine to transport him anywhere? The man had to have brought horses, but his menagerie must have already stabled them. Even if Rodriquez was willing to travel by motor carriage, the Reaping would come and make all beasts women again before Conde Valentin Rodriquez would ever completely trust a machine.

  The vehicle still rumbled as the cumbersome engine on the back wound down and the conde’s menagerie busied themselves unloading. Sigmund caught a glimpse of three beasts hauling something wrapped in sheets and bound in chains into his barn while another two, one with rainbow hair and one arm in a sling, hauled an ornate looking trunk from the motor carriage to his ramshackle cabin.

  The cabin, restored to bare habitability by Sigmund himself, had already looked drab compared to the barn, half of which he’d converted into a workshop. Beside the motor carriage, it appeared downright pathetic.

  As he watched, two more beasts appeared from the wilderness where they had doubtless been sent to scout. One, crimson, crystalline and feline, emerged from the trees, her mineral flesh crisscrossed with black stripes. The other was at once more and less dramatic. Not so colorful, she swooped in on feathered wings, rippling with heat, and alighted near the other beasts. The ability to fly was a rarity among beasts. Having wings alone wasn’t enough. A beast needed the right combination of seeds to possess such mobility.

  From what he could make out, those two were the conde’s primary combat beasts. A ruby tiger and a fire owl, unless he missed his guess. Neither of them were dressed so nicely as the rest of Rodriquez’s less animalistic menagerie.

  “Don’t give me that look,” the conde snapped at him. “I’m not playing favorites. You know how noble ladies are about beasts. Especially the diamond souled. Don’t like to be reminded of the fate they escaped, I suppose.”

  The conde was keeping company with diamond souled? He had risen high in the world. His marriage to the late Condesa Rodriquez had clearly paid off. Good to know at least one of them was doing well for himself. Sigmund stomped on the resentment that thought brought on. He had no right to be resentful. The conde had moved on with the rest of the world. Things did not stop and stay in place simply because Sigmund Moreau had. Even if some of them should have.

  Sigmund shook his head. “Seven. You still keep seven.”

  It was an impressive amount. Sigmund had never been able to keep more than four beasts at a time, and that had been a stretch for his abilities. Once harvested, a beast became a part of a man, and it took years of practice and discipline to master one’s anima and command. An untrained or weak-willed keeper could drive himself and his beasts mad trying to take on more than he was capable of holding.

  This was more than twice what a skilled keeper could manage. It was a veritable army.

  “You still keep a clean gun,” Rodriquez replied. “Get inside and cook those fish. I’m hungry. So are the girls.”

  “I’m not your squire anymore, Sir,” Sigmund said.

  “Still my subordinate. Or did her majesty put fishmongers and baronesa’s spare sons above condes while I was on the road?”

  Sigmund swallowed back several responses to that and brought the conde inside. Four of his beasts, including the rainbow haired one and the fire owl, were already there, making the place more comfortable. The fire owl, whose hair had been replaced by reddish feathers with a barred pattern, breathed a stream of flames into the hearth, setting the wood stacked there ablaze.

  “Make yourself at home,” Sigmund said, taking note of the ornate travelling trunk laid against the wall. The conde never traveled with that much luggage. He couldn’t be planning to stay here long enough to need all of that, surely. Or had his rise in station given him an appreciation for the finer things in life?

  The fire owl grinned at him and set up a kettle over the fire to brew tea, revealing yellow scaled fingers that ended in thick black talons. It was a reminder of just how little say he had in the conde’s affairs. If the old veteran decided to kick him out and take over his little cabin, there was nothing Sigmund could do to stop him. Especially not without a menagerie of his own to fight back with.

  The rainbow haired beast passed by him, and, for a moment, Sigmund was so caught up in trying to place what type of seeds she possessed, that he almost missed the familiar rigidity with which she carried herself. Once noted, other features became obvious.

  “I thought you always said it’s bad form to keep your own daughters,” Sigmund said when the beast was out of sight. He opened his larder to draw out several more fish. If he was too feed them all, the day’s catch wouldn’t be enough.

  “It is bad form,” the conde said. “As you well know. That’s my niece. My brother did not wish a military career for her.”

  And since no one could say that the old man hadn’t served his queendom, there would be no more battles in his future. The rainbow haired beast was as safe as she was ever likely to be.

  “It sounds like you’re doing everyone favors these days,” Sigmund said as he brought the fish outside to gut and clean them in the yard.

  “I would think twice before deliberately antagonizing your betters,” the conde said from the doorway. “Especially your benefactor.”

  Sigmund shut up. He chopped the heads off the fish and gathered up the guts to use as bait, and then skewered what was left upon sticks to be roasted over the fire.

  “I’m out of salt,” he said by way of apology as he arranged the fish in his fireplace a few moments later.

  Wiping his hands on a rag, he sat in the second chair he had made when he had restored the cabin. In hindsight he couldn’t have said why he thought he’d need two chairs, but it was well that he had them now as the conde had taken up the other. He propped his feet up in front of the fire but did not take off his boots as he would have liked. One did not go barefoot before a conde, not even in a cabin barely fit for a serf.

  “Of course, you are,” Rodriquez said. “You’re out of everything here. Time. Hope. Spirit. What the hell is left of you, boy?”

  At thirty Sigmund was hardly a boy anymore. That didn’t help him meet the conde’s eyes. “Not much, I’m afraid.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Sigmund jerked his head up, hope momentarily flaring in his chest before he squashed it down and anger surged in to replace it. There was no place for hope in his life. He had no right to it. The conde was cruel to suggest otherwise.

  “You already gave me my second chance.” And look at how that had turned out.

  “I keep forgetting you were navy before you were army,” Rodriquez said.

  Sigmund wasn’t sure that serving as port security checking for smugglers and contraband counted as being in the navy, but he let it slide. The third son of an impure blooded baronesa, he had once been forced to cope with far worse things than the failing memory of someone who thought themselves a friend. He really should have learned by now to let it all go. Every time he thought he had risen high enough that he could stand against the world, the world kicked his feet out from under him.

  He checked the fish, found that they were ready, and served them up to the conde and his beasts. Four of the beasts ate in the cabin before one of them, the conde’s rainbow haired niece, brought three fish out to the barn. Sigmund scowled at that. The conde preferred travelling light. Not only in terms of provisions, but in company as well. Distance was more than simply uncomfortable for beasts and their keepers, but Sigmund had never seen Rodriquez keep more than four beasts on hand outside of battle. Travelling with seven was a lot, not just for the conde but for anyone.

  “Sir,” Sigmund said carefully after the silence had stretched on. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can start keeping some damn salt on hand. This fish is terrible.” His beasts all nodded in agreement.

  “Sir—”

  “I know what you meant,” the conde interrupted. “Damn, I need a cigar. What you can do for me is get up off yo
ur ass and back in the world. No squire of mine is going to depart this world a failure. It reflects poorly on me. If you’re bound and determined to go ahead and die you might as well make yourself useful while you do it instead of wallowing around here.”

  Sigmund didn’t say anything, though he very briefly entertained the idea of shooting the old man. Assuming he could get the shots off before Rodriquez’s beasts ripped him apart, they’d go Rampant when he died, and then Sigmund would still be torn apart. And then eaten. Sigmund wasn’t sure he cared about that last part. Condemning the beasts to insanity, however, was not something he was cruel enough to do for a mere act of spite.

  The conde reached into his coat pocket, withdrew an unsealed envelop, and held it out to him.

  Sigmund opened the envelope and read the letter inside. “This is a letter of introduction,” he said with no small amount of surprise after only a few lines.

  “Observant as ever,” Rodriquez muttered.

  Sigmund ignored that and read on. The letter was addressed to one Vizcondesa Augustina Velazquez and Sigmund almost stopped to ask who she was when the next few lines made the question obvious. “The Company of Golden Swords? You’d have me turn mercenary?”

  “You’re hardly in a position to be selective about the company you keep.”

  “Who are they?” Sigmund asked.

  Rodriquez shrugged. “I suppose you would not have heard of them. None of the so-called ‘law enforcement’ or ‘tax collecting,’ some of these companies get up to. Legalized banditry that is. The Golden Swords specialize in hostage rescue.”

  “Hostage rescue?”

  “Sure. It’s more profitable than you might think. The wealthy and elite tend to make a lot of enemies. And of course, there’s plenty of prisoners kept after a battle. Some pay the ransom to get their loved ones back. Others hire The Company of Golden Swords. It’s more honorable than,” the conde looked pointedly around the naked cabin, “this.”