Chapter 4 – The Carnage of Little Hands...
Asguard nudged and licked at Gareth's hand to call his master's thoughts out of memories.
Wren's eyes widened as she watched the dog. She had not known an animal could be so cognizant of its master's heart. Her hand reached from her vermillion robes for a second, moved a moment towards the smiling war dog before retreating back into the warmth of her robes.
“Those in the keep who still remember say the dogs never left father's side.” Wren's raised eyebrow indicated she offered the statement as a question.
Gareth nodded. “Not a one abandoned their master and king. Not a one hesitated to bite at the basilisk. Not a one survived, but they took the basilisk with them to the crypt.”
“I wonder if I would show such courage before a monster,” Wren commented.
Gareth sighed. “Bravery and foolishness are fingers on the same hand, Wren. The dogs gave their lives, but they still failed their king. It only took a quill, a prick, to poison our father. It worked slowly until the end. Perhaps it would have been better had the war dogs not so defended their king, if the basilisk struck quicker with its barb. Our father languished as we watched him turn to stone upon his deathbed. Dogs do not struggle to choose between a quick or a prolonged death. Dogs do not struggle to choose between so many shades of gray. I often wonder if it is better to see as a man or as a dog.”
“You are neither,” Wren frigidly answered. “You are a king.”
Gareth recognized he neared the Stonebrook keep as he felt his boots step from soft ground to hard stone. Rival kings to the Stonebrook line built walls brimming with towers, with ramparts brimming with azure and crimson banners scraping at the sky. In those realms, silver and gold decorated chamber archways and court thrones. In those realms, tapestries woven to hold diamond and jewel shouted glory to the kings and queens that huddled within those castles' walls. Many a Stonebrook rival celebrated their power with grandeur.
The Stonebrook keep did not shout the glory of its rulers through any sparkle or splendor. By comparison, the Stonebrook keep squatted as an ugly hag of a fortress. No matter that it lacked lofty towers and bright, fluttering flags, the Stonebrook keep still inspired marvel. Masons and mathematicians could not fathom how the four, colossal stone slabs were raised to lean against one another as strong, uncut keep walls. Thus fables of giants who offered those walls as gifts to the new gray-eyed line of kings sounded as probable as any guess a wiser man might offer. Some claimed those walls grew from the very ground, stone trees serving as testament that the first Stonebrook lord was born from the clay of the earth instead of from a mother's womb.
Not a single window had ever been chiseled out of that stone. No arrow slit provided an archer a view of the grounds between keep and earthen berm. There were no windows through which a golden-haired princess might stare and sing for a riding prince. The four, colossal stone slabs did not betray a single fissure, crack or vein. Such walls would hardly comfort those courtesans familiar with more luxurious courts. But those serfs and soldiers who lived in the shadow of the Stonebrook keep regarded such stone walls fitting matches to the character of the gray-eyed monarchs who ruled their lives.
The Stonebrook keep inspired little song or charm.
But for as long as the Stonebrooks ruled from their stone throne, no besieger had ever breached the keep's walls, though many a rival's castle fell to the armies who arrived to claim them.
For centuries, no army dared challenge the Stonebrook keep.
Gareth grunted when he arrived at those walls he once called home.
“The fog almost hides our keep's ugliness, sister.”
“The fog provides no other comfort,” Wren snarled. “No enemy has trespassed upon us for hundreds of years, yet we can do nothing to keep the fog from seeping into our chambers, no matter the keep has never suffered a window's light.”
The soldiers escorting Gareth and Wren stepped aside upon arriving at the keep's only entrance. Consistent with the keep's character, the gate leading into the keep was as nondescript as the walls. The Stonebrook kings were tall, and Gareth stood as no exception. Yet the keep's entrance stretched little higher than five foot, forcing the gray-eyed kings to humbly duck their heads before entering the keep's protection. The keep's narrow doorway forced guests to enter single-file. Even King Harold, enamored with the horse as he was, expressed no desire to widen that doorway so that he might house his favorite horses inside the keep's corridors. For he knew, as well as his ancestors, that such a small doorway offered as much protection as larger bolted and moated gates.
Neither Wren nor the fog had any difficulty sliding through the keep's entrance. Gareth, however, had spent too many years at the dog kennels, and his absence from his family's stone home sounded as his head bumped against the stone above the opening.
Wren shook her head. “And so the great keep welcomes another Stonebrook king.”
The cold that greeted Gareth disappointed the new king. The keep might have always been austere, but Gareth remembered that his father had always demanded that every fireplace burn to chase away the cold no matter the winter's heart.
“The chill speaks ill,” Gareth mumbled.
Fog lingered through the corridors, and Asguard sensed trouble lurking in the stone corners.
Wren's steps paused. Though she did not answer, Gareth recognized the hesitance in her step showed his observation hit true.
Asguard whimpered. His nose lowered and his nostrils flared.
“Are we headed to the throne?” Gareth asked. “Does Lady Katherine wait there for us? Or will we first descend to the crypt to tend to Luke's final observances?"
Wren faced Gareth with dull gray eyes.
“We move to neither, brother.” Wren's voice did not rebound off the walls. “We go first to the king's inner chamber.”
Gareth's heart quickened. Asguard whimpered.
“I ordered nothing be touched,” Wren continued. “I demanded nothing be moved, that none of the dead's last rites be observed, before the new king had the chance to understand the fog's true nature.”
The remaining fingers on Gareth's right hand trembled. Many years had passed since he last visited the king's inner chamber. He was only a boy then, standing next to the king's deathbed as he helplessly watched the basilisk's venom stiffen his father to stone. He had been unable to stay through the entirety of his father's travail. He recalled how quietly Markus had stood at the foot of that deathbed, recalled how his brother hardly breathed, how his eyes had been mesmerized upon the changes that coursed along their father's hardening skin. Gareth remembered that it had been Markus who had remained with the king until the end, that it had been Markus who had heard the king's final words, words that Markus never revealed in the years that followed, years that twisted him into something other than a Stonebrook.
Gareth did not speak as he followed Wren through the keep's halls. Only an occasional whimper or snarl from Asguard broke the silence as the dog smelled fear hiding in the mist. Gareth said nothing as he watched Wren's hand draw deeper into her vermillion robes towards her concealed dagger. What had the fog brought into that ancient keep? When had the Stonebrooks last gripped blades behind their solid walls?
Asguard hesitated before mounting the first step leading upwards towards the king's inner chambers.
“Here Asguard.”
Asguard whimpered.
Wren paused upon the steps, worry creasing the features of her face.
“Asguard! Here!”
“Let him come in his own time,” Wren's spoke.
“He cannot hesitate in the worst moment.” Gareth replied.
Wren defended the dog with whispers. “You don't yet know the terror. You train your dogs to be too keen. Asguard already knows.”
Asguard then returned to Gareth's side. Gareth's legs felt heavy as stone as he took those steps to follow Wren. Asguard was his pack's most confident, competent and obedient of dogs. What did Asguard s
ense in the fog that forced him to pause at the most basic of commands?
Kennel, Kingdom and Crown Page 6
