by R W Caron
“He was sent out on retrieving us a griffin.” Erwin responded.
“The magical beast from the clouds?” She asked shocked.
“Have you been talking with the inquisitors?” Erwin asked. He looked at her puzzled for a moment. How had she known anything about these creatures when he knew nothing of them. The inquisitors had managed to find accounts from his grandfather, having seen the a beast with powerful hind legs like a giant cat and the head of a bird but that was all they had been able to find for him. Perhaps they had found new information and she had overheard then speaking.
“No my king.” She replied dropping her head towards the ground.
“Then how do you know where they are from?” Erwin asked, in a more accusing tone then he meant to.
“Do not be mad my king,” She started. “But when we were younger, I heard your father talking to your brother about a beast that lived in the clouds. They had called it a griffin.” She replied, her gaze still to the stone floor. He slowly raised her eyes to his and he pulps narrowed to slits. “I am sorry my king.” She hissed, staring deep into his eyes.
Erwin’s body froze and in his mind he comforted his sobbing mistress. He held her close as she apologized for not telling him. As this fantasy played in his mind he stood ridged, eyes glossed over and completely paralyzed. Shatina smiled to herself at how easy he was to manipulate as she allowed herself to stretch her true skin from under the magical cover. Her scales erupted from her face and she opened her mouth wider than possible for a human. He jaw unhinged and he grasped it with a scaled covered hand as the once colors finger nails turned to yellow claws. Under her dress, her legs folded together and formed a smooth snake like body the protruded from under the dress. She slithered across the floor to the fire and looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace. “You are beautiful.” She hissed to herself as he fork tongue flicked out of her fanged mouth.
The door to the room suddenly opened and the young servant boy stepped in. He looked towards his king frozen in place unmoving and then to the snake like creature that was now staring at him. Before he could scream she was cross the floor, her tail whipping around his throat, silencing the boy as he gasped for air. She shut the door slowly and the boy looked at her terrified. “What did you do too king Erwin?” He gasped.
“Nothing I haven’t done a thousand times.” She hissed, flicking her fork tongue against the boys face. She suddenly lifted him off the ground by his throat using only her tail. “But you gain a much better reward; you get to feed my children.” Shatina wrapped a second coil around the boy and his bones started to break as she flexed her powerful muscles. His face turned from red to purple and blood started to ooze from his eyes and mouth. Shatina smiled and unhinged her jaw swallowing the body headfirst. She continued working he jaw and throat muscles until she had swallowed him whole. She slithered back to the mirror and smiled to herself then looked down at to where her stomach would be.
“Eat well my children.” She say softly. She closed her yellow eyes and forced herself to concentrate as he body transformed again into the beautiful woman she had been moments ago. She moved the King Erwin and buried her head into his chest sobbing. Erwin’s eyes un-glossed and he wrapped his arms around her.
“There there my dear, it’s ok.” Erwin said running his fingers through her hair. “You did not think it important. I understand.”
“You forgive me my king?” she asked still sobbing into his chest.
“Of course I forgive me.” He replied. He grasped her by the shoulder and held her at arm’s length. “There is nothing you could do to make me not forgive you do you understand?”
“Yes my king.” She replied. “Shall we go and see the beast?”
“After you my dear.” Erwin replied and Shatina exited the room. Erwin fell in line right behind her but he stepped in something wet. As he looked back what he stepped in looked to be blood. Erwin’s mind started to wonder, where had the blood come from and whose blood was it? As the exited the room he looked to the left and right but the servant boy was nowhere to be found. Rage suddenly built in Erwin and when he found that servant there would be hell to pay. How dare he leave his post? Erwin thought to himself. He paused in the hallway and looked back towards his room, a strange feeling of loss past over him as he tried to remember the events that had just taken place second ago. Something seemed off, something didn’t feel real. Shatina grabbed his hand and broke him from his illusion.
“Come my king, let us see your prize.” She said in a coy voice that made Erwin melt. He smiled at her and took her hand in his. The two walked down the narrow corridor towards the throne room as Shatina breathed a sigh of relief to have finally eaten. It had been months since he last meal and to have a full stomach again made her feel so much more alive.
∆∆∆
Erwin sat in the throne room with an unimpressed look on his face as the Hunter walked in without a griffin. Instead the hunter walked in empty handed. Erwin stared at him as he walked with confidence across the long throne room floor, his boot clicking with every step and the smirk that sat on his face was unsettling. The hunter stopped in front of Erwin and gave an over exaggerated bow. “Your Majesty.” He said with a cockiness in his voice that would rattle the cage of any man. Erwin was one of these men and his frustration with this man started to boiled. How dare he turn up empty handed and act this way.
“Hunter, I thought you where bring me a griffin?” Erwin said matter of factly as he sat up in the high back throne. “Or have you failed me?”
The words rang in the hall like a crack of thunder. Erwin figured he was pushing the hunter’s buttons with asking him if he had failed but his anger only rose when the Hunter’s lips curled in a cocky smile. “I did not bring you a griffin your majesty.”
“So you did fail.” Erwin replied and dropped into his throne placing his hand on his chin and shaking his head. Erwin did not expect the Hunter to fail him but he was not overly upset about it. The hunter was an amazing tracker but to capture a magical beast like a griffin would take more than one hundred men and even then, King Erwin did not think it possible.
“I did not fail you ‘my lord.’” The hunter said putting emphasis on ‘my lord’. The hunter had seen Erwin kill peasants for calling him a lord and not a king. Erwin however knew this was a shot at him and merely smiled through the insult.
“I do not see a Griffin.” Erwin obviously pointed out stretching his arms out and looking around.
“I have found something more valuable to you.” The hunter replied as he lowered his crimson red hood revealing three large scares running down his face. He looked up to the Erwin and smiled.
“What’s that?” Erwin asked, unimpressed.
“Your Nipawin chief.” The hunter replied lowering his voice.
“What did you say?” Erwin growled. He sat forward in his throne and stared intently at the hunter who grinned from ear to ear. He reached behind him into his belt and produced Nahan’s daggers. “Daggers mean nothing to me. You could have found them.” Erwin said with a scoff.
“I figured as much.” The hunter replied and motioned to the guard with his hand. The armoured guard opened a door to the throne room. A short man with a burlap sack over his head was ushered in. The guard dragged him to the hunter’s side and Erwin stared on intently. He leaned heavily on his elbow as he stared on. The hunter pulled the sack off and Logan blinked in the suddenly light. Erwin dropped into the throne and rolled his eyes.
“What does this mute have to do with anything?” Erwin asked.
The hunter looked at Erwin intently and smirked. “Ask your guards to leave the room and I will show you.”
“I most certainly will not.” Erwin replied as he looked at the jewels on his hand. “I know you are a killer. Do you think I was born yesterday?”
“You know I am a killer, so how foolish would it be of me to kill you, without securing a way out of the citadel first. Believe me my lord, if I wanted to kill you, you
would be dead.” The hunter replied calmly. He shot a glance at Shatina who stared at him intently. “I just wish the guards to not lose faith in your leadership my lord. For this boy has seen many things, and was a servant to your brother.” The hunter continued. “He tended to your brother ever single night.”The hunter said in a threatening tone. “Surely you would not want rumors...”
“Enough.” Erwin exclaimed. “I will not be talked to by a mere thug like this, you know nothing. You are a failure. You did not bring me my Griffin, and you have not brought me the head of the Nipawin, you are useless. Get out of...” Erwin’s word’s froze in his throat as the hunter suddenly stood mere inches from his face. His movements where too quick for anyone to notice let alone react. “How did you...”
“As I told you, if I wanted you dead you would be dead.” The hunter replied. “As it turns out, I need you alive.” The guards drew their weapons and started to advance at towards the hunter. “Call your men back or they die.”
“Show me.” Erwin replied with a smile. His eyes flashed and the hunter smiled.
“As you wish my lord.” The hunter replied and stepped away. He turned with his arms spread wide and leapt backward flipping through the air and landing between two guards. With a quick spin he drew his sword and dagger and decapitated both guards. A third guard attacked with his spear and the hunter batted it away with a quick flick of his wrist. The sword flew out to the side and the heavily armour guard placed his shield in front of himself. He thrust it forward at the smaller man, but the hunter did not move. Instead he absorbed the strike, rolling the man over while holding his shield; he drove his dagger into the man’s unprotected neck and launched himself at the fourth guard.
This guard lunged at him with his spear but the hunter quickly swung upward with his sword cutting the tip of the spear off. As the guard looked up at the spear tip the hunter launched himself easily five feet into the air, caught the severed spear and twisted in mid air. The spear head found its mark in the guard’s helmet slit. The accuracy of such a shot was impossible and yet it had just happened in front of Erwin’s eyes. Erwin smiled and clapped his hands slowly.
“Well done.” Erwin complimented. “Please speak freely now.”
“I don’t have too.” The Hunter replied.
“What do you mean?” Erwin questioned.
“Your lady knows all the boy has to say.” The hunter replied and looked at Shatina. “Am I wrong?”
Erwin looked at Shatina, his most trusted advisor. She had been staring at the boy intently the entire time. “The Hunter speaks the truth.”
“How do you know?” Erwin asked.
“I cannot read his mind.” Shatina replied. “For that is not a trait any human can possess.” She hissed. “Even the greatest of sorcerers do not possess that power. This boy however has seen the massacre of the Nipawin. He has befriended one, but that one is not Nahan.”
“One still Lives?” Erwin yelled.
“Yes my king. He was not at the village when Andrew invaded. He is old and at the end of his years. That much is written on this young ones face.” Shatina hissed.
The hunter stared at her for a second, confused. He knew he had seen a Nipawin woman, ride off with a mage on the back of a griffin. He could tell by her dress, by her scent and by her actions. They mimicked that of the Nipawin chief he had slew. He dared not speak, for Shatina was not as she seemed this he knew. She was some sort of creature posing as a human. His years of facing mythical beast, and strange creatures made him deathly aware of the smaller details of life. As she talked, she did not blink, making him believe he was in some way reading minds or forcing cooperation, as she talked her word rolled out of her mouth in a sweetness that made you want to answer her every question but with a sharpness that slit your throat silently. The hunter had seen many beast but had never met one such as her. His got a small tingle in the back of his neck, and was not sure if it was fear or excitement that it was. Whatever the feeling was that made the small hairs stand up on the back of his neck, he enjoyed it.
The hunters Gaze shifted to the young child the girl had called Logan. Logan had never been in the citadel for all the hunter knew. The poor boy had no idea what he was getting into but the Hunter knew that the King had murdered his brother so you had exploited that fact to his own means. If the King killed Logan, so be it. The king had forgotten about the griffin as soon as the Hunter had threatened to expose him using the boy. The hunter was not a dumb man, he knew that many of the kings guards whispered in the night about the treason King Erwin had committed. The one thing they did not have was proof, proof that he had done the deed, proof that he had blood on his hands. Anyone that had questioned it quickly disappeared or was sent on an impossible mission. Would the guards ever act on their theory, probably not but to put that flicker of doubt in King Erwin’s mind was enough to make the man crack. In turn the hunter was able to test himself against Erwin’s personal guards. He knew he could killed them all, knew by the beating of their hearts that they knew it as well, but where was the sport in it all if he didn’t give them a chance. The Hunter always knew when victory was at hand, almost always. Never in this land had the hunter came across someone or something that he did not know the outcome. Not until he had met the Nipawin chief. His heart never fluttered, his body never flinched, Nahan as he had called himself had been the Hunters first real challenge since he had left his homeland several years ago. Nahan had been a true rival to his skills. The hunter smirked at the thought. His eyes drifted back to Shatina who had moved down the steps from where the throne sat and was staring intently at young Logan he face looking rather flush and her features that of frustration.
“The old Nipawin man will die within days, but there is something else.” Shatina said as she suddenly shifted her eyes to the hunter. “His eyes tell me, you did not slay Nahan.”
“Nahan is dead.” The Hunter replied and pulled his own dagger which he had left covered in Nahan’s blood. “This dagger pieced his heart.” The Hunter spun it in his hand and handed it handle first to Shatina. “It is a magical dagger, touch it and see for yourself.”
Shatina stared at him, knowing he was telling the truth from the smell of the blood on the dagger. She knew Nahan’s scent from the forest and could tell that the blood was his. To humor the Hunter she placed her delicate hand in the dagger and he mind was assaulted with the image of Nahan and the Hunters final moments of Battle. She watched as the very dagger she was touching slammed into Nahan’s chest and he fell to the ground firing his last arrow in a last ditch effort as he fell dead. She watched as the arrow freed the griffin and it attacked the Hunter and tore through the Trees. Then the images stopped. She opened her eyes and stared at him. “Where did you get such a powerful dagger?”
“I relived its previous owner of it.” The Hunter replied slyly. “In my travels I have hunted and killed many powerful creatures, this dagger belonged to one of my targets. That is all you need to know.” The Hunter replied spinning the knife and placing it back in its sheath that hung at the back of his belt. He rarely used the dagger of his people for it drained all the strength for him in using it. Something about the craftsmanship of his people and the magic they infused in the dagger made him weak whenever he was forced to use it. It was his last line of defence and up until he faced Nahan he had not used it in many years.
“Nahan is dead my king.” Shatina said confidently. “I have witnessed it with my own eyes. The hunter has killed the Nipawin Chief.”
“Then you shall be rewarded, Hunter.” King Erwin replied. “You shall be my personal Body Guard.” Erwin replied with a smile.
“My lord, it would be an honor truly, but I must decline.” The hunter replied. “For my business leads me in a different direction.”
“You deny my reward?” The king asked his face turning red.
“If I accept your reward, my lord, will you grant me one request?” The hunter asked coyly.
“What is this request?” King Erwin
asked.
“I would like a ship to get me to my home land, should you release me from you services or you perhaps no longer need my services.” The hunter asked.
“Done, on one condition,” King Erwin replied. “If my unforeseen death comes at the hands of you, my men and all of Esmos will hunt you until the end of time.”
