The Beast of Noor

by Janet Lee Carey

  Miles heaved a labored breath. It had been a long fight. He considered the gullmuth’s thick, furry body, its strange, birdlike head, its bloody beak and claws. The monster was half again his size, and it should have won the battle, by all rights. But he’d knocked the beast over on its side and gone for the weak point at its slender throat.

  Miles licked his torn foreleg. He’d dodged the gullmuth’s beak but hadn’t escaped its mighty claws. The new gash was dangerously close to the scabs left by the Shriker’s teeth.

  The woods, growing up from the valley floor, seemed strangely still. Miles stepped away from the body and limped through the bloodstained snow. A handful of kravel birds flew above Uthor, black-winged against the shrouded air. He would not eat this kill. The carrion birds would have their fill of gullmuth meat when he was gone.

  In the broad, open space on the valley floor Miles lifted his muzzle to the air and sounded his victory cry, “The gullmuth is dead!”

  His call filled the vale, bouncing from stone wall to snowy edge. He listened, ears pricked, and when the echo of his words died away at last, a great loneliness swept into him. He stepped back, his chest empty as the vale itself.

  There was no one here to witness his victory over the gullmuth. No Falconer to give him an approving nod. Nor was Da nearby to call him brave and slap him on the back. His shoulders ached for the feel of that.

  He closed his eyes. He was lost now to everyone he’d once loved. Buried and forgotten here in the Shriker’s realm. Miles snarled, thirsting for revenge, a deep thirst only the Shriker’s blood would quench. He’d been hiding out here. Hoping to break free of Uthor Vale to fight the beast in Attenlore. But if he could kill the gullmuth, he could slay the Shriker, too. He was tired of hiding. He’d regained his strength. Now he wanted the thing done.

  “Come to me now, dog!” he howled. “By tooth and claw, I challenge you!”

  The muscles on his back twitched as he looked along the tree-lined valley for a sign of the Shriker. At last he spied something moving along the edge of the frozen marsh. He gave a low growl as the leafless brambles parted, bared his teeth, expecting to meet his enemy’s coal-red eyes, to hear an answering growl. But three trolls stepped out onto the snow.

  The trolls were but four feet tall. They shook their heads as they looked first at the body of the gullmuth and then at Miles.

  More trolls appeared. A dozen and a dozen more, all with tangled hair and ragged clothes covered in muck. They stood in a tight band, armed with knives and axes, their mossy beards blowing sideways in the breeze.

  Miles narrowed his eyes and looked down his long snout at the gathering. Thirty trolls or more. He could smell the fear on them.

  “The Shriker,” they whispered one to another, their heads nodding up and down, and then, “He’s done it. He’s killed the mighty gullmuth.”

  Suddenly the trolls raised their axes high. “Long live the king!” they shouted all at once, and threw themselves facedown upon the snow.

  ARROWS

  Such woods as these would make a stranger sleep. But you they will awake.

  —WILD ESPER

  HANNA LIFTED HER HEAD AND TOOK A DEEP BREATH. Cold air filled her lungs. It seemed as if she’d passed from autumn to winter in a moment’s time. All around her the enchanted lands were covered in snow. Standing up, she saw that she’d been taken farther up mountain this time, to the snow line by the high cliffs. She bit her lip, looking downhill where the forest of pine and maple stood still untouched by snow. The woods below seemed suddenly menacing. So many places for the sylth folk to hide and spy on a traveler from another world. Which way? She had to find Miles before the Sylth Queen discovered her and threw her out of Attenlore again.

  She gazed up mountain and chose to take the harder climb, which might offer a view of both foothills and woodlands where Miles could be wandering.

  Shouldering her pack, she started forth, keeping her eye out for Miles’s footprints as she climbed. The day was still young, and she ventured on at a good pace, staying close to the snow-domed boulders in case she needed to hide from the sylths.

  After a two-hour climb Hanna hunched over, hands on knees, to catch her breath. The peak of Mount Shalem loomed high above to her right, but straight ahead, just over the side of the high plateau, lay a deep, shaded valley. The soft breeze at her back pushed her toward the basin; still, she hesitated. The valley was in shadow, not by cloud or night’s coming, but by a deeper dark that seemed to grow out of the land itself.

  The Shriker had hunted far and wide, and the queen was losing her lands to him. If Uthor Vale had grown so broad in so little time, how long would it be before the dark lands swallowed all of Attenlore?

  Cold fear filled her chest as she gazed down, and with the chill the knowing came; Miles was down there, and the Shriker. She locked her knees to control her trembling legs. If it was her love and her loyalty that made the Shriker single her out, here was a true test of it. Did she love Miles enough to step over the edge?

  Three days left to find him. She must go now, before she lost her nerve. Adjusting the bowstring across her chest, she braced herself for the journey and left the sheltering boulders. She’d taken less than ten steps through the crunching snow when a fleck of ice blew past her cheek. Hanna thought nothing of this until another whizzed by and fell dark and slender at her feet. She peered down at the sparkling snow and toed a tiny arrow with her boot.

  Whirling round, she saw the swarm of sprites, hundreds of them, flying up the mountainside toward her. She was exposed on the plateau. Hanna turned and raced across the top. More arrows shot past her head and shoulders. Run fast! Faster! The heavy snow slowed her pace. They’d catch her soon.

  Hanna darted past another boulder, tripped, and fell facedown. Leaping up with a little scream, she ran again. Her neck stung as one arrow met its mark. She slapped it and pulled it from her flesh as she stumbled through the white powder. Another sting on the back of her hand. A third on her cheek as the arrows rained down.

  She felt her cheek going numb, her neck, her hand, and she was yawning even as she ran. Tamalla-tipped arrows. They must be. No. Not again. She wouldn’t let herself be caught this time. If she awoke before Queen Shaleedyn, bound in spell webs, she would be banished again and never find Miles!

  Snow flurried into her yawning mouth; still, Hanna pushed herself harder, flew over the top of the plateau and down the steep incline into the heart of the shadow realm.

  THE HOUND KING

  Kwium’s treasure map brought him to the mouth of a tomb.

  —THE BOOK OF EOWEY

  MILES MARCHED THROUGH THE TUNNEL WITH THE trolls. Deeper down and deeper down they went. The passage was almost too narrow for Miles’s beast form, but he set the pace for the company. There were fifteen trolls on the march, including the tallest troll, his king’s counselor, Shum.

  “Faster,” said Miles, His voice was gruff and powerful. It took but one word from his sharp-toothed mouth to make them speed up. He watched with satisfaction as the trolls hurried on, their short legs doing double time to keep up with his stride.

  The trolls feared him and thought he was the Shriker. He would let them keep their fear for now. He was their hero and conqueror. None had ever overthrown the mighty gullmuth, though many beasts and trolls had tried. Miles had gleaned this during his stay so far in Uthor. The gullmuth monster had always won over all his attackers, whether they’d come at him in dozens or in larger troops. His first week in Uthor Vale, Miles had seen the trolls’ hero mound, the burial spot of all those slain in battle with the gullmuth, and it was a hill unto itself.

  Soon after he killed the monster, Miles learned why the trolls had bowed to him, saying, “Long live the king!” For the last troll king had willed upon his death that the one who overcame the gullmuth would be crowned the next troll king. Years had passed since the decree, and many trolls had died trying to win the crown; the hero mound was proof of that.

  I did it, Miles thought,
still amazed at what he’d done. I was meant to be their king.

  On his first night with the trolls Shum had confessed there was a storeroom where the wealth of Uthor had been hidden for years beyond remembering. It was said each king of rightful rule would have the power to find his way to the wealth. And so this walking down and down inside the wending stone mines was a test of Miles’s true kingship. How he was to find the hidden vault, he didn’t know, but he kept his senses sharp.

  The castle guards he’d chosen to bring down marched behind him under their torchlights. The trolls were small, coming only halfway up his forelegs. They smelled of sweat and grime and something else he couldn’t name, and he didn’t trust a single one of them, especially Shum. But he’d already formed a plan concerning the trolls, one that would ensure the Shriker’s death, so he tolerated their stench.

  The tunnel took another turn. Miles’s left foreleg stung as he passed a line of boulders, but he worked not to limp before the company.

  At last Shum stopped at a fork in the passage and waited for his word.

  Miles thought, uncertain. “This way,” he said at last. They turned left and marched downward. The wealth of Uthor had been mined and forged by the trolls in their long years of exile from Attenlore. The early kings had hoarded it and kept it hidden from the outside world. Trolls were always hiding things, burying them, being earth creatures themselves, and it was right to hide treasure underground here in the vale, where thieves, murderers, and monsters roamed.

  Cold splashes hit Miles’s back as he walked. The kings wouldn’t have kept treasure in a damp place. He must have chosen the wrong way, but how could he turn back and still pass the test?

  “It’s damp!” growled Miles.

  Shum cringed at the sound of Miles’s words. “We’re far underground, sire,” he said lamely. The passage turned right. Shum’s torchlight sputtered as three droplets fell from the stony roof. The company passed another large boulder and Miles stopped. The trolls behind him halted, unsettled and mumbling.

  “Quiet!” ordered Miles. They hushed themselves as best they could, though they still breathed heavily. Miles cocked his ears. Drip. Drip. From somewhere far off, the dripping sound had a musical tone. Not water on stone, but water on … He looked to his left. Put his ear against the boulder. Aye, it came from there. “Move this aside!” said Miles. All fifteen worked to push the rock. A few blew out their torches and used the wooden staffs for pry bars. “Heave!” they shouted. “Heave!” On the third try the boulder rolled aside. A darkness and a gleaming within, and in the torchlight held and wavering Miles saw piles and piles of coins and jewels.

  “Our storeroom,” said Shum proudly.

  “Mine,” corrected Miles.

  Shum’s lip trembled. He bowed to Miles. “Y-yours, sire.”

  Miles crouched low and worked his way through the hole, which wasn’t made for so large a king as he. Mouth watering, foreleg aching, he stepped up to the pile. The coins shone and glinted, but he could not see what sort of coins they were. My eyes, he thought. A bound’s eyes, blind to color. He’d missed seeing the green trees and the vibrantly colored flowers when he was in the fields of Attenlore. But here, now, as he stood before this treasure, his treasure, not knowing if the coins were silver or gold, if the jewels were rubies or sapphires … He ground his sharp teeth. “Make an accounting of it,” he ordered.

  Shum stepped up. “It’s written our store is thirty thousand gold coins. Nine hundred and seven gems. As you can see.”

  But Miles couldn’t see. “Name the gems!”

  Shum cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. He handed his torch to another troll. “Emeralds,” he said. “And rubies, diamonds, sapphires, garnets, a few moonstones.”

  “Where are the pearls?” said Miles. Mother and Hanna loved pearls.

  “Um … no pearls, sire. We’re too far from the sea here in Uthor.”

  “I see,” said Miles. His own words, but their meaning angered him. He couldn’t see the treasure at all. Only gray gold, gray rubies, gray emeralds …

  He looked about the walls, which were hung with troll armor. The shields and breastplates were dusty. His eyes were sharp enough to see that, at least. He nodded at the wall. “Guards,” he said.

  The troll guards bowed before him.

  “Take the armor from the walls. Polish them. Bring the bludgeons. Sharpen every sword.” At his word the trolls eagerly began to take down the armor, enough for a small army.

  Miles walked around his treasure pile and spied necklaces, bracelets, all small, all made for troll kings. But though the trolls were only four feet tall, their wrists and necks were thick and no smaller than a man’s. Mine to wear, thought Miles, but he’d have to wait. He couldn’t waver from his plan. He’d have the gold taken up to his rooms, assemble the trolls and the banished sylths he’d gathered to train for war, then they’d march against the Shriker. He wanted the pleasure of killing the beast, and he wanted the glory—his blood would taste richer in his mouth than the gullmuth’s had. He’d take the killing bite, but he’d have his troll guards armed and ready at his back if he should need them.

  Kill the beast.

  Break the curse.

  Miles sat on his haunches by his grand treasure and thought of Brim, of Mic and Cully—stupid, snotty village boys! If they could see me now. Rich beyond their dreaming! In command of my own army! Better than that, if Da could see me, or the Falconer … He looked about, his chest swelling. In a flash of torchlight he saw for the briefest moment what the Falconer would see. A giant black dog crouching in a dank underground vault with a pile of money and fifteen ragged trolls. He blinked the vision away and let out a slow growl. The trolls quaked and worked all the faster with the arms.

  I’ll finish what I began, thought Miles. Once the Shriker’s dead, I’ll lead the trolls through the wind wall and march victorious to Queen Shaleedyn. He felt a wave of pride. Her kingdom. Now that would be worth having. He licked his muzzle and jabbed his tongue through the gap from his missing fang. It was a good plan, but his subjects needed to tell him apart from the enemy. In the pile he spied a long, heavy chain; it might be gold or silver, he wasn’t sure. Too large for a necklace. A king’s belt? A heavy jewel hung at its base. He pointed to it with his paw. “I will wear that.”

  No one moved. The trolls were too afraid of him to come that close. He saw that, so he made his order clear. Miles pointed to the two ugliest trolls with his paw. One with a bulbous nose, the other covered in warts. “You and you,” he said. “What are your names?”

  Both bowed. “Endcust,” said the warty one, and the other said his name, “Freeborn,” at the same time, so the names blended together, EndcustFreeborn. “I name you Mic,” he said to the one with the bulbous nose. “I name you Cully,” he said to the warty troll. “You are my personal slaves.”

  “Aye, sire,” both said, falling to their knees and groveling.

  “Slaves,” said Miles. “Put that chain around my neck.”

  Miles lowered his huge head so they might reach. Mic and Cully lifted the long, heavy chain and, shaking, put it around Miles’s thick neck. They bowed again and backed away.

  “Bring this treasure to my rooms, and make the armor ready,” said Miles, “We have an enemy to kill,” He turned about and was escorted back up to the inner palace, where he planned to curl up on his padded throne, lick his wounds, and eat meat that was freshly killed for him, served on a king’s platter.

  BEAST TRACKS

  Thus Breal’s hope was gone, the hero all but broken, when the wind woman Isaparel blew his vessel skyward toward the final battle.

  —THE EPIC OF BREAL

  HANNA PAUSED AND WIPED THE SWEAT FROM HER NECK. She’d walked all night and rested little through the next day, overcome with drowsiness both from lack of sleep and from the sprite arrows. The tips had been dipped in tamalla. The pungent smell had told her that. It would have been easy enough to carry her off to the Sylth Queen if she had been drugged and
dreaming.

  In the dusky valley melting snow dripped from the overhanging branches. But the little pushing breeze that had followed her here through the night and day blew warmth across her back. “Am I going the right way?” Hanna asked. The little breeze didn’t answer.

  Swinging her left foot forward, she pressed on, though her legs felt leaden and her body numb. She rubbed her hands and face and ran her tongue over her wind-cracked lips. Yesterday she’d clambered down the steep hill as the arrows whizzed past her ears. The sprites in flight just behind. They would have captured her if she’d gone any other way, but as the air darkened round her, the sprites stopped mid flight, hovering there as she plunged into the wind wall.

  She hadn’t seen the wall, only heard the blowing, like the moaning of the sea in deep island caves, and when she ran inside, she was surrounded by the singing gales—drawn in and in by the great gust until she was taken up, spun round, and thrown at last against the ground like a wave-tossed body to the shore. She’d gotten up, run more after that, swaying like a drunkard as she ran, but the sprites never flew past the wind wall, never entered the dark land.

  A flurry of snow encircled her. She pulled the Falconer’s tinderbox from her pack and held it in her open palm. Her throat ached as she looked at the small black box. She could see his veined hand now as he sparked his flint to light the rushlight, A gentle breath pressed her forward, but she longed for the feel of the Falconer’s hand on her shoulder. A hand as large and warm as Granda’s. She needed his kind touch now and his strength to help her face the shadow vale. Only two days left. How was she to find Miles in the dark vale with no one to help her?

  Tucking the tinderbox back in her rucksack, she gripped her bowstring and checked the woodland trail. There were many watchers here. First there were the trees, whose thick, gnarled branches hung overhead. Their trunks weren’t tall and proud, as the evergreens in Shalem Wood, but seemed to writhe up from the earth. It was easy in these shadows to mistake them for misshapen giants watching her. Waiting for their moment. Then there were other eyes, more felt than seen, peeking out from thick bushes and around the twisted trunks. She took a breath. Kept walking. There wasn’t time to stop or think or worry, only to move.