The King's Marked

by Terina Adams

  Sounds of chaos, screams of agony, tearing flesh and cracking bones filled my ears. I attempted to crawl on my belly toward the knife, but a tug on my dress prevented me from going far. I looked over my shoulders and into two glowing eyes. The beast loomed in close as it peeled back its lips, exposing sharp, long fangs.

  A hollow thud came next and the beast lifted its head and roared a sound of fury. It spun and its thick, spiked tail slashed through the air inches from my face. The captain stood his ground. Without his sword, now embedded in its back, he looked defenseless, but the expression on his face was anything but the expression of someone vulnerable. He produced a large dagger from his belt and sneered. Low on his forearm, beneath his sleeve, I saw a glow. The mark. Everything after that became a confusing blur. The captain moved with speed beyond any man’s. He slashed and the beast dove. They danced around each other, joining in a violent fury. Spreading around them was a faint glow of blue light.

  The fight lasted only seconds longer before the captain stabbed a killing blow. The beast writhed on the ground, screaming a high-pitched sound that hurt my ears. When it finally settled, the leathery skin on its side no longer moved in rhythm to its heartbeat. Its body caved inward, skin shriveled, until the creature was nothing more than black dust on the ground.

  6

  I woke huddled against the barrel of apples. Every part of my body protested my movement. The skin on my wrists had been rubbed raw, but at least they were free. A fog obscured the forest and clump damp to my hair. I sat up, grimacing through the aches and stiffness and stretched my neck, then my arms. My fingers were cold and slow to do as I wanted. A quick rub did little as the rest of me was chilled to my core.

  Someone moved around near the remaining embers of the fire, attempting to stoke them to burning once again. I shuffled to the edge of the wagon then lowered myself one leg at a time to the ground. There was blood on my dress, great smears painting the leaf green color a rusted red in patches.

  The soldier stoking the fire didn’t bother to acknowledge me as I arrived. A large gouge mark ran down his left cheek, and like me, he was covered in blood. His or someone else’s I could not say.

  “I can look at that if you like.”

  He glanced at me, using his one good eye, for the eyelashes of the other was crusted together by blood. It was hard to say how much damage the beast had done below the exposed raw meat and blood.

  He threw the smoking log he held onto the smoking embers and sat heavy on the closest log, staring straight ahead. I took that to mean yes, but there was an aura of defeat to his movement.

  I kneeled in front of him, peering in close without touching the wound. I would need water and clean rag to clear the blood and dirt away if I had any hope of learning the true damage done. The cut was deep and filled with grit and sand. His pain would be great, but he pinched his mouth tight and kept his silence.

  I turned at the sound of heavy footfalls and saw the captain stride into the clearing from the forest. He stopped when he saw me on my knees in front of the injured soldier.

  “We’re leaving, leave him.”

  “His wound needs tending. If we stoke the fire and boil some water.”

  “He knows his duty, now leave him.”

  I straightened and stormed after him as he headed around the side of the wagon. “You will condemn him if you do not allow me to do something for him.”

  He spun around and I was left staggering to stop from crashing into him. “He is already condemned.”

  Another soldier was fastening the horses to the wagon. His eyes shot our way for a brief moment before he continued with his task. I read nothing in the grim set of his mouth. After last night we could all be forgiven for feeling distraught.

  The captain’s lip curled up in a snarl. “Get in the wagon if you do not want to join the bodies we leave behind.”

  He pounded away, his stride full of force, emanating the rage he bore for the loss of his men. I do not know what drove him to cut through my tie, but after he delivered the final blow that killed the beast, he wrenched me to my feet. I closed my eyes as he swept his blade back, thinking he was about to end my life as well. Instead he sliced through the rope binding my wrists together. Once done he threw me to the ground and rushed off to finish the beasts still alive.

  I retraced my steps to the fire, but the wounded solider was already on his feet, collecting the last of the supplies. “When we reach the next stop, I’ll will do something about your wound.”

  Like I hadn’t spoken, he walked past me for the wagon without giving me a glance. Blood soaked the ground. A large bird of prey edged its way toward the stain. More flapping wings, and two more birds descended out of the fog and landed not far from the first.

  Last night, the captain had dragged me back to the wagon, pointed inside and told me I was not to leave. He didn’t bother to tie me up again, suspecting the terror of the ragool was enough to have me obey. I’d not seen how many soldiers were left, nor what he did with the bodies of the slain. This morning there were only two soldiers and one of them would not last our journey without my tinctures and salves. Even then it was likely his wounds were too great.

  I rounded the wagon and went up to the captain. “I need to relieve myself.”

  “Hold on or piss yourself, it makes no difference to me.” His voice harsh.

  I backed up and headed for the end of the wagon. Before I disappeared around the back, I glanced over my shoulder and froze at seeing the captain’s sword in his hand. He approached the wounded soldier from behind. I was about to cry out a warning, but the soldier turned. On seeing the sword he fell to his knees begging for his life. I rushed forward as the captain raised his sword in an arc above his head. The killing blow was swift.

  “No,” I yelled as I crashed into the leader’s arm. Too late, the soldier’s head rolled from his body. Equally swift, the leader lashed out with a backhanded blow and roared. “Get in the bloody wagon.”

  I hit the ground on my hip. A jarring reverberation ran up my spine to my head. The surviving soldier grabbed me under the armpits and launched me to my feet as the captain pounded away. “Just get in the back,” he said as he too headed to the front and climbed up into the seat.

  The riderless horses joined the other stock, tied to the side of the wagon. The captain, on his own horse, led us out of the small clearing to rejoin the road. I stared at the body of the headless soldier as we departed, until he faded into the fog. Above the crunch of the turning wheels, I heard flapping wings and squawks as the waiting birds squabbled over the corpse.

  I took my position against the barrel, my head to my chest and closed my eyes, still feeling the smart of my cheek. There was nothing of this day worth seeing.

  At some point I had fallen asleep. The sun bore down on my face as I lay on my side, drying my damp dress and hair. Finally I was warm. I opened my eyes to a blue sky, like it was a happy day and all the fears of the night before were nothing but a horrible dream. But when I sat, I saw the blood on my dress. The sun could not erase the truth.

  While I slept the forest was replaced by farmland, the fog on the ground replaced by rows of stalks. In the distance, the forest we’d left ran like a ribbon of green, stretching off to the east. Did it go as far as the dead lands?

  My stomach grumbled, but I had no appetite. Still, I pulled the bread from my pocket. The same small loaf I had given Peeta only yesterday, when I was still betrothed, happy and free. Blood had soaked into a corner of the loaf. I hurled it over the side of the wagon as tears welled, then collapsed back against the barrel and allowed the tears to fall. Once they began they came in floods. I hiccuped and choked them back but there was no stemming the flow. All I could do was surrender to my grief and hope it would not drain my will.

  With the sound of trotting horse’s hooves, I lifted me head, buried between my thighs, and looked at the road behind us. Seeing nothing I climbed to my knees and looked over the barrels and sacks to the direction we head
ed. A man road toward us, dressed in nice clothes, not as expensive or tailored as the captain, but this was no farmer. The wagon slowed as he approached and the captain rode to join him before he reached the wagon. They talked for a time, then the stranger turned his horse alongside the captain’s and joined us as we rolled closer to the village visible in the distance.

  Soon enough I saw people in the fields, which made me think of Wilhem, who’d worked the crops for the Lord of the land. Thinking of Wilhem, lead to other thoughts and my chest tightened. The best I could do for myself was suppress any memory I had of home. As much as my heart held on to the hope I would escape this nightmare and make it back Morick, my hope began to vanish the farther I traveled.

  The village was little more than my own, a single lane, narrowed by stalls, stock and children, chasing each other down the alleys and under the carts. All eyes followed our procession. I knew what lay beneath their solemn stares. It had been my own feeling one day ago. Hatred, fear, and every negative emotion in between. Only this times, I also read shock and curiosity. No one expected the King’s men to arrive with only two soldiers covered in blood.

  We passed through the market and kept on our way, lead by the well dressed man who rode with the captain. On the other side of the village, with its chimneys billowing smoke and the smells of baking bread, we stopped beside a grand manor. Not so grand as Lord Crofton, but better than any house I’d ever seen. The gardens bloomed with more than vegetables, which was an extravagance none in our village could afford.

  A woman, wearing a gray dress and white bonnet, bustled out of the manor. A young man appeared from around the side, scattering chickens as he raced to the stranger’s horse. He took the reins as the stranger dismounted, doing the same for the captain’s horse then lead the two horses back the way he’d come.

  Without a word to his soldier, the captain followed the well dressed stranger inside. The soldier shook the reins, and we trundled away to the side of the manor in the direction young man had taken.

  I climbed off the wagon once we came to a halt near the stables. The soldier came around the horses and, on seeing me, left his task and headed toward the load on the back. He rummaged inside and pulled out a rope.

  “You don’t need to do that, please. I’ll stay by the wagon.”

  “He’ll have my head if you take it in your mind to run away.”

  “Where would I go? No one here is going to hide a stranger.”

  He took my hand and lead me toward the stable. “I’ll make it easier for you. You can sit here and I’ll tie you to the post.”

  I sighed, resigned to being tethered like an animal. The soldier tied a loose knot, giving my wrists plenty of room, then turned to head back to his task.

  “Why are you being nice to me now?”

  “After last night, do you really want to stay enemies?”

  “No, but I’ll never think of you as a friend.”

  “I don’t want you to. Allies is better.”

  I snorted a hard laugh. “If you want to be my ally, then set my free and return me to my village.”

  “Allies can’t always do those things.”

  “So you are my enemy.”

  “You wanted to help Doric even though you are our prisoner.”

  “Unlike your captain, I have a heart.”

  “Don’t think so harshly of him. He had no choice. Doric knew that. He didn’t want to die, but death was better than what he had coming.”

  “And what was that?”

  “His wound was not made by claw. It was made by teeth.”

  “The ragool bit him?”

  “Their saliva carries a toxin that changes a man. Soon enough he would become bound to the servitude of the wraiths and stripped of his humanity. By killing him the captain saved him.”

  I looked at the ground, feeling small in this new world. “I have never heard of these creatures before.”

  “Your village is too far west from the dead forest and the wraith’s territory. I have never seen the ragool this far from the dead forest and at this time. The captain will report this to the King.”

  The stable boy appeared, having tended to the two horses and stopped when he saw me in my blood covered dress and mangled hair. He recovered quick from his gawking and addressed the soldier. “Shall I tend to the rest of your stock?”

  “Excuse me, “ I said. “Is there a healer in town?”

  The boy flicked a look to the soldier, not sure if he should answer me or not. Tied to a post was a good indication I was their prisoner.

  “Where are you injured?” the soldier said, his expression changing to concern, perhaps believing I’d been injured in the fight last night, worried I’d been bitten.

  “A hog slashed me across the thigh two days gone. I need to tend the wound.”

  Was that relief on his face? He turned to the stable boy. “Well, have you?”

  “Yes, sir, Annabelle is wise with herbs. She works here for the master.”

  “Fetch her.”

  The boy scuttled away, forgetting about the load.

  “Is that what allies do?” I asked.

  “There’s been too many deaths so far.” He turned to go, but paused halfway around. I could not read his expression when he looked back to me. “You tired to stop the captain from taking Doric’s head.”

  “I was naive about the truth.”

  He nodded. “But the important thing is you tried.” He looked to the sky before he returned his gaze to me. “Doric was my brother.”

  7

  I had climbed onto the barrel of apples once we departed the last village this morning and there I stayed, now keen to see the countryside and our entrance into the city. By mid-afternoon we crested a rise and looked down upon Railyon. The city spread across the plain like a gray stain. I’d never seen so many dwellings clumped together. There had to be thousands of people crammed inside the walls. And how would they feed all those people without fields of grain close by? This was the city that had bedazzled me while listening to the stories from travelers passing through. From here it did look vast, but not as beautiful as I’d imagined.

  While the sun shone its glory down on the land below, to the east, the sky darkened. A thick mist of gloom blanketed the sun and cast the land below into darkness.

  “The dead forest,” the soldier, who last night told me his name was Ryhan, said from the front of the wagon after seeing the direction in which I looked.

  “It looks like a cold and desolate place.”

  “Aye, doesn’t it? I’d never set foot in there even if you paid me a dozen crown.”

  “It’s no surprise the wraiths and their demons call it home.”

  The captain had already begun the gentle descent into the valley. Ryhan flicked the reins and encouraged the horses to follow. He’d said we were returning early to Railyon. His captain was keen to report the ragool attack so risked the king’s ire and skipped the rest of the tax collections and headed on a direct route back to the city.

  “If the wraiths and their demons can’t escape the dead forest unless on Hallow’s Eve, how is it the ragool can?”

  “It is said the curse that binds them to the east does not include their pets, for their pets came after the curse was made. But the ragool cannot move by day. They are vulnerable to the sun. And normally the wraiths keep them close.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You haven’t heard the stories of how the ragool are made?”

  I shook my head.

  “They are made from the body of a wraith, which means to destroy a ragool, you weaken the wraith. That is why they rarely venture from the dead forest.”

  All I knew were the legends I’d been told as a youngster, about the arrival of the wraiths from the far east, and how the wraiths fought amongst each other for the bounties they found in our kingdom. They forged great armies out of humans by turning them into demons. This created the Hundred-Year War between the most powerful of the wraiths, a war that destroyed
the land to the east, turning it into the dead forest. According to one legend, it was a marked who made the curse that bound the wraiths to the east, except for on Hallow’s Eve, when the curse weakened. Most discounted the legend as lies, saying it was created by a marked to save himself from burning. But that was the only explanation we had as to why the wraiths’ freedom was curtailed to that one night.

  I sat upon the barrel and stared ahead as the walls of the city came into view. Made of stone, they reached to the sky, forming an impenetrable barrier. The entrance gate was two giant wooden doors latticed with metal. Two soldiers came out of a guard box stationed directly over the door and looked down at us as we neared. A call rang out, followed by a loud clunk and the grinding of metal chains on spokes. The doors slowly trundled open. Without stopping, we continued on into the city.

  The horses’ hooves clacked on narrow cobbled streets, which wound in a confusing maze through the dirty lanes. Once inside the gate, the captain left us, spurring his horse into a canter. Ryhan steered the wagon in another direction and it wasn’t long before he reined in outside a smithy’s yard. Inside the open-air stall, a large man hammered red gold metal. Thick muscles in his arm flexed and bunched with every stroke and sweat dripped from his forehead. When the man saw us, he wiped his hands on his apron and came out to meet Ryhan. There was little friendliness in their greeting. The blacksmith’s eyes fell on the stock first, flicked over me momentarily, over my bloodied clothes, then returned to the stock.

  The two talked for a while longer before the blacksmith turned and shouted back into his stall. Within minutes, two young men, features similar to the blacksmith, untied the stock and led it away. The rest of their business was concluded under cover of the thatched roof. Soon Ryhan was back in the wagon and turning the horses in the opposite direction, moving us farther into the city streets.