The Briar King

by Greg Keyes

  “Which one?” she said aloud, tapping her chin. “What do you think, Austra?”

  “They all look quite brave, to me.”

  “Not brave enough. I have another in mind. You, sir knight of the green lilies, lend me your sword.”

  Obediently, the young man handed her his weapon, which was, in fact, a willow wand painted in gilt and furnished with a guard of lacquered magnolia petals.

  “Very good. And now your helm.”

  He hesitated there, but she was, after all, a princess. He removed the masked helm to reveal a young, somewhat homely face she didn't recognize. Anne leaned up and kissed his cheek. “I thank you, sir Elphin knight.”

  “Milady—”

  “May I have your name?”

  “Uh—William Fullham, milady.”

  “Sir Fullham, you will save a dance for me, when we reach the queen's court?”

  “Of course, milady!”

  “Wonderful.” And with that, she donned his helm and marched back to the guards.

  “I hayt Sir Anne,” she proclaimed, “of the Bitter Bee clan, and I will escort the lady Austra to the queen.”

  “Very well, Sir Anne. But beware. The Briar King is said to be about.”

  When he said it, something went wrong in Anne's belly, as if she had stepped off of something higher than she thought it was, and the image of her dream flashed behind her eyes— the field of black roses, the thorny forest, the hand reaching for her.

  She staggered for a moment.

  “What's wrong?” Austra asked.

  “Nothing,” Anne replied. “It's just the sun.”

  With that, she entered the maze.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE TAFF

  ASPAR LEFT TOR SCATH before dawn, departing the King's Road and striking across the uplands of Brogh y Stradh, through meadows blazing with red clover, lavender weed, and pharigolds. He found the Taff near its headwaters, surprising a small herd of aurochs stamping the stream bank into a musky quagmire. They watched him with suspicious eyes as he, Ogre, and Angel picked their way through the twisty maze of ancient willows that surrounded and canopied their watering place. The wild cattle smell followed him downstream, long after the bellows of the bulls faded.

  Everything seemed well, but it wasn't. He was more certain now than ever. It wasn't just the things Symen had told him.

  Yes, he believed some of the old man's babblings. Ultimately, the knight was trustworthy when it came to reporting what he had seen. The dead bodies, the mutilations, the strange absence of wounds all were undoubtedly true, though Aspar wanted to see for himself.

  The rest—greffyns, the Briar King, and the like—that part he didn't trust.

  Though Symen's speculations were less than reliable, it was something in Aspar himself that worried him. The night before, on the road when he'd been trying to scare the young priest-to-be, he'd almost frightened himself, almost imagined that the wild soul-hunt had really fallen upon them—despite that he had always known, in his head, that it was merely Symen and his dogs.

  Something was out there, and he didn't know what. For all his babbling about greffyns and Briar Kings, neither did Symen. And that was the worrisome thing, the not knowing.

  Ogre was skittish, his ears pricking all of the time, and twice shying—Ogre, shying—at nothing at all.

  And so, by degrees, Aspar prepared himself for what he would find on Taff Creek.

  The bodies lay like a flight of birds broken by some strange wind, scattered around their unfinished nests. He tied his horses a safe distance away and went on foot among them.

  They had been dead for days, of course. Their flesh had gone black and purple, and their staring eyes had sunk into their heads, as if they were really carved from pumpkins, then left too long in the sun. That shouldn't have been. The ravens should have picked their eyes long ago. There should be worms, and the stink of putrefaction.

  Instead he smelled only autumn leaves.

  It was as Symen had described; they had simply dropped dead. Which might mean …

  He looked around.

  Seothen—sedoi, the priestling had called them—were usually on high ground, but not always. If the church built fanes on them, there were paths, but as the boy said, few of the sedoi in the King's Forest were used by the church, though until last night Aspar had never thought to wonder why. He'd only known that the church didn't bother with most of them.

  Somebody was bothering with them, though.

  He found it on a little hillock, not far from the stream, aided by its smell of rotting flesh and the croaking of ravens. The fane itself was almost gone, a few rocks still holding the shape of an ancient wall and an altar stone. But on the trees encircling it, the bodies of men, women, and children had been nailed up by the hands and feet. They had been split open from sternum to crotch and their intestines pulled like ropes about the fane, forming a sort of enclosure. The big muscles of their arms and legs had been flayed open, too.

  This near, the smell was almost enough to make him retch. Unlike those in the field, these corpses were rotting, and the trees were full of man-fatted corbies. A few bodies had already parted from their limbs, upsetting the unholy architecture of the murderers.

  Down the hill, Ogre whinnied, then snorted. Aspar recognized the tone and, turning his back on the ghastly tableau, hurried back.

  He stopped still as he neared the horses and saw, in the tangle by the stream, an eye the size of a saucer.

  The rest of it was all guessing, lost in the mosaic shadows of the forest. But it was watching him, of that he was certain. And it was big, big enough to have made the print he had seen by Edwin's Brooh. Bigger than Ogre.

  He exhaled softly, and as he inhaled again, he reached for the quiver on his back, pinched one of the black-fletched arrows in three callus-hardened fingers, and drew it out. He lay it on his bow.

  The eye shifted, and a few leaves stirred. He saw a beak, black and curving and sharp, and wondered if he was dead already, just from having caught its gaze.

  He couldn't remember that much about greffyns. They didn't exist, and Aspar White had never paid much attention to things that didn't exist. But there it was. And it had killed the squatters without touching them. Somehow.

  Why was it still here? Or had it gone and returned?

  He brought the weapon up, as the greffyn nosed into the clearing.

  Its head was vaguely eaglelike, as the old stories told, though it was flatter than that. It had no feathers, but was scaled in black and dark, iridescent green. A mane of what looked like coarse hair began at its neck. Its foreparts were thickly muscled, ox-size but sinuous. It moved like a bird, jerky, but fast and sure. He would get one shot. He doubted very much that it would be enough.

  He aimed for the eye.

  The greffyn cocked its head, and he saw something in it then he had never seen in an animal. Consideration, calculation.

  Disdain.

  He drew the bow. “Come on, then, you mikel rooster,” he growled. “Come or go, it makes no never mind to me, just do one or the other.”

  It crouched, like a cat preparing to spring. Everything went still. The bowstring cut into his fingers, and the scent of the resin on it tickled his nose. He smelled leaf mold and chestnut blossoms and woodsmoke—and it. Animal, yes, but also something like rain hitting the hot rocks around a campfire.

  It uncoiled like a snake striking, bounding up and out, a blur. Despite its size, it was the fastest living thing he had ever seen. It tore across the meadow at a right angle to him, south. In two eye blinks it was gone.

  He stood for a long moment, marveling, wondering if he could have hit it, glad enough that it hadn't come down to that.

  Glad that its gaze wasn't enough to kill.

  Then his feet wobbled out from under him. The forest floor came up to smack his face, and he thought he heard Dirty Jesp somewhere, laughing her silky, condescending laugh.

  He awoke to fingers brushing his face and a soft murmuring
.

  He reached for his dirk. Or tried to—his hand didn't move.

  I'm tied up, he thought. Or nailed to a tree.

  But then he opened his eyes and saw Winna, the hostler's daughter from back in Colbaely.

  “What?” he mumbled. His lips felt thick.

  “Did you touch one of them?” she asked. “I can't find any sign, but—”

  “Where am I?”

  “Where I found you, near the Taff, right by where all that poor boy's kin lie dead. Did you touch one of the bodies?”

  “No.”

  “What's wrong with you, then?”

  I saw a greffyn. “I don't know,” he told her. He could move his hands now, a little. They were tingling.

  “The boy died,” she said. “That purple hand of his—his whole arm turned black. It wasn't a bruise. It started after he tried to shake his mother awake.”

  “I didn't touch any of them. Can you help me sit up?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She held up her own hands, showing angry red marks on the fingers and palms. “I got this from washing his wounds. It hurt that night, but I gave it no mind. By midday after you left, I was blistered.”

  Cold seeped up Aspar's back as he remembered Symen's missing fingers. “We'll need to find you a leic,” he said.

  Winna shook her head. “I saw Mother Cilth. She gave me an ointment and told me the poison was too weak to do me real harm.” She paused. “She also told me you needed me.”

  He started to deny that last, but a wave of dizziness overcame him.

  Winna got around behind him, reached her small arms up under his, and lifted. He felt weak, but between the two of them, they managed to get him scooted against a tree so he could stay up.

  She felt soft, and she smelled good. Clean.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said, voice low.

  “You followed me here?”

  “No, you great fool, I conjured you back to Colbaely with my alvish broom-handle. Yes, of course I followed you. I was afraid you would touch the bodies, and catch whatever shine-craft killed them.”

  He looked up at her. “Sceat. You followed me here alone? Do you know how dangerous that was? Even on a good day, there's cutthroats and beasts, but now—wasn't it you warning me that the forest is different now?”

  “And wasn't it you who scoffed at me for sayin' it? You're ready to admit I was right?”

  “That's not the point,” Aspar snapped. “The point is you could have been killed.”

  Winna's eyebrows lowered dangerously. “Aspar White, you're not the only one who knows a thing or two about the King's Forest, at least hereabouts. And which of us was almost killed? It might as easily have been a wolf or a bandit that found you as it was me, and then you would've slept through your own death.”

  “The same wolf could have found you.”

  She uttered a terse laugh. “Yes, and been too fat on holterflesh to catch me. Aspar White, is this you wasting breath on something already done?”

  He had a response to that, he was sure of it, but then another bout of sickness came over him, and it was all he could do not to vomit.

  “You did touch one!” she said, her ire suddenly replaced by concern.

  He shook his head. “I stopped by Tor Scath. Sir Symen found some dead like this, and lost two fingers for touching them. Why—why didn't y'send someone? You shouldn't have come yourself, Winn, whatever that old witch Cilth told you.”

  She regarded him for a long moment.

  “You're a fool, Aspar White,” she said.

  And then she kissed him.

  “That's enough firewood, I think,” Winna said, when Aspar returned with his fourth armload.

  “I suppose it is,” he said. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, then nodded to the rabbits roasting on spits over a small fire. “Those smell good.”

  “They do.”

  “Well. I should—”

  “You should sit there and tell me what happened. I've never seen you like this, Asp. You seem … well, not frightened, but as close to it as I've known you to come. First I find you laid out like a dead man, then you want to ride at neck-breaking speed until it's almost dark. What killed those people, Aspar? Do you think it's after us?”

  You left something out, there, Aspar thought to himself, remembering the touch of her breath on his. Something that's muddying my thoughts considerably. He stood for a heartbeat longer, then took a seat across the fire from her. “I saw something.”

  “Something? Some kind of animal?”

  “Something that ought not to be.”

  She spread her hands and shrugged, a silent go on?

  “The Sefry had children's stories about them. Maybe you heard them, too. About greffyns.”

  “Greffyns? You think you saw a greffyn? A lion, with an eagle's head and wings, and all?”

  “Not exactly like that. I didn't see any wings, or feathers. But someone as saw this might describe it that way. It was like a big cat, and it had a beak. It acted something like a bird.”

  “Well, they're supposed to hate horses. And lay golden eggs, I think. And wasn't there a story about a knight who tamed one to ride?”

  “Do you remember anything about poison?”

  “Poison? No, I don't.” She brightened. “Could it have been a basil-nix? They were supposed to be poison, remember? So poison they could hide in a tree and the fruit of the tree would kill whoever ate it.”

  “That's it. That's what I was trying to remember. Winna, whatever I saw—what it touches, dies.”

  “And what touches whatever it touches, too, it would seem.” Suddenly her face scrunched in horror. “It didn't touch you, did it?”

  “No. It looked at me, that's all. But even that took its toll. Or it might have been poison vapor, in the air. I wat not. That's why I was in such a hurry to leave, to get you away from there.”

  “Where do you think it came from?”

  “I don't know. From the mountains, maybe.” He shrugged. “How did they kill them, in the stories?”

  “Aspar. No.”

  “I have to find it, Winn. You know that. I'm the holter. Maunt it.”

  “Maunt it yourself: How can you kill something you can't even look at? How do you know it can be killed?”

  “Anything can be killed.”

  “That's just like you. Three days ago you didn't even believe such a creature existed. Now you know for certain you can kill it.”

  “I have to try,” he said stubbornly.

  “Of course you do,” she said disgustedly. She turned the rabbits a bit.

  “Are you sorry I kissed you?” she asked suddenly. Her face flushed red when she said it, but her voice was strong.

  “Ah … no. I just—” He remembered how her lips had felt, the warm taste of them, the brush of her cheek against his, her eyes so close.

  “I won't do it again,” she went on.

  “No, I wouldn't expect you to.”

  “No, next time you have to kiss me, Aspar White, if there's going to be any kissing. Is that clear to you?”

  Clear? No, not one damned bit! he thought.

  “Werlic, it's clear,” he lied. Did that mean she wanted him to come kiss her now, or that she thought it was a mistake?

  One thing certain—in the soft light of the fire she looked very kissable.

  “The rabbits are ready,” she said.

  “Good. I'm hungry.”

  “Come on then.” She handed him one of the spits. The coney was still sizzling when he bit into it. For a while he had the perfect excuse not to talk, or kiss, or do anything with his mouth but chew. But when he was down to greasy bones, the silence started becoming uncomfortable again.

  “Winna, do you know the way to Tor Scath? It's less than a day east of here.”

  “I know where it is.”

  “Could you make it there on your own? I don't like asking it, but if I take you all the way there and then come back, I'm afraid I
might lose the greffyn's trail.”

  “I'm not going to Tor Scath.”

  “It's too far back to Colbaely with things like that roaming the woods. In fact—” He broke off. The greffyn hadn't had hands, had it? How would it nail people to trees and make a corral from their intestines?

  “In fact, I'm not thinking clear. I'll take you to Tor Scath. The greffyn's trail will keep.”

  “Aspar, if you take me to Tor Scath, I'll slip off first chance I get, and I'll follow you again. If you take me all the way back to Colbaely, I'll do the same. If you don't want me wandering the woods alone, you'll take me with you, and that's that.”

  “Take you with me?”

  “If you're fool enough to hunt this thing, I won't let you hunt it alone.”

  “Winna—”

  “It's not an argument,” she said. “It's fact.”

  “Sceat! Winna, this monster is the most dangerous thing I've ever heard of, much less seen. If I have to worry about you as well as me—”

  “Then you'll be that much more careful, won't you? You'll think more carefully before doing something foolish.”

  “I said no.”

  “And I said it's not an argument,” Winna finished. “Now— we can talk about something else, something more pleasant, or we can get some sleep and an early start. Which will it be?”

  Aspar stirred the fire with the tip of the greasy skewer. Nearby, Ogre grumbled something.

  “Do you want the first watch, or the morning?” he asked finally.

  “Morning,” she said immediately. “Throw me that blanket. And don't fail to wake me.”

  Minutes later she was asleep. Aspar shouldered his bow and walked out of the circle of light. He had taken them back into the Brogh y Stradh, and a short distance away one of the many upland meadows showed through the trees. He stepped to the edge of it and regarded the rising moon. It was huge and orange, three-quarters full. A nightbird called to it, and Aspar shivered.

  He had loved the forest at night, found leaves the most restful bed in the world. Now the dark felt like a cave full of vipers. He remembered the greffyn's eye, its awful disdain. How did you kill something like that? Would the young priest have known? Probably not, and even if he did, it was too late. He'd be a day's travel toward d'Ef by now.