by Sandra Kopp
“She’ll be brought in this way,” Cabe told him. “And yes, we’re quite disadvantaged.”
“Dead, you mean,” Hans growled.
They rounded the southwest corner of the breeding yard and stopped. Overseen by soldiers, a mob of workers muscled portable fences across the alley between two of the octagonal paddocks and the breeding yard, while inside the pens agitated and excited bulls bellowed and bawled, butted and pushed.
Charles felt nauseous. “What could they be thinking? None of those women will survive this!”
“Doesn’t matter.” Peter stared at the fence. “They’ll just cut the womb out of the dead woman and finish growing the spawn in one of the brooders.”
The new fences formed chutes between the octagons and the breed yard. Keepers climbed to the tops of ladders placed on either side of each chute, ready to raise the gates when given the signal. To Charles’ horror, the keepers conversed intelligibly with some of the bulls.
“Part man, but mostly soulless beast,” Peter lamented. “What but pure evil could conceive such madness?
Hans’ eyes flashed. “She’ll not go in alone. Whatever comes at her will have to go through me first!”
“As her escorts to Rissling, we bear the honor of conducting Kuchka into the yard,” Peter told them. “We’ll all die together.” He stared hard at Charles, who looked away and silently cursed himself. “No matter, my friend,” Peter said quietly. “You did what you could with what you were given.”
“Or perhaps its effect will delay until an opportune time,” Cabe added.
The captain of the guards flanking the chatkahs barked an order and raised his sword.
“It’s time.” Peter spoke brusquely in the language of Barren-Fel. “Look smart, lads, for our Kuchka and for His Lordship.”
With heads held high, they stepped smartly to the head of the colonnade and stood at attention. Hans’ eyes met Nedra’s. Her eyelashes fluttered nervously as she moistened her lips. The keepers at the octagonal pen nearest them lifted the gate.
“Wait!” someone shouted. But a bull had already grasped the bottom of the gate, and despite the keepers’ best efforts, hoisted it high enough to slip underneath, out of the paddock and into the chute.
Hans growled in disgust, for the space between the planks allowed a good look at the brute now parading itself before them. Stark naked and very muscular, it stood well over six feet tall. Its thick bovine thighs dimpled and swelled as it paced back and forth on its hind legs, proudly tossing its great horned head while beating its chest with fists the size of a man’s head.
Catching sight of Nedra, it stopped and shook the fence, calling hoarsely, “Kooooochga! Koooooochga!” Its groin area bulged obscenely. Nedra winced and looked away.
“You should have taken the water, Kuchka,” Amata cackled.
“Let’s get this over with,” Hans muttered.
A soldier strode to a narrow door, pulled it open, and with a sweeping gesture ordered Nedra inside. Charles noted the door’s division into top and bottom sections. The bottom stood about the height of a man’s chest. The open top allowed the spectators a good view. In the event a bull endangered those watching, the top could be shut and locked.
Three other such doors lined the south wall. Already soldiers had opened the top halves and gathered around. Others perched upon ladders leaned against the enclosure’s perimeter. A carnival atmosphere pervaded as Ryadok’s elect thronged the breeding yard to witness the spectacle to follow.
Nedra hesitated. Amata reached over, fumbling at Nedra’s throat in an effort to unfasten the cloak.
Nedra pushed the hand away. “I will keep this until the creature enters the yard.”
Amata said something over her shoulder to the rest of the colonnade, at which the guards laughed uproariously. The other chatkahs, however, remained silent. Their downcast eyes and ashen faces betrayed their terror.
“Very well.” Amata resignedly threw up her hands. “Go now, Kuchka. Show us how it should be done.”
“You foolish old woman,” Nedra whispered, and with slow, measured steps, entered the yard.
Hans bolted forward, but Peter held him back. “Wait!” He positioned himself beside Cabe and signaled for Hans and Charles to fall in behind.
The captain of the guard nodded. Peter and Cabe stepped out, taking care to advance no closer to Nedra than the four paces dictated by Ryadok’s protocol. Charles and Hans followed, Charles with a lump in his throat too large to swallow. They would die in this yard. But at least Nedra would be unconscious to the humiliation wreaked upon her body before this leering mob. Sadly, her father and brother would witness that carnage.
Nedra took twenty steps and stopped, facing the gate through which the malformed beast would charge. Hans positioned himself at Nedra’s right hand, Peter at her left. Charles took his place beside Hans, Cabe beside Peter. The crowd shouted for the men to remove Kuchka’s cloak and retreat from the yard.
The men stood firm, unblinking and unresponsive, while in the chute the maddened bull beat the breeding yard gate.
“Come away! Come away!” a captain shouted. “Or do you wish a turn on the chatkah before we loose the bull?”
“Perhaps they wish a turn on the bull!” Amata screeched, and the crowd roared with laughter.
Wood cracked as the bull hurled his savagely-aroused bulk against the gate. A group of soldiers rushed in, but the captain called them back. “Let’s have some sport! Release the bull!” He slammed the bottom of the door shut. Fists raised, the eager crowd roared approval.
“These lunatics act as excited as the bull,” Charles muttered.
The gatekeepers adjusted their footholds and pulled. Sinewy arms bulged as the heavy gate slowly lifted.
Anguished cries rose above the din. A mounted soldier, carrying an elderly chatkah behind him on the horse raced to the breed yard door and slid to a stop. The captain turned sharply in response to the chatkah’s howls. “What is it?” he snapped.
“Something ails the little ones,” she wailed, handing down a limp black bundle.
The captain stared at the blood dripping from the scaly nose.
“It’s dead,” the chatkah moaned.
The captain’s eyes shifted from the creature to the chatkah’s sallow face. “How many?” he demanded.
“All of them, sir.”
“All—” The captain whirled, eyes blazing.
The gatekeepers now stood frozen, for from their perch atop the ladders they noticed several bulls in the pens behind them weaving and staggering as if drunk. The bull in the chute bellowed and bawled while banging on the gate.
“Treachery!” the captain roared. “Gatekeepers! Why do you just stand? Release the bull!”
The gatekeepers complied; but before the bottom of the gate reached the height of a man’s thigh, the impatient bull lunged underneath and into the yard. For a moment he stood gaping at the condemned comrades through blood-red slits. Saliva streamed from his open mouth. His gaze lighted on Nedra, and a grotesque leer twisted his face. Slowly, deliberately, he inched toward her. Rock-hard muscles rippled in his massive chest and shoulders. With every step his guttural laugh grew louder.
“Oong-Kah! Oong-Kah!” the crowd chanted.
Hans threw back his shoulders and stepped forward. Nedra ripped open the cloak and flung it to the ground, revealing her bow and quiver of arrows. A collective gasp rose from the crowd.
Amata’s shriek rose above the rest. “You are not Kuchka! Oong-Kah! Kill her! Kill her, Oong-Kah!”
“Traitors! Enemies of the Great One!” rang from around the enclosure. “Kill them, Oong-Kah! Kill them all!”
Five other bulls now spilled into the yard, towering figures walking like men. Oong-Kah roared and shook his head, brandishing horns the length of a man’s arm. Two of the others answered, and soon the trio butted heads and tore at each other with their horns.
“Fools! Kill the man-traitors first, and then take your fill of women—beginning
with that one!” the captain screamed, pointing at Nedra. “She shall replace the young she has killed!”
Oong-Kah’s black upper lip curled back, revealing wide, yellow teeth. “Kooooch-ga!”
And then he charged, as swiftly and powerfully as the fastest steed. The other five followed.
Sword raised, Hans ran to meet them.
Streams of arrows coursed from the trees surrounding the stronghold. The air rang with shouts and curses as confused soldiers fumbled for their weapons and panicked keepers and chatkahs dove for cover. Hans stabbed at Oong-Kah as he approached, but the powerful beast threw up his arm, striking the broad edge of the sword and sending it flying. Nedra loosed an arrow, which bounced off Oong-Kah’s chest and fell harmlessly to the ground.
Hans, Charles, Cabe, and Peter hacked desperately, but the weapons that had served them so well in the past could not penetrate the leathery hides. Indeed, the clouds of arrows pelting them did little more than annoy the creatures, who swatted them aside like mosquitoes.
Oong-Kah leveled a blow at Hans’ head. Hans sidestepped, but the fist glanced off his jaw, sending him reeling backward. Another blow struck Charles square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. The five other bulls closed in. Cabe and Peter dodged among them, trying to draw them from their fallen comrades. The bulls keenly matched every move. Despite their bulk and cumbersome appearance, they were as lithe and graceful as mountain goats.
“Get up!” Peter shouted. “We can’t hold them back. Get up!”
Hans jumped to his feet, shook his head, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
One bull’s eyes widened. He charged straight at Hans, who fell and rolled, barely evading the clawed hands grasping for his throat. Nedra shot an arrow into the creature’s eye, and the tortured beast ran amok, striking and gouging at everything in its path.
By now Charles had regained his wind and found his feet. The bodies of enemy soldiers slain by the woodsmen’s arrows littered the yard. Another, gored through the belly and torn from his perch by a frenzied bull, lay crumpled against the door.
Charles cast his gaze toward the chute. His heart plummeted. More than twenty bulls faced them now. To his left, Oong-Kah held Nedra in an iron grip, pinning her to the breeding barn wall. Nedra cried and squirmed as the mammoth beast maneuvered himself in front of her.
Bellowing with rage, Hans lunged at Oong-Kah. Thrusting his blade between the massive legs, he sliced upward, then turned the blade sideways and sawed.
Oong-Kah’s high-pitched scream rose above the tumult. Blood gushed down his thighs. He lost hold of Nedra, who leapt to one side and ran just as a horn impaled the wall where her throat had been. Bawling and bellowing, Oong-Kah wrenched his horn free, sending a shower of splinters in every direction.
Hans planted himself before the raging beast and readied his sword. “You want a fight?” he shouted. “Come and get one!”
Chest heaving, Oong-Kah lurched toward him. Hans watched him come, carefully anticipating the beast’s next move. Oong-Kah slowed, his proud head drooping as his life flowed from him.
Gripping the haft with both hands, Hans raised the weapon above his head and plunged the blade into Oong-Kah’s throat below the jawbone near the right ear. White-hot pain shot up his left arm from wrist to elbow. Hans ignored it as he twisted the blade and drove it upward.
A gurgling, strangled cry erupted from the lacerated throat. Blood bubbled out and ran down Hans’ blade as Oong-Kah flailed and thrashed. Oong-Kah hurled a massive fist at Hans’ face, but Hans dropped and the blow sailed harmlessly overhead.
Grunting, Hans rose to one knee and jerked his sword free. His brow ran with sweat, his left wrist throbbed. But he steadied himself and again prepared to strike.
Oong-Kah staggered backward. For a moment the red slits opened, revealing large black circles as dull and lifeless as coals. He stared at Hans, then down at himself in disbelief. His knees buckled and his eyes closed. Oong-Kah, Rissling’s proud, undefeatable champion, collapsed into a crumpled, lifeless heap in a wallow of his own blood.
An arrow sang past Hans’ ear. Behind him, Nedra fitted an arrow to her bowstring and aimed, sending the missile into the heart of an enemy soldier on the wall. Hans reached for his own bow, but his left arm refused to respond.
“Your wrist is broken.” Nedra opened one of the barn doors. “Quick. In here.”
“I can still use my sword, lass,” he snapped. “I’ll not hide while the rest of you fight.”
“A sword does little against arrows,” she shot back.
“I can keep Ryadok’s beasts off the rest of you.” But even as he spoke, Hans could see the bulls no longer posed a threat. Most lay on the ground, bawling and convulsing. Two, prodded furiously by the keepers, tried to rise only to fall again. The handful still on their feet staggered drunkenly. One lumbered to the endmost half-door and fell over it, goring an onlooker who failed to move in time.
Sword in hand, Hans rushed to Charles’ side. “God be praised! That Nimbian dirt finally did its stuff!”
“Fall back!” Charles grabbed Hans’ free arm and pushed him to the barn.
“Ach, man, not that arm!” Hans howled as he stumbled forward.
Cabe and Peter had already stationed themselves at the tiny windows. An arrow protruded from Cabe’s right shoulder, and Peter’s cheek bled where a horn had grazed it.
Hans tried again to use his bow, and again his injured arm failed. “Ach, I’m useless!” he fumed.
“I told you. . .it’s broken.” Nedra shot two more arrows through her window.
Peter peered out. “The fighting’s turned away from us.”
Hans craned his neck to look out past Nedra. “What’s this? Children on the wall?”
“Not children. The little folk of our realm.” Peter turned to Hans and grinned. “Look closely, Hans. Do children have beards?”
Hans peered through the window and now saw the chiseled features and rough beards of an innumerable host of people standing no more than three feet tall. They dressed much like the woodsmen, in leather breeches and jackets, but long-tailed stocking caps replaced the fur hats worn by their taller compatriots. Grim-faced and determined, they hacked and slashed with a ferocity that amazed even Hans.
“Aye, now I see.” Despite his pain, Hans laughed heartily.
“Arronmyl has entered the yard,” Peter said.
Charles drew his sword. “Let’s rejoin him, lads, and put an end to this business.”
By day’s end, none of Rissling’s gruesome inhabitants drew breath. The impending orgy unfolding in the breeding yard had so consumed the enemy that the attack set them in disarray. Arronmyl’s company rained arrows from the trees, while an army of over four hundred Little Folk of San-Leyon stormed the stronghold through all four gates, slashing legs and bellies with razor-sharp swords. In desperation the keepers had opened all of the paddock gates in hopes the beasts would crush the invading force. But the Nimbian granules had done their work. Those creatures not already dead staggered about, foam dripping from gaping mouths as they bawled and flailed helplessly at empty air.
Victory came quickly, for several soldiers, keepers and chatkahs had also drunk from the poisoned well. Charles took great comfort in the fact that no more woodsmen had died and only a few suffered minor injuries, which he treated with the healing powder.
Back at their campsite, Marcos pulled the arrow from Cabe’s shoulder. Elvia, Tabitha and Raina, along with the women of the Little Folk, tended the wounded men.
“Good to have my old horse back.” Hans patted Parsius with his good hand.
“I’ll see to Parsius. You see to your arm.” Charles took the reins from Hans and nodded to a large tree a few steps away. “Sit down there. I’ll be right over.”
Hans nodded gratefully and ambled to the tree, where he wearily sat down and tried to remove his coat.
Nedra emerged soundlessly from the shadows and knelt beside him. “Let me see,” she said and carefully pulled h
is coat sleeve over the injured wrist.
“Oi!” Hans winced but managed a weak smile. “’Tis nothing, I’m sure. But thank you for your kind attention.”
Nedra bent her head over the bruised and swollen limb, caressing her long, slender fingers along its length as she carefully pushed the fractured ends back into place.
“Ach,” Hans grunted through gritted teeth.
“I’m sorry. I tried to be gentle.” Nedra fitted the rough splint she had made from branches and pieces of torn clothing to his arm and tied it. “This should hold it. When Charles brings the healing powder, the pain should stop.” She forced a smile but did not meet his eyes as she arranged his jacket over him to ward off the evening chill.
“Aye. Thank you again.”
Nedra drew a deep breath and sat back. “You saved me,” she said finally in a broken whisper.
“I would have died for you, my lady.”
Hans stared intently as Nedra slowly lifted her head. Her voice trembled as she said, “You very nearly did.”
“And I would do it again.”
Her eyes welled with tears. Hans watched, fascinated, as her tongue darted across her full lips. She looked up, and Hans had never seen a more beautiful expression. He continued staring as her face came closer. Her soft warm hands slid over his cheeks, gently caressing his rough beard. Then her lips pressed against his, and even through closed eyes Hans could see the brilliant bursts of a thousand stars around him.
THE BEAST IN THE DUNGEON
Arris flattened himself against the stone wall. Instinctively he knew what he sought lay beyond this corridor, but the prospect of finding it filled him with dread. An aura of unspeakable misery filled the place. He heard not a sound; yet somewhere within the confines of some dank, dark cell he sensed cries of agony amid pleas for the relief that only death could bring.
The corridor yawned before him, its shadowy depths eerily illumined by oil-burning torches lining both sides. Lacking doors, windows, or furnishings of any kind—save the torches—it resembled a tunnel running into the castle’s interior.
