Qul bent at the waist and curled his fingers into balled fists. He set his hooves against the stone and ground them in, feeling sharp bits of rock scraping against his feet. While minotaurs preferred to walk in a bipedal fashion when going about their daily lives, they all knew how to run like wild bulls to cover great distances with practically limitless endurance.
With his head lowered, Qul thundered through the arena floor. He passed all manner of traps, broken pieces of equipment, and fallen combatants as he neared the final two opponents. He thought he could hear his clansmen stomping their hooves in excitement above him, but he couldn’t distinguish any sounds from the hammering of his own strides with any certainty. As he ran, he felt the strength of the earth welling up into his muscles. Each mighty step brought a fresh dose of exhilaration to his legs and sharpened his resolve.
Qul neared the edge of the arena where two of the fighters were locked in a brilliant display of martial prowess. One creature, a tall soldier Qul had trained with before on several occasions, swung a long length of chain about his body with pinpoint accuracy. The other fighter, one Qul did not recognize, moved a set of small daggers in and out of the whirling chain like a bird pecking the ground for worms.
The display was magnificent, and in an instant, Qul smashed the artful dance into oblivion. “Remember your horns!” he yelled. He felt a spurt of warm gore shower down upon his head as he impaled the dagger-wielding fighter’s ribcage. The creature tried to strike back at him, but Qul’s rage was too much for the startled warrior to comprehend. With a bellow, Qul shook the creature from his horns and tossed the wounded minotaur to the ground.
A length of metal chain whipped around Qul’s bare wrist and cut several lines into his hide. Had he been wearing steel gauntlets and bracers, the unusual weapon would have been largely ineffective, but Qul didn’t mind the pain. He relished the pain. The chain hit him again in his left leg and Qul made no attempt to block or dodge the attack. He stepped forward into the weapon, accepting its full force against his skin, and wrapped his meaty hand around the wielder’s throat. Qul knew the minotaur’s name but could not remember it through the haze of violence that so pleasurably clouded his mind. In that moment, all he could envision was victory.
Something lashed against the back of Qul’s legs. He tightened his grip, crushing the minotaur’s windpipe. A dagger plunged into the meat of Qul’s lower back and he faltered, but only for a heartbeat. He flexed his arm again, and the minotaur in his grip went limp. Qul threw the beast to the side, turned, and faced the dagger-wielding enemy with a menacing growl. Blood moved freely from the lacerations covering his body, and the ground beneath his hooves was slick with it.
Qul’s opponent cowered, shrinking away from his rage like a scared farm animal. In an instant, Qul bashed the minotaur with his fist and knocked him to the ground. Several seconds later, the Brood-Fight ended and the magical arena dissipated, leaving a torch-lined pit full of wounded minotaurs and more than a handful of corpses.
Queen Ilo looked down from her dais with an expression Qul could not discern. He let the strength run from his arms and finally felt the full extent of his injuries. The clan shaman strode into the arena quickly, concern on his wizened visage. Qul reached for the older minotaur, and the shaman took his weight without complaint.
The shaman began his speech proclaiming Qul as the new champion of the Brood-Fight, but Qul could barely focus. His head swam and his mouth tasted like copper. He looked to the lip of the arena where the rest of the clan was gathered and noticed for the first time that they were cheering his name. Breathing heavily, he gazed out among the scattered soldiers in search of his sister. Far from where he stood, he thought he saw Kitri nursing a garish wound, but he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she was dead. Qul tried to remember the faces of all the minotaurs he had fought, but their images eluded his slowing mind. Something inside him was changing, or had changed. He could feel it.
“Magic?” Qul muttered to the shaman at his side, wondering if some sort of enchantment had been cast upon his mind. The old minotaur looked at him quizzically for a moment, then dove back into his rousing speech. Qul couldn’t figure out the meanings behind the words the shaman spoke. He heard the sounds, but his focus wouldn’t last longer than a handful of heartbeats before it faded.
With a crash, Qul collapsed to the ground. He was vaguely aware of the shaman tending to him a moment later, but his consciousness fled almost immediately.
Chapter 2
Qul awoke sometime later in unfamiliar surroundings. His eyes opened slowly as though he had been asleep for a long, long time. To his left, a sheer rock face presented itself, and it was cold to the touch. To his right, Qul could make out the general shape of an underground corridor illuminated by a single torch. He searched the small alcove for his armor or sword, but he found nothing.
When he had gathered his faculties enough to stand and stretch, he began to wander cautiously through the stone corridor, stopping every few feet to listen for what might lie ahead. After several agonizingly uneventful minutes, Qul reached a bend in the corridor and peered into the next passage.
An iron-banded door stood at the end, cast in the flickering shadows of a lone torch. He could hear voices coming from behind it. The minotaurs—he guessed there to be at least four of them—sounded calm, and Qul felt his nerves and muscles relaxing. For a moment, he thought of waiting for the others, or someone, to come through the door first, but his impatience had him pushing through the portal just a few breaths later.
The next room was magnificently adorned. Six massive minotaurs sat at various workstations cleaning and repairing huge pieces of steel. They looked up as Qul entered but soon returned to their work and conversations without giving the newcomer another thought. On the walls, torches hung in bronze sconces next to stone statues portraying kings and queens of the clan throughout the ages. Suits of armor hung on metal stands in the center of the workshop, and row after row of various weapons stood on long racks.
“What is this place?” Qul asked the nearest worker. “Where am I?”
The minotaur glanced up from a gorget he was oiling. “You must be the new recruit,” he said with a gruff voice betraying his age. “Welcome to the armory.”
“Who else could I be?” Qul replied. “The room where I awoke had no other exit. Why was I placed there?”
The minotaur scoffed, but his mouth broke into a grin. “Perhaps you simply did not see another exit.” Qul narrowed his eyes against the implied embarrassment. “Or perhaps you did not know where to look,” the minotaur clarified with a gentle tone.
“What is this place?” Qul asked again, rapidly growing annoyed by the lack of answers. The minotaur before him set down the gorget and stood. He was an older member of the clan, built of corded muscle but over a foot shorter than Qul and similarly thinner.
“I’ll show you around,” the minotaur replied, dipping his horns toward Qul in respect. “You’re one of us now.”
“What does that mean?” Qul demanded. The other minotaur moved toward the door at the far end of the armory, but Qul did not attempt to follow him.
Finally, the beast turned back and sighed, addressing Qul with look of pity. “You won the Brood-Fight!” he said. “You’re one of us, one of the royal guard. How much blood did you lose?”
Qul shook his head slowly. “I—” he stopped, instinctively rubbing the back of his head. He felt his sore back flare to life. Images of the wounds he’d suffered flashed through his head in rapid succession. He realized his injuries had healed almost completely, despite how much his back still ached. “How long ago was the fight?” he asked hesitantly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
The rest of the room stared at them. “Ten days?” the minotaur responded hesitantly. “Maybe it was only nine.”
Qul shook his head. “What happened to Kitri? Did she survive?” he asked.
The minotaur laughed and nodded. “I’ll take you to her,” he replied. “C
ome, follow me.”
Qul let out a sigh and moved toward the door, following the other minotaur out of the workshop and into the rest of the underground compound. “Are we close to the queen?” he asked, inspecting the doors nearest to the workshop’s entrance. Most of them were made of reinforced wood and iron, but one stood out as far more ornate than the rest.
“Queen Ilo lives at the end of this passageway,” Qul’s guide responded. The minotaur pointed to a tall door featuring a large horned knocker that stood at the far end of the tunnel. “You’ll be staying to the right of her chambers in the barracks with the rest of us.”
“My sister is there as well?” Qul asked.
“Of course,” the guide replied. “I was on patrol with Kitri outside the mountain yesterday, so we both have no duties today.”
Qul pushed open the door to the barracks with a sense of wonder. The room inside was lined with cots to the left and right, and the center held finished pieces of polished equipment waiting to be used. From the back-right corner, Kitri stood and made her way to the front.
“Welcome home, brother,” she said with a genuine smile. She pointed to one of the cots which held a suit of armor and several different weapons. “If you feel up to it, we can begin your formal training today.”
Qul nodded and went to his bed. All of his equipment had been modified and improved. His armor, once covered in ornamental labyrinthine patterns, had been patched and imbued with magical runes. Qul traced his fingers over the runes, feeling their power, but he had no way to know their effects.
“You fought well,” Kitri told him. “I fell before I could see you in the Brood-Fight, but the others talked about your performance for quite a few days. It is a shame you were not awake to join their celebration.”
Qul rubbed the small of his back where fingers of pain still danced upon his spine. “Where do we train?” he asked. Qul had only witnessed Kitri training for her royal duties a small handful of times. Everything about Ilo’s guard was kept very secretive—succession of the monarchy within the clan was almost always determined by regicide rather than heredity.
“Grab your gear,” Kitri said. “I’ll take you to the training grounds.”
Qul picked up a few pieces of the newly enchanted armor and turned them over in his hands. They felt heavy and strong, but he thought of how such a cage had held him back in the Brood-Fight. He finally settled on taking his helmet, gorget, and gauntlets, leaving everything else behind.
“Which weapon should I bring?” Qul asked. His cot held the sword he had fought with in the pit, though it appeared similarly imbued, and several other weapons he had not seen before.
“These are your exercise poles,” Kitri explained, pointing out two smooth, metal rods slightly longer than she was tall. “When you aren’t on duty, train with those. They weigh far more than any sword or axe you would swing in combat, but that is their purpose.”
Qul tested one of the heavy poles in his grip. He figured the polished piece of steel weighed more than his massive breastplate. Wielding two of them at once with anything akin to accuracy and control seemed impossible, even for a minotaur as strong as him.
At the base of the mountain, bathed in sunlight and flowing with fresh air, stood a wooden paddock Qul had never seen before. On the southern side of the arena, all manner of weights and practice weapons stood in long racks. Attached to the northern wall, Qul saw a covered pavilion draped with Ilo’s royal banners.
“I’ve been outside the mountain hundreds of times,” Qul began. “Why have I never seen this before?” He walked to the pavilion and ran his meaty fingers through the rich purple fabric. Similar to his breastplate, the clan’s labyrinthine designs were etched all over the wooden posts. Staring at the structure with equal parts confusion and wonder, Qul was beginning to question how much he actually knew about his clan. He had never known where the queen lived or where her guards trained. In fact, he had never known any of the inner workings of the mountain. He had spent almost his entire life training to join the guard, but he knew almost nothing about how the clan functioned.
Kitri smiled and stepped into the paddock. “You’re young, brother,” she explained. “There are many things you do not know, many things I have never taught you. Only members of the royal guard are allowed to come here. When you trained for the Brood-Fight, you probably saw this place many times.”
“I’ve been here, but I never saw!” Qul grunted. He followed his sister into the ring and hefted one of the poles onto his shoulder.
“Exactly,” Kitri smiled. “Only members of the royal guard may come here, and even then, very powerful magic hides it from view.”
“Why?” Qul asked. He understood the need for secrecy among the guard members, but hiding a training ground seemed excessive.
“Look around, Qul,” Kitri said, pointing her own metal pole at the nearby mountains. “We are not the only clan which lives in these mountains.”
Qul swung his pole into the ground, feeling its weight and using the momentum to stretch the muscles of his arms. “Orcs,” he said with a hint of disgust.
“Yes,” Kitri replied. “There are orcs who live farther north in the snowier regions, but that is not all. Humans have been known to travel near our mountain, though the ones who do are usually lost.”
Qul laughed. “Humans,” he spat. “I could crush a score of humans with these poles without breaking a sweat.”
Kitri swung her pole in an easy circle in front of her, moving it within inches of Qul’s legs. “Don’t be so sure,” she cautioned.
Qul took a step back and readied his poles before him, struggling to keep each of them straight in his hands. He began to strike at Kitri’s head, but she easily sidestepped the attack with a scowl.
“Wait,” she commanded. “We do not fight with the poles. This is the beginning of your training, brother. Hold the poles vertically.” She set her own weapons down and adjusted Qul’s wrists, making him hold the poles perfectly vertical.
It only took a moment for Qul’s wrist to begin burning. His body was used to wrestling and swinging swords and axes, not maintaining a difficult posture as though he was a statue. “What now?” he asked when the poles finally stopped wobbling.
Kitri backed away and lifted one of her poles from the ground. “Hold steady,” she told him, a sly grin creeping onto her face. “Don’t let me hit you.”
The metal poles exploded with a flurry of sparks. Qul tried to keep his footing while balancing the poles in the air, but his forearms collapsed after only three blows. When he managed to reset, Kitri came back at him again with wild abandon, swinging directly for Qul’s head but purposefully attacking from such an angle that Qul’s own poles were always in the way. Again, Qul’s defense lasted less than a handful of seconds.
“The poles are too long!” Qul said, dropping them lower in his grip. “I can’t keep them steady!”
“The poles are just as long as they should be,” Kitri snickered. “You are simply too weak. The size of your chest does you no good here, brother,” she continued. “You must learn to develop your entire body if you wish to protect the queen. It will not be humans or orcs coming to kill Queen Ilo.”
Qul nodded. “It will be another minotaur,” he finished.
“And a strong one,” she said. “Perhaps even a member of the royal guard.” When Queen Ilo had ascended the throne, she had slain the previous king with a poisoned dagger while he had slept, but she had first killed two of the royal guards in open combat.
Images of potential regicide flickered through Qul’s head as he trained, the session lasting nearly an hour. Qul would bring his poles high in front of his body, and Kitri would bash them, knocking her brother off balance with a rapid succession of blows. By the end of their training, Qul’s arms felt like molten iron. He could barely lift his own hands to his face, much less the training weapons.
Chapter 3
Almost two months into his training, Qul finally met Queen Ilo face to face
for the first time. He was training outside the mountain, running up and down the sides of the rocky slope to build his endurance, when the queen’s entourage caught sight of him. Qul had of course seen her several times before, but meeting her up close was something altogether different.
Queen Ilo was beautiful.
Qul’s voice caught in his throat when he tried to speak. “My liege,” he said quietly, unable to speak his words with full volume.
“Get off your knees,” Ilo commanded sternly. “You do not need to bow before me out here,” she said. Two of her personal guards, huge minotaurs seemingly built from nothing but corded muscle, stood at either side of her with sour expressions.
Qul stood before the queen nervously. He had been training alone as he frequently did, something he thought was accepted practice for members of the royal guard. “Have I met with your displeasure?” Qul asked. He wasn’t sure what to do. Everything about Ilo’s appearance enchanted him. The curve of her horns, pale and glittering in the sunlight, always left him wanting to see more. Her hide was pristine, blending the tawny shades of their clan perfectly from dark to light all across her body.
Ilo didn’t seem to notice Qul’s staring eyes. “Why do you train out here?” she asked him. “Why do you exercise alone?”
Qul couldn’t think of an answer. “I—” he stammered. “I like the smell of the air,” he said stupidly. It was true, but it certainly wasn’t an acceptable response. Shifting from hoof to hoof, he knew he must have looked suspicious, though he had done nothing wrong.
“The other guards say you rarely speak to them,” Ilo said flatly. “They say you spend most of your time out here exercising, sometimes with your sister, but mostly alone.”
“Yes, my queen,” Qul replied, finding words easier to form when he averted his gaze from Ilo’s beautiful form. “They are correct.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“I have only been on your guard for two months,” Qul responded. “I do not know the others very well. I prefer the solitude of the mountains.”
The Minotaur King Page 2
