Sharrow-met held up the scimitar’s blade, dark with the blood of Shar-gur and blackwing alike, then tossed it away with a grimace of disgust before slumping down on the steps, weary and waiting for the peoples’ judgement.
“Abominate!” She turned to see Harazil rising from the corpse of his blackwing, face half-burned and smoking, one arm charred to the bone, but the other whole and strong enough to raise his axe as he stumbled towards her. “You are deaf to the Voice!”
Sharrow-met’s eyes went to where her scimitar lay and found her weariness so deep she had no desire to reach for it. So she simply sat and watched the maimed Shar-gur lurch towards her, spitting hate with every faltering step. “You were always unworthy! The Voice should have chosen me! I will make him an offering of your traitorous heart! I wi—”
The Raptorile fell on him in a blur of lashing tails and flashing teeth, a full war-pack of thirty redbacks, soon joined by more. Harazil was transformed into a flailing, dark shadow in the midst of their frenzy, killing many but never enough. Sharrow-met looked away as the shadow was shredded to nothing. She wondered at her own surprise, for the Raptorile, like Keera, had always been hers, she it was who led them to much meat and so many trinkets after all.
They formed a tight cordon around her as the city-folk drew closer, warning hisses and raised tail-spikes enough to force them back. She could see the tall, pale figures of former Tormented amongst them, some still plainly astonished at their liberation, others clutching weapons with enraged intent.
“Move back!” She turned to see Dralgen emerging from the temple doors. He waved his arms at the people, voice croaking with weariness but still loud enough to hold a note of command. “This is Princess Mara! Risen to save us. Move back!”
At her nod the Raptorile made way for the mage and he came to her side with a bow. “My queen.”
She groaned and got to her feet, surveying the people crowding the steps, more thronging the streets beyond, their ranks swelled by the unchained Tormented. Their expressions varied: fear, joy, relief, but through it all a simmering and growing anger.
“Hardly,” she told Dralgen. “I think, perhaps, these people are deserving of a new dynasty.”
She turned to the Raptorile, gesturing for the most senior pack-chief to come forward. “Send word to gather your sisters,” she said. “We leave this city by nightfall. They may keep their loot but take nothing else. None are to feed.”
The pack-chief assumed the customary servile posture, but paused before bounding off, her tail describing the shape that indicated puzzlement. “Where now for the hunt, Sharrow-met?”
She glanced down at her scimitar and one of the redbacks quickly scooped it up and brought it to her, crouching low as she proffered the hilt. Sharrow-met returned the weapon to the scabbard on her back and turned to the east, where the sun rose high over distant mountains. “There are many shiny things,” she said, “in a place called the Black Vale, far to the east. The treasure of a hundred kingdoms. Follow me there, and you can have it all.”
The pack-chief bobbed lower but still hesitated. “And what reward awaits you there, sister?”
“Silence,” she replied, feeling a smile spread across her lips. “I shall be content with silence.”
The Farmboy Prince
Brian Staveley
We weren’t fucking stupid.
It was obvious even early on, even when we were just pimply kids, that Royal wasn’t one of us. His skin was too smooth, for one thing; while we were busy popping zits and digging dirty fingernails into our blackheads, Royal’s skin seemed to glow. Dirt just didn’t stick to him the same way it did to us. Even when he’d been slopping hogs all day long, he didn’t stink the way we did. He wouldn’t wash his hair for half a year, and it still looked like silk. Mine? I had to hack it off with a kitchen knife each spring.
Did I mention his name was Royal?
If that weren’t enough, there were the midnight visitors to consider. Two Streams is the sort of place that city-folk call a hamlet; I’d call it a shithole. A couple of streets, mostly mud mixed with piss. A slouching tavern, half burned-down when Twisted Nick got drunk and set the kitchen on fire. Pigs everywhere. It’s not the sort of place with much to offer a well-dressed traveler on his high horse, but ever since Royal showed up—Sera’s cousin’s orphan from out west, they told us—we started seeing more of these strangers, men and women in silk and muslin worth more than our whole farm, coming and going long after the last lights had burned down.
They’d sit in the tavern trying not to grimace, holding one of Nick’s filthy tankards as though he’d filled it up with some pox-victim’s phlegm instead of ale, which, considering Nick’s ale, was about right. They’d ask questions they had no reason to ask: How’s the harvest this year? You have any good farmers? As if they gave any sort of a shit about the harvest or our farmers. Eventually, they’d make some sort of excuse to head out Sera’s way, where they’d pretend to study the pigs without ever taking their eyes off Royal.
It was obvious. Even Brick-Leg Jack knew the kid was a prince—maybe a prince in hiding, but still a prince—and Brick-Leg Jack was too drunk to remember his own name half the time.
The only people who didn’t seem to be in on the joke were the sinister sons-of-bitches in black cloaks who showed up from time to time. They’d hiss, and gnash their teeth, and skulk around for a few days, asking questions that were even more obvious than the questions from the rich bastards with the nice horses: “Have you sssseeen any orphanssss?” they’d ask. “Ssstrange orphanss?”
We knew who they were talking about. How could you not? There was only one strange orphan in town. We could have handed Royal’s lily-scented ass over to them, but we didn’t, mostly because it was more fun just to fuck with these guys.
“Sure,” we’d say, pointing. “That little hog over there lost his mother just last week.” It was worth it for the hisses of vexation. By god, those pale, pockmarked sons-of-bitches were dumb.
There was just one—a tall, gaunt hisser with fingers like claws—who seemed to understand we were pulling his leg. He went for his sword, which was a bad mistake. I don’t know what kinds of towns he’d been lurking in earlier, but if you go for your sword in Two Streams, you’d better be ready to drop some motherfuckers. We were on him in a blink with bricks, sticks, fists—whatever came to hand, really. He left town half-dead, and we never saw him again. Looking back, maybe we should have let him have the little prince. Would have sidestepped what happened later, at least.
And then there was Royal himself. Despite about a thousand signs, he had no idea who he was. Seemed to think he was just a hog farmer like the rest of us, despite the fact he had the only teeth in town that were straight and white and all accounted for.
Funny thing was, he wasn’t a bad farmer. Those of us who grew up in Two Streams hated getting up in the mid-winter cold, freezing our tits and dicks off slopping hogs that would try to take a chunk out of your leg more often than not. Royal didn’t hate things; he didn’t seem able to hate. Like I said, he was different than us; that poor bastard would have slopped a whole kingdom full of hogs and thanked you for the chance to do it. It was easy to take advantage of him, but he didn’t care—would just look at you with those serious eyes and ask if there was any other way he could help.
At first we didn’t trust his work ethic. Seemed too much like the set-up to a joke or a punch in the face. Every day, though, he was out there, in the gray rain or on the hottest day of summer, working his noble balls off. He never cheated. Never lied. We’d shave the dice so he lost every game, and he never complained. He was kind to everyone. A strange guy, but hard to hate, and for a long time it worked out fine.
Then, sometime around his sixteenth birthday, the strangers started coming more often, sometimes two or three riding through in a month. And there were rumors, too, little shards of news out of the east: Discontent. Rebellion. War. The end of the usurpers. The true king to rise; the old flag to fly aga
in.
Well, we might have been born in the sticks, but we knew just what the fuck that meant. To be clear, we didn’t give a pickled shit about who sat on the throne. The throne was hundreds of miles away. One royal family or another, we’d still have wood to split before winter. We’d still be slopping hogs, swilling Twisted Nick’s shitty ale, feeling each other up in haylofts. We weren’t against Royal’s family and we weren’t for it. People might say that what happened next happened because we were jealous, but it’s not true. What happened next happened because we knew what it would mean for the old flag to fly again. We knew what it would take.
I tried to warn him.
“Royal,” I said. “You gotta get outta here. Get south. Now. Before the weather turns.”
He just smiled at me. “Why?”
I wanted to tell him, but how do you tell someone that dumb that he’s a prince, that he’s being groomed to be king?
“The speckled pox,” I said instead. “It’s coming this way.”
His eyes widened, but he didn’t flinch. Did I mention he was brave?
“Then we’ll face it together,” he replied, clapping his hand on my shoulder as though we were friends, as though he knew the first thing about me. “This is my home too.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, it’s not.”
He looked a little hurt. “I know I wasn’t born here . . .”
“That’s not it . . .”
“I know I wasn’t born here,” he said again, talking over me. He could be firm when he wanted. You could imagine him sitting on a throne, handing down edicts or orders or whatever. “But because of you, because of friends like you, I’ve made this my home.”
The next day, a group of us, a group of his friends, got together. We told him we were looking for a lost hog down by the south swamp, and of course he wanted to help. Didn’t matter that it was pissing down rain, that the ground was more mud than dirt—he was going to help us find that hog. Almost made you feel bad for him, but this was no time for feeling bad.
We waited until we were deep in the swamp, and then we did it. He was strong and fast, but he was trusting, and we’d been butchering ornery hogs all our lives. There was a quick orgy of knives, Royal clutching his chest, staring at us, perplexed, then sinking to his knees. It would have made a fine song, but the only instrument in town had been Peet’s warped lute, and his wife had busted that over his head a year earlier. No songs for Royal, which was just as well, considering.
We heaved the carcass into the swamp. If he didn’t sink, the animals would go to work on him, and the rest would rot before anyone came looking.
If someone was writing the history, I’m sure we’d be the villains, and I did feel a little bad. I think we all did. He was a good kid, after all, real kingly material. Here’s the thing though—no one thinks about what happens when a great king returns to claim his throne. He doesn’t just ask politely for the usurper to step aside—usurpers don’t do that. That’s the whole point of being a usurper. No, for a great king to claim his throne, there has to be a war, when there’s a war, a bunch of poor bastards are going to die, and we had no illusions about who the poor bastards were.
We hated slopping those hogs, but slopping the hogs was better than catching a spear in the guts or an arrow in the eye. It was better than sleeping night after night in the mud while our feet rotted off. It was better than wandering over half a kingdom killing people or getting killed, raping farmers who lived in the wrong place, taking their shit or burning it down. You get a war going, and that’s what happens—all to put a different pair of buttocks on the fucking throne. We weren’t heroes, but at least we helped stop a war.
Life in Two Streams was shit, but it was life. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices; it’s a tough break, but that goes double for princes.
Heart’s Desire
Kat Richardson
I have no choice but to kill you, heart of my heart. It is all that is admirable in you--love, compassion, resolve--that seals your fate. Now I trudge up the tower stairs blinded by tears that burn with bitterest salt. I hear the golden eagle's wings beat the air as he lands on the parapet, the stone still chilly in the pine shadows thrown by the rising sun.
I cuff the water from my eyes, though the bird will not care that I weep. "Where is he?" I ask.
Many leagues, by morning's light,
No closer still by dark of night,
Across the river that mountain stream
Delights by glacial freshet.
"Bother you and your metrical poesy, bird." The eagle is too much like me--a killer who fancies himself a poetical soul. Perhaps you will find me as amusing to begin with, as vain and flowery as the bird. "Does he know of me? Does he come hither?"
The bird spreads his wings and bobs his head. He prepares, Mover of Stones. His distance is yet great and I have had to seek many of my cousins to learn his flight.
"On the far side of the river, beyond the mountains. . . ."
The eagle bobs his head again.
"I had not expected him to rise so far away," I say. "Is it not strange that this should be?" Oh, liar that I am, this comes as no surprise, but I enjoy the bird's discomfort at being asked a question any deeper than a dish of salt.
The eagle shuffles side to side and tilts his head. Perhaps one of my cousins carried him in her gullet when first you cast your stone.
I throw my hands up in frustration. "And perhaps the wind gave wings to pebbles and the gravel speaks to the river that passes over it--each just as likely since nature gave beauty to such a one as you."
The eagle ruffles his feathers in annoyance. Why belabor me, Mover of Stones? It is no fault of mine if my answer does not please. I shall take my lovely self away if I offend you so. Piqued, the bird extends his wings again and makes as if to vault into the sky.
"Oh, bird, bird, don't be so quick," I say. "I am intemperate this morning." No more so than ever, but the eagle is easily hoodwinked since of Power, Beauty, Brains he has only two. I take one of the scraps of rabbit flesh from my pocket and hold it aloft. "And I have brought you a tidbit."
He lets out a cry of delight and leaps into the air as I toss the meat upward. The morning light gleams from his golden feathers as he wheels and snatches the bait. You will find him as easy to dupe, I have no doubt.
The eagle lands again and tears the meat, devouring it. And I speak to my spell, which twines through him as he dines upon it. He feels it stir and change him, growing like the thicket that springs up around my tower, but he is too greedy to stop eating the enchanted flesh until it is too late. Oh, wretched creature! The bird screams and springs upward, talons extended. You have poisoned me!
I lunge and throw my arms around his neck as he expands. My weight pulls him back to the tower's roof and though he rakes me, rends me into pieces, I do not bleed.
The eagle shrieks and flutters, content that he should escape my grip if he cannot kill me, though that is, of course, as impossible as the other.
Now he is as large as a hunting hound.
And now as large as a horse.
I let go and lie on the roof as the torn shreds of my body draw together again.
The eagle flaps his wings, but he is too heavy, now, to fly. I shall take your eyes, betrayer!
I roll myself small beneath him and say, "But how shall I behold your loveliness if you blind me, Eagle? And you are lovely--more beautiful than the sunlight on water."
The eagle hops back and perches on the parapet as I rise again. He cocks his head to stare at me with eyes now as large as golden cauldrons. You think me lovely now? But I am huge and cannot fly! What beauty is that? He tilts his head in curiosity. Water comes from your eyes. Is it pain that brings it--I hope so!
"It is your beauty that brings tears to my eyes," I lie to him, for it is only regret. But he is much too foolish to question my flattery. "And I can restore your flight."
I throw the other piece of meat onto the farthest apron of the tower roo
f.
The eagle regards it with hunger, but he does not lunge for it yet, though I can see his constant appetite in his gaze. What will you inflict upon me this time, Mover of Stones?
Already he forgets his ire. "Only what I have promised," I say. "I will restore your flight and you will remain as mighty and beautiful as you are now. But there is a task. . . ."
The eagle lets out a small sharp cry. As always!
"You are bound to me by our mutual nature, no matter what you will," I remind him. "And do you not delight in proving your strength and cunning as I do . . . ?"
He eyes me and clacks his beak as if he imagines how delicious my innards shall one day be. I doubt he has the brain to realize that prey that cannot die is prey that can be tormented for eternity. Alas for us both when he does.
He shuffles foot to foot and spreads his wings, casting a shade over the tower. What would you have me do?
"Go to him. Lay a trap. Let him think you in his debt or power. In discharge of this debt, carry him safe across the river and the mountain, so that he will come here all the sooner. But tell him nothing of me."
But to fly so far . . . and carry one of your kind . . . !
"It will be as nothing to you--see how vast and powerful you are! Once you dine upon the meat, you can fly across the valley in a single beat of your wings."
The eagle considers it, turning his head side to side. Then he snatches up the bit of rabbit and gulps it down. My spell enfolds him, illuminates his form in light more golden than the rising spears of the sun.
He launches into the sky and beats high into the brightening blue. Oh, how glorious is this thing I have made for your doom! And the horror of it pains me until fresh tears well from my eyes and I clutch the stone edge of the tower so that I shall not fall to my knees. I am a wretch, and you bring me to this.
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