“Three,” the Pretender confirmed. “And yet, no word from the Reaper or the Queen. Do they think me of so little consequence? Do they truly dare ignore me?”
“They cannot, Master. I wonder if perhaps they’re beset by other problems, distracted.”
The Pretender stood. “Then we shall give them something they cannot ignore. Fetch my Svarren!”
They were all his Svarren, Omeyo thought. But the Pretender was referring specifically to Tooth and Nail. He clearly derived great pleasure from watching his human servant squirm whenever his Svarren bodyguard came near.
“As you say, Master,” Omeyo gulped. There was no point in delaying, much as he wanted to. The Pretender’s commands were to be obeyed on the instant, or misery would follow.
Omeyo left his master’s tent and worked his way through the camp towards the communal fire. It was the last place he’d seen Tooth and Nail, and they tended to stay put once they’d settled in for an evening. As he navigated his way through the camp, Omeyo kept his eyes down and took shallow breaths through his mouth. Snow and stench were not two things that most folks associated with one another, but most folks had never been in the midst of a horde of Svarren, either. The pungent reek of sweat, urine, feces and other unspeakable substances mingled with wood smoke nearly made the general sick to his stomach. The disturbing cacophony of noises that came from the assembled Svarren was no better. If Omeyo had thought he would never experience worse than he had in the End’s horde, the Pretender’s army disabused him of that notion both quickly and constantly. Surely, there was no more foul company in all the world. Even the blanket of night did little to conceal the loathsome nature of Omeyo’s predicament. Indeed, what his eyes could not verify, his imagination embroidered, to the point where the general feared he’d go mad if he spent another sunrise in his master’s service. And then he hoped he’d go mad; what sweet release that would be!
He looked up and found he’d arrived at the bonfire; his feet had taken him where his mind was reluctant to go. A sea of savage, stupid faces glanced over at him as he stepped into the light, and he noticed a sly look pass between Tooth and Nail when they caught sight of him.
“Tarmun Vykers requests your company,” Omeyo said to his nemeses with as much authority as he could muster. He felt ridiculous referring to the Pretender as Tarmun Vykers and even more ridiculous delivering his message to such thick-witted monsters, but he dared not let it show on his face, in his posture, or in his voice. He could not give these Svarren any excuse to turn on him.
With Tooth and Nail now trailing behind him, time seemed to slow to a standstill. Every step was an eternity in which either beast might lunge at the general’s back, and he’d never see it coming. As a soldier, he’d often wondered what it must feel like to be impaled on someone’s sword, to have an arm shorn from its shoulder, or his head split in two, and he found none of those possibilities frightened him half so much as the thought of being disemboweled, ripped to pieces by the filthy claws and slavering jaws of the Svarren. And then to be eaten – eaten! – before he’d completely lost consciousness. Mahnus forbid!
And yet, why should Mahnus care what happened to a fool who’d placed himself on the wrong side of every war?
Before Omeyo could explore this new worry much further, he arrived at the Pretender’s tent. Stepping aside at the last moment, he ushered the two Svarren inside ahead of him.
The Pretender sat in his chair, wrapped in furs, with his right hand over his eyes, as if attempting to remember something elusive. Long minutes passed while Omeyo and Tooth and Nail stood in pregnant silence. Out of the corner of his eye, the general caught the Svarren leering at him.
They’d never dare! Omeyo assured himself. Not in the Pretender’s presence.
The Master spoke, breaking that tension and commencing a new one. “Can all your women stitch?”
At first, Omeyo thought the question was directed at him, but it was so detached from anything that had gone before it that the general could make no sense of it. Yet, the penalty for failing to answer in a timely manner was usually severe. Omeyo opened his mouth, hoping something useful would tumble out, when Tooth unexpectedly came to his rescue.
“Yes,” he grunted.
Just ‘Yes’? No honorifics? None of the fawning required of Omeyo? If he’d had any doubts about the hierarchy in the Pretender’s chain of command, that simple ‘Yes’ destroyed them: he was last, the lowest of the Master’s servants. He alone had been responsible for the Master’s continued existence, but it availed him nothing. Omeyo seethed.
“I have a task for your women,” the Pretender smiled.
Despite his anger, Omeyo was intrigued.
*****
The Giantess, In the Cottage
Under the care of the mysterious Svarren woman, the Wretch was no longer wretched. Indeed, she now understood herself to be a giantess, though her given name continued to escape her, along with other details of her current plight. Why, for instance, had she been lying in the frozen earth? Why had she been naked and so terribly scarred?
Her external scars were rapidly fading; the ones inside, however, stubbornly persisted, and she feared to learn what lay beneath them. Fortunately, her Svarren savior entered the room and chased those thoughts away.
“More stew, dearie? You’ve a giant’s appetite, and that’s certain!”
“Yes, please,” the giantess replied rather timidly.
“You may call me ‘Tinalia,” the woman instructed.
“Thank you, Tin…Tinalia. How long…?”
“How long have you been here?” Tinalia cut in. “Ooh, a week, I should think. But it’s no matter to us; you can stay as long as you’ve a mind.”
The giantess sat up, propping herself up on a large pile of pillows. “Have I…have I taken your bed?”
Tinalia waved her off lightheartedly. “It’s nothing. We’ve an extra room since Leris…since my youngest son left. I sleep in there. But you, now,” the Svarren woman said, “you must have a name, no?”
The giantess frowned. “I must. It’s muh…muh…een.” She fell silent, frustrated.
“Mureen?” Tinalia asked. As her guest did not immediately object, she went on, “Mureen it is, then. For the time being. And now, Mureen, we must talk about some exercise! Much as I like you, I can’t be cleaning your night waste forever.”
Mureen was mortified. “I didn’t know…”
“It’s nothing,” said Tinalia. “Nothing at all. Only, can you stand, do you think? Take my hand, and let’s try.”
Mureen took the woman’s hand and worked her way to her feet. She felt a little unsteady, having been in bed for a week, but was pleased, as well, to sense her strength returning.
“Good, good!” Tinalia cooed. “And now, let us see if you can walk a bit. Would you like to see the rest of the cottage?”
Would she? She’d been staring at the same mural for a week! Lovely as it was, she was terribly curious about the other rooms. She nodded enthusiastically.
Tinalia led her through the doorway into a large common room, adorned in the style of a hunting lodge. There were animal heads mounted on the walls, alongside various weapons, and even a few farming and woodworking tools. The furniture was fashioned of small logs, sufficient to support large Svarren men and even, perhaps, Mureen herself. There was a huge fireplace in the far wall, in which a healthy, hearty fire blazed. Mureen noted three doorways on the room’s other walls, one of which, she imagined, was the door leading outside. But why should she care for that? This place, this home, was the only comfort she’d known since…she couldn’t say when. She shoved that mystery aside. Tinalia was saying something.
“And Baris will be home soon, with something for dinner, no doubt. We’ll have a spot of work to do then, to get whatever it is cleaned and ready for roasting. Oh, but I promised you some stew, didn’t I?” The Svarren woman walked over to the fire and poked into a pot that hung over the flames. “It’s a hunter’s stew,” said she, with
her back to the giantess, “but it’s a fair sight better than pottage. He’s not the most refined lad you’ll ever meet, but my Baris can surely hunt.” With that, she turned and presented Mureen with a large bowl of steaming stew and a spoon.
The giantess felt a moment’s trepidation as she considered the bowl, worried, vaguely, about Mahnus knew what. Then her stomach got the better of her and she dug in, much to Tinalia’s delight. The stuff was surprisingly delicious, full of venison, as it turned out, and onions and numerous root vegetables. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting; she’d eaten some earlier without qualm. But Mureen – the name still didn’t feel quite right – had never known anyone who’d tasted Svarren cooking, and while she felt certain this wonderful stew wasn’t typical, its mere existence was a revelation.
Without a word, Tinalia urged Mureen to sit on a big bench by the fire. It was a cozy enough circumstance that the giantess wished fleetingly that she could stay forever. There was something she needed to do, however…if only she could recall what it was.
Fully awake and alert for the first time in days, Mureen took advantage of the opportunity to get better acquainted with her unusual host. First, she stole fleeting glances at Tinalia while she ate. Despite her growing familiarity with the Svarren woman, Mureen continued to feel disoriented by Tinalia’s appearance. Mureen, of course, had suffered some great trauma and had lost most of her memory. Still, she was aware that Svarren typically did not care much for clothing, especially fine, custom-made clothing, and yet Tinalia was attired as if she were attending an event at the Queen’s court. In addition, she’d painted and powdered her face a stark white. On top of this, she’d rouged her cheeks, lined her eyes and even decorated the mole on her left cheek. Most disconcerting of all, however, were her blood red lips, framing a mouthful of crooked yellow and grey teeth. Her smile was apt to curdle milk, for it certainly made the giantess lose interest in her stew of a sudden. Gods, that smile!
*****
The Queen & Cindor, Outside of Lunessfor
The object appeared just before sunrise, sitting in a field a thousand strides from the city’s main gate. It was a gigantic head, three and a half to four times the height of a man and half as wide, a nightmare of mottled whites, reds, purples and rust colors sculpted in the likeness of an angry man. It was a hideous, uncanny thing that exuded an aura of agony and fear.
“What do you make of it?” the Queen asked her Shaper.
Another test, always another test. “It appears to be a gift from the Reaper.”
“Appears?”
“Yes, well it’s a little too ghastly to be well-intentioned, so it can’t be a gift. And it seems out of character for Tarmun Vykers.”
“It’s entirely out of character,” Her Majesty nodded. “If Vykers had something to say, he’d say it in person, most likely with an army at his back.”
“Then who…?”
“I know who,” the Queen said dismissively, suddenly fascinated by the condition of her fingernails. “The real question is: what does it mean?”
“It is either a provocation or a threat.”
Her Majesty dropped her hands and walked to within ten paces of the head, far closer than anyone else had dared. It was stitched together of human faces, a rare few of which were still attached to their owners. “Both!” she declared.
“Please,” one of the faces moaned.
The Queen waved a hand and the whole thing caught fire. There was a brief howling from the head’s inhabitants, and then there was nothing but heat, light, and the stench of burning flesh. Her Majesty watched for a while, lost in thought, before making her way back to Cindor’s side.
“And the author of this atrocity is…?”
“Who do you think? It’s the imbecile who called himself The End-of-All-Things. Of course now, he’s calling himself Tarmun Vykers.”
Cindor was quiet for a long time after hearing this. Finally, he said, “So, he means to try us, to relitigate his last battle.”
“Or,” said the Queen, “he wants us to engage the Reaper, hoping we’ll weaken one another enough that he can sweep down and annihilate us both.”
“My Queen,” the Shaper said carefully, “you have a longer, deeper history with this End-of-All-Things than I believed.”
“By design,” Her Majesty snapped. “I need you focused on other issues, as you know.”
The Shaper reached up, ran his fingers over the scars on his neck and lower jaw. “This Captain Kittins hardly helps my focus.”
“That is a problem of your own devising.”
It was the answer he’d been expecting, and Cindor hardly knew why he’d mentioned it. Quickly, he changed the subject, gesturing towards the sickening fire. “And these unfortunates?”
“Shall be avenged in time, as you know. But the fool is baiting us, and I refuse to play by someone else’s rules.”
A snowflake landed on the end of Cindor’s nose and remained frozen, as if the man’s body had no heat of its own.
“Winter!” the Queen exclaimed. “Why must we always fight in the snow?” Then, after a pause: “It seems there are some rules even I must obey. For the time being.”
Back in her throne room, Her Majesty summoned the aforementioned Kittins, whilst a disapproving Cindor looked on. The ghoulish Captain arrived in his own time, unconcerned with incurring Her Majesty’s wrath.
“You took your time in getting here!” the goddess barked at him.
“I was primping in front of a mirror,” Kittins cracked.
Somewhere off to the Shaper’s left, one of the guards struggled to suppress a snicker.
Cindor glanced at the Queen, hoping she’d decide to punish the fellow once and for all.
But she did not.
Instead, she pursed her lips and regarded the big man in silence for a span of heartbeats. “We hear rumors that the Reaper has attacked a number of villages in the North. I am sending you to investigate the truth of it.”
Incredibly (to Cindor’s mind), Kittins asked, “Why me?”
Her Majesty glared at him. “Because your other choice is a slow, painful death.”
Kittins appeared to think about it for several seconds. “If you insist.”
“I’m finding it rather hard to believe you’re not mocking me, somehow.”
The captain would have blown out his lips in exasperation, if he’d had any. Instead, he simply released a gush of air through his teeth. “You think I’d dare mock anyone, with a face like this?”
Her Majesty ignored the remark. “Cindor here will see you supplied for your journey. And mind you,” she warned both men, “your mutual hatred is of no interest to the rest of the kingdom. Comport yourselves as I expect or suffer the consequences.”
“As you say,” Cindor and Kittins responded in unison, further aggravating them both.
The Shaper stalked imperiously from the room, and the captain lurched into step at his heels.
“May this journey result in your death,” Cindor snarled quietly.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Kittins answered.
*****
Aoife, On the Road
Winter howled outside Aoife’s verdant cocoon like an angry suitor who’d had the door slammed in his face; inside, the A’Shea was so comfortable, she might’ve hibernated if she’d been able.
But the voice of an old friend woke her.
“The goddess of men is already aware of the news you would bring her.”
Aoife sat up from her bed of moss, rubbed her eyes, and looked about. “Toomt’-La?”
The satyr seemed to have grown from the very walls of the A’Shea’s shelter, as much a thing of vines as the vines themselves. “The same.”
Aoife hurried to embrace him, as difficult as that was.
“You look well,” he smiled.
“And you,” the A’Shea countered, “look like a thicket!”
The satyr laughed. “You do me too much honor!”
“It wasn’t meant as a co
mpliment.”
“I’ll take it so, nonetheless.”
He ran a hand over the A’Shea’s head, feeling her hair, and assessed her features like a midwife examining a newborn.
“You were saying something about Alheria?” Aoife prompted.
Toomt’-La put a hand on both of her shoulders, fixed her with his timeless gaze. “I was. The goddess knows what you would tell her. How could she not, being a goddess?”
Aoife stared at her friend, bemused. “Then…what?”
“Why journey south? Your battle’s to the north.”
“How can you know that?” Aoife demanded.
The satyr’s eyes grew wide and black as infinity. “I am the voice of the ancient ones, some of those killed in the Forest of Nar. You know this. What you do not yet seem to grasp is that you are our body. Yours is the life and the strength of the woodland world.”
“As sister-mother?”
“As our priestess. No longer are you Alheria’s conduit.”
Aoife sat, uncertain how to feel.
“Does this displease you?” the satyr asked, concern evident in his voice.
The A’Shea shook her head. “No, no. I was unprepared for the news; that is all. An A’Shea is all I’ve ever been…”
“Not all, surely.”
“I don’t care to dwell upon my time before I joined the sisterhood. But now…how will I invoke? To whom shall I direct my prayers?”
Toomt’-La chuckled. It was a warm, familiar sound. “You will find your magics much more intuitive now. The Green will always recognize your need.”
“And what shall I call myself, old friend? I’ve been an A’Shea so long…”
Again, the chuckle. “You’ve been a Mender. Now, become a Tender. Protect the Green. You are Umaena.”
“Umaena…” Aoife echoed experimentally.
“There! You see? You speak it without accent!”
Corpse Cold (Immortal Treachery Book 3) Page 14
