Dark Gods: Taste Test

by Julius Schenk

Line, as it was called, and had had a right to petition for a place in the city guard or local militia.

  The city was the biggest thing that Seth had ever seen. The Duchy of Bloodcrest was essentially one large stone keep and a hamlet of around a hundred families. Cravoss consisted of buildings as far as you could see in all directions. It had a port with hundreds of boats and a huge stone wall bordering the edges of the main city to protect it from without. It was a trading town, a major stop between the North and the rest of the realm, like Pelloss across the sea. Everywhere you went in Cravoss, there were clusters of a market, a store, a tavern and, of course, more people all packed in than Seth thought there were in the whole North.

  They had ridden back through much of the city but it being such a large place, Seth had only seen a small corner of it. Off one main street, they turned through some large black gates set in red brick and into the yard of an expensive stone mansion. The building was at least four stories tall and extremely vast; it would have fit the Bloodcrest feasting hall easily inside of it.

  The steward climbed out of the carriage and, taking Seth’s chain from the driver lad, led him around the back of the building towards the servants’ entrance.

  ‘Now, don’t speak unless he speaks to you. You’ll have a short interview with the master of the house, and then we’ll take you to the kitchen for a feed and get cleaned up a bit.’

  The steward led him through a door and into an empty seeming house. They entered a room that was blazing hot, with a fire roaring in the corner. Seth could see someone at the far end sitting at a desk. The steward walked with Seth to a point in the room where there was a metal ring hammered into the floor. He looped Seth’s chain around it, pulled a large metal lock from his pocket, and locked the chain to it. Seth looked at him questioning.

  ‘Just for the first interview; don’t worry,’ the steward said and turned, leaving the room.

  The room was nothing like Seth had ever seen. He’d thought they’d had had some nice furnishing in the Bloodcrest keep but this was something else. The fire was bathing the room in an orange light and he could see this was a study of some kind. On the other side of the room, at a large, dark, wooden desk, a man with silver hair was hunched over, writing quickly with a quill. The room was filled with shelves of books, ornate tables, chairs and the fireplace was surrounded by richly carved dark wood.

  Seth heard a chair being pulled out and saw the man stand up and regard him. He was fairly tall by Cravosi standards and held himself with a distinctly military bearing. His clothes were also of a fighting cut, leather armour but tailored and printed with a golden eagle crest. He had silver hair, but a strong expression framed by a trimmed, short beard. At his hip, he had the Cravosi weapons of choice: a long rapier-style sword on his left and long dagger on his right. Using those was the way refined men killed each other.

  He walked up to Seth, his black leather boots ringing across the polished floorboards.

  ‘You look very hungry my lad, very hungry indeed. But we’ll sort you out after our little interview is over,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ Seth said, inclining his head.

  He laughed. ‘No “my lord” I’m a military man. But as it seems that you are also an army lad, you can call me General.’

  ‘Yes, General,’ Seth replied.

  ‘You are an army lad? Am I right? Short hair, good posture, relaxed stance. Where are you from?’

  ‘I’ve just spent two years on the line at Bloodcrest, sir; in the levies as well.’

  ‘In the levies as well? You’re too young to be lining up in the shield wall. But still, it is the North. Few scraps against the neighbouring lords, was it?’

  ‘Yes, sir, they plotted expansion.’

  The General laughed. ‘They always do, son; they always do. Now, I need you to do me a favour. You need to be quiet for a minute or two while I do something. It may seem strange, but I want you to just listen to what I have to say.’

  The General looked into the air and, in a language Seth had never heard before, started to chant a string of dark and rough words. Immediately, Seth was apprehensive. This looked like something the wise women of the North might do. The General was chanting the short dark words with more and more energy, pacing back and forth in front of Seth. For the first time, Seth looked at the floor around him and saw that he was inside a circle of strange objects, small stones, a tiny skull, some bones and little metal boxes with runes carved into them. He tested his chains; he was still fastened tight around the wrists to the floor.

  The words of the General’s chant seemed to be filling with more and more power, Seth felt as if the very air was beginning to thicken in front of him, as if it were hard to see though. The power kept building like a fog until the air in the circle was black and thick like a silent storm cloud, with Seth at the centre. The fog rippled and began to thin again; the black faded to grey. Seth could see that on the other side of the fog veil, a large white shape was moving. He saw it reach out. Four clawed talons ripped slowly through the veil and into his land.

  A creature that Seth could never have imagined followed its clawed talons through the rift to stand in the circle with him. It was in the shape of a giant wolf but hairless. Its jaw was too long and held too many sharp teeth. Its skin was a mottled and sickly white and its tail was thin like a rat’s. It regarded Seth with piercing yellow eyes and pushed its head towards him. As it did the stench of decay, like that of a dead body left to rot in an abandoned field of battle, reached his nostrils.

  The General looked at the both of them in the circle. The creature took up most of the room but had the space to pace around the chained Seth.

  ‘Good of you to come, creature, even if you were slow to arrive. Now, please take the body and give me the rest.’

  Seth was breathing hard, trying to quickly manage the burst of fear and terror the very sight of this thing had put into him. Northerners had a different relationship with gods and other beings than the Cravosi, and Seth knew that, above all, these beings demanded respect but admired courage. When the creature had appeared, Seth had gone to one knee, head lowered as a servant to a king in an instant reaction.

  The creature lashed out at the General with its awful black talons. They struck the very air and were deflected. The General laughed. ‘Every time you try that, beast, and every time you fail. Now take the body and give me the rest. I’m tired of these games.’

  The creature stopped its pacing and regarded Seth. He felt its presence sweeping through him, through every memory and private thought in a heartbeat. It seemed amused by the smallness of his life. Words boomed in his skull like a sword butt banging against a shield.

  ‘Little Northern boy, at least you know some respect and hunger too. I feel your painful hunger,’ it said.

  Seth looked up and met its eyes while remaining kneeling. He stayed silent but kept looking into its eyes. Slowly, it moved its head and jaw forward. It opened its huge jaw wide, and Seth saw into the mouth with its double rows of impossibly sharp teeth and felt its warm graveyard breath against his face.

  The General smiled as the creature slowly closed its mouth so the tips of its teeth pushed against the skin of Seth’s throat and forehead. Seth closed his eyes and said a prayer to his ancestors. He pushed away his fear and prepared to die with a pure, fearless heart.

  The creature’s laugh boomed in his mind, ‘Very brave, little Northern boy, ready to end your tiny, precious little life like a man. I don’t like people much, but I like you more than him, so now do what I say and you’ll live a little while longer.’

  Quicker than he could see, the creature released him, with impossible precision and grace; it slashed the metal restraints off his wrists and severed the steel ring bolted to the wooden floor. The metal shackles fell to the ground as Seth stood up in an instant and lashed out. Obeying the creature beside him, he kicked out hard at a small stone that created the circle of power. The little pebble ro
lled across the hardwood floor a few paces towards the shocked face of the General, and with it, the power of the circle faltered. The creature rushed past Seth and leapt onto its past master.

  Blood sprayed up in a thick gout as the creature’s teeth ripped into the General’s throat. The creature swallowed the bloody mass. Seth stood, watching it devour the General, and felt a delicious yet sickening feeling washing over him. With every bite the creature took, he could feel the blood and the meat in his own mouth, sating his own terrible hunger. He felt stronger and better with every mouthful of the General’s bloody arm, hand, face, blood and bone. The creature ripped, tore and swallowed until nothing was left of the man but a pile of shattered bones, ripped open ribcage and a bloody stain on the hardwood floor.

  Seth sensed another feeling upon him. His muscles and body were heating up as if on fire, the heat extending upwards into his skull. He experienced a torrent of memories that were not his own but had been claimed as his. He remembered another childhood, another life, other skills and thoughts. Everything the General had seen and done was all there, within him now, to call up at his will.

  Seth stood as the creature idly licked the remaining blood off the floor and crushed a leg bone in its powerful jaw. His hunger was gone, replaced by a feeling of