by Ted Neill
“Then you understand. Our men grew confident, overconfident the women thought. Blood thirsty. Our warriors slew innocents. The women objected, but it was as if the farther west we traveled, the more unlike ourselves we became. We forgot our ways. In sight of the plenty we found in the lowlands, we became thieves.”
“Not to mention murderers,” Gail said.
“I never killed, nor did my family. We were starving for food, water—”
“And leadership, it sounds,” Gail said, spitting.
“This Magus, what does he look like?” Katlyn asked.
Tallia shook her head. “Nobody knows. He moves covered in a cloak blue as the sky in twilight. His hood is always drawn. Some say his face is terribly disfigured. Others believe he has no face at all and is truly a creature of spirit. Some thought the sun would drain his powers if it fell on his bare skin. Others thought that without the hood we might be blinded by his radiance. But no one ever saw his face, save Kiruna, and he is gone.”
Gail’s and Katlyn’s eyes met. “Well, add another to our list of enemies to kill,” Gail said, her voice flat, matter-of-fact. Katlyn shrugged.
“You want revenge on the Maurvant?” Tallia asked.
“I want justice,” Gail offered. “The Maurvant were pawns. I want this Magus. I want the elks.”
“To make them pay?”
“To kill them. They need to die.”
Tallia nodded. “They must, for they ruined my people, too. I know where they are. I will show you.”
Chapter 6
The Candelin
They rode for two days. On the evening of the second they reached the glen where Tallia said she had seen one of the elk while she had been foraging for berries. The three of them waited another night perched on a bluff overlooking a lake until they spied their quarry. It was morning, the mist still thick over the waters, when the elk emerged from the woods and approached the lake’s edge to drink. Gail was swift to arm herself with bow and quiver, a long spear, and a sharp knife that Katlyn did not doubt was meant to flay the beast.
“Stay down. Keep the horses quiet,” Gail said before she disappeared over the edge of the nearest outcropping. They did not see her again until she emerged from the trees far below, an arrow nocked in her bow, her steps slow and deliberate, akin to a cat stalking its prey.
The elk was one of the very monsters that had slain the king. In many ways it was a mirror opposite of Adamantus. The creature was bulky where Adamantus was lithe, its fur thin and gray, revealing a hide that was dark and mottled. Its face was ghastly, some of its teeth curved into points like a wolf’s. Its eyes glowed dark red, and as with Adamantus, they held a fierce intelligence.
The antlers were most familiar: branching blades of something like steel, something like bone, the same substance that made up Adamantus’ own crown. Now the antlers glistened in the sun, some points sharp, others jagged and broken, but all dangerous.
Tallia covered her mouth with one hand and reached for Katlyn with the other. “She is brave,” she whispered through her fingers.
Or perhaps mad, Katlyn thought.
If nothing else, Gail was skilled. She moved with restraint, holding a pose, motionless when the movement of the elk called for it. As Gail closed in for a shot, Katlyn realized that the dark elk was even larger than Adamantus. Gail, already small in stature, was dwarfed by the creature’s imposing size, her body barely longer than the length of its legs. Nonetheless she continued to creep towards the beast as it drank until she came to a break in the grasses that lined the boundary between forest and lake. There she lifted the bow, lined the arrow up with her target, and let fly.
Katlyn was surprised: she actually heard the thud of the arrow as it struck and embedded itself in the hide of the beast. The elk did not flee like some panicked animal; rather, it snapped up its head, shook its neck as a bull might after being bit by a fly, then turned to face Gail as she now charged, her spear leveled, its barbed point shining.
The elk bellowed, shook its neck again as if to dislodge the arrow, lowered its head, and charged. Katlyn had to admire Gail’s determination—she did not falter in her attack. Instead she splashed into the water, spear in hand, and thrust at the elk’s neck. Katlyn heard a loud crack as the animal deflected the spear with its rack of antlers. Gail stabbed at it again, once, twice, and then after the third time it lowered its head and charged. Gail stood her ground in water up to her shins until the last moment when she pivoted left and heaved the spear into the elk’s shoulder. The blade grazed flesh, opening up a bloody rent. The wound only seemed to infuriate the animal. Even on the bluff, Katlyn and Tallia could hear the creature hiss through its nostrils. Gail threw herself forward again with the spear but this time the elk caught it in its rack of antlers. Much as Katlyn had seen Adamantus do, it twisted, locking the spear among its branches, then wrenched it out of Gail’s grasp so that it landed with a splash, its wooden shaft floating while its steel point touched the muddy bottom.
Gail drew her sword with one hand and wielded her knife with the other, but already she was lost. Without the spear she had no range to reach beyond the elk’s antlers. The animal rounded on her, turning the axis of their fight, charging from the shore and backing Gail into ever deeper water. Sword met antlers with a shower of sparks but Gail struggled as the elk pushed her in water up to her thighs and then her waist.
“We’re got to help her,” Katlyn said, leaping up and running to the horses. Tallia followed, willing to join the fray, but seeing that she could barely reach the stirrups of the saddle, Katlyn ordered her to stay put.
The route to the lake Katlyn had to take by horse was longer than the path Gail had scrambled down but Katlyn made up for it when she reached level ground and she spurred her mount into a gallop. The elk’s ears turned in her direction and she noted one of its eyes roll towards her, but the creature continued to push Gail further into the water. She slashed and hammered at the rack of antlers, but the outcome was inevitable. Soon Gail’s arms were skimming the lake’s surface as she moved. The elk, patient, calculating, seemed to have every intention of drowning her.
Katlyn realized, belatedly, that she had rushed to help without a weapon in hand. She searched the saddle bags and found a hatchet for chopping wood, but she was loathe to get close enough to use it. Instead she looked for Gail’s spear and finding its shaft bobbing in the choppy water, she forced her horse into the lake, bent down, and clasped it. It was heavier than she imagined. She had to brace it against her side but with both hands on the shaft and it pinched against her body with her elbow, she goaded the horse to close in on the elk. Katlyn jabbed the point at the elk’s hide, but her force was insufficient. The blade grazed the skin, slicing some strands of hair and leaving a narrow cut, but it was hardly a wound worthy of a deadly hunter.
It was enough, however, to turn the elk’s attention to her. Katlyn froze, realizing she had no follow-up attack—much less a defense—in mind. The elk reared up on two legs and let out a bellow that startled the horse so that it turned to flee. The elk splashed through the water to stand in their path, red eyes, red mouth, and a gray-black face soon splattered with blood as it tore open the horse’s neck with its antlers. Katlyn watched her mount’s eyes roll, wide and panicked, as it fell into the lake, thrashing in blood-stained water. Her rescue was ending in ruin.
Katlyn kicked her legs free of the stirrups, to save being pinned beneath the dying horse. Gail took advantage of the diversion, wading into the shallows to reengage on better footing. The elk reared again. For a moment, Katlyn, half wading, half swimming for more shallow water herself, hoped that Gail now had the opening she needed to pierce the elk’s breast with a sword. Gail set her feet to do so, but the elk struck first, landing its fore hooves on top of Gail and driving her beneath the water.
“Gail!”
A weighted snare spun through the air. Meant to entangle a swift moving animal’s legs, it struck the dark elk in the head to little effect. The creature p
ersisted in holding Gail, thrashing under the water, turning only slightly to take note of Tallia who had adjusted the stirrups of one of the remaining horse to ride down from the bluffs and join them. But as she neared, her horse panicked and she had to drop both hands to the saddle simply to keep from being thrown off.
Katlyn rifled through the submerged saddle bags on the dead horse to find the hatchet she had forsaken earlier. She pulled it free but was forced to pause, contemplating just how close she would have to come to the elk to use it, knowing how little damage she had wrought even with a spear.
We are lost.
In the span of that passing moment, something crashed into the water to her right from the direction of the shore. At first Katlyn thought it was Tallia riding to her for the shape had four legs and threw up great fans of spray, but this was no horse, for it wore a crown of glittering, pointed antlers of its own.
“Adamantus!” Katlyn cried.
Adamantus’ attack forced the dark elk to turn and meet him. Antlers met antlers with the sound of swords clashing. Katlyn rushed through the water to where Gail had already surfaced, coughing, and Katlyn helped her to the shore.
Now it was a battle between beasts, one elk against the other. With size and strength on its side, the dark elk by all appearances had the advantage. It quickly forced Adamantus backwards with almost the same ease it had with Gail. At least until Tallia intervened. Showing poise and experience only a girl raised on the steppes, riding horses to corral sheep, could, Tallia threw out a lassoed line, snagged a branch of the dark elk’s antlers, tied the rope to the pommel of her saddle and pulled it tight.
The tug threw the dark elk off balance and Adamantus lurched forward, sinking his own antlers into the chest of his opponent. The dark elk let out an anguished gasp, but it was hardly finished. It regrouped and sidestepped to give itself slack in the line. Tallia threw another weighted snare, this time at its legs, but it only wrapped around one.
“Come one, we have to help,” Gail said, her voice still weak from nearly drowning. She waded to where the spear had fallen, picked it up, and raced at the hindquarters of the elk. Unlike Katlyn, Gail thrust with enough force to make the dark elk’s back legs buckle. The spear, lodged in the tight mounds of muscle, swung left, knocking Gail onto her backside, splashing down into the water.
Tallia and her horse continued to pull the dark elk and Adamantus swung and slashed as Gail fought to grab the swinging spear shaft again. She finally landed on it, twisted it free, and struck again. The pain caused the dark elk’s back legs to collapse, its rump dropping into the water. It hissed and groaned, growing panicked now. Gone was its ferocity and its calculating gaze. Pink foam formed at its mouth and its sides were drenched in blood.
Adamantus, finding solid footing, charged once more. This time as the racks of antlers met, Katlyn saw a piece break off from the dark elk’s crown and spin towards shore. Its neck was twisted, the force from Adamantus and Tallia’s mount pulling hard at it. Katlyn became aware of an artery surrounded by corded tendons glistening on the bloody skin. She remembered she was holding the hatchet.
This had to end. To save her friends it had to. Before she even understood what she was doing, Katlyn closed up to the dark elk and swung the hatchet blade into flesh. A mist of hot blood sprayed forth. She squeezed her eyes closed and continued to swing.
It was only when Gail came alongside her and gently slowed her chopping motions, long after she was hacking at a corpse, that Katlyn stopped.
“It’s all right. It’s over.”
Gail’s blond hair was dark and stringy across her face. Bruised, scratched, and soaked, Katlyn could for once see the age in the creases of Gail’s face. Katlyn wanted that maturity right then, for she was sobbing and burying her head in Gail’s shoulder.
“There, there, it’s over.”
The water swirled and Katlyn knew Adamantus had swept up on his long legs, close to them. Gail removed an arm from Katlyn and held up her knife, at guard.
“I mean you no harm. I never have,” came the deep baritone voice. She felt Gail stiffen at the sound and knew she had to compose herself, for the moment called for it. She wiped her eyes and in doing so realized her hands came away red. She stifled another cry before splashing and scrubbing her face clean in the cold lake water. When she looked up, those kind eyes—not without a few fresh gashes between them—were close to hers.
Those same eyes she had seen in a carnival cage on that night where everything changed.
“It’s good to see you, friend,” Katlyn said, putting a hand to the side of Adamantus’ head.
“Let’s get out of this water,” the elk said.
Katlyn sniffed and looked over her shoulder to where Gail still stood, her blade held across her body.
“Gods, it spoke,” she said.
“Not so preposterous now, is it?” Katlyn replied.
They built a fire on the shore and wrapped themselves in blankets while their clothes dried close to the flames. While collecting wood, Tallia retrieved the broken piece of antler from the dark elk’s crown. It was about the size and shape of a small dirk and she presented it to Katlyn.
“Among my people we award trophies to the hunter who strikes the decisive blow. That was you.”
Katlyn grimaced with the memory of the unbridled violence of the kill. The images in her mind still made her cringe but there was a calm intensity about Tallia, even a proud glint in her eye, and at that moment Katlyn realized she had underestimated the girl. Tallia’s people may have gone to war too readily but she also had the spirit to join a fight when most needed. Katlyn took the antler with a shallow bow and stuck in beneath her belt while Adamantus looked on, his expression inscrutable.
“If you can talk,” Gail said, adjusting the blanket around her shoulders, “you can start explaining yourself, elk.”
“His name is Adamantus,” Katlyn said.
Gail snorted and nodded at the elk to start. Soot settled on her shoulder while Sapphire took a perch in the elk’s antlers.
“I pursued the Rakne with the intention of learning where they had come from and which master they were serving,” he said.
“Rakne, that is what the dark elk are called?” Katlyn asked.
“It is one name.”
“How are they related to you?” Gail asked, her voice still full of suspicion.
“They were bred as servants of the Kryen. It took dark arts to make them into what they are. We both come from hearty, long-lived creatures called the Stygorn. In response, the Vespar endowed my kind—those who had not been twisted by the Kryen—with gifts, wisdom, and tongues, when they chose to make us their allies.”
“I missed a history lesson here. I know none of these tribes: the Kryen, the Vespar?” Gail said.
“Not tribes, but orders of warrior sorcerers. The Vespar served under the rule of the city of Skyln, but they became corrupt and turned into the Kryen. They were defeated by the last of the Vespar, Auren Hintland, who disbanded the Vespar shortly after lest their powers tempt others to the same fate as the Kryen.”
“Seems like a waste of power to me,” Gail said.
“Their secrets were not all lost. Their knowledge and memories are . . . safeguarded, in case need arises once more.”
“How about now? If these Rakne are back does it mean the Kryen are too?” Gail asked.
“No, but it does not auger well. The Kryen discovered the secret to immortality. They were nearly unstoppable but at last they were entombed under the Seal of Dormain, a powerful binding of spells and enchantments. The location of the seal is still a secret, but there are those who desire to find it, break it, and bring back the Kryen. They are called the Servior. They are powerful sorcerers themselves, but still mortal. They are distinguished by a broken ring about their necks, a ring that represents the Seal of Dormain, which they are pledged to find and destroy.”
“The jailors that took Haille away wore such rings!” Katlyn gasped.
“So d
id Sade and Vondales. I fear that the Servior have been a foe behind many of our circumstances. Haille is in grave danger,” Adamantus said.
“Then how could you leave us, and him?”
The elk’s head drooped, his ears folded back, the firelight reflecting in his somber eyes. “It was a difficult decision but I feared there would be no distinguishing between the Rakne and myself. None of us would be looked upon with welcome after the battle.”
“You have that right,” Gail said.
“But by leaving you seemed guilty,” Katlyn said.
“I know. It could not be helped. I had to track the Rakne. I had to find who was behind them.”
“We might have learned that for you,” Gail said, readjusting logs on the fire. She urged Tallia to share her people’s experience with the Magus. Adamantus listened without moving, his eyes fixed on the girl as she spun out the story of the Maurvant’s own fall.
“Do you think this Magus could be a Servior?” Gail asked the elk when Tallia had finished.
“Perhaps. If nothing else, I think our new mission lies before us. We must seek him out.”
“So he can answer our questions?” Katlyn asked.
“So he can answer for his crimes,” Gail said. “Tallia, would you be willing to guide us to your homeland?”
Tallia nodded but her attention was elsewhere. She shed her blanket and slipped back into her clothes, even if they were only partially dry, looking over her shoulder as she did so. Katlyn scanned the line of trees to the north and saw a procession of over a dozen figures emerging from the forest.
Gail snatched up her scabbard from where it lay next to her and drew her sword. In her underclothes, she was still ready to face the interlopers. Soot let out an unwelcoming screech. The crow’s call and the sword unsheathing caught the attention of the closest of the figures, a man in a sulfurous-yellow cloak. His eyes were tiny and dark and his knuckles were white where they clutched a staff, its top adorned with antlers from an ordinary deer. His face, like the others, was painted white with black, red, and blue markings.
