Beautiful Beasts

by Nicholas Knight

  She sighed. Suddenly, having a weasel seed did not seem half so bad. She could have been like Ballista and stuck with a pig seed. While clearly advantageous—Ballista had endurance and power to spare—Loretta did not think she could have found it in herself to be anything but mortified had her seed been that of an animal that slept in its own manure and was responsible for her breakfast meat.

  “Mark my words,” Schwarz said. “They’ll have the Lilly twins found in no time.”

  “Leloup,” Loretta corrected offhandedly. “The family is especially proud of their name. Get it wrong in front of them, and you’ll never hear the end of it.” The Leloup’s had only just been raised to diamond souled status the previous generation, and were still in that sensitive, overly proud state the newly empowered often went through.

  Schwarz laughed. “Did your keeper tell you that?”

  Loretta shook her head. “No. I remember it from….” She trailed off at the look on Scharz’s face, and realized she’d made a grave faux pas.

  “We don’t talk about our time…before,” Schwarz said after a moment. “We were who we were, but we are who we are now. Forgot how newly Fallen you were. Your past is your business, no one’s going to pry into it, just so you know. Everyone else will expect the same.”

  Loretta nodded. It made sense that none of the beasts would want to talk about, perhaps even remember, life before Falling. “Thank you. I apologize for the blunder.”

  Schwarz shrugged. “Already forgotten.”

  Just like that, it was. Loretta almost couldn’t believe it. Had Schwarz been a noble, she’d have subtly lorded Loretta’s mistake over her for the rest of the afternoon. Instead the subject was dropped and never so much as touched on again.

  It wasn’t the only change Loretta found herself mindful of. This run was so very different from the one with Conde Rodriquez’s beasts. It was almost pleasant. The exercise that did not truly exhaust her, and the camaraderie with the other beasts made everything go by so much faster. They even had a few brief bouts of tag.

  Only the requirement that they always keep a beast from each party on lookout ruined the impression of a playful afternoon of travel. This, Loretta reluctantly admitted to herself, was far more enjoyable than riding in a motor carriage for hours on end, even if she did end up covered in road dust. Sir Balzac and Sir Dupont’s beasts were far more welcoming than Conde Rodriquez’s, and Loretta found herself disinclined to separate herself from them.

  She might not have Fallen, but she was a beast. This was her role until she could set things back to the way they were meant to be. Malin had changed something in her perspective. The little monkey beast had her thinking of her running mates in terms of pronouns instead of creatures. She and her, not it. The change had occurred so subtly, and suddenly, that it was only after Loretta had been doing it for several hours that she had caught herself. She was not sure whether this new mindset was healthy or sinful.

  The doubt, combined with a nagging sensation of unease at their continued westward path, served to dampen an otherwise enjoyable cross-country run. What was west of Saunet that continued to bother her? She could not recall and the further west they traveled the more she struggled to remember. By the time they stopped to make camp around mid-afternoon, her mood was thoroughly soured.

  Loretta had been dreading this part and had not even realized it. Beasts were meant to attend to the chores and menial tasks of establishing a camp. It was work far beneath her station and something she had no experience with. Malin had spent her entire life in the city and was no more versed in the skills of camping than Loretta. Fortunately, the other beasts stepped in to teach them.

  Tinte instructed her and Malin in pitching Moreau’s tent, and Ballista taught them about firepits and the proper wood required for a good campfire. Loretta found that she enjoyed learning these new skills and appreciated how they were immediately actionable. In the Academy, everything had been theoretical buildup until it could later be applied. There was no real-world experience to be had, only the acquisition of knowledge with postponed usage. She liked that she could immediately see the results of her work.

  Even the act of hauling water proved pleasant. There was a simplicity that Loretta was able to give herself over to. By the time the camp was set and she was able to sit down near the blazing fire, she was pleasantly fatigued and her muscles thanked her to the rest. She’d felt similarly about fencing bouts before. It was a peculiar sense of satisfaction that she elected to allow herself to enjoy rather than worry over. There was enough to worry over as it was, and none of it was doing her any good.

  So, she sat, easing into a more comfortable position by the fire. On one side of the fire, Sir Balzac had produced a series of maps and sat crouched over them with Moreau, no doubt plotting their course. Dupont had taken up a position on the other side of the fire, his menagerie gathered around him. Tinte and Jagdhund had first watch, and so circled the perimeter of the campsite while everyone else rested. It had been decided that two beasts from each menagerie would take watch in turns. Loretta and Malin were to take last watch when the night was at its darkest, given the nocturnal nature of their seeds.

  “You’re not going to help us find our quarry?” Sir Balzac asked Dupont in a dry voice that made Loretta think of wind going through thatch.

  “Bah, I’m no good at that sort of thing,” Dupont said. “You’re the one with the book learning, and Moreau’s the one good at finding things. Me, point me at them when you find them, and my girls will bloody them good.”

  There was that word again. Girls. His girls. Not his beasts. Not his menagerie. His girls. Again, Loretta wasn’t sure how that phrasing made her feel. Demeaned for not being called “woman,” or elevated for being given a feminine pronoun at all.

  Sir Balzac shook his head and returned his attention to his maps while Moreau chuckled. The throaty sound was masculine, and pleasing, and made Loretta wish that he would stop at once so that she could return to the peaceful, untroubled state she had just settled into moments before.

  “Besides,” Dupont continued, “there are more important things.”

  “More important than the mission?” asked Balzac without looking up.

  “Very much so.” Dupont reached into his bag and produced a leather-bound scriptura, making Loretta’s eyes go wide. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised her that the man traveled with a copy of the holy text, given that they’d encountered him in a church, but it did. He simply didn’t seem like the type to appreciate fine literature or theological philosophy.

  His beasts, Ballista, Shwarz, and Joie all gathered around him with a practiced air about that suggested to Loretta that this was a regular thing the group did. They gazed upon their knight keeper as he thumbed through the thin pages, each turn whispering a promise, like hounds being taught obedience by means of their favorite treat. It struck her as strange, bordering on disturbing, until she recalled that none of them could read.

  Apart from attending church, this was the closest they could be to experiencing the word of the Goddess, and it was delivered regularly by the man who kept their minds their own. Loretta had been given no reason to doubt the loyalty of Dupont’s beasts before, yet a part of her could not help but suspect that in the heart and mind of every beast there burned a quiet resentment equal to her own. If that were, in fact, the case, then Dupont’s menagerie was clearly the exception to that rule. If the looks of excited joy and borderline adoration they fixed upon him as he began to read to them were anything to go by, their loyalty was beyond question.

  “Do not eat the flesh of beasts as though they were animals,” Dupont read. “For their flesh is as that of a human’s and to eat of them is to eat the flesh of a human.”

  Loretta made a face at the thought. Who in their right mind would actually want to eat a beast? Then she thought of the blackberry Schwarz had given her before. That hadn’t counted, had it? It couldn’t have. That was a berry and the text speci
fically said flesh. It meant that beasts were close enough to proper humans that eating their flesh, no matter what their bestia seed might be, would be tantamount to cannibalism.

  “You see,” Dupont said, looking upon his menagerie. “Your flesh is that of a human, and, therefore, that of a woman. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

  Loretta nearly choked. “That is not what that passage means.”

  All eyes turned upon her. Her ears went flat and her tail curled, though at least she managed to will herself not to blush. She had not meant to speak, the words had simply slipped out and now it was too late.

  “Really?” Dupont said, smirking. “The flesh of every beast I see here seems womanly to me.”

  That got several chuckles from his beasts and set Loretta’s cheeks to burning. “You mean to say that a scripture prohibiting an act that amounts to cannibalism gives you permission to lie with beasts?”

  Dupont shrugged. “There’s other passages as well, but since this is the one I just read, sure, let’s go with it.”

  Loretta shook her head. “You cannot extrapolate ‘it is okay to copulate with this because I’m not supposed to eat it,’ from that single passage when the distinction between woman and beast is so clearly defined over and over again throughout the scriptura. Just look at the passages detailing the Great Fall.”

  Dupont chuckled. “Sure, but if you follow those, the only truly diamond souled women are the ruling families. All the noble families are essentially offshoots of those three. Consider then, that means that everyone not of the three ruling houses, must have some degree of bestial heritage.”

  “The ruling families could not be expected to marry no one,” Loretta said. “They’d have driven humanity to extinction.”

  “Exactly,” Dupont said. “Most of humanity, by simple necessity, must marry the descendants of beasts. Had men not lain with beasts, and if men did not continue to do so, humanity would dwindle away until the Rampant beasts simply wipe us out.”

  Loretta had not considered that. Oh, the thought of population had occurred to her, only not what it must mean. She was, or perhaps merely had been, diamond souled. It was her duty to produce heirs of purest blood and spirit while the rest of the lower class mingled with the blood of beasts. The thought of heirs made her think of Adriano Robles, the man she had intended to be her husband.

  What struck her though, was how calculated her memories of him were. Certainly, he was an attractive specimen with the right pedigree and a dowry that would have made their union rich and powerful, but that was all she thought of now when she thought of him. Odd that she hadn’t given him more thought than she had since waking up in Moreau’s barn.

  At the very least Moreau had a personality. As well as irritating quips and that blessed music of his. Robles had simply been a stud. Which then, was the more bestial, she wondered. Then scolded herself for wondering. What on earth was she thinking?

  “I concede your point about the population,” Loretta said. “However, ‘they are Fallen. They are not women, though they may appear womanly. Guard thyself against the beasts,’ seems fairly definitive to me.”

  Dupont threw back his head and laughed. “Sigmund, you got yourself a scholar over here. You repurpose that brain of hers for tactics and she’ll be lethal!”

  Loretta wasn’t sure whether to be pleased at the complement or incensed that he thought her brain needed “repurposing.” Moreau couldn’t really do that to her, could he? She fought to repress a shudder.

  “Dammit, Dupont,” Balzac said, tossing down a protractor. “You made me lose my place.”

  “They’ve got to be somewhere between Harpsford and the Black Rill,” Moreau said, pointing at the map. “The brigands were mounted when they took the heirs. They wouldn’t make the effort to cross the river with that many horses.”

  Loretta’s ears perked up. “Wait, are we talking about Willingwe Wood?”

  Moreau raised an eyebrow at her. “We are.”

  “The place is swarming with Rampant beasts. There’ve been several attempts to tame the forest and none have succeeded.” Loretta had even heard it speculated that a scelus tree was in the heart of the forest, though she kept that particular bit to herself. She suppressed a shudder as she got up and crossed the fire to look at their maps.

  The words upon them were all gibberish. With an effort though, she was able to make a general sense of the pictures she was seeing. It was difficult though, and she suspected if she continued to look, she’d find herself getting a headache.

  There was some kind of disconnect occurring within her brain. Looking at the pictures and words was akin to listening to someone speak in a foreign language and knowing that she used to be able to speak it fluently. Loretta’s eyes registered words and images, and that these things were representations of ideas, but those ideas failed to make themselves known to her. It was exceedingly frustrating.

  She forced herself to continue examining the map.

  “And you know this, how?” Balzac asked, peering at her over the rims of his spectacles.

  “Because the beasts have played a major role in disrupting trade in the region,” she said, not looking at him. “If these brigands are here, then they have to know about all the beasts, which means that they’ll have set themselves up somewhere defensible.”

  “A defensible location,” Balzac said flatly. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Did you think of Raychester Fort?” she asked, jabbing the section of the map where she hoped she was seeing a river and a cliff face.

  “There’s no fort on the map,” Balzac said stiffly.

  “That’s because your map is new, and Raychester was abandoned eighty years ago,” Moreau said thoughtfully. “It would be in ruins, but these brigands are purported to have some keepers in their number. Repairing it to the point of functionality would not be a stretch for men daring and cunning enough to go after both heirs of a highborn house. It’s a defensible position if they’ve beasts and arms. At the very least, they’d be safe from the Rampant beasts in the forest.

  Balzac began protesting, but Dupont put a loud end to it. “We head there first, scout the area, then attack,” he said. “Much better than wandering aimlessly around trying to catch their scents, even if they aren’t there.”

  Loretta gave a nod and caught an approving look from Moreau that made her heart do a jump. She turned away from him and returned to her position near the fire. “Sir Dupont, while I may see your point about the population of humankind, I am afraid that we must agree to disagree about the nature of that passage. At the very least, sin or no sin, the idea of man lying with beast is perverse.”

  “But those are the best kind of ideas,” Ballista said. The marble boar had closed the distance between herself and her keeper so that their bodies were pressed together. He had his arm around her.

  Loretta took that in, and then deeply flushed as the beasts roared with laughter. Later that night as she lay atop her bedroll staring up at the stars, Loretta breathed a sigh of relief that her words had not caused more problems. She should have noticed the way Ballista and Dupont acted with one another and guarded her tongue. Her biases were blinding her, she realized, and if she was to survive this ordeal and eventually return to her rightful place, she would have to learn to overcome them.

  Chapter Ten

  Fort Raychester

  The new saber felt too light in Loretta’s hand as she tested it. A heavy sword wasn’t particularly useful, and were this weapon’s lightness a sign of quality, she would have appreciated it. Such was not the case. This weapon had not been one of their purchases, but rather one of the weapons stocked by The Company’s quartermaster for its keepers’ beasts. If she understood correctly, a new machine had been built that could quickly cast weapons and was being used to mass produce sabers such as this one.

  She gave it an experimental slash and felt as if she were swinging paper. She’d have to be careful. The we
apon would lose its edge quickly, especially if she struck armor or bone, and it would be prone to breakage. Something better would have to be procured in the future if they were to do this again. Of course, with advancements in technology, perhaps a mass-produced weapon of quality would be ready by the time they did this again.

  She shook her head. Do this again? What was she thinking? The answer was that she wasn’t thinking in the first place. She was too excited.

  They had found the fort easily enough and, just as they’d suspected, the brigands who had kidnapped the Leloup siblings had set about with makeshift repairs. If they’d come in numbers, it would have given the brigands a considerable advantage. Their party had no intention of simply assaulting the front gate. A part of Loretta thought she might have enjoyed that, foolish as it was. The greater part of her was enraptured with the idea of the hunt.

  Tremors of energy quivered through every muscle in her body, flooding her with adrenaline and anticipation. They had started when they’d begun spying on the partially repaired fort that afternoon, and now, with darkness upon them and the night wearing on, the sensation was growing stronger. Her mouth watered, and it grew increasingly harder to be still. She’d had to fall back deeper into the forest so that her movements wouldn’t attract the eyes of the guards the brigands had on watch. She wanted this to begin. She wanted the fight, the kill, and she wanted both of those with the music.

  That last would be unlikely to happen given that their plan called for stealth, but a part of her still hoped. Loretta had always been a driven woman, compelled by purpose and ambition. Yet she had never experienced this kind of excitement for any of her plans. This was the ultimate contest. A small voice in the back of her mind whispered that she would have to let it go if she were to restore her humanity. That voice was quickly overwhelmed by the rush of everything else she was feeling.