Mark of the Witchwyrm

by Steve Van Samson

  Either goaded by the unwanted attention or looking to show off, Guardsman Kürsch stepped toward the prisoner. "Are you deaf?," Kürsch demanded. "The captain just asked you a question."

  "You want my name?" hissed the prisoner through clenched teeth. "I left it at the gate."

  Kürsch kicked the stranger in the stomach, knocking him almost a foot back. The prisoner coughed, grasping his stomach, then looked up at his attacker. As the seconds passed, the man's gaze steadied and intensified. By Galttauer's estimation, he was studying the guardsman the way a hunter looks at prey--weighing all options, working out the most efficient kill.

  The captain observed all of this without a word--standing back while his men moved to redraw their swords. Then he noted the extended hand of guardsman Kürsch, and how it trembled.

  "That's enough." He said at last. Galttauer's command came from the depths of his chest. As such, the words reverberated in the close space like those of an angry god.

  Appearing truly rattled for the first time, the prisoner looked up, though his eyes did not meet those of his captor.

  Knowing exactly what he was looking at, Galttauer presumed the man was trying to understand the meaning or symbolism of the small, deliberate hole in his breastplate. The one which so many generations had worn before him, as tribute to their patron saint. For a moment, the captain felt wary. Wondering if the prisoner was considering, with those predator eyes, if the aperture might be a possible weakness. But then, like a passing thundercloud, the man's hard expression melted away.

  The prisoner rubbed the top of his head as muscles in his jaw unclenched, relaxed. Then, looking far less fierce than only seconds earlier, he met the captain's eye.

  "There was a boy." The prisoner's voice trembled with quiet rage. "What happened to the boy?"

  "A boy?" Galttauer exclaimed. "What boy?" The question was surprising, though the captain tried to keep this from his expression. "One of our little street pigeons, perhaps?" He shook his head to refocus. The stranger's concern gave him an opening at least. "I assure you, if there was a boy involved in last night's affair, he is in a better spot than you, my friend. Now let us try this once more..." The captain extended a hand to the man on the floor. He spoke his name in a tone to inform the prisoner that this was his last chance for a civil conversation.

  "Henric Galttauer."

  Something unreadable flashed across the prisoner's face. But he swallowed hard and accepted the offered hand. The man rose slowly, straightening his legs and spine with care--both attempting and failing to hide a tremble in his left knee. At his full height, he was imposing indeed. Slightly taller than Galttauer himself.

  "Rander Belmorn," said the prisoner, calm forced into his voice. "Of the Black River people. My village is one of a few along the Eastern bank of what is known as the lower trunk. A place called Grael." There was a slight waver as he spoke the name of his home.

  "The Black River?" Galttauer asked, trying to recall seldom used geography.

  Belmorn nodded. "You know it?"

  "I know of it." The captain let the smirk return to his face. Now he had information with which he could weigh this prisoner. "Tales sometimes take longer to reach us here in the end of the world. But yes... I seem to recall something about dark-haired, red-skinned hunters--how they would supposedly ride out into the rushing waters of their river aback giant horses..." Galttauer continued to pull out memories of the stories from the far south. "Grael." He rolled the word over his tongue--tasting it. Then he pulled a sharp breath in through his nose. "If memory serves... that is a long way from here."

  "Yes," said Belmorn. "A long, long way."

  Clearing his throat, the captain offered a firm nod to his subordinates. The three guards responded appropriately, and in unison, lowered their weapons.

  "It would seem that a more... private conversation is required here..." Galttauer watched his guards swap uneasy glances. "Leave us."

  "Captain..." Kürsch began. "Sir. Is that wise? This one... last night, it took four of us to--"

  "Guardsman," The captain's voice was sharper than any blade. "Your concern is noted but unwarranted. You have your orders."

  "Yes, Sir. Of course." The guard licked his lips, and then nodded to the other two. The momentary fear of his captain's wrath melted into concern. "We'll not be far." Kürsch shot one last sneer at the prisoner before exiting with the others.

  Mirroring the expression as it exited, Belmorn turned with a deep scowl that might have shaken a lesser man. But Captain Henric Galttauer had seen many things in the last decade. Things a hell of a lot worse than this foreigner. And so he smiled.

  3 - 4

  "So... you are a fisherman."

  Hearing the question that wasn't, Belmorn's focus blurred for a moment. Maintaining his composure was becoming a labor. Every thrum of his nervous heart pulsed in his face--in his swollen, mysteriously mended upper lip.

  "A fisherman?" he balked, only slightly out of breath. "Fishermen poke at minnows with sticks. I... am a blackfoot. Master of the adamandray and of the brackish course. The diplocaulus, the salt lion, seven species of greater eel, even the dread nautiloth--they have all known my steel."

  "Ah. A blackfoot." Galttauer looked as if something had just slid into place. "So... this is why you fought my men with such vigor. Such staunch determination. What are a handful of Roon's finest when stacked against beasts of such a caliber, eh?"

  Belmorn said nothing, though poison coursed in his glare. His hands closed, forming empty fists that ached for their missing axes.

  "Be careful." Galttauer's voice took on an edge. "Do not forget where you are, blackfoot. It has been said that my patience is a gracious but fragile thing."

  The threat in the captain's words didn't ring half as loud as the one in his tone. Belmorn's face throbbed as a bead of sweat traced a path from temple to jaw. He had battled monsters and had always won, but this foe before him was no mindless mass of shell and slime-slick tentacle. And this cell was far from the undulating pitch-dark waters of the battle ground he knew.

  So impossibly, unthinkably far.

  "I have never been to your river," said Henric Galttauer. His voice returned to its previous amiability. "But then... I have never been anywhere. Roon is my everything, my everywhere. And I would do anything to protect it. Do you believe me?"

  It took a second before Belmorn realized he was expected to answer. And so he relented a nod.

  "Then we are on even ground, and that is a good place to begin. Here..." The captain produced a small wooden stool from just outside the cell. After setting it on the ground, he gestured for Belmorn to sit. "Please. You look ready to fall over."

  Belmorn's eye went wide, then very narrow. That stool might as well have been a rare eel flank steak with onion gravy. He wanted it so badly, his bones hurt.

  "What is this?" He heard himself ask.

  "That..? A marvelous invention guaranteed to hold your ass about a foot off the ground." Galttauer stepped toward the lantern and gazed into the flickering glass. His voice sounded distant. "Just one of our amenities for you to enjoy."

  Before Belmorn could convince himself that he didn't need the damn stool or that the cell's gravity wasn't twice as strong as anywhere else in the world, he found that he was already sitting. Through the intense wave of relief, Belmorn opened his eyes to find the captain still at an eye level. It took a moment to understand that Galttauer was sitting as well.

  "How many of these things do you have out there?"

  The captain's smile bloomed, and for one brief instant, Belmorn could see that it contained no malice. "As I said, I have never been to your river, but I know that it is a long way off," said Henric Galttauer. "Must have taken you three months to travel here."

  "Closer to five," said Belmorn--feeling as if those ice-blue eyes were trying to read his own. "Galttauer..." The name came without thought. "Let me go." Another bead of sweat trickled and tortured down his face. He wanted to swat it away. "Last nigh
t, there was a boy. Just a harmless..." He shook his head, refocusing. "We were just talking... discussing your statue. Then your guards appeared and..." Belmorn stopped, swallowing back the rest of his dark musings and tasting bile on the way down. He could still picture the kid--still smell the reek coming off his blanket. And hear the sound a boot makes when thrust into the soft stomach of a child. Behind all those memories, a small voice sang from somewhere in the far back of his brain. It reminded him of another boy. A boy he loved more than life itself.

  Belmorn could tell that Henric Galttauer was not the sort to suffer demands. If he ever wanted to see his family again, he was going to have to choose. His son, or a poor vagrant he'd known for five minutes.

  "Roon..." Belmorn began, allowing the rest of his body to become as unclenched as his hands. "... will suffer no further disturbance from me. Let me go, and I'll be on my way."

  Galttauer's face had gone deadpan. For a time, he simply seemed to consider the offer.

  "I believe you." The corners of the captain's mouth turned downward. "Authenticity is a rare thing, but I know when I am sitting across from it."

  Suddenly, Belmorn became aware of flickering lantern light and how it played on the man's wild, blonde hair.

  "But tell me, blackfoot. Why do I have to let you go? Are we keeping you from pressing business? What could possibly have made you cross so many leagues only to find yourself cast in a cell for a crime as base as brawling? Tell me, but know that if your answer is less than authentic, I will know." With hands on his knees, the powerful-looking man leaned forward, crooking his head to one side. "Believe when I say that these ears have been sharpened by a thousand well told lies. And that any you tell, will not be suffered."

  Belmorn's head dropped into his hand as locks of hair--long and unwashed--fell against his wrist. The sensation caught him off guard and he pulled away violently as if from the revolting tickle of an insect in mid glut. Through a fevered haze, he stared at that hand. Was it truly his? Those gnarled digits, half frozen and caked so thoroughly with grime? Under such filth, the scars from a life spent battling river monsters were hardly visible. How many times had Malia ran her perfect fingers along those callused lines? And how many times had she scowled when he brought a new one home for her to dress?

  He used to know.

  "Okay," he began, then paused. The decision was no longer what to tell, but rather how much. "I am here because of my son." The words burned like smoldering coals upon his tongue. Once he began, Belmorn found that he could not stop them from flowing. "He is willful, strong... and far more charming than his father..." A smile tugged at the corner of Belmorn's lips, but he smothered it. "My son is a good boy. His name is Sasha Belmorn. He will be ten at the end of the year, and he is dying."

  3 - 5

  For a moment it seemed Belmorn could not continue.

  "We call it the purple sickness. It is an old disease, and as effective as they come. The sick can suffer for a long time as their throat swells a little more, day by day--hardening into something closer to wood than flesh. Over time, breathing becomes hard as the body slowly strangles itself. It moves faster in some people, but others can live with it for as long as a year." His voice sounded as if it were coming from a great distance away. "But the end is always bad. Either they go crazy from lack of sleep or, if their hands haven't been tied down... sometimes victims will claw at their own throat. Until there's nothing left."

  "God." Galttauer wore a look of revulsion.

  Seeing this, Belmorn nodded.

  "It's why the smart ones just drown themselves in the river." He stopped for a moment, shook his head. "Because if the disease is allowed to run its course, in their final moments eyes bulge half out of the skull, red and full of the same terrible thought. That the tiny bit of air in their lungs... is the last they'll ever have."

  Silence grew in the cell. Swelling until it touched every stone--every strand of reeking straw.

  "I see," Galttauer began with a pang of genuine regret. "My heart goes out to your son, blackfoot. I hope you believe that. Though I cannot help but wonder... if you truly loved the boy, why you would choose to spend so many of his final days galloping farther and farther away from his bedside."

  Belmorn looked at the captain with daggers in his eyes. "If I loved?" His breathing was deep and ragged. He rose ominously off the stool and glared."If?!" The pain in the man was naked, escaping like steam from every pore.

  Suddenly, Henric Galttauer experienced something like shame. Not for what he had said, but for the unsavory decision he was coming to. For the plan that had been knitting itself together in the back of his mind.

  "Had I stayed," Belmorn forced a flimsy calm over his words. "My Sasha would have had no chance. But there is a cure for the purple sickness. I have seen it."

  "Seen a cure? Here?" The captain's curiosity was piqued. "What would give you the idea that such a thing could be found in my city? There is no sickness in Roon! Not for a hundred years and even then, nothing like you describe. I am very sorry to tell you this, blackfoot, but most of our doctors have moved on and our best apothecary is also the town drunk."

  "Roon was never my goal." More heavy breathing filled the cell. "Jayce. I need to reach Jayce. I have a map. Only another day's ride... maybe less. For the love of pity, man... Just let me go."

  "No one goes to Jayce. It is..." The captain stopped to find the right word as an unexpected and unwanted ache pulled at his heart. "... inaccessible. If what you are seeking is there... I'm afraid it no longer exists."

  "I'm not seeking a what," growled Belmorn, ignoring most of what had been said. "I'm looking for a man. A traveling merchant who once roamed this country--peddling a most unique stock of wares. The sides of his wagon were purple and decorated with a bold black ring. Though unmistakable even at a distance, the symbol, like the merchant himself, was more than it seemed. Up close, you could see the ring was a snake eating its own tail. What some call... the Ouroboros."

  Galttauer's eyes flashed then, though he did not speak.

  "Always in the spring, every year or two, this merchant brought trinkets and goods like we had never seen. He never gave a name, but... in Grael, he became known as the brushman."

  Forgetting himself for a moment, Galttauer snickered unapologetically. "'The brushman', you say?"

  Even Belmorn released a small chuckle before continuing. "The fact is this... Among those exotic wares and medicines were the finest horse brushes we had ever seen. Each was unique--handmade by the man himself. With handles of bone and bristles we were never able to identify. You see, Captain... our horses are everything to my people. Without the adamandray, we would be poking with sticks, praying for minnows. Unfortunately, river fleas can be a problem." Belmorn pinched an inch of air. "Tiny shrimp-like creatures. They can infest even the biggest horse in a single afternoon--afflicting it with something far less pretty than mange. I think that's why he kept coming back--this merchant. We were good customers. Emptying his stock of brushes almost every time."

  "I see," said the captain with waning interest. "And is that how you expect to cure your boy? With a horse brush?"

  "You're not listening." Belmorn's voice was low but steady. "This man sold many things. Certain... ingredients--tinctures, ointments and drafts that would make any apothecary green with envy. Among them was a substance labeled Witch Tears."

  "What?" With a swift jolt, the captain stood--causing the small stool to skid back across the stone floor. "What was that?"

  "Witch Tears." Belmorn repeated the words firmly.

  Hearing this, Galttauer repressed a scowl, annoyed at himself for reacting so explosively. Clearing his throat, he gestured for the prisoner to continue.

  "I've never forgotten the name," said Belmorn. "Fowl, milky stuff. Stored in little bottles and kept in a locked chest. Was probably the most valuable thing he had... though I never heard him name a price."

  "This 'brushman'..." Galttauer's words lacked their previous confidenc
e, and he hated that. "How do you know he was not a fraud? That his medicine was genuine?"

  Belmorn sighed, rubbing his temples with thumb and forefinger.

  "Two years after my son was born, the brushman returned to Grael after being away for almost sixteen months. In that time, a woman in a neighboring village contracted the purple sickness. The first case in nearly three decades. She was a mother of five--all between the ages of eleven and four. Children who would have been orphans. But... somehow, the brushman heard about her. He found the woman's home and made her a broth sweetened with a single drop of his medicine. A single, perfect tear." Belmorn stared down his jailor. "That woman was Nikta Bergen. The first and only person known to have overcome the purple sickness."

  Henric Galttauer stared with wide eyes that did not blink.

  "But..." Belmorn continued with weary regret. "That was the last time any of us saw the brushman. He never returned, and not a soul knows why. Common sense says he must be dead, but my wife says I never had much of that." Belmorn wore a smirk now. "So I have been tracking him these past nineteen weeks. Asking after at every possible turn, hoping such a man would have made an impression wherever he might have gone. Don't you understand? All of my searching has led to this. To the place he calls home."

  "Jayce," Galttauer said, only partially aware he was speaking at all. He sighed, shaking his head slowly. "Tell me, Belmorn. If I did release you... is there anything I might say that would stop you from going to this place? Anything that might convince you to turn around? To go back to your river? And your boy?"

  Belmorn's face was frozen in a grimace of outrage. "No. Only death will stop me from finding this man. Do you understand?"

  Turning his back to the prisoner, Galttauer stormed out of the cell and slammed shut the door with a loud metallic clang. Then, looking through the iron bars, the captain said, "I understand. And... I am sorry."