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Mark of the Witchwyrm

Page 9

by Steve Van Samson


  Belmorn's feet felt stiff as those of a statue and could no longer detect cold, only different degrees of stabbing pain. As he lumbered from the stone courtyard onto the first wooden step, the pain lessened somewhat. Another jab from behind sent him stumbling up onto what felt, to him, like a stage.

  He looked up to see a man with a lopsided hat, clutching a book to his breast. Shivering and numb, Belmorn put up no fight. Allowing the guards to lead him between three conspicuous posts.

  Just part of the set decoration, he scoffed inwardly as his tailbone was pressed against the middle post, the tallest of the three.

  With the turn of a key, each hand was disconnected from the ring between his feet. The guards stretched out his arms and attached both hands to the posts--each positioned slightly behind the middle. Once upright, Belmorn's back was pressed firmly and flatly against the central post. If the man had ever felt vulnerable before, such feelings now seemed quaint.

  On either side of the stage was a row of empty seats. Seven on one side, seven on the other. They looked heavy--made out of the same pale grey stone as most everything in this damnable city. The sides and high backs were decorated in relief style carvings of what looked like winged wolves. Belmorn looked at these through a haze of fury and frustration, wholly unable to appreciate their beauty.

  As if on cue, the crowd went silent, then parted--making way for seven robed individuals. Like a line of silent monks, they appeared to glide toward the stage. All were garbed in long black robes and birdlike masks. One by one, they filed onto the stage and stood before the seven seats on the left.

  "The high court of Roon does recognize the Seven of Hraaf. By their eyes no truth may go unseen." The man with the book declared this with a knifelike voice.

  The crowd shouted a phrase in almost perfect unison, "Let them see!"

  Belmorn's head swam as he tried to take in the whole scene. His arms felt on fire. If he leaned too far to the left or right, the opposite shoulder threatened to pop out of its socket. He had heard of cities that enjoyed public torture, but this was his first personal experience with the concept. As a hot tear streamed, the sound of footsteps on wood pulled his attention back to the stairs.

  A second line of robed figures were now taking the platform. These wore similar robes, but white instead of black, and their masks sported the snouts of dogs. Or something like dogs.

  First crows... now wolves, Belmorn thought with a look of sardonicism. But they've got it backwards. Wolves come first. The birds just claim the scraps.

  In spite of himself, Belmorn was grinning. It was the only sane thing he could do.

  The man with the book stepped forward. "The high court of Roon does recognize the Seven of Vaarg. By their ears no lie may go unheard."

  "Let them hear!" replied the hungry crowd.

  "If they who keep order are prepared to watch and to listen... I ask them to sit." The man with the book looked solemn. As the fourteen mask-wearers took their seats, he began to walk from one side of the stage to the other.

  The crowd had swollen since Belmorn passed through it, but every head was trained on the same individual.

  "Before you..." said the man, "is he who has been charged with crimes most heinous." He opened his book and raised an eyebrow. "Infiltration of your sacred city, which as of the present time remains shut. Wanton violence against five members of your Roonik Guard. And before that..." The man's eyes widened in abject horror. "No less than three years of fear-mongering, aggravated thievery, and murder. Are these not the charges as written by your own hand, Captain?"

  Belmorn found the face of Henric Galttauer not far from the stage. His cold eyes were rimmed with red veins, but they remained unreadable.

  "It is so," said Galttauer, ushering a swell of shock and awe from the crowd.

  "Very well. And the accused..." continued the man with the book. "Can you tell the court his name?"

  "I can."

  At once, the crowd gasped.

  For a moment, Galttauer looked about to change his mind on something. But that might only have been Belmorn's imagination. "His name is Mannis Morgrig."

  The racket of outrage and bile hit Belmorn hard. He knew what came next, had known it was coming since the night before, when he had spoken with Henric Galttauer. Either too incompetent or cowardly to apprehend the true perpetrator, the good Captain had decided to pin Morgrig's rather extensive list of crimes upon the chest of a stranger who's face no one knew. A man whose only crime had been the hope of purchasing food, medicine, and a night's sleep off of the ground.

  The rest of what was said washed over Belmorn like a gust of cold wind. He glared at the masked judges who clearly had no more power to hear and see lies than the post at his back. Then he glowered at the crowd--the furious, spitting crowd.

  "Roon's people cannot shoulder more hardship. Not a single drop more. They are starved for relief. Tomorrow, their addled minds will be eased. That is how we help each other."

  Galttauer had claimed his people were beset on both sides by monsters. That they were slowly starving to death. Was any of that true?

  Belmorn did not know. All he could say for sure was that very soon, his arms were going to be as numb as his half-frozen feet.

  No. There was another truth. One other thing he knew with absolute certainty. His quest had failed.

  Nineteen weeks on the road, of seeking and scouring and tracking and sleeping on dirt and subsisting on wild onions... All of it had been for nothing. His boy would die a thousand miles away with a purple face, strangled and murdered by the swelling of his own throat.

  Sasha. The name of his son sparked in Belmorn's mind and stuck there like a thorn.

  With renewed desperation, he scanned the faces of the onlookers, despising them in turn. He didn't give a cold damn for their plight. Witches and cut-throats were too good for this lot. He turned to the captain, willing eels to burst from behind those accursed, ice-blue eyes, and then...

  And then, a light flashed from the crowd. It had been brief, but blinding. So bright that new pain lingered behind his eyes. Belmorn looked around, but could not locate a source for the inexplicable flash.

  The light, he thought with disdain, perhaps it's just the first sign of madness. Of your mind collapsing in on itself.

  The man with the book was talking again, addressing the row of bird masks who all looked towards each other, and then, in unison, gave an ominous nod. Belmorn lunged, only causing pain to explode in his left shoulder. The sensation was dizzying. His head lolled to one side--just in time to see a skewed vision of seven dog-faced figures adding their nods to the rest.

  The crowd erupted with overwhelming approval. Apparently, justice had been seen, heard, and decided. Not that this scripted tragedy had anything in common with true justice.

  The flashing light returned. Once, and then quickly again, causing fresh spots to bloom before his vision.

  Seething at this final indignity, Belmorn squinted at the crowd, leering, scanning. He located a man off to the left, near the back. He was holding something reflective--a small mirror perhaps. When the man realized he had the attention of the condemned, the object was put away. Slipped into the prodigious folds of his cloak. His face was obscured, this man--hidden by the shadows of a prominent hood.

  It was him.

  The son of a bitch he should have left for the crows. Even as the guards reappeared and began to release his bonds, Belmorn's eyes did not release him. The man with the mirror. The man in the hood.

  Feeling slack in the chains, the blackfoot lashed out. Accomplishing nothing beyond angering the guards. The stock of a powder rifle connected with his chest, knocking the wind from his lungs. Even as he folded, gasping for breath, Belmorn's eyes remained fixed on the man in the hood. Then, through hot tears, he watched that man extend a finger and lift it to where his lips would be.

  "Shh," said the gesture.

  5 - 2

  Hours passed in solitude as the cloak of night descended ov
er day.

  Belmorn had been taken to a different room than his previous accommodations. Three of the walls were made of wood rather than stone, with a fourth of familiar iron latticework. The room was less than half the size but it had a bench on one end--more akin to a stable than a proper holding cell.

  They had allowed him to keep his clothes, even returning his gloves and a pair of boots he did not recognize. A strange sort of thing, Belmorn thought. A scrap of dignity for the condemned ?

  The clothes had been delivered by a familiar guard, the one who had recently acquired a pair of fine, Graelian boots.

  "Compliments of the captain," the man had all but growled. "Can't have you freezing to death before morning."

  Though Belmorn had wanted to reach through the bars, he instead did nothing, said nothing. He'd simply accepted his property with a secret, silent gratitude that burned like acid in his craw. And for the hours that followed, dark thoughts swam around inside his skull. Darting from corner to corner like a school of frenzied minnows.

  Dawn was in the saddle and riding fast. He could smell it. And for him, dawn was the end. The final act of Rander Belmorn was folly. Farce. Woefully executed for crimes that did not belong to him.

  It had all been made clear by the man with the book. The city Magistrate of Roon had calmly explained in his cutting voice just what the court's decision meant--what every man, woman and child in the crowd was already celebrating. That, bathed in the first rays of morning, the condemned was to be given the Test of the Graveless.

  It all came back to that patron saint of theirs. The tarnished silver statue Belmorn had been accosted beside in the first place.

  Come dawn, a special sword--long and curved--would be slid through the heart of the guilty. As the logic went, if the decisions of the Hraaf and the Vaarg were somehow made in error, then whatever Gods floated above this place would know. And in that unlikely event, by their grace, Belmorn would live on despite his fatal wound, just as the fabled Charon the Graveless was said to have done so many centuries before.

  It was all a steaming pile of horse shit, but to Belmorn's reasoning, no more so than his mummer's fart of a trial.

  The blackfoot sneered, more in disgust than despair. He tried to steer his mind to better days, toward his wife and son. But the more he tried to summon those faces, the blurrier they became, because the sight of another kept overtaking the rest.

  The hooded man in the crowd he could see clearly. He who Belmorn had saved in the woods. What the hell had he been doing in that crowd? Signaling him... but for what possible reason? Had he come to taunt his savior? To further pay his debt with even more trespasses? Or could it be something else?

  "Bastard," Belmorn growled. If he ever saw that damned wizard again, he was going to... to...

  To what?

  There was no time for this pointless wallowing. By Belmorn's guess, he had three hours at best before the pomp and circumstance. What had Galttauer said about time?

  "Time is our true enemy, you see. No matter what we do, it ticks on."

  To hell with Galttauer too. Belmorn wouldn't waste his final hours on him either. With an effort, he shut his eyes, not to sleep but to remember better days.

  "Dad? This spring... I think I should pick out a foal." Sasha approached his father as he was riding back from the river.

  "Oh?" Belmorn asked in the considerate voice of a father. "You do, huh?"

  "Definitely. Yeah." The boy folded his arms, the same way his father was known to, his voice very matter-of-fact. "I'm almost nine, you know."

  "Nine already? My goodness, I must have lost track." Belmorn paused to look at his son with amusement while Magnus lowered his head, sampling some inland grass.

  "Be serious, Dad. Nine is practically double numbers. Do you remember Garrick from Hallabard? The blacksmith's son?"

  Belmorn pretended to consider this for a second or two. "You mean the same blacksmith's son who is four years older than mine and nearly five inches taller?"

  "That's him," the boy continued undeterred. "He got to pick a foal--three springs ago."

  "Is that right?"

  "Yeah, Dad. A stallion." The boy gave a pointed look at Magnus. "Named him Arauder, I think. Should be big enough to begin to ride next year."

  Belmorn smiled. "Probably." He plucked off a flea trying to swim in the Old Man's mane. Flicked it away.

  The boy bit his lower lip, looking about ready to keel over from the burden of waiting for his father to say more on the subject. "Well? Can I?"

  "Can you what?"

  "Pick out a foal this spring?" Sasha's face was so screwed up with frustration, it was practically blue.

  "Oh, my son." His father sighed long and looked longer. "I know this can be a difficult business, waiting to grow up. But do you remember what I told you about a blackfoot's work?" He gave a nod to the lowering sun.

  The boy looked miserable. In fact, if his body language could be believed, the prospect of responding was a labor equivalent to emptying the entire river with a bucket.

  "Yes." He forced the word out with an exaggerated sigh. "That it doesn't end when the sun goes down."

  "That's right," said Belmorn, privately brimming with pride. "River work has a way of following a man home. It sits with him at the supper table, lays in his bed, even colors his dreams. And do you remember why?"

  "Because the river bites hard."

  "And... ?"

  "And it doesn't let go."

  "Believe that, son. Every word and with all your heart. Because once you wrap a haresh around your head, once you climb into that saddle, ride out, and feel the brackish course between your toes, it will be a very long while before you climb back down again."

  As Belmorn said this, he considered the possibility that he had gone too far. There was yet more to say, but his son was just a boy. Not even nine. There would be plenty of time for him to come to grips with the life ahead of him. Decades if Rinh was kind. Belmorn pulled on his stallion's reins and offered a weary, surrendering smile as he continued walking.

  "You'll understand one day."

  The boy refolded his arms, trying and failing to look cross. "Even if I never learn to ride?"

  Belmorn shook his head and smiled. "Definitely." The man winked at his son. "And one day, before you know it, you'll ride back home after a long, wet day, but it will be an old man who steps from your saddle. And you'll look down to see a small child standing there. A girl or perhaps a boy who must certainly be secretly drinking magical potions for how fast they grow. This child will look up, and they will see you. See you the way no one else can. And then they will start asking about foals."

  "Dad..." The boy looked unconvinced of something. "You're not old."

  "No?" Belmorn mocked astonishment.

  "No."

  "Hmm..." He considered this. "Well I feel old."

  Belmorn could almost feel the shared laughter shaking his body. His arms twitched with an acute muscle memory of a father scooping up his son--holding him in his arms and squeezing. It was difficult to endure. Not at the time, but here and now--as he sat, waiting for the bells of morning.

  The last he would ever hear.

  5 - 3

  A clamor jolted the man's bones, hitting like a bucket of ice water and banishing the vision of his son.

  Just outside his cell, a shout had been cut short. Then came a series of heavy, clanging thuds. The dropping of a stack of cook pots was the first thought to enter Belmorn's brain. Inclining his head, he peered through the lattice.

  There! Another thud was followed by a dull sliding, as if something was being dragged. Desperate to see, Belmorn pressed himself against the bars, but the angle was bad. He strained but had no power to see around corners. Whatever was happening was near. In the direction of the posted guards.

  Seconds later, a figure appeared. Dark, cloaked, and more importantly, hooded.

  "You?" Belmorn hissed, taking the only step back the small enclosure allowed. As the momen
t passed, surprise gave way to anger. "What are you... ?"

  "Maybe not a friend," said the hooded man. "But the closest thing you have." Raising a ring of keys, the man tried them one at a time.

  "Not close enough," Belmorn growled. "I've already tasted your idea of gratitude. Should have left you for the crows."

  "Yes, well... perhaps so." Three keys into the ring, the hooded man was beginning to look nervous. "Warned you, didn't I? That folks up here are a cold lot."

  Belmorn's frown became a scowl. He made his hands into fists, certain that they would fly soon.

  The hooded man worked hurriedly, throwing a glance toward where the noises of commotion had come from. As the fifth key clicked with a deep metallic whine, the door swung open.

  Belmorn reached through the iron doorway, grasping cloak and slamming the hooded man against the wall.

  "Wait!" The man's voice was thin, choked. "Look--your anger is justified, but there's no time for it. We have to go before..."

  "We?!" Belmorn slammed him against the wall again. "There is no we!"

  "There is if you want to get out of here!" sputtered the hooded man, real fear in his expression.

  For a long moment, Belmorn's grip did not loosen. His fury felt good. Better than that--righteous. He had fantasized about such a moment, a last chance to extract some measure of pain from this one.

  "Sasha." Belmorn hissed the name through his teeth.

  Bewilderment colored the hooded man's reddening face.

  "You killed him, you son of a bitch!" Ferocity shaped the blackfoot's words. "You've killed my son!"

  The hooded man's struggles were feeble--meaningless against the blackfoot's considerable rage. Registering as little more than the resistance of water weeds against a river's swell and flow. Within seconds, his face went to a shade of purple as his eyes bulged from their sockets. He opened his mouth but all that came was a squeaking hiss of air. The last breath he would ever take.

 

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