“Couldn’t make it home, could you?” he hissed to his prey, then he sliced one of its ears off and placed it in a little pouch attached to his belt. He hadn’t done this in years, but he couldn’t help himself. Some habits couldn’t be eliminated, he supposed. Even if they were habits from youth. “Should have stayed among the trees and died at my blade.” Denan patted the pouch absently. “Would have been a better thing for both of us. Would have been a fine fight.”
His chest heaved, and he understood what the beast must have felt, suffocating and burning from the deadly rays. They were such incredible monsters from nightmares, yet weak to the world’s most natural thing. Perhaps this was what kept their species contained? Freedom to run the land in night and day would swiftly place them atop the food chain.
Around him, the forest went still. Immediately, he reached for his resting blade at his side. He peered into the tree line, searched for prey or threat, and found nothing.
Crack.
Denan’s eyes narrowed. Something moved from behind him. Something menacing and vile. Something that caused the birds to fall silent, lest they draw its wrath. He sat on a rock and waited for what hunted him. In the light of day, with aching chest, he would run no more. He watched the trees in reply and waited for whatever hunted him to reveal itself. The sword was steady in his grip, even if his body was a ruin.
Crack. This breaking twig was closer.
“I can see you there, cur, hiding like a coward among the trees,” Denan lied, wondering if he sounded convincing enough.
After a few moments, a figure emerged from behind a tree and walked into the light.
38
Delusions And Greatness
“Oh, thank the gods,” Denan cried. The young weaver stood at the edge of the tree line, covered in blood, with eyes stretched wide in a mania. Denan caught him as he collapsed. “Are you okay, Iaculous?”
It was as though the warmth in his heart had disappeared, like an old broken mercenary who had seen and done things no honourable warrior should ever have to. Iaculous was broken. Denan embraced him as a father would for a time. He waited for the youth to speak of the horrors he had faced since their parting. Evening was half a day away. There was time enough for this.
“Why didn’t you follow me?” Iaculous said after a few breaths.
“It was a fool’s errand.” Denan felt shame for his cowardice. The child had raged into death willingly; he had not. He thought of Cherrie, then he shook her image from his mind and focused on the only thing that settled him.
“A fool’s errand is exactly what it turned out to be,” Iaculous said.
Denan released him, leaving him hunched over as if in prayer on the dusty, hot ground. He recovered the dagger from the shoulder blade of the beast.
“So, you were able to kill at least one of those monsters.” Iaculous eyed the monster with unrivalled disgust. Some men were built to kill, others to heal. Others to rule everything.
“I slowed her down.”
“I wasn’t able to kill any of them,” Iaculous mumbled and climbed to his feet.
“Do not feel bad.”
“I don’t feel bad. I know I tried.”
Denan saw a terrible story on the young man’s face. The shock, the misery, the hesitation. He wanted the young man to hold his tongue more than anything else in the world, but Iaculous had words to share.
“I charged towards those beasts in search of Cherrie, but I couldn’t find her on the road,” the young weaver said, catching a weeping gasp in his throat.
Denan felt his chest tighten. He clutched his bag of spices once more and inhaled deeply. He felt better, but the child was still speaking. He wanted to grab him and scream him to silence. He wanted to concentrate on killing the Venandi. He wanted to reach his father’s house, engage in peace talks, and he wanted an army to kill that thurken Mallum. Everything would be all right as long as they killed Mallum.
Do not speak of Cherrie. Speak of our task, he almost cried out.
“I found where they cornered her …” Iaculous trailed off, and a coldness drew itself upon his listener.
Denan turned away and eyed the mountain where the murdering creatures had taken refuge until nightfall. It could be an exhausting climb for them, but they would make it long before the sun set. The slumbering beasts would be easy enough to slaughter where they lay in the cool, musty darkness. Those that might groggily wake to the sound of fire and steel would offer little threat if they both were swift in their massacre. His eyes fell to the stone, where many sets of claws marred the rock from frequent use.
“If we’d been together, we could have killed them all,” Iaculous said and spat on the ground. His mouth may have been dry, or he might have been cursing him.
All Denan could wonder was why there was so much blood upon the younger man’s hands and shirt. There didn’t appear to be an injury to explain so much blood. What had Iaculous discovered after finding where they chased her?
Kill Mallum, his mind whispered reassuringly. Worry about other things after.
Denan buried his inquisitiveness. He buried it all, deep down, along with the guilt of thurking his best friend’s bride for half a year. If he climbed this mountain and killed the sleeping beasts, everything would be fine. He didn’t know why, only that he was compelled to kill them. “That’s where they’ll be, most likely,” he said, pointing to a cave far up the rocky incline, where greenery and life feared to tread. “After we climb to that ledge, we can continue on and come down the other side of this mountain. We might even recover lost time.” It was a plan, and any plan was better than listening to the truth.
“They found her by a river,” Iaculous whispered. It was the loudest scream he had ever heard in his life.
Denan dropped to his knees, struck in the chest by the truthful pangs of shock. He tried to close the door in his mind, tried to catch his breath, to shake the words away. He thought of her perfume, sweet, unnatural, and wonderful.
“No. Please, no.”
“She struck them down, and she was incredible,” Iaculous said. He stood behind Denan, whispering in his ear, as though he enjoyed punishing his leader. Perhaps he did. His voice was stronger than it had been. He took hold of Denan’s collar with grubby, ruined hands, and Denan could smell the blood on the young man. Cherrie’s blood.
“Shut up, you thurken cur. Just shut up,” Denan gasped, reaching for his pouch of spices. His hands shook, and the pouch’s contents spilled out all over the dusty, unforgiving ground.
He had to get back to the green, where he could breathe. Get home, so his father would embrace him in discreet pride.
“They tore her to shreds, and we weren’t there to help her,” Iaculous cried, and each word struck through his mind, into his soul.
“No.” How could she be dead?
“They tore away her limbs and ate her as she still took a breath, yet still, she killed all of them, alone!” Iaculous screamed into his ear.
Denan’s body shook as though wandering in a snowstorm of the Southern Isles. He wailed and felt the force of a dark being infect his mind. Something fought for his will as it fought for all men’s wills, and he wanted to allow it.
“We could have saved her together!” Iaculous screamed. It was as though an aggrieved Cherrie influenced his mind, taking out her disgust upon him, and Denan could take no more. He fell to unconsciousness, and in darkness, he felt a terrible, annexing monster ebb away fruitlessly.
Mercifully, when Denan awoke, Iaculous left him with his misery for long enough that he could cry for her without embarrassment. Perhaps the younger man felt ashamed of his outburst, even if he had been right. Especially as he had been right. Denan cried more for her than she had for Heygar, and as he did, he thought of the events that had drawn them close after years of nothing more salacious than subtle glances and suggestive banter.
It had all begun with a solitary death contract for a merchant in Danzaran, where Heygar had suggested a clean approach wherein
they might complete the deed without alerting the local constabulary. Performing a little reconnaissance in the merchant’s mansion as a Venistrian art dealer had been the right move on the legend’s part. Getting caught in bed with the soon-to-be-dead widow by a suspecting Cherrie had not been the right move on the legend’s part. It had begun a cascade of gory disaster, with Cherrie killing the returning merchant, his adulterous wife, and about twelve bodyguards in a wave of swift and scorned violence.
Perhaps, had they stuck to the original plan involving the honey, the chandelier, and all the abdop beetles, there might have been one more epic tale for the bards to boast about. Moreover, if Heygar had let on that the dead widow was, in fact, the actual client fronting the entire bill, there might have been a payment to ease the tension.
As it was, Cherrie and Denan found themselves separated from the rest of the Hounds amid chaos, bloodshed, and worst laid plans. They were forced to conceal themselves in the hold of one the dead merchant’s trading barges. With little to do but sit in the darkness and seethe and rage about Heygar’s behaviour, Cherrie had been an easy plucking. And oh, how he had plucked her that night.
She had been the finest lover to lie with him, and he knew she had felt their passion too. So, instead of never speaking of the dalliance again, it had continued for seven wonderful months. It had been divine love, and he would forever be the worst for it.
When he could cry no more, Denan steeled himself and began the climb. He didn’t bother to scout the route ahead; he aimed to reach the beasts and kill each of them brutally. Behind him, the scrambling of Iaculous, who still desired a leader and tried desperately to catch up, infused Denan with confidence. He led like the champion he once was and could become again, higher and higher, above the forest of green until he could see its cancerous grey far along the horizon behind them.
“Is this really what we should do?” called Iaculous after a while.
Denan felt a compulsion to question himself. He felt a pulling at his mind, and he ignored it.
“We climb this mountain and come over the other side, then we keep going,” he called back, and the pull slipped away.
Eventually, with his body soaked in sweat, his chest constricting, and his hands torn open and bloody, they came upon the domain of the Venandi night hunters, near the summit. He knew for certain the beasts lay within the dark cave, for at its mouth lay torn clothing, human bones picked clean, clumps of waste, and the unmistakable stench of territorial markings. They had come to the right place.
“This is vengeance, isn’t it? You want to kill all of them for killing her?” Iaculous said as he took the last few steps.
Denan aided the young weaver onto sturdier ground with an offered hand and allowed him a moment’s rest. The weaver waved away the suggestion of a pause, and Denan realised that after the climb, the younger man appeared fresh as the morning, while he felt like cold death.
“Is it any matter I desire to kill them all? They have caught our scent. They will hunt us come the night, no matter how far we run.” Denan unsheathed his sword quietly. Again, he felt the pulling.
Iaculous took hold of Denan’s wrist. “You are not thinking straight. Grief has taken your mind. We cannot kill so many.”
Denan understood the words and caught himself nodding in agreement. It really was madness, but his eyes watched the cave, and the desire to punish was overwhelming. He had carried this hatred for the beasts so very long now. She would still be alive if he had killed them all decades before.
“Why did you follow me up here, Iaculous?”
“Why did I return for Cherrie, knowing I would not kill a single creature?”
“Why did you return for her?” Denan snapped.
“I had no choice.”
Denan remembered the poem all children memorised before being taught how to hunt the monsters. He recited it as he had from the age of seven.
“The Venandi cluster no closer than this.”
“The night hunters hunt in only six.”
“They scream, they hiss, they rip, and they fight.”
“Only slay them in day, never at night,” he said. They didn’t hunt in small packs any more, did they though? What else had changed since he left?
Denan tried to step towards the cave, but something pulled at his mind. Iaculous, with glowing blue hands and misty eyes, squinted in deep concentration and gently pulled him from the cave.
“Let us leave this place,” he said, and Denan wanted terribly to agree. “Let us leave and heal yourself at your father’s house.”
Denan couldn’t pull his eyes from the cave as though its compelling darkness would offer argument. They killed Cherrie. “With your ability to burn the beasts, we could kill them all in a pulse.”
“I am like a fine glass of ale. I am drunk merrily until I run dry, and only when enough time has passed can I replenish fully,” Iaculous said.
It wasn’t the finest explanation, but it was more than Eralorien had ever offered in the years he had known him. Iaculous brought his hand to his chest and tipped a second glowing glass canister at his bandoleer but said nothing more. Instead, he waved his other hand gently in the air, and a thin blue shield faded into life around the entrance of the cave.
“Why did you do that?” Denan cried loudly as though stirred from a daze. He stumbled over to the shield and collapsed clumsily in front it. All strength left his knees. He reached out and touched the hazy blue barrier, and it shocked him to the touch.
He dimly remembered waking after a brutal battle to a similar shield surrounding them and discovering his lover stolen from him by a mad weaver. A different mad weaver to the one they sought now. He remembered Iaculous shattering the shield and the shell of the burning structure with a wave of his hands, and it had amazed him.
“Let’s be on our way, Denan,” Iaculous said, and his voice had taken a strange tone.
Denan reached for Iaculous, who helped him to his feet.
“We need not kill any of these beasts. I can keep them trapped within this cave for as long as needed,” Iaculous said. “All we need to do is get to your father’s kingdom.”
Denan nodded, as it seemed the smarter plan. “My father’s corrupt kingdom,” he said with a voice he hardly recognised as his own.
“And attempt to control your father’s corrupt army too, so we can kill Mallum and finish the last task of Heygar’s Hounds,” Iaculous said, and Denan agreed completely.
39
Day Six
They followed the sun as it turned on its side, making their way slowly down the mountainside, back into the deep forest. Denan couldn’t will himself to take any rest, despite his blistered feet breaking and bleeding. Parts of his unexposed skin were torn to shreds from briars and branches, but worst of all, the suffocating chest pain worsened with every mile he forced himself to march. Every step was a test of measure upon his own will, and despite it all, he bested himself.
They walked in defeated silence. No longer the brazen mercenaries of the famous Seven, they were instead a pitiful troupe of the vanquished two. From marching passionately on a mission of steel as fierce heroes, they were now on a miserable wander back to ask a rich father for help.
Denan felt the terrible desolation stirring deep down, where he locked away his agony. But as the day moved on, he emptied his mind of many horrific things, like a man fighting a clutch of ketu and their interminable tentacles. If a man didn’t learn to slip away from their grasp in the first few manoeuvres, while he had strength, that man would be held there for a lifetime until they absorbed him up, leaving a shell behind.
He had lost comrades before. All mercenaries had. He had even lost lovers, but it had never broken him to a shell, and he vowed not to break now. As with the climb, he would lead his army of two and see what came. Cherrie would have been proud. So would Heygar.
Behind him, Iaculous walked in silence but for the breaking of trees. His mind was elsewhere—probably with Arielle and thoughts of what was be
ing done to her body. Would it help the young man to know returning her soul to a raped and soiled body was a thousand times better than knowing Cherrie lay torn to ruin in the middle of a forest, sating the appetite of carrion birds? He doubted it would help.
“We will recover her, Iaculous,” Denan said and thought his voice sounded unfamiliar to him. Deeper, twisted, lost. He coughed and drank from his water skin and felt a little relief.
“It was Cherrie’s last request,” Iaculous muttered and said nothing more after that.
As the evening set, they came upon the familiar sight of the great hanging cliffs eternally overlooking his father’s kingdom.
“Oh, thank the gods of the source,” Denan cried out in relief, and he broke Iaculous from his thoughts with a slap on the back. It was a fine strike of camaraderie between companions of the march, and the slap echoed loudly in the forest. It also caused Iaculous to trip forward and catch his foot on a gnarled root, leaving him to fall awkwardly.
He didn’t know why, but the pathetic sight of Iaculous struggling in the mud shook Denan. As though a defensive wall against terrible things shattered in his mind, a surge of misery struck him right to the soul. He saw the anguish of their predicament and felt the grip of his failing chest, and it brought him to his knees. He wailed aloud with a voice not his own, and it cut short as his chest wheezed. He gasped for breath, but his lungs seized and closed over, leaving smothering in their wake.
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