The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling
Read The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling Online
Authors: Roberto Calas
THE BEAST
OF MAUG MAURAI
Part One of
Three
ROBERTO
CALAS
Text and Images Copyright © Roberto
Calas 2012
All Rights Reserved
Roberto Calas
asserts his/her moral right to be identified as the
author of this book.
This book is a work of fiction. The
names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s
imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons,
living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental.
To Belle, who makes my heart toll.
I would like to thank the
Scribes, who had more input into this novel than anyone else in the world.
Thank you for your help and friendship. I list them now by name, in order of
seniority: Preston Ray, Eliza Sawyer, Rebecca Green, Thomas Hahn, Eunice Musvasva,
Megan Margraff, Peter Keeler, Annabelle Page, Rob Walsh, Carolyn Gonzalez, and
Robert Tomaino. I would also like to recognize Leah Sloane Petersen for her
invaluable assistance.
forest. Lojen’s Eye, which shines in Laraytia for fourteen bells on a summer
day, is smothered by the green canopy after only twelve. Winter, which arrives
in Laraytia on the third day of Ratharia, breathes death into the forest one
month earlier. And the lives of visitors, lives that span decades in the moors
and marches, come to an early, cruel and twitching end among the ferns of the
forest floor.
--
From “The Beast of Nuldryn” by Dasik
Narragne
Something
waited in the darkness of oak and alder. Something black and ancient and
rotted. It listened to the grinding lurch of wagon wheels and seethed.
Five coaches
rumbled along the high-grassed wreck of the Maurian Road. Day’s end was an hour
away in the downs and meadows of Laraytia, but the forest kept its own time.
Night had fallen in Maug Maurai. Hands fumbled for lanterns, hung them too fast
on hooks along the coaches.
And something
deep in the thickets stirred.
Ulrean
Cobblethrie sat the driver’s box of the lead carriage. The vehicle was his
father’s newest treasure, a towering carriage drawn by four anvil-footed
Dromese draught horses. The coach was a choir of carved wood and slender
wheels, with chains for suspension and banners of crimson damask fluttering
from its sides. Ulrean had called the vehicle a wagon before leaving his home
duchy of Lae Duerna, and Sir Wyann, one of his father's knights, corrected him
with a laugh and a tousle. “It’s a carriage, young lord. Might as well call my
mare a mule.”
But Black
Murrogar called it a wagon, too. And Sir Wyann never corrected him.
Murrogar sat
with Ulrean today on the final leg of their journey to Nuldryn Duchy. The
warrior wore a new crimson tabard over the old, blackened mail of the King's
army, the Laraytian Standards. He wasn't a Standard anymore, but he would wear
no other armor. He'd be buried in that blackened chain. If anything ever killed
him.
One of
Murrogar's hands was loose on the damp leather reins, the other made gestures
in the air as his baritone rang out. “Dyin’ for someone ain’t nothing,” he said.
“Any idiot can do that. A true friend is someone who won’t go changing on you.
Who won’t turn a fool.”
Ulrean
Cobblethrie was heir to the Duchy. It was rare for him to speak with a
commoner, much less a soldier. But this was Black Murrogar, champion of Laraytia,
and even Ulrean’s father, the Duke of Lae Duerna, listened when Murrogar spoke.
“I hope I
find a friend like that,” said Ulrean.
Murrogar had
seen enough of the boy to know that he had no friends. As the sole surviving
heir to the dukedom of Lae Duerna, Ulrean’s safety weighed more heavily than
his happiness. He was rarely allowed outside the court. Was monitored
unceasingly, his frail health checked daily, his movements tracked. Even now
the boy’s guardian - his manae - watched Murrogar through the glass panes of
the carriage’s front window, the old woman’s scowl creasing her features.
“You’ll have
good friends,” said Murrogar. “Just be careful when you choose them. As son of
a duke, you’ll need to sort out the bog iron from steel.”
Ulrean thought
about this for a time. “Are you my friend, Murrogar?”
“No,” said
the big soldier. “I’m too old to be making friends. I’m just here to help your
pa.”
“That’s
understandable,” said Ulrean. “I … I suppose it wouldn’t be proper for my
father’s hired guard to make friends with me.”
Murrogar
looked into the child’s face and realized how much his words had stung. It
wasn’t the first time he had forgotten how truly young Ulrean was. The child
was brilliant. He had recited for Murrogar the names of all twenty-seven men
who had served as Champion of Lae Duerna. Had demonstrated his rudimentary
knowledge of two other languages. And he could speak intelligently on most of
the major battles fought in Laraytia. But he was still a child. A young one.
“You don’t want me as a friend. Last two friends I had are dead.”
Leaves
shuffed
loud enough to be heard over the wagon’s rumbling advance. Something large moved
in the forest. Murrogar cocked his head and listened. He looked into the jagged
darkness of vine and branch, his soldier’s eyes searching. He sniffed at the
air, took in only pine and lavender.
“Did your
friends change?” asked Ulrean. “Did they become fools?”
“That’s
probably why they’re dead.” Murrogar kept his gaze on the forest for a long
time then looked toward the four mounted knights that formed the vanguard. “I’ll
be your friend,” he said, sighing and rubbing at the hedges of his black beard.
“But you best not go changin’ on me.”
Ulrean
smiled, and then frowned an instant later. “I’m only eight years old,” he said.
“I imagine I must change a little.”
“Why would
you go do a thing like that?” Murrogar gave the boy a wink. “Just don’t become
a fool. People will attack your mind the rest of your days, Master Ulrean.
Don’t do what they expect. Do what is right.” He rapped the boy’s forehead
lightly. “Don’t let ‘em get in the keep. Un’erstand? And don’t give in to fear.
The thing folks fear most is usually the thing that will do ‘em the most good.”
He brushed back the curtains of brown hair from the boy’s brows and tapped a blue
gemstone lodged in the child’s forehead. “You remember how scared you were when
they put this in?”
Ulrean
winced, not because it hurt, but because he hated being reminded of its
presence.
A rumble tore
through the forest night. Something guttural and primitive. The horses along
the caravan slowed and tossed their heads. One of the knights’ chargers reared
at the front of the line, its trumpet call deadened by the trees of Maurai.
The caravan
slowed to a halt.
Sir Wyann,
one of the knights at the front, rode back to Murrogar. He spoke through the
open visor of his bascinet, the lanterns glinting orange against his armor. “The
horses are spooked.”
“That why
they’re rearin’ and tossin’?” said Murrogar.
“Yes,” said
the knight. If he recognized the sarcasm he didn’t acknowledge it. “I heard a
sound in the wood. Maybe an animal.” The man searched the black labyrinth of
the forest, then turned back to Murrogar. “Or perhaps just thunder echoing. Just
weather on the way.”
“It ain’t
weather,” said Murrogar. Trained chargers didn’t fear weather.
Sir Wyann
cleared his throat. “Well, we know for certain that it can’t be the –”
“We don’t
know nothin’ for certain,” said Murrogar.
Murrogar’s
men, Thantos, Hul and Grim, trotted their horses over. Good men. Former
Standards all three. He nodded toward the front of the caravan and the three
soldiers rode forward. “Master Ulrean, get inside with your folks.” Murrogar
pointed at Sir Wyann. “I’ll have your horse. We’re going to pick up the gait. I
want these wagons rolling at full draw.”
The knight
frowned. “Full draw? There’s no sense risking the carriage like that on this
terrible road, is there?”
Murrogar
didn’t quote Lojenwyne often, but something from
The Arms
came readily
to his tongue. “
Better to heed false warnings than ignore the call of your
death
.” He stood on the driver’s platform and thrust his hand out. “Your
horse.”
Sir Wyann
didn’t move. “It’s my horse,” he said, looking away. “She’s fickle with other
riders.”
Murrogar
stared until the knight met his gaze. “Give me the horse.”
It took nine
heartbeats for Sir Wyann to dismount. Murrogar counted them. He had promised
himself that he would throw the knight off at ten.
Murrogar
mounted the warhorse fluidly and yanked the reins down and to the right, spinning
her through the ferns. He spurred the mare to the side of the Cobblethrie
wagon. Ulrean opened the wooden door and clambered in. Murrogar leaned forward.
The smell of lilies and mint wafted out. He called inside. “We’re gonna pick up
the pace a bit. Secure yourselves.”
Duke
Orien
thrust out his head. “Is everything all right, Murrogar?”
Murrogar
shrugged.
I told you not to take this road, you fool. I told you, didn’t I?
He forced
himself to smile at the eight passengers in the wagon. “Most likely, m’lord.
But my job is to protect you, not to give you a comfortable ride.”
The Duke
studied his warmaster in the lantern light, then, with a nod, returned to his
crimson-cushioned seat. The caravan lurched forward again.
The four
wagons that followed behind were far more sensible. Larger and sturdier. The
one directly behind the Cobblethrie family held fourteen more nobles. Behind
that came the servants and squires, packed tightly in a weathered old cart with
a canvas top. Murrogar imagined them huddled like Dromese gypsies, their heads
bobbing to the jarring melody of the forest road.
He thumped
the wagons as they rattled past and thought about the Beast. He wondered if the
other duke, the Duke of Nuldryn, had lied to them. Wondered if Duke Mulbrey of
Nuldryn had the brashness to tell a lie that big.
Twelve
spearmen and four crossbowmen from the Lae Duerna garrison sat shoulder to
shoulder in the fourth wagon, a roofless cart. Their chainmail hauberks
glistened beneath the crimson and gold tabards of Lae Duerna. These were
provincial soldiers, half-trained warriors, known as janissaries to most. Laraytian
Standards had other names for them.
Janes
.
Daisies
. And worse.
Murrogar bade them keep their eyes open, called to the crossbowmen: “Load and
prop!”
Four thick-shouldered
greys drew the last wagon, a massive baggage cart, ancient and silvered. And in
its wake rode ten nobles and four knights, all mounted. Murrogar gave the
knights a curt nod.
As Murrogar
rode back to the Duke’s wagon a
crack
rang out from the forest. Loud and
sharp, like a breaking bough. He slowed and listened. Sir Wyann stood up on the
bobbing driver’s box of the Cobblethrie carriage and took a deep breath, drew
his sword. “Do you … smell something?” he asked. “Something bad?”
Murrogar drew
his own sword and called for the wagons to go full draw. “Aye,” he said,
spitting. The scent of decaying flesh drifted in the air. “I smell something
rotten, all right.”
A scream from
the rear of the caravan tore through the silence. The wagons jerked to a stop
again. Drivers peered back with lanterns in outstretched arms. Murrogar shouted
for the caravan to keep moving and charged his horse to the rear of the train.
A mob of horsemen thundered past him, some of them crying out incoherently.
A dead horse
lay in the road at the tail of the caravan. A noble’s horse. The ferns ran
black with blood. Murrogar couldn’t see the rider. He gazed into the forest but
the lantern-lights didn’t reach far.
More cries.
These from the front of the caravan. A resonant
crunch
tore through the
screams. Murrogar whirled the charger in time to see the Cobblethrie wagon
topple sideways to the ferns and high grasses. A dark, hulking shape dove into
the underbrush of the forest. The shape was three times the size of a warhorse
and left faint tracers of green light in its wake.
Murrogar
called the soldiers to arms and rode toward the overturned wagon. It lay on its
side like a dying stag. Two of its slender wheels still spinning. Its side
heaved as someone inside tried to work the door. One of the four Dromese
workhorses nickered and struggled to rise. The others lay motionless.
The soldiers
from the third cart pulled tin lanterns from hooks and swarmed off the
transport. They ran to the fallen carriage and closed ranks around it, hanging
the lanterns from hasps on their belts. Spears bristled outward. The tiny
lanterns struck glints from their wide eyes.
A knight with
curled horns on either side of his greathelm drew his sword and galloped down
the road toward a hulking shape that swam with spots of glowing green. The
knight, only a silhouette at this distance, rode past Murrogar’s three men
shouting “Lae Duerna!” He chased the creature around a bend in the road and did
not return.
The Duke
flipped the fallen carriage’s door open like the hatch to some elaborate cellar
and tried to climb out. Murrogar galloped toward the overturned wagon. Four
mounted knights and five mounted nobles were clustered around it already, their
horses spinning and blowing. The mounted nobles were babbling to each other,
their heads jerking from one side of the forest to the other, their horses
crabbing and spinning. One of the noblemen drew a sword. Another burst into
tears. Sir Wyann was on all fours. He’d been thrown from the wagon when it fell
and now he searched for something in the ferns. The spearmen tried to tighten
their lines around the wagon but the clustered horsemen blocked them. One of
the spearmen hadn’t left the soldiers’ cart. He hid beneath one of the benches
and trembled.
Murrogar rode
past the knights and kicked the door to the Cobblethrie carriage shut, knocking
the Duke back inside. Stay in the wagon,” Murrogar called. “There’s only death
out here.” He commanded the horsemen to make room so the spearmen could close
ranks, then shouted at the soldiers: “Get your knees in the dirt. Set your
spears. You never gone hunting? Crossbows, cover east and west. You know how to
fire those things right?” He shook his head. A little disgust to shame them
into form.