The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling (16 page)

The screams from downriver roused
Murrogar from his fury. He ran back toward the nobles, remembering his sword,
the finest weapon he’d ever known. It was still wedged in the bridge. He
considered going back for it, but he knew his duty at that moment was to the
Cobblethries. He ran back to the river, hearing faint tortured cries behind
him. Refusing to think about what the Beast was doing to Hul.

Most of the nobility had pulled
themselves onto the bank and gathered in a group to shiver and sob and wait for
death. Murrogar wondered, as he approached, how people like this could rule a
kingdom. He recalled the stories of the old dukes and counts of Laraytia. The
warlords of Lae Duerna and Nuldryn. Men who had led the first charge of every
battle. Men who would have raced one another for the honor of taking first
strike at a Beast like this.

Sir Wyann had made it out of the
river and was sitting in a wet heap upon a rock, mud caking his armor. Murrogar
could just make him out in the dim light. A group of fat birds, not unlike
pheasants, walked along the riverbank. They seemed unconcerned about the humans
in their midst.

At least we have a last meal.

Murrogar let the nobles sit on the
riverbank as he considered the best way for all of them to die. He entertained
the thought of simply slitting their throats here on the riverbank. He wondered
how many of the travelers he could put down before they stampeded away from
him.

There was a splash from upriver as
the maple log rolled off the rocks and drifted back down the river. Murrogar
waded in and, with Thantos’ help, dragged the tree back to shore. Murrogar’s
chain mail and shield were still strapped to a branch. As were Thantos’. But
Hul’s mail had been lost in the attack. The belt that once held Hul’s armor was
still attached to a limb and Thantos touched it with his fingers. He looked to
Murrogar, his eyes asking a question that he didn’t want answered and Murrogar
didn’t answer it.

The Beast howled in the distance and
Murrogar considered entering the river again. Maybe the water would get deep
again. Maybe he’d get another look at the monster’s belly. But even if the
Beast allowed him another stab, he wasn’t certain another stomach wound would
kill it. And he doubted the monster would give him that chance, anyway. He
would have to face this creature from a position of advantage. Something
defensible. Caves or an isolated hill or a narrow gulch. Something. He would
have to jam something sharp into the creature’s eyes. Or slash the thing’s
throat. Or take its massive head off. Something incontrovertibly lethal.

Murrogar took his mail and shield
from the maple, allowing Thantos to do the same, then shoved the tree back into
the currents. He watched it for only an instant before realizing that the
Eridian was still strapped to the trunk. It wouldn’t have been worth noting
except that the man, the one who’s throat Thantos had slit, was flailing and
moaning on the trunk now.

They pulled the log back and untied
the man then dragged him halfway up the riverbank. The plump birds on the shore
didn’t seem to like the Eridian’s flailing. When the man was dragged on shore
they made loud coos and squawks and ran into the forest.

So much for our meal
.

The Eridian was quite lively for a
someone who’d died several times. Murrogar had to hold him down while Thantos
stabbed the man through the heart to put him out of his misery. Again.

They stared at the dead man and
exchanged glances. Murrogar shrugged then inventoried his party. In all, there
were thirteen of them left. Ten nobles, including Ulrean. Thantos. Murrogar.
And then there was Sir Wyann. The knight raised his voice and insisted that they
should bury the Eridian. “It’s a matter of honor!” he shouted.

“And who’ll bury the other spearmen?”
asked Murrogar. The knight took a back step at Murrogar’s fury. “Who’ll bury
Sir Bederant? Or the servants and squires? Who’ll bury them?” He stopped inches
from Wyann, his eyes slitted, and spat out the next words, “Who’ll bury Hul?”

He let his gaze burn the knight, then
walked away, deeper into Maug Maurai. The remaining nobles looked to Wyann,
then followed Black Murrogar into the darkness of the forest.

Late afternoon brought the rain that
had been threatening for days. A smothering, misty drizzle that shortened the
world, took the life and color from it. The bells of the Maeris moonhaven
tolled thirteen times for mid-day as the squad trudged into the town proper.
Grae noted the three scorched husks on the outskirts of town; reminders of the
uprising that had crippled Maeris. Half the town had been razed by the Duke’s
janissaries. The people of Maeris had rebuilt most of the inner structures but
the overgrown, blackened ruins on the perimeter were whispers of a darker time.

They ate at a pub in the village
center. Jastyn offered to treat but the owners of the establishment refused to
take money from the squad. Word had leaked out that Grae and his men were
heading into Maug Maurai.

     “We don’t make ‘eroes pay fer
food ‘round ‘ere,” said the proprietor. He was a slender, dry-leaf of a man
with thinning hair. His wife, twice his size, hovered behind him, smiling.

“’es right,” she said. “We don’t.”

It was a gracious gesture that paid
off. As townsfolk heard that a troop of Laraytian Standards was hunting the
Beast they ventured from their homes and farms. Most took chairs and drank
quietly, whispering among themselves, smiling when the soldiers met their gaze.
Some approached the men directly and shook their hands, offered words of
encouragement and gratitude.

“They’ll make ya primes, all a ya,”
said a tearful old woman in a shapeless dress. She left an almond cake on the
table and was led away. “Blythwynn adore you!” she called.

Another man left a polished dagger on
the table. “It belonged ta me brother,” he told Grae. “’e was taken by tha
Beast oon three yers agoo. Would do me ‘eart sterlin’ if ya were ta use it ta
kill that munster.”

Grae tried to give the dagger back;
The man looked as if he’d worn the same trousers for a year straight, his hands
stained and calloused from years scrubbing the land. He could have sold the
dagger for a few hawks, fed his family on Nuldryn beef for two weeks. But the
scrubber would not have it back. He wanted the blade lodged in the Beast’s
skull. Grae promised to return the dagger when the Beast was dead and gave it
to Hammer for safekeeping.

By the time the meal was finished,
the squad had been given two cakes, a dagger, a bone-handled knife, three pies,
five pounds of cooked antelope meat, two perfumed kerchiefs from young women, a
knitted hat, two wineskins filled with a local vintage of red, and a collection
of four hawks. Grae was uncomfortable with the attention, and he tried to return
every gift that was offered, but the people were unswerving. Grae and his squad
were risking their lives to destroy the single greatest threat to Maeris.
Trinkets and foodstuffs were a pale offering in light of this, but it was all
they had.

The soldiers looked to one another
and nodded thanks to the villagers as each gift was left. They seemed puzzled
by the attention, pleased but uncertain how to respond. They were worshipped as
heroes here in Maeris, as primes. Women threw themselves at them. There were
four women to every man in this town and the soldiers were too good to pass up.
Even Hammer couldn’t keep the maidens from the squad.

After a full-bell there was barely
room to move in the pub, but a flutist and two thryndoliers squeezed in anyway
and began to play. Maribrae wanted to join them, but it became too loud, too
chaotic, too difficult to move in that pub. The flutist knew only three songs,
so the men played the songs again and again. No one seemed to care. There
wasn’t a face in the tavern without smile. Even Grae found himself unable to
clear his half-smile. These were good people. Grae had grown up around people
like this in Maentrass Barony, not far from here. He knew how hard they worked.
Harder than anyone should.

Aramaesia, their new archer, pointed
to three wooden hoops on the pub walls. They were wrapped in dangling red
ribbons. Small bones and feathers hung from the bottom of the hoops.

“What are those?” she asked Hammer.

Hammer drank from a stained wooden
mug and stared at the hoops. “Trith-alms,” he said. “Old Turae death ‘oops.
Offerings to the Andraen gods. When someone dies and their body ain’t
recovered, one a’ those gets made.”

The locals nearest the squad grew
quiet at the mention of the trith-alms. A man with a crooked nose nodded. “Cook
got taken. And owner’s two sons.”

Grae felt his jaw tighten. He
wondered how many of these poor people had disappeared in the night.
Something
is finally being done for them
. He thought.
And all it took was the
death of a few nobles
.

After another  half-bell, Grae snuck
into the kitchen with Lord Aeren and pored over the leather-bound tome that the
scholar had shown him. It turned out to be a bestiary of sorts. The two of them
spent another half-bell scouring the eleven pages dealing with the Beast of
Maug Maurai.

There were accounts from seven
survivors. These men offered a range of reports, from raving testimonials of
demons, walking dead and earthquakes to more sober, thoughtful commentaries.
Grae did his best to filter out the truly outlandish from the simply improbable.
He concentrated only on useful facts, ignoring comments like
“…It was the
rotting shape of Mundaaith before me, with burning eyes and smoke drifting from
its nostrils. It had come to claim my very soul
,” or, “
It has more in
common with the Dark Place than with our world. Its only friends are the dead
.” 
Instead, he focused on straightforward observations. Observations that could
not be disputed.

The Beast was always preceded by a
horrible stench. That seemed common to most of the testimonials. Survivors also
spoke of the Beast’s unnatural speed, which made the first point much more
salient. If the creature was as fast as the survivors claimed, then it would
help to have warning of its approach.

The creature was said to have large
eyes with rectangular pupils, like goats, and large, jutting brow ridges. Grae
dismissed this as irrelevant, but Aeren objected.

“Goats are hard to sneak up on,” he
said. “The rectangular pupils give them a broader arc of vision. So our Beast
may prove difficult to surprise.”

Grae thought about this, then gave
the young nobleman a nod. They stared at one another silently before moving on.

There were other common observations.
Survivors spoke of great black claws and a forest of teeth. Teeth so black and
so flawless that “
.. you could see yourself in them
,” as one trapper
had noted. Grae wondered on the accuracy of the observation; would a man stand
and stare into the teeth of this Beast long enough to make this observation?
Would he remember this detail? Maybe the moment had been so terrible that it
branded itself onto his brain with every intricate detail intact, to be
reviewed eternally for the remainder of his life. Or maybe he just had a flare
for storytelling. This was the problem with the survivor accounts; It was too
difficult to separate the embellishments from reality.

Perhaps the most important piece of
information was that the beast carried a great stinger at the end of its tail.
And that this massive weapon was venomous. Witnesses described the cries of
agony from those that were stung, how the bodies convulsed and the mouths
foamed green.

There were other observations. More
dubious ones. One man claimed that the claws could shred steel like eggshells.
That the creature could leap one hundred feet into the sky. That it could grip
a sword. That it breathed fire. Each witness added a new wrinkle. Each muddied
the picture a little more, until Grae almost wished he hadn’t read the
accounts.

The soldiers left the tavern
reluctantly. Shanks argued that they should spend the night in Maeris and leave
in the morning, but Grae would have nothing of it. They were already far behind
schedule.

He couldn’t blame the men for their
frustrations; They were adored here. Fed and aled. They were serenaded and
cheered and pointed out to children. It must have seemed like Eleyria. But
soldiers aren’t allowed in Eleyria until they’ve died in battle, and Laraytian
Standards aren’t allowed freedom until their mission is complete. He ordered
them out of the tavern.

The squad was followed out by a crush
of villagers. Hordes of other villagers waited patiently outside in the rain.
The throngs formed up along both sides of the northern road to Maug Maurai.
Muddy children held out their hands to touch the soldiers’ mail and shields.
Sun-withered men clapped the squad mates on the shoulders or shook their hands.
Women dashed out and kissed their favorites.

Grae Barragns gazed at the gathered
villagers of Maeris, at the smiles and extended hands. The people held out gifts
and flowers, cheered for the squad as if they were the Forgotten Heroes of
Galadance. He strapped his sword belt tight and squared his shoulders as he
walked.

The squad marched northward on the
Maurian Road, and when they turned a curve their steps faltered, then stopped
altogether. Lined in fluttering, bone-jangling splendor, visible on nearly
every tree along the road as far as they could see, were trith-alms. The
ribbons waved toward them like outstretched arms. The dangling bones clattered
hollowly and the soldiers felt for the comfort of sword hilts and spear shafts.
There were hundreds of the trith-alms.

The bells of the Maeris Moonhaven
tolled three times as the squad mates marched between the death hoops toward
Maug Maurai. Grae’s face turned cruel as he considered the task that lay before
him. To march into that forest. To search out the creature that had haunted the
people of Western Nuldryn. To hunt it down and to kill it.

And, if they found any Cobblethries,
if any of that ill-fortuned family or their servants had escaped the horrors of
that forest, to hunt them down as well. And to kill them too.