The Demon Lord (11 page)

For I am lost

And none can help me now. Issaqua sings the song of desolation And fills the world with Darkness. Bringing fear and madness. Despair and death to all.

As shreds of cloud slid slowly in to mask the moon, Aldric found the fine hairs on his skin prickle at his clothing as if he was cold. Except that he was not cold— or if he was, the weather had nothing to do with it.

The gates of the village were shut and barred when they reached them, and Evthan had to shout at the top of his voice several times before someone inside opened up. It was probably, he explained, because the villagers were all asleep by now. Aldric stared at him but said nothing, long past the need to make small talk. He guessed the hunter was probably right but both guess and explanation were completely wrong, as became clear once they were within the palisade.

Instead of darkness there was light. An extravagance of lamps and torches and candles hung outside each house; and most of all around the home of headman Darath. Aldric half-heard Evthan mutter, “A council meeting? Now… ?” but paid no attention as he pushed past the Jouvaine and stepped inside the headman’s house. Maybe half a dozen of those sitting nearest the door looked up as he came in, but the rest were more concerned with their own affairs, an attitude which told him how important those affairs must be. There were no questions about his success—or otherwise—in hunting, no interest at all in the fact that he was smeared and spotted with dry blood and—most curiously—no invitation, polite or otherwise, for him to leave, even though he had expected something of the sort.

Sensing Evthan at his back, Aldric moved to one side, leaned against the wall and listened to a debate which judging both by volume and by passionate gesticulation had been going on for quite some time. Though for the most part they used the Jouvaine language that he knew, there were still enough dialect words flung to and fro across the table for the Alban to need all his concentration if he was to make sense of what they said.

And what they were discussing, if the uproar could be dignified by such a word, was a suggestion that the village be abandoned. Reasons good and bad, for and against, were expounded loudly and at length; but it all boiled down to the same thing—the Beast, and the Beast alone, was the source of all the forest’s troubles. Aldric turned his head, caught Evthan’s eye and raised one doubting eyebrow.
Oh indeed
, he thought;
how little they know
.

One man, a grizzled elder, got to his feet and rapped the table. It was a measure of the respect he commanded that the shouting and argument died away almost at once.

“Say what you will about how long your families have lived here; all of us know what is wrong now and why we can live here no longer. This three months past we have put no silver in the coffers of Valden, though we have taken out as much as—more than—ever we do in Spring. I have looked at the money-chests, and they are
empty
. Nothing remains. Soon we will begin to starve. All this, because six men must do the work of one, for fear of the Beast.”

There was an undertone of condemnation in his voice which provoked a rippling of murmurs—but significantly, nothing loud enough to be distinguished from the buzz of sound nor sufficiently clear for any source to be identified. Aldric too was tempted to point out that men, above all, seemed in no danger from the Beast—had not Evthan told him so, in as many words?—but he kept the comment to himself. Justified or not, it was not his place to say so, especially when he had other words for the assembled villagers to hear.

His clenched right fist boomed against the wall, and now not half-a-dozen but every head in the place turned as if on a single neck to stare at him. Already, like some defensive mechanism, he -was smiling that thin, sardonic smile which was becoming far too much at home on his face.

“You will eventually choose to do whatever you think is best, of course,” he said, in a tone suggesting that their choice of “best” would not be his at all. “But I would advise you not to waste much time on your deliberations.”

“How came you bloodied, sir?” The formal phrasing came from Darath himself; unmistakably the headman, he sat at the head of the table, farthest in the room from Aldric and his high-backed chair was carved more richly than any other in the room. More richly, thought the Alban, than a peasant should be sitting on—and the carvings were not folk-art, trees and flowers and animals, but armed warriors and stylised crest-beasts. Another question added to the many… Darath himself was greying, dignified, his face half-hidden by the sweep of a steel-hued moustache. Peasant or not, Aldric straightened from his slouch and bowed before replying.

“That, sir, is the point of my advice,” he answered. “In the forest I had cause to kill tonight. Three mercenary soldiers in the service of your Overlord.” Aldric heard the collective gasp of horror but his gaze did not break contact with the headman’s eyes. Even at that distance he saw a dilation of the pupils. “This,” he raised his left hand in its clotted web of red-black trickles, “is my own blood, while this—” the gloved right hand came up, its smooth black leather roughened by unpleasantly coagulated spatterings, “—is from the veins of a Drusalan man called Keel.”

“You have slain Keel… ?” Darath’s voice was neutral now and Aldric could read nothing into it or from it. He nodded, once.

“In a fight, face to face.”

“Then, honoured sir,” and the warmth in Darath’s voice was unmistakable, “you have rid the Jevaiden of an evil greater than the Beast. At least it has excuses for its beastly nature—Keel had not.”

“Listen to me, headman!” Aldric cut through a rising undercurrent of jubilation. After what they had discussed tonight, and evidently all but decided, any small triumph would be a cause for celebration. Let them celebrate then—but only with full awareness of the whole story. “
Darath
!” Sudden silence—it was unlikely that anyone had pronounced a headman’s name like that in his own house since Valden village was chopped from the trees. “Let me finish, will you?” the Alban snapped. “I killed three. There were four. One escaped. Even now he’s probably telling Geruath and Crisen everything that happened… and he’ll mention that before they attacked me I spoke Evthan’s name aloud. How long will it be before more soldiers raid this village, looking for him, for me—for anyone who gave me food, gave me water, gave me even a friendly word? Eh?”

“How…” Darath’s voice cracked and he was forced to try again. “How, if you were able to kill three, did you let one get away?” There was a pathetic desperation in the way he asked the question and for just a moment Aldric wished that he had a better answer. But he had not.

“Ask Evthan all about it,” he said grimly, inclining his head into another slight bow of departure. “I am going to my bed.”

Even though that bed was in Evthan’s own house, the hunter did not follow to let him in. Aldric was not surprised, for after that enigmatic parting shot the council would hardly let him leave without some sort of explanation. Yet when he reached the house its door was already unlocked, held only by the hasp.

Gueynor was inside, sitting on a low stool near the fire. She glanced up as he entered but said only, “Good evening,
hlensyarl
,” before returning her attention to the pot which was creating such a savoury smell as it simmered above a bed of raked red coals.

Aldric nodded to her with equal curtness as he took a seat. “Good evening to you too, woman of the house,” he said, and the way in which he spoke was neither complimentary nor particularly humorous. Seeing her had reawakened his own dull feeling of self-loathing, such as any
kailin-eir
would feel after using poisoned weapons against men. It was a vague brooding sensation, not directed at anyone specifically, but Gueynor was here now and she had offered him the venoms in the first place, so…

She lifted a lid, stirred, tasted, stirred again and replaced the lid before looking at him for any length of time. “You had no success in your hunting, then?” It was more an observation than a question.

“No,” the Alban returned laconically.

“But there is always tomorrow.” Aldric stared at her but said nothing, trying to sift the many meanings from that simple sentence. A red-glazed flask of wine: and a cup made from the same material sat on a table near him, and he poured himself a brimming measure, draining more than half of it before he trusted his own brain and tongue sufficiently to speak. There was also a slight hope that it would numb the steadily increasing throb of his left arm, which from the disgusting wet squelch of his shirt-sleeve was still leaking stealthily. “Tomorrow night,” he said quietly and carefully, “is both full moon and summer solstice.”

If Gueynor read more than the obvious from his soft words, her firelit face showed no sign of it. Instead she merely shrugged and said, “The full moon should give good light to hunt by.”

So we understand one another at long last
. Aldric favoured her with a smile which put a more than reasonable number of his teeth on show: a wolfish smile. She did not match it, even mockingly, but looked away instead and prodded with a poker at the coals as if they had suddenly become her enemy and the flat-tipped bar of iron a sword. The Alban emptied another cup of wine in silence. Then a third. He could feel his senses start to swim as the alcohol entered his blood, and was glad of it—there were many reasons why he wanted to be drunk tonight. He poured again, and over the rim of that half-finished measure stared at Gueynor through hooded eyes. “What brings you here after midnight anyway?”

The girl regarded him through wide blue eyes that were full of innocence. “To feed you, why else?” she replied.

Aldric smirked again, a deliberately nasty expression that was harsh and humourless. “I can think of several reasons,” he purred. The challenge hung unanswered on the air, and he adopted another method of inquiry. “That stuff you keep stirring—what is it?”

His abruptness seemed to have awakened an answer-

ing chord in Gueynor, for she retorted, “Stew,” and left it at that.

Aldric repeated himself. “What is it?”

She told him, at some length, then stared and said acidly, “Why? What else do you want in it?”

Again the wolfish smile. “And will you tell me how it’s prepared, if I ask further?” he wondered aloud. “For instance, when do you add something from your aunt’s basketful of potions? Before or after the salt?” It was unjust to say such things and, worse, he knew the injustice of it. But he was frightened, sickened, in considerable pain and above all tired of being someone else’s plaything.

Gueynor did not raise her voice in protest at his unspoken accusation, nor was she even irritated by his petulant righteousness at condemning the poisons she had only offered—but which he had used. “They were given you to kill the Beast,” was all she said. “I neither know nor want to know what else you used them for. I only know what they were meant to kill.”

The young Alban set down his wine-cup and leaned towards her. “Tell me, Gueynor,” and now his voice was flat and neutral, “do you really think that poison will affect the thing which roams the woods at night? For I do not.”

“I merely hope.”

“Hope… ?” said Aldric sombrely. “I think that hope is worth next to nothing where the Beast is concerned.”

“Then you are convinced?”

“Convinced enough. As much, as least; as any man need be—lacking absolute proof.”

Part of a thick log, burned through, slumped in the fire and gave birth to a cloud of whirling sparks. Flames sprung up with a crackle and as quickly died away. Aldric felt the sudden splash of heat against his face and pulled back with a gasp, but Gueynor did not move even though she sat much closer to the fire than he did.

“You’ll burn up if you stay there, girl! Take my hand.”

She looked at the outstretched glove in ill-concealed horror, seeing for the first time the caked blood and involuntarily shrinking away from the grisly sight. Then Gueynor’s gaze went to the Alban’s left hand, as if expecting it to be proffered instead, and saw there still more clotted gore. “You didn’t tell me you were hurt,” she said, and somehow managed to make it sound as if he was to blame.

There was only one response to such an approach and despite the cliche Aldric used it: “You didn’t ask.” Had he been a little more sober he would not have said it; had he been more sober and more in control of himself, he would not have said most of the things spoken that night. Easier recall an arrow than a thoughtless word…

“Let me see that.” Gueynor was on her feet at once, entirely businesslike, all their verbal hacking of the past few minutes set aside. “Take off your jerkin, and your shirt.”

Aldric hesitated, shifting uneasily; the girl smiled at what seemed to be embarrassed modesty and reached out to tug gently at his clothes. “
I—I
would sooner have a bath first,” the Alban said, twitching back the half-inch necessary to avoid her fingers. What he would sooner do was discard the armoured sleeves he wore; Evthan knew of them already, quite by chance, and that was one person too many. And the thing he wanted from his saddlebags was an item he most definitely wished kept secret. Gueynor’s solicitude was proving awkward. “It doesn’t matter if there isn’t any hot water—cold will do.”

“I’ll be washing your whole arm,” Gueynor persisted, “not just around the wound. If it’s still bleeding you’ll have merely wasted time.”

Her reasoning was eminently practical and forced Aldric to abandon practicalities as, mind racing, he pressed two fingers against his jerkin sleeve. No blood had yet seeped through the leather—all had been channelled down his arm along the inner surface, after soaking through his shirt and the padded lining of his armour-but even that light touch left a pair of soggy indentations and produced an ugly sucking sound.

Gueynor’s face took on an expression of distaste. “You see?” he said. “This will likely make a mess no matter what I do, or when—but I must strip to the skin and wash. Now I… killed tonight.”

As was becoming habitual with him, Aldric left his statement uncompleted for the girl to draw her own conclusions. Gueynor did not disappoint him—indeed, she employed the very word he wanted her to use.