The Eye of the Hunter (40 page)

Béla, they named him—the new Baron Stoke.

The year was 4E1430.

* * *

After Béla’s birth, Ydral called upon guards to surround the child, and Kapitain Janok was made personally responsible for the newborn Baron’s safety. And at Ydral’s suggestion and Madam Orso’s orders, Lenko’s entourage was forbidden to approach the babe, for if little Béla died—
through whatever means, natural or contrived—Lenko would then be Baron. The Baronet himself was not permitted to see the child alone, and in fact was guarded whenever he was in the same room as the baby. Raging, Lenko stormed from the keep the very next day, setting forth for his bartizan in the Grimwall above Vulfcwmb in Aven.

Within a week Mad Lèva was dead. How she died is a mystery, yet rumors were rampant. Poisoned by her own mother, said some. Slain by Ydral, claimed others. Yet the most prevalent rumor of all was whispered by those who had heard the shrieks of the fleeing midwife: the new Baron was born with a mouth full of fangs, and as a result he suckled blood mingled with mother’s milk, draining unto death his own dam. Adding credence to this rumor, in the following months wet nurses also vanished, and so the tale persisted throughout the years, gathering strength with age.

But even though Lèva died and nurse maids disappeared and none knew the fate of the vanished midwife, others ridiculed this tittle-tattle—for had not Madam Orso herself said that the mother had been too weakened by the birth of such a healthy son? Was it not a common occurrence in Garia that Women died in childbed? Besides, Baroness Lèva had been quite mad. And had not Koska also told that the nurses had run dry and had returned to their distant homes?
Faugh!
any could see that little Béla’s mouth was normal, though his yellow eyes did give pause—
Eyes of a demon
, it was whispered.

With the death of her daughter, Madam Orso became the child’s Regent, holding court at night, ruling in the name of Baron Béla, though many muttered that Ydral was the
true
power within the Barony, for it seemed that no decision of importance was made without Koska leaning over to the hooded one to receive his whispered advice.

It was said that Madam Orso was a wanton harlot, cavorting with any and all, taking Man after Man unto her bed, sometimes more than one at a time, and debauching Women as well. Whether or not these tales are true, it is a fact that as Béla grew, his maternal granddam aged at a rate faster than her years.

Ydral became the child’s tutor, taking him under his wing. Béla was an apt pupil, spending long nights within the tower, there where the animals shrieked in rage and fear and pain.

Rumors bred rumors as Béla grew, whispers of cruelty and torture and acts of perversion. Servants crept about the keep as if fearing for their lives, scuttling from view whenever Koska or Béla or Ydral drew nigh. Doom and oppression rode in the haggard eyes of the staff, and many longed for the old days when Baron Marko ruled with an iron fist, for if a job was done right, then he let be, and if done wrong, a lash or two or a kick in the face wasn’t all that bad, eh?

But Marko was dead, and Koska ruled in name though Ydral ruled in fact, and little Béla was a yellow-eyed monster.

The Skarpal Mountains ’round about became a place of terror, a place where Vulgs howled in the dark where no Vulgs had howled before, a place where
Gritchi
and
Durdi
now dwelled, Foul Folk of yore. Landowners locked themselves in at night, driving their livestock into byres and cotes and sleeping alongside the beasts. And although they asked the Regent for succor, she sent none, telling them to fend for themselves. But even though the keep sent no protection, still the tax collectors came for their due, backed up by the force of arms.

All agreed that even dead Marko, hated as he was, had been a better ruler by far than what now sat on the Chair of the Barony.

Slowly, slowly, the Barony slid into dissolution. Just as did Koska. Just as did Béla. Driven by a yellow-eyed Man…if Man he was.

* * *

When Béla turned fourteen, Ydral showed the young Baron his true nature, and thereafter
Vulp
howls—Vulg howls—echoed from the tower, to be answered by like calls from the surrounding mountains. And some of the servants reported seeing a hideous winged creature flying through the night.

And in the surrounding countryside, people began to disappear in the darkness, only to be found the next day, murdered.

At age fifteen, almost sixteen, someone wounded Bèla, ran him through with a sword. The next morning the terrified servants awoke to discover Kapitain Janok’s remains strewn across the battlements, as if he had been torn asunder
by a wild beast. Yet his eyeless, earless, tongueless head they found mounted on a pole.

It was rumored that an assassin had attempted to slay Béla, yet whether it was Janok who had tried but failed, or had merely failed to prevent the attempt, none knew, and certainly none would ask.

Béla healed rapidly, for he was a Cursed One. Yet thereafter, none of the servants or soldiers were permitted to bear weapons in his presence—that is, none of the
Humans
were permitted to do so.

There came a night when he realized his terrible pleasures were not enough to sate him, and in the shadowy chamber atop the tower he confronted his mentor.

Ydral turned from the tome he was studying to look at Béla, yellow eyes staring into eyes of yellow. “My son, there are things even more delightful than
tji
have done so far. There are things more…complete.”

Béla stood and waited, his eyes glinting in the lantern light.

“I call it…the harvest.” Ydral rose and walked to a chest. From it he took a narrow, flat, leather-covered box. Opening the clasp and raising the lid, he withdrew a long, thin-bladed knife. “Had we a victim, I would show you how to flense flesh, how to flay. And yet delay death for the most exquisite time…. Had we a victim.”

At that moment Madam Koska Orso stepped into the room.

* * *

After Madam Orso’s disappearance, Béla took the reins of the Barony into his own hands.

Now
, by all the demons, said some, now that a
true
Baron Stoke sits on the Chair,
now
things will be different.

And they were.

Different.

Dwellers from nearby steads and villages began to disappear at an alarming rate. Over the next five years, delegations went to plead with the Baron for aid, and he blamed all on the
Gritchi
and the
Durdi
. But after the audience, those who stayed until the safety of dawn returned to their villages and steads and told of distant tortured shrieks in the night, shrieks sounding like those of people in pain beyond imagining.

Servants fled the keep. Soldiers, too. And they told of
demons in the tower, the tower where Ydral dwelt. They told of seeing
Gritchi
on the walls and in the bailey. They told of
Durdi
and Vulgs, too.

An exodus from the Barony began: first it was but a few families who left, then a flood. And the population dwindled.

Baron Stoke raged, but there was little he could do to stop the flight, for within ten years all his soldiery was gone. And now the
Drik
—the
Gritchi
, the Rūcks—served him. Too, there were the
Ghok
—the
Durdi
, the Hlōks—serving him as well. And
Vulpen
. All summoned by Ydral.

All manner of Foul Folk would serve Baron Stoke, for such was his power.

Some five years went by, and Baron Stoke’s minions ranged wider and wider afield to capture victims for his insane pleasures and mad experiments. For by this time Ydral had introduced him unto necromancy.

But then there came a night when the Baron discovered Ydral hastily gathering together some of his possessions, preparing to flee.

“There is a
Dolh
, an Elf, who has pursued me for more than three thousand years—since the cursed War of the Ban. I have word from one of my own that he draws nigh, and I would not face him, for he wears a token that I cannot overcome, and bears a weapon that will slay even me. This, too, do I know: it is my destiny to perish at the hands of one in whose veins courses
Dolh
blood, and I would stay such fate, forever.”

Béla tried to persuade Ydral to remain, offering his mentor the protection of the keep, to no avail, the yellow-eyed tutor leaving that very night, riding a Hèlsteed easterly into the Skarpal Range. And at last Baron Stoke was alone, but for the Spawn.

* * *

Three years passed, and Stoke decided to travel away from this empty Barony and unto Aven, unto the bartizan of his Uncle Lenko, unto a place where the harvest would be rich.

Two years after, an Elf bearing a crystal spear rode into the Skarpal Mountains, into the abandoned keep, searching for a yellow-eyed Man.

None were there to greet him.

* * *

Following the murder of Lenko and all his get, Baron Stoke remained in the hold north of Vulfcwmb for a number of
years. He harvested the region of Humans until it was nearly barren of game.

Then he fared south through the Grimwalls to come to Marik’s estates in the mountains above Sagra in Vancha. Baronet Marik was an old man by this time, giving Béla but little pleasure as he flayed his uncle. The others of the household, however, had youth and vitality. Thus they lasted longer.

Over the next years, the estate came to be known as Dreadholt, and the mountain behind as Daemon’s Crag. And it was a place of horrid repute. Even so, people were slow to react to the danger it represented, and more years passed ere the harvest became sparse.

Stoke and his minions then made their way unto Basq, and then Gothon, and a number of other lands, remaining at each for ten years or so, until the game played out, and then they would move onward to fresher pastures, where the herdfolk were not yet wise.

And so went Baron Stoke’s existence down through the decades, hunting, capturing, flaying, experimenting in necromancy. And still he appeared to be a yellow-eyed Man in his middle thirties, though by now he was more than a hundred years old; given what he was, he aged not, and only silver or starsilver rare could do him permanent harm, that and perhaps fire.

He was some two hundred fifty years old when he at last perfected the potion that would sustain the life of the one being flayed, sustain it until all the skin was gone, sustain it and keep the victim awake and aware, sustain it but not deaden the pain.

Then he began impaling them.

* * *

Although he retained the looks and physique of a Man in his mid-thirties, Baron Stoke was five hundred fourteen years old and had just established a new chamber within the Grimwall when his scouts told of a waggon train crossing the Crestan Pass. A sudden snowstorm caused it to turn back. His raiders failed to harvest herd victims, and so Stoke took it upon himself to lure several unto their doom. Baeron, they were, a vibrant Race of Men, and with a few well-chosen words he managed to fool the Chieftain. Ten were sent into the night, following Stoke to a hideous fate ordained by him.

But the Baeron were more than Stoke had bargained for, and one managed to break free. The escapee brought back a force of these powerful warriors and what appeared to be a savage, trained War-Bear. Stoke fled for his life, for surely they had silver weapons at their disposal.

This was the first time that Baron Stoke had been hounded from his dwellings. At all other times it had been his choice to move on to more fertile harvesting grounds. But this time he had been forced to flee. His rage at such was nigh boundless, yet there was nothing he could do against so powerful a foe as the Baeron Men.

* * *

Stoke fled to the Rigga Mountains in Gron. Over the next four years, he experimented upon the
Drik
, yet they did not seem to satisfy his unholy passions.

And then he and his minions captured a male Elf.

Compared to a Human, the flaying of one of the immortals was delicious, and the impalement of the Elf was beyond Stoke’s wildest imaginings.

He was driven from the Gronfangs by his rekindled lust, and he returned unto the bartizan above Vulfcwmb, for he had not been there for several decades, and so the harvest promised to be fruitful.

After a number of months of reaping victims, some Men of Vulfcwmb had the temerity to try to oppose him, coming at his fortress with the intent to slay him. They screamed most delightfully.

And then his lackeys brought to him some of the Wee Folk, with the jewel-like eyes and Elven ears. Two elder males there were and an elder female, but also there was a young female, and Stoke saved her for last, slaying the others before her horrified eyes.

But ere he could harvest the young damman, three would-be rescuers came into his holt: another Warrow, a young male; an Elfess, the
sister
of the Elf he had slain in the Rigga Mountains; and Urus, the Chieftain of the Baeron, the Man he had so easily deceived.

It seems that these
fools
were
hunting
him. Hunting Baron Stoke!

Stoke and his minions captured them all.
What a glorious harvest!

But then the Man, Urus, changed into a great Bear and burst down the door of the cell!

Stoke almost died that night, nearly slain by the fangs and claws of another so cursed as he. Yet he managed to escape…barely.

* * *

He fled to Vancha, to Dreadholt upon Daemon’s Crag. It had been many years since he had last harvested in the region, and Sagra was once again populated.

But two years after fleeing Vulfcwmb, again his holt was invaded—by the very same four who had nearly proved his undoing there in the bartizan!

This time he came even closer to dying—by a starlight sword most dire, borne by the Elfess; by silver bullet, hurled by the buccan; and by fire.

Dreadholt burned to the ground, yet once again Stoke managed to escape.

* * *

He fled to the distant eastern reaches of the Grimwall, there on the border of far away Xian. But within ten years the harvest became sparse, and so he drifted westerly, remaining in the grip of the mountains, reaping new victims as he went, deriving his perverse pleasure from flaying people alive and impaling them, and from practicing his mad necromancy.