The King of the Vile (10 page)

“You want me to be bait,” she said.

“If it comforts you to put it that way, yes.”

“It doesn’t,” Jessilynn said. To her right, three pairs of eyes peered at her hungrily from behind a copse of trees. “I’ll do it, Dieredon, but I’m trusting you. If I die, I swear I’ll haunt you for at least a decade or two.”

The elf grabbed her shoulder and squeezed.

“You’re not the first to make me that promise,” he said, winking. “Now run.”

Jessilynn swallowed, counted to three in her head, and took off. Immediately leaves and broken twigs exploded all around her. It seemed the entire night had come alive as the prowling wolf-men gave chase. Dieredon sprinted alongside her for a moment before diving into the forest. She prayed for his safety as she heard muffled grunts and a yelp. Howls chased her, and up ahead, howls greeted her. The beasts no longer hid, their long, muscular bodies easily visible as they flanked her. The fifteen seconds passed by with agonizing slowness, but at last she planted her feet, pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it. Blue-white light shone from the arrowhead, and telling herself to be brave, she slowly spun in place.

“Do you think I’m afraid?” Jessilynn screamed. Her role wasn’t just as bait, but as a distraction, so she played the part as best as she could. “Do you think I’m afraid of pups like you?”

Several snarled as they stood to their full height, towering a solid two feet above her. Three lumbered into the road ahead, three more blocked the road behind. Saliva dripped from their teeth, low growls rumbling in their throats.

“We remember you,” the middle wolf-man blocking the road ahead of her said. “You were our prisoner. You were Moonslayer’s pet.”

Jessilynn grinned despite her fear.

“I killed Moonslayer,” she said. “And I’ll kill you too, unless you run.”

The wolf-man bared its fangs as it tensed for a leap.

“Arrogant human,” it said. “You will suffer as we feast.”

It howled, and at its signal, the rest attacked. Jessilynn released her arrow, striking the wolf’s leader in the chest. The shot blasted it off its feet, innards spilling across the road as the body rolled. She reached for another arrow, but from the corner of her eye she saw a beast lunge at her. It was too close for her to react in time, but one of Dieredon’s arrows plunged into its neck, dropping it. Jessilynn breathed a sigh of relief and fired, her own target receiving an arrow in the face, shattering its skull.

She heard the whistle of more arrows, the projectiles raining down at an incredible speed from Dieredon’s high perch. Jessilynn spun, spotted a wolf-man with a shaft lodged into its leg trying to flee. Pulling an arrow from her quiver, she sighted it, let loose. As the beast died, Jessilynn heard another of them cry out.

“The tree! Up in the tree!”

Jessilynn turned to see several leap onto the same sturdy trunk, their sharp claws sinking into the bark. Dieredon was on a high branch, perfectly balanced as he rained down death. Even as more wolf-men raced toward her, she trusted the elf to protect her, just as she would protect him. One after the other she killed the climbing wolf-men, her arrows ripping them off the trunk.

Despite the chaos, Jessilynn felt strangely calm. She was in control. She had the power. A wolf-man died mid-leap, its body crumpling mere feet away, yet she did not let it shake her aim. One last wolf climbed up toward the elf. Her hand reached back, found the quiver empty. Deciding Dieredon couldn’t possibly mind, she grabbed her bowstring anyway, an arrow of light swirling into existence at the touch of her fingers. When she fired, it hit the wolf-man in the spine, exploding with such power it cleaved the beast in two. Both halves fell.

It was the last.

Dieredon swung his bow over his back and climbed down. Jessilynn stood among the carnage, overwhelmed by how many they’d killed. It was almost surreal. At least fifteen dead wolf-men lay all about her, and she hadn’t even been scratched.

“That was incredible,” she whispered.

“I wish you’d used a regular arrow on that last one,” the elf said. “Either that, or left it for me.”

“I was out of arrows,” she said, immediately defensive. “At least I waited, like you asked.”

“It’s not that,” the elf said, and he smiled despite their long night. “I was worried you would chop the tree in half and send me tumbling down with it.”

He tousled her hair, and she accepted the gesture in a state of mild shock.

“Did you just tell a joke?” she asked.

The elf shrugged.

“Perhaps. Why?”

Jessilynn stared at the dead bodies, the blood everywhere.

8

I
t’d been two days since Alric ate when he stumbled upon the little cabin beside the forest. He’d crossed a stream the day before, and drank until his stomach ached, but the closest he’d had to a meal was a grasshopper he’d caught and crushed in his hand. He’d almost eaten it. Almost. Instead he’d tossed the filth to the ground, wiped his hand clean, and continued on. As he crossed the rolling hills, he’d begun to fantasize about that grasshopper, and the many others that had flitted about the fields on either side of the stream. If he’d known how hungry he’d become, he would have swallowed down both pride and bug.

Alric more crawled than walked to a foot-worn path that stretched from the door of the cabin to the hills beyond. Unable to go on, he dropped to his stomach and lay there, staring at the cabin. It was a nice cabin, he decided. Small. Well-cared for. If only the person inside would notice him lying there, cold and hungry. Since he’d lost his supplies in the Corinth River, he’d had to beg for every scrap of food he’d eaten from the various farms he encountered on his trek north. Like a fool, he’d avoided the main road, thinking an angel might spot him for questioning. Should they discover who he was...

“Why in Karak’s hairy ass are you here?”

Alric looked up to see an older woman frowning down at him. Her hair was gray, her skin wrinkled, but her blue eyes were lively. She wore a faded dress that might have once been green before dirt and time had their way with it.

“Traveling,” Alric said, as if that were a worthwhile explanation. “My...my name’s Alric. I hate to be a bother, and I’m ashamed I must, but...”

“Yes, yes, you can have something to eat,” the woman said, dropping to her knees so she might wrap an arm underneath him. “It’s either feed you or bury you, and I know which one’s easier on these old bones.”

Slowly she stood, and Alric forced his limbs to work. The woman had at least twenty years on him; he would not be carried into her cabin like an invalid. Together, step by step, they approached the cabin. Alric slumped against the wall as she grabbed the door.

“You’ll have to endure for a bit,” she said as she shoved the door open. “I’ve got a stew cooking over the fire, but it’s got some time before it’ll be ready.”

Inside was warm and cozy, a veritable paradise after Alric’s last few days. An old rocking chair waited by the fire, and the woman helped him over to it. Collapsing, Alric let out a moan as he gently rocked back and forth. The heat of the fire seeped into him. The feel of heat slowly spreading throughout his body was divine after the last few cold nights. His host took a step back and frowned.

“Maybe you shouldn’t wait,” she said, grabbing a cloth off a simple yet sturdy table. Turning to the pot, she grabbed the ladle inside and scooped out a large chunk of potato. She wrapped it with the cloth, then handed it to Alric.

“You might want to let that cool,” she said, but Alric would have none of it. He opened the cloth and tore into the potato. It was tough and slippery, but it was delicious. His mouth began to salivate as he wolfed it down. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair and tried to relax. He’d been in the grips of panic for days now, and for once he felt like himself again.

“Thank you,” he said, closing his eyes. He was so tired, and that tiny bit of food in him wasn’t helping him stay awake.

“Most welcome,” the woman said. She started rifling through her cabinets in search of something. Alric rocked back and forth, sleep inevitable at this point.

“Your name,” he said, trying to resist. “May I have your name?”

He heard a cabinet door slam shut.

“Go on and sleep,” the woman said. “When you wake, you can have both my soup and my name.”

Alric chuckled.

“You’re too kind,” he said. “Too kind...”

The fire crackled, its heat carrying him away into slumber.

Alric awoke to a wet cloth pressing against his forehead. He started, arms flailing. Without meaning to, he slapped the cloth out of the woman’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” Alric said, immediately overcome with guilt. “Please, you startled me, I didn’t mean to do that.”

The woman nodded, a frown etched into her tanned face.

“I believe you,” she said, bending down to retrieve the cloth. “Your supper is ready if you are.”

That he was. As his senses returned to him, he felt warm, alert, and ravenous. Alric joined the woman at the table, a steaming bowl already served and waiting for him. Taking a wooden spoon, he prepared to eat, but not yet.

“Your name,” he said. “I won’t eat until I at least know your name.”

The woman stared at him, and he felt himself being analyzed. Whatever judgment she reached, good or ill, he didn’t know, for she kept her weathered face far too guarded.

“Beatrice,” she said. “Beatrice Utter.”

“You have my thanks, Beatrice,” Alric said, and then he tore into the soup. Beatrice sat opposite him, saying little and eating nothing herself. Alric assumed she’d already eaten, or would later.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Beatrice said when he was halfway through the bowl. “The way you were moaning, I was thinking you had a fever. Walking hungry and cold as you were, I’m still stunned you don’t. You must have been having a terrible dream.”

Alric swallowed as he tried to think of a proper response.

“I have nightmares sometimes,” he said. “I don’t like to talk about them.”

He slurped another spoonful of stew, the broth thick and meaty. As far as he was concerned, it was divine.

“Is it about the war?” Beatrice asked. “I know a lot of younger fighting men who still have nightmares. Facing off against the dead, or that dragon the mad priest summoned, isn’t something you easily forget.”

Alric chuckled. Despite telling her he hadn’t wanted to talk, she’d asked anyway. Stubborn woman. He had a feeling she often got what she wanted.

“No,” he said. “I never fought in the war. When Thulos’s army marched west, my village was close to the coast, too far from their path to be affected.”

“You were one of the lucky ones, then,” Beatrice said. She had a thin blanket wrapped about her shoulders, and she pulled it tighter. “Around here, we were safe from their initial raids. The call for soldiers afterward? Not so lucky then. A lot of good men joined King Antonil’s march to retake Veldaren alongside the angels. That first time, I mean, not the second one when the war was done. Those men, they fought the dead, they fought demons, and when they came home, they fought the shadow dragon at Mordeina’s gates. Far more than any man should endure, but endure they did, and now they wake screaming from the nightmares. Scars of the mind, I say. And just like a scar, it won’t be healing soon, if ever.”

Alric remembered listening to the stories after the war’s end. Much of it had sounded so outlandish he’d have shrugged them off as lies if not for the angels who flew about. Having the winged men around made it a lot easier to believe stories of demons and dragons.

“Can we...can we talk about something else?” he said. For some reason, discussing the war between the brother gods made him incredibly uncomfortable.

“Sure,” Beatrice said, leaning back into her chair. “Perhaps you can tell me where you’re going, and why you’re going there in such sorry shape.”

Alric’s spoon clacked against the bottom of his bowl as he thought over what to say and how truthful to be.

“Do you know of the blockade at the Bloodbrick?” he asked.

“I do,” Beatrice said. “News doesn’t travel often to me, but that certainly did.”

“Well, I crossed the Corinth into Mordan, and I didn’t do it by using the Bloodbrick. Lost all my provisions in the process. Past week I’ve been making my way north, relying on the kindness of strangers.” He met the woman’s blue eyes. “Strangers like you, to whom I am most thankful.”

Beatrice’s gaze made him increasingly uncomfortable.

“Must be something important for you to have done that,” she said.

“By Ashhur, I hope so.”

Beatrice rose from the table and gestured to the pot sitting beside the fire.

“Get some more if you’d like,” she said. “And then rest up. I expect you’ve got no coin on you, so for now, you’ll earn your keep by helping me about the place the next few days. Winter’s coming, and there’s lots to do to prepare.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay,” Alric said.

“Somewhere important to be?”

There was no way to explain without explaining everything, and Alric felt too ashamed to do so.

“I only...” he shook his head. “I’ll help until I regain my strength, just a day or two at most. Will that suffice?”

Beatrice didn’t look happy, but he wondered if Beatrice even
could
look happy.

“Very well then.” She headed toward the cabin door. “I accept. After all, I’d hate to impose.”

The door opened with a loud creak and shut with a bang. Alric winced as if expecting to be shot with an arrow.

“No wonder you live alone,” he said, and immediately felt guilty. The woman had warmed him by a fire, fed him, and offered him a place to sleep. To repay that kindness with cowardly insults behind her back...

“I’m sorry, Ashhur,” he said as he returned to his chair by the fire and wrapped himself in a blanket. Back and forth he rocked, his full stomach spreading sleep throughout his body. “We’re all imperfect vessels, but you chose a truly cracked and dirty one for this task by choosing me.”

Beatrice woke him early that next morning.

“Chores to do,” was her only explanation.

Those chores were many, and took Alric all over the woman’s land. First came milking her trio of goats. Their milk was his breakfast, along with some vegetables she’d boiled before he woke. Along the forest’s edge she’d placed dozens of traps for rabbits, and they checked every single one, resetting those that needed it. Of the traps, only one had caught a rabbit, and Beatrice smoothly pulled it free, broke its neck, and handed it to Alric to carry.

While Beatrice cleaned and skinned the rabbit back at the cabin, Alric steadily chopped logs for her woodpile. The hours passed, and Alric felt himself sinking into the menial tasks. It reminded him of home, and there was something wholesome about it, a feeling of accomplishment no matter how meager the work. To the north of her cabin was a stream, and he traveled to it alone so he might bathe. Afterward he brought several filled jugs back to the cabin and stashed them inside.