DUSK WEIGHED HEAVY on the village down in the forest valley. Over generations, the farmers and their sons had cleared out a space in which to live and flourish, slowly cutting back the old trees. Here and there, the stone ruins of an ancient settlement jutted like broken teeth from the forest floor. Though they knew not who had dwelt in the valley before them, the settlers knew they had found a home in the depths of the wood. It yearned for occupation, just as surely as the trees themselves seemed sacred in their vast quiet.
Scattered along the valley floor were several dozen wood-shingled houses and sheds. From unfenced fields came the lowing of livestock, but the shrieking of children and work-song of men was strangely absent. Indeed, the houses were shut up, and no one traveled the narrow paths between the houses and fields save men walking with backs bent and haunted-looking eyes. They had their tools on their shoulders, and every so often would glance north towards the mouth of the valley. The sun was nearly set over the hills in the west, and the lower that sullen ball sank, the more miserable looked the village men, as if they scented the hour of their doom.
It was from the tall pines that stood at the northern end of the village that a shrill whistle peeled, rolling down over the valley floor. It issued twice, thrice, and the men on the roads looked to one another in silence. The bruised bags below their red eyes betrayed long nights of fear that had ground them into little more than hollow shells of men.
Slowly, they gathered at the center of their village, where the ground was packed hard by the passing of many feet. A small watchtower stood there. At the very top was a pole tied with bright streamers that drifted like lazy fish in the warm zephyrs. The sky glowed like banking coals, and already in the east, where deep violet bloomed from early evening, newborn stars burned cold on the horizon. Atop the tower, a man in a dark tunic pointed and called to his neighbors, “Riders coming up the road!”
The men stood shoulder to shoulder, speaking not a word, with all the cheer of a gallows train. Some leaned on poles, and others stood with arms crossed and the wide brims of straw hats pulled low over their eyes. One by one, women in plain dresses drifted from the houses. Some of them carried bundles, but these were scanty, and they knew it would never be enough.
The worst had come to pass.
An altar stood opposite the watchtower, but it was forgotten. Old flowers lay wilting in heaps, and scattered offerings in little clay pots. Always she had shielded them, a distant comfort, blessing births and sending signs during hard times. But with the appearance of Maaz and his brigands, the porwita had been strangely silent. If the green lady had heard the womenfolk’s pleading, or their husbands’ mournful singing in the fields, she had surely scorned them. No one dared say such, but her silence weighed heavy on their hearts. Or perhaps, some had whispered, against the bandit chief’s cold iron the lady’s gentle magics were helpless. Perhaps that was why she had vanished.
Riders now appeared on the road, dark and loathsome in the dusky air. More than a dozen of them came on in a lazy, cantering line, wickedly barbed spears couched, iron caps streaming long horsehair tufts. They were clad in haphazard leather and mail, ill-gained spoils of a dozen ambushes and skirmishes. Their faces bore ugly scars, and their hard eyes were unfamiliar with mercy, unswayed by the aching poverty of the farmers they bore down upon.
Laughing like hyenas, they kicked their horses into a thundering charge down the last stretch of road and galloped round the gathered men and women, throwing up a storm of dust that made the farmers hack and cough. Finally, they slowed, and from their number, a single swarthy man emerged. He wore a greatsword upon his back, and his helm was fashioned in the manner of the Ionassi free soldiers, with long, pointed cheek guards and an open face. Greasy black hair fell to his shoulders, and a coarse beard covered his face. His greaves were hammered bronze, and caps covered his knees. He reined in his horse and dropped to the ground.
“On your knees!” he snarled. Slowly, the villagers sank under his fierce gaze. He grinned broadly, pleased with their fear.
“What do you want, Maaz?”
The bandit chief circled his horse. He growled sourly. “What do I want? When the gray men came down from their warrens, did High Rock send men to protect you?” The men shook their heads sullenly, but most simply stared at the ground. A woman sobbed, and her husband spoke harshly to her under his breath. Several of the mounted men laughed. Maaz looked at them sharply, and his hyenas choked off their outburst. Raising his voice, he said, “So you came to us! We unwashed, filthy wolves you long had cursed. We who follow the sword. And we made a deal, didn’t we?”
The villagers did not answer. They could not even meet his eyes. The fear of those squatting abominations, those gray men and their cruel blades had been the greater. Children’s nightmares sprung to life and setting fires in their fields. Hounding their daughters and slaughtering their dogs. Yes—they had made a deal with Maaz, for what choice had they? And the bandit was true: he had come, when the proud lord of High Rock had not.
“Thirty days has it been since last we came to collect our due.” Maaz stared around at them as if shocked at their failure. His brows drew sharply together above his hooked nose beneath the brim of his helmet, flashing anger. “Well, good folk? Where is it?”
At this, a few of the women held up their bundles. Maaz moved to take one, hefted it, and threw it upon the ground. He spit on it. “A pittance! This is not what you promised me.”
“Insulting,” murmured one of his men, and another, “Disgraceful!”
“You ask too much,” said one of the village men. “You ask for what we do not have.”
“You would have nothing! Nothing, if we did not drive the gray men back into their holes!” Maaz snarled. His black eyes gleamed with an evil light. “Since you offer nothing, we will balance the scales as we see fit. We’ll find something among your hovels, I’m sure.”
“Not the children,” cried one of the women. “Please!”
Maaz raised a hand to his men, pointing towards the houses. “Find them. Three.”
The women moaned like wounded animals, and their husbands held them, hiding their weeping, fearful faces.
Maaz laughed at their terror. “Next time it will be five. This is the price for your lives!”
One of the men stood. He leaned on the long haft of a woodsman’s ax, favoring one leg. His eyes were hard and small, his mouth drawn down into a grim line. “No.”
The bandit chief turned to face him, head cocked as if he had misunderstood. Desperate hands pulled at the man’s tunic, trying to force him back down, but he kicked them away savagely. The bandit chief strutted towards him, hands on his hips.
“Ah,” Maaz sighed. “Finally. I thought this village was full of women.”
“We have paid you enough,” said the farmer. “At this rate, how can we hope to survive the winter?” He squared his shoulders and stood straight, echoing a time when he was younger and stronger. But long, painful years had passed. Maaz laughed in his face.
“Fewer mouths will stretch your supplies, I think. I reckon we’re doing you a favor. So sit down, old man, before someone gets hurt.”
“You’re not taking our children,” the farmer said stiffly. He looked to those around him for support but found not a single face raised towards him. They cringed back from the bandits who strode among them, picking nails with knives and leering at the women.
“Stop!” hissed the village men. Someone shouted, “He doesn’t speak for us!”
Maaz drew up short. He looked around with disgust at the men who would not meet his eye. “These are your brothers and neighbors? Were you the only one born with a heart?” Then he head-butted the farmer savagely in the face. Blood spurted from the sides of the man’s smashed nose. He reeled backward and toppled into the dust.
“The woman who gives me his child will keep her own!” Maaz said, raising his voice sharply so all could hear. “Well?”
The men could not meet one another’s eyes, nor could they look at the bandit chief. They slung arms around their wives, trying to forestall the inevitable. But they could not help themselves. Ashes, their hearts broke even as they betrayed him. Clutching their rough dresses, eyes streaming tears, one of the women cried, “Temma. Her name is Temma!”
To the hells with you and your wife, Hiran!” the farmer shouted. He clutched his broken nose.
The man named Hiran shot back, “You would have done the same!” The villagers erupted in vicious argument. Curses were flung back and forth, and all around them, bandits howled at the chaos.
It was silenced by Maaz’s barking order: “Bring me the girl,” he said, baring his teeth in a leering grin. “You’ve tried my patience enough today.”
“No!”
“I’ll say when you’ve paid enough, mud man,” Maaz said, kicking the farmer savagely in the ribs. He whooped and spun, kicking up dust. When he nodded his head, several of the bandits hurried off, scattering among the dark and silent houses. They smashed their way through fixed doors, and before long shrill screams cut the evening air.
They returned before long. They had with them a tawny-haired boy, who had bit his attacker, and now hung limply from the man’s bleeding arm. Blood oozed from a blow to the boy’s head. Another bandit had a demure girl by the neck of her coarse woolen dress. She cried in quiet fear as she was shoved ahead of the man. Third came Temma, still in her brown cloak.
Her father moaned to see her, but she walked with her head held high. She had not fought with her captor, but the man kept a steadying hand on her, steering with little pushes now and then. She stopped in front of Maaz and stared hard up at him.
“I saw you before. You don’t scare me.”
Maaz put his fists on his hips and laughed at her show of courage. “Like your father, girl, you don’t seem to know how to hold that tongue.” Suddenly the bandit chief seized the girl by the head. “But I know a few who will pay heavily for a slave that can’t talk.” She squirmed in his grip, gnashing her small teeth. His free hand tore a dagger from its sheathe at his hip. It was a curved thing, honed to a murderous edge by long nights of sharpening. In the dying light of the day, it gleamed bitterly.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Get your hands off my daughter!” her father roared. He levered himself to his feet with the haft of his ax, but one of the Maaz’s men struck him in the head with the butt of his spear. The ax clattered to the ground, and the girl screamed as her father crumpled again, heaving. She struggled against Maaz’s grip, tearing at him with her fingers, but to no avail. He held her all the tighter. The villagers cried out in fear and outrage, but they shied back when the other bandits drew near, raising their spears and biting off threats.
“The green lady will stop you!” Temma growled through the cage of Maaz’s fingers. “We prayed to her!”
This only fed his scorn. “You won’t pray anymore after I’ve cut that tongue out, pup.” Slowly, he forced the girl’s mouth open, and the heart of the villagers watched in mute horror as the bandit chief raised his blade to the squirming child’s mouth. Not a man spoke up to defend her, to turn aside the crime. Every watching soul felt what she must feel, pinched between his cruel, dirty fingers, teeth pried inexorably open.
A long, shrill whistle cut through the cooling air. Twice it came, and then a third time. The lookout by the forest’s edge. Atop the watchtower, the man who had been peering down helplessly suddenly stood suddenly tall. All the faces of the men and women below turned up towards him, waiting on his word. Maaz and his men snarled in confusion. Those still mounted turned rein.
“A man approaching!”
“A single man?” growled Maaz. “Who is this now? You lot, go get him!”
The four riders wasted no words, clattering off thunderously to obey. Long moments stretched, and the villagers and bandits alike watched off in the direction the riders had gone. Then: the screeching clash of metal on metal, and a man’s bloody yell. A horse’s wail followed it, and then was cut off brutally. They could see nothing, but they heard then the grating of swords and bitter cursing, and then all was silent. Maaz glared around at his men, who tightened their grip on the hafts of their spears. The village women hid their faces against their husbands’ arms.
Two horses came galloping through the village, riderless and white-eyed. They raced past Maaz and his men and disappeared up the road.
“What in the black hells?” the bandit chief swore as watched the animals flee. Temma snarled in his grip, still fighting to free herself.
“Boss,” one of his men said. His voice was thick with fear. Black-eyed Maaz turned again to find a lone man standing in the space between two of the peasant’s hovels. He was lean, his muscles long whipcords over the frame of a wildcat. His black hair hung loosely about his head like a savage mane, falling nearly to his shoulders. He had in one hand a sword longer than his arm, held out low and to his side. Dark blood dripped from that heavy blade. In his other hand, he held the long-haired head of a man. This he swung once, and threw it towards the bandits.
The crowd of villagers screamed, stricken to their very hearts by this vision of death. The women fled, and a moment behind them, the men. The bandits tried to stop them, but too many broke and ran at once. Once the crowd was moving, there was no stopping them. At last, only Temma and her father, still sprawled on the ground, remained with Maaz and the bandits.
“Who the fuck are you?” Maaz demanded.
The man started forward without a word, raising his sword in grim challenge. He was naked but for his sandals and loincloth, yet he walked with the easy confidence of a champion.
“You’ve made a grave mistake, friend!”
“Ulrem!” Temma cried. “You came to save us!”
The chief gave her a wide-eyed look, and then jerked his head at the newcomer. “Bring me this mad dog’s head!”
The bandits leaped to obey, but Ulrem was faster. His heavy blade swatted aside their spears, and his first sweeping strike buried the blade a handswidth deep at the join of the neck. He planted his foot on the dead man’s chest and kicked it free with a savage snarl, turning just in time to block the thrusting strike of the next man. Then they were all around him, pelting him with curses and blasphemy. He barked like a beast as he swept his great sword in wide arcs, driving the bandits scrambling backward. Their spears cut at his arms and back, but he ignored the wounds, fighting as though he had not even felt them. Blood streamed down his arms as two went down to an unexpected turn of his blade, and then he whirled, breaking through their line as a man passes between trees. The ground soaked up their blood as he slashed at their backs and legs. The bandits fell back, watching warily like beaten dogs. The killer raged at them, shaking his heavy blade.
“Fools!” Maaz screamed. Half his men were dead already. “Kill him!”
The bandits eyed the swordsman warily, hunching low over their blades. Then, three of them sprang forward at once, shouting like hyenas. The young savage twisted out of the way of another’s vicious thrust with blinding speed. He seized the spear by the shaft just below the barbed head. Snarling, he hauled the bandit off balance and sent him careening to the ground. Ulrem brought his sandaled heel down upon the man’s head, silencing the surprised outcry and splashing blood up to his knees. One of the other bandits screamed and threw down his spear to flee, but the third pounced. Ulrem drove his spear at the man with all the force he could summon. The bandit’s leather vest, sewn with little discs of scuffed bronze scales, could not turn aside the murderous strike, and he was flung aside.
Naked instinct made him sweep up his sword, blocking the crosswise blow of another of Maaz’s fighters come to test himself against the young barbarian. The bandit’s weight carried through and drove Ulrem to his knees. The bandit sank the point of his spear into Ulrem’s bicep, piercing it clean through. He roared, locking his fingers around the man’s wrists, and squeezed with all his strength. Bones shattered beneath his fingers even as hauled the screaming wretch bodily into the air, and slammed him to the ground. That silenced the wailing.
A dwindling number of bandits surrounded him now, but he did not care. His heart thundered in his ears with the force of a thousand hoofs. Power raced through him, golden and pure, lending him the strength to fight on.
Slay the wicked! Punish the shadow! The voices spoke with the power of law now. He could not disobey. The ring on his finger burned with glorious heat. Ours is the conquering fury!
Ulrem was dimly aware of Maaz screaming something, of the bandit chief’s lips flapping, spraying spittle. Ulrem cared not for his lies. He had come for one thing, and one thing only.
The ring would be slaked on blood, and these men would learn what a true predator was. His name would spread, and the conquering flame in his heart would grow. This was what the lady promised.
Drive them before you! The voice sang within him, and shining eyes stared out through his own. A golden strength limned his very bones, and he drank eagerly now from the ring’s power. He threw his head back and howled with such force that they fell back from him, stricken with terror. Ulrem whirled the spear he tore from his arm and plunged it down into a gasping man at his feet. The stink of death filled his nose: his face and arms were splashed with the blood of the unworthy. His sword had fallen somewhere, but he did not care.
A lion had claws and fangs.
Ulrem ducked under one’s wild, screaming swing, and drove his fist up into the man’s face hard enough to snap his neck. The bandit was dead before he hit the ground. Ulrem pivoted over the corpse and out of the way of a slash aimed for his spine, and though he felt it slice his leg, he kept his feet, bellowing a war song as he turned to face the next man. They were too slow, slow as thick oil, and Ulrem slapped the thrusting spear away. He moved like a wind among the reeds, letting the light fill him until he did not know himself. There was only the fire of the ring… and the indomitable fury.
One fell, and another, before his relentless attack. He did not see their faces, but he smelled their fear. When their courage at last broke and they turned to flee, he buried the broken shaft of a spear in one’s back and caught another by the neck. A sword had appeared in his hand, though in the red haze, he could not recall from whence it had come. He hacked the coward’s head off at the neck, sending a dark arc of blood spraying across the cooling night. He tossed the corpse to the mud.
He stood alone amid a field of corpses. Only Maaz had survived his wrath. Ulrem laughed at the shaking man, and there was the sound of the predator about it, the bloodthirsty wolf.
“You devil!” the bandit chief hissed. The last embers of day glimmered off the man’s finely tooled helmet. A sudden uneasiness penetrated Ulrem’s triumph. He had missed something, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “This is your fault!” Maaz’s bloody hands rose to draw forth the greatsword he wore strapped to his back. Bloody hands… A body lay at the bandit chief’s feet, a brown cloak thrown over its face.
Ulrem waited only long enough to see the flash of the half-drawn blade ere he let the fire flow through him again. He slashed with the dead man’s sword he held, forcing Maaz back. He thought not of the form draped in the brown cloak, but only of the kill.
Drive them out, the green lady had begged him. Save the villagers. Become the conquering flame that fills your heart!
She had bid him come here, and so he had come. That sole purpose drove him, beat like a war drum in his chest, gave meaning to the throbbing power of the ring on his finger, and the echoing voices that hunted him. They were the same now, those voices that seemed to echo from his ring, and his own mind: a righteous fire that hammered Maaz back. The white of fear filled the bandit chieftain’s eyes, growing to full terror as he desperately fended the young savage off.
Ulrem battered him until he broke. Driven to his knees, Maaz raised a hand to shield himself, but Ulrem hewed brutally with the sword. The chief’s forearm went flying through the air. Maaz screamed and grasped the bleeding stump.
“Dog!” he moaned, rocking back and forth.
Breath heaved in Ulrem’s chest. Some part of him was resisting the golden crucible, sensing how close he had come to the very precipice of madness. He had taken too much of the ring’s power. Any more, and he would surely catch ignite, become a raging inferno.
He closed his eyes, but even still he saw the dark bodies lying twisted and broken around him. Somewhere, someone was weeping, a pitched keening.
Ulrem found the farmer clasping something small to his chest. Ulrem held a hand to his head, trying to steady his gaze through the fury. It came away sticky with blood. His blood. What was that the farmer was holding? The brown cloak fell away, revealing a pale face. Fading dusklight caught her hair, making the locks glow redly. Her slim hand hung dead on the ground.
Ulrem reeled at the sight. What had he done?
Even the dead cannot escape destiny. The words resonated within him like an accusation. The fire must be fed.
Rage boiled up in him, a hate blacker than anything he had ever known. He spun to find Maaz crawling away. The man’s screamed as Ulrem bore down on him, but the wretched noise was silenced by a single stroke that split him open shoulder to navel.
The work done, Ulrem dropped his sword and tried to wipe the blood from his hands. He succeeded only in smearing it.
Around him, the villagers were emerging from where their hiding places. They saw the farmer curled about his daughter’s lifeless body. Blood soaked the front of her simple dress, which clung to her frail frame.
“He killed her!” the man raved. “You mad, bloody bastard! This is your doing!” The condemnation was like nails driven into his ears.
“No,” Ulrem moaned, his eyes locked on her limp hand. “The Green Lady sent me…” He shook his head, trying to silence the snarling voices within him, unable to tell them apart from the cursing fury of the peasants.
“Maaz warned you! Told you to stop or he’d kill her, you thoughtless beast!” Tears streamed down the farmer’s face, but his eyes were cold with hate. His teeth were bared in helpless agony.
Ulrem Could not understand the man’s words. They were lies. Lies! He had not heard the bandit chief speak, had he? Faces swam around him, seeming to grow fangs. The ring was hot on his finger, throbbing with scarcely caged outrage, threatening to spill out. These peasants should have knelt before a born king, and yet a tide of fury was rising against him. The farmer raged at him, stabbing with a crooked finger. “Who were you to interfere? We didn’t ask for your help! You’re worse than the gray men! A devil! I told you to stay away! Killer! Slayer!”
“I am Ulrem, of the Oron,” he said proudly. “The Green Lady sent me. To protect you.” But his certainty was buckling, the cliff wall of sanity he grasped collapsing beneath his scrabbling hands. The villagers were groping for rocks now. He raised his voice, tried to placate them. This was wrong. What had he done?
“Slayer!” the mob of villagers accused. Their eyes hardened. A shower of stones and abuse fell on him. One struck him on the side of the head, making stars burst from his temples. He bit back an angry cry. But he heard the truth in their words, and it was as a knife to the heart. “The girl died because of you!”
“No!” Ulrem shielded his face with bloody hands. The fury within him was pulsing, but disgust rose like bitter gorge. They pelted him, drawing closer, not humans now but a many-armed demon, threatening to drag him down to hell. Behind them, vast golden eyes of judgment, in which swam stars older than time. They weighed him, and found him wanting. Unworthy.
Beast, those eyes echoed, thundering across his mind. Mindless, inhuman beast!
With a wordless scream, the young savage turned and fled back the way he had come, back into the dark trees, where the only sound was the whisper of leaves beneath the dark canopy, and the distant, mourning wail of a father. He ran like a man hunted by death itself, blindly, until he knew no more.
But he could not outrun himself.