PART I: THE FOREST PATH
The rain fell in great, icy sheets, but it could not wash away the fat, iron reek of fresh slaughter that hung heavy over the forest path.
Beneath the shattered oaken boughs, the crimson monster lay broken, its colossal head severed from its spine by King Argus's own royal lance. The violent visions of his past receded, the horrific memories of seven score and ten bitter harvests dead dissolving once more into the gray mists of his failing mind. Though the dark blood of the pit had warped his flesh into a fiendish engine of wrath, the mind within remained that of the farmer. Every grievance, every salt tear, and every agonizing memory of his human life remained raw within his dying brain—a torment that had festered for seven score and ten bitter winters.
King Argus wiped the tip of his lance, his face a mask of cold flint, untouched by the gray hair of age, full of the cruel strength of his prime. He turned his back upon the carcass. But ere he could take a third stride into the mire, a sound stayed his boiled-leather boots.
It was a low, trembling rattle—not a roar of defiance, but the pitiful weeping of a man. The King looked behind him. From the milk-white, blind spheres of the severed head, thick, visceral tears were falling tap-tap into the black mud, mixing with the spilled gall.
"This... this shouldn't have happened," the demon croaked, its voice thin and shivering like wind through dry reeds, returning to the rough, thick tongue of his fields. "Everything of mine was ruined... utterly broke... in this cursed realm. If I hadn't turned the oxen down this forest track on that fateful harvest, the sun would've risen on a clean hearth. My son... a witch tore the heart from his ribs and ate it before my eyes... and I couldn't do naught. My wife's hair was fouled in the ditch, her head lopped from her shoulders..."
The monster turned its blind gaze toward the sovereign. Thick, greasy smoke began to boil from its rents and wounds, rising in dark plumes until the very sky above began to curdle with heavy, pitch-black storm clouds. It writhed in the agony of a vengeance it could never achieve through all these passing generations.
"Them footpads who cut my wife's throat, them bastards who tortured my little lad... I never found 'em! I could never take my revenge upon 'em!" the beast spat, its teeth grinding with a sudden, feral fury, spraying dark froth. "I died inside, but I never tasted their blood! Everything I owned was ground to dust in ya kingdom. No one come down this dirt track to help a farmer. The helpless torment I bore for the span of six generations shall now be visited upon thine own. The wheel hath turned, King. Now 'tis ya turn."
Argus slowed his breath, his eyes narrowing to slits as he looked down at the severed head. When he speak, his voice carried the sharp, biting edge of a true highborn lord of war, dripping with ancestral arrogance.
"You have slaughtered scores of my finest knights this night, beast," the King said, his voice cold as winter iron. "Your blood-guilt is heavy. My men drew their steel only to protect the smallfolk and keep the peace of this realm. They died as true protectors, whilst you are naught but a butcher."
The demon let out a dry, hacking laugh that sprayed black bile upon the stones.
"Innocent? Ya smallfolk be innocent? Nay! They be worse than any fiend spawned in the deep! A lion slays the stag because the hunger bites sharp—'tis the law of nature. The deer crops the grass because 'tis the law of nature. But when we kill humans, we be called monsters. Tell me this, King... when a human butchers and devours his own kind, what name do they give him? When they tortured my little lad... when they didn't stop at the killing, but sawed his tender throat and ate his meat before my eyes... what were they?"
The smoke grew thicker, choking the air with the smell of burning marrow.
"I am dying now... a failure who could not even avenge his kin. But my end happens here, upon this soil. And for that, every child born in Evergard shall suffer. I give ya a curse, Argus: the very people ya wielding ya royal lance to save shall rot and die before ya eyes, and ya shall sit helpless, unable to stop it. And it'll begin with someone of ya own blood—the one ya heart holds dearest."
The King stood unmoving, his heavy cloak snapping in the gale. He looked down at the monster, his gaze steady with the proud righteousness of his prime, refusing to let his royal blood flinch.
"The curses of a dying monster cannot shake the foundations of Evergard," Argus answered grimly. "I have broken stouter foes than you to shield my people. Whether it be the splendour of palaces or the squalor of hovels, the iron of justice burns equally for all upon the threshold of this empire, and the High Gods do not answer the malice of the pit. Mark my words, fiend, your unspent vengeance and your malice die with you in the dirt."
The demon laughed again, a sound like grinding millstones.
"The One Above? But when did I say the One Above would come to punish ya? Nay, not Him. The Dread Overlord himself shall come to fulfill this word. In the lore of my kind, when a demon is slain, if there remaineth but a single spark of breath within his lungs to deliver a dying curse, the Great Sovereign of the Pit descends to see it done. He'll not spare none of ya. Not one."
Argus cast a sharp, dismissive look upon the weeping face.
"Old wives' tales and grandam's fables carry no weight here. Chronicles are forged from iron truth, not demon lore. Tell me, who is this Overlord of yours that you speak of with such bold insolence?"
The white eyes of the head began to film over with the glaze of death.
"Ya'll find out... right soon..."
A blinding flash of lightning ripped the firmament asunder, followed by a sudden, deafening roar of thunder. The clouds broke, and a heavy, torrential rain began to pelt the earth. Yet, the moment the water touched the beast, the smoke vanished, and a fierce, unnatural fire erupted from the demon's flesh. The heavier the downpour fell, the brighter the flames raged, as though the rain were not water at all, but pure oil fed to a burning forge. In the space of a dozen heartbeats, the massive carcass was reduced to grey ash, and the rushing torrent swept the remnants away into the dirt.
PART II: THE RETURN TO THE GATES
The King stood alone amidst the ash, looking upon the theater of slaughter.
His host was broken. All around the clearing, his knights lay dead; some were smashed across the jagged rocks, while others hung limply from the high branches of the oaks like grotesque, armored fruit. Their mail was torn, and their burst bellies wept grey entrails that mixed with the slop and filth of the forest floor. The grass was painted a thick, uniform crimson.
Argus marched to where his General lay. Stooping, he hoisted the heavy, plate-clad form of General Valerius into his strong arms and laid him gently across the saddle of his charger. Then, he neared the Commander. Seraphina was yet conscious, but her eyes had taken on a dull, stony stare, blind to the light of the torches.
Taking her by the fingers, King Argus guided her onto her mount. "Are you alright, Seraphina?"
"I am alright, my Lord," she whispered, her voice hollow as a tomb. "But the world hath gone dark... I cannot see clearly."
The King turned to the few knights who yet drew breath, his sharp voice cutting through the storm like a broadsword. "Ride for the castle with all celerity! Bring heavy transport and wagons from the garrison; we shall not leave the bones of our sworn brothers to be picked by the crows and crows of the wild!"
The riders spurred their steeds, vanishing into the gray mists. When the carts returned, laden with the cold, iron-clad corpses of the fallen, the procession turned back toward the city. The King led the vanguard on foot, holding the reins of his horse, while the blind Commander sat stiffly beside the body of the General. When they reached the high walls of Evergard, the great oak gates groaned open, and the grim company filed into the streets.
PART III: THE FLICKERING CANDLE
The smallfolk came swarming out from their timbered shops and stone huts, their faces pale as they looked upon the bloody wagons. Suddenly, a small child—a lad of barely seven summers—broke through the ranks of the guards. He stood directly in the center of the rutted street, bowing low before his sovereign. The King halted his horse, his breath catching in his throat.
The child looked up, his eyes wide and innocent. "My Lord... my father went into the dark woods with your banner. I see him not among the riders. Where abideth he? Today is the day of my birth, Sire. He swore to me upon his steel that he would return ere the moon grew high... he said he would bring a sweet cake and a gift for my hands tonight. Where is he?"
King Argus looked down at the boy, and the iron mask of royalty shattered. Tears welled in his stern eyes and ran down his cheeks. Dropping to his knees in the summer dust before the child, the King reached out and took the boy's small hands.
"My child... forgive me," Argus wept, his voice cracking with the weight of his crown. "I could not save him. Your father died with his face to the foe, fighting that great beast so that this city might sleep in peace. I... I knew not the cost would be so heavy."
At those words, the truth struck the lad's heart, and big tears began to fall tap-tap from his eyes into the dust. The King reached into the cart, took the dented, blood-stained helmet of the boy's father, and pressed it into his small arms. Then, gathering the weeping child to his breast, the King held him close while the lad sobbed for the provider who would never return.
When the sun dipped below the ridges, the King summoned all those who had lost a kin—father, son, or husband—to the great stone church. The small boy who had met him in the market stood among them, clutching the iron helm. One by one, the dead knights were laid within coarse wooden coffins and lowered into the grey earth of the graveyard adjoining the sanctuary.
By midnight, a heavy silence settled over the borough.
In a narrow, dark attic near the market-square, the small boy sat alone upon his pallet. His mind was fixed upon the image of his father. With trembling fingers, he took a flint and struck a spark, lighting a row of small wax candles for the soul that had gone into the dark. As the tallow began to melt, the flickering, yellow light illuminated a small, worn picture of his mother, lying just beside the heavy iron helmet of his father's armor.
And just then, the heavy latch of the door clicked. The wood swung open, and King Argus stepped into the small room, his royal cloak trailing in the shadows.
CHAPTER 6 END