The Beast in the Castle

Betrayal, bloodshed, and monsters beneath the full moon.

Photo by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash

The clouds obstructed the moon. No wind disturbed the pines upon the jagged mountains. Baron Zalesko hastened to the castle bailey to greet the procession: four nondescript servants wearing masks of black velvet and bearing a canopied litter which was veiled on four sides with red silk curtains, concealing the rider within.

“Elder!” the Baron called out.

The servants gently stopped. They did not regard the Baron, only stared forward.

The Baron approached and waited uncertainly.

“Zalesko…” spoke a voice within. Cracked as ancient leather. Old as stone.

“Elder… I did not expect you this evening!”

“I require no invitation, Zalesko.”

“Indeed not, Elder! But tonight is the night when… when Hospod Prince Freng…!”

Silence from the litter. The Baron could feel the creature within thinking. “Ah, your advent! I congratulate you.”

“I thank you, but I must also ask you hurry! If your presence is—”

“Don’t fret. I shan’t interrupt your play. ‘Twill be as if I am not there!”

That was impossible, the Baron knew.

“Are you not confident in your plan, Zalesko?”

“Nay, I am, Elder! But even so… since you are here—”

“I care not for your worries.”

“But you are raktabash! You could…”

Two decrepit hands with long, cracked fingernails extended from the curtain, one suspended over the other, palms facing each other as though to catch a moth.

“N-no,” the Baron panicked. “No, wait—!”

The Elder clapped.

The lanterns. The stars. The moon. Every light in existence dwindled and went dark. All sound hushed and fell to complete silence.

Lightless. Senseless. Zalesko could feel the ground, but his open eyes told him nothing. He could only hear his breathing, feel his rising panic.

Something glowed just in front of him. A pale green light illuminated this world which had no cart, no horses, no men, no bailey, no castle. At the edges where it dissipated into blackness the ground was rising insidiously, curving upward, or perhaps Zalesko was sinking down, as into a bowl. Somewhere high, high above, that same ground was wrapping back together, enclosing like a cocoon.

Zalesko sensed none of this. His eyes were on the glowing figure before him, a creature terrific and grotesque. Human arms and legs, but eyes wide and black, nose snubbed, ears long and malformed. It reared above him and its leathery bat wings unfurled.

The creature — the Elder — showed his fangs. “Raktabash...” he repeated. “Did I not forbid you from speaking that name?”

His hand reached toward Zalesko’s head as though to caress his cheek when suddenly white-hot pain exploded in Zalesko’s skull and he was melting from the inside out and he screamed—

Zalesko fell. The pale green glow was gone. The world had returned. He was kneeling before the Elder’s litter, shuddering.

“Do not forget who first came to whom, Zalesko,” chided the Elder. “I require no meal tonight, so do not disturb me. There’s a full moon behind these clouds. My people shall be conferring.”

Zalesko did not understand, but the Elder’s claws clicked against the cedar frame. The litter was raised again, and he was carried into the keep.

***

Less than a mile down the road, the Hospod Prince Freng looked up the slope at Baron Zalesko’s castle of Khatria. Lights twinkled in arrowslits along its tall walls and conical rooves steep as pines peaked its towers. The fastness was built on a ridge between the mountains shaped by rivers; the travelers could hear and smell the rushing water even whence they stood.

The Hospod Prince chuckled, feigning unconcern. “You see, Shayid? I told you we’d arrive.”

“Yes, Lord,” answered Shayid, a man of darker complexion, younger, and shorter — indeed, all the Hospod Prince’s guards stood at least three inches taller than this one. Shayid wore a gray cloth that partly shrouded his face in the style of the desert folk, and his bright eyes searched the surrounding darkness where their lanternlight died among the conifers.

The Hospod Prince’s other guards tried to follow Shayid’s gaze, but saw nothing. The mountains stood black and jagged against the faint glow of nighttime cloudcover. Khatria was home to many tales of monsters.

“What is it, Shayid?” asked Freng.

“Nothing, Prince.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yes, Prince.”

Freng made a boisterous laugh and slapped the desert man ungently but kindly on the back. “Worry not. I’m confident you’ll find what you seek. But lo, tonight’s for hospitality.”

***

They entered beneath Khatria’s main gate. Baron Zalesko met them in the bailey. “Freng!” he called to his old friend.

Hospod Prince Freng dismounted and the two embraced. “I apologize for our tardiness. We took a wrong turn in the dark.”

“I’m pleased you made it safely. These hills can be unkind to travelers. We…” He looked past the Hospod Prince at his companions, then at Shayid. “You have a Medean with you!”

The Baron’s soldiers were nearby. Hands floated toward hilts.

“Yes,” answered Freng. “My bodyguard.”

Zalesko looked at the dark man uncertainly, then addressed him directly: “Idda kun Medeu, fihilnta mukhuz Il’Fikar?”

The group fell quiet. Shayid frowned, less familiar with this more urbane variety of his native tongue.

Freng tried to interject: “Friend…”

“I asked him if he’s loyal to the Vicar,” Zalesko replied.

“He is.”

“Truly?” Zalesko still stared at Shayid.

“Inu mukhus Il’Iqida,” Shayid answered Zalesko’s question.

Zalesko frowned doubtfully. “He’s not uncivil, then?” he asked Freng.

Shayid smiled slightly.

“Enough of this,” said Freng. “The night is cold. Let’s be inside.”

***

Food was already laid out in the hall. The guests held a brief repast, but road-weariness compelled them to retire early. Zalesko invited Freng for a more fraternal audience in his private chamber.

By the red glow of hearthfire, Baron and Hospod Prince drank delicious infused wines, laughed on old stories, mourned fallen comrades. Freng finished his goblet and Zalesko poured him more then set another log on the fire. The room had grown considerably warmer. Freng shed his doublet. Zalesko did not.

Their conversation wandered toward their childhood and the troubles therein. They spoke of when Zalesko, at nine-years-old, had traveled with his father to seek audience with the Mutalqi Sofs, those old enemies of the Hospod Kings: the Sofs slew Zalesko’s father, and took Zalesko himself hostage.

“How long was it that they held you?” Freng asked. “Three years?”

“Four.” The Baron’s face was stone. “That time taught me much, though. I learned their language, their customs, their faith. It made me into a man.”

“Sooth. Everyone could see you had changed upon your return.”

The fire popped. Zalesko stared into its depths.

Freng felt beads of sweat from the heat and dabbed his forehead. “I always wished to ask… but were you present when they slew your father?”

“Yes.”

“You saw when they cut his throat, then?”

Zalesko did not answer immediately. “No.”

“But you saw the wound. Once you turned…”

“No.”

Freng didn’t understand, but felt he’d overstepped. He touched his face, felt his eyes oozing tears, tried to chuckle. “I’m sorry, old friend. Grief must have got its hold on me…” Even as he spoke a tentacle of saliva escaped his mouth and clung to his undershirt.

Zalesko was still staring into the fire. He was not sweating.

“Excuse me.” Freng began to stand, then pain bloomed at his midriff and he fell to his hands and knees. He stared at the embroidered carpet below him as his gut rose and emptied violently out his mouth. His eyes and nose were running profusely. “W-what…”

“You’re mistaken,” Zalesko said, “My father was poisoned by the Sofs on that mission.” He produced from his pocket a handful of blue-gray mushrooms, their caps fraying and gills exposed. He tossed them to Freng like an offering.

“W-what are you saying, friend?”

“I am saying you are going to die, friend, just as my father did. Just as your father instructed the Sofs to slay mine.”

“What does this… how is…?”

“My father’s rivalry was always a threat to the throne. He and I were sent to the Sofs as an envoy, but the Hospod King arranged for the Sofs to kill us. Unfortunately for you, the Sofs only killed one of us.”

“No… no… you’re confused, my brother! This is madness.” He vomited again. It burned straight through his nose. He felt it beneath his eyes. “Help! Help!”

“It’s too late,” said Zalesko, finishing his wine and marching out of the room. “Your guard is being quelled as we speak. Their lives will be ended quickly. Yours will not.”

***

The Baron’s soldiers descended upon the guests. Freng’s men had received a different poison from which they would not wake. They were cut open anyway.

Shayid the Medean had not touched drink that night. He was meditating in a separate room when they came for him.

His chamber echoed with the screams of Barony soldiers.

“One’s survived!” cried an officer.

Zalesko heard the report and froze. “To the gates! The gates!”

Shayid was fleeing down the corridors. A soldier confronted him at the spiral staircase but fell to his blade and the Medean kept running.

The Baron ran to an arrowslit. He saw the Medean stealing across the bailey like a swooping owl, heading for the open gates. “Shut them!” cried Zalesko. “He mustn’t escape!”

Two fully-armored soldiers brandishing halberds quit the bottom of the tower and positioned themselves between Shayid and his exit. A third soldier was running up the steps to the gatehouse to drop the portcullis.

Shayid ran toward the first soldier and dropped low like a cat, then pounced, deflected the halberd and was within the soldier’s guard. His blade passed through the flesh between neck and clavicle. In another breath the second soldier had fallen in the same way and Shayid had wrested the halberd from his dying hands.

The third was almost at the gatehouse.

Shayid wound up his back and shoulder and threw the halberd like a mighty harpoon. It struck the running soldier in the helmet with a terrific clank. The soldier went limp and slipped from the wall.

“No!” Zalesko despaired. “He’ll escape! A bow! For God’s sake, someone get a crossbow!”

But the Medean was not fleeing. The gate stood wide open before him, but he was still standing among the three corpses looking around as though he’d forgotten something.

“What is he doing?” Zalesko cried.

The Medean lingered in the bailey only a moment longer before turning around and fleeing back into the keep where he vanished like a shadow.

***

Hospod Prince Freng lay in a pool of his own discharge, clothes and breeches stained. Stench of feces, urine, and emesis. Fire cooling to embers. Light of infernal red. Mushrooms still scattered on the soiled carpet.

Zalesko reentered, then paused momentarily to witness what he’d done, and take inventory of his own emotions. He’d imagined this day a thousand times, and thought he might feel guilt for betraying his friend. But he did not. After all these years of waiting, the Hospod Prince’s reduced state felt strangely appropriate, even vindicating.

He went and stood above the dying man.

“I don’t understand…” choked Freng, “Your father was stabbed to death in the Sof Kaiber’s court. I saw his remains—”

Zalesko began to laugh, but decades of rage came erupting out instead. “I was there, Freng! I was a child and I watched it happen! The Sof Kaiber’s banquet had not even ended before Da began to vomit and weep, just as you are! I left my pillow seat and climbed over tables to comfort him! I was so shocked that I… I asked them for help! I asked the Sofs for help! I screamed it! Screamed while I held my father’s head! They laughed at us, laughed at me! My father shat his breeches right there on the floor and they only laughed harder. Then… then they offered him more! ‘Here, Khatria,’ they said. ‘Here, good Baron! Another mushroom? Will another mushroom cure you?’” He plucked one from the floor and pressed it against Freng’s cheek as if to force-feed him. Its spores colored the Hospod Prince’s cheek, nearly purple in the crimson firelight.

A soldier appeared at the doorway. “Lord… he’s not in the Great Hall.”

Zalesko paused in his cruelty, stood, and replied: “Then have the prisoner moved to a different room, somewhere among the servants. I want him hidden.”

Ropes of mucus dangled from Freng’s nose and mouth. Still, he smiled. “Ah… so one of my men survived.”

Zalesko was silent.

“It was Shayid, the Medean, wasn’t it? He forewent flight in order to rescue me, didn’t he?”

A distant but heavy thump from somewhere outside. Zalesko smiled. “That was the portcullis. Whatever his intention, your swarthy little Medean is now trapped.”

“I am told he’s rather adept at slipping traps.”

The Baron scowled again at his friend: “My father’s death… it looked just like this!”

***

The Barony officer, a vanator named Serban, waited quietly at the corner of one of the corridors with five other men as a shadow slid down the hall ahead of him. The only light in the space came from yonder arrowslit.

With a sword in hand, Serban slowly brandished his pistol and pressurized the trigger in order to silently draw the hammer back.

A dark figure turned the corner and stood there uncertainly.

Serban took aim.

“Vanator?” said the figure.

It was one of his own men, a soldier named Ponmar. Serban lowered his weapon. “Damn you, Ponmar. Did you find—”

“Vanator… I cannot… the Medean…” The soldier fell to the floorboards, succumbing to his wounds.

The other soldiers could only stare in fear, but Serban was listening. “Wait… do you hear that?”

A scratching, chafing noise, like claws on rocks.

Vanator Serban ran to the arrowslit and looked out. Below him, the rough walls fell away onto the rocky cliffs above the white and roiling river. Above him, the stone climbed up into the murky sky.

Heat lightning pulsed somewhere over the mountains, briefly illuminating a figure scaling the keep using naught more than the wrinkled stone and lime mortar for purchase like a lizard on a boulder. It was the Medean.

Serban had to stare in perfect shock for a moment before he could react. He did not cry out, but put his pistoled hand out the slit and discharged his weapon at Shayid with a clap that rent the silence and echoed off the mountains.

The smoke dispersed. A miss. Shayid climbed on.

“The roof!” shouted Serban, pouring powder into his gun and fitting patch and ball as he ran. “The Medean is heading for the roof!”

The keep’s wooden spiral stairs rang with the sound of more than a dozen armed men rushing for the pinnacle.

Another soldier peeked out an arrowslit. “He’s still climbing!”

“He won’t make it far,” said Serban. “He has nowhere to go up there.”

Indeed, the keep had no pinnacle, only the steeply-pitched roof of clay shingles. The only way off would be through the small dormer windows near the roof’s eaves, or gravity.

The soldiers reached the attic out of breath, sucking on the hot, stuffy air. The space reeked of pitch and excrement of birds and bats. The network of rafters toyed with the light thrown by their lanterns.

The dormer windows were not large. A full-grown man would struggle to squeeze through. Serban’s saber and pistol were out. “Spread out and guard each window,” he shouted. “Don’t let him inside!”

But the Medean was already inside.

Dropping from the rafters, Shayid attacked swiftly then ducked away again among the overhead timbers. One soldier was left screaming hysterically and another gurgled on his own blood.

Instantly the space fell into panic. In and out of the shadows Shayid darted, taking lives with him whenever he vanished.

Serban spied a movement and ran for the stairs. His men cried out, thinking he’d lost his wits and was fleeing but he was not. He’d recognized the Medean’s course.

As Shayid leaped for the stairs the Vanator intercepted him and slammed him hard against a post. Serban attempted to slash but the Medean grabbed him by both wrists and a grapple ensued. Shayid was incredibly strong, but Serban was the far larger man and pinned him against the post, still holding sword and pistol. “Now, men! Strike now!”

Shayid fought to pull himself free but Serban pressed him down. A soldier was charging up to slash him. Serban’s left hand holding the pistol was toward the attic and his charging comrade. His sword hand was toward the stairs.

Seeing he would be cut down in a moment, Shayid’s hand climbed up Serban’s wrist toward the loaded pistol held there. The Medean twisted until it pointed at the charging man, finger groping for the trigger.

Serban saw his direction and thumbed down the hammer. Now it would not fire. “No tricks now, Medean!” the Vanator snarled.

The charging soldier was only a few steps away, blade raised.

At the last moment, Shayid cupped his hand over the pistol’s action, and exhaled.

White-hot heat entered Serban’s weapon. The Vanator’s hand seemed to catch fire and he screamed as the pistol ignited and bucked.

The charging soldier fell. Serban dropped the discharged pistol in shock and pain.

Shayid wrenched himself away and fled down the stairs.

***

The Hospod prince lay on the floor of the scullery. The poison had dredged his stomach completely and now forced him to expel the bright green bile from the deepest places. His stinking clothes clung to his body. So intense was his sweating that he was beginning to freeze to death.

The Baron came in to sit and watch.

In spite of Freng’s throes, he spoke with levity: “I am thinking, old friend… thinking on a pilgrimage you took with my father.” He paused to shudder. “I recall, ‘twas when he journeyed to Mutalqi country to pay your ransom and retrieve you personally. He took you straight to the hallowed sites… on a pilgrimage…”

Zalesko waited for more, but there was none. Then he understood and truly did laugh. “And you believe that our pilgrimage was a gesture of naked piety, Freng?”

“It was out of thanksgiving… for your safe deliverance.”

“Let me tell you what happened there.” Zalesko crouched down, drew close, and hissed into Freng’s ear: “On that pilgrimage, your father took me to Hall’d Ioska’s Sepulchre. He forced me to kneel and swear… swear on the Sepulchre that I would never reveal his betrayal, nor betray him. Nor you. He did it with a dirk’s point pressed against the base of my crown. Right here. That is how he made me kneel. That is how he made me kiss Ioska’s tomb, and swear.”

Despite Freng’s affliction he looked into his betrayer’s eyes.

“I see what you’re searching for,” said Zalesko. “Remorse. Or fear. At having forfeited my soul, for handing it over to the Fiend. Nay, for I’ve made new pacts. I shall reparate my house. In my life or in my offsprings’, the Hospod Kings shall be overthrown. It begins with you.”

Shouts from without.

The Hospod Prince smiled. “Are you certain, Zalesko?”

***

“‘Twas magic, lord,” quoth Serban.

The Baron immediately dismissed it, but the Vanator showed his left hand. Burned as though with fire.

“Magic did this, lord.”

“You’re saying the Medean is a magister?”

“I know not what he is, but he used magic. My pistol was uncocked, yet he pressed heat into the barrel and ignited the powder, just as a magister would have.”

Zalesko felt the fear rise within him.

“That Medean may only be a man, but he fights like a beast. We are no match for a magic-wielder.”

“Then we leave. Prepare the horses quietly.”

“And let him live? Will he not tell the Hospod King what we’ve done?”

“Who would believe a Medean? We can call him a Mutalqi spy. Yes… that would work. And we maintain the plan: the Hospod Prince arrived, but fell ill from the road. That’s our scheme. Freng’s poisoning is too far advanced now, surely he can’t be saved!”

Noises from the upper floor.

Serban stood and sighed. “I shall hold him back as long as I can. Do what you will, lord.”

The Vanator left. Zalesko stormed back to the scullery. By the time he arrived there the noises of conflict were pronounced.

Freng shivered uncontrollably. “P-p-perhaps you should have prayed for divine guidance when you pilgrimaged with my father, Zalesko.”

“Silence. Your father’s is not the last pilgrimage I ever took. The world’s recesses hide still darker gods.” Even as he remembered that day he thought of the creature in the guest room. “Yes…” he whispered to himself. “Yes. To him! To him!”

Up the spiral stairs he dragged Freng, higher and higher as the din grew fainter below. Freng tried a few times to cry out but was slapped by the Baron.

They reached a finely-furnished room. A window on the far side overlooked the mountains where the clouds were parting and the moon was beginning to show its face.

The silk-curtained litter sat in the corner.

“Elder!” exclaimed Zalesko, hauling Freng into the room then descending to his knees. “Elder, I crave an audience! You must help us! We…”

A noise behind him.

The Medean stood at the doorway, blood staining his clothes. He advanced on the Baron.

“Mark me, Medean!” Zalesko declared. “I have stood before darker specters than you! I have ascended the massif of Rashar and have drunk of—”

From ten paces away, Shayid made a push with his feet that launched him across the room and within the Baron’s guard. Zalesko gasped as Shayid now stood an inch from his face, the pommel of his dagger pressed against the Baron’s throat.

Shayid looked into the Baron’s eyes, leaned slightly back, and threw his head forward into Zalesko’s with a crack. The Baron’s lights went out. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

“Shayid…”

The Medean ran to Freng, lying nearby and looking like death in the candlelight. “Good Prince, I apologize for my tardiness.”

“Too tardy, I fear.”

“No. I can remedy this. I know where their apothecarium is. They should have henbane.”

“Henbane… henbane is poison.”

“Sooth, Prince.”

“You mean to end my misery early?”

The bodyguard smiled. “Nay, ‘twould be… uncivil of me. Henbane is all that can save you now.”

Unseen by either of them, two decrepit hands with long, cracked fingernails were extending from the curtain. One suspended over the other. Palms facing one another. As though to catch a moth.

The Hospod Prince tried to smile. “I suppose I’ve had worse drinks tonight than whatever poison you might concoct.”

“Well said. Come, Prince. It’s this way.”

“I cannot walk, Shayid.”

The Medean took him by the arms and began to lift, but in the back of his mind turned a cypher: Worse drinks than poison… what had the Baron nearly said a moment ago? Drinking of what?...

The massif of Rashar!

Realization struck Shayid like a bolt of lightning, but it was too late.

The Elder clapped.

Every light in creation gently dimmed and went out. Shayid nearly fell — where once had been his Hospod Prince was now empty air. He reached for his dagger and found nothing. He looked around but saw nothing. He stopped to listen. Nothing.

The Elder’s lucent skin glowed the color of lichen. His gray wings unfurled into the darkness — his litter and all other furnishings were gone. The stone walls were rising out into oblivion and the wooden floor was curving, enclosing, wrapping around them.

The Elder’s fangs shimmered. He spoke in Shayid’s own tongue: “Yes, Medean. This is a dream, of sorts. You are trapped in my dream. A dream where you have no weapon, and nowhere to run.”

Shayid’s head was down, and he was breathing hard.

“My dream. Your nightmare.”

But something was strange about the Medean. The Elder looked closer.

Shayid was not breathing. He was laughing.

“The massif of Rashar,” whispered the Medean. “That is what the Baron of Khatria said he climbed. I know of Rashar. Which means that I know what you are.”

His head rose and he looked the beast in the eyes. “Two things you are wrong about, Raktabash…”

The Elder’s grin fell. Raktabash. He knew the ancient name!

“One: I am weaponless, but not permanently.” Shayid flicked his empty right hand. A yellow flame sparked and died there like a gun’s ignition.

“Two,” the Medean continued, “this will not be my nightmare…”

Then the Elder realized: he had locked himself in this realm with a hunter of his ancient kind. “No!” he cried, raising his clawed hands for another clap that would banish the spell.

Shayid launched across the room and thrust his open hand between the Elder’s to prevent them from connecting.

“This will be your nightmare!” raged Shayid. “You are trapped with me!”

Heat erupted from Shayid’s palm at the intensity of a furnace. The raktabash’s hands caught like flaming pitch.

A mighty howl reverberated off the walls. The raktabash’s clawed feet rose to slice but the Medean was too quick and dodged backward. The Elder beat his wings and the space filled with wind and he turned and fled, scrabbling off the closing walls then gaining height and rising up into the black void.

The chamber was larger than it looked. The rising warp of the floor took gravity with it such that one could run along the inside like an inverted globe. It would not remain this size — even now the stones were crowding in and would compress until there was no space left — it mattered not, for the Elder was overwhelmed by the dreadful need to escape. This realm that was meant for trapping prey was fast becoming his tomb.

The opposite side was nearly a hundred yards away, and there he alighted, breathing hard and quivering with pain and fear. He brought his hands together in another clap, but the skin was scorched and peeling and the hex could not be effected.

Footsteps echoed behind him. Shayid was charging. His hand ignited like torches.

The raktabash tried to deflect the attack with his great wing, but Shayid touched the thin skin there and started another burn, bright yellow flares against the monster’s sickly greens. The Elder raged in the cavity. A maelstrom of bladed claws and gnashing fangs scraped against stones where Shayid had been a heartbeat before. The Medean moved like a shadow, laying burn after burn upon the monstrous bat and evading all attacks. His eyes flashed and his teeth were bared and he struck again and again.

The Elder roared and turned his fear to rage as he swung and struck in spite of his wounds and sent out screams that would have thrown men into madness. The walls were closing further and now the space was hardly twenty paces across but still the raktabash squalled and attacked the shadows.

He whirled and found his burned hand in Shayid’s grip. The claws themselves were nearly the length of the Medean’s face but still Shayid held fast with his magically augmented strength. Upon his arms the muscles rose and the thew stood taut.

The walls were closing. The chamber was now scarcely fifteen feet wide and still shrinking. In a few more seconds both mortal and raktabash would be crushed. Still Shayid took a moment to look into the Elder’s eyes and smile.

“Now,” he gasped, “I have a weapon.”

He ripped a clawed digit free of skin and sinew and joint. Like a stick from a cobweb it came loose and the fountaining blood followed and the Elder screamed again but only for a moment before Shayid plunged that claw into the creature’s gray chest.

***

Shayid’s eyes opened. He lay on the floor where the hex had seized him. The Hospod Prince’s hand was on him — Freng had only seen the Medean collapse and thought him dead. “Praise God,” he gasped, then suppressed another vomit.

Across the room, the Elder had crawled free of the litter and was groping toward the window. Millennia and aeons were unraveling in his eyes. Claws and leathery wings trembled in agony for the wounds he’d suffered were internal. He pulled himself into the dim pool of windowlight where the clouds had cleared and the moon’s great white eye was shining through. The moon… the moon could reach his kinfolk, the other ancients across Mycregia who were even now wrapping claws around other human nobles and dignitaries, tugging at the strings, working the great political puppet.

Shayid rose and turned toward the creeping, dying Elder and the open window.

The Elder crawled faster. I must reach them… before I perish, I must warn them! Warn them that the hunters are returning!

He lurched into the pool of light and his right eye opened to a perfect circle and locked upon the moon. His black iris swirled white from the ritual.

Across lands and oceans from thousands of miles’ distance, the court of raktabash Elders sensed the agony of one of their own. In shock and panic, their senses reached out through the ether to feel him in that upper room in Khatria’s castle. Who has done this? they questioned. What does this mean?

The Elder essayed to answer when Shayid seized him by the skull and tipped his head back. With the creature’s eye still matching that of the moon Shayid whispered in the misshapen ear a single word that would be communicated to all the fell kin who were then listening:

“War.”

Then his knife opened the Elder’s throat, freeing the foul blood therein, steaming black in the moonlight.

Thanks for reading! And no, this is not the last you have seen of the Medean and his hunt for the raktabash. There will be more chapters.

If you liked this story, you might also like this one of mine:

Wyrmslayer

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