In The Shadow Of The Beast (9 page)

Of all things, Sigourd had not expected to
hear this. The Eastern Fringes were an unexplored territory beyond
the vast mountain ranges of the Ash’harad. They were a place that
held much fear in the hearts of mortal men, where foul sorcery and
dark magics were concentrated. There, creatures of an otherworldly
design roamed unmolested to maraud down from the mountain ranges
into the dwellings of menfolk, crusading abroad for blood and
slaughter. They said that to cross over the Ash’harad was to
journey into madness.

Sigourd had always thought such tales to be
utter nonsense, the superstitious ramblings of some stupefied
village shaman, superstitions that had been given far too much
credence through the passage of time.

‘
Why would a guardsman in
the house of my uncle find himself wandering so far afield?’ asked
Sigourd.

The old maid shrugged, ‘I cannot say lord.
It was never my place to learn such things.’

Something about this whole scenario tugged
at Sigourd in a most insistent way. He couldn’t help but feel that
conspiracies drawn up before he’d even been conceived were now
resurfacing. Their great import as yet to be revealed, but their
looming presence felt nonetheless, like darkened storm clouds
pregnant with the threat of a torrential downpour.

Sigourd could not understand why he’d never
heard these tales from his mother nor anyone else for that matter,
a fact which troubled him more deeply than he would have cared to
admit.

The maid pulled her wool shawl about her as
if to ward off a chill, despite the ample warmth coming from an
open fireplace near the center of the room, ‘I have nothing more I
can tell you, lord. I must go now.’

She stood and made to leave, but stopped
short at the doorway. Hesitating there for a few moments she turned
back to Sigourd, that fear still in her eyes.

‘
It always seemed to me
Beth was more afraid of what might happen if she ever spoke of what
she saw that night than any creature that might have entered The
Baron’s residence. And then she died so suddenly...’ the maid
didn’t finish the sentence, instead turning quickly and
disappearing from the chamber as fear overcame her.

Sigourd’s mind raced, his thoughts churning
with confusion at the import of what the old maid had told him.
There suddenly seemed to be much that had been kept secret from
him, and he wondered just exactly who was keeping these secrets,
and how much of it was tied to Isolde’s kidnapping.

He was torn between the loyalty he felt for
his father and his realm in a time of crisis, and the love he had
for a woman whose life could very well depend on his actions.

There was so much to consider, he felt that
the pressure of these events might crush him like an insect. His
body ached, his head throbbed unrelentingly and he lay back on his
bed to allow himself a moments ease while he considered his
options. Before long exhaustion claimed Sigourd once more, and he
fell into a deep sleep.

Hours later, he rose from his bed, swinging
his feet over the side he sat there for a few moments contemplating
the cold tiles on his bare feet, the simplicity of the
sensation.

Oh to be filled with innocent wonder once
more. To be troubled with only the trivial concerns of a young man
free of the cares of the world at large. But he was no longer
innocent. Sigourd had experienced a brutal lesson in the matters of
life beyond the safety of his sheltered upbringing.

Such thoughts Sigourd was having when a
twinkling caught his attention.

Lying there on the tabletop where he had
left it before the explosion had razed part of the castle to the
ground, the ornate vambrace that Cal had gifted him.

Sigourd crossed the room and took up the
artifact, turning it over in his hands it was as if a shadow passed
over him, darkening his mood still further.

Cal had been Sigourd’s mentor since the time
he could walk, guiding him toward a nobler path with a reassuring
twinkle in his eye. But more than a mentor, Cal had been a true and
trusted friend, someone that Sigourd had ever relied upon in times
of need.

Cal’s words came to him now, as he looked
down at the vambrace; ‘Responsibility is a funny thing. Although it
may seem a tall task it has the possibility to develop the best in
us all’.

None knew better than Cal how Sigourd had
railed against his formal obligations to the state. Oh the young
lord was dedicated enough to the people of Atos in his own way, but
the reality of one day taking leadership had always given Sigourd
cause to brood. In truth he feared the responsibility. Dreaded the
prospect of having the mantle of leadership placed upon him. To be
responsible for the numberless lives of the people of this realm.
Too much.

But rescuing Isolde and avenging Cal was
something that Sigourd felt he could do. More than that it was
something he wanted to do, the twin passions of love and vengeance
burning incandescently within his heart. Those emotions were
entirely in opposition to the cold logic ringing in his head like a
tocsin bell, warning him to heed the directions of his father.

Then he heard it. The chirruping of some
bird outside his window, just as when Isolde had come to him after
the banquet, when she had arrived at his door to soothe his raging
temper.

Sigourd pushed himself off the bed, wincing
as needles of pain from his various injuries spiraled into him.

There at the widow ledge, fluttering beyond
the glass as it had done before, was the little nightingale. Its
sweet singing bringing back to Sigourd in a flood all his
passionate concern for Isolde, all his anger at the bloody demise
of his trusted steward.

Sigourd’s expression hardened into a mask of
hardened resolve, all of his doubt subsumed by that burning fire in
his heart.

CHAPTER 6

Wheels within
wheels...

Sigourd stood in his chamber, his war gear
laid out before him. Armored plates of burnished magnificence
crafted by the finest smiths in his fathers armoires. The intricate
detailing of greaves and gauntlets, cuirass and shoulder pauldrons
was something to behold, almost a work of art in itself. Most
magnificent of all was the full faced helmet with a flowing red
plume of dyed horse hair that would cascade down Sigourd’s back
whenever he wore the suit on parade.

It had been a gift from his father upon his
eighteenth birthday, and Sigourd had beamed with pride the first
time Cal had helped to strap the heavy plating to his young
master’s frame.

Sigourd had always wondered how it would
feel to bear the armor into combat, to be sheathed in its glory as
he smote down the foes of his realm and his people.

Perhaps now he would never get the chance to
find out.

Where he was going the armor would be more
hinderance than help. He would be traveling far into lands unknown,
and aside from the practical considerations of taking with him the
heavy suit, he would need to remain inconspicuous if he was to have
any hope of tracking Isolde and her captors.

He turned instead to his hunting breeches
and a thick leather jerkin that that suited far better the nature
of his quest. Picking up the breeches from where they lay he began
to pull them on.

Next, Sigourd opened a heavy oak chest that
lay beside his armor, and from it extracted his sword. Its tempered
steel glittered like ice as he drew it from its protective sheath
to examine the blade. The weapon was a touch shorter than was
customary with the standard practices of the sword smiths, but it
was perhaps the most finely balanced blade Sigourd ever had cause
to wield.

Beyond the thin glass of the windows that
overlooked the city, the sun was setting, a blaze of amber that
flared dazzlingly on the horizon, the sky above deepening to pinks
and purples and finally a dark bruised blue where a crescent moon
hung serenely.

Smoke from the recent inferno that had swept
the eastern section of the castle still hung in the air over the
city, hazing the brilliance of the setting sun, magnifying it to a
strange glow that settled over everything.

Sigourd squinted into that light,
contemplating the road ahead, his mind swimming with doubt for the
course he was setting out to undertake, but his heart swelling with
a fierce determination that he would see this journey through to
its ultimate conclusion. For good or ill.

Mortaron stood on the balcony that extended
from his own private study overlooking the smoking ruin of the east
section.

An ordinary citizen of the city may well
marvel in horror and fascination at the destruction wrought there,
and at the terrible beauty of the sun setting behind the pall of
smoke that still hung over Corrinth Vardis in the wake of the
destruction. The myriad colors that filtered through the soot and
ash, the encroaching darkness of the sky at night beyond the crown
of fading sunlight settled upon the distant horizon.

An ordinary citizen may well indeed marvel
at those sights, but such sentimentality was beyond Vincenzo
Mortaron. He looked out upon the city with a cold avarice, the way
a reptile might study its prey. With a calculating, predatory
desire that would chill the hearts of any who might be unlucky
enough to intrude upon his thoughts.

Sweeping from his balcony and back into the
chamber beyond, Mortaron settled himself behind his desk. A
monstrous thing carved from oak and adorned with the intricate
workings of some brooding artificer tooled into the surface of the
dark wood.

The study itself was as dark as the polished
surface of the desk. Candles recessed into sconces in the wall cast
their meagre glow upon shelves crammed with the leather bound
offerings of various literary masters. The subjects ranging from
ordnance laws concerning the greater city of Corrinth Vardis to the
dark practices of the hill tribes during the early part of the
second century.

Mortaron was a man who understood the power
of knowledge, the leverage that one might be able to wield given
the proper application of such knowledge, and the control that it
would bestow upon the person who knew how to apply that
leverage.

Above all else, it was this power that
Mortaron sought. It was the thing that drove him so relentlessly,
and he would continue onwards toward the possession of such power
until he was able to harness it totally or until it ground him into
oblivion.

In his quieter moments he was able to stand
back from himself and glimpse with a measure of curiosity the thing
inside him that strove so tirelessly toward that ambition. Like a
dark lake at the center of his soul, to harness such a resource was
power in itself, and Mortaron was only too aware of how close he’d
come, on several occasions throughout the course of his life, to
drowning in that lake. To losing himself entirely to that part of
himself that was rapacious, unrelenting...fathomless.

An opportunity had presented itself that he
could not have counted on if all the planets in the heavens had
aligned. An opportunity that would take him a step closer to
mastery of all he surveyed. With the fool prince bent on the rescue
of his beloved wench, and The Regent unwilling to commit to any
sort of rescue attempt, it would only be a short matter of time
before the headstrong boy would decide to take matters into his own
hands.

Here in the castle, there were too many
eyes, too much risk of being discovered if Mortaron were to unseat
the boy from his position as regent to be.

But outside the castle was a different story
altogether. There were countless ways in which a young man might
meet his end.

The unfortunate resurgence of those vermin
wulfen might be turned to Mortaron’s design after all. He would be
able to rid himself of their threat and the only impediment to his
ascension to the throne of Corrinth Vardis after he had seen
through his plan to remove The Regent from his position.

On the other side of the heavy oak desk
stood the hulking form of the knight Huron. He glowered from
beneath a mane of lank, dark hair. His single eye glinting there
within the shadows that caressed his craggy face like a distant
star twinkling in the night sky.

It occurred to Mortaron that even he didn’t
know the truth as to how the hulk had lost the other star. The
rumor was that it had been plucked out of his skull by a mountain
cat when Huron had been a boy. He’d ventured too far into the
cracked and craggy ranges of the mountains that bordered the
eastern plateaus and the creature had pounced upon him. He’d
managed to kill it by ringing its neck, but not of course before
the cat had left its mark.

That was probably the most popular of the
stories concerning the missing eye. But it was one of many and only
Huron knew the proximity of it to the actual truth.

Understandably so, there were few in the
castle who’d have the nerve to ask such a question of the knight,
and of those few that did possess such fortitude it would have been
deemed too impolite to ask.

Mortaron didn’t particularly care either
way. To him the knight was a tool, a device to be used as one might
utilize a good sharp knife to peel an apple, or in Huron’s case,
swing a hammer to pulverize that apple into slush.

Perched upon the giant’s shoulder was the
war hawk, it flared its mighty wings, shuffling feathers as it
settled to regard The Baron with rheumy black eyes. It was not lost
on the him that to many he probably shared a measure of resemblance
with the creature. This amused Mortaron no end.

‘
What are your orders,
lord?’ said the knight.

‘
The boy prince plans on
leaving the castle. You will follow him wherever he goes, but never
allow him knowledge of your presence.’