The Demon Lord (3 page)

Aldric shrugged expressively, but did not speak. There was nothing more to say.

It was Rynert who suggested the high-minded and blatantly selfish reason which Aldric put forward for leaving. That reason—that the atmosphere of the citadel upset him—was greeted with dismay and even anger but with little real surprise from those who knew the young lord. Or thought they knew him… After all he had survived in his long vendetta to regain the place, it might seem improbable that he would put it behind him: unlikely at best, false and a cover for something else at worst. It was strange.

But as Rynert said, Aldric himself was strange. And now he was the king’s messenger, for good or ill. And an assassin, or a landless exile. The choice was his…

After working his fingers into mailed gloves and settling a helmet on his head, the warrior swung unhurriedly into his charger’s saddle and nudged the animal with booted heels. As he rode past with his pony in tow, Evthan crouched out of sight and remained so until the beat of hoofs faded to silence. Then he straightened and scratched his head in confusion, for there were many question in what he had just seen, but not a single answer.

Then behind him, someone politely coughed.

Aldric stood there, longsword drawn. Its point glittered barely a handspan from the hunter’s throat, looking very bright and unsettlingly sharp. Evthan could see what might have been a smile, but the warrior’s face was shadowed by his flaring peaked helm and by the war-mask over cheeks and chin. Not that such a smile was reassuring—rather the reverse, for when the hunter dropped his bow in token of surrender, the sword rested its tip in the soft spot where Evthan’s collarbones met and used this convenient hollow to push him backwards. Its blade was sharp indeed, for a thin trickle of blood began to ooze down his chest even though there was hardly any pressure after the initial prod. The wound was not really painful, but the situation lacked dignity— Evthan stood a good head taller than his captor and could have knocked him flying with one hand. Except that now this did not seem a sensible idea. Instead he backed up as required, carefully and very, very slowly.

When they stopped the armoured man took a long step sideways, out of Evthan’s reach but not beyond the measure of his longsword’s sweep. A sword which now hung indolently from one hand in a display of nonchalance which fooled nobody and was not intended to. Aldric had seen the rage well up in his prisoner’s eyes and though the man seemed to control it, did not intend to offer him a chance to let it loose.

“What are you doing here?” He spoke in carefully correct Drusalan, but did not trouble to conceal his accent. A little controlled confusion was never out of place, just so long as he controlled it…

Evthan frowned, both at the question and at the voice which uttered it. “I am forest warden,” he retorted sharply. “I should ask the questions.”

“You… ?” Aldric rested his
taiken
in the crook of one arm; its blade grated against the mail-rings of his sleeve and its edges gleamed a tacit threat. He looked from the comfortably nestling longsword to Evthan’s angry face and smiled a thin smile. “I think not. Now, once again, who sent you?”

“Sent me? Nobody sent me—unless you mean my village headman.”

“And what would he send you to find?”

Evthan’s lips compressed and at first he said nothing. Then, in a voice thickened by shame, he muttered: “Another hunter.”

“A better hunter, maybe,” observed Aldric, “than one who lets an armoured man walk up behind him?” He had selected the barb with care, and saw the Jouvaine’s facial muscles twitch as it struck home. Either the man was a consummate actor, or he was what he claimed to be. Relaxing slightly, he even spared a fraction of a second to regret the accuracy of the guess; but at least he knew that the man’s hostility was not just for him. “Another hunter,” the Alban mused, half to himself. “To hunt what?” There was no reply and he stared hard at the other man, guessing again. “A wolf, perhaps?” he ventured softly.

Evthan flinched, as if expecting such free use of the word to summon its owner from the forest. “Not a wolf,” he whispered. “
The
Wolf. The Beast!”

A moment’s silence followed this enigmatic statement, broken by the steely slithering as Aldric ran his
taiken
back into its scabbard. So they need a hunter, he thought. And I need somewhere to hide in case there are more… bandits in the forest. The longsword’s blade clicked home as he stared Evthan in the eye. “I can’t just call you forest warden, man,” he said, speaking Jouvaine now with a crooked grin to take the bite out of his words. “Say your name.”

.”I am Evthan Wolfsbane,
hlensyarl
,” returned the hunter. He did not smile. “I am warden here for Ger-uath of Seghar, and in his name I greet you.”

He might have thought the change of Aldric’s expression came from being called
outlander
—the word was Drusalan and insulting—but he would have been more worried had he known the true reason for the bloodless compression of the warrior’s lips.

Lord’s-man, the Alban thought. Haughty, and proud of his rank. He let the subtle insult pass unnoticed for the sake of peace, being more concerned by the coincidence—if it was merely that—of meeting such a man as Evthan. Yet he sensed the hunter wanted him kept at a distance, almost as if the man was afraid of knowing him—or indeed of being known—any better. Aldric was not overly surprised, since he had been speaking the Empire’s language. He knew the reputation of the Empire and that of its swordsmen; while Evthan continued to think he might be one of them, he might well think that Aldric would be worse than any wolf. Even this Beast he seemed to fear so much.

“I thank you, Evthan Wolfsbane, forest warden of the Jevaiden.” Aldric bowed courteously, judging the inclination of his head to a nicety. “I am…” he hesitated, considering: “... Kourgath-eijo, late of Alba.” Which was not strictly true, something made quite clear by his delicate pause. He explained no further.

Evthan had not expected him to.

“Tell me about this wolf of yours,” the Alban commanded, settling catlike onto a tree trunk seat. His horses, summoned by a whistle, now stood in the clearing as if nothing untoward had happened—though both stared distrustfully at Evthan and would not come too close.

“The Beast,” began the hunter, sitting down crosslegged and comfortable as he would at a council fire, “came to this forest at the end of the winter. Four moons past. He preys on more than Valden—my village—because there are many holdings in the Jevaiden, and for weeks we hear only the small wolves. But what man cares for them? Yelpers at night, runners after sheep. They are nothing. And we forget. Not the Beast, but his speed, his silence, and above all his cunning. All these are so much more than those of any other wolf… And then he returns.” He fell silent.

Quietly Aldric took off mask and helmet, unlaced the mail and leather coif beneath and slipped it from his head. In token of trust.

“There was a meeting of elders at this new moon,” Evthan said eventually. “They came from all the villages. It is now known that since he came among us the Beast has taken thirty people for his food.”

“Thirty… ?” Aldric echoed softly, not believing. Not wanting to.

“Among them were my wife and little daughter.”

“
Mollath Fowl
,” the Alban breathed, his oath seeming half a prayer. “I am sorry.” Even as the words left his mouth he knew they sounded hollow. He had sensed a tingling of tension since riding into the forest country five days before, and had thought it a reaction to his own narrow escape, or maybe the proximity of the Empire. Now he knew differently. But so many deaths, and the killer still at large in this land famous for its huntsmen… ?

Might not—the thought arose unsummoned—might not this Beast be more than it seemed? He wondered that Evthan had not voiced the same suspicion, for the hunter was no fool. But he was superstitious: he had feared to name the Beast aloud, because to speak of evil was to risk inviting it. And once invited… Aldric knew the consequences of an unwise invitation all too well. And if Evthan shied away from saying “wolf,” then he would never dare to name—the Alban found his own mind unwilling to complete the word—whatever horror roamed the forest after dark.

“So brave, this Beast of ours,” he heard the hunter mutter bitterly. “Women, old folk and children. Never a full-grown man to make him earn his meat.”

“Not brave.” Aldric’s voice was flat and toneless. “Clever. Too clever.” He tightened girths, set boot to stirrup and mounted, then swung in his saddle to stare down at the Jouvaine. “I think it’s time this… wolf was dead.”

Evthan bowed, accepting the unspoken offer. He had seen something bleak in the young man’s grey-green eyes which had turned them cold and hard, like jade encased in ice. They made him shudder.

After a time Aldric glanced down again. Evthan was striding tirelessly beside the black Andarran charger, matching Lyard’s haughty pace with ease; but he had the look of someone in a daydream—that was more than half a nightmare…
Why
? Aldric wondered to himself. He saw a sheen of perspiration forming on the Jouvaine’s long-jawed face—much more than the mild day justified—and was uncertain whether he should interfere, or wait and hope to learn something. Then as thatched roofs appeared between the leaf-thick branches, he found an excuse to speak. “There’s your village, hunter,” he said, watching Evthan closely. “A bowshot yonder.”

The Jouvaine blinked, seeming to return from a place that was far beyond the forest, and drew in a trembling breath. He recovered his composure with an effort and met Aldric’s unwinking gaze with another. “Best I lead the way, Kourgath. Since the… the Empire’s troubles we—”

“Are not over-fond of armoured riders? Yes. So I can believe.” Reining in, he dismounted and unhooked his sword, hanging it from the saddle near his lesser bow.”Walk on. I’ll be behind you.”

The rest—that this was where he would prefer to stay—he left unsaid.

Valden was tiny, a cluster of lime-washed cottages huddled in a clearing hacked out of the living forest. The newly-built stockade which ringed it kept the trees at bay but gave the place a grimly claustrophobic air, that of a fortress under siege. Aldric could almost smell the fear. He guessed that many shared his feelings as to the nature of the Beast, but not one dared to voice the thought. People stopped the tasks they listlessly performed and watched with dull-eyed resignation as he entered the stockade. They had lost faith in their hunter long ago and were fast losing hope; they might have left the village had the forest not surrounded it, but they did nothing now. Except await the Beast.

He understood the hunter better now, realising the cause of his black mood. Valden’s despair was an infection which needed cautery to cure it. Destruction to bring healing… The destruction of the Beast.

After what Evthan had told him, Aldric was surprised to find two women in the hunter’s house. “Aline, my sister,” the Jouvaine explained, “and Gueynor, my niece.” That would be the girl who backed nervously into the shadows as Evthan brought his guest indoors. “I hoped I would return with… company, so I asked them to prepare a meal. It will be better than my poor efforts.”

Aldric was grateful and said so—not only for the food, but for the chance to shed the lacquered second skin of steel whose weight he could endure but not ignore. Typically Alban, he insisted on taking some time to wash and change before the meal, and used some of the privacy thus afforded to rearrange the contents of his saddlebags. He distrusted everyone on principle, and while Imperial florins might not be worth much, such a quantity as he possessed could well prove cause for comment. And there were other things which he preferred that no one saw at all.

When they had eaten, Evthan pushed back his chair from the table and coaxed life into a long-stemmed pipe with a taper from the fire. Everything was so comfortable and—and ordinary, Aldric thought—that he could have forgotten the atmosphere outside quite easily had it not been for Gueynor. Cradling his wine-cup, he shot a speculative glance towards her. She had stayed, seemingly fascinated, but at the same time he had seldom seen a girl more clearly terrified. Why, he could only guess: fear of the Beast, of himself… or her uncle, maybe? Did Evthan lash out at the remnants of his family when the helplessness became too much for him to bear? Or was she frightened
for
him, for his loss of reputation, for what a stranger’s presence and success might do to the little self-esteem that he had left? Aldric did not know.

What he did know was that her high-boned cheeks and braided pale-blonde hair were achingly familiar. There had been no women in his life since he left Alba, although more than one had caught his eye; but Gueynor was somehow… different. She wore the usual loose blouse and skirt, tight boots and bodice, all embroidered and quite plainly her best clothes. That too was strange. Their eyes met and he smiled.

At that instant a deep, sonorous wail rose and fell out among the trees. Gueynor gasped, her gaze tearing away from Aldric towards her uncle’s face as if expecting to see—or startled not to see—some sort of reaction. The hunter was very calm; he breathed out fragrant smoke and looked at the girl, then briefly towards Aldric. “The Beast,” he said, “is in our woods again.”

The Alban rose, set down his cup—noting sourly that his hand transferred a tremor to the surface of the wine—and crossed slowly to the open window. Everything was very still. No birds sang, not even a breeze moved the air. The world seemed shocked to silence by that dreadful, melancholy sound. And inevitably the unbidden images coiled out of his subconscious, souring the wine-taste underneath his tongue. He had not drunk quite enough to drown them…

It was a dream. And within the dream was nightmare. Snow falling, drifting, a white shroud across a leaden winter landscape. Out of that stillness, the sound of tears and a buzz of glutted flies… The smell of spice and incense and of huge red roses… Flame, and candlelight, and the distant mournful howling of a wolf beneath a silver full-blown moon. Pain, and the gaudy splattering of blood across cracked milk-white marble…