The War of the Moonstone: an Epic Fantasy (26 page)

Trying to appear relaxed, at ease, Raugst
said, “A Borchstog’s duty is to die, and I do enjoy watching them fulfill their
lot. They’re dirty and loud. I’ve been a wolf for too long, perhaps. I enjoy
the cleanness and quiet of the forest. Still, even I have to acknowledge they
have their uses, and I think it imperative that we preserve as many of them as
we can in case our foes to the north are tougher than we think.”

“Yes?”

Raugst laughed. “Don’t you see, my
friend? We don’t
need
for them to
die. Let the humans die
for
us.”

Vrulug’s stare turned curious. “How?”

Raugst shook his head ruefully. “You
really don’t see, do you? I’m Baron, Vrulug.
Baron
. Ruler of the largest barony in a land of large baronies. I
wield a powerful force. And Fiarth is a popular barony, well-liked by the
others. If I can get the other baronies on my side, and array them against the
King, I can topple Felgrad itself
without
losing a single Borchstog life
!” He stood up, chest heaving. “I will be
King!”

Vrulug sipped his wine, and Raugst
felt his blood cool as he waited. Vrulug was not a hasty decision-maker. He had
to mull things over, and this was a big one. Trying to conceal his nervousness
and impatience, Raugst sat back down, not wanting to loom over his master.

“Tell me more,” Vrulug said.

“Ha! I thought you’d like it. All
right, here’s the best part: once I’m King of Felgrad, I can send her armies
against
her allies in the Crescent! The
Crescent will be at
civil war
. Then,
when they’re in shambles, we can attack them and bring them down for good and
all.” He drained his glass, too excited to notice the taste. He wasn’t excited
by the plan itself necessarily, but by the deception inherent in presenting it.
Deceit was a heady game.

Vrulug pursed his wolf-lips. “I
don’t know . . . This is not the Master’s plan. I will need to commune with
Him.”

Raugst shivered. “As you will, my
lord.”

Fria heard voices as she passed the feasting hall.

“. . . acting oddly, I tell you.”

“Yes, I noticed it, too.”

“Something strange going on . . .”

She pressed her back to the wall
beside the doorway and listened. She’d been on her way to find Giorn a cane and
several other items he’d asked for, but that could wait.

“Perhaps I should open the gates,”
someone said. She thought it was the lean one, Kragt.

Fria felt her spine turn into a rod
of ice.

Someone else was saying, “. . . good
idea while he’s off with Lord Vrulug.”

“Exactly,” the one who must be Kragt
answered. “No one could stop me. I’m not afraid of him.”

There was some murmuring at this,
some in favor of it, some against.

Gathering up her courage, Fria
moved to the archway and stepped through. No one paid her any mind. To them,
she was likely little more than a servant woman. She knew that now. She had
been lied to. Deceived.
Used
. The
word left a bitter taste in her mouth, but she must push past it. Perhaps she
could be of some value yet.

Kragt sat on a table, eating a leg
of lamb with his bare hands. His men—Raugst’s men—busied themselves by loading
Hanen and his hundred on carts. There were not enough carts, and Kragt’s men
were forced to pile the corpses five and more deep, then rope them down so they
didn’t spill off. It was taking some time, and it was a gory, nasty business. Fria
tried not to look.

“You cannot go against Lord
Raugst,” one of the men said, holding down a body while he tied it down. There
were several beneath it, and the body kept trying to slide off. “He’s the
chosen of Master Vrulug.”

“I know,” said Kragt, too sharply. His
eyes strayed to Fria, looked her up and down. Nervously, she sank to her knees
and began rubbing at a bloodstain with a nearby rag. There were maids about
doing likewise; Raugst’s men were watching them carefully.

Fria could feel Kragt’s eyes on her.
Then evidently his thoughts distracted him, and he said to his men, “Normally I
would never consider such a thing, of course, but I tell you, he was acting
strangely. Not
himself
.” He ripped
off a bite of lamb and chased it down with a swig of wine.

“That’s true, sir,” one said. “I
saw it, too.”

“He was acting queer,” another
agreed.

“But he’s Lord Raugst!” said a
third.

“Aye. Who are we to gainsay him?”

Fria scrubbed harder. On her hands
and knees, she made toward Kragt. The stench in here was awful. How could these
men stand it? They must be used to the reek of death. Perhaps they even enjoyed
it. If they truly did serve the Enemy, they might not even be entirely human.

She inched closer. She was
surrounded by death and villains, at the mercy of forces much more powerful
than herself, and Giorn was waiting for her.
But this is important,
she thought.
The gates! They must not open the gates!

“Like I said,” Kragt continued,
“normally I wouldn’t even think of questioning Raugst. But . . . tonight . . .”
He tossed down a gulp of wine. “Perhaps I should just give the order to open
the gates.”

“But he said there was a way to
kill even
more
of the enemy.”

“Aye, don’t do it, my lord,” said
one.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said another. Fria
looked up to see him run his grimy, blood-encrusted hands across his square
bald dome. “Lord Vrulug might thank us for it. Raugst might not even be
conferring with him, for all we know.”

“What are you
saying
?”

The bald one shrugged. “Could be
Raugst is over with the true generals, the Fiarthan loyalists, conferring,
conspiring, meaning to bring down Lord Vrulug. We only have his word he was
going to the wolf-lord, and that’s a fact.”

Angry murmuring rose from most of
them, but some just looked thoughtful. Kragt ripped another bite off the lamb
and smacked his lips noisily.

Fria, still scrubbing, moved
closer.

“That’s a point,” Kragt admitted. “He
could be with the enemy.” He drained his cup of wine, burped. “All I know is
that our ‘stogs are attacking and they need those gates open.”

“Lord Raugst ordered you not to,”
growled one of the men, spreading a corpse across an over-laden cart.

“Yes, and that’s just why I
consider him so suspect.”

“That’s Master Vrulug’s decision to
make, not yours.”

“Raugst left me in charge. It’s my
decision.”

They stared at each other. At last
the man standing over the cart began tying down the corpse. “As you will,” he
muttered.

Kragt nodded. Again his eyes fell
on Fria. She was quite close now. “And what do
you
here?” he asked.

Hesitantly, she raised her face to
him. She closed her left eye, not wanting it to distract him. Or, more
properly, she wanted the rest of her
to
distract him. He was vacillating, swinging one way, then the other. If she
could get his mind on other things . . .

“Just cleaning, my lord,” she said.

“I’m not your lord, and you are not
a servant.” He climbed down from the table. One of his hands grasped her upper
arm and hauled her almost gently upright. “What does a baroness do, scraping up
blood from a floor?”

She stared up into his lean,
wolfish face. “I just . . . just wanted to be of service. It seems I have no
place now. I was only trying to create one. To be useful.”

The bald man snorted. “Likely! She
was spying on us, or I’m a fool.”

“You
are
a fool,” said another, “but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t
spying.”

Kragt looked down into Fria’s face.
“Is that true?”

She hung her head. “I . . . I
did
want to know what’s going on.”

“And? What do you think? Is Raugst
genuine or false?”

“I . . . I do not know what you
mean . . .” She was trembling, and she wanted to faint dead away. Her knees
shook, and her head buzzed. They were all staring at her.

“What are you asking her for,
anyway?” said one of the men. “She can only answer one way.”

“True,” said Kragt. He reached out
and stroked her cheek. His fingers were grimy, but warm. “She is a daughter of
the men of the North. A fair one, though.”

They laughed.

She studied him. There could be no
mistaking the desire in his eyes. Had he always wanted her?

“She’s Raugst’s,” someone said.

Kragt’s eyes did not leave Fria. “Yes.
She is.”

That’s
what he liked about her. He ran a hand through her golden hair, and again
several of the men chuckled. She trembled but kept herself from pulling away.

“There
is
one thing,” she said, trying to suppress the quaver in her
voice.

“Yes?” His voice was thick. She half
feared he would take her right then, in front of the others and surrounded by
death.

“If you open the gate,” she made
herself say, “what will Raugst do to you?”

“Let him try his worst. I’m not
afraid of him.”

She hesitated. Saying anything else
would reveal that she knew whose side they were on. Then again, they didn’t
seem too concerned about that any more. Likely they counted on fear to keep
their secret . . . for however long it needed to be kept.

“Well,” she said, “then if you do
open the gate, and Raugst
is
acting
on Vrulug’s behalf, what do you think
Vrulug
will do to you?”

Slowly, he removed his hand from
her hair, and a speculating look came into his eyes. The others waited.
Please
, Fria thought.
Please let this work.

At last, grudgingly, Kragt nodded.
“Fair . . .
and
smart.” His eyes ran
her up and down. “Too good for the likes of Raugst. What is his . . .
could
be mine.”

She dropped her gaze demurely. Let
him think what he would.

“So you’ll leave the gates alone?”
one of the men said.

Kragt paused, then gave a single
nod. “To hell with them. I’m not afraid of Raugst, but Vrulug . . . Let this
little charade continue, if that’s what must happen. There are interesting . .
. diversions . . . here.” Again his gaze strayed to Fria.

She retreated from the room. She
thought Kragt might call out to her, might halt her and ravish her, but it
seemed being the wife of Raugst still had some meaning, and when she turned her
head to look back she saw Kragt loading bodies onto the carts once more, though
not without a glance in her direction. Fria breathed a sigh of relief and
slipped away.

While Raugst waited without the wolf-lord’s tent, Vrulug
sent runners to confer with the Borchstog generals, and the host moved back
from the walls. The battle, for the moment, was over. Raugst told himself that
at least he had bought Thiersgald some time.

The Borchstogs returned, bearing
thrashing Fiarthans in their nets—soldiers caught during the fighting. As
Raugst watched on helplessly, they were tortured on the spot. Some survived
long enough to be nailed onto the poles. They were stripped, whipped, beaten,
and then the Borchstogs truly proceeded to make sport with them.

Ol
Undracost
, it was called. The Art. Borchstogs were cruel, malicious things,
but it was more than that. To hear the screams of their victims was to know the
impotence of their victims’ gods. The Omkarathons, the gods of the light, such
as Brunril and Illiana, were weak and scattered. They could not even save their
own worshippers. As the Fiarthans screamed in pain, the Borchstogs laughed and
made gestures of blessing. By torturing their victims, they honored their
Master and shamed His enemies.

Raugst watched them with their
needles and knives and turned away. He heard the screams of women, and men too,
boys mostly, from the larger tents as higher-ranking Borchstogs enjoyed their
personal captives. Raugst ground his teeth.

“My lord, are you all right?” It
was one of his men.

Raugst realized he was shaking and
sweaty.
Steady, Raugst
, he told
himself.
Steady. Screams and torment are
mother’s milk.

He laughed. “Just a bit tense. I
stopped the battle because I had a
plan
.
What if the Great One disapproves?”

The others paled. If their leader
was taken for torture and sport, it was possible they would be considered
guilty by association. They asked no further questions about Raugst’s
anxiousness, but several did ask to be excused so that they could participate
in
ol Undracost
. Raugst refused under
the pretext that they might have to leave at any moment.

He didn’t follow his own orders. A
pair of nearby Borchstogs had nailed a cursing Fiarthan soldier to a post and
were flaying the skin from his thigh. They laughed as they shoved the bloody
wad between his lips. The man snapped at them, but they were too quick. “Eat it!”
they shouted. “Eat!” He tried to spit out the wad, but they cuffed him and
threatened to peel the skin from his privates next.

Raugst stalked over. “Fools! You’re
doing it all wrong.”

The Borchstogs were large, nasty
creatures, taller than he was, their shoulders broad, their arms and legs thick
with muscle. Their skulls were heavy, their heads hard, and their red eyes were
set deep so as to be difficult to gouge. Thick, sharp teeth glistened in their
mouths. Their flesh was as black as tar, and covered in drying red blood. Flies
buzzed about them.

Raugst ripped the flaying knife out
of the larger one’s hands. “Let me show you.”

They grumbled but stepped back.

“The skin on the neck is very
tender,” Raugst explained. “It causes much more pain than the skin of the
thigh. Look.” He raised the flaying knife to the man’s neck. The soldier
thrashed and cursed him. Beads of sweat ran into the man’s eyes. Raugst grabbed
him by the hair, stilling his head, then pressed the blade down. “Like this,”
he said over his shoulder. He pressed down . . .