by Paithan Campbell
in Issue 85, February 2019
“Don’t start any trouble, you hear? Keep your sword in its sheath. Orithe is a decent city.”
Machtir looked around, and although he saw no city he nodded at the gate guard. A word like city implied stone structures, cobbled streets and some sense of building plan. All Machtir saw were dilapidated, one-storey wooden structures that sat on either side of a muddy road. To use a word like city for a place like this was borderline criminal.
“I’ll try not to,” said Machtir to the gate guard. He rolled his shoulder and shifted the red leather scabbard he wore diagonally across his back.
The man spat at his feet anyway. “Damn foreigners.”
With a kick of his heels Machtir set his horse down the muddy street. The town of Orithe was shaped like a crescent, with the outer edge lined by a river that provided all the locals with drinking water. Nestled within the center of the crescent was a great knuckle of rock on which a castle of wet stone huddled like a depressed gargoyle. He did not have any trouble finding the place he was looking for. With such a small town as this there were hardly any side streets shooting off into neighborhoods or marketplaces. All the businesses from grocers to cobblers to smiths and wheelwrights were located on the main street. A wooden sign hung over the doorway of the tavern that was his destination; the Blue Rooster. Machtir supposed one could misconstrue the sign to resemble some sort of fowl, though it was also quite possible the carpenter had just been a raging drunk. Either way, the chipping paint was enough of an indicator.
The Blue Rooster was a sad place filled with sleepy-eyed drunks and shaking dogs, but that did not surprise Machtir. Orithe itself was a backwater; a place Machtir would have never visited if it did not mean he would make quite a bit of money.
“All the more reason to get this done and leave this place behind,” he thought to himself. He tied up his horse outside the tavern and walked inside. It was still early in the afternoon, but half of the beer-stained tables that filled the place were already occupied. A low fire, just strong enough to emit the proper amount of heat to battle a wet October, burned in the brick hearth. Machtir waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the interior, walked over to the bar and nodded at a frazzled woman standing beside multiple barrels of beer.
“Room and board, sir?”
“Just a drink,” said Machtir. He set a silver coin down on the table. The woman’s eyes opened wide. The little bit of metal was worth more than her entire building.
“Too much, sir,” said the woman as she grabbed a clay mug, filled it with beer and set it on the bar in one move. “We deal in copper bits ‘round here.”
“Take it,” said Machtir. He raised the clay mug to his lips and took a sip. “Or I’ll be overcome by guilt.”
“Guilt? For what, sir?”
Before Machtir had a chance to answer, a voice called out from the back of the room. “Who comes in here wearing a sword?”
With the look of a connoisseur of warm, stale beer Machtir ignored the man. Drunk enough that he was desperate to be heard the man rose from his table and stumbled over to the bar. “Did you not hear me? I asked who comes in here wearing a sword?”
The two men studied each other as the loud mouth planted an elbow on the bar. Before anything else, Machtir checked the side of the man’s head and saw his left ear was nothing but a tattered ruin. The man was drunk enough that he did not notice. “You have a regimental crest tattooed on your neck. Did you fight in the War?”
“Yes,” said Machtir, though it was a ridiculous question. Every man over the age of sixteen had fought in the War.
“That crest looks like a goat dancing on a claymore. Never seen that one before. What side were you on?” asked One Ear.
“Fought for the Black King,” said Machtir truthfully. Without meaning to several of the tavern’s regulars looked over their shoulders. One of them spat on the dirt floor.
One Ear smiled. “Well, how about that! I marched under the bloody banner too! Perhaps we were comrades in a battle or two, eh? Stood side by side in a pike-wall? What are you drinking? I’ll buy you a round if you get the next.”
“Thank you, but no,” said Machtir.
One Ear grimaced, “What’s the matter with you, then?”
Machtir offered a little shrug. “I’m just not comfortable drinking with a man I’m about to cut the life out of.”
One Ear took a step back and placed a hand on the pommel of his sword. Not the hilt. “What are you doing? Coming in here and saying things like that? You’re bound to get a sword in the belly for running your mouth like that.”
Machtir set his drink on the center of the bar, not the edge. He did not want it to spill. “Just like that boy back in Rhanaria who got your sword in his belly? What was his name? Do you remember, Franach? Did you even ask before you killed him?”
One Ear’s eyes widened and his hand slipped to the hilt of his sword. He managed to draw three inches of steel before Machtir dropped his shoulder and grabbed the sharkskin hilt of his own weapon. His sword flew out of its red leather scabbard and slid diagonally down One Ear’s chest. The man stumbled into Machtir, who pushed him away as easily as if he was a silk curtain. There was a gurgle – a horrible noise like water being sucked down a drain. One Ear fell onto the dirt floor of the tavern.
The woman behind the bar screamed and one of the regulars cursed. The door of the Blue Rooster flew open and the patrons scrambled over each other to escape into the street. Machtir went back to the bar, grabbed a rag and cleaned his sword. “You killed him,” said the woman.
“Yes,” said Machtir.
“You’ve ruined my business for the night. Maybe even the whole week.”
“The silver will make up for it.” He removed his cloak and drew a serrated knife from his belt. “Though you may want to look away for this next part.”
He managed to saw through the corpse’s neck before the Town Guard arrived.
***
“How dare you!”
Grease dripped down the chin of King Wladimir and soaked into his forked beard. He pulled a leg of turkey away from his mouth long enough to bark at Machtir again. “You come into my kingdom and slay my subjects without provocation. A filthy thing like you walking around and murdering decent folk. Makes me sick to even look at you.”
Machtir hid his thoughts behind an emotionless mask. He had met many kings during his life and hardly any of them lived up to the hype. Most of them were savage warlords who had earned their crown, or spoiled psychopaths who had inherited it. King Wladimir belonged in the latter category.
Accustomed to the abuse, Machtir did not let his face betray his emotions. No one wanted to remember the War and he was, if anything, a living relic of that dark age. A war criminal that had gotten away with the worst transgressions. “If I may, Your Highness. The man I slew earlier this afternoon had a bounty on his head back in Rhanaria. The King of that country issued me a warrant for…”
“Let me see this document!”
Machtir reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He opened it and held it out to an attendant, who brought it to the King. With chubby fingers he held the paper close to his eyes and squinted. After a moment he coughed and ripped the paper in half. Machtir felt his luck was about to turn bad. He eyes drifted to the twelve halberdiers that stood on either side of the throne room.
“I do not care what the King of Rhanaria does over there in his stinking marsh! This is Orithe, and I am the sovereign here! The man you slew today was a loyal subject in good standing with the Law. His murder was an attack on the authority of the Crown itself. And for that you will hang!”
Suddenly, the attendant leaned over and whispered in the King’s ear. The large man on the throne coughed again, inspected whatever had landed in his hand, decided it was food and sucked it back up. Machtir grimaced. “I have had the sudden recollection that you may be of service to the Crown. An important village on the edge of Grauwald Forest has come under the veil of some evil force. A monster that stalks through the settlement during the nights, and ravages whatever peasant is unlucky, or too drunk to be caught away from home.”
“I am not a monster hunter, Your Highness.”
The King smiled. His teeth, corrupted by years of sugary treats were nothing more than black stumps. “After all the stories I heard about the exploits of your kind during the War, I do not doubt you will be able to handle this task. In fact I am so confident in your abilities that I do not believe it will truly serve as penance.”
Machtir sensed his luck had gone from bad to worse, if that was possible. “You will complete this task without the use of anything made by man; weapons, armor, traps or devices of any kind. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Machtir. Though it was clear King Wladimir was setting him up for failure. Machtir decided he was not going to play the fat man’s game. He was already planning on stealing a horse and escaping as soon as possible. He supposed he could go the rest of his life without ever stepping forth in Orithe again. It was a small kingdom, after all.
“There is but one more thing!”
The King waved a hand at one of the guards standing off to the side. The man stepped forward. He was dressed in chainmail armor and a cloak with the blue-white checkered pattern of Orithe. At a glance Machtir could tell the man was the sort of warrior who chaffed under the leadership of an unworthy lord, but whose honor would not allow him to abandon his post. “Captain Aonair will accompany you. He will be my official witness that you followed my parameters. Now, you are dismissed. Remove yourself from my sight!”
Machtir bowed respectively low, but imagined choking the fat man to death with his bare hands. There would be no escape now. Captain Aonair was proof of that. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
***
“I saw the monster!”
The old man shook his cane in the air as if fending off a swarm of bats. Rabin leaned back and protected his clay mug filled with beer. The other men that sat on the benches in the village square leaned in, eager to be a part of the excitement of a stranger visiting their village.
“So you’ve said, Old Timer. Two or three times already. But what did it look like?”
The old man placed his hands on his cane and blinked at Machtir with jaundiced eyes. “Well… It was quite dark.
“He doesn’t know,” said Captain Aonair from the corner of the run down cottage that was the village’s only tavern. “He’s just hoping to get a few coppers out of you. Leave him alone you worthless dogs! Unless you’ve got any real information, get lost!”
“Be gentle, sir,” said one of the other peasants. “Although the beast has visited us many times over the last year, the ones who see it in any great detail are always unlucky enough to end up as mangled corpses on the main street.”
Aonair began to grumble about backwoods superstitions when Machtir held up a hand. “The beast does not carry off its prey?”
“Why no,” said the Old Man. “When it took Marie Lynn’s life three days ago, it only ate her arm and head. May she rest in peace.”
What happened to the rest of the body?” asked Machtir.
“We took it and placed it in Red Sam’s cellar. He’s the village butcher, and his cellar was built to keep cuts of meat cold. For a time, anyway.”
“I would like to see the body,” said Machtir.
The peasants formed an excited mob, like little boys, that proceeded Machtir and Aonair through the village. They explained to Red Sam in a jumble of excited voices who Machtir was and what he wanted. Although confused, the butcher let them all into his cellar. The victim had been placed between a vat of marinating venison and pair of pigs who were hanging from the ceiling by their back legs. She had been covered with a thick quilt, but Machtir could tell from the form of the cloth that the body beneath was mutilated.
That still did not prepare him for the reality.
“By the One God,” swore Aonair when Machtir removed the quilt.
“What’s the matter? Weren’t you in the War?”
“Of course,” said the soldier. “But I never saw anything like that. She looks like she’s been chewed on.”
Machtir grunted and inspected the body. The right arm, right shoulder and neck were missing. But the bite was not clean. The beast had left behind torn flesh and splintered bone.
“Whatever did this must be the size of a full grown bull,” said Aonair.
“What makes you say that?” asked Machtir.
“From the size of the bite. It took the whole shoulder and head in its mouth.”
Machtir said nothing, but reached down and dug his fingers into the open wound. “By the One God, man. What are you doing?”
Machtir held up his bloody fingers in which he held a tooth about six inches long. “The beast left a little something behind. The collarbone was a tougher nut to crack than it thought.”
“Look at that,” said Aonair. “So sharp. Must be a canine tooth.”
“It’s a splinter from a molar,” said Machtir.
“If that’s not a canine tooth then I’m the court jester. The creature would have to be twice the size of a bull for that to be a molar.”
“That’s because it is twice the size of a bull. It only used the left side of its mouth to decapitate this girl. It must have been running at full tilt. Chasing her. If it had used its whole mouth her entire torso would be gone.” Machtir turned to the crowd of peasants who had crowded themselves into the cellar. “Where’s that geezer?”
“Here, good sir!” The peasants pushed the old man to the front.
“When you saw the beast the night of the attack did it run on two legs or all four?”
“Two at first,” said the old man. “Then all four when it ran poor Marie Lynn down. Looked a wolf it did.”
“But did it howl?”
“No, it made as much sound as a fogbank.”
Machtir nodded. “Is there a women in the village who knows the wierding way?”
“Why yes, but what would you need her for?”
“Because I know what this thing is.”
***
“Please, when she comes out let me do the talking.”
“You are not at liberty to give me orders,” said Captain Aonair.
“It will go very badly if you offend her.”
“I am not afraid of some old woman.”
“It is not about fear, but about respect. If she asks you a question, answer it. If she commands you to do something, do it. There are things here in the forest that do not follow the rules of cities and towns. Do I have your word you will not offend her?”
“To be the best of my ability, I will not.”
Machtir dismounted from his horse. He approached the hut with slow steps and was sure to step upon every twig and loose stone in his path. Before he reached the moss covered hut, the front door opened and a little old woman with a hunchback and a wart covered nose appeared before them. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’ve come to speak with you,” said Machtir as he bowed low – lower than he had bowed for any monarch.
“What does a mighty warrior need with an old one such as I? With cataracts in my eyes and arthritis in my hands, I can be of use to no one.”
“Surely your wisdom dwarfs those of your neighbors in its magnitude. It is easy to see your mind is as sharp as when you were a girl who braided flower crowns in those fields of heather beyond the creek.”
The crone cackled and wiped a tear from her eye. “Here is one who remembers the old ways. Come in and entertain an old woman with kind words.”
Machtir stood up straight and entered the hut. Captain Aonair began to follow, but the Crone held up a gnarled claw. “I only converse with wolves. Not pups.” The door shut in his face. Aonair swore, sat upon a nearby log and began to smoke his pipe.
Inside the hut, Machtir placed his cloth bag upon a crowded table.
“And what do you have for me in there?” asked the crone as she shuffled over to the fire and placed a kettle over the flames. “A gift, surely.”
“Alder, from the forest by the village.”
“A powerful thing. But what do you want me to do with it?”
“Treat it the ways your wisdom knows how.”
“Honey and grease. Yes, yes. A simple enough spell.” She shuffled over to the table and sat in a rickety old chair. Her claw-like hands began to undo the strings of the bag. “You know the old ways of respect. Which is refreshing enough in these days. But do you know the old ways of payment?”
“I do,” said Machtir.
“Good… Good…” she took a little wooden bowl off a nearby shelf and placed it next to his hand. “I will need your blood.”
“Why would you need something like that?” asked Machtir with a raised eyebrow.
Cackling filled the hut once more. “Don’t play coy, warrior. There’s power in your blood and you know it. Whatever they did to you I can smell it as easily as a cat smells fish. Fill the bowl, and I’ll treat the alder.”
Machtir rolled up his sleeve and drew his dagger.
***
“You remember what His Majesty said, yes?”
“Yes,” said Machtir. They stood on the main street of the village. Night fell around them as the moon rose into the sky. “No weapons, armor, traps or devices made b human hands. I remember. Don’t worry, Captain. It won’t be a problem.”
“I must admit,” said the soldier. “I am eager to see how you pull this off. What’s in the bag? What did you get from the wierding woman?”
“All in due time,” said Machtir as he undid the clasp that held his cloak in place. He pulled his chainmail shirt over his head and sighed with relief as he dropped it onto the ground. Clad only in a linen shirt, he undid his sword belt and placed it atop his outerwear. “You should probably seek shelter, Captain.”
The soldier nodded and left him. Machtir knelt on the street with the cloth bag beside him. From the windows of the cottages the peasants argued as to whether or not he was praying. But in his mind Machtir was not pleading with questionable deities.
He had locked away a few selected memories from the War. Intense memories. Time when he had not been sure if he would live or die. He unlocked them, and let the flood of adrenaline and terror wash over him. Inside his body, unnatural organs began to release chemicals that had never been intended to enter the human body. They soaked into his lungs, his brain and his muscles. When he opened his eyes he could see as easily as if it had been day. His ears picked up the rustle of every leaf. His arms flexed with a strength that could bend a sword as easily as if it had been made of beeswax.
At the edge of the treeline, something raised its massive head and sniffed the ar. It had smelled something like Machtir before. A long time ago, when the thing had run in a pack, and hunted not only to eat but to kill of the pleasure of its masters. But then it had turned on its masters, and punished them for the pain and hunger they had inflicted upon it. The memory of those days brought on by Machtir’s scent, enraged the thing.
It began to run. Not on two legs, but on all four – just as it had done before it had been taken way. Before it had been stuck in a cage and subjected to a treatment of burning chemicals. Back when it had been a natural animal.
Machtir sensed the thing approaching, and opened the cloth bag. He pulled out a piece of alder wood that was hollowed out in the middle. The wood was hard, much harder than it should have been, and it smelled of honey. Machtir stood and pulled off his shirt, as it would only get in the way. Bare-chested, he pulled the hollow log onto his left forearm and waited.
The thing ran into the village driven half mad by Machtir’s scent. When he saw it, a shiver ran down the man’s spine. It was twice the size of a bull with four legs and a triangular head. Once long ago fur had covered its body. But whatever the sorceresses had done to it in the War had made it bald. Nothing covered the pale skin except numerous scars and the blue-black tattoo that identified it as 17-8.
The eighth pup of the seventeenth litter.
Saliva foamed from between the hound’s teeth as it charged. Machtir braced himself. At the last moment, as the beast soared through the air on its way to deliver a lethal bite, he raised his arm. Six inch teeth sank into the treated wood. The log cracked, but did not break. The hound tried to pull its jaws apart, but its fangs were stuck in the wood. Annoyed, it swung its head left to right to dislodge itself.
A normal man would have been torn apart at the shoulder. But with the unnatural chemicals rushing through his body, Machtir had the strength to wrestle with the monstrous beast. He dug his feet in and twisted his left arm to turn the hound’s head. A blast of hot air escaped its nostrils as one massive green eye fell on Machtir. For a moment he saw himself in the beast. A relic of a war no one wanted to remember. A weapon with no place in a society that just wanted to forget and move on.
“I am sorry.”
With his free hand he reached into the hound’s mouth, still held apart by the hollowed log. His hand reached down past the gullet and through soft flesh. The beast began to gag. Machtir kept going until his fingers touched something that beat like a drum. He grasped the heart, squeezed and ripped his hand back through the open jaws.
There was a grunt. A wheeze. The heavy, bald body fell onto the street and lay still. But as Machtir watched the green eye rolled forward to look at him. He looked away.
“I’m so sorry.”
***
“You did it then? I guess you are good for something.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“What was it anyway?” asked King Wladimir between mouthfuls of duck roasted in lemon. “Based on that head you brought in, it looks like some sort of naked dog.”
“We used them in the war. The sorceresses took shepherd dog pups from the kennel at Hakator and… modified them.”
“Much like yourself, no? There’s an allegory in there, but no matter. The War is over, and monstrosities like that only deserve the pyre. While we’re at it, should throw those sorceresses on the stake as well. Not natural, the things they bring into this world.” He turned his head and shouted, “Captain Aonair!”
The soldier took a step forward. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Did the bounty hunter follow my instructions? Did he slay the beast with his own strength?”
Aonair took a deep breath, as if about to give a speech worthy of his chivalric upbringing. “Aye, Your Majesty. He acquainted himself well. With honor and great physical bravery. The people of…”
“Never mind all that,” interrupted the King. Aonair deflated like a balloon robbed of air. Machtir felt sorry for him. He was wasted in the service of King Wladimir. “Alright bounty hunter, you have absolved yourself of your crime, and you are free to go.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Machtir with a bow.
“But be warned. If you ever return to Orithe, I will set on you a posse of hunters who will treat you to the same end as that monstrosity you brought down.”
Machtir clenched his jaw. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
“You have until sundown to leave my domain.”
©February 2019, Paithan Campbell
Paithan Campbell was born and raised in Barnstable, Massachusetts. After graduating from Roger Williams University he moved abroad to Poland to teach English to children. Reading and writing creative fiction are his favorite hobbies. This is his first published story.