Beneath Catseye Reprisal

Beneath CatsEye
Table of Content

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Reprisal
by Patricia I. Williams

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Reprisal

Coils! There was nothing left to vomit. But Mason heaved anyway as the Pegasor leaped over another boulder and another. The cursed beast seemed able to run nonstop day and night. Had they been traveling day and night? He was blinded by something that sealed his eyes shut. His wrists were clamped together, attached to chains. Something tethered him to the saddle by his waist. He pounced against thick jutting backbone. His body slid back and forth as the beast moved. They went up and down and up up up and down and . . .

Why would they not kill him?

Mason first woke to pitch, searing pain in his head and nausea. Damn blaster packed a bunch like an anvil. There were voices, but the sounds made little sense. He was locked in the pitch and kept speechless by his abused stomach. Would the beast never grow tired? Coils, he was sure a few ribs were cracked.

***

Daniel look on with trepidation as the Pegasor leapt up one side of the cliff. Ran a good distance, only to spin and leap back down to the trail. Surely Mason was being hurt by all that leaping about.

Mason’s sister and her people had been left behind, this morning. Cherish had given him feed for the horses and the FreeSouls and provided water. He had kept his mouth shut as he was fed by guardians of the outpost last night and again this morning. He was so grateful for those meat pies. He hardly remembered the last time he ate anything so thick with meat and there were vegetables too.

The one called QuickStep sat and talked to him after everyone ate. She did not seem very stern or grim when she told him what was to come. He had been reminded of the facts. The facts as they were did not make for a long life expectancy for Mason. Yes, he had saved the servants, but was he not the reason they went hungry in the first place? Did he not gather the food and guard it? Were people beaten for stealing it? Had people been executed for stealing food they desperately needed? Did he do his father’s bidding by forcing people from their homes, stealing their food and clothes for the army?  Did he not force them to fight and execute them if they resisted? Should he not pay for his crimes?

Daniel was weeping by the time the woman relented. She sat beside him while he cried himself out. How could he have forgotten these things? His father had gone with the army full of confidence that success would bring them the right to return to their home. The riches of the demons would be theirs. All the sacrifice, the suffering would be worth it in the end. Yes Fredric was a harsh master, but the demons were such terrors everyone had to be strong and sacrifice for the greater good. Daniel would see when he returned victorious and they rode together through the streets of Daear, demons crushed beneath their feet.

Only he did not return. Victory was a joke of wounded, terrified men babbling about demons and pitch clad murderers chasing them through the pitch. Fredric allowed no one time to grieve or retrieve the dead. They must heal quickly and strike fast. The demons would not be expecting their return. Victory was at hand. Men continued to die from their wounds. There were only ill equipped servants for assistance. Seasons past the last healers of Haven fled into the waste with the deserters. Fredric had begun to condemn some of their practices as weakening the people. So the survivors of the battle on the plain continued to expire.

Daniel hung his head in remorse. Because Mason had set him free, he thought him the hero. He was strong and good with his weapons. He rode like one part of the horse. No one on the estate had ever beaten him in a fight. How could he forget that Mason and his father was the cause of so much devastation, for the complete ruin of his own life? He did not speak again to anyone. He was shamed.  Daniel did not look again at Mason tossed around on the back of the Pegasor. He rode along in silence, stripped of his momentary delusion and so very confused. The dawn had risen on him thinking about a future among the demons that killed his father.

This pitch would find him wracked with self-hatred and anguish for wanting a future free from these burdens. Were his father’s beliefs wrong? He was dead. But the demons had been kind to Daniel. They had not ridden down from their mountain to attack his people. He knew this much was true. Most of his people thought demons were legend until that day on the battlefield. But if they existed then the old stories had to be true. The bad military people and the scientists were long dead, before Daniel’s grandfather and even before that. If the demon continued to make monsters why had they not come before to raid Haven’s people? Fredric had done that and worse. Daniel found no peace under the clouded sky, his thoughts continued as pitch as the vista he stared into.

QuickStep felt badly. She had not allowed the boy to keep that sad gaze upon the hero of his past few dawns. It was an almost conditioned response. The boy had suffered long term and one act of kindness, not matter how off hand, created a supporter for the murderous bastard. The boy needed to be clear in his own head. She had observed his worshipful gaze on Reaper when they caught up with the party. The child was just too vulnerable. Now he was burdened with doubts. Which was much better than being a mindless husk drifting along like llygredd, subject to changing alliances with every new association. Whether he remained in Daear or returned to Haven, he must be his own man not manipulated by anyone. Still she felt really bad about what she did. That night she would sleep wrapped tightly in coils between Strike and Shadow when their turn at watch ended.

***

Shatter fed and watered the prisoner. The loss of his twelve brothers and sisters ate at him like llyncas on a muskie calf. He had never wanted to kill someone more than this scum. But he had given oaths of fealty to BrightLance, driven by fierce heartache and blood lost. Once again a Cadre warrior sat on the throne of Daear. He would be loathed to disappoint his little Queen and deny her justice. So he took off the chains and checked the man for injuries. Shatter had no remorse over the darkening bruises across the man’s torso. Tomorrow he would be chained behind Shatter’s baby and be forced marched to his end. It would save the scum from further damage until the General got hold of him. Thoughts of what Mason would suffer at the hands of BareBlade comforted him during his night watch.

***

Raze was disgruntled. No one was foolish enough to stalk their back trail away from the border. The twins had been smart to avoid their own outposts. She was sure the guards would even take up arms against them to satisfy their need for vengeance. It was all of little mind to her. The Queen must perform for all of Daear now, instead of her Cadre uncles and aunts. Raze would have just tortured the man to death, very slowly of course.

But other humans needed to feel they were justified when killing. At least that was her understanding of the others. Soon enough they would go after Fredric. Then she may find the necessary close work and momentary satiation. Still it was ill done, that no one followed them, so she could instruct them regarding their poor choices in life. When did prey get so intelligent?

Raze sniffed in irritation and mounted up to return to the night camp. Perhaps someone would spar with her come dawn to work some of this energy off. She had never killed a Cadre member yet. Every one of them knew Raze was insane. It did not bother her that they did. Living with her kept them sharp. Excellent killers every one of them. She wondered if she felt pride. How disconcerting. With one last look at scattered clouds beginning to build, Raze turned back to camp. They needed to beat the next rainstorms home. It would be a misery to travel across the plains in driving rain. She would really want to kill someone then.

***

BareBlade had finished up his work for the day and secured his office door. The scents from the galley were tantalizing. His stomach grumbled just as every coiled Cadre walking along the corridor turned to the shadowed recess that hid the bottom of the ramp.  Something flew into the hall and smacked into the opposite wall. BareBlade’s sword came to hand as the same time the others rushed down the hall with their weapons drawn. Suddenly the twins appeared from the dark, hair floating around them both. Raze, Shatter and QuickStep appeared at their backs.

We have him BareBlade, we have the one who leads. We have him, we have him.”

The four Cadre in the hall with the General stared at the unconscious figure against the wall. On closer look it was a man. He stank. Brace moved forward cautiously until he realized the man was manacled and unconscious. He attempted to ascertain the identity of the reeking body. Brace looked up at BareBlade as the twin’s coils enveloped the man, advising events in the swiftest manner possible. He twitched more than once at the intrusion of his mind, but the general had a number of rotations to adjust to the twins preferred reporting method. BareBlade’s glee and satisfaction ignited the twins and their emotional response to his praise for bringing the prisoner back alive drew the attention of more than one Cadre member, so the hall began to fill.

“Get to interrogation and prep the strongest serum. Strip him, have a healer look him over. I will be coming in to question him immediately after I advise the Queen. A fortunate day, very fortunate.”

BareBlade disappeared into the dark stairwell and sped up the ramp.  Brace and Sticker dragged Mason swiftly along the hall by his ankles. No one appeared to note Lucan, dumbfounded, remaining in the center of the hallway. The twins, Shatter, and QuickStep rushed to shower off the grime of travel and treat themselves to some real home cooked food. Raze went to clean her weapons.

On the decks below Daniel watched with huge eyes as the squires unsaddled grumbling Pegasors and brushed them down. It was a quick job. The Pegasors were hungry for the dearhart which were already racing in panic around the enclosure. The children dragged him off to show him a place to stable Brute. Before his head stopped spinning Daniel was eating in the squire barracks and sleeping in clean sheets and warm blew.

***

Mason choked on the mucus and bile running from his nose and mouth. He could not see or breath. Panic began to override his ability to appear unmoved by the injections and his cramping stomach. He thought someone said he was allergic to the drug before his dark world became overwhelmed with the anvil that slammed into his chest.

More hands clamped around his arms when he began to writhe desperate for air. He attempted to break free from those bruising hands but found himself rising in the air and body slammed onto some surface. His legs flailed and his head banged repeatedly against metal. He was dying. Something hot pierced his chest and his spine bowed with the sudden influx of fiery air. He managed to gasp and could not stop tears or the trembling. He filled his lungs with hot precious air until the flashing lights faded to pitch.

Later Mason realized he was alone lying in urine and feces. He managed to roll to one side and pressed his face into the floor. He was insensible for who knows how long when hands were back and the scent of some astringent cleaning fluid turned his stomach again. Rough cloth was being applied to his genitals and legs. When he attempted to move away from the icy water, others clamped down on his arms again pinning him in place. He kicked out and a huge hand encircled his throat and clamped down. No no no no.  Mason forced his body still and the hand stopped squeezing. Someone raised his legs in the air and his backside was scrubbed. He could not stop the twitch in protest of this humiliation and his throat was squeezed shut again. They left as suddenly as they had come.

Cool water pushed into his mouth. Dragged, lifted, then slammed into a chair. Legs curled up in reaction to stomach churning pain. He bit his tongue when his testicles were crushed against the metal. A sound like air escaping the room caused him to twitch in panic.

Another injection. Mason jumped from the chair, or tried to. Hands pressed him down until the skin on his back was raw. Whatever they injected this time burst into his veins with scalding heat and he lost his breath again. Panic made his body shiver and his feet drummed the floor in reaction to an immense adrenaline rush. Light spun in nauseating swoops, stability abandoned.

The General pulled the prisoner up by his hair after injecting the altered drug in the prominent jugular vein. He stepped back and watched the man lose all control, flailing and scuttling around the floor until he found the corner and cowered there. Astounding to find the drug had such an affect.  Who could have guessed an allergic reaction to something in the food would be compounded by a further reaction to the antidote. It took no time for BareBlade to have a drug replicated to reproduce the physical effects the prisoner had suffered. Adding a hallucinogenic meant fists and blades would be unnecessary to get their information. Colby had proved resistant to physical threat and did not have any useful intelligence after the effort.  

Thinking of that braggart scum bought a wide grin to BareBlade’s visage. The loudmouth and his companions were shoveling muskie shit for the fertilizer plant for the remainder of their lives. BrightLance also condemned the rabble to live with the muskie bulls, tending them and bagging waste. They were denied filters to block the concentrated odor in the barns and wore tracking collars to make sure they stayed put. They had to eat and sleep in the same shelters as the animals. Showers were a privilege earned. If they were not careful and solicitous the bulls would make short work of them. Most entertaining.

Now the General would sit back and listen. Somewhere in the incoherent raving and fantasy would be glimmers of the truth. When the prisoner was worn down by his physical reactions and terrors, BareBlade would have his system cleansed and then question him. His questions would be readily answered.

Mason babbled traitorous fears. Every disdainful impression expressed. Survival of the purges. Executing seditious families, so he would not join their fate. Survival more important than ideologies he was taught. So he killed when ordered and beat his father’s rabble into enough shape to take the field and die. Facing the inevitability of death every day. Only foes for company. No value, a tool for father’s delusions. Eaten alive by the tagudal! Run run run! The demons had her! Kill . . .  A starving boy who obeyed. Bloody sheets with a whimpering blue newborn . . .

Mason raved through the dark. The demons returned and tore him apart. He could not stop them. He could not stop them and his heart and will failed as he strangled. Coward coward coward . . .

“I have many questions and you are the man with the answers. Of course you could relive the last two dawnings again. We have a large supply of the toxin.”

The captive trembled. Oh yes, BareBlade would know everything.

***

Floor to ceiling double paned windows encircled the bright winter throne room at measured intervals. Across the circular floor, footsteps would be muffled by hexagon shaped mini tiles in alternating shades of pale blue and a slightly deeper yellow. The walls were also a soft nearly translucent wash of white, yellow and blue. The solar cells provided light in this room during the stormy dawn.

Right now the windows were covered by low lying clouds which reflected the room’s light. The effect was of silver curtains blocking the view. Water spout shaped columns of white ceramic vases were filled with green fern and a variety of yellow blossoms. The flower pots anchored three arched entrances into the room. Smaller wall scones, spilled lush green ivy to the floor between the windows. It was a clean refreshing sight to relieve the endless days of rain and gloom.

Plush seating groups were scattered about. Before one of the windows Mila was updating the computer security system in the armrests of the Fleet Admiral’s chair. The metal frame of the chair had been carefully maintained. Only the color and fabric varied, matching the ever changing décor of the winter and summer throne rooms. It was as close as the Daear had to a throne. Fleet Admiral Pryor’s office chair preserved through the centuries, and no one allowed to sit in but the Kings.  

Standing beneath an archway into the room, BrightLance thought it was nonsense. But just like her crown, the ladies insisted she sit in it whenever she used the rooms. She did admit to herself it was an extremely comfortable chair to rest in. She was hard pressed to remain awake during the more tiresome days making idle conversation with courtiers. It would not due for BrightLance to snuggle into that wondrous support and take a nap, but oh the temptation.

However, today would not be idle. The full Council would be present in this room including the lessor Baronets. The Cadre would escort Mason Brooks to be displayed before them before he was sentenced to life confined in the muskie pens. She had considered harsher measures, even death. However that fine line the people walked could not be ignited by spilling his blood in a public execution. He would not be a martyr to the cause of Daear’s extermination or have his death ignite blood lust in the whole of her people. For a man so proud, this would be unbearable humiliation. It would have to do until Fredric was detained. BrightLance hoped the mad coil still lived. Fredric was the source of these deluded men who wrecked such havoc on her people. He would be executed, insane or not. Daear would not house and feed his continued madness.

Since Mason had been incarcerated, BareBlade was insisting on the death penalty. BrightLance had talked to the Council, debated and meditated on what was to become of the so called general. She spent time in the archives pouring over Old Earth history and military records. A viewing of the interrogation only solidified her opposition against the public execution the entire Cadre hungered for. Yes her father was dead, along with her Cadre kin. However, MeekBlade taught her to put the welfare of all the people first. She could not let it be said she was a tool for BareBlade or the Council.

Fourteen dawns had passed since the Citadel issued a statement to advise the citizens of the capture of Colby and his men. BrightLance had been quite surprised when the man laughed uproariously on being advised of his brother’s death. She could still find it in her heart to be sad for that poor boy dying, sick and frightened in the dark.  The men had been tried quickly after the interrogations. The trials were broadcast at the Bard houses around the valley, if any adult wished to attend. Colby’s hate spewed testimony came as no surprise. He had fought that day on the field but knew nothing about the ambush of King and Cadre. Fredric did not trust Colby with secrets, because his tongue was very loose when drunk. He boasted how Mason was probably the brains behind everything, after all he was the only son worthy of Fredric the Great. The man spat at the feet of the lawyer with that statement and said no more.

The Court found two of Colby’s men guilty of the willful murder of unarmed servants before they left Haven to spy in the forest. Another one had been an accomplice in the death of a FreeSoul Samaritan. BrightLance advised the Senate that as soon as the weather cleared these would be returned to them and the surviving Havenites for justice. There was little more the Cadre could do now with the winter storms occurring one after the other. Of some concern was the giant tagudal reported headed north, but she was aware it could bypass them or even be diverted onto the plains. It may even hibernate through the winter. It was the least important of her concerns now it was no longer threatening the pass into FreeSoul’s territory. No matter its size, if it needed to be killed Daear had the means.

The report of refugees arriving in FreeSoul territory from Haven was good news for her people. They were servants mostly, people press ganged into doing Fredric’s will because their parents had believed his father’s tales of glory. The FreeSoul’s reported they were weakened from hunger and many could not read or write. It had been a slow relentless fall. Their blind belief they could take by force what others had worked for led them to dissolution. The people of Haven had survived much better when they kept their independence and did not follow any leader. She hoped the ones who fled had not been fallen victim to Nadredd’s cruelty. If they survived maybe they would return from the plains.

She had received more than one dispatch from Stara. The Senate was up in arms over the news that Fredric’s men were incapacitated by pydru. It was no great leap to realize the poison could only have been available if it was going to be used against Daear. She was assured that the deadly poison was destroyed in the furnaces FreeSouls used to smelt their ore. She was relieved, BareBlade was skeptical.

BrightLance returned to her quarters. Today would not be a day of revenge but of justice. As her Cadre endured the loss of their King and comrades, Mason would endure rotations of humiliation. The knowledge that he was the one with the strength to put down his father’s madness and did not would haunt him. He could have been something more than a follower and a murderer but chose the cowards way out. There was no way to predict what the future could have been if he had taken his brothers under his wing. Farrell most likely would have still suffered or been killed outright. But what ifs always harassed one in the dark. She wanted to think the war would have been avoided and a woman who finally stood up to her husband would not have been locked in a room until she died, unregarded by her sons.

***

Mason stood, legs held slightly apart by a metal bar and manacles around his ankles. His arms were secured at his back in some kind of restrictive wrap with magnetized cuffs on his wrists. They kept him nude. His blood pressure rose and fell so fast BareBlade assigned a Cadre healer to monitor him during his coming audience with the Queen. He was unaware of how many dawnings had come and gone.

For the first time since being captured he was not blind. Two Cadre females anchored him holding the end of bars attached to a metal collar around his neck. The collar stressed him more than anything else. Cannot swallow, cannot exhale cannot live. He twitched when the healer stabbed him with a needle and the artificial calm washed over him. He believed his body would never stop shuddering in reaction to injections and the fearful response each one imposed or quelled.

Mason’s head was full of things, real and imagined? He could no longer be sure. There was only fear beneath the artificial light and in the pitch.

A sharp tug on his neck got Mason shuffling down the dim hallway. The catheter tugged and he could not stop the grimace of acute discomfort. A container strapped to his leg grew warm against his skin, as it filled. They had made him watch. Held him down when they put it in. BareBlade was determined no one had to clean up his mess. Mason was almost grateful now, because Cadre lined the walls to watch his progress, some of them with hair unfettered. He could not jerk away as coils skittered across his face and shoulders. It was hard to keep on his feet when his body kept jerking, attempting to avoid the reaching horror.

He could not voice his fear, even if he wanted to. The collar was too restrictive for that. He fell to his knees and the women lifted him by the bars, cutting off his air even more if he did not rise. Struggling up, Mason continued moving where he was guided. Then he saw the demon twins and BareBlade haloed in light. He vision pitched out, but the women dragged him when his feet refused to move anymore. There was nothing he could do to prevent this ending. Surely they were going to be the ones to kill him now.

Confused, Mason stared as the trio was joined by the Cadre female that slept wrapped in their coils. The memory burned through the drug leaving him with an uncontrolled full body tremor. The quartet turned away and he was made to follow them into pitch. A disorienting journey began, up. More shadowed hallways. Head pulled down to see only floor as he was forced along. He tripped through hatches or was lifted over others.  His ankles and shins were red from scrapes and forming bruises.

Mason’s eyes teared under the searing impact of light and color. The water dried quickly, leaving an irritating itch on his skin. He stared into the room. A few faces seemed familiar and brought to mind the rout on the battlefield. Those faces, full of anger, fierce and frightened.

There were women here, not serving, but talking to these warriors. Mason wondered at it, when women of Haven’s duty was birthing babies for the cause and keeping the house. But then demons did things differently. The two that held him seemed as strong as any man he had ever known. He could never forget that screaming monster skewering soldiers either.

Mason’s eyes widened, watching a tall woman walk into the room from another archway and sit in a chair before one of the windows. Long brown hair pooled around the chair at her feet when she sat down. She was dressed in a plain grey gown and her expression was grim. She looked across the room into his eyes. Mason could not look away. He tried.

He tried.

He tried.

Another jab of the needle and the shuddering ceased. The prisoner’s gaze was released and he was grateful to lower his head. That thin scrape of a woman was the Queen! She was a child!

He no longer felt panic as the few drops of tranquilizer rush through his brain. With a tug on the bars Mason shuffled forward into the bright room. So many eyes looked with surprise upon him. So many with disgust. Mason knew his face was reddened, but even his humiliation was short lived under the drug’s domination.

He was jerked to a stop when a loud bang startled everyone in the room. He vaguely realized something had fallen, when a few demons turned away to look at whatever it was. For another long moment he was held suspended off his feet. He guessed the guards were assessing the situation, ready to move him. Perhaps someone did not appreciate his nakedness. His eyes teared up as humor made a fleeting impression before fading as fast it had come. Then he was being pressed to the floor before that chair. Coils! The she devil’s hair was cloud over his face and terror left him blank.

A distant hiss voiced his sins inside his head! He wanted so desperately to fight to get away, but he was being held down and there was the voice and nausea and memories. He was vaguely aware when the Queen spoke aloud to the demons in the room. Felt the utter relief when he heard his sentence. Not death, but imprisonment in the muskie pens. He kept his face pressed to the floor as the tears came, ashamed to be relieved he would be humiliated for life instead of executed in the coils of these demons. He took no mind of his present shameful position, naked on the floor before these creatures, his buttocks exposed to the room. Was he a coward all this time, was he?

Then Mason realized there was silence, a physical pressure of quiet. Had he been returned to his cell? His head was snatched from the floor and shook! He squinted under the intense light and stinging pain. A quick impression of a man. Voices suddenly raised, shouting protest. They did want him dead. He knew, he knew it was a trick! His head was shaken again and the man pulled him to his feet. His  was voice demanding, angry yet pleading. Then Mason was pushed to his knees, his hair still wrapped in a vise grip by strong fingers. The hand moved him again until his head rested against the man’s body. What was this? What was happening? He jerked when coils once again smothered him, binding him against the man. His heart was determined to leave his chest. He gasped for air that seemed to avoid him.

Consciousness returned and the awareness that he lay on his back looking up at the crowd of people in the room. His Cadre guards appeared in his line of sight and knelt beside his head. The bars were gone. They kept him pressed against the floor, again. Mason blinked and saw the twins and the other horrors of the battlefield all pressed around him, coils writhing in the air. His terror was suddenly arrested when he made eye contact with a tanned, black haired man. The relief at seeing shorn hair was quickly gone. The eyes were gold but black edged, too painful too painful to look into. He cried out loud. So hungry, so hungry and unfulfilled. Need

need

need

need

need

need

need

need

need

Mason found his voice at last. He screamed and he did not stop. Coils of every demon in the room brushed his body, entered his thoughts. Cracked him open like an egg and exposed him, screaming. He fled to the pitch with joy. Did he laugh when he remembered he feared death only moments ago?

***

Sleet charged rain beat against the windows and rattled the tiles on the roof. Inside the office of Baron Nardo the frosted, etched glass lamps filled the room with soft white light. The oil, blended with a touch of lavender essence, lent subtle motes to the tranquil atmosphere of the room. The heavy wood desk and chair before the windows was intricately carved with Pegasors leaping in play. The golden brown blew drapes were pulled back to showcase the stormy weather, a sullen contrast to the light and warmth within.

Fire nipped at the logs, flickering in the fireplace on the opposite wall.  Two couches, same color as the drapes, were adjacent to it.  One long table, with a racing Pegasor engraved on its surface, held a tray with various bottles of liqueurs and tiny glass sipping cups. In rotations past, the bottles were always in various stages of near empty. Today they were topped off and required dusting prior to the Baron having guests. The warm tones of the walls gleamed gold in the firelight. Woven throws of cream, tan and white were tossed over the arms or back of the couches. It was easy to see why the Baron favored his office over other rooms in his household.

The big oak door opened. Mason stepped through. His eyes assessed the area, rechecked the window before he allowed the Baron into the room. He took up his stance at the window looking out onto the horrid weather. Mason would have preferred the muskie pens with his furious brother, where he had been paraded before coming here. Nardo regaled Colby with Mason’s new status as Chosen. Colby had spat at Mason and laughed so hard he fell to the ground. He cursed the former proud stallion as a traitor and coward.

Mason had seen the Chosen woman being stroked and petted by the twins. In the days before coming here, he had seen the Queen with her own, a really huge male who made everyone cringe when he walked into a room. The man had stretched under her coils like that Pegasor getting its neck scratched. The thought filled him with despair.

Mason would never be cossetted. The faint memories of his mother, his own passing interest in an obedient stable boy and a brave sister would be all the gentleness he would ever know for the remainder of his days.

***

Nardo sat down at his desk and began the tedious task of managing his estate, totally focused on the hand written reports, discs and the palm sized computer. He gave no mind to Mason at his back.

Nardo was enjoying clarity. His secret was secret no longer to the Queen, her immediate council and the Cadre, of course. The others thought he just had the misfortune to find a Chosen amid the enemy of their people. They commiserated with him when he allowed it. The population had been stunned at the revelation, but taking into account the Queen’s future husband was a tortured Gifted, they rallied in support. Most thought Farrell had been a fluke. Now they imagined many children tortured and slaughtered.

Nardo truly expected he would be denied, condemned to utter madness and death by his peers. There had never been luck enough to end his pain. He tried his damnedest to get killed so many times. Life had been terror filled since puberty. Faced with the awful realization that there was food all around him he could not consume. Driven by unrelenting hunger he could never satisfy, Nardo was denied the connection to human and Gifted that may have eased his craving. There was residual awareness of his love for family and support of friends, but, they were also food. He was inconsolable and tortured for eighteen nightmarish rotations.

Sitting in the fog of poisonous alcoholic fumes, he was paying no attention to his brothers and the remaining councils filling the room. Mind cleared and focused with an audible snap inside his head. The universe centered on the grimy cowering ‘pure’ on the floor before his Queen. Nardo remembered little. He came to himself snarling in the ear of the human Mason. He crooned to the human the reality of life from this moment. Mason was his and only his. His to command, his to use.

The human now wore ornamental armor befitting his status as shield for Nardo and any children he may ever have. Mason wore a thin collar of beaten silver etched with the title he now bore, Amddiffynnwr Adfonlon. His brown hair was kept shorn close to his head and his eyes were rarely raised to look directly at anyone considered family or friend of Nardo. The human lived in fear as unrelenting as Nardo’s hunger.

The Baron endured the Healers and Baroness Tesni’s ruthless pursuit of the reasoning for his ‘condition’ with rare good humor. They all marveled at his strength of will. Then he returned to his estate near the end of the valley, amid the terraced slopes that ringed it.  He was Llyncu of old surrounded by an abundance of prey.

Nardo applied himself to paperwork with renewed enthusiasm. He was content.

The End

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