The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling by Roberto Calas

Author:Roberto Calas [Calas, Roberto]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Published: 2012-08-05T22:00:00+00:00

Their last five soldiers waited at a tavern called Swift Waters. When they reached the tavern the stableman took Hammer’s horse, then reached for Grae’s mare. She stamped nervously and leaned away from the man.

“There’s a girl,” said Grae. He clicked his tongue and rubbed at her neck. The stableman stroked her nose as he took her. He swept his gaze across her with the canniness of an accomplished horseman.

“What a fine ‘orse she must ‘ave been,” he said.

“Still is,” Grae replied. He massaged her flank, seeing her now as the guardsman had. Noting the old scars, the dullness of the eyes. She’d gained most of her weight again, but her coat had never come back properly. It was flat and spare.

“Was she wounded?” asked the guardsman.

“She’s from Gracidmar,” he said. “One of their officers got caught on the wrong side of a skirmish line. Someone thought it’d be funny to draw him with his own horse.”

They had secured her to the tension chains, had forced her to pull her master to pieces as they interrogated him. After that, they simply left her there, a replacement for the worn out cob that had done the job for years.

“They don’t know about horses like this in Tenyth,” said Grae. “They didn’t treat her right.”

The mare had spent two years doing nothing but pulling people apart. They rarely turned her out. Fed her only enough to keep her from dying. Whipped her until she didn’t care about whips anymore.

When Grae saw her for the first time, he could count every one of her ribs, could distinguish every swell and lump in those bones. He bought the beast for twice what she was worth and nursed her to health. He promised himself that someday he would take her to the foot of the Durrenian Mountains and set her free.

The tavern was crowded, but it was breezy compared to the Happy Pig in Kithrey. Grae was expecting three infantrymen and two longbowmen in the tavern. But he was learning that nothing was as he expected in this squad hand-picked by the Duke of Nuldryn. The disaster of the Chamberlain’s choices grew worse as he met each soldier. Grae first met a stout named Jjarnee Kruu, from Basilisk Company up in Maul Lawray.

Stout Kruu was originally from Hrethri, a kingdom far to the north known for bitter winters, bitter spirits, and bitter civil wars. Kruu was tall, only a few inches shorter than Beldrun Shanks. He wore a bulging, archaic breastplate with oversized spaulders at the shoulders and steel greaves on his shins. The man had wavy blonde hair, a thick soldier’s face and eyes creased by laugh lines. A ragged half-moon scar on one of his cheeks was evidence of a day when things hadn’t been so humorous.

Hammer assumed he was a footman because of his armor. Infantrymen were allowed to wear plated armor if they could afford it. But Jjarnee Kruu was no infantryman. He was an archer.

“Gonna have an unholy time of it in forest with that lead suit you got on,” said Hammer.

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