The King's Thief

Ok, this one gets a mature warning again; no harsh language, no in-depth discussions of exactly how it happens, no gratuitous language of any kind; but it does deal with rape, frankly. I've done it as gently as I can, however. You'll see.



This one took a couple of hours to write, during some time when I should have been working for my job, but this is more fun, and I'd spent six hours the previous day planning. And this is supposed to be my holiday.

I'm sitting down to write the next chapter as I write this, with my favourite muse in my hand; I'm currently favouring Sainsburys Dark Rum, not the absolute cheapest, the next one up (I'm cheap, but not THAT cheap) then filled to the brim with Lime Diet Coke. Currently playing on iTunes: Jim Noir. This is usually how I write. Someone asked me, so that's it.

Chapter 16

The tree branch was uncomfortable; trying his best not to cause any disturbance, Kaliss wriggled into a slightly more cushioned position. Looking down through the leaves, he could see the centaari encampment in the dawn light, and in neighbouring trees he could just about make out the forms of Ryn and Faergaldan. Although Kaliss cringed at the brutality he was witnessing, part of him knew that it was necessary to remain hidden until such time as an effective strategy could be developed to defeat them.
The horse-men had taken up residence in the clearing and, judging by the waste lying around, had been there for a week or more. No clothing lay around, as nothing was worn by the centaari, but the ground was trampled and, as Julis had reported, several piles of bones were in evidence, casually thrown aside. There seemed to be an assortment of animals represented in the bones, from small animal bones up to what appeared to be a cow’s ribs; threaded here and there were others that could only be human, one of the piles being surmounted by a grinning skull, placed as if it were a trophy. Even from the height of the tree branch, Kaliss could see scraps of flesh hanging from the skull, together with strands of hair matted with blood.
The two human prisoners had been thrown into the middle of a makeshift cage, poles of wood thrust deeply into the ground, leaving only enough space for an arm at most to protrude. The poles were sharpened on the top, leaving no room for escape.
One of the hulking centaari lifted a red mass from the ground, brought it to his all-too-human face and took a bite; despite the size of it, his heavily-muscled arms lifted it with ease, blood dripping to mar his chestnut hair, further sprays joining the mess as other centaari ripped hunks of meat away. Now that there was sunlight, the watchers could see the centaari in more detail; each seemed to have a mane, stretching from long hair on the human head to reach down to the back of the horse body, complete with regular horse ears protruding from the side of the head; in both mane colour and the colour of the horse there was great variety, from black right up to a dappled grey. The largest of them sported a scar down his torso, reaching to the fringe of jet black horsehair; he must be the leader, Kaliss realised, as he watched the huge centaari snatch the food away from the others. Uncontested, Jet-Black wolfed down huge mouthfuls as he walked menacingly around the small prison.
Grasping one of the sharpened poles, Jet-Black easily pulled it from the ground before reaching in towards the two women. The younger woman, hysterical with fear, was curled up on the ground, sobbing; the older woman, her hair iron-grey, knelt in front of her, begging inaudibly, beseeching; Jet-Black grasped her arm and jerked her out, replacing the pole with his other hand.
The other nine centaari formed a rough circle, laughing and grunting, seeming to have no spoken language. The woman was thrown down to the ground, but before she could recover, her clothing was ripped from her body.
Jet-Black trotted around the small human form, proudly displaying what he intended to do; where the human torso blended into the horse’s shoulders, an impressive set of human genitalia nestled, and it was clear what the centaari intended to do with them.
What followed sickened the human thief; something inside him shrivelled on that branch, his guts turning to water as if he had the flux. The other horse-men growled and cheered their leader on, and as he turned, sated, leaving the woman crumpled on the ground. Rearing back, his pride clearly on show, he bellowed; this seemed to be the signal, as the aged woman was snatched up, roughly passed from one to the other as each satisfied themselves.
Sickened to the pit of his stomach, Kaliss could watch no longer. Guilt tugged at his conscience as he told himself over and over that there was nothing he could do; he was helpless, as to interrupt now would have been suicide. His face burned red with anger and piercing shame. Finally a bestial howl rose up, and the ragdoll body was thrust into the air; the woman was dead.
The body was thrown back into the prison, causing the younger woman’s sobbing cries to escalate, before she too was dragged out, continuing the spectacle. Kaliss’ hands itched for a weapon, and as the woman’s senseless cries suddenly came to an abrupt halt, he bit his lip to keep from crying out.
At last, the centaari scattered themselves around the clearing, turning around on the spot a few times before relaxing. Within half an hour, they were all asleep, stood as if to attention. Kaliss looked over at Faergaldan, but the Kinroc shook his head; motioning to wait, he pointed at his wrist and then held up a single finger. Don’t move yet; wait one hour. Kaliss returned a thumbs-up. Message received and understood.

*    *    *

Winraer cursed; she had been stealthily making her way through the woodland for half an hour, and had yet to pick up the trail of the centaari. “Damned fools,” she muttered to herself, “Should have taken me with them in the first place.”
She had watched the attack on the village from a different vantage point, using her arts to take her to a rooftop; she had watched with disgust the brutality of the centaari. Not for nothing had the Sylva attempted to exterminate them as a race, many decades ago. A pity, she ruminated, that they had been unsuccessful.
Then she had seen the human thief running off after the pack, as if he could do anything to stop them. It was when she had seen Faergaldan and Ryn following, Julis and Corrin behind them, that she had decided to act. Following at a safe distance, she had tracked them most of the way to the woodland, but her stamina was not up to the task of keeping up for the entire distance, and as a result she had entered the woodland bereft of a direction to take.
The sun was climbing through the sky, random shafts of light dappling through the leafy canopy. Her keen hearing could pick out nothing beyond the sighing arbours, the slight creaking as aged trunks bent to the pressures of the wind. Something seemed to tickle at the very edges of her perception, but when she concentrated on it, the sensation slipped away, as if it were a soap bubble on the surface of water. Winraer bit her lip, wracked with indecision; if she used her arts to discover the location of her friends, there was a chance she could be detected by the centaari, but if she blundered into their camp unknowingly, she could put herself and others at risk. And all the time, the strange tickling sensation nibbled at the edge of her consciousness.
Reaching a decision, she sat down, cross-legged on the woodland floor. She closed her eyes, digging deeply inside herself for the focus she needed. As if scenting some fine perfume, she inhaled, drawing energy in from the living creatures around her, and sent it back out to form a clear lens in the air, a handswidth from her face. Opening her eyes, she looked through the lens. Suddenly, everything was clearer, living plants seeming to be lined with a green light; the lens enabled her to see life-energy more clearly. A large smear of red and yellow energy lay off to her left, about two hundred paces distant; with a wave of her hand, she dispelled the lens, got to her feet and started to creep in the indicated direction.

*    *    *

In the clearing, there was silence. These centaari were either supremely confident, or stupid, Kaliss mused; there was no guard posted. Moving as carefully as he ever had in his life, he clambered down the tree. Reaching the bottom, he turned around and was suddenly staring into a Sylvan face. Lurching backwards, he slammed into the tree before stumbling to the side. Belatedly realising that it was Winraer, he climbed back to his feet, trying to slow his heart and heaving breath.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed.
“Saving you all,” she retorted. “You think you can fight them? There’s something else going on here. Can’t you feel it?”
Kaliss paused; there was something slightly out-of-place, but he couldn’t place it. Almost as if something had changed.
“Come on,” he muttered, “Faergaldan will want to see you.”
He crept round the tree towards its neighbour to find the other Sylva already gathered. Faergaldan’s expression hardened on seeing Winraer, who had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“We will discuss this later, Winraer. You are here,” he continued, “and now is the time.  The centaari are not susceptible to having their throats cut; their bodies have much more vital veins, due to their size.” The Kinroc sighed. “However, I need at least one prisoner.”
Winraer chimed in. “It’s unlike the centaari to actively pursue violence, reduced as their numbers are. In ages past, this might have been a common occurrence, but now… they tend to be nomadic.”
“As if that wasn’t enough,” Faergaldan continued, “They’re sensitive to our erg, which is why, Winraer, I left you behind.” His face was stern as his eyes bored into her.
“Once we’ve attacked, leader, it won’t matter anyway,” Ryn interjected, breaking the tension.
Faergaldan knelt, scribing a circle into the dirt. “This is the clearing; there are centaari here,” he said, quickly marking their positions. “There are five here, closer to the edge of the clearing; Corrin, Julis, Ryn and Kaliss, they will be our first targets. The leader, this black one here, is surrounded by the other four; we must keep the element of surprise as long as possible.”
Facing Winraer, he continued “As soon as we’ve lost the initiative, you will use hergnul to trap the black one, the leader. Incapacitate him if you can. We will need to kill the other centaari, but keep that one alive.”
He motioned in a circle. “We need to spread round this clearing; count fifty in your head, then attack.”
Looking round at their faces, Faergaldan saw no complaints. “Go,” he said, before moving into position himself at the nearest point to a slumbering centaari.
Trying to move quickly and quietly, Kaliss moved off with Corrin, round to the right; Corrin knelt behind a bush at the next entrance point, leaving Kaliss alone. Realising belatedly that he hadn’t been counting, he cursed; was he this far out of his normal lifestyle that he couldn’t even do the simple things?
Seeing that he was as close as he would get to one of the centaari, he crouched. His chosen target was dun-coloured, the sunlight picking out the creamy-gold hairs over its body, while its mane was black, in stark contrast. Its ears flicking slightly as it slumbered. It was tall, giving him the access he needed. Taking out his knife, he held it, blade down, in his right hand, and tensed, ready to spring forwards. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he was intensely aware of a small droplet working its way down his shoulder blades to pool in his lower back. Suddenly, he saw movement to his left, and across the clearing; Kaliss leapt forward, hearing a grunt off to the right, focussing completely on his target. The ears on the grey horse-man flicked again, and with a snort, he awoke, but too late; Kaliss slipped underneath, vulnerable for just a second as he thrust upwards; the blade slipped in centrally just forward of the rear legs, and with all his might Kaliss wrenched the blade forwards. Hot blood gushed out over him, followed by a slippery rushing coil of grey tubes as the centaari was disembowelled. A sharp smell suddenly told him that, at some point, he had punctured the colon.
Diving to the side, Kaliss wiped the blood from his eyes and took in the chaos around him; four of the five original targets were down in much the same way; Looking across at Julis, he was just in time to see her mark rearing up; a hoof flashed out, catching her on full in the face, and her body seemed to fly through the air, crumpling against a tree. Kaliss did not need to check to know that she was dead; the crater where her face used to be told him. Ryn, the next closest, took advantage of Julis’ sacrifice by skewering the centaari neatly with his sword.
Suddenly the thief had his own problems; the other five centaari had awoken, and he was next to one, its huge bay body suddenly seeming to block out all else; an enraged bellow from Jet-Black signalled that Winraer had taken a hand in the fight, but all though was washed from his mind as a new attacker faced him, rearing up. He dived backwards as a pair of armoured hooves lashed out, then took a sharp blow to the shoulder as the horse-man punched him. Caught unawares, it was all he could do to keep away from the worst of the punishment; his breath caught in his chest as he realised that he simply could not keep this up.
The centaari bellowed in rage, rearing up again; Kaliss fell backwards, stumbling as he tried to dodge, unable to do anything but shield his face. The rearing turned into a crashing fall as Ryn appeared on the bay’s back, his sword efficiently removing its head.
The agile Sylva leapt to the ground, avoiding the crashing carcass of the centaari. Together, they surveyed the area; eight dead centaari, joined as they watched by a ninth, brought down by the combined efforts of both Corrin and Faergaldan. The Kinroc had a cut on his forehead and, looking closer at Corrin, the thief could see that he was clutching his side, dark blood seeping out. The injured man gestured towards the centre of the clearing, where Jet-Black was stamping, howling his rage at them. Creepers bound the centaari’s arms in place while small trees seemed to have somehow grown around his hooves, rendering him immobile. Winraer staggered into the clearing, looking more drained than Kaliss had ever seen her. As he went to her side to support her, Ryn dashed over to the ailing Corrin. Faergaldan approached the survivor.
Wasting no time, the Sylva’s sword flicked out, raking along the inside of the horse legs; hamstrung, the beast simply folded up at the front, the back legs following suit; Faergaldan seized a handful of mane, pulling the human head backwards, and put his sword to the centaari’s throat.
“I know that you can understand me,” he began. “Why have you come back to trouble the humans like this?”
Spittle crawling out of the corner of his mouth, the centaari began to form words, heavily accented but understandable nonetheless. “Humans weak. Dir’ach says kill, we kill.”
Supporting the weakened Winraer, Kaliss called out “Who is Dir’ach?”
“Their god,” supplied Ryn, “such as it is.”
“Dir’ach make this world. He speak to me, I listen.”
“How did you know it was Dir’ach?” asked Faergaldan.
The centaari shrugged, spat out a tooth and rumbled “Dir’ach said it was Dir’ach. Said we would eat well. Have many conquests. Kill many men.” The centaari seemed strangely relaxed.
“And you believed him?”
“Dir’ach was right. We are rewarded for belief. We go to hall of our fathers with much glory.”
“And what about-”
There was a sudden blur of motion from behind Faergaldan; something flashed past his face, and suddenly a knife seemed to grow from the chest of the centaari. The behemoth spasmed once, and was still.
The Sylva released the handful of mane he was holding, and turned to the thief. “Why did you do that?” he asked.
Kaliss replied by simply pointing at the centaari’s right hand; it had somehow worked free of the bindings and a knife was clutched in it. The short blade gleamed in the sunlight. “It was hidden behind its forelegs,” he said.
“You have my thanks, then, human,” replied the Kinroc. “Corrin?”
Ryn shook his head, saying “A kick took him in the stomach. He died a moment ago.” There was a hollowness to his eyes, and as soon as possible he looked away from the others.
A quiet moment passed. Faergaldan broke the silence. “He will be missed, as will Julis. Let us be away from this ill-omened place; the stench sickens me.” Turning away, he strode from the circle.
Kaliss looked down at Winraer; she seemed to completely accept his arm enfolding her shoulders, even putting her arm around his waist. “Will you be alright to return?” he asked.
Shrugging his arm away, she stood up straight, visibly growing in strength, though the haggard look in her face did not diminish. “Let’s go. I’m not done yet.” So saying, she turned and walked after Faergaldan, her steps growing in confidence.
Kaliss bent to retrieve his knife from the centaari’s chest; as he did, he saw the knife that Jet-Black had hidden. Picking it up, he inspected it; the blade was stiletto-thin, made for thrusting rather than cutting, and the hilt seemed to be made of some sort of black metal. It was light in his grasp and, turning it over, he noticed that there was a D carved into the pommel.
Realising he was getting behind, Kaliss slid the knife under his belt and jogged off after the others.