Veriel's Tales: Night Warriors III, Page 4

  Jörg launched at the larger man, pitting his sixteen years of pure fury at the comparative giant. “You won’t touch her,” he growled out, feeling his blood burn in Blutjagd. For the defense of his mate, Jörg could take the life of one who threatened her without a single thought to the contrary.

  Had his only opponent been Tilbrand, Jörg had no doubts that the older man would be dead at his feet in short order. He roared in rage, as four more pairs of hands removed him bodily from his enemy’s throat. Had they been human and not cursed as he was, Jörg would have easily killed them all in defense of Regana, even unarmed as he was.

  As it was, it was difficult for them to hold and subdue him. It took uncounted heavy blows to slow him and a sacred weapon at his throat to still his fight. Tilbrand administered one final, crushing blow to his already broken ribs in retribution, as Jörg spit blood at his foe.

  “You’re right,” Tilbrand panted at him. “I won’t touch her. I’ll turn her over to Gawen. If the sun rises and the stone is not in my hand, I will kill you. I will tell Gawen that you lost your mind because she baited you, breaking our laws and forcing you to print while you trained. With the battle so close, the villagers will demand her death.”

  “Kill me,” he groaned. “Gawen may do many things, but he will not take her life. I know he won’t. You can explain my death. How will you explain hers?”

  “He will take her life, if I speak for it,” another voice asserted.

  Jörg squinted into the deep shadows. “Marclef?” he asked in disbelief. “You cannot approve of this.” Surely, the young leader who took over when Eberhard was aging could not think to endorse this course of action.

  “I give it my full support. I will not lose my village.”

  Jörg groaned and shook his head. “You will not lose it. We can handle twice as many as we are.”

  “I can’t wager that. We cannot lose.”

  “Why, Tilbrand? What do you get in exchange for your soul?”

  “I’ll be a god,” he decided. “Is there any greater thing?”

  “You’ll be an outcast,” he shot back. “You will lose all.”

  “No,” Marclef assured him. “Ensure my victory, and I’ll ensure your place. You’ll retain all your rights, as long as you take your blood elsewhere. You have my word.”

  “You don’t believe that, do you?” Jörg searched the faces of the men around him, finding acceptance or mild discomfort but no doubt. They couldn’t be that blind! “Our brothers will hunt you. Our people will fear and hate you. Better an honorable death,” he told Tilbrand.

  “Will Regana’s death be honorable?” Tilbrand asked, prompting Jörg to surge against the hands that held him fast. “With the five of us and Marclef speaking against her, she will face a very painful death. Can you let her die for you as you would die for her?”

  Jörg closed his eyes. He prayed that Sibold and Gawen would not allow such a thing. “I die without her,” he breathed. “I lose her either way.”

  They could do it, he realized. They could take her life, if the outcry from the villagers were strong enough. Could he let her die if he could stop it? But life without her, even a damned life, would be intolerable, and Jörg would be releasing the worst of evils on the world to save her.

  “Touch the stone and lose all kind feelings,” Dado whispered close to his ear. “She will live, and you will not miss what you have lost. If you find being damned so unbearable, kill yourself after your duty at the battle, but by the gods, save hers by losing yours — if you love her.”

  Jörg cried out his loss, feeling the mounting madness as if Regana lay dead at his feet. If he did this, he would be dead to her. “Loose me,” he ground out dangerously. “You’ll have your stone. Damn you all for wanting it, and damn me for providing it to you. And you,” he looked at Tilbrand. “You will pay for this before I die, and if you ever lay hands on her, I will make it the most painful death I can.”

  “As you wish,” he answered confidently. “Get me the stone, and you may have any boon you wish except my life. That, I will not grant you.”

  The hands released him suddenly, and Jörg took to his feet with a feral look at Tilbrand then Marclef. “Do not think your dogs will protect you from me,” he warned the leader as he stalked to the stone. They would both pay for making him lose his chosen one — Regana, who was to save his soul. Now, he was giving it away to save her life.

  He stared miserably at the blood red stone, black and forbidding in the dim light. His soul was forfeit now — or would be in a few short moments.

  Please, if you have any mercy, do not let Regana die at their hands. Let me protect her somehow. He begged that one boon of the gods, sure that they weren’t listening already, that his choice had damned him before the action sealed his fate.

  His hand closed around the stone, and Jörg sucked in his breath at the surge of power that rushed in his veins. The stone lit up with a fire from within, and he saw the blue flaw in its depths clearly in the deep red light that encompassed it. As the power built within him, the flaw spiraled before his eyes, expanding until it loomed like a great beast before him: two arrows crossed over a bow, Jäger seal.

  A voice whispered and echoed in his mind. “Only in death are you free. Your wish is granted.”

  He cried out in anguish as he felt himself falling through space and time, absorbing information as stars spiraled past him, burning him until Jörg felt he would turn to ash where he stood.

  Darkness closed around him, and he stared at the rough stone ceiling in a numb detachment, unsure even of how he came to be lying boneless on the floor. So, this is what it’s like to be emotionless. Thank the gods, I won’t feel.

  He considered using his newfound powers against the others before they could claim the stone’s power for themselves, but he lacked the ability to even control his limbs. He was powerless as Tilbrand pried the stone from his hand.

  Jörg looked at the glee evident on the older man’s face in a mixture of rage and hate. I can feel. No kinder emotions, he reminded himself. He could still feel the darker emotions. Loss. I can feel my loss clearly — sadness, pain. Regana, what have I done? A tear wound down his cheek.

  He felt it as Tilbrand and the others joined him in damnation. Jörg saw as the flaw revealed itself to each of them in turn. Tilbrand saw the tipped cross and wolf head of the Lord KreuzStütze. Redulf, Bertolf, and Geldric saw a general KreuzStütze seal — not the lord’s seal, but there were no others but its lord now. Dado saw the seals of Jäger and KreuzStütze combined and topped by a symbol on no one’s seal, a crown.

  Jörg stifled a sob as he recalled that the seal revealed to him was not a lord’s seal either. His death would be at the hands of a warrior of Jäger, but not her lord. He would live with his loss far longer than he cared to think about, at least seventeen years until a Jäger heir was birthed and first nighted.

  The voice that had addressed him, addressed each of the others in their turn, naming them and warning them of the humanity they lost. No longer worthy of their human names, Tilbrand was Resten, Dado was Lorian, Redulf was Carstol, Bertolf was Draden, and Geldric was Cerran, the names of the fallen gods cast out after waging war on the warrior’s paradise. But, no name had been provided for Jörg himself and no warning of what he had lost. Perhaps, it was unnecessary. He knew what he lost. Perhaps, he no longer deserved a name, at all.

  Recovered once all were changed, Jörg faced them in a rage. “You have your names and your damnation,” he spat. “Enjoy it until your end comes for you.”

  Bertolf— Draden, he reminded himself, approached warily. “What are you?” he asked. “Why can I not sense you like I can the others? What is your name? What is your fate? Why are you apart from us?”

  Jörg’s face broke into a broad smile. “I am not like you,” he mused. “I see all, because mine was a selfless act. I am Jörg, and my fate is to live long. The gods knew my intent when I touched the stone. I am damned but not as damned as you.”

/>   Resten charged at him with his sacred weapon in hand, and Jörg read his intent to slay his enemy clearly. Even before the flood of information in his mind assured him that this was not possible on many levels, Jörg had dematerialized. Resten barreled through where the younger beast stood only a moment before, encountering only air behind his swing. When Jörg materialized again, he did so clothed and cocky.

  Resten whirled to face him. “How?” he demanded.

  “I have been gifted knowledge you are denied. You will have to learn it for yourself. Dawn approaches, and I must go to ground. Don’t despair. Your beasts will keep you alive to see another night. It pleases them to have you as their homes. Leave your weapons. You may no longer use them. We are all unworthy to take life that way now.”

  Jörg dematerialized with a horrible, mad laugh that he could hardly identify as his own voice and raced away on the breeze.

  He sobbed as he looked at the cool earth. Despite his knowledge, the idea of dematerializing and sinking deep within the damp dirt beneath his feet frightened him. Fear, another emotion he wished he didn't have but one useful in controlling his errant brothers. Being disembodied was disconcerting. Still, the sun was approaching and being damned aside, Jörg could not leave this life until he was sure Regana was safe.

  Miserably, he sank into the waiting soil. The soil would heal the wounds the others had inflicted on him, all but one wound. That one would be with him for the rest of his days, until some warrior Jäger born released him. Jörg would not be permitted to die any other way. He knew that, now. The beast inside him would make him seek survival at all costs, until his life was honestly taken by the right warrior.

  Jörg felt a rush of satisfaction and amusement as the others were forcibly dematerialized and dragged beneath the ground wherever they had staggered in the short time since their change. He felt an almost savage glee that Resten burned momentarily before his pain forced him to stop fighting his beast. Resten feared this part of their existence most of all. That could prove a most useful bit of information when it came time to call in his revenge.

  Chapter Two

  “How could they?” Gawen demanded.

  Pauwel cringed inwardly at the explosion of his temper. At twenty-five, five years Pauwel’s senior, he assumed KlingeStütze was above such outbursts.

  “We knew this was a possibility when there were so many born,” Sibold sighed, showing his age for the first time that Pauwel could remember.

  “But, the magic on the bloodstone... How could they get past it?” he continued, making his demand more specific. “It cannot be taken selfishly.”

  “You are right. You see the weapons left here? They are only of the five older men.”

  “What of Jörg?” Ditrich demanded. “As a beast, he cannot wield them. Or have they killed him?”

  “No,” Sibold assured him. “He lives as a beast. The stone confirms that. I had already checked their chambers before I sent for you. Jörg was brought here by force. There is no doubt of that. He was injured and dragged from his bed. Once here, he removed the stone for them.”

  “Still,” Pauwel countered, “he would have to be willing to touch the stone, not simply to save his own life.”

  “He was. He removed it for them willingly but unselfishly. I don’t understand it. The stone speaks to me, but it is frustrating in what it does not say. The beasts are free now. As the stone demands, our curse is now permanent. Until the final beast is freed, you stand charged, as do your descendents. It is the price you were born to. Our futures are linked. Neither can be free without freeing the other.”

  Wil grunted his agreement. “Then we finish them quickly, before they are set in their new power,” he decided.

  “No,” Marclef exploded.

  Pauwel rolled his eyes. Leader or not, this was not Marclef’s concern. It was the concern of the warriors.

  “We have few enough warriors left to us. We cannot risk losing the rest of you — or even some of you before our enemies are vanquished. After the battle, there will be time enough to hunt them.”

  Sibold sighed bitterly. “It is not the worst plan,” he admitted. “Training will be required. Fighting beasts is much different than fighting humans. A killing blow to a human may not even slow a beast.”

  All heads came up, as the door swung open and someone rushed in. Pauwel strained his neck to see over and around the crowd, and his breath caught as he saw Regana; pale, jittery and out of breath, at the edge of the training area.

  “Is it true?” she demanded in a shaky voice.

  Gawen scowled at her. “Go home, Regana. You cannot be here, now. This is a time for the men.”

  Pauwel looked at him in shock. Never had there been a time that Regana was not welcome in their midst.

  “Is it true?” she asked in a more urgent tone.

  “Yes,” Gawen snapped at her. “Now, go! We will discuss this at home.”

  She scanned the faces of the assembled men in a sort of shock and disbelief, making a list of her lost brothers no doubt.

  “Regana,” he barked.

  She met her brother’s eyes miserably and turned away. The door closed with much more force than Pauwel thought possible for a woman her size.

  Pauwel dragged his eyes away painfully. He knew Regana was his chosen. He had known it forever, it seemed. Seeing her upset made him ache and his blood burn to avenge the hurt, but touching her would mean death or madness — madness if he didn’t claim her for his own and death if he did. He tried to attend to the conversation, though his eyes kept wandering to the door she left by and his mind to the lady herself.

  “What was that all about?” Cunczel demanded.

  Gawen sighed. “She and Jörg played together as children, as you well remember. She still sees him as a beloved brother. It will be very hard for her to think him capable of what he has done.”

  Pauwel fisted his hand painfully behind the cover of his back. As if Jörg’s betrayal was not enough alone, he had to hurt Regana in doing it. He seethed at the thoughtlessness of the beast he was before he turned truly beast.

  * * * *

  Regana veered off the main trail and into the woods that separated her family’s land from Jörg’s. No, she reminded herself, not Jörg’s anymore. His lands and possessions were forfeit, now. As the last of his line, they could not even be passed to a younger brother or to a married sister.

  She pushed the thought away before she could follow it to its painful conclusion. Regana rushed past the cold, empty house and all its memories of demanding, unrestrained lovemaking before the fire in his chambers and promises broken. That was a place of lies. He dared ask for her promise to marry just before he betrayed all! How could he make love to her and make promises to her if he planned this?

  She collapsed at the base of the tree she and Jörg had played under as children. Nine years older, Gawen had been more a young adult than a playmate. He rarely came here unless it was to drag them to their homes. He never played here with them. It was a place for them alone.

  At the time, it seemed so right that the first few times Jörg took her, he took her here beneath the branches that had sheltered and protected them all their lives. Maybe it was right then. Regana couldn’t help but believe that Jörg was honest when it all began. She knew that he wasn’t lying then. He couldn’t have been.

  He touched her in ways she never imagined were possible. He kissed her and took her with a fierce passion she never dreamed existed before Jörg made his intentions clear to her. Could a man— Could Jörg touch her and show love in such a way and not be utterly sincere?

  Regana curled her cheek into the grass and let the tears fall. “Damn him!” she hitched. Her tears intensified in the realization that he had taken care of that step by his own hand. He left her. Jörg convinced her he wanted her as his chosen then he left her. Why would he do that?

  There were only two possibilities that came to mind. In the first, Jörg was tricked into what he did. She’d like to believe
that, though she realized how unlikely it was. The second frightened her. If he did it willingly, Jörg used her with no intention of ever choosing her. Regana fisted her hand in the new grass as the full force of that thought assaulted her.

  When she was cried out, she lay for a long time in their place, saying a strange sort of goodbye to her hopes and dreams. Regana could not say goodbye to Jörg until she knew for sure that he had done the horrible things he stood accused of. If he hadn’t done them— Still, he was lost to her for all time.

  * * * *

  Gawen felt as if the very life had been dragged from him. The entire day had been spent arguing. The stone spoke to Sibold in the strange way it did with its chosen keeper. It named the beasts that inhabited their former brothers — all but Jörg. The stone named him not at all. In the end, Sibold was still confused by that, so he named the beast himself. For all intents and purposes, Jörg was now Veriel, the mad deceiver. It seemed fitting considering the circumstances.

  Marclef had a twisted view of their priorities. He couldn’t see past the approaching enemy. Oblivious to the fact that a much smaller complement with much more potential for destruction existed, he seemed to be doggedly ignoring the larger threat in favor of the smaller.

  On some things, Sibold agreed with him — like waiting to attack the beasts. On others, it became a battle between the man responsible for the people’s livelihood and the warrior responsible for their security. Everyone present knew that Sibold was the person operating in his own bailiwick, but Marclef was popular and powerful in his own right and held the threat of wielding that power to make their duty difficult over them. On some issues, Sibold accepted the smaller man’s ridiculous bullying to shut him up.

  The thing that worried the young warriors the most was the change Marclef demanded in the choosing. Originally, all fifteen of the marriageable young ladies agreed to stand a panel, accepting whatever warrior chose them for printing. Only in the case that two warriors chose the same woman would mediation by the leader and Sibold be required. The woman’s preference would be considered, since she would suddenly be in a position to have a preference and thus to be unwilling with one or the other, but the relative needs of the warriors would be paramount, and the ladies understood that. A warrior too far printed could not change course lest he go insane. As it was, any man in the throes of printing, even early printing, would experience excruciating pain at the loss of his proposed chosen mate.