The End of The Cursed

‘A witch cannot remove the pall of death…more than once. In order to revive a man already dead, a witch must transfer her own life.’ – A History of Witchcraft

The Duke returned to his room. His young Russian bride was sitting up in bed.

“Vell, did you get zee information you vanted from him?” She asked. “Iz he da real Prince?”

“Yes. He is. But his witch may be as worthless as you are.” The Duke said as he sat down on the bed and began removing his shoes and outwear. He was exhausted and had already dismissed the servants. He could undress himself for once. If only his fingers weren’t so arthritic. Being seventy was a cruel thing if a man wasn’t cursed.

“I am not vorthless! I have great talent! Just not the talent you vant!” She spat angrily. She wasn’t really a witch, which was why she had refused to show Goran her magic until he wed her. The man had been so foolishly obsessed with witches, and so impressed by her exotic accent that he had agreed. She claimed it was to protect her from being executed for witchcraft-but honestly it was because she wanted to be wealthy. No clergyman alive would allow a divorce or annulment because a woman turned out NOT to be a witch. As it was, her only magical talent was in the reading of cards. She was not a fraud. Her fortunes were nigh oracular, but such a gift could not be militarized.

Her husband ignored her protests of talent and laid down on the bed gratefully. He was ludicrously old. His advanced age at least meant that he left her entirely alone. The affection of an elderly man had been the only detriment to her plan of marrying a rich noble. He was simply a vain man, who liked to keep a young wife and a ‘mistress’ for show. The ‘mistress’ let herself in. Her presence did not bother his wife at all. She knew that her husband had no physical interest in the girl, and as she herself had no physical interest in him, she wouldn’t have minded if he had. The girl curtseyed deeply to the Duke and Duchess.

“Your Grace.” She gave a nod to both of them. The Duke pushed himself up into a sitting position against the headboard.

“Did you find anything out?” He asked hopefully. “Is she dangerous? Could she be dangerous?” He was not above killing the Prince in order to obtain a witch. If history had taught them anything, it was that whoever controlled the witch could control the land itself. No one knew the Prince was here…if the girl was as valuable as she looked, he might have to take her. While he was loyal to his King, he was more loyal to his country. If killing the Prince and stealing his witch was the only way to preserve Gyllene, he would do it. He hoped that the Prince could be persuaded, but his current plans of farmers with swords was unsatisfactory. If it became necessary, he would sacrifice the cowardly royal. The girl nodded to him with a wide smile.

“It is better than you could have even hoped! She is the granddaughter of the original witch-the one who served King Grigor.” Goran and Rialka looked at one another in surprise. The Duke was delighted beyond words. The girl continued her speech.

“I did also check in with the gate guards. The man their leader nearly killed has in fact been fully healed. They said he had a gaping chest wound, and a collapsed throat, but he is now so well healed that you cannot find the scar and he is breathing normally. Her magic is indeed powerful, and similar to reports of her grandmother’s.” The girl clasped her hands excitedly. Her grandfather had served in King Grigor’s palace, and had told her many colorful stories of what had gone on there. She continued. “The grandmother saved King Grigor from death when he was riddled with fever and bleeding from the eyes and ears. It seems as if this girl might have the exact same sort of magic.” The young woman would have continued with many more secondhand stories, as well as her own theories and surmising, had the Duke not cut her off.

“Thank you Dalma. You have served me well. Take a glass of sherry from the cellar before you go to bed.” He waved her away. She was excellent at prying information from people because she didn’t shut up until they told her what she wanted to know. But then, she wouldn’t shut up about what they had told her, or her own thoughts and notions either. She looked peeved by his abruptness. He would give her some trinket of jewelry or what not later. She was after all, supposedly his mistress. She should look the part, or his virility and fitness to rule an estate might be questioned. She curtseyed to him.

“Thank you, your Grace.” She left quietly. His wife turned to him.

“So, ve must convince ze Crown Prince to use her to defeat your enemies az her grandmazzer did before her.” She twined a strand of her dark hair around her finger. He laughed at her naiveté. It was almost charming in an innocent sort of way.

“Rialka my dear, if I have a witch…then we may have no need of a Crown Prince.” He leaned across her and blew out the candle by the side of the bed. He could not see her expression, but he heard her sharp intake of breath. Then she exhaled, purring like a kitten.

“So, ven you kill ze Prince, and make ze girl your slave…you vill give me her hair?” Rialka asked in her most beguiling voice. Her innocent request was met with another loud slap in the darkness.

Lord Phillip was perplexed. He had found the spot in the snow where he had killed the beast-but the body was not there. It made no sense. The man was a giant! The petite little witch could never have hoisted the body onto the back her horse and made off with it. There was no fresh earth…so she had not buried it. He had seen the charred remains of his previous murder victim, so he knew what that was supposed to look like. There had been no great expanse of ash or gleaming white bones, so therefore she had not burnt him. What had the troublesome girl done with her fallen lover? If the man was truly a demon, would the bowels of hell simply have opened and sucked him in?

Phillip dismounted and examined the ground. The blood had turned the snow brown and the remains of a fire had made a small blackened circle. There were so many footprints! He could not tell which were his, which were hers, and which were those of the woodsman. Just like that fickle girl to throw away a supposed King and go back to the common woodsman. He groaned. Why had he never paid any attention during his hunting lessons? He needed one of those birds – the pretty ones that did all the work for you…what were they called? Falcons? Maybe he was getting them confused with the dogs. The dogs could sniff out your prey for you and cripple it. Could hawks find your prey? Or just kill it for you? He didn’t remember. His mind was fuzzy just now anyway. It had been for weeks.

Wait. There was a set of tracks leading away from the clearing. A horse, and a man’s foot prints. If it were dirt or mud he would not be certain, but the ground was covered in snow. The horseshoes were clear as day, and the huge boot prints next to it could not have been made by the girl. Two possibilities. The man had survived-.unlikely-unless demons could not be killed. The other, was that the girl had been rejoined by the King of Gyllene after hell swallowed up her dead lover. Either way, he would have to resume his chase. He could not simply allow her to be happy. Whether it was as the mistress of a King or the treasured love of her demon husband, it was not possible. He would have to resume his weary hunt and kill her, if not both of them.

He reflected, that this is what servants must feel like when you dirtied a room they had just cleaned. They would feel satisfied in a task well done…and then irritated by its having been undone. Then they would feel a cold sense of dread and fury in having to repeat the task from the beginning. He should not have to endure such a wretched feeling. He sighed. Once again, these wretched people had several days head start on him. They were apparently both alive, and he was renewed in the certainty that he was unlikely to survive killing them both.

DAMN! Just when he thought he could not possibly hate that golden creature any more than he already did, she proved him wrong. His mind was awash with the terrible things he would do to her this time. He would have to shoot her massive husband first again, he’d need him to be incapacitated. He looked at his wounded shoulder. Come to think of it, he would need to shoot her somewhere non-vital, but injurious enough to incapacitate her as well. She was surprisingly good with a knife for a woman. Once she was injured and writhing in pain at his feet, then he would really and truly punish her. The thought of his revenge glowed like an ember underneath his breast bone. It throbbed in a hot, but not uncomfortable sort of way.

Seven months ago, before the faire, he had been a Lord. He had been poised to govern a pleasing little estate and marry a bland but suitable young woman from a respected family. His life would have been uneventful and he would have had everything he had expected. Life would have been relatively simple. There would have been the odd incident, given his unusual predilections…but otherwise his life would have been normal. Those sorts of untidy little problems could easily be cleared away by a bit of money changing hands.

Instead! Instead, that girl had showed up in peacock feathers, and had turned his world on its ear. Execution was too kind a justice for crimes like hers. Her punishment would be slow and humiliating. It had to match the humiliation she had caused him to suffer. He re-mounted his horse and urged it forward, keeping a close eye on the snow beneath him. If he had followed their tracks and caught them before, he could certainly do so again.

Freyr felt his reality coming apart. His country, which he had almost forgotten about, was about to go to war. He was expected to do something about it. Now. His father was 2-3 months away, and so it was not unreasonable that these people expected him to deal with the problem. He had expected them to treat him as a Prince in every other way, and so it was not unfair that they should assume he would act like one. He could not let these people to wait to be slaughtered without a battle plan…not when they providentially had just had their Prince come to their aid. The King was hemmed in by the winter, the cold, and the ice that covered the rock-strewn mountain terrain. If his father sent any more armies to the south, he would lose a quarter of his men to the elements before they even got there. But what could Freyr do? He had been away for 15 years. His training had ended when he was a teenager…he scarcely remembered what he had learned about war strategies. He had never intended to return, and had no reason to retain the information. He knew far more about how to choose a tree to cut, how to haul timber, and keep his nature hidden than anything else.

If only the war were his sole problem. He and Gilda were alone in the house of a man he did not trust. The Duke had freely admitted to sending five of his own sons out after him in an effort to accost him. Freyr could be almost certain that the man would do anything to preserve his little slice of the country. If he got in the way of the Duke’s goals, he had no doubt that he could become a casualty of the nobleman’s ambitions.

He was overwhelmed to the point of feeling like he was drowning on dry land. Ever since Gilda had healed him, she had barely let him near her. While he had once been good a suppressing his desire for her, it had only been because he had never experienced it. He’d tasted something more delicious than oxygen after holding his breath for ages, and now it was impossible not to crave it continuously. If only he could understand her reticence! Until now she had given him every indication that she had enjoyed his affection, despite every warning he had been given.

The very facets of his life were coming apart and he didn’t know how to put them back together. His heart was pumping fast in his chest, and his hands wouldn’t unclench from fists at his sides. He couldn’t go on like this. The animal part of him was begging to be let out in any conceivable way. He had been reining it in for weeks with Gilda for reasons she would not tell him… He’d had to bite it back to keep from killing the guards when they had attacked him, and now he’d had to keep from ripping the Duke to pieces for his insolence. Life had been easier when he lived in the woods and interacted with no one aside from his siblings. He and his brother had occasionally let their instincts get the better of them, but neither of them had ever seriously injured the other. Out in the world there were thousands of endless annoyances that tested his ability to restrain himself. Every day was a parade of opportunities to lose control, and it was torture. Monsters were not meant to exist in a civilized world.

There was no situation in which he did not snap at some point if he did not alleviate the intensity that flowed through him like lightening into sand, turning it to liquid glass. He opened the door that adjoined his room to Gilda’s and stepped into the powder blue guest quarters. Gilda was lying in a bath with her eyes closed as though she were asleep. She didn’t even open them when the door clicked. Perhaps she thought he was the servant returning? Or, the exhaustion of the past few weeks had caught up with her and she really was asleep. He sighed and pulled his shirt off over his head. He had no other options. Thankfully, she was already undressed, that was one obstacle out of the way. He strode silently over to the bath tub and stepped in. Gilda’s eyes flew open. She was startled, but not frightened. He put his hand over her mouth.

“Shh…it’s only me.” He said, as he pressed his mouth against hers. Gilda put her hands against his chest, pushing back slightly. He took both her slender wrists in one of his larger hands and held them up, backwards, over her head. He put his forehead against hers.

“Gilda, unless you mean to absolutely forbid it, I will not be denied in this.” He said, kissing her hard on the mouth, removing any possibility of a reply. He ran his tongue along her lower lip. He could not explain the need, or the fire which flowed white hot through his veins. If only, on some level, she still desired him. He kept her wrists solidly in his hand as his mouth covered hers adamantly and repeatedly. His free hand caressed her naked body as he attempted to climb onto her. The bath she was in was not long enough for someone his size to stretch out in. He growled low in his throat. Any interruption at this point would be physical pain. Still. He lifted her out and carried her gleaming wet body over to the bed and laid her down upon it. This was novel. He had never had her on a bed before.

Her skin was satin underneath his fingers. Other than the temperature, there was no differentiation between the silk of the fabric and the feel of her soft skin. Every inch that he touched as he twined her in the soft sheets was utterly flawless. He pressed his lips to her flesh ferociously, waiting for her inevitable rejection. But she wasn’t objecting. Instead, she was kissing him back and twisting her fingers into his hair, pulling him down to her hungrily.

Gilda hadn’t meant to, but she couldn’t help it. Being without him had been anguish. She had swallowed her emotions so completely that she hadn’t been aware of her own desperation until Freyr broke through the shell that contained it. Gilda kissed him breathlessly, her hands pulling on his shoulders in an effort to feel the weight of his body on hers. Intimacy was not what her friend Anna had told her it was. It was not the final surrender in which a woman found herself conquered by the masculine weapon of a man. It was what Gran had told her it was-a man collapsing his self so completely into another person that he dissolved into her, content to be part of her body rather than his own. Gilda implored him for more, by twining herself around his body too tightly to be extricated.

Freyr answered her by laying himself on top of her, kissing her neck and chest. Every cell in his body was telling him to leap onto her, to take her rapidly to sate his feverish want. He made every effort to control himself, but he was drowning in his inescapable hunger. It had been too long since he had tasted the fire. He felt the soft weight of her breasts in his hands before he had even realized that he had reached for them. He was losing his grip on his mind despite it being the middle of the night. He should be fully human right now, and yet he was wildly out of control. His teeth grazed her breast as he gripped her more firmly in his arms. He was acting completely on instinct with only the peripheral awareness of his actions. His mind was focused on sensation only as he sought her with every surface of his skin. He gripped her golden leg and pulled it over his shoulder, kissing her along her inner thigh. He leaned forward to press his lips to the curve of her breast, tasting the tip with his tongue. Gilda shivered and pulled his hair reflexively. He gripped her leg tighter against him, biting her silken calf as he tucked her knee over his shoulder and brought himself into her with a single fluid motion.

He felt an instinctive desperation welling up inside him. He was grateful again that Gilda was not an ordinary woman. An ordinary woman would not be able to withstand the sort of violent passion that he was unsuccessful in controlling. Gilda on the other hand, had wrapped herself around him like a second skin, and the only sounds she made were not of pain. The scent of her filled his lungs, and he suddenly realized why he could not regain control of himself. Even so, he could not recoil. It was too late. She would be his in every conceivable way, and there was no stopping it.

Freyr gripped the wet knot of hair at the back of her head and wrapped it around his wrist, pulling her off his chest where she had pasted herself like a bandage. He pressed her back down to the pillow where he could see her face. His other hand slid underneath her hips and drew her ever closer to him as he increased his haste and fervor. A slight flush began in her cheeks and then suffused her chest as he held her, pinned beneath him by her long hair, crushing himself into her. She had enjoyed herself, and that knowledge released him from the desire to restrain himself in any way. He forced her further into the nest of soft fabric and consumed her with a raw carnality that reminded him of what he truly was. His hands, tongue, teeth, and body were of one accord, and it began and ended with the unfathomable woman he held beneath him.

He fell back against the pillow alongside her, spent to the point of being barely breathing. Gilda slid on top of him like water, kissing him gently. What was she doing? It was not possible that she wanted more of him. He had spent half the night in reckless possession of her. He pushed himself up onto his elbow to look out the window. Still dark. It was winter. He sighed with relief. He had some time. He gripped the ample little form spread across his chest and slid her off.

“Don’t you want to sleep, now that you have a bed?” He asked her. Gilda pressed her face against his shoulder and shook her head.

“I’ve wasted too much time sleeping in my life.” She said honestly. “I want to be with you.” She said ran her hand across his naked chest. He gripped her all the more tightly to him. If she continued touching him, he wouldn’t be able to refuse her. He understood his strange compulsions of the last 24 hours now. In animal terms, Gilda was in heat. He had somehow ignored her rise in fertility because it had not mattered. She was keeping her distance from him, and their lives had been in continuous danger. Now, he understood his desire to tear the heads off of the guards and kill the Duke in cold blood. Those had been natural and instinctive reactions. His dual nature wanted to protect his female from perceived harm. Having Gilda near him in this state blurred the lines between animal and man. If she wanted more of him, he would not be able to resist. There wasn’t any point now anyway, he had already crossed the bridge he had promised himself he never would.

Still, he did fully intend to return to his room and sleep through the transition…if possible. But how could he sleep when Gilda was possibly in danger? The Duke was not trustworthy and they were at his mercy. Even so, how could he not sleep after the last several hours? Gilda curled her deceptively delicate body around him, and tucked her indulgent hair under his chin. She was clearly intending to acquiesce and go to sleep, but the smell of her hair was making that difficult again. He buried his face in the gleaming curls.

“Why have you kept me away from you for so long?” He asked, almost fearful of breaking the spell that had her lovingly in his arms again. Gilda bit her lip. This was a question she could not answer. But she wasn’t going to keep him at a distance any longer. That had been short sighted. They should appreciate what small amount of time they had left. She had been thoughtless to deny him, in an effort to spare his feelings. Freyr would feel intensely no matter how their journey progressed.

“I was destroyed when you died. I was a bit dead inside myself, and it took me some time to come back to life. More time than you took. Losing you, however fleetingly is an impossible thing to come back from.” She admitted quietly. “I love you.” She whispered softly. It was an unsatisfactory answer, and she didn’t expect him to accept it…but he just molded her around him like clay.

“You know you will never have to endure that again. You are capable of keeping me always with you, if that is was you want.” He kissed the honeyed curls at the top of her head. “I would never willing leave you ever again. You are the breath in my lungs, you are the beating of my wretched heart, you are my everything.” He reassured her. Gilda looked up at him. His words hurt her more than he could possibly understand.

“I cannot be your everything Freyr. You have to want something in this world besides me.” She said almost inaudibly. He chuckled softly.

“As if any worldly thing could consume me more than you! You are everything I ever denied wanting. There is nothing in my life aside from you. A throne, gold, a country, it’s all dust compared to you.” He said earnestly. Gilda couldn’t listen to anymore protestations of his affection. It was a sword in her side to know what she could, and was going to do to him.

Gilda climbed on top of him and kissed his lips gently. Freyr attempted to bring her back down alongside him, but she was gently insistent. Their conversation was over, and Gilda had found a rather obvious way to end it.

Grigor woke up before the dawn. He tried to stretch and found his limbs bound uncomfortably by something. He looked down at himself. Oh. Yes. Of course. The witch had him caged in an iron harness. She was more talented than she admitted. Claiming to be a healer only, with powers of amplification and nothing more, but she was a liar. He didn’t know why he had never considered that she had more power than she said. Of course she would try to hide the true extent of her powers from a man she knew had wanted to use her up until there was nothing left that interested in him. Nothing that came out of that woman’s mouth was ever the truth. The miracle was that after she killed several thousand men in a single night-he had still believed her! He growled and tugged on the chain, but it held firm.

Her little fay harness grew and shrank with his form, and kept him tied up like a pet. He didn’t even try to claw at it with his pathetic human fingers. He had tried it constantly as both a man and a bear for days, and it made absolutely no difference. A chain extended from the harness to the post of her bed. It wasn’t an invitation, the bed was just the heaviest thing in the room. Even so, if he had tugged at it, he could have flipped it over, but angering her would lead to new and more inventive punishments. She had no intention of letting him escape after his admission the week before. Clothilde sat up, startling him, he hadn’t thought his feeble tugs had woken her. The chain rattled on the floor when the wooden bee and straw tick mattress shook as she rose.

“How did you sleep?” She asked. Her voice bereft of emotion. It unnerved him far more than her initial anger had. She’d set an inn on fire without even trying. Luckily they had been able to escape before anyone connected them with the event. As far as he knew, no one had been injured by the fire. Although, admittedly, they had not stayed around to check.

“Not well. You wouldn’t give me a pillow or blanket.” He said quietly. She laughed, in a disturbing joyless way.

“You took 50 years with my daughter from me. I think you can survive a few nights without a blanket.” She climbed up from the bed and began brushing her long titian hair. He snarled softly. He’d spent decades without a blanket thanks to her. He did not deserve to be continuously punished. He had suffered more than enough for his rather minimal crimes.

“Why do you keep me hostage?” He asked. She turned away from the mirror to look at him.

“It’s cheaper than renting a horse.” She said with a smile at the corner of her mouth. It was derisive. She had been riding the bear, which was utterly tame to her during the day. He was powerless inside its dominant mind all day while she mistreated him. It was humiliating and unseemly. He disliked her mocking even more. He leapt at her suddenly with a hissing sound and wrapped the iron chain around her neck. He pulled both ends tight on either side of her slender throat. Either she would have to destroy the chain, freeing him, or her head would come off. Her choice. She waved her hand in a quick dismissive motion. He was flung backward away from her, and hit the wall hard. The chain had broken and re-fused almost instantly. The harness he was wearing had suddenly become magnetized and was solidly affixed to the large nail studs in the poorly constructed wall behind him. If he wanted to, he could most likely free himself…but it would be by pulling the wall of the inn down onto his head. It’s connection to the sides of the room was less than the force holding him to it. Given the construction of the Inn, and that they were on the second floor-it would most likely bring down the whole building.

“LEARN!” She shouted. “I tire of this!” Her voice was angry and her pale blue eyes were wild. He struggled to free himself from the wall anyway but the wooden floor came alive beneath him, growing branches that wrapped around his legs. He looked at it in surprise. Her power was either growing, or she more apathetic about hiding it.

“How?” He asked.

“The floor is wood. It wants to be alive. You think I can kill thousands of men by using a river, but not coax a little growth out of a piece of wood?” She demanded. She laughed again. “You’re not wrong. A month ago I wouldn’t have been able to…but the weakening of the curse leaves me with more energy.” She shrugged. The floor slackened and became ordinary again. He climbed to his feet. His desire to crush this woman for degrading him was intense. It was more potent than any emotion he had ever experienced. No pain, no pleasure, no anger, no desire or joy had ever been as strong as his hatred for her. She could see everything he felt etched into his face like a stone tablet.

“If only you loved your progeny as much as you hate me.” She returned to brushing her hair. He growled as he resignedly sat at the small table where the bread and cheese from the night before was.

“You could do the same.” He said as he gave up and began to eat his breakfast. He had hands now. He wouldn’t in about an hour. She nodded.

“I certainly hope to. But first you will have to bring me to her.” She hadn’t known it a week ago, but there was another way for this to end. If she got her daughter back, it was a possibility.

Rearden sat on his horse surveying the troops his mother had ordered. The men looked disreputable and untrustworthy. Most of them were absolutely filthy, almost all had very few teeth and an unkempt appearance. These were men who did not care if they won or not. The way they looked proved how little they cared about their health, or even their lives. If they managed to survive the battle, they would most likely die of an existing infection, disease, or sheer self-neglect.

He turned to his left where his own countrymen were arranged. His actual soldiers looked prepared, not happy, but prepared. The farmers and other tradesmen who had been conscripted looked frightened. They had never planned on fighting in their whole lives. Some of these men had simply been born to other professions, and had therefor always had peaceful lives. Others had chosen kinder careers due to abhorring violence and being made uneasy by the mere sight of blood.

The new King sighed. They had the numbers, and they only had to get far enough to take the South. The North would be too frozen in order to get troops to the lowlands in time. If he got a several month foothold in the southern part of Gyllene he could conscript soldiers from their own men. Threatening the women and children in the villages would be a powerful incentive in getting the men to cooperate. If they could successfully hold the south, then by spring they could have the entire country. He tugged the large brown bay’s reins in order to turn it about once again. He was grateful for the horse. Mounted, he looked almost normal. The slouch in his back was slightly visible, but his twisted legs were not obvious. He looked far more commanding on a horse than he did on his own feet. It was time to ride. It would take them a week to reach the border of Gyllene, but the more they delayed, the more likelihood there was that troops could get to the border.

“We ride.” He said loudly and clearly as he urged his horse forward. He could hear the men behind him fall in step. The clink of armor and the sounds of heavy footfalls were oddly thrilling. He was commanding an army. He was commanding an army that was going to overthrow the golden kingdom. Gyllene was a place that his father and Grandfather had spoken about with awe and fear, and it would be his. This was not the path he had imagined for himself, but it was certainly an interesting one. He looked over his shoulder at the sprawling ranks of men following him. Each flank had several mounted leaders, but mostly the men tramped on foot. It would be slow going, but when it was over he would control a new kingdom. Not the withered corpse of a kingdom that he currently held, but a lush decadent kingdom of true bounty.

A shadow fell across him as they tramped slowly and steadily toward the border. A screeching noise sounded overhead, causing him to look up. A hawk was circling above him. The hawk had something attached to its leg. This was a soldier’s hawk. Instinctively he pulled the chain mail collar of his armor higher in order to hide his vulnerable neck.

The bird began to swoop low as though to fly at him. His commander waved in a panic for the archers nearest him to shoot. The hawk was fast, but miraculously his archers were faster. The bird fell almost at his feet, an arrow shot solidly through its slender throat. Rearden would not dismount to retrieve it. It required two men to get him on and off his horse, and he preferred to have such assistance in private. He did not want his armies to see him so humbled. Instead, he motioned for his second to get it for him. The man dismounted with a sharp nod and retrieved the bird.

“It has a message on its leg Majesty.” The man said, taking the little scroll off of the already stiffening body of the shiny brown bird.

“It was not a war bird?” Rearden asked in surprise. His second shrugged.

“Whether it was or was not I cannot say, but it carried this.” He handed King Rearden a small metal tube. Rearden uncapped it and slid the tightly rolled missive out. He unwound it curiously. Whose message had he intercepted? He inhaled sharply.

“It is addressed to the King of Twyle.” He said in surprise. He read it in disbelief.

’It would please the King of Gyllene to meet with the King of Twyle by proxy in order to discuss arrangements for a beneficial alliance. Please send your assent by this bird. The King’s proxy will be awaiting you at the border of Twyle and Gyllene at the mouth of the Stone Horse Pass with a letter bearing the seal of the King proper.’

The King of Twyle was dismayed. He had killed the bird. Surely they would have known that his attendants would perceive a hawk as a threat!? Was this an elaborate ruse? He supposed that he could simply go to the meeting place and hope that the messenger would be there… Still, it was more likely to be a trap than anything else. They must have scouts who had told them about his plan to go to war. He could not march an army towards them entirely without their notice. The Stone Horse Pass was narrow, and he would not be able to bring many men with him. This could just as easily be an assignation attempt as an offer of an alliance. Assassinating the King, would make defeating his country, that much easier for Gyllene.

“Sire? Does the message pertain to us?” His second asked, curiosity bleeding into his voice. Rearden shook his head.

“No. No it is of no consequence. Ride on.” He ordered sharply. His man tossed the carcass of the dead bird back onto the road. They continued forward, the avian messenger crushed into nothingness under thousands of feet and hooves. Rearden exhaled slowly and deliberately. This was right. It had to be.