Chapter Twenty-Eight Ruhlin #2
“A stagna,” he murmured, tracing a thumb over the smooth ring of iron. Unlike the one that pierced his flesh, this was broken, a ragged inch-long gap interrupting the circle.
“I found it in Aribeh’s cell,” Ohtera said. “Broken and covered in blood. He must have ripped it out. I keep it concealed behind a loose brick in my cell and have never shown it anyone before. Not even Fernhyld.”
“A man with the power to strip away the memory of his existence,” Ruhlin mused. “Escaping this place would be child’s play for him. Which raises the question of why he remained here so long. Also, how could such a man have been captured at all?”
“I have pondered these questions, and more, for years. With no answer. But I believe he must have allowed himself to be chained and brought here. For what reason, I can’t say.”
“You.” Ruhlin pressed the broken stagna into her hand. “He came here for you.”
“Then…” She lowered her head, speaking in a soft gasp. “Why did he leave me here?”
“Perhaps he came not to free you, but to waken you to the voice of the god you carry. As now, you help awaken me to mine.”
Ruhlin sat back, closing his eyes and waiting to hear the monster’s voice. This time the growl came swifter, and he heard no amusement in it, only impatient hunger. You yearn to be free of this place too, Ruhlin thought, parsing the emotion into meaning. Then, let us do so, together.
The Great Meidvang began two weeks later, although Ruhlin and Ohtera were spared its initial stages.
After the morning meal in the garden, during which the food was hardly touched, Silvahk would call out the names of those chosen for the day’s entertainment.
They were usually formed into groups of three or four and trooped off to the wuhltra under heavy guard.
Come the evening, the survivors would return, though there were nights when none did.
As the dire routine wore on, Ruhlin found he could predict the likelihood of survivors from the duration and pitch of the crowd’s roar.
The briefer the contest, and the louder the cheers, the less likely it was for any Kelven to return.
After four days, Tremyn’s name was called along with three others.
He seemed almost eager as the group was marched towards the bridge, and the tumult echoing from the great arena told of a prolonged and bloody spectacle.
With daylight fading, Tremyn returned alone.
His face, scarred like his body, was downcast. It seemed he bore his survival as a bitter disappointment.
Inevitably, there came the morning when Ruhlin’s name was called.
Once again, he was grouped with Ohtera and Delryk.
As the guards came to lead them to the bridge, Fernhyld had to be prised away from Ohtera.
Deaf to her softly whispered reassurances, the blindfolded maiden clung to her with desperate strength.
It was Silvahk who succeeded in restraining Fernhyld, clasping her wrists and pinning her arms with surprising gentleness.
She hung in his grasp, sobbing as the guards prodded the day’s victims towards their fate.
Once again confined in the room with its food-laden table and plush furnishings, Ruhlin found Delryk’s demeanour a stark contrast to their first visit.
Body hardened by weeks of training, he exuded more impatience than anything else, finding little difficulty in snacking on fruit and pastries.
Having witnessed the youth’s progress in the sand circle, Ruhlin knew his confidence to be justified.
Delryk had honed the use of his blessing to the point where he found little difficulty in reading an opponent’s intentions.
“Not all memory is old,” he said, popping a grape into his mouth.
“In fact, the more recent it is, the easier it is to read. Such as the decision to strike at my head instead of my belly. Pity I didn’t realise this before, of course.
If I had, I doubt I’d ever have fetched up here.
So…” he paused, washing the grape down with a gulp of wine “… you need have no care of me once we climb those stairs. Perhaps, this time, it is I who’ll save you. ”
“I think I preferred him a craven,” Ohtera muttered, having resumed her habitual position on the couch. She stood as Silvahk entered. “Fernhyld…?” she began.
“I had the healer give her a sleeping draught,” he said, tossing a scabbarded sword to Delryk. “You’ll have need of this today.”
“How many do we face?” the youth enquired, drawing the blade to test the edge with his thumb.
“That is up to the Vortigurn.” Silvahk opened the door leading to the wuhltra and gestured for them to enter.
As they ascended the steps, the guard had already drawn up the barrier, flooding the slanted tunnel with the crowd’s baying.
This time there was no delay before entering the arena, their appearance heralding a momentary hush from the ascending rows, crammed with people from top to bottom.
Ruhlin’s gaze went to the Vortigurn’s platform, expecting to see the King of Nihlvar standing ready to deliver another speech.
Instead, he made out a seated figure concealed by a deep shadow.
“He doesn’t bother with speeches once the Meidvang is underway,” Ohtera explained, noting Ruhlin’s puzzled frown.
Her eyes took on a familiar alertness as she scanned the empty sands of the wuhltra, her back arching and fingernails extending.
“Something’s off,” she hissed, words made sibilant by growing teeth.
“What is it?” Ruhlin asked, seeing her nostril flare as she caught a scent. “What do we face?”
“Something far worse than a gaggle of cowards.” Ohtera sank into a crouch, clawed hands scraping the sand. “Forget your pride,” she told Delryk. “Stay close to us if you want to live. Your blessing won’t help you now.”
He squinted at her, sweat beading his brow and a measure of his old fear showing in his gaze. “What? Why not—”
He was interrupted by the clatter of several doors being drawn up, opened portals appearing in different parts of the arena wall.
A short pause followed in which the crowd’s murmur became a wall of stilled, hungry silence, then they came.
At first, Ruhlin saw only an explosion of sand to the front of each opened door, then he made out the loping forms, each the same shade of silver grey, long of limb and body.
They snarled as they ran, baring teeth and trailing drool.
Ruhlin had never seen their like before, but had heard stories enough to summon a name. Great wolves!
As they sped closer, he realised that they were at least a third again the size of the wolves he had glimpsed in Morvek lands. But those were shy creatures, given to fleeing at the slightest taint of human scent. It seemed doubtful that these beasts would ever flee from anything.
“No,” Delryk said, pressing himself to Ruhlin’s side, his voice an aggrieved whimper. “Not fair. It’s not fair…”
His voice dwindled into a distant whine as Ruhlin surrendered himself to the monster’s wrathful instinct for survival.
The transformation had rarely been so swift before, muscle and bone expanding to their distorted full in the time it took the nearest great wolf to leap for his throat.
The usual loss of sensation arrived when the monster caught its snout in a massive fist, pulping it into bloody ruin with a flex of his wrist before casting it aside.
A whirlwind of red chaos followed, Ruhlin feeling hot blood wash over his hardened skin and the dull, ineffectual scrape of teeth on unyielding flesh.
Listen… Ohtera’s instruction echoed as Ruhlin drifted in the haze of muted sensation.
In the past, his attempts to reassert control at such times met only the most marginal success.
Now, instead of trying to wrest his body back, he reached for the same calm acceptance he had practised in his cell.
In the nights since that first session with Ohtera, he had come to divine additional meaning to the monster’s growls, sensing only variations in its desire for escape.
The notion of confinement seemed to enrage it, blossoming into hatred when Ruhlin’s thoughts turned to the stagna.
Now, as he opened his mind to the monster’s voice, he heard something new: joy.
As it tore and smashed and rent, the creature that had seized Ruhlin’s body rejoiced in the unbridled havoc it produced.
It wasn’t mere exhilaration, more a sense of fulfilment, as if it recognised such violence as its purpose.
This is what you are made for, Ruhlin realised. But who made you?
The question seemed to anger it more, but also heralded a sudden return of clarity.
Ruhlin found his swollen form standing amid the torn remains of three great wolves, their guts and shattered bones littering the sand.
A dozen paces away, Ohtera had slain one more and was engaged in battling another, constantly leaping clear of the beast’s lunges to slash at its flanks with her claws.
Another great wolf, guided by the predator’s instinct to seek out the weakest prey, ravaged Delryk’s limp body.
The young Kelven’s sword lay close by, its blade untarnished.
As it leaped upon the ravening wolf, Ruhlin heard a change in the pitch of the monster’s growls.
The sound was more complex than usual, conveying a range of emotions that were at first hard to parse.
Anger, of course, but laced with frustration.
You don’t know, Ruhlin concluded, watching the monster stomp the great wolf’s skull into bloody ruin. You don’t know who made you.