Timepieces

The Beast King's Curse

The following story is an interesting example of an archaic, balladic style not typically found in my writing. It was written last summer during writing camp after a ghost story prompt. I'd love to hear your opinions on Madoc and the Beast King!

The drought was always supposed to be because of a particularly disappointing snowmelt, or a poorly managed river, or an overused irrigation system. Natural causes, they said. They didn't want to admit the real reason we endured so much darkness, so much strife. The curse of the beasts withered our crops and dried up our hopes.

So the story goes: When our oldest souls looked out from the widened eyes of hapless youths, when the great oak was naught but a bud on the branch of its predecessors, when we were beholden to the sun and the river and the forests for the simple fact of our own survival, that was when the beast king lived. More animals than men, more creatures than creators, they laid claim to our fields and attacked our livestock, taking all ours for their own.

None among us was valiant enough to stop them, none but Madoc the brave. He set forth to drive back the beasts, but before long he had encountered their king: a flash between the trees, a spear shaft broken clear off, an inhuman, raucous caw.

Some say the beast king was seven feet tall, covered in hair; some say he was fanged and wolfish and ready to pounce at any time; but the most honest of stories recall that he looked like any other man, except for the wild gleam in his eyes. Whatever the terror, all accounts agree: Madoc threatened the beasts away from the fields, but the king refused to comply. When his creatures rushed our village, Madoc defended, and slew their king.

The droughts started after. Without water, without lifeblood, the crops shriveled and died. The livestock grew thin and sickly, and the river's torrent diminished to a slow, trickling weep. The drought hit all of us, the rich and the poor, and sucked the life out of our bodies, until we were empty-eyed, stick-limbed, hopeless. No better than cornered beasts.

The townsfolk whispered about the curse of the beast, a rumor on wings, touching all of our thoughts. Some blamed the weather, an easy way out, but one that nobody really believed. Some blamed the beast king and his black magic, and some dared to implicate Madoc the brave, for changing the order of that which should be. But most knew that the beast king's work was never done. His spirit lingered, and would not rest until his death had been avenged.

Madoc the brave saw the dying crops and the pitiful townsfolk and knew that he had to atone for his mistake. So he took up arms and set out along the river to find the block.

Along the way, he came to a thick forest, and a row of tangling, towering trees blocked his way. As he raised his axe to chop a path, he heard in the distance a quiet, harsh sound: Caw, caw caw.

Madoc didn't stop chopping, but he felt a shiver course up his arms as he sank the axe into the trunk for the first stroke.

He was raising his axe once more when he heard a slightly louder noise. Caw, caw caw. He froze, for a split second. Anger rushed through him, and he buried his axe in the gash.

The tree shuddered with the force, and then: Caw, caw caw. Loud and raucous and familiar, and Madox knew then, that the triumph call of the beast king had haunted him beyond the grave.

And as he seized his axe to attack he knew not what, the tree groaned. Creaked. And then, with the grating noise of shifting splinters, toppled. And fell to the ground.

Thud.

Madoc spun wildly around with his axe, but nothing presented itself, nothing but the slow, creaking rustle as the tree settled into the ground.

And then: Caw, caw caw.

From the branches of a neighboring tree, a crow swooped down, talons outstretched, and Madoc swung his axe and the crow fell dead to the ground.

In the gap between the trees Madoc saw the trees, and the bushes, and beyond them the edge of the forest, and beyond those the trickle of the river, and in the river, distant against the horizon, an island. An island covered in sticklike, bristling trees, clouds of fuzzy green captured on the dagger quills of a porcupine's back.

Madoc stepped through the gap, through the trees and through the bushes and past the edge of the forest. Empty on the ground behind him was a young, fallen tree and a stiff crow, beak open in mid-caw.

Madoc emerged into a terrain of gravel and boulders. His foot slipped, and he used his axe to steady himself. But as he stepped awkwardly past the first boulder, he heard a shaking noise. Rattle rattle.

At first he ignored it, but then it sounded again. Rattle rattle rattle. Madoc reached out and pushed the boulder away, rattle rattle, and he could hear the war-rattles of the beasts, and knew he was not alone.

As the rattle grew steadily louder, Madoc let his axe drop. Thud. And then the shaking slowed to a stop, as the body twitched of the snake he hadn't seen.

Madoc looked up, and he saw the riverbank, and the weeping stream, and the spined island. Its trees were dying now, yearning for their lifeblood water, and browned needles clumped on the branches, until every quill seemed to skewer a beast.

The river was narrow enough to wade, but still Madoc approached it with caution. He knew no spirit was following him, but the curse of the beast king could strike at any minute, and sweep him away.

He dashed across, splashing water across the bank, relaxing once he reached the shore of the island. There was a bird calling in one of the trees, alone. Doochooko, doochooko.

He stepped closer, and the bird's bright plumage glinted between the trees. Even when he approached, it didn't move. Doochooogo, dochoogo, it called.

Don't you go.

And then there was a splash in the distance, and a wall of water roared down the stream, and crashed toward the banks of the island, and split around it. The river flowed strong and confident again.

Don't you go, the bird said, and then it spread its wings and swooped away, and Madoc stared out at the great expanse of water and was helpless to cross. The beast king's curse lingered, but the village had been saved.

Madoc the brave, Madoc king-slayer, never returned. Those who blamed him for the drought said he had finally run away. Those who blamed the beast king's magic said he had sacrificed himself to end the curse. But those who knew the truth understood why he was gone: the beast king's death had finally been avenged. The wisest among us say that Madoc and the beast king battle still, fighting forever on the porcupine island, slashing and cutting and swinging, until Madoc realizes how to build a raft.