4 The Beast of Aulkin Keep

97 7 11
                                    

I only knew for certain it was more than a few days - but it could have been or weeks or even months between the mage's visit to the house and the next time – when the magic of the curse reached out and snatched me, no warning.

The faux scent of incense filled my nose as it slid into me and through me as easily as it ever did. My first thought was impossibly foolish, tied up with bizarre relief. So the curse still could control me. I shouldn't be relieved, but I couldn't help that I was.

If I did not have to stay away, then I might have to go home – still with my beastly deformities. And that was a terrible thought, as awful as it had been when I was first afflicted, nineteen years of loneliness doing nothing to soften it.

Vanity, I scoffed. A beast's scoff is a lot like its laugh – a thin, nasal bark.

It turned to a baying roar as the magic took my throat and forced my legs into a lope, announcing me to my visitor, whoever he was.

Invisible servants scattered from my path; they knew better than to get in the way of a curse-propelled beast. My feet took me at a lope down the back stairs and out through the kitchen gardens. I ran around the whole eastern flank of the castle and slowed to a prowl at the front gates.

He waited in the great hall – a Knight half in plate armour; pauldrons and greaves, a leather doublet with faulds. He had no helm, no shield, but his gauntleted hand held an unsheathed sword. He stood with his back to the wall, facing the main stairs at the rear of the room where he expected me to appear.

My entrance was an enormous leap – landing in a crouch atop the fallen doors with an almighty crash.

The Knight startled, turned too fast and stumbled – recovered quickly with the sword blade raised and flashing in the sun.

With no helm, I saw his hair, unremarkable brown but remarkably curly. Blue eyes blazed beneath the heavy wings of his brows, the cheek below the left cut across with a thick red scar from ear to nose. Not a handsome man, not with that sort of scar – but he was young and tall, and that was forgiving even to worse faces.

I knew at once that the curse would have him.

And I felt that feeling that always rose, equal measures hope and fear, that he would be the one – that he was my cursebreaker, come at last. Or he was not, and soon he would be another of the dead.

He recovered his wits only a moment behind his recovered balance. 'Beast,' he said boldly.

He had a nice voice. Commanding. There was no surprise in him. Clearly, he had known I would be here when he set off.

Most likely, he wasn't a cursebreaker, just another knight come to kill me. His assessing looks weren't identifying my strange, beastly deformities on my mostly-human body – he was probably calculating my weaknesses and planning his attack.

The curse knew it too, vicious thing that it was. It brought me into the room slowly, pacing around him, driving him until his back was to the door. The sword raised, and I stopped where I stood.

The curse had to give him a choice, after all - a chance not to fail at the first test.

If he were to charge now, I wondered how badly I might be hurt in that battle. He was young and fit - probably inexperienced if he thought beast-hunting was a worthy pursuit - but I didn't think I'd overpower him without taking a few injuries of my own.

Even if he was the most skilled swordsman in all the kingdoms, he would still die under my claws; no number of stabs were enough to stop me since the curse wouldn't allow me to die from the blows. There were plenty of scars on me from other knights that curse had ordered me to kill.

Loathly |  PUBLISHEDWhere stories live. Discover now