The Hill-King's Bride: an Allegory for the Modern Church

Bryn Ma'ar

Finally, when Howe thought she wouldn't be able to take another step, her captor pulled her in a tight circle and released her. Off-balance, Howe ended up in a heap on the ground. "We'll rest here," the masculine voice fairly ordered her.

Relieved to have stopped, Howe stayed where she was, panting for breath and rubbing her sore wrist despite the tangle of skirts around her legs. Thoughts raced as she listened to him move around her. Animas made no vocalizations at all, zombies could only moan or grunt, which left only one other creature of the night that he could be, since the lothos couldn't walk on their hind legs or speak at all. Terror shot through Howe as she thought of the necromancers who created the Undead for their own purposes. "You're a monster!" she gasped.

Unexpectedly, he chuckled at that. Light flared as he lit a torch and hung it from a bracket on the wall. "Perhaps," Howe's captor acknowledged, still speaking in the native tongue of Howe's father, "but I pose far less danger to you than anything outside, just now."

He appeared to Howe to be entirely of metal; though his shape was that of a human, no flesh could be seen at all, nor any facial feature through the slits that served for eye-holes. "There is no moon tonight; we must wait for dawn."

Howe looked around. They were in a rude dwelling with sod walls and ceiling. The only furnishings beside the torch were an old carpet, storage chest, work table and fire pit, but the walls and roof were solid, assuring Howe that it was at least a secure place to rest until daylight. "Are you a necromancer?" Howe asked, nearly choking on her terror.

"No," he answered gravely, "and you needn't fear me." He removed his helmet so Howe could see his face.

She stared curiously. His skin was tanned and weathered, with small scars at his hairline, down his neck and on one cheek; his hair and beard a sun-streaked chestnut. Bright green eyes appeared as though he were accustomed to smiling and his expression was kind, if sober. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "I am Bryn Ma'ar; Bryn, to those who love me."

From his tone and demeanor, Howe got the impression that the number was few indeed, of those who cared about the man behind the armor beyond his title. It made her feel a twinge of empathy for him, mirroring her own loneliness. He moved to the chest and rummaged briefly before closing it again.

Howe noticed that he left the helmet resting atop the chest. She watched him place two lumps of clay under a pile of sticks and then kindle a fire in the hearth. 'Where are we?' she asked timidly after the fire was burning to his satisfaction and the room was warm.

"This is one of my line cabins," he answered immediately, his attention having returned to the fire.

"It's not your home?": Howe questioned further. She still sat on the floor where she'd landed, too frightened of the man with the alien-sounding name to move.

"No, I keep them for when I must be overnight beyond where I can make it safely home at night." He looked over at her and grinned a little. "There is one more between here and the fortress but if the weather holds, we may not need it."

"The fortress?" she asked. He nodded once. He'd called himself Bryn Ma'ar, the Highest Hill, in her father's native tongue. She thought of the villagers' tales. "So you're the Hill-King?" Howe mentally cringed at the disbelief in her own voice.

Bryn Ma'ar bowed his head once to acknowledge the title. "I am he." He stirred the fire with a metal poker and fished out the clay lumps, allowing them to fall to the bare dirt floor. Still suspecting him of necromancy, Howe didn't dare ask what he was doing.

"I was short with you out on the trail, Princess, and for that I apologize. Surely you must not have seen the two zombies and their necromancer following us, nor the two animas just beyond the one I killed in the valley, before that. The pace I set was designed to outrun their arrows."