Lord of Beasts

Chapter 1

Toromont

         Paulus cut the air with a sharp down stroke of his stick close to Darstan’s ear.  Darstan met the blow, slipped to the right and ducking under the two locked poles flicked his wrist to bring his own stick neatly around his head and against his foe’s neck, stopping short of impact.  “Yield, good ser you have been fairly matched and beaten,” Darstan gloated.
           “I shit in the milk! Fairly beaten? Give me a bull-lance or bull-hammer, I’ll tear your innards out and crush that smile of yours into the back of your skull.” Paulus threw the stick to the side and slumped down on the patchy grass and rolled ungracefully to reach for a flagon of firemilk. He took a large swill and sighed as some of the fermented mixture dripped from his chin. “Drink some firemilk, you quick bastar…” He cut himself off, “I didn’t mean to call you a bastard Dar, was just spitting my words as normal,” Darstan sat next to him and stared at the great valley plains before them.
           “I know you didn’t, don’t worry about it.  It’s true!” he smiled and took the flagon of firemilk and gulped some down. “Pfff, what is that, by the Lord of Beasts it tastes like cow shit and swamp water.”
           “Ha, that’s a vintage Dar, I stole it from the cookmaster’s cellar.  You mightn’t know who your parents are but I’ll tell you one thing, you ain’t no Horn Lord’s son. Ha!”


           They drank the rest of the flagon and feasted on cold meat pies, hard cheeses and cured meat strips, smoked with Tendrock wood, dipped in plains honey and powdered with needle chilies, famed for their intense heat and the great delicacy required in picking them.  Many a cook’s boy had lost a finger to the needle chili, a swipe of a hand across a cooks counter and a chili would pierce deep into flesh, where it would burn with such intensity that most chose to lose a finger to the cook’s cleaver rather than bear the pain.


           Darstan lay in the afternoon sun, sweat glistening on his forehead and the sour taste of firemilk in his mouth.  He knew Paulus would become a man of the herd in two night’s time in the branding ceremony, he also knew he would never perform the ancient act.  The branding was reserved for legitimate sons of Hornmen and although he had done much of the same training as Paulus, he would never consecrate the final bond between beast, tribe and herd.  He was a skilled handler of the bulls and he rode as well as the next Hornman but he had never life-bonded with one beast alone.  Paulus had life-bonded aged just three with a small calf - Quelan. A bull that now stood second in stature only to his father’s war bull Quelon with still a year left to mature.


           “Being my second, you better have a couple of them big teeted milk girls lined up for me Dar,” Paulus grinned, “None of them skinny types you’re always gawking at!” Darstan continued to stare into the blue sky, a few wisps of cloud beginning to appear.
           “Two milk girls you want, when you haven’t even had one yet?” Darstan saw the shadow of the empty flagon too late, it caught him below the eye with a thump as he rolled to avoid it.  Paulus stood and dusted himself off laughing heartily at the sight of Darstan’s face and his marked cheek.
           “Quick Dar, but not quick enough, Ha! Come on, the evening storms are brewing let’s get back to Toromont.” Darstan, rubbing his cheek where the clay flagon had caught him unawares stood and stretched.  The breeze had picked up and in the distance the dark clouds of the evening storms were funneling their way between the mountains toward them, their faint flashes and rumblings belying their true force.  The plains valley was no place to be in the evening of summer, with no cover and no trees, or buildings the great forks of lightning had ended many an unlucky or foolish man’s life.


           Paulus made the quiriquai call to Querlan and another smaller bull feeding in the distance.  The two animals made their way to the boys, one soon to be Hornman and Darstan.  Mounted, the riders kicked hard into the sides of the beasts and they hammered the plains with their hooves, heads down and grunting. 


           The bulls of the Hornmen were bred for thousands of years to be long of leg and strong in stamina, they were powerful beasts with thick, muscled necks and a headstrong bravery that had sent many a horse army reeling in the wake of their charge.  The Hornmen learned to ride bull calves before they could walk and aged five began to practice with small wooden bull-lances and bull-hammers.  Famed for their strength, appetite, and quantities of drink consumed, they were a quick tempered people, equally at home in a brawl or a battle. Darstan was never, and would never be one of them.
           The two boys arrived in Toromont as the first rains of evening began to fall on the baked grass, the dry earth soaking the water like a sponge, it would not be long before the land had quenched its thirst and the parched, grassy plains would be puddled and sodden.  Toromont was built upon a giant knoll, encircled by an outer wall thirty feet high with four giant iron gates at each compass point.  Within this wall was another wall, higher at sixty feet with four more gates, each one positioned between two of the Great Gates.  Armies that broke through the first defense would find themselves on the death ground, trapped between the two walls.  The Hornmen would send their bull cavalry through two of the inner gates to meet the invaders, crushing them between the charging forces.
           It had been two hundred years since the Great Gates had been closed and an army had attempted to subdue the Hornmen.  Paulus’ ancestor Gethrin Toromund Lord of the Horns, had united the horn tribes five thousand years before and had built Toromont.  He was first to bring the tribes of the Tuskmen, the Long Horns and his own, the Short Horns under the banner of the Hornmen as one. His own tribe the Short Horns settled in Toromont on the Eastern plains of Caliae, whilst the Tuskmen lived further to the East and the Long Horns to the North. 
           The position of Toromont had been chosen for its location at the end of the narrowing plains valley, wedged between the two massive lines of mountains, the Great Ridge Mountains.  The rich, fertile grasses kept their animals well fed and strong, whilst the evening storms of summer provided natural protection against the burning of their vital crop by nature or foe.  In the autumn the Hornmen would herd the bulls into a continuous line that stretched far enough for each flank to touch the rising slopes of the Great Ridge Mountains on both sides.  The immense harvest scythes were attached to each bull’s harness, ten bulls to every scythe and they would make the slow harvest walk along the entire length of the valley.  The cows would follow behind with carts that women and children would fill with fresh cut grass, whilst their men toiled with the scythes being dragged through tough pasturage.  When they were done they would feast on beef, scented with spices and simmered slowly with barley flour, cow’s blood and firemilk until the meat had softened and a rich, black gravy enveloped it.  This was washed down with barrels of hot bloodwine and flagons of pungent firemilk.
Below Toromont was the largest larder in Caliae, the Grasstore. It ran three thousand feet down from the main keep and stretched out three thousand feet on each side.  It formed a honeycomb network of store rooms for the staple grasses and other foods.  Access to the Grasstore was controlled by the Master of Plains who knew the location of each store and what it contained.  It stored enough hay and grass to feed twenty thousand head of cattle for three years in the event of a siege and yet had remained near empty beyond living memory. When last full, five hundred years before, it could maintain twenty thousand head of beast and their masters for a decade or more.
           Toromont itself was large enough to hold ten thousand head of bull and ten thousand more of cow, though the enduring peace had seen those numbers dwindle to just three thousand of each.  The cows were used for food, firemilk, bloodwine and the prime stock for birthing the famed war bulls of the Hornmen.  The smaller bulls, known as the lesser beasts, not suitable for war, would be killed for feasts, or used for labor. Many were used to turn the great water wheels that pumped the Hornmen’s water from an ancient well at the foot of the Grasstore, providing water for them since Largunus Torbalt had extended the Grasstore to its current depth.   
           Darstan rode the small bull through the inner gate between the Eastern and the Southern Great Gates, it was raining much heavier now and the ground was starting to give under the hooves of his bull.  He gave the animal to one of the young lads charged with the feeding and cleaning of the lesser beasts and made his way towards the Golden Ox tavern.  He had learnt not to name the lesser bulls he rode, they were likely going to be killed and eaten come the autumn and he didn’t enjoy the thought of feasting on a beast he had ridden and named.  Paulus had left him at the inner gate and made his way to see his father, Lord Toroston, about his branding along with the other boys due their right of passage.  He arrived at the tavern door and a milk girl smiled at him, tugging at the muddy dress around her bosom. “You must be close to your branding boy, ya know they say it’s bad luck for a bull to be branded before he’s mounted a cow,” she smiled enticingly and tugged her dress until her nipple was almost in view.
           “I’m not going to be branded,” Darstan said “I’m not a Hornman and never will be,” he smiled gently.
           “Aww you poor thing, well give me a silver and I’ll see if I can’t grow a horn on ya,” she laughed, it was infectious and despite the rain Darstan smiled back and threw a copper to her.
           “Get yourself a drink Macy,” he walked into the tavern. 

         The atmosphere of the tavern was thick and smoky.  The grass bricks smoldered, struggling to ignite a flame in the damp air as Darstan made his way to the serving plank. He sat on a stool away from the benches filled with tradesmen and workers sheltering from the evening rains and deep in their cups.  “I’ll have a pint of barley malt, when you can,” he said to Talindra.
           “Not a heavy storm tonight Dar, always means the next one’ll be a big’un,” Talindra said, pouring the malted beer from a Tendrock cask lined with leather.  “Be a big storm for the branding.  Some say it’s a bad sign to ‘ave a branding in a big’un, but it’ll put a few silvers in my purse with the extra custom the heavy rains ‘ill bring.” She smiled and placed the mug of beer in front of Darstan, some spilling on the wooden plank playing the part of a counter, warped from years of drink soaking its grain.  “It’s probably drank more than every customer in here,” Darstan thought as he took a long draught of the malt liquid. Talindra looked at him with a motherly cock of the head, “You hungry, I’ve got some fresh mole pie I baked earlier?”
           “That would be nice,” Darstan said.  Talindra slipped through a door between the Tendrock barrels and returned with a gold crusted pie. “It’s cooler now, but at least it won’t burn ya.”  Darstan took a bite savored the congealed, lukewarm gravy and took another long drink of his beer.
           
         A man dressed in Northern attire approached the counter close to where Darstan was sitting.  He took off his feathered coat and laid it on a stool a place over from where Darstan sat. “Do you have any Cleargrain?”
           “Rotgut you mean?”  Talindra asked him in her usual jovial manner.
           “I do believe it goes by that name as well.” The man said sitting down.
           “Well I do believe we have some then,” Talindra imitated the man, a playful glint in her eye.  She reached to a shelf above the counter, fumbled and then took an old dusty bottle. “Don’t get many orders for Rotgut in these parts, where you coming from?” She asked as she struggled with the cork.
           “I’m from the North, Stalton to be precise, heading out West.” He said watching her pour the clear liquid into a small goblet.  “That’s enough,” he smiled.
           “What you doing out East, if you’re off heading West,” Talindra asked, handing him the cup. Darstan drank from his own tankard intrigued by this foreigner.
           “I have some business here to complete and some more along the narrow pass of the Karstane Mountains.” He raised his cup and emptied the Cleargrain in one sup.  Sighing he raised it in the direction of Talindra “Another if you please?”
           “You need to watch that,” she said pouring another portion, “I’ve seen Hornmen lose their mind drinking Rotgut and they’s the sort that can sink a barrel of firemilk in their guts.” He drank the goblet in one and raised the cup again smiling.
           “Well I’ll leave the bottle here for you, you just pay me when you’re done.” Talindra said, a hint of worry etched on her face.  She turned and mumbled to herself.
           The man poured two more goblets full and drank both before turning to Darstan.  "How rude of me not to offer a fellow traveler a drink,” he offered the bottle in Darstan’s direction.
           “I’m not a traveler,” Darstan said as he raised his hand to reject the offer.
           “Do forgive me, I mistook you for a traveler, you don’t appear to be from the same, how should I say?  Bloodstock of the Hornmen,” He smiled and poured another Cleargrain for himself.
           “I’m not.  I’m a ward of Lord Toroston.” Darstan felt cautious.  There was something disconcerting in the way this man was viewing him.  Darstan looked at him, surprised at the age the man’s face revealed.  He had taken him for a younger man when he first entered, but now, in the light of the fire, at last alight, he could see the lines of life etched upon his skin.  The man stared at him with green eyes, paled to a grey whisper of their former color.
           “So you are not to be branded with the other boys of the herd tomorrow night?” The man stated it as fact, he was not asking.
           “No I won’t, I‘m to be Second to Paulus Toroston, Lord Toroston’s son and heir,” The man’s lips hinted at a smile as he raised his goblet and drank deeply.
           “Second you say.  But what will you be First at?” He looked in Darstan’s eyes and stared deeply, looking through Darstan with a vacant, pensive expression.
           “It is a great honor to Second the heir to the Lord of Horns,” Darstan defended himself, uncomfortable at the questioning.
           “True honor can only be had by a First, it is the honor of a lord that leads others to honor, that is why we honor them.  Your honor is nothing but the honor of your lord.  You will find no honor in the mind of another, it is a malleable word, a falsity of man, a charlatan in the ether of Seconds and those that toil below them.  Honor can only be had through one’s own pursuit and yet one’s own pursuit must be relinquished in place of another’s honor.  Do not speak to me of honor, I have seen men of honor vicious in its application, ruthless in its display and reckless in its beliefs.  If you wish to be honorable first honor yourself and your heritage.” He drank again.
           “Who are you?” Darstan said, anger curdling in his throat. 
           “I am a traveler in foreign lands.” The man replied.
           “What is your name traveler?” Darstan said straining to control his anger.   
           “My name? My name is Galcon.”
           “Do not question my honor and my heritage.  What do you know of my heritage?” Darstan shouted as he rose from his stool.  Talindra waddled over a calm expression on her face, she had seen many men in their cups and its consequences.
           “What’s going on here boys? Calm yourselves down it’s just the drink puttin’ that fire in ya bellies.” She said taking the bottle of Cleargrain from the counter.
           “This old fool is questioning my honor and my heritage.” Darstan growled.
           “Come now, I’m sure he didn’t know he was offendin’ ya Dar? Probably just had too much Rotgut, let’s have none of this bravado from both of you’s” Talindra said resting a pudgy hand on Darstan’s arm.  “Don’t make me ask you to leave.”
           “On the contrary madam, I know exactly who this boy is and exactly what he is not.  But I shall be leaving your lovely establishment shortly, I have some business to attend to, thank you for your hospitality.” He smiled at Talindra.  “I apologize if I have wronged you ser, perhaps we will meet again under more favorable circumstance.” He smiled, stood, put his coat over his shoulders, left some coins on the counter and walked to the tavern’s entrance.  He turned, looked at Darstan and said: “I don’t just know who you are, I know your heritage too,” he smiled and walked through the door.  Darstan enraged at this passing gesture stumbled as he charged for the door.  He burst out of the tavern into the lashing rain, his feet slipping in wet mud.  It was dark except for the flashes of lightning, the heavy rain and thunder rolled into a thick barrage of sound.  Galcon was nowhere to be seen.