The Beast Sinister - Part #1
Gerald Ryan
Issue #2 (April 2008)
The light of the two moons waned. Dawn was not far away. If Briok didn’t hurry to the shelter of his lair, the rays of the two suns would fix him in this bestial state forever.
The cave he called home during the Season of Change was in the gully below. So were his hunters. These newcomers refused to understand that he was not some abomination to be hunted down and killed; that beneath his bestial form, he was as human as they.
During the Season of Change, he and other Oustlander youths roamed the
He worked his way down the side of the ravine, his animal awareness sharp and alert. He sensed someone off to his right and raised his snout into the wind. The scent was that of his brother, Enlil. It frightened Briok. Enlil didn’t usually hunt this section of the mountains. He heard a snap of twigs and then a howl. He ran silently toward the sound of men’s voices.
In a clearing, a group of newcomers stood with their pikes and axes at the ready. Suspended in the air, Enlil struggled in a net and growled at the Goodmen hunters who prodded him with their weapons. At the command of their leader, the hunters lowered their prey and staked him to the ground.
Briok saw the glint of an axe and Enlil’s growls were cut short. A hunter raised the severed head of his brother high into the air, blood dripping and tendons hanging from a hairy neck. The Goodmen raised their voices and cheered. Briok howled in rage and sorrow.
The hunters turned as one toward the sound. Unless he wished to end as Enlil had, he must elude these men quickly. Branches whipped at him as he ran through the forest toward the safety of his den. The leaves on the trees began to show color and shadows grew from their trunks. Briok ran more upright as some of his bestial form dropped away from him with the coming of the dawn. If only he could reach the safety of his lair.
Ahead of him, a party of beaters appeared, smashing at the trees and undergrowth with long sticks, driving animals large and small before them. Briok spotted the branch-covered stream that ran past the beaters. He leaped from the rocks that lined the banks and into the water before the hunters could turn and follow.
Downstream, he pulled himself out of the water and ran toward his den and safety. The rocky cliffside around him grew brighter. There was the opening to his cave. He had only a small distance to cover and he would be safe. He came even with the mouth of den and felt the hair on his back grow suddenly warm. His shadow stood sharp and defined on the rocks as the light of the two suns fell full upon him. Other shadows appeared on the cliff next to his lair. Goodmen! He heard the whir of the axe blade.
Briok howled in anger. The last sound he would ever make.
The light of the two suns blinded me as I left the stable. Helios and Clarus cast their shadows in the curious shifting dance that occurred when one sun was not eclipsed by the other. I walked down toward the docks of Ennis through the market quarter and paused to greet dark haired and swarthy Oustlander merchants, inquiring after their families and the bounty of this season’s harvest. I touched the arm or a shoulder of the merchants I met on the street and conversed with them in the fashion my father had taught me.
I heard the occasional gasp of a newly arrived Goodman elder from across the street, openly appalled at the sight of me touching others in such a casual manner, a familiarity that spoke volumes at how far the House of Jeroch had fallen from orthodox Goodman practice.
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