House of Pryce
Wil Clayton
Long Shadows on a Wide Plain series
Copyright 2015 Wil Clayton
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Chapter 1
The head of Lord Pryce sat on the ornate carving tray, his skin shrivelled and tight after an afternoon in the oven. His illustrious beard that he had oiled and dyed everyday, was now sheared and thrown to the pale. His radiant, commanding eyes replaced by handfuls of herbs and bread that had browned and hardened, forming a crisp and fragile crust inside the eye sockets. A single, fine slice separate his scalp from the rest, held in place by a delicate crown of dough that circled the top of his head.
Valtteri took his favourite hunting knife from his belt, a heavy blade, slightly curved, and perfectly balanced by its decorative stone handle. He turned its spine to scalp and tapped it, the crown of dough crumbled. The edge of the knife wiggled its way into the incision and separated the scalp from the head revealing the delicately, steamed brain within.
The dining room became filled with the scent of cinnamon, garlic and sweet flower seeds as the steam escaped from the once Lord Pryce. A few moments later, the choking fire of burning root oil took the air from the room.
Sayjin cough and spluttered from one end of the dining table and grabbed for his bronze goblet.
“Move that thing away from me, will you?” he choked, gulping at his wine.
Sayjin reached for the cane he had found in an upstairs bedroom and went to push the tray away. Valtteri grabbed the cane before it could make contact and held it tight in his grip.
“Please, friend,” laughed Valtteri, “I want us all to celebrate in this, our first meal as the new Lords of the House.”
“A fitting tribute to our ascension to the ruling class,” smiled Nerys from the other end of the dining table, sipping from her wooden goblet.
The impostors sat around their newly claimed dining table, loudly celebrating their conquest, while the last of true named Pryce hung, silent, in the meat locker beneath the manor house. Stripped, cleaned and placed on hooks, waiting to be consumed over the months to come.
The air cleared from the dining hall and Sayjin could breathe freely, again. He looked around the walls, the room was not the largest he had seen, a table that could sit eight took up half of the space, the other half was filled by a large hearth and two well crafted leather chairs. The hearth crackled and popped as it kept the slight chill of autumn from the room. Dark shadows danced across the stone walls, given strange shapes by animal heads and ornate wooden decorations that had been hung by the previous owners. Sayjin then looked at the head of the noble on the table and smile cut across his lips.
“A toast,” cheered Valtteri raising his golden chalice, “to the Lord Pryce who may never learnt to swing a sword, but tried to the noble end. ”
“To Lord Pryce,” cheered Sayjin and Nerys.
“To the Diamond Heart for leaving us this bounty in their wake,” laughed Sayjin.
“To the Diamond Heart,” cheered the others.
“And of course, to the Council,” smiled Nerys, “and their wondrously, capricious gods for bringing this madness.”
“To the Council,” the two others cheered and all drank deep from their goblets.
“Now, my blood,” said Nerys lifting her plate to Valtteri, “the feast.”
Valtteri took a serving knife and carefully split the brain into two, shared equally between Valtteri and Nerys. A leg roast from a different, far less important, Pryce was cut into thin slices, the juices flowing rich and free as the still bloody meat was placed on the plates.
Sayjin looked down at his plate of roots and leaves, which he had picked that day from the garden just beyond the windows of the dining room. He wanted to go hunting again, but woods had become a circus since the world ended. A man hunched in the bushes, slowly tracking a deer, was now likely to take a blow to the back of head from some child with a stick.
A bleat came from between Sayjin’s legs, he looked down, their sat his new ward looking up with its light brown eyes. Sayjin took a root from his plate dangled it in front of the goat and as the creature went to bite on the bulb he pulled it away. The goat stared at him and bleated again, pitifully.
“Take it,” ordered Sayjin.
“Must that thing stay inside,” sighed Nerys as Valtteri found his seat at the middle of the table.
“Sam is our guest,” said Sayjin as he placed the root in front of the of Sam again.
Sam lunged for it. This time Sayjin saw the goat move faster, at least that was what he thought.
“That’s right,” Sayjin cheered to the goat, “you must take what’s yours.”
The goat bleated again.
“You do know Sam is a female?” said Nerys.
“It’s short for Samantha,” growled Sayjin.
That morning Sayjin and Valtteri had stood in front of the animal pen, hunting knives in hand. The yard had been emptied by the previous owners, except for a lone goat. Sayjin was determined to have a fresh kill for the grand feast and the beast that sat in front of him would do nicely.
Sayjin unlatched the gate and moved towards the goat, waiting for the beast to try and escape its confines, a last desperate attempt to live another day. But, instead, the goat just stood in front of him, its eyes unfocused, munching on a mouthful of grass. It did not run for the gate, still wide open, or try to retreat to the back of the pen as the predator approached. It just sat there, dumb and unaware.
Sayjin yelled at the beast, waving his hand in the air. The goat bleated. Sayjin made himself large and intimidating, brandishing the knife at it. The goat found another mouthful of grass.
“Run,” he shouted, “bite at me. Kick me. Do something.”
“Just slit its throat,” snapped Valtteri.
Sayjin lowered himself in front of the goat, it did not move. Sayjin stood up, disgusted.
“You do it,” snapped Sayjin.
Valtteri stepped over the small fence into the pen and grabbed the goat into a lock, it started to bleat. He placed his heavy blade to it throat and stopped for a moment.
“Why doesn’t it kick?” yelled Valtteri, “goats are wild creatures that kick and bite. This one just sits there.”
“The poor thing.”
“What?”
”This one has its fight taken from it by these damn lords,” hissed Sayjin angrily and then added firmly, “what are we if we do not help?”
Valtteri put his knife to the throat the beast, not wanting any part of such nonsense.
“Stop,” yelled S
ayjin angrily and leapt at Valtteri.
Valtteri stunned by the sudden advancement, pulled back from the goat.
“When it is fair,” said Sayjin, “I will kill it and feast upon the flesh, but not til then.”
And so, Sayjin had taken in the poor creature and named it Sam. Sayjin became determined to remind the goat of what it was. It had only been a day, but he knew he was making progress when the goat had struggle to escape his arms as it was carried into the dining room.
Sayjin dangled the root in front of Sam for a third time.
“Again,” he commanded.
The goat bleated and looked away, tired of the game. Sayjin sighed and chucked the root to floor and Sam snatched it up and started to munch.
“Give me the knife,” said Nerys, “I’ll finish it off.”
“No, when the times come I will be the one to do it.”
“It’s the walls, I tell you, turns wild creatures into tamed men,” said Valtteri placing a moist piece of grey jelly into mouth, “not that I am complaining. This one is perfectly tender.”
“The masters of the house had quite the collection of spices and herbs in the cellar,” said Nerys, “we will be eating well for months.”
The mention of time brought a heavy silence across the table as the three sipped from their fine cups.
“That long, then?” asked Sayjin to the silence.
“Quiet,” snapped Nerys.
“Well, we have had one day as Lord’s of the House,” shrugged Valtteri, “I suppose, tomorrow will be two.”
The three were wanders by nature, living amongst the trees, sleeping under the stars, never staying in the same place for more then a few days, that was the life they knew and loved.
While the three had cheered their taking of the manor house as great victory, all knew the truth, silently. It was a retreat from a world that had been turned on its head. The Order of the Diamond Heart, the keepers of the god’s peace, had left their posts, retreating to the kingdom of the God’s Isle far to the west. And with them gone, the law of gods were gone as well, men were now free, after so many generations being chained to the gods.
At first, the three had ignored the affairs of the men, they had never been held by of the laws of gods as they walked the tight jungles and jagged hills of the Stormlands and the vast, open plains of the eastern kingdoms. Unfortunately, they started to find their world invaded by the newly freed men. Now that they had been released of their bonds, the men had decided to try their hand at thievery, murder and all the other sins they had been denied for so long.
It was not that the three were fearful of the newcomers, it was more that they had become exhausted. Slaying thirty men a day was amusing when the chaos had first erupted, but after several weeks of cooking pots being knocked into fires and quiet evenings interrupt by loud idiots waving knives and screaming nonsense, the three had been forced to admit defeat. The three were skilled, but the men had the endless numbers.
“For over a hundred years we’ve wandered the roads of the eastern kingdoms,” began Nerys, her red eyes focused on the candle that sat on the table in front of her, “corrupting the Lesser Men, turning them against each other for sport.”
“Nerys, the corruptor of souls, they would cry,” said Valtteri pushing his empty plate away.
“Valtteri, devourer of the innocent, they screamed as they fled,” laughed Nerys, then the laughter left her face and it became dark, “but in a few days the men of the worthless gods have caused more havoc than we have with a hundred years of hard work and effort.”
“Makes you feel small,” laughed Valtteri.
“I don’t like feeling small,” she said, softly, and then add more loudly, “I’ll eat til I feel large again.”
Nerys stood, grabbed the tray with the remaining roast and dropped it in front of her.
Nerys had the appearance of a tall, fair skinned woman with large broad shoulder that tapered down to her a narrow waist. Her hair alternated from brown to black as it tumbled down her to shoulders and onto her large breasts. She was still dressed in her travelling clothes, a simple shirt and trousers.
Her twin, Valtteri, had a form that was in complete contrast. A large, muscular man with dark brown skin, his body square, as was his face. His black hair was cut to the scalp leaving just a hint of its existence as it glistened in the light. He wore a blue cloak made of finest thread, which he had found earlier that day. The cloth pulled tight across his shoulders, barely able to fit.
Under the cloak Valtteri wore his normal travelling clothes. He had tried to find something more elegant to wear with his new cloak, but Pryce and his sons had been slender men and after tearing apart a few shirts he, reluctantly, took back his travelling clothes.
The one thing the physical appearance of Valtteri and Nerys had in common were their large, round, red eyes. The mark of the Demon blood that flowed in their veins.
Sayjin, on the other hand, had simple, dull grey eyes, a slender, athletic form with the golden skin of the Reisu, the people who called the Stormlands home. His head natural bald and had been since he was a born.
Sayjin had stumbled across the twins, several years earlier while hunting a wild cat in the southern jungles of the Stormlands. The twins had mistaken him for an easy kill and after a few, unpleasant words and unfortunate wounds to both parties the three had become good friends.
All were efficient killers, which was on full display the previous day when they had taken the fortified manor house, protected by twelve trained guards and many more untrained nobles. Sayjin had scaled the stone walls without difficulty, easily gripping the small holes in the surface, using them to propel himself up and over without aid. As he did, Nerys and Valtteri hid amongst the trees and setting loose arrows, landing shoots, cleanly, between the small gaps in the guards armour, catching them in the eyes and throat.
Once inside the wall, Sayjin cut down those that had not retreated into the house before kicking open the large wooden gate and letting his companions enter. It was not long until the halls became stained with the blood of men, women and children. Their bargains and pleas for mercy ignored as the three butchered each one.
Those that hid were rooted by Sayjin’s keen hearing. In cupboards, under beds, in crevices behind paintings. None were safe and none were spared. A few hours later, the sun had set and the manor house lay silent except for the calm, quiet footsteps of the three. The house was now theirs.
Sam butted its head against Sayjin’s hand the tip of its horn dug into his palm.
“Good,” Sayjin cheered, “you’re learning. Did you see that, Valtteri? I’ve been gored.”
Sayjin placed his plate on the floor with remains of his meal.
“A Month,” announced Valtteri.
“A Month?” asked Nerys.
“A month til I turn on both of you all out of restlessness,” Valtteri laughed, “but for now, I will go to bed.”
“Pleasant dreams, my blood,” said Nerys as she always did.
“Sleep well,” said Sayjin quietly his thoughts lost in the flames of the fire.
Valtteri left the room by the two large ornate doors, the sound of his heavy boots echoed down the hall, slowly growing fainter.
Nerys cut at the shrinking lump of meat on the plate in front of her. Sayjin sipped. The delicate, sweet taste of the fine wine danced in his mouth as his finger traced the curves of the goblet. The comfortable chair he sat on was stuffed with duck feathers and excepted his body, fully, within a gentle embrace. The fire was welcoming and his body soften as it warmth worked it ways through his muscles.
“The life of a lord is ours,” said Sayjin to the fire, a distance in his voice.
“So it is,” sighed Nerys.