Kennel, Kingdom and Crown Read online

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  Markus spurred his horse forward. Yet the more the smoke thickened around them, the more the horse wrestled against his command. Gareth had been right to suspect the animals were frightened. Markus grunted as the horse reared to a stop. Mindful of his brother's injury, Markus pushed his mount no further and dismounted. Before its rider reconsidered, the horse bounded away and left Markus to rely on his own feet for further locomotion.

  The smoke soon surrounded Markus. It singed his nostrils. His eyes watered. The smoke tasted foul and bitter upon his tongue. He realized that his senses were week in comparison to Ebon's mighty war dogs, but his body nonetheless shuddered, warning that poison wafted in the smoke, that danger was indeed shrouded.

  Fallen trees and crowded stumps tripped at Markus's feet. His eyes itched and watered so that even the meager light penetrating meekly through the smoke stung in his sight. He called out for his father, but the smoke remained silent. He lost his bearings. With fear clawing at his bones, Marcus delved deeper into the smoke, his senses straining for a sign that he was not alone.

  Markus's tearing eyes squinted and saw the shape of a huntsman preparing to blare his warning horn.

  “Huntsman!” Markus shouted and coughed. “Where is my father? Where is our king?”

  The huntsman did not respond. He did not move. His horn remained silent.

  “Huntsman!” Markus felt his throat constrict.

  Markus hardly breathed as he walked to the motionless figure. Still, the huntsman did not move. Markus's face blanched as he looked upon the change that befell the huntsman. The huntsman's face and hands had turned to stone. Long hair turned into veined rock. Markus's mind choked as he looked into the gray, empty orbs that replaced the huntsman's eyes. A perfect statue stood before Markus, forever captured in that moment just before his lungs filled the horn and shouted warning to his kinsmen.

  Markus staggered and tripped upon a stump, grunting as a root dug into his back. Gareth had sensed it even before the war dogs. The smoke shrouded terror.

  Markus jumped to his feet and shuffled through the smoke, navigating between stumps and limbs. The smoke taunted him. Time and again, the smoke twisted and contorted to reveal to Markus a new form captured in stone – the huntsman who raised his ax against an invisible enemy, a soldier caught a second before his blade was pulled free of it sheath.

  Markus shouted as a hand gripped his ankle and pulled him onto the ground. Another hand pinned his face against the earth.

  “Fool boy!” Markus was thrilled to see that the face next to him was not made of stone. “You've walked too far through the smoke. Why did you not turn back? Why didn't you run away?”

  “I don't know one direction from another in the smoke,” Markus replied. The Stonebrook temper flashed in him. “Nor does a Stonebrook son abandon his father and king.”

  The huntsman sighed. “The Maker's mercy. The smoke blinds me so I did not recognize you, Markus. Stay low to the ground, son. Let the smoke cover us. Perhaps it will slink away once the flames stop burning. Maybe it will retreat back into the forest once it no longer hears axes striking its last trees.”

  Markus remained low to the ground and squinted through the smoke. “What lurks in the smoke?”

  “The basilisk.”

  Markus's mind reeled. Old hags wove fantasies about the basilisk to frighten scornful village children. A basilisk, should such a terrible creature truly exist, could not lurk in the very forest outside of the keep's walls.

  The huntsman recognized the boy's doubts. “The basilisk is real. But it's not its stare that turns you to rock. It's the basilisk's venom. It only takes a strike from its barbed tail.”

  “Where is my father?” Markus forced courage into his voice. “Where is my king?”

  “Stay down, Markus.”

  Mark swallowed to calm his heart. The smoke blinded him, but it did not choke his hearing. He heard a bark echo to his left. Concentrating he heard the low growls. The war dogs were in that smoke, snarling at danger. He heard the clatter of angry canine teeth.

  He closed his eyes to listen more closely. He heard a hissing between the barks. He heard a shuffling of scales. He heard claws scraping across trees and ground. He heard the snap of a tail. Markus held his breath as he listened to the war dogs battle the basilisk.

  And Markus heard a man's panting through the smoke. He heard a man's curses careen through the air. The basilisk had not yet turned his father and king into stone. His father fought alongside the dogs. Markus recognized the sound of his father's sword whistling through the air, of his shield clattering in combat.

  “Stay down, Markus!”

  Markus hissed at the huntsman and his eyes narrowed into slits.

  “A Stonebrook does not abandon his father and king!”

  Markus crawled through the smoke, depending on sound when his eyes swelled in the smoke. The heat intensified, and Markus broke through a wall of smoke and squinted upon a burning pyre stacked before the last grove of what had been a magnificent forest. At their king's command, the huntsmen showed no mercy to any tree, so that only the last grove remained. The basilisk had retreated into the forest until there was no place else in which to hide, and the basilisk had emerged to fight with venom and fury the men armed with axes who destroyed its home. It emerged to confront the king who piled so many trees into piles and set them to flame.

  The heat from that last pyre pushed the smoke aside and gave Markus a clear view of the combat unfolding in front of that final grove.

  Old hags did not give the basilisk justice in their frightful descriptions they provided to children. The basilisk must have stretched close to ten yards from fanged mouth to barbed tail. Golden filigree twisted along scales of a dark, emerald green. A forked tongue snapped out of the basilisk's throat as it hissed at the dogs surrounding it. Long, ivory claws gripped trees and terrain as they tore for traction in its struggle.

  Markus gasped at the wings that extended from the basilisk's horned spine. The wings were too small, too light and frail to generate any flight. The wings were still incredible, filled with golden and chromatic scales that reflected the dance of a thousand fires in their polish. The wings fluttered and beat as the basilisk struggled to face its attackers, helping the great lizard quickly find its balance after the strike of long tail or fang. Those wings whispered of times far more ancient than even the Stonebrook kings knew, when the great wyrms tread through the forests that grew before the stacking of the first stone wall, of a time when the lizard roared, when the dragon took to the sky to rule both mountain and cloud.

  The basilisk sensed the presence of another interloper. It's head swiveled towards Markus, and for an instant, the basilisk's wide, golden eyes peered into those of Markus. Markus stared back as those large orbs regarded him. He could not break his gaze from those dark, pupils that narrowed into slits during that instant they regarded one another. The basilisk could only afford to stare into Markus's eyes for a second in its combat, but in that fraction of a moment, Markus felt pierced by the creature who turned men to stone.

  Markus's mind swooned. The basilisk was terrible, but it was also great. King Harold summoned a creature more incredible than any hag or hunstman could imagine when he strove to destroy the old, blessed forest that surrounded the Stonebrook keep. Markus feared that Gareth had prophesied the truth, rather than spoken treason, when he warned father and king would pay a high cost for the burning of such a grove.

  Snapping in the air, the basilisk's tail was as terrible as its wing's were wonderful. The tail coiled and hovered between the pair of horns sprouting from the basilisk's head, close to the creature's gauging eyes, close to the front claws and close to the fangs. Sharp quills sprouted upon the tail's length, and the venom oozing from each tip glistened in the firelight. A barb shaped like an arrowhead ended the tail, twisting over the basilisk's head as the creature's golden eyes scanned its enemies. The air cracked each time the tail snapped and lunged at the dog
s biting at its scales and retreating before the barb could stab their fur. The basilisk roared and beat its thin wings in frustration as it struggled to protect its flanks from its attackers.

  Markus felt teeth grab and pull at his leg. Turning, he saw Hrothgar, the leader of Harold's war pack, tugging him away from the hissing basilisk. The dog whimpered as Markus resisted. Hrothgar snarled as the air overhead cracked and the basilisk's tail missed the mighty war dog. Hrothgar leaped back into the fray, his bite ready to shred and rip. Markus saw several of the basilisk's barbs pinned into Hrothgar's sides.

  Harold taunted the basilisk, stepping directly before the creature's tooth and tail, tempting the sharp claws. Each moment the basilisk's eyes centered upon Harold, each second its tail curled to prepare to deliver a lethal, stone-transforming strike at the Stonebrook king, a war dog jumped and bit at the basilisk's scales, thus shattering the creature's attention from Harold as its tail and claw frayed at the biting animals that so quickly darted beyond its reach.

  The basilisk's tail had not yet turned a dog to stone, but Markus saw that many in the pack suffered hurts. Many bore gashes from raking claws. Quills from the basilisk's tail sprouted from every dog's coat.

  Markus did not instantly recognize any hurt upon the basilisk. Its stone scales hardly looked hurt no matter the snapping dogs that infuriated the winged serpent. Yet when the basilisk shifted so that its golden eyes could follow Harold, Markus saw the wound upon which the dogs were focused. The pack had torn away a single scale of the basilisk's natural armor, revealing a crescent sliver of flesh that bled and oozed. The war dogs sensed the hurt and attacked the weakness. Each attack tore away a little more scale, revealed a little more flesh. The basilisk's ire mounted. Its tail thrashed with less aim, snapping wildly at the air around it, desperate to protect the hurt exploited by the quick animals falling upon it.

  Harold kept dancing before the basilisk, forcing the creature's golden eyes to return to him no matter that its defense grew so wild. The basilisk shuddered. Another dog rebounded from its hide with another segment of scale gripped within its teeth. Harold saw his opportunity to strike. Markus had never imagined his father's sword could move so quickly. There was a glimmer of silver reflected in the creature's golden eyes as the king lunged steel at the basilisk's head. In two precise thrusts, Harold's blade penetrated each of the basilisk's golden eyes. The tail lashed towards Harold, but it only grazed Harolds's shoulder. Blinded, the basilisk twisted. It hissed into the air, its tongue and tooth desperate to find something upon which to deliver vengeance.

  The war dogs gave no mercy. They fell upon the basilisk and tore away scales. Their maws dripped with blood as the pack feasted upon the soft places their instincts promised them delivered victory.

  Markus did not find the breath for a victory cry. He could still hardly believe. With a tired and anguished hiss, the basilisk collapsed upon the ground while the dogs delivered torment. The basilisk's tail went limp and fell to the ground. Markus felt for the basilisk. It had been a grand creature of legend, with wings that glistened in the fire, with golden eyes that peered into his soul.

  Thus Markus felt little glory in his heart when he walked to his panting father. The war dogs continued to feast upon the basilisk, and Markus felt a shudder rise along his spine as he watched the feeding pack.

  Harold's eyes widened in fear as Markus stood next to him.

  “How long were there, son?”

  Markus looked into his father's gray eyes. “Long enough to watch you deliver the stroke to the golden eyes.”

  King Harold frowned. “Were you touched by the basilisk?”

  “No. Its tail rushed overhead once, but nothing touched me.”

  Harold closed his eyes and prayed to the Maker.

  “Then there's hope the basilisk's venom will not shape you.”

  Markus felt his courage empty as he saw a gray pallor spread beneath his father's eyes. His lips twitched as he watched the gray spread like wrinkles across his father's brow.

  Harold grimaced as he pulled a handful of long, stiff quills from his neck.

  “Is Gareth safe?”

  “His horse threw him.” Markus stammered. “He could not ride here quickly enough.”

  Harold, feeling the basilisk's chill touch flowing through his blood, coughed a chuckle. “Thank the Maker the boy never learned how to ride. Help lower me onto the ground so I can rest, Markus.”

  Markus's narrow shoulders helped his father softly onto the ground. He saw gray tinging his father's fingers. He saw gray blotching along his arms.

  “Pick up that horn,” Harold's words slurred as his tongue stiffened. “Blow its call so that help comes. I can no longer ride.”

  Markus emptied his breath into the horn until he heard the pounding of horses through the smoke.

  King Harold's eyes smiled as, one by one, the war dogs retreated from the dead basilisk and lay down next to their king, their coats covered with the quills taken from the basilisk's striking tail.

  “They are wonderful animals,” Harold mumbled as his huntsmen prepared a litter for their king. “They were loyal to the end. They will be my guardians in the Stonebrook crypt, watching over me like stone. Such an end is not shameful for a king of the Stonebrook name.”

  Markus shook his head. “The tail did not strike you. The tail did not strike the dogs.”

  “It's no matter,” Harold sighed. “A prick of the quill is enough. My ending will only take longer. See how the dogs languish.”

  Markus cried to see the dogs stiffen until they could no longer move, until they no longer breathed, until their hearts could no longer beat against the stiffening blood. Before his eyes, those dogs of the pack, who all returned to lay next to their king, transformed to stone. They were touched by the basilisk, and so the pack was doomed.

  Harold extended his hand to his son. Markus held it, and felt its weight increase as gray continued to darken his father's skin.

  “The dogs followed their training to the end, and they saved you, Markus.” Harold's smile stretched slowly. “In the end, they took the basilisk. Such wonderful dogs.”

  Markus buried his head into his father's stiffening chest and cried. The barbed tail, the venomous quills, the sharpened tooth of the basilisk had not touched him. Yet Markus had looked into the basilisk's glowing, golden eyes. He had marveled at their reflection. Markus sobbed.

  For he knew better than his dying king and father. Markus knew the basilisk had touched him.

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