Jeff Crook - The Rose and the Skull

"You chose me, my lord?" Liam asked.

"Of course, the Measure prescribes that a vote be taken to determine the next Grand Master, but as my wishes have been explicitly stated in my will, I doubt anyone will challenge you," Gunthar said.

"You do me too much honor, my lord," Liam said as he bowed. He opened the door, then turned to face Gunthar. "Speaking of the Measure, how is your work progressing?"

"Almost finished," Gunthar said, smiling hugely. "Just need to tighten things up a bit, a snip here, a cut there, for clarity's sake."

Liam sighed, his mind wracked with doubt, but he said, "Very good, my lord. Well, good night."

"Good night, Liam," Gunthar answered. "Pleasant dreams."

With a frown, Liam closed the door and leaned his head against the wooden frame, his emotions torn between loyalty to his lord and duty to the Knighthood.

From beyond the door, he heard Gunthar close the window, then ease himself into one of the chairs.

The Measure doesn't provide for his removal from office, and he won't listen to reason. But if something isn't done soon, he'll lead the Knighthood into ruin, Liam thought.

"Fizban!" Gunthar shouted inside the room.

During the week between their arrival and the day of the hunt, the Knights of Takhisis spent the time gingerly getting to know their Solamnic counterparts. They shared quarters and messes and turns about the watch. On the third day, a contingent of both Knights rode out to inspect several nearby castles, including Castle Kalstan, where Sir Liam Ehrling made his home when not attending Lord Gunthar. Gunthar could not help but notice Liam's scowl as his one time enemies tramped the grounds of his beloved castle, inspecting it approvingly.

Two Knights of Takhisis were sent to Xenos to invest the castle there and to prepare for Lord Tohr's eventual arrival. Xenos was to be handed over to Tohr as the base of his operations.

Nevertheless, aloofness remained between the once opposing orders. Gunthar and Tohr were always close by, defusing short tempers. The boar hunt would be the first true test of the Knights' unity.

The morning of the hunt rose gray and cold with the first breath of winter. A deep icy mist lay over Castle uth Wistan, shrouding its topmost towers and transforming the great trees of the surrounding forest into shadowy wraiths of giants. Water dripping from the eaves of the castle formed pools in the cobblestone stable yard where squires and horses waited, stamping their feet in the cold. The smoke of their breath wreathed the horses' heads, their harnesses jingling in the still air whenever they moved. The hounds, crowded in the door of the kennels, sat shivering with their gully dwarves, licking their wet noses, and yawning sleepily. Garr stood aloof from them all, a simple leash of well-chewed leather dangling from his great neck, his iron-gray chin whiskers sparkling with condensed mist. Uhoh scratched his cap and chewed the tip of his beard. A rooster crowed halfheartedly.

All the outer courtyard had already filled with people from the surrounding countryside-peasants, craftsmen, farmers, and merchants. Visitors had arrived from outlying cities and villages, from Garnet and Knas, Markennan and Gavin. They came in carriages, on horseback, and by foot, and they quickly filled the courtyard, spilling over into the open spaces between the castle and the forest. Some erected multicolored tents to shelter the wares they hoped to sell. Many came to watch the hunt, to see the Knights ride out with their hounds and their spears in all their pomp and glory, but most came to get a glimpse of the mysterious Knights of Takhisis so recently come to their island stronghold. Although it was a festive occasion, with jugglers and performers and street magicians entertaining the crowds atop hastily built stages, and merchants in their stalls hawking everything from buttons to barrels of wine, the cold and misty morning dampened all sound, while the chill fog subdued the mood of many a fair-goer. Jugglers dropped their batons and pins, troubadours forgot entire verses of even the best-known ballads, while the hawkers' cries were less than enthusiastic. Most people shook their heads in dismay, or made surreptitious signs to ward away evil.

No one really expected the infamous boar, Mannjaeger, to be killed this day. Mannjaeger wasn't flesh and blood. Weapons of iron, wood, or steel couldn't harm him. Most people native to Sancrist firmly believed the boar was an evil spirit left over from the Age of Dreams. Certainly, tales of his destructive ways stretched back into legend. Just as the hills had always been here, so had Mannjaeger. Huge he was, a giant among boars, the evil ruler of all lesser boars, the stories said, standing fully as tall as the tallest horse, his great black, razorhaired back humped like the hump of a whale, his hairless haunches crawling with ticks and bearing the scars of enough spear thrusts to fell a dragon. His ivory tusks, it was said, were each fully a yard in length, dusky twin scimitars able to shear through even the mountainforged links of dwarven mail. Some stories said his hot breath turned flesh to stone, while others held that it was the hate-filled glare of his baleful red eyes that froze men's blood and turned the bravest boar hound into a whimpering cur. Arrows turned to smoking ash upon striking him, and his hooves struck sparks wherever he stepped, lighting the fires that set fire to farmers' fields and barns.

Many were they who'd tried their luck and their courage against the terror of Mannjaeger. It was even said that Vinus Solamnus had hunted him in his time, without success. But perhaps Mannjaeger's most famous victim was Lord Gunthar uth Wistan's grandfather, old Seigfreid uth Wistan. One warm summer's day, whilst berry picking with his grandchildren, the elder lord of Castle uth Wistan surprised the boar in a thicket of whortleberry. Unarmed, he fought gamely to save the lives of his grandchildren, and paid with his life while they escaped.

Lord Gunthar was remembering his ancestor as he made his way to the stable yard, last in a long orderly procession of strangely subdued Knights of Takhisis and Solamnia. Like those already outside, the chill and foggy weather had affected the spirits of the Knights as well. They seemed introspective as they remembered the legends and myths surrounding the creature they were about to hunt. Not that they were afraid, for most of them had faced monsters equally fearsome. No, more than anything else the timing of the hunt felt wrong. It seemed hurried and ill-planned, and the bad weather only helped to strengthen their feelings that the hunt should be postponed. Gunthar's greatest worry was that the icy weather would prevent his hounds from scenting the boar's trail, but he was determined to go ahead with the hunt. His Knights needed saddle time with their new comrades in arms.

As they neared the door to the stable yard, a trumpet blared from a tower overhead. As if in answer to the fanfare of horns, the mist began to lift, unveiling banners with kingfishers, swords, and roses on fields of argent and blue hanging majestically from the towers. But for the first time, as a sign of the change, pennons of black and red also hung between those of blue, with images of skulls and lilies and wreathes of thorns emblazoned in gold upon them. At the sound of the trumpet, the Knights of both orders exited the castle, filing into the stable yard where their horses waited.

As Lord Gunthar stepped out into the gray dawn, the other Knights were mounting their horses and awaiting his arrival. Lord Tohr Malen sat astride a magnificent black stallion given him by his host for the occasion, while Gunthar's trusted retainer, Fawkes, held the bridle of Gunthar's own steed, Traveler-a dapple gray. Sir Liam clambered into the saddle of his great horse-a bay gelding-and sat hunched with a dark cloak gripped tightly around his body and the hood pulled low over his face against the cold. His breath, floating in smoky clouds from the hood, gave him a sorcerous appearance. Gunthar felt more than saw Liam's eyes staring out from that cowl. The past week had not been easy for Gunthar, watching his favorite student and chosen successor sulk and mope about the halls of the castle, a veritable harbinger of gloom. Well, Liam was just going to have to accept that this was the way things had to be, that was all. Gunthar slapped his heavy leather gauntlets against his thigh and descended the short stair to the cobblestones below.