The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling by Roberto Calas Page B

bought the beast for twice what she was worth and nursed her to
health. He promised himself that someday he would take her to the foot of the
Durrenian Mountains and set her free.
    The tavern was crowded, but it was
breezy compared to the Happy Pig in Kithrey. Grae was expecting three
infantrymen and two longbowmen in the tavern. But he was learning that nothing
was as he expected in this squad hand-picked by the Duke of Nuldryn. The
disaster of the Chamberlain’s choices grew worse as he met each soldier. Grae
first met a stout named Jjarnee Kruu, from Basilisk Company up in Maul Lawray.
    Stout Kruu was originally from
Hrethri, a kingdom far to the north known for bitter winters, bitter spirits,
and bitter civil wars. Kruu was tall, only a few inches shorter than Beldrun
Shanks. He wore a bulging, archaic breastplate with oversized spaulders at the
shoulders and steel greaves on his shins. The man had wavy blonde hair, a thick
soldier’s face and eyes creased by laugh lines. A ragged half-moon scar on one
of his cheeks was evidence of a day when things hadn’t been so humorous.
    Hammer assumed he was a footman
because of his armor. Infantrymen were allowed to wear plated armor if they
could afford it. But Jjarnee Kruu was no infantryman. He was an archer.
     “Gonna have an unholy time of it in
forest with that lead suit you got on,” said Hammer. “How can you fire a bow
with that armor?” Jjarnee Kruu flipped his wood-framed pack and revealed a long
crossbow strapped to the side.
    “A crossbow?” asked Hammer. “We were
told you were a longbowman. How in Blackblyth are you supposed to kill a beast
when you only got one shot?”
    Jjarnee reached down by his left
thigh and swung a smaller crossbow around. It was slung on his belt, hidden
behind a dangling war hammer. “I have second shot,” he said, smiling.
    “So what?” asked Hammer. “Two bolts
won’t bring down that creature. What are you gonna do after your second shot? 
Throw your breastplate at it?”
    Jjarnee Kruu chuckled and reached for
something hooked to the back of his belt. He held it up; an ancient, tiny
hand-crossbow made of iron. “Jjarnee always have more.” The lines bunched
deeply around his eyes as he laughed.
    A young man sat next to Jjarnee, also
from Basilisk Company. Thin and pale, with long blonde hair tied back and an
asymmetric face made for mockery. He wore the Standards’ black chain mail and a
leather coif with hanging straps. The black Basilisk badge was sewn crookedly
onto his grey tabard. Hammer studied the man’s eyes and found a lack of focus
in them, a lingering confusion that Hammer suspected was permanent.
    Next to Trudge Drissdie Hannish sat
Trudge Dathnien Faldry, a tall man with short, unevenly cropped black hair. He
was another infantryman. Silent and fidgety. He wore no badge indicating what
company he belonged with. Hammer had heard something about Trudge Faldry. The
soldier had been confined to a purificery for almost a year. It was common to
send soldiers to purificeries when they stopped thinking rationally. Surgeons
and alhumerian mages treated their afflictions there with meager results.
Hammer had never heard of a soldier coming back from a purificery. But whatever
ghoulish cleansing techniques the surgeons had employed on the man seemed to
have worked. Trudge Dathnien Faldry was quiet, polite and respectful, if a
little jumpy.
    The last infantryman was Trudge
Rundle Graen. A dour, thick-chested soldier with black hair to his shoulders
and a nose that had been broken many times. He wore a heavy beard that almost
covered a long scar running from the corner of his mouth to the top of his
cheekbone. He was from Griffin Company, far to the southwest, a company tasked
with patrolling the Durrenian Range. Rundle Graen wore his mail tight, and
blackened the metal of his sword in an homage to the hero Black Murrogar.
Trudge Graen had painted Lojen’s orange sun device across his entire sallet in
a gesture of