The Hound

“ Of course it does.” Kjoll responds through nearly grit teeth. “ Look at my fur. Look at how I am the closest of all to the late Zhokatsii! Oh, but an old thing like you. Perhaps your eyes are failing you.”

Confidence. Fearlessness. Misplaced, as far as Kjoll was concerned. He rises from his palanquin, for no other reason than to be near eye level with the mature buck before him. Though he is loath to admit it, he is small for a buck his age…

Denying his lineage. Calling him a pretender. The word was just one step, a stone’s throw away from another word. Another word that would’ve spelled Viilkaas’ death had he dared to say it. But today, Kjoll only desires the other bucks antlers. They are quite magnificent, he must admit.

And they’ll look even better, fastened to my throne.

“ Disobedience. Why don’t we…help this old fool to his knees? It appears time has stiffened his joints.” And addled his mind.

The Mazrats raise their weapons and a hail of bullets spray towards the buck. Most of them aim low, at Viilkaas’ legs. Kjoll isn’t a clasher, but he knows that’s where the magic happens. That’s what they value; the shape of their antlers, the strength in their legs–

So that’s what he would take away.

Viilkaas waits for the inevitable. He hears the first burst of gunfire, feels the familiar, molten-hot pain stabbing into his flesh, again and again – and again. His proves a gradual fall; a mighty tree worried by the insignificant mouths of termites.  The old soldier is accustomed to pain. He is intimate with it, knows the contours of the sensation and understands how to disguise it, and so disguise it he does. His countenance remains infuriatingly austere and even as he falls, even as his first knee meets the ground, his attention remains on Kjoll – unwavering, resolute, defiant. Those silver eyes burn into the bastard, and they silently offer a singular truth; The old soldier is on his knees, but he is not kneeling. There comes a crack in his stony visage, the briefest flash of pain as the weight of his massive body settles upon his ruined knees. Quicksilver blood pools around him; the smell of it is heavy in the air. Viilkaas can taste the warmth of it at the back of his tongue and feel the way it rattles within his chest, his lungs punctured by stray ammunition. Through it all, he keeps his gaze held fast onto Kjoll. If the pretender counts this among one of his victories, Viilkaas will strive to ensure it remains an empty one.

Kjoll sees him. Him and his entourage. The Mazrats, dressed to the nines in their spacesuits, respond before Kjoll even lifts a finger. A symphony of clicks and whirs go up– weapons readying, suggestive of violence.

Viilkaas is a master of his anger, but Kjoll is no such thing. His face twists, his cool expression turning into an equally cool grin. But it’s a mask; his raised hackles tell quite a different story. How dare this little thing, this little nobody from a nothing house threaten him? Royal blooded him?

“ Take one step and my mazzies will turn you into a stain, oldhorn.” A pause. “ Apologize. Or I’ll order them to gun you down anyway. Get on your knees and say you’re sorry.”

On your knees, where you belong, mangy cur.

The minions scurry, they rally around their master like the trained hounds they are. Viilkaas remains –

Unperturbed.

He holds to his stance, straight-backed and proud, like the Caaliburns before him. If he must be gunned down by an unhinged bastard claiming holy lineage, then he will meet that fate unbowed.

The old soldier cants his head to the side, peering down at Kjoll as if the royal bastard, as he had so delicately put it, was the insect.

“Holy Hifrandius’ blood runs through your veins.” The statement is laden with disbelief. Viilkaas draws his eyes over the young Margaven as if searching for something. That search is met with no fruition. “I see no evidence of her lineage in you, boy.”

His jowls pull back to reveal a grim, sharp smirk. “And when you have your dogs gun me down?” He scoffs, instilling that single noise with an endless wealth of disdain. “All the more proof that you are nothing more than a pretender.”

He will not apologize. He will not beg. He will not drop to his knees – not for Kjoll.

Not for a pretender.

“Come then, boy. Prove me right.”

Caaliburn. 

The name sounded familiar. Rriimsi might’ve mentioned it a few times during the upbringing of the brothers. Minor nobles, it sounded like, but Kjoll couldn’t be sure.

“Caaliburn? Are you sure?” His question is designed to provoke. Of course the old margaven would be sure of his own lineage, if he was a royal.

“ I was almost certain I was looking at a Tikkan. After all, all the other houses are extinct.”

His eyes flash wide then narrow. There is a heat now lurking there within his gaze, a silent promise of violence punctuated by the way the muscles within his cheeks flinch as he clenches his jaw. There is no raucous burst of rage. No, this old Margaven has mastered his anger. It is a beast collared and leashed, trained to attack only when and where commanded. He allows his anger to lurk along the perimeter within full, open view. Such a slight cannot go unaddressed. 

“ Quite the contrary. It is quite satisfying putting insects in their place.”

Kjoll squints, further when their eyes lock. He’s indignant, but there’s curiosity twinkling there too… About several things. He eyes Vilkaas’ fur.

“…Which family did you say you were from, greyhorn?”

Insects. Were he younger, Viilkaas might have risen to the bait. He will not give the young royal the satisfaction of witnessing such an occasion. The question of his lineage is posed. Something shifts. Viilkaas schools his expression into an inscrutable and austere mask.  “Caaliburn,”  he offers. One word. Three syllables. Nothing more and nothing less.

A man sits on a porch’s wooden steps. It’s cold outside, especially now during the early morning hours. Sunlight has just begun to crest the horizon, granting the tree line a gentle halo. The light marks another rotation, another day on the planet called Earth. There was a question weighing on the man’s mind, casting his admittedly austere face into more severe territory: How many more days were left, that human eyes might witness them?