The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling Read Free Page A

scowling. No one admitted to it, so he spun the mare back again and
waited for the signal.
    “We’ll show them pigs,” whispered Braxley
Horner. “They’ll think Lojen hisself is coming down on them.”
    Grae gave him a long stare. Braxley
had been promoted to the rank of hammer two weeks earlier and Grae still
couldn’t understand why. Braxley smiled. It was like an ancient, rotted boardwalk
between those lips. Grae shuddered and turned away.
    An arrow, its tip alight, arched down
the hill and fell five paces from the horsemen. The men scattered, then reined
their horses and tried to stifle their laughter.
    “Lojen’s Heart!” Grae whispered loudly.
“They shot it right at us!”
    “Wanted ‘a make sure we could see it,
I s’pose,” Braxley replied.
    Grae silenced him with a stare then
raised his hand without looking back at the men. The arrow meant that the other
soldiers were in position. He called to Hammer Braxley: “Put out that arrow
before the hillside goes up.” Grae swung his arm forward and sent his garron
into a charge up the slope. The rest of the men followed, save Braxley who
dismounted and stomped on the flaming arrow.
    The men crested the hill and
thundered into the grassy bowl below. There were perhaps seventy-five of them
milling upon the plain. Grae and his squad were a hundred yards away before the
first of them looked up. A shriek tore through the morning air, then they were
running, fleeing the rumbling death that approached from the east. Grae watched
them run.
    A hundred squealing orchard pigs –
Old Spots they were called. Their hooves left divots in the damp soil.
    Underlord Harryn Felch had given Grae
the orders himself. The underlord understood the insulting nature of the
assignment. Had laughed good-naturedly as he explained the problem. “The
quartermen had a byre go up in the storm two nights ago, Grae. Lightning. A
stableman opened the door. Saved most of the drove, but the pigs kept running.
They never stopped running. Those Old Spots out there represent a fair
investment.” He had sipped at his ale and smiled. “Lot of bacon on those
plains.”
    Felch had bought dinner and left
enough coin to cover Grae’s drinks for a week. Felch was a good commander. But
it was obvious why they had chosen Grae for the assignment. Why they chose Grae
for all the sour assignments. Grae’s father had been a hammer in the Standards.
Not a burgher or nobleman or even a landowner. Just a hammer.
    On the plain, three soldiers leaped
from behind a line of low shrubs northwest of the pigs and shouted, smacked
swords together and ran at them. The herd turned to the south so quickly that
several of the pigs went down and were bruised by the hooves of their companions.
    The horsemen drove the pigs toward a
rudimentary pen Grae had helped the men build. Soldiers rose from the grass to
keep the herd on course. The pigs were funneled into the pen by scarecrows --
converging rows of breastplates with helmets balanced on them. A group of the
animals broke away at the last moment and escaped the trap, but a soldier swung
the crude gate closed locking the bulk of the pigs inside.
    Grae ordered his riders to chase the
stragglers. Each man held a wooden shaft with a loop of rope on the end instead
of a spearhead. Grae watched as the men ran down the stray pigs then he
searched the meadow, holding his own rope-looped shaft.
    He found her to the north. Three
hundred pounds of spotted ham. She was the largest of the drove and he was in
full charge before the pig saw him. She bolted, running much faster than a
three-hundred-pound sow had any right to. Grae dropped the loop toward her head
four times before he finally snared her. He reined in and yanked, hearing her
grating squeals, feeling the enormous pull of her weight. She tried to keep
running and he tried to pull her back and the rope couldn’t take the strain.
One end of the loop snapped and she ran free with a shriek
    Grae cursed and gave chase. When