This is the twenty-eighth chapter of the Fang & Bone serial; click here to visit the previous installment of Fang of Triseria. Please share your thoughts on the story in the comments, or visit the project hub for more information.
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Previously on Fang & Bone, Garen had uncovered a series of tunnels radiating out from Old Gordhurst and discovered the plans of the Necromancer. A mysterious encounter with old magic steels his resolve, and he turns back to Old Gordhurst to do something, though he doesn’t know what yet.
Mulluck Eghart never had a chance. At every angle I have explored his life, I could see no alternative – no point of divergence in which his life could turn out for the better. Perhaps Eghart was born with a potential for kindness I am not aware of, but circumstances quickly saw to it that he would never manifest a quality for “good.”
He did get close, once.
I am not permitted to interfere. His cruelties must exist and must play out the way they do. But it will never sit right with me that this must be the case. Of the sad lives I’ve been asked to observe and record, this is the one where I wish I could do something about.
This is not meant to provide empathy for the man, but rather to understand where he came from.
– EC
…
It was early afternoon when Mulluck Eghart started his hunt. Eghart had fought his way through the riot and broken many noses carrying the mayor back to his home. The mayor had kicked and screamed at him, but Eghart didn’t feel the pounding of the fists or the pointed toes of worn boots beyond a numb sensation that he always felt.
Well, not always.
He’d left the mayor inside and boarded up the broken window as best he could, telling him not to leave the room. At this point, Eghart’s role as bodyguard was over until the Barber and the Wolf were dead and the girl had been recovered.
Tensions in the town were still high, and the crowd frothed in rage, as Eghart emerged from the Mayor’s home. With his silvered knuckledusters on display, the rioters gave him a wide berth. Selwick and Ewan, Eghart’s most trusted guards, were still trying to hold off the surge of townies who were after the Mayor. As Eghart cleared the steps to the raised walk around the manor, a young man, maybe all of fourteen or fifteen, slipped Ewan’s grasp and darted past, up the steps. He was quick, but Eghart was quicker and grabbed the man by the neck just as he cleared the final step. Eghart hurled the man into the crowd with a sudden snap, bowling over three people, including Ewan.
Eghart was quick to bellow out that if he found the Mayor harmed, the village would pay in blood and teeth. He dragged Ewan up by the crook of his arm and shoved him toward the rear of the home, ordering him to guard the back door. Selwick, the smarter one, had already moved toward the steps. He positioned himself in front of the door.
Eghart glared at the sea of people beneath him and pressed his way through the crowd, seeing them part. In a few moments he made his way to the north road out of New Gordhurst.
…
The baby was the color of a ghost and tremendous; a hideous lump of folds and chub spilling out of the midwife’s arms. Its mother had nearly died from exhaustion bringing it into the world, and she lay panting in the bed, soaked in sweat and her own blood – her womanhood torn from the emergence. The midwife approached the father, holding the quivering mass, still slick and bloodied, and asked him if he wished to keep the pale thing.
In more primitive times, the newborn would have been dashed upon a rock or thrown into the sea. The father was made for those times, and saw the thing before him, willing to embrace the tradition until the mother, delirious in pain and exhaustion, pleaded for it.
The father left the home in silence as the other three children looked on, eyes glassy and hollow, uneasy at the size of this fat and blood-slick ghost.
Mulluck Eghart would live, and the world of Aurin would be all the worse for it. His mother would die the next day; the cost of his passage was too great.
…
The first thing Mulluck remembered from his youth that truly stuck with him was his father’s anger. He could never remember why his father was angry and why the hitting started. Mulluck was sure it wasn’t even the first time this had happened. But what he remembered most was the rage of his father as he punched him, a desperate desire to inflict pain, and not feeling it. Mulluck must not have reacted properly to his father’s blows because soon he was on the ground, his father’s feet raining down upon him.
He felt his ribs break. It wasn’t pain, so much as a pressure. That pressure, combined with the sound of a crack, told Eghart he was being beaten to death. Eventually his father, exhausted, or maybe bored, moved on.
Mulluck was nine years old.
A day later, his father found three of the kids of their meager goat flock dead, heads crushed by a rock that he himself struggled to lift.
…
At ten years old, Mulluck was the biggest and strongest of the remaining children, a brother and sister who despised him. The eldest brother had died when their father hit him so hard across the head with his fist that he’d hit the floor and convulsed, bleeding out his ears. That left the three of them.
By now, Mulluck, the youngest child, was effectively alone. His siblings were strangers, and his father was impotent and rageful. His blows on Mulluck accomplished nothing and only made the siblings their father’s outlet, driving them to hate Mulluck even more. Near his eleventh birthday, the sister, whose name he had forgotten in all the years, had tried to stab Mulluck as they chored. Mulluck felt the pressure and looked to his side, seeing the small blade sticking out. Her eyes were wide and full of fire. Mulluck, confused, pleaded. She grabbed at the handle, trying her best to drag the blade downward, but his flesh was firm, and she couldn’t manage with blood-slick hands.
Mulluck punched her and did not stop until he was tackled by his elder brother who’d come upon them. Mulluck then punched him and did not stop until they were both dead in the muddy yard.
He plucked the blade from his side and made his way into the hovel, coming upon his father, passed out on the floor, drunk. Mulluck slit his throat and watched the man drown in his own blood. His eyes were wide, watery, and hateful. Mulluck made sure to stare into them.
The large ghost of a boy left the hovel in flames and wandered out into the wilderness, a pair of goats on a lead behind him.
…
At thirteen, Mulluck found himself working on an estate, under a local Lord amongst his farmhands. He shoveled shit, carried crops, and did what he was told. He was strong and was good at the work. It was simple, and he didn’t need to think. He just did and lived. He felt peaceful for a time. The Lord seemed kind and took pity on him, taking him in and giving him work, for which Mulluck was thankful.
The other workers made the boy nervous, though. He was still big, of course. But, though strong, he still appeared quite soft. His pale skin would pinken with sunburn, and his features were still boyish, his body growing in ways his face had yet to match. One might be forgiven for mistaking him for a fattened woman, and there were men in the fields who did. Other farmhands took notice. They began to look at him in ways he did not like.
On nights where ale poured freely, a gift of the Lord of the lands, eyes wandered, and hands would glide in the bunkhouse. One man, one of the few larger than Mulluck, had tried to corner him in an outhouse, sliding fingers into his trousers. Mulluck left the man a bloodied, piss-soaked heap, draped over the bench, inches from shit.
The man had looked a bit like his father. That brought some new memories to the fore, and Mulluck did his best to ignore them. He returned to the drinking, several eyes on him.
And one night, days later in the bunkhouse, a group of men held him down and tied him up. They lashed his wrists and ankles with leather straps drawn tightly. Before the night was through, the Lord of the land had come to the bunkhouse to join them.
It was the only time Mulluck ever truly felt pain. The trick had been to hurt him inside, it seemed. It became a lesson carried into adulthood and later, a compulsion. The widow Elspeth would help him to relive that night and truly feel something. He needed the reminder. He craved it.
In time, people of the region would wonder about the burned-out estate and the mass murder on the grounds. Survivors and their stories would suggest that a ghost had wreaked some terrible vengeance for crimes unknown.
…
At sixteen, Mulluck had been on the run and sought sanctuary at a local monastery. The sanctuary he sought was not salvation, but a space where he might weather the storm of local knights on his trail.
By now, Mulluck had become handy at killing, and it was often the quickest way of getting what he wanted. There was no shame in it. Not really. He’d fallen in with men who were worse than he was – if one truly thought about it. He would drift into and out of bands. He’d left three of them after he became aware of the rapes. The men who committed such grievous deeds would find their balls crushed by heavy boot or gelded by a massive, ghostly hand. Eventually he became known among many gangs for that. There was always work, and many men would claim to be men of honor who would do no such deed. They were always liars.
There was no illusion in how Mulluck saw himself. He was a monster more often covered in blood than not, but he would never soil himself in that way. He knew it for the evil that it was.
Yet, stupidly, he kept being recruited, and the same scene would play out time and again; someone did something truly deplorable, Mulluck would disapprove, and several men would die. Most recently it had been the leader who’d earned his ire, and in the skirmish that followed, Mulluck had wiped out most of the group.
All except one, Quelin. The youngest of the group who was late returning to camp. Mulluck knew what the man had seen upon his return that night – Mulluck’s massive, pale body, covered in blood – four men tattered, broken, and dead around the fire. At the snap of a branch, Quelin fled, and Mulluck chose to flee too, leaving the bodies to rot in the moonlight. The young survivor later spun a yarn, pinning the greater crimes and the murders on Mulluck himself. Now local knights pursued him, eager to make an example of him for the crimes of all and the deaths of four men.
Mulluck’s entry into the monastery was not by traditional means. Rather than seek passage through the Godsdoor, he had scaled a wall, scrambled to the roof, and scaled into the bell tower. He fell asleep, knowing his body well enough to see the signs of exhaustion despite not feeling them. As he drifted off, he saw his fingers curl and tighten, involuntarily, probably cramping. Not that he knew what a cramp felt like.
…
The first thing Mulluck had heard as he woke up was a youthful, kind voice.
“It seems Brother Myer was correct; there was a ghost in the tower.”
Mulluck was soaking wet from his night in the tower; there must have been a shower overnight, and the morning mist had been thick. The tower was essentially open to the elements. The giant, pale man sat against a wall, staring at the monk. The monk was thin and balding, with deep bags under his eyes. Yet his voice gave an air of youthfulness. The monk did not hunch or totter about. He smiled as he tucked some wax into his ears,
“Do cover your ears,” he added.
Without thinking, Mulluck had done so, covering his small ears with his massive palms, as the monk began to ring the bell. Mulluck could feel the ringing in his chest; each of the six chimes felt like a wave of pressure. Through his massive, meaty hands, he felt a pain in his ears. It rocked him, but he grimaced through it. He was thankful to the monk for the warning.
Once done, the monk let the bell sway and rock and gazed over one of the waist-high walls which surrounded the top of the tower. Mulluck rose to his feet, clumsily, his weight unwieldy. He stooped into a half-crouch, his height too great for the room, his body too wide to fit comfortably with the bell which hung from the rafters. Mulluck mused it was like fitting a cow into a carriage.
“Pilgrim?”
Mulluck looked at the monk, who had not turned his gaze away from the vanishing twilight on the horizon.
“No.”
“Well, some of us are without knowing it. Did you climb up here?”
Mulluck said nothing.
“Only the truly desperate would sneak into a place that welcomes all. What are you running from?”
“I just needed a place to sleep. I’ll leave now.”
The monk looked back and smiled.
“I am Brother Heymon. Who are you?”
Mulluck did not reply as he began to climb down the bell tower.
…
The monastery was at the edge of a thick part of forest in the Aluan region, a couple of miles out from one of the larger settlements, a town called Alshire. Alshire had been a rather well-connected trade hub, sitting at a crossroads, though few came from the east since the incident in Triseria. Bands of hunters would stop through on their way to the fallen kingdom, eager to prove themselves against fearsome wolves. Merchants seeking shortcuts would brave the edge of the massive forests and haunted woods, bringing tales of howling in the dark.
Mulluck considered them idiots. Their pockets were loaded with coins, supplies, and decent blades. He’d managed to make quite a tidy sum for himself with his last band. Then he had gone and killed them because they went too far.
They always did.
Mulluck hid in the treeline, just yards away from the orchard the monks maintained. He did not know much about this specific monastery, but between the monk he met and the orchard, he knew them to be worshippers of Helatros, the God of Hearths. He’d been smelling woodsmoke from the massive hearth built into one of the monastery’s southern walls.
The monk in the tower, Brother Heymon, had seemed kind enough. But Mulluck had fallen into that trap before. Mulluck had trusted hospitality once and was abused for it. A giant, fat, pale beast was not readily accepted.
From his vantage behind the trees, shrubs, and thorns, he watched a pair of the monks show a knight around, answering questions and offering him hospitality. In time, the knight rode off, and the monks attended other duties. Mulluck remained amongst the thorns, watching silently. Tonight he would eat his fill from the orchard and slip away further east. He’d take his chances among the fools and wolves.
He nestled deeper among the thorns and drifted off to sleep.
Mulluck awoke just before dusk, in time to see monks leave the orchard and retreat to the monastery for evening worship. A few tents and bunkhouses were lit by candles as darkness crept over the grounds. It seemed other monks were on different schedules, attending to tasks. As Mulluck had counted, there were over twenty of them all together.
He gazed into the darkened space that made up the shape of the monastery just up the hill, counting pinpoints of candlelight in windows and gaps among the structure. Men and women, modestly dressed, flitted about inside and out. Something about men and women living in such proximity made Mulluck feel uneasy.
But now, only one of these monks mattered. It was Brother Heymon, standing at the edge of the orchard, staring directly at Mulluck; the monk’s lantern shone into the darkened trees, nearly blinding him.
“Hungry?”
…
Two years at the monastery had been good for him, though he never joined the faith. He did not believe in gods given his experiences, but he labored for the monks and found himself accepted for his work. Brother Heymon reached out daily, making it his mission to bring Mulluck into the fold, which Mulluck always refused. But the monk was kind and taught him many things.
Mulluck had begun to use his family name in time. He wasn’t sure why, and by the end he was called “Little Brother Eghart,” the bell ringer. He opted to live in the tower and rang it three times a day, and the monks were happy to leave it to him, as the bell was big and heavy. He had slept in the tower to look out for local knights, wary of their presence. In time, the knights no longer appeared, and he’d remained in a small, open-air room he’d made for himself, piling blankets on his bedroll where he slept, and welcoming the evening mist.
He did other things for them. He did not mind killing, and he was happy to hunt and trap; the monks were hospitable, kind, but refused to take a life. Any life. Eghart had no such issues and was welcomed when he returned with meat.
Even kind Brother Heymon would suck the marrow from the bones of the roasted game. Brother Heymon was about a dozen years Eghart’s senior, but still quite young for such an influential figure within the monastery. He’d made the case for Eghart to remain, and in time most of the brothers and sisters would say it was the right choice.
Until it wasn’t.
Eghart was still rageful and impulsive. He hid it as best he could. But in Alshire there would always be trouble. The brothers and sisters had gifted him with robes large enough for his frame, but would chide him for the blood, vomit, and ale on his sleeves upon his return. Most of the time, he’d struggle with brigands and cutpurses hoping to rob him, convinced he was a simple monk – albeit a large one. Most would flee with a broken limb or having swallowed teeth. A couple did not flee at all, and he’d have to carry their corpses to the roads outside the town proper, depositing them along the side of the road in a ditch or hollow. It wasn’t often, but stories persisted of a local ghost who murdered the murderers.
It was for the brothers and sisters, he reasoned. That made it okay. But Brother Heymon always sadly shook his head and looked to Eghart when local reports circulated. He said nothing, and Eghart said nothing. There was an understanding there, Eghart thought, but it was easier not to discuss things. Heymon and the others lived a welcoming fantasy to which Eghart had seen himself succumb to, for a time. But Eghart increasingly realized that such a fantasy needed someone to maintain it.
It had to be him.
…
The witness to Eghart’s dismantling of his last gang, Quelin, had reported the murders, pocketed what loot had been left, and lived fairly well for about a year. Eventually the coin would be spent, and he found himself back to being a cutpurse. Eventually he botched a job and found himself running for his life, pursued by local knights.
Quelin would burst through the doors of this Monastery of Helatros, pleading for mercy and shelter. He did not know that Eghart was still alive and living amongst the monks. He did not know that the night of his arrival, in the small hours of the morning, Eghart was tending the hearth. Eghart welcomed the man, stowed him away in the kitchen, and spoke with the knights who approached minutes later. They did not recognize Eghart as his hood had been drawn down over his face, and he sat on a bench to mask his height. The knights had been content with Eghart’s words, that he had given the fleeing man some food and sent him on his way. They left, and Eghart returned to the kitchen.
In the rush of hiding from the knights, Quelin had not taken in the details of the large monk who had sheltered him. Now, having been safely pocketed away in the kitchen, the danger no longer immediate, he began to feel a familiarity with the monk. He answered Eghart’s questions in half-truths and outright lies. He wished another monk had been present as this one began to rise and loom over him.
Then came a strange question from the giant monk: “Tell me about the girl.”
Eghart pulled his hood up; his broad, pale face closing in on Quelin’s.
In the morning, Brother Heymon would check on “Little Brother” only to find the corpse of a stranger in the hearth, half buried in ashes. Eghart would never be seen again.
…
In the ten years since he had left the monastery, Mulluck Eghart had put together his own gang, away from civilization – further east on the borders of Triseria. His band of thieves wasn’t particularly large, living off the stolen supplies of travellers between a small outpost and the larger town of Gordhurst.
The wolf lore of the fallen kingdom to the north made people wary of the woods, and he learned to strike from them. It was a comfortable enough existence. He’d even found himself a kind of peace among his small band. Tales of a large ghost had shaken the area so much that people would give up their goods at the mere sight of Eghart. He would not hesitate to kill, but it wasn’t necessary, either.
There was one man in his band who had tried to take more than food. Lemmex alerted Eghart that he found Bertrin cornering a girl with violent intent. Eghart came upon the rape, throwing the man into a tree and breaking his spine. Eghart and his band left the man crumpled beside the road to die a slow, shameful death. The men were not happy about leaving behind the goods and the travelers, but they did not question Eghart. They had learned not to. But there were worries about leaving witnesses.
For his part, Eghart worried about the quality of the men he had taken under him. Perhaps this was not meant to be, and a more forceful hand would be required to keep them in line.
…
The road north from New Gordhurst was a familiar one, and Mulluck Eghart knew the girl and her two companions would follow it to the old town. He was hours behind, but many dangers lay ahead that would slow them down.
He took a breath and jogged after them.
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