Page 24 of Tiger's Tale
If Nik hadn’t already been frozen in place, those words would have made his blood freeze in his veins. He might not have recognized the man before, so disfigured he was now, but those words left no mistaking him. The man standing before him was Nik’s very own father.
How had he survived?Nik wondered.It should have been impossible. As the man swished the knife back and forth through the air, trying to find his escaped quarry, Nikolai took a good, long look at the man who he’d left for dead in the inferno that had once been his home, with his lifeless mother and sleeping siblings.
Obviously, survival hadn’t been easy. He wondered if the man had tried to save anyone other than himself. It was unlikely. Nik snorted, a sound that didn’t escape the man.
He stalked closer. Nik didn’t care. Let him come. He wanted to see the damage he’d done up close. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. That this man had lived while his mother and siblings died. He looked closely at what had been raw, burned skin now healed over and scarred. The dead eye and teeth bared on one side of his face where lips should have been. Nik studied the stump of an arm, wondering if it had been too damaged to save, and thought,Good.I hope he suffered and suffers still with the loss of it. Feeling a smirk lift the corner of his mouth, Nik wondered if perhaps providence had given him a second chance to make things right.To make him feel pain once more.
Waiting until the man turned away, he kicked him hard in the backs of his knees, laughing when he crashed down, dropping the knife. Nik scooped it up and leaned over, ripped off the man’s hat, revealing a hole where his father’s ear should have been. “Hello, Dad,” he said, before putting the knife to his throat.
The man swallowed, choked, then said, “Nikolai? Is it you?” Then he began laughing. “I’ve been looking for you, you sniveling little...” Then he sputtered and said nothing else.
“What was that, otets?” Nik clucked his tongue. “It seems you won’t be able to speak any longer,” he said as blood gushed from his father’s cut throat. Leaning down, he added. “Let’s hope this is the last time I have to kill you,” he said before sinking the knife deep in the man’s kidneys once, twice, three times, and then pushing his father’s now limp form over, letting it bleed out on the forest floor.
He took a long moment to stare at his father’s ruined face, the dead eye staring up at the trees and the damaged ear gaping as if scavenger birds had already begun tearing him open. With a grunt of satisfaction, he wiped the bloody knife on the man’s coat, slid it into his belt, and turned back, keeping a careful eye on where he stepped to avoid any other traps.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time Nikolai would meet his father. Days later, Nik had just reached the edge of the dark forest when the reanimated corpse of his father caught up with him. At least this time the man didn’t speak. That was something of a positive change. But he was supernaturally strong, and despite Nik’s repeated stabbing, and the gaping wound at his throat, he refused to die a third time.
Only a lucky strike with a nearby axe that took off his head finally stopped the advances of his undead father. After his father’s third and, he hoped, final death, Nik set out for the Kievian Empire’s capital, hoping to get away from monsters and madness and find a life of normalcy as a soldier. Still, magic had grabbed hold of him and refused to let go.
Now he was back in its clutches again.
* * *
Nik woke from his dream sweating and chilled at the same time, and bile rose to his throat.Had the Death Draughtsman conjured the dream?He shivered. It was almost as if he were back in the old barn of his childhood home, his father standing behind him, forcing him to swallow his own vomit and horse dung once again. Leaning forward, he spat into the smoking ashes of the dying fire and grabbed his water skein, swishing the liquid in his mouth before spitting again.
After wetting his palms and wiping the remains of the dream from his eyes and face, he looked across the fire and found the Death Draughtsman wide awake on his side, watching him.
“Is sleep evading you, droog?” Nik asked nervously.
“I do not need as much as the typical man,” he answered, sitting up. “You do not need to waste time in flattery. I know you do not consider me a friend.” He began rolling up his blankets and added softly, “No man should.”
Nik nodded more to himself than to the powerful man across from him and rose, collecting his few belongings. “Can I ask, then?—”
“Why do I go?”
“Yes. You are already very powerful.”
“That is not the question you really want to ask. Be brave enough to say what you truly wish. Nothing you voice will shock me. I’ve already been in your mind.”
Suppressing a shudder, Nik said, “Very well. The truth, then. I don’t care what happens to the queen or even the tsarevna Stacia or to the empire itself. You can do whatever you like with them. All I want is Veru. They believe I’m bringing you back so you can heal their mother, the tsarina. I don’t know if you can heal her truly or just reanimate her body, and I don’t really want to know. You can make an army of the entire empire if you want. It makes no difference to me as long as Veru is mine.”
Nik heard the snort first, then it was followed by another and another. They grew in depth and volume until dark, deliberate chuckles filled the twilight air with a sinister foreboding that made Nikolai twitch like an unschooled rube before a master. When the laughter died, the man skirted the embers of the fire, uncaring of the edges of his robe.
“You have given me the truth, and I will return it to you in kind. Understand this, young soldier,” he said. “I care not for you or your tsarevna or even the tsarina or the army. There is only one power I seek, and it is found within a few simple relics that have been difficult for me to locate. Help me find them and you shall be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. In fact, I will make certain you obtain”—he placed his long, knobby-knuckled finger on Nik’s chest, punctuating each word—“every...single...wishyour black little heart desires, even including the undying love of your tsarevna.”
Nik’s heart beat wildly, partly in fear and partly in hope that he could find what the man sought and thereby win the heart of the woman he loved. He swallowed and wet his dry lips. To have everything he desired. To be able to forget the vile and ugly things of his past and live surrounded by plenty, peace, and beauty. That was what he craved above all else. “What artifacts are you seeking?” he asked.
The man smiled. “I’m happy you asked. Come. Let me draw them for you.”
* * *
As they neared the palace, Nik went over the story in his mind. He was to introduce the Death Draughtsman as a traveling monk, a wandering strannik, named Grigor Sobol Petrovsky. He was to help ensconce the man in the palace where he would use his various abilities to attempt to actually heal the tsarina. In return, the tsarevnas and their mother would show undying gratitude, ply him gifts and treasures, which he would graciously refuse.
Nik would then describe what the monk was truly seeking, relics lost by the church long ago. His only purpose now was to locate and return them. If they could use their vast resources and incredible reach to help him find such items, he would be eternally grateful. Veru and Stacia would be so pleased that their mother could still manage the empire, staving off the need for either of them to ascend to the throne, that both of them would immediately head out in search of the items, Veru with Nik, of course, and the monk would use his ability to prompt Veru to fall in love with Nik, cementing his place in her life.
The plan would work; everything would be perfect. The undead army would stay at a distance, too far away to cause any harm. The soldiers wouldn’t even notice them. Most of their patrols occurred during the daylight hours when they slept anyway. Nothing would go wrong. At least that’s what Nik kept telling himself as he signaled the guards to let them pass the main gates.
At first everything did go according to plan. He was welcomed, just as he’d expected he’d be. Veru was happy to see him, but the concern etched on her face was more pronounced than usual. Even Stacia didn’t bother to raise an eyebrow when he immediately sought out her sister, and neither of them blinked an eye when he introduced the “monk.”
