The Last Night of a King
A Hunters' Moon Story
Maelos has discovered the person possessing the mysterious blasphemies of the worm. Will he, however, be able to convince everyone else of this bizarre truth and reveal the culprit behind the princess Belsneyg’s murder?
Check out the previous chapter to get caught up!
The Blasphemies of the Worm
Maelos and Voth have found Red Ears, shaman of the Gilded Kestrels, imprisoned by their host. He tasks them with seeking out the truth behind the mystery behind the murder he was investigating before his is given an unjust sentence. Who is the killer? And why would they allow the blasphemies of the worm upon their own b…
“Who goes there?” Oengustos asked, his voice harsh and gravelly.
Maelos slipped behind the drapes before Oengustos’ gaze locked upon him. Mús, however, remained in place, trembling. She bunched the cloth in one hand while gripping the edge of the threshold with her other. Maelos went to her, seizing her shoulders.
“We must leave,” he hissed in her ear. He pulled at her, trying to raise her up, but fear held her fast to the floor. Maelos glanced past the drapes to find Oengustos sliding off his bed. The king shambled towards the threshold, his bulging eyes flashed with a yellow sheen from the candlelight. His pace quickened as he lurched through the shadows until at last his hand reached for Mús. His hairy-knuckled fingers grasped her throat.
Maelos leapt away as Mús and Oengustos struggled amidst the tangled drapes. The cloth tore from its place in the threshold, cloaking Oengustos over his head. He lifted Mús in the air and shook her, saying, through garbled wroth, “What did you see?” over and over.
“Stop!” Maelos yelled, pitching his voice loud enough to fill as much of the hall as he could. He rushed up to Oengustos and tugged at the drape. It fell off the king’s head to expose his visage twisted by fury. His rolled madly in his skull, the skin around them reddening; his lips frothed, soaking his beard; he gnashed his teeth as he demanded answers from Mús, any intelligible words fading into a series of gibbering and hisses.
“Let her go!” Maelos seized Oengustos’ arm. The king’s muscles strained and writhed under his skin as he tightened his hold on Mús. The poor girl’s face blued, her tongue lolling out of her mouth.
The king’s gaze shot down at the boy, his mouth locked in grimace. White bubbles oozed through his teeth. Maelos held fast and hardened his grip.
The distant palaver of the men still round the firepit faded to confused murmurs. Shuffling then hurried footsteps soon followed as they departed the dwindling comfort in the hall. Trenuir and Eroner shouted at once as they glimpsed the three in throes before the threshold. The pair took lead of the remaining guests; Voth tailed close to them, a pitcher still in his hand. The warlord tore Maelos away from Oengustos while the prince sidled up to his father and spoke gentle words to him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Trenuir demanded.
“He’s going to kill her!” Maelos cried, rushing back towards Oengustos.
“He will do no such thing,” Eroner said in a low voice. He set a hand on his father’s back and at once, the king recoiled. He let go of Mús, shrieking. Eroner and the toughest of Oengustos’ champions flinched at their liege’s scream. He staggered and slumped against the wall, pulling tight the drapes around his shoulders.
Mús collapsed on the ground, gagging as wind returned to her lungs. Eroner and the champions walked past her and encircled the king as his quivered, spittle dangling from his lips. Maelos went to Mús and helped her up, heart pounding in his head as he watched the men dote upon the king.
“What did they do, Father?” asked Eroner, kneeling beside Oengustos.
“He killed Belsneyg!” Maelos blurted.
Eroner’s face twisted into a scowl. “Your boy is mad, Trenuir. He and that little girl not only infuriate my Father, but accuse him of kin-slaying.”
Trenuir frowned as he looked from the prince to Maelos. “He has shirked his duties this evening more than usual, but I have never known Maelos to speak false. Why do you make such a claim?”
Maelos opened his mouth to explain, but Voth cut in, running to his brother’s side. “The shaman!” he cried. “He told us to look for the snake-scars on his back.” He pointed to Oengustos and whispered to Maelos, “He has them, doesn’t he?”
Before Maelos could answer, Eroner let out an impatient grunt as he rose from his father’s side. “You spoke with that ghoul that sullied my sister’s grave?”
Trenuir looked back towards the prince. “You have my shaman? A man with red ears?”
Eroner nodded.
“Why did you not mention this?”
Eroner cast his gaze groundward. “You know it is impolite to speak of business during a feast.”
“What did Red Ears tell you, lads?” inquired Trenuir as he faced the twins again.
“He didn’t bother the lady’s corpse,” blurted Voth. “He only spoke to it.”
Eroner balked. “‘Spoke to it?’ What is this nonsense?”
Maelos slapped Voth’s shoulder. “That isn’t what’s important!”
Voth lifted a hand to return the slap, but a sharp glare from Trenuir halted him in place.
“Red Ears told us Belsneyg’s spirit knew her murderer,” explained Maelos. “He bade us to look for the man with the blasphemies of the worm upon his back.” He extended a finger towards Oengustos. “The king bears hideous scars upon his back; the flesh of a dead man.”
“I ought to throw these troublemakers in that pit with the shaman,” spat Eroner.
“Red Ears’ rituals and practices are odd,” said Trenuir, “but he as well does not lie. I do not know what these ‘blasphemies’ are but if there is some wound upon the king’s back, mayhap we should see.”
Eroner maintained a stiff chest and shoulders. “Such things shall remain between the king and his surgeons.”
“No surgeons,” muttered Oengustos. He rose to his feet, back still pressed against the wall. “No secrets.” He stepped in the middle of the circle of witnesses before him. With great effort, he loosened the hold his fingers had on the drapes and they slid off his back. Even the stoutest among Oengustos’ champions gasped at the putrid, grey scars riddling his back.
Eroner seized the drapes and went to put them back over his father’s back. “Bring the surgeons!”
“No!” Oengustos shoved his son away. “I said there will be none!”
“You are wounded, Father! It looks like corruption is thriving within the wounds as well.”
Oengustos sighed, digging his fingers into the flesh of his shoulders. “It is indeed corrupted. It has seeped into my mind and soul—not only my body. It is the true slayer of Belsneyg while my own hands were its death-dealers.”
The champions murmured to one another. Eroner gaped at his father, his hands shaking at his sides. Trenuir clamped his jaw, his mouth set in a hard line.
“How did you come to bear these wounds?” asked the warlord.
“There is a cave to the south,” explained Oengustos, “it is rightly feared by our tribe…”
“The Snake’s Maw?” whispered one of the champions.
“He went there?” said another, louder.
“It is but a ghost story!” exclaimed a third, not hiding his disbelief.
“Silence!” barked Eroner. “Your king speaks.”
Oengustos continued in the wake of his mummed champions: “A thing within a dream invited me there. It promised wealth and prosperity given by the deep, and indeed it spoke true; this past year, my tribe has fared even better than before thanks to this pact I made. Once I arrived at the Maw, I received the second greatest pain I have ever felt. Something dragged me into the darkness and branded me with creeping filth. A voice filled my skull with words and knowledge of a time before Man knew of his existence and strength, a dark time clouded by things from the deep. It let me go with my life and we have prospered since then.
“A year and a day since I went to the Snake’s Maw, the scars upon my back bade me to deliver a sacrifice to them. ‘There can be no ripe fruit without the dead Earth,’ they told me. They chose my dear Belsneyg as their victim and I was helpless to halt their course. Even still, I do not seek forgiveness or mercy; it is by my hand the crime of kin-slaying has been dealt!”
Oengustos pulled his hands off his back, raking bloody trails through his skin. He held them up to his face.
“I renounce you,” he spat, breathlessly. “I renounce you, cursed worms! Vile beasts that crawl out of the depths! Ye things that enslaved our greatest grandfathers! I renounce you, Niarlados! May your rot and things that creep take me now, and leave my tribe untouched. The fault is mine alone! I am king no more, but a wretch taken by decay.”
“The scars!” one of the champions jabbed a finger at the king’s back. The puckered flesh writhed, growing darker in hue. Ragged tears formed in the skin and puss oozed out of them. The rot spread from Oengustos’ back onto his shaking limbs. He shambled away from the crowd towards the firepit. He groaned and gargled as pieces of him sloughed off and spattered in a trail on the floor. Bloated grey maggots riddled the remains, which smelt as though they laid in the grave for months.
“Burn me!” gasped Oengustos. “Burn this heinous form that has opened the way to a dim past we are better off to forget!” He hacked and sputtered after he spoke, gouts of black blood and bile streaming past his lips.
The champions, Eroner, Trenuir, and the twins followed. Most of them covered their mouths, but the prince and warlord let the stench wash over them as the king dragged his putrefying body to the firepit. He stood over the flames, which exposed every inch of the rot overtaking him. His jaw hung on threads of muscle, speckled with only a few grey teeth. Entrails, like a nest of serpents, threatened to spill out of a growing hole in his belly. Yellowed bones showed through cavernous wounds on his limbs and body. He yet stood and his eyes still held the fading spark of life as he gazed into the fire. Then, his body collapsed in a wave of rot and worms. The flames struggled to keep alight as the corpse-ooze covered the tinder.
Eroner fell to his knees moments after the impossible sight.
“More fire! More oil!” cried Trenuir.
The champions scrambled towards the small stores of oil kept on hand in the hall. Though the twins should have followed, they remained at their warlord’s side as he approached the prince.
“Father,” sighed Eroner. He finally placed a hand over his face, gagging at the stench which wafted from the burbling heap.
Trenuir cringed as he looked down upon the remains. Within the rot writhed masses of fatted, pale worms. Each end of those crawlers, however, terminated in the crude likeness of Oengustos.
***
Eroner sent the Kestrels away the next morning with Red Ears among them, as well as a haul of treasures and food in thanks for their assistance. Trenuir did not protest and ensured his warband would not either. He did, however, manage to visit Belsneyg’s tomb before giving the order to set out in the early hours before dawn. He had Voth, Maelos, and Red Ears accompany him; the three stood patiently behind the warlord as he set his hand on the cold stones covering her body. The first signs of moss crept upon them.
“Things will change when you are away from your home, lads,” Trenuir said finally after a span of silence. He turned from the tomb and beheld the twins with a gloomy gaze. “Life will go on and people may die. Those things are true as well in a warband, however. Our path towards change in the wilds moves faster than within the tribe. Time will come where you will have to remember and learn to slow down, but keep moving forward.” He turned his eyes up from the twins and set them on Red Ears. “Is she at peace?” he asked.
The shaman nodded. “She is.”
Trenuir nodded back. “Then we move forward.”
Read the next chapter here!
The Hunt for the Mountain Giant
Maelos and Voth, guided by their warlord Trenuir, set out into the mountains to find a giant that has been terrorizing local tribes and travelers. When they suddenly lose the trail at nightfall, they receive help from the unlikeliest of creatures.
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“The Last Night of a King” © Ethan Sabatella 2025 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.