Fortress Draconis (12 page)

Will reached down and lifted the blanket over her shoulders again. “Yes, Sephi, thank Erlinsax we were wise enough to be hunting, and Arel that we were lucky enough to find you.”

He patted her shoulders and smiled in the darkness as she stroked her cheek against his knee. 7don’t know what your game is, but I’m very glad I know how to play.

Resolute had them up and moving by the earliest light, when pink and gold stole into the sky’s dark blue vault. Crow had relieved Will some time after Sephi had left him. Her departure came after he asked more questions than he answered. Will then stretched out on his bedroll and woke only when Sephi moved her bedding beside his. They ended up sharing a blanket and he was glad for her warmth.

Resolute led the way out of the rock field and southeast. He explained that he wanted to make Stellin by nightfall or, failing that, find a croft where they could defend themselves. He said it all very matter-of-factly, but something in his voice made Will shiver.

By mid-morning they found the burned-out remains of a farm. Charred timbers lay in a jumble at the base of a stone chimney. The windows were empty kohl-rimmed eyes into the soul of the fire-blackened home. A fresh row of five graves in front of the house let them know the family’s passing had not gone unnoticed.

More important than the house and graves, however, was the sign that had been left on the big oak tree out back of the house. A gibberer had been tied to the tree, hand and foot—and again around the waist. They could tell from the bloating that the creature had been dead for days, but there was more than enough left to identify what it was.

And to see the mark branded into its hide. Covering his nose with the sleeve of his armor, Will rode close enough to see the maggots writhing in some of the rents in the gibberer’s flesh. The mark looked to him like the paw print of a wolf, with glyphs above and below it. He reined his horse away. “What is it?” Resolute shrugged and Crow shook his head. Sephi’s voice came dully. “I’ve seen it before. It’s the mark of the Gold Wolf. Either she killed this gibberer because of the deaths here, or she killed the family and is trying to make people think the gibberers did it.”

Crow pointed back at the farmhouse. “The graves. Why bury your victims?”

She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “I only know what my uncle heard and told me.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Resolute shaded his eyes with a hand. “We still need to make Stellin. We’ve wasted more than enough time here as it is.”

On their ride in toward the town they found two more abandoned farms, but no more graves. The buildings had been looted but not burned, and showed ample signs of habitation by gibberers. Will learned to study their tracks and, amid them, found signs of frostclaws and vylaens as well. While he did not doubt they were actually present, he found it disturbing that so many seemed to be roaming about.

Commenting on that fact only brought a scowl from Resolute and an admonition to ride faster. Even though they traveled swiftly, and largely in silence, the sun’s fading light stretched their shadows toward Stellin. Will took it as a bad sign that the fires on the road had been replaced with ranks of sharpened stakes long enough to impale a horse. Further back, behind breastworks of wicker and dirt, three men in ragged armor brandished pitchforks and scythes.

One of them moved from behind his shelter and dropped a hand to the hilt of a sword. “Begone!”

Resolute reined his horse up short and vaulted from the saddle. His ringmail hissed as he crossed to the man in two quick strides. The farmer tried to draw his sword, but Resolute caught his wrist before the weapon cleared the scabbard. With a savage twist, Resolute wrenched the arm around and drove the man to his knees.

“Stupid pup. You won’t stop anything here.” The Vorquelf waved a hand contemptuously at the stakes. “This might stop cavalry, but gibberers won’t be riding. They’ll slip through. And frostclaws, they’ll vault them in a leap and open you from throat to loins before they touch ground again.”

One of the other two men moved to help his comrade, but Crow spurred his horse forward. He had his bow out and an arrow nocked. “I don’t want to make your next step your last.”

The second farmer stopped and anguish washed over his face. “We’re just trying to save our families.”

Resolute’s voice slashed at the man on his knees. “How?

By driving people away? You figure that if the gibberers get us out here, somehow they won’t get into the town? They won’t want to?“ He twisted the farmer’s wrist. ”Was that it?“

“Resolute, this isn’t helping.”

The Vorquelf nodded in response to Crow’s remark and released the man’s wrist with a shove that dumped him face first onto the roadway. “Where are the people gathered?”

“Hare and Hutch.”

“That’s where we’ll be, then. How many more outposts like this?”

The downed man struggled to his knees and rubbed his wrist. “Three more, one in each direction.”

Resolute walked over and pulled up enough of the stakes to let their horses pass through. “Two of you go to the nearest ones, send a runner to the furthest. Have them make fires of their stakes, then pull back to the center of town. Get lookouts high to watch for things moving against the fire. Go, now. Do it.”

The Vorquelf walked his horse through the gap, then swung into the saddle again. In front of the tavern he dismounted again and pounded his fist against the door. From the shouts and shrieks inside it seemed some of the town-folk took his pounding for that of an Aurolani battering ram, but someone did draw the bar back and open the door.

Resolute marched straight in, with Sephi, Will, and Crow in his wake. “Who is in charge here?”

A man near the fireplace stepped forward and Will recognized him as Quintus, the man who had challenged them on their way into town before. The people crowded into the inn’s common room looked from the man to the Vorquelf and back. “I am. I remember you. No room here for you. You should have stayed in the mountains.”

A child started crying and hugged himself to his mother’s skirts. Will could feel the fear in the room shift into hatred. Resolute drew himself up to his full height, his stripe of white hair brushing the ceiling. This elicited a couple more frightened cries from children, and more than one adult refused to look at him.

Crow stepped forward. “Listen to me. We’re not in the mountains, we’re here. In the mountains we killed gibberers who ambushed this girl and those traveling with her. Resolute and I have spent a great deal of time killing gibberers. We can help you, but we need to know how many there are and where they’re coming from.”

A dozen voices started at once, then Quintus slammed a pewter mug against the fireplace mantel. “You see, they are everywhere. These are the lucky ones, the ones who made it into town when they heard of farms being raided. The unlucky ones, the ones the gibberers attacked, they’re upstairs—the survivors anyway. The things have run off our livestock. They come in packs of a dozen or more. Tightening a noose around us, they are.”

Crow nodded. “You’ll want to get most of these people upstairs, along with a few men. If the gibberers make it to the roof and start to burrow through the thatching, you’ll want to kill them. Your best men should be down in here, though, since most of the fighting will be here. We have horses. We’ll need to stable them.”

Quintus’ eyes half shut. “The stable’s all yours.”

Will felt a shiver run down his spine. The tone he heard in the man’s voice was the same he’d heard countless times from the mouths of the homeless. They knew they were dying and the only thing they had left was some illusion of dignity. Quintus was clearly clinging to that, which made sense since Stellin was a town of farmers, suddenly faced with a problem that needed warriors.

Crow slowly nodded. “I understand. We’ll be leaving the girl here.”

“Let me come with you.”

Crow shook his head. “Here you might survive.”

Resolute snorted. “Just so you’ll know, your stakes are now burning so your lookouts can see where they are coming from. If you’re lucky, the fires will keep them out of your town.” He turned and roughly spun Will around to face the door, then gave him a shove. “Move, boy; to the stable.”

Will half turned to bid Sephi a farewell, but Resolute eclipsed his view of her. The youth made his way out of the tavern and gathered the reins to his horse. He tugged gently, bringing the horse around, then took up the lead for the pack animals as well.

He glanced at Crow, who led his own horse and the one they’d given to Sephi. “They’re all going to die in there, aren’t they?”

“I hope not.”

“Why leave Sephi with them, then?”

“Because, boy, her chances of survival in there are far better than ours in the stable.”

Will looked up at Resolute. “If the stable is a death trap, why are we going to be there?”

“If we stay in the tavern, our horses die and we will never get to Fortress Draconis. If there are enough gibberers to be raiding farms, we’d never make it out of here on foot.” The Vorquelf led the way around the tavern to the stable behind it. “In there it will be panic and chaos, which will be a problem. Killing isn’t a business where panic is useful.”

Will got the stable door open. The building was solidly constructed, though a few of the siding boards did not fully fit, or were missing. Deeper than it was wide, it rose two stories, with the upper one consisting largely of a hayloft. A loading door was built into the front wall, but was closed. That door, along with the wide door at ground level, were the only ingresses. Two of the dozen stalls were in use—one for storage of tools and old tack, the other with a broken-down farm horse.

Resolute surveyed the stable and shook his head. “Boy, get the horses put away, but don’t unpack them.”

“But it won’t be good for them to stand here loaded up all night. I mean, that is what you’ve taught me, right?”

The Vorquelf’s silver eyes became slits. “Boy, if by some miracle we are here in the morning, we will rest them then. Chances are they’ll be a gibberer feast. If we get the chance to run, we don’t want to be saddling and loading horses.”

“We’d run?” Will led his horse to a stall and guided it in. “But we would leave Sephi behind.”

Crow, having ascended a ladder to the hayloft, crouched at the upper floor’s edge. “The only way we run is if the raiders torch the town or find themselves occupied and give us that chance.” He moved forward, opening the upper door a crack. “They have the fires burning, but looks like they’re not abandoning their posts.”

The Vorquelf snarled as he closed a horse in a stall. “Fools. They should have listened to me. I’ve killed more gibberers in one day than they’ll see in a lifetime.”

The older man laughed. “Would you have taken their advice, were you in their position?”

“If they knew better than I did about something, yes.”

Will smiled over at him. “You mean there might be something you don’t know everything about?”

“Don’t be smart, boy. I know much more than you do about anything.”

“Then you can tell me why Chytrine is attacking Stellin.”

Resolute’s expression hardened. “I don’t know her mind, boy. It could be she is just being capricious. Attacking Stellin will do little for her, save creating fear. Some people may decide that King Augustus can’t defend them, and that will create unrest for him. It could be that she wants him sending troops here, to the west, while she does something else in another spot. None of that matters, though, as her troops are here, now, and we have to deal with them.”

The inhuman cry of agony that split the early evening stopped Will’s retort. He’d never heard anything like it. It sent a shiver down his spine that grew into the heart of his bones like black ice. “Is that a frostclaw? A vylaen?”

Resolute shook his head. “Just a farmer dying. Came from the south, so they’ll be coming past the stable before they reach the inn.”

Will ran to the stable door and began to pull it shut.

“Leave it open a crack.”

“Why?”

Resolute led another horse into a stall. “If you’re a military leader and you find a building shut, what do you do?”

The youth shrugged as he guided a horse to a stall. “Open it. Send a group in.”

“And if it’s open?”

“A scout.”

Resolute nodded. “Good, boy, and when that scout doesn’t return?”

Will slowly smiled. “Another couple, who we kill, then he sends a bunch.”

“More to kill.” Resolute dragged along the string of packhorses and started slotting them into stalls. “Crow, do you see them?”

“Don’t have your eyesight, my friend, but in the distance, yes.” Crow stood and stretched. “Coming before full night; they’re being very bold. I guess they don’t fear anything here.”

Resolute’s grin became purely predatory. “Their mistake.” He pulled a coil of rope from a wall peg and tossed it to Will.

“Tie this to the base of that post there, then stretch it across to that other post. Leave it slack for now, but when the time comes, you’ll pull it taut and tie it off here.”

Will caught the rope and nodded. “When they rush in, they’ll trip. I can hold it, you know.”

“No you couldn’t, boy, but it doesn’t matter if you could. You’ll have your hands full killing those who fall.” The Vorquelf opened the pack on one of the horses and pulled out the longknives he’d taken from the gibberers in the mountains. He left two near the post where Will was to be standing, then hung others from posts or rested them on shelves where they could come easily to hand.

“Mind a question, Resolute?”

“What, Will?”

“Crow has a sword. Why don’t you have one?”

Resolute snorted. “Do I tell him the truth, Crow?”

“Some of it, perhaps, but quietly.”

In the brief bit of silence that followed Crow’s comment, Will could hear the sound of someone beating his fists on the tavern door. Demands to be let in rose in tone, with curses punctuating them as the voice became more shrill. Then a sizzling sound began to rise. Something brilliant and green flared outside, outlining Crow in emerald light, then subsided.