Mask of Swords (13 page)

“We’re not like him, you and I,” said Mazael. 

“Who?” said Romaria? “Adalar?” 

“Aye,” said Mazael. “You know what I am. I should be as tired and weary of war as he is. Yet I’m not, and I have to hold myself in check lest I indulge myself. You’re not like me…but you’re a huntress. A predator. Were you not wed to me, you would be living in the woods and wandering the earth.”

“Mazael,” said Romaria. “You’re not a monster. Neither am I, whatever some of the Tervingi think. You’re still a man, and you’ve known losses and grief like any other man.” She shrugged. “So have I. I’ve lost friends, and I saw Ultorin kill my father at Deepforest Keep. Losses are like…oh, a wound, I suppose. Or a limp. Eventually you learn to live with it. Adalar just has to learn to live with his.” 

Mazael nodded, and they rode on.

###

Two days west of Castle Cravenlock, they reached the hill country that filled the land between Morsen Village and the Northwater further to the west. The lands around Castle Cravenlock were devoted to farmland with occasional patches of pasture. The people of the hills focused upon herding, and Mazael saw herds of goats grazing on the grassy hills, watched over by stern-eyed shepherds. 

“There are poets in Barellion and Castle Town,” said Wesson, “who wax lyrical about the rural lives of shepherdesses. I fear they utterly failed to mention the smell.”

Adalar offered a brief smile. “I grew up with the smell. The peasants near Greatheart Keep used to herd goats and sheep. Some things never change, I suppose.”

“That smell seems to be one of them,” said Wesson. 

“There’s a village not far from here, a place called Castyard,” said Mazael. 

“I know it,” said Adalar. “I suppose it was destroyed in the Great Rising.” 

“Actually, it held out,” said Mazael. “The village is held in fief by Sir Edmund Crowhand. He has a fortified manor house, and he withdrew inside it with his folk and held out until the Guardian spread the blue flame across the world. Sir Edmund fought off the runedead and held his village.”

“Truly?” said Adalar, blinking. “I would not have expected that.” 

“We’ll stop there for the night,” said Mazael. “We’ll also speak with Sir Edmund and exchange news. If Earnachar has been doing anything unusual, Edmund will likely have heard of it. And Agaric and his friends might well have passed through Castyard on their way to Cravenlock Town.”

“We can also see,” said Romaria, “if Agaric seeded any more of his spiders there.”

“If he did?” said Adalar. “Will we have to kill the infected men?”

“That may not be necessary,” said Timothy, clearing his throat. “I have been studying the spiders we took from the inn, and I believe I can prepare a potion that will expel the spiders from the bodies of their victims.”

“Good work,” said Mazael. “Given that Agaric seemed keen to infect people with the spiders against their will, I would rather not kill any of the infected unless necessary.”   

They rode on.

###

The sun was setting by the time they reached the village of Castyard.

Adalar stretched in his saddle and looked around. Given all the changes that had swept over the Grim Marches, it was shocking to see a place that remained just as he remembered. Castyard sat at the edge of the hill country, houses clustered within an earthwork wall, the stone dome of a church rising from within the wall. A fortified manor house sat on a low hill outside the town. It did not have a moat or an outer wall, yet the stone walls were thick and two battlement-topped wings flanked a central tower. If defended properly, the house could hold out against marauders. Fields surrounded the village, interspersed with grazing pasture. Herds of goats and sheep filled the pastures, and Adalar saw a herd of cows watching the horsemen with placid indifference. 

Mazael’s knights and armsmen, Adalar’s men, and Arnulf’s thains began to raise a camp in one of the empty fields. Mazael stared at the village, frowning. Adalar, who had served as Mazael’s squire, knew that look. Something was troubling him. 

“What is it?” said Adalar.

“The sheep,” murmured Romaria. 

Adalar looked at them. They seemed healthy enough, shaggy with their winter coats. “I can’t see anything wrong with them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with them,” said Mazael, still staring at the village. “Their tenders, though…”

Adalar turned his head back and forth, blinking.

“There aren’t any,” he said at last. 

“Sheep are valuable,” said Mazael. “Cows, especially. No one in their right mind leaves them unattended.” 

Adalar stared at the village. “There are no sentinels upon the walls. After the events of the last few years, every village in the realm posts a watch upon the wall, even during the day.”

“Do you see anyone moving around within Castyard?” said Mazael.

Romaria lifted her eyes to shade them. “No. No one. I see smoke coming from some of the chimneys.” Adalar could not, but Romaria’s eyes were sharper. “Some chickens loose in the streets. But no people.”

“That is…peculiar,” said Wesson at last. 

“It is extremely peculiar,” said Mazael, turning to Rudolph. “Speak to Arnulf and Sir Aulus and the others. Tell them to have their weapons ready and to come at my call.” He tapped a horn that hung from his saddle. “If there’s trouble, we may have a fight on our hands.”

“You think foes killed the men of Castyard, my lord?” said Rudolph, taking a deep breath.

“I don’t know yet know,” said Mazael, reaching for his belt and drawing the curved sword he called Talon, “but if they did, I would rather meet them with my sword in hand than in my scabbard. Go.”

Rudolph bowed, turned his horse, and galloped towards the half-assembled camp. 

“Valgasts, perhaps?” said Romaria.

“Aye,” said Mazael. “At Gray Pillar they tried to take captives. The reports we’ve heard from the knights and headmen say the valgasts have been trying to steal people and livestock. Perhaps they’ve gotten ambitious and tried to steal an entire village at once.”

“If so, they shall regret it,” said Adalar, a flicker of anger going through him. For Castyard to have survived the Malrags and the runedead, only to fall to scavengers like the valgasts…the thought was intolerable. 

“Castyard might be crawling with valgasts,” said Romaria, “and you want to simply walk inside.”

“Ride inside,” said Mazael. “And I certainly won’t go alone. I’ll take a dozen armsmen with me, and at the first sign of foes we’ll call for aid.”

“Naturally I shall go with you,” said Romaria. 

“I doubt I could stop you,” said Mazael. 

“I, too, shall come,” said Adalar, and Wesson nodded. 

“Splendid,” said Mazael. “Let’s see if we can find the villagers of Castyard.” 

###

Mazael rode through the gate and into the main street of Castyard, Talon hanging low in his right fist.

No one challenged them, which was a sign that something was amiss. The street beyond was deserted, lined on either side with houses of fieldstone and mortar with thatched roofs. Silence hung over the village, and the only moving things were a dozen chickens wandering through the street. The birds scattered at the approach of the horsemen, vanishing between the houses.

Many of the houses stood with their doors open, which was even stranger. 

Mazael turned in his saddle. Romaria, Adalar, Wesson, and a dozen armsmen followed him. 

“Hold a moment,” he said. “Check the houses. See if you can find anyone, or if anything seems amiss.” 

A half-dozen of the armsmen dropped from their saddles, armor clanking, and walked to the houses. Romaria slid off her horse and walked to the nearest house. Mazael waited, his fingers loose against Talon’s hilt. His back itched, and he felt as if something was watching him.

“No one inside, my lord,” said the first armsman to return, a scar-faced man of about thirty. “The house was empty. But…”

“But what?” said Mazael. 

“The floor was dirty,” said the armsman. “My mother’s past sixty, my lord, but she’d die before she would let her floor look like that. My wife, too. It looks as if someone tracked dirt all over the floor. Some things were disturbed, too, as if there had been a fight.”

“Were there tracks?” said Mazael. 

“Aye,” said the armsman, scratching his beard. “Thought the chickens had made them at first, but those…”

“Those would be large chickens, armsman,” said Romaria, returning from one of the houses. “Mazael, those are valgast tracks.” 

“Valgasts like to tunnel, don’t they?” said Mazael.

“Like ants,” said Romaria, “but more vicious.” 

“Be on your guard,” said Mazael as the armsmen returned to their saddles. Romaria climbed back atop her horse, drawing the short bow she used while on horseback. 

“Do you think the valgasts know that we’re here?” said Adalar, holding a steel war hammer in his right hand.

“I don’t see why not,” said Mazael, and tapped his reins. His horse started forward, the others following suit, and they came to the village square. The domed stone church, built in the style of Old Dracaryl, rose on the northern end, its doors shut. A tavern stood on the eastern end of the square, and houses rose to the south and the north. To the west Mazael saw the Crowhands’ manor house standing upon its hill. It, too, appeared abandoned. Not even smoke rose from its chimneys. 

“Quiet place,” said Wesson. “I think…”

Mazael never found out what he thought. 

As one the doors and windows of every house in the square burst open, and a tide of small, greenish-yellow figures surged forth. The valgasts wore the same peculiar bone armor that Mazael had seen in Gray Pillar, and carried bone blades and blowguns. They also carried rope nets between them. 

The valgasts had come to take captives. 

“To arms!” shouted Mazael, snatching the war horn from his saddle and lifting it to his lips. He blew a long blast, the note ringing over the village. The valgasts loosed their rasping, high-pitched war cries and surged forward in a greenish-yellow tide of claws and fangs and enormous black eyes. 

Dozens of valgasts raised their blowguns, and Mazael kicked his horse to a charge.

###

His shoulders ached from wearing his armor all day, but Adalar was glad, very glad, that he had worn it. His horse thundered towards the valgasts as he lifted the hammer in his right fist. He had never seen creatures like the valgasts, and they were not as threatening as the Malrags or as otherworldly as the runedead. Yet their teeth and claws looked long and sharp, and Adalar was reasonably sure that the darts that flew from their blowguns were poisoned.

And there were so damned many of the creatures. 

A volley of darts flew towards him, and Adalar caught a half-dozen on his shield, more clanging off his armor. His horse crashed into the creatures, crushing two of them beneath its steel-shod hooves, and Adalar swung his hammer. The blow collapsed a valgast’s skull, sending the creature sprawling, and Adalar turned his horse around for another pass. 

Yet his horse stumbled, and Adalar looked down to see three darts jutting from the beast’s neck. Surely his horse had not been drugged? His mount was a thousand pounds of muscle and bone, and it would take an exceedingly potent drug for three darts to put the horse to sleep.

The horse stumbled again, and Adalar realized the beast was going to collapse. 

He jumped from the saddle just as his horse fell with a wheezing groan. Adalar hit the ground hard, his armor clanging, and rolled to his feet. He had lost his hammer in the fall, but his greatsword rode upon his back, and he yanked the weapon from its sheath. 

A tide of valgasts surged at him. 

###

Mazael vaulted from his saddle, shield in his left hand and Talon in his right. The trained war horse would have given him a solid advantage against the spindly valgasts. Yet the saddle also put him too high to land effective blows with Talon, and the horse made for a big target. Mazael’s fears proved well-founded when the horse collapsed a moment later, a half-dozen valgast darts dotting its neck. He saw Romaria leap from her saddle, her Elderborn bow coming up as she sent shaft after shaft blurring into the mass of valgasts. The valgasts pouring from the inn converged on her.

Mazael met them first.

A volley of darts flew towards him, and he caught them on his shield. In the same motion he swung his left arm with all his strength, the shield smashing into a valgast’s head with enough force to crush bone. Talon was a blur of darkness and golden flame in his right hand, and Mazael struck down one, two, three valgasts in quick order, leaving them to leak their peculiar greenish-black blood into the earth. A valgast howled in fury and jumped upon Mazael’s back, but an arrow shot past his head to plunge into the creature’s neck. 

More valgasts came at him, and Mazael attacked with something almost like glee. The Demonsouled rage that always simmered beneath his thoughts burned through his mind, and it made the nimble valgasts seem terribly slow. From time to time one of their darts nicked him, but the rage overwhelmed the numbness at once, the cuts disappearing quickly. Mazael killed and killed, and all the while Romaria shot arrow after arrow with the uncanny accuracy of her skill and Elderborn senses. The valgasts’ charge faltered, and Mazael saw fear flashing across their alien faces. 

Then the ground shook, and a wave of Mazael’s horsemen thundered into the square. 

###

Adalar whipped his greatsword around, taking the head of another valgast. The blade was as long as the creatures were tall, and its length let him keep them at bay while his armor turned their darts. Yet there were so damned many of the things, and they were starting to encircle him. If three darts had been enough to stun his horse, it would only take one to bring him down. Yet another valgast lunged at him, and Adalar swept his greatsword up, parrying the stab of the bone blade, and then brought his sword back down. The blow bisected the valgast’s skull, and the creature collapsed. Two more darted into the gap, and Adalar stepped back, sweeping his sword before him to hold them back. There were too many of them, and they were simply going to overwhelm him and drag him down, like a pack of wolves pulling down an elk. He might kill two or three or even half a dozen, but the rest would drive their blades through the gaps in his armor.