The town’s manor house was a long, grand affair, rendered in stone, itself a rarity in these parts. Its banqueting hall was vast, its floor covered in cool grey flagstones covered by
thick, luxurious red carpet. From both flanking galleries hung many lavishly woven tapestries depicting many of the wars and battles that had shaped both the area and its peoples over the
centuries. The galleries were full of musicians playing to entertain the elegantly clad dancers below. It was a ball, held ostensibly to herald the end of autumn, but it was just as much to
celebrate the Baron’s return and the end of the fighting season as anything else. Esric himself sat watching the dancers; he himself had not danced here for many years. Clad in a velvet tunic
and black leather breeches, he watched the elegantly swaying participants with an air of studied nonchalance.
His sisters were as usual the main attraction. There was but a year between them; they were as close to being twins as it was possible to be, hair black as ink cascading over shoulders white as
marble – the very epitome of Tanarese beauty. It was Esric’s job to marry them off, but he was fond of them both and there were no outstanding candidates for their hands, so he had let
the matter rest. His time was filled with far more pressing matters, after all. They had spent most of the evening dancing with the knights, who were always in demand on occasions like these. When
they weren’t dancing they seemed to be enjoying the company of Mikel, the mage, who was obviously quite the raconteur; Esric remembered the warning he was given about his womanising and
allowed himself a wry smile.
A servant approached him and whispered something quietly in his ear. He nodded at the man, made his excuses and followed him out of the room. From there it was through a dimly lit corridor, down
a flight of stairs and into a small windowless anteroom lit by a single sputtering torch. There was a man waiting there seated quietly on a bench. The servant left the two of them alone and Esric,
after blinking back a tear, caused by the smoke, spoke hoarsely.
‘You have news for me? Baron Garal cited pressing domestic matters as his reason for not attending tonight.’
The man was hooded and his features could be barely seen in the semi-darkness. ‘Arshuman money is changing hands in the east. I have seen Garal’s seneschal’s picked men doing
deals in dark alleys. I cannot confirm that he is definitely in the pay of the enemy; rather, I feel he is keeping in the good graces of both sides, waiting to see in whose favour the wind blows.
It is not my place to advise you, my Lord, but keep him away from your most private counsels. He is also corresponding with Eburg. Give me some time and I should be able to intercept his messengers
and get my hands on one of these letters. And there is another thing.’
Esric raised an eyebrow. ‘And that is?’
‘Strange things are happening on Garal’s southern borders. People are moving north, fleeing their homes. There have been dark rumours of attacks by strange creatures in the dead of
night. Garal dismisses these tales as the ramblings of superstitious peasants, but I have spoken with some of them, solid men, farmers, and when they say they have seen demons, half-men covered in
scales and slime rising from the river, and they say it without blanching, then I tend to think investigation is necessary at the very least.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘Some Marsh Men have fled their villages, too, and have set up a camp on Garal’s lands. He has threatened them with eviction but they are too afeard to return home. It is a rum
situation. Garal is far more interested in his own intrigues than in what is happening on his own borders.’
Esric nodded slowly. ‘Return to his lands and resume your duty there. My man here will arrange your payment, and get me some proof of the treachery you speak of, if you can.’
The Baron left the room and climbed back up the stairs. Once in the corridor, he pulled out a piece of parchment he had been hiding in an internal pocket in his robes. Slowly he read and reread
its words, words he was familiar with already. He replaced the parchment and rejoined the ball.
Enough alcohol had been consumed to loosen up the dancers’ inhibitions. The stiff formality of the earlier hours had been replaced by the more frenzied reels. The musicians, knowing what
was required, had stepped up the pace considerably; there was much laughing and joking; his sisters were swirling about the place, knights draped on their arms. Esric circulated, spoke to the
people he had to, until finally he joined Josar in the shadows at the back of the hall.
‘I need a favour from you,’ he told his old friend.
‘What? Someone needs beating up? A friendly word in a maiden’s ear? Young Lady Selmia has kept her eyes on you all night.’
‘No, I need you to stay here for a couple of days. I want you to travel to Eburg with me the day after tomorrow. My patience with the Baron is at the point of snapping.’
Josar raised an appraising eyebrow. ‘And what exactly has driven you to this conclusion – one, I may add, that many of us came to a while ago.’
‘You know his seneschal, Carey?’
‘By Artorus yes, a good man, his boy, too; he was with us when we cleared the island on the Axe.’
‘Exactly. You know I naively thought all the sedition and treachery we have had to face had been put to bed after Morgan’s visit. He said not all the vipers had had their fangs drawn
when he left and it appears he may have been right. Earlier on I received a missive from Carey; apparently Eburg is planning some executions in a couple of days and one of the victims is a Marsh
Man. It is a matter he should have consulted me about but he has instead decided to press on regardless.’
Josar looked sceptical. ‘But surely that is more a mistake on his part than out and out treachery.’
‘I agree. Ordinarily, I would let the matter pass but according to Carey this Marsh Man has knowledge of a matter of a troubling nature about problems on our borders. Before you laugh, I
have had corroboration from another source which more or less confirms that there is trouble in the Marshes, trouble that both Eburg and Garal are keeping from me – either through stupidity
or malice, I know not. And then there is this...’ He pulled the parchment out of his pocket and gave it to Josar. ‘Carey found it on Eburg’s desk and decided to let me
look.’
Josar read the brief message. ‘Border trouble my end. War on two fronts? Time to sit back and profit from the demise of the Prosecutors? Will write soon. G.’
Josar looked up at Esric. ‘If he hadn’t mentioned the demise of the Prosecutors, this would be ambiguous rubbish, but because he does this is treachery. And this was written by Garal
to Eburg?’
‘No,’ said Esric. ‘Firstly Garal doesn’t sign it; it could be from anyone with a name beginning with G. I am having him watched anyway; maybe he can lead us to all those
involved if there is treachery among the barons. Secondly, it was not addressed to Eburg.’
‘Not Eburg? Then who?’
‘I will tell you on the way there; I want no one overhearing.’
‘Very well. One other question, why aren’t we going tomorrow?’
Esric shook his head, affecting a world-weariness brought on by companions with no sense of subtlety. ‘Josar, my friend, you have absolutely no sense of theatre. We will arrive unannounced
an hour or so before these executions are supposed to commence; I want to see Eburg’s reaction. Well no, perhaps all I actually want is to see him squirm.’
‘Now that,’ said Josar, draining his goblet, ‘is something I wouldn’t miss for the world. Now let me introduce you to Selmia, a lady whose only fault is a terrible taste
in men.’
The two of them emerged from the shadows, their smiles showing they had not a care in the world.
It was dusk over Tath Wernig. Lights were beginning to appear through the windows of the inn, the magistrate’s house and a couple of the smaller residences. Outside the
smithy, several tethered horses were munching contentedly at their feed. Crepuscular shadows clung to the trading post and the houses close to it. The river, glittering like a studded leather belt,
threaded its never-changing course southward. Outside the inn, two men hung around the doorway sharing a mug of ale and several fanciful stories. It was a scene of serene tranquillity.
Or maybe not. High among the twisted branches of an ancient oak, close to the magistrate’s house and unseen by anybody was a crouched figure, swathed in black from his hood to his boots.
Whitey was not a man who gave up easily.
The guards had run him out of town; he had only barely avoided a beating. Once he was clear of them, he returned to digs in Eburg, sat and pondered all the recent events in his life, and
realised that without the big merchant his prospects were as poor as ever.
It was time for revenge.
The magistrate had kept the Marsh Man’s trade goods for himself; he had taken his share and sent the rest to the Baron. They were gone now and there was nothing he could do about it. The
magistrate’s silver, though, was another matter. He had seen it when he was inside his house – candlesticks, plates, spoons – much of it just displayed on a dresser. And so he had
returned. He had spent a day or so casing the place. There were two guards at the front gate but no one at the servant’s entrance at the rear. There was a seven-foot wall to scale and a lock
to pick, but then he was in; it was child’s play for a seasoned professional such as he. He would wait for the dead of night when everyone was asleep, including the guards (well, they had
slept through their watch the night before), and the only noise was the sound of the owls and their victims, the river and the chill wind in the trees. He could be in and out in fifteen minutes.
All he had to do now was wait.
A couple of guards were strolling around the village; one was by the waterside, the other was stroking the horses. It was just them and the two men at the inn, them and the rapidly receding
light.
Whitey had great night vision and was watching the man at the river’s edge. Boredom was always a problem with these jobs, keeping focused, not letting the mind w...
What in the name of Artorus happened there?
In the blink of an eye he saw something. Shapes, man shapes, emerging out of the river and smothering the man at the water’s edge. Then they were gone, back into the river with a soft
splash, leaving the bank clear. Then silence.
Had he dreamed it? Nobody else seemed to notice what had happened. Were the Marsh Men attacking in vengeance?
Then at the very same place the river started to boil.
One black figure, its silhouette close to human, but definitely not human, leapt on to the bank. Then a second. And a third. Suddenly the bank was alive, swarming with dozens of these things.
And then they started creeping into the village.
The guard could see them now. He bellowed a warning to the other men and ran forward, his halberd lowered. The men raised a hue and cry in the inn and several of their companions emerged bleary
and confused.
The black figures started to attack them. There were shouts and screaming from the men and suddenly from their assailants a blood-curdling unearthly howl. From the house he had been planning to
rob the magistrate emerged with a dozen or so armed guards. They joined the fray outside the inn.
It was a terrible battle. These creatures were unarmed but were biting and clawing there victims; blows were struck on them but seemed to make little impression.
Artorus’s divine bollocks, thought Whitey, the Marsh Man was right!
Ever the one for executive action Whitey made a decision. It was time to flee. He gracefully swung out of the tree and landed softly on the muddy ground. Quietly he made his way to the smithy.
The horses were rearing and white-eyed but they were not being bothered at the moment. He always had an empathy with horses and managed to calm one sufficiently enough to lead it away from the
others. Eventually it was still enough to mount. He swung his leg over it and started to ride it into the trees.
Suddenly from nowhere one of the creatures leapt in front of him. He saw it only briefly – its strange, lizard-like eyes, its sharp white teeth, its coat of wet glistening scales –
before his horse reared in terror. Whitey clung for dear life to its neck barely staying on but he had lost complete control of it. In its terror to get away, it rode at full pelt towards the
inn.
It was all a whirl of lightning-fast images, brief impressions gleaned from the back of a panicked horse for Whitey now. The sound of these creatures devouring the other screaming horses, the
slick of slippery blood at the inn door, the sight of them carrying the dead and dragging the wounded towards the river, the crunch of his horse’s hoof on one of these monster’s skulls
as it ran in front of him. As helpless as a baby, Whitey held desperately on to his mount as it plunged through the carnage at the inn. Women and children were fleeing into the woods; a small knot
of desperate men, halberds in hand, thrust and stabbed at the ever-increasing enemy trying frantically not to be swarmed. They were far too preoccupied to notice Magistrate Onkean, blood masking
his horrified face, as he punched weakly at two of his assailants, before being dragged bodily under the river’s foaming surface.
But Whitey was gone, plunging down the road to Eburg, clinging with all his strength to his crazed mount, leaving behind the scene of irreparable carnage that was once the village of Tath
Wernig.
Sir Trask got to his feet, adjusted his breeches and smacked his lips lasciviously.
‘See, as I told you, no pillars of fire, no explosions, no shards of ice, nothing. Tie her up and gag her and she is no different to any camp whore.’ He turned away from the subject
of his discourse and walked towards the horses picketed by the south road.
The girl he walked away from lay on her back in the tattered remnants of her robes and stared blankly at the slate-grey sky.
She was beyond anything now – pain, suffering, fear, all had melded together into a melange of unending agony, leaving her empty, devoid of everything that had made her human, stripped of
everything that once was Cheris. All that remained was nothing more than what she actually physically was – skin, blood, hair and bone. She had nothing more that they could take.