Chapter 15

Lancaster Devereux hurt all over. His head swam and he had trouble remembering where he was or how he’d gotten there. He’d been having nightmares. Horrific things where something in the dark was eating him alive.

He cracked his eyes and looked around. He sat in some sort of filthy one room hovel. The sort of thing a common would live in. Log and daub construction, which meant he was out of the city. Now that he thought about it, he did have vague memories of leaving the city.

A light musical humming drew his attention. It sounded feminine. Lance realized he was not alone. Sitting by the fireplace, a skinny girl with long, glossy, black hair was hunched over something. Her back was to him and she was humming to herself.

Lance shook his head, trying to clear it. What had he been doing before waking up here? It felt like it had been something important. Had he gotten drunk and had a trist with a common? He eyed the skinny girl by the fire. She didn’t seem like his type. This also didn’t explain why he felt like he’d been trampled by a horse.

Whatever the girl was working on burst into flame, and she cursed and threw it into the fireplace. Lance blinked as she got up and strode across the room and began to rummage through a pile of garbage. The girl was put together like a boy. She stopped and looked up at Lance,

“Oh, you’re awake!” Said Peony.

Recognition hit Lance and he groaned, closing his eyes to banish all thoughts that he’d been watching a girl. He heard Peony move off. Something clicked, and he realized the pile of garbage had been a table. He remembered how it broke.

“Sigrun,” he said.

Pushing himself up straighter, lance looked around again. The room should have contained people. Where had they gone?

As he looked, one corner in particular caught his eye. It seemed darker than the rest of the room. Looking at it, he had a flash of irrational fear. He looked away, getting his heart and breathing under control. Those had not been nightmares. He’d gone somewhere… else. Somewhere impossible.

Lance remembered now. He’d taken a step forward, and was met by the sensation of missing a stair; then falling. He’d continued falling, each second making the inevitable impact a more certain death.

He’d been surrounded by absolute darkness, tumbling in the air. A long fall. Certain he was going to die, then he hit water. The impact was painful and jarring. Disoriented, he kicked for the surface, only to find more water. He kicked and strained, ditched his boots and cloak, becoming more and more desperate. His chest burned and his lungs ached, but he only found more water. He stopped, letting himself float, until he found which direction was up. Once found, he swum with desperate energy, and struck the muddy bottom. He twisted, got his feet on the mud and kicked off. He went nowhere. The mud took hold and began sucking him down.

He was trapped, at the bottom of some cursed subterranean lake. He struggled to free his feet, until he reached his limit and took in a lung-full of water. It brought relief, breathing again after holding it so long. The wrongness of it hit him, and he tried to cough out the water and gasp in a breath of air. The pain was incredible, a clutching, wrenching need as his lungs filled with fire and he began to convulse. He vomited the water out, then gasped more in, the pain becoming worse. He was going to die.

Then somehow he broke the surface and floundered onto a muddy bank. He vomited water again, taking in ragged, painful gasps of air between heaves. Then he collapsed, gasping like a beached fish. Something crawled onto his arm and bit him.

Its little feet tickled across his skin, then with iron-vice jaws it pinched until his skin broke and began frenetically digging into the cut. Trying to get under his skin. He slapped the thing, crushing its little chitinous body in his hand with a wet pop. It had long brittle legs that were sharp when they broke. Lance pushed himself to his feet. Stumbling in the darkness. More of the creatures crawled onto his skin.

Lance shuddered and tore his eyes away from the dark corner and his memories. He stared into the fire for a moment, needing the light, then rolled up his sleeve and looked. His flesh was whole and unmarked. He rolled up his other sleeve and felt his stomach and legs. He couldn’t find any sign of injury. He closed his eyes and shuddered again. Then his eyes snapped open as he remembered struggling with Tythos.

Lance pushed himself to his feet, wincing with the pain in his chest and back.

“I am going to kill him,” Lance said.

Peony stopped what he was doing and looked up.

“I’m going to kill him!” Lance shouted.

He looked at Peony.

“Where is everyone?”

“Oh, umm…” Peony blinked and looked around the room. “I’m not sure. Tythos went after the soldiers, who ran away. Sigrun stormed out. Bird went to have a look around, and I thought Regina was still here.” He looked around again, like she might appear. He shrugged and smiled. “Sorry.”

Peony went back to drawing on a piece of wood. Lance looked at it. It didn’t look like any writing lance knew. He looked around the room again.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Where are my boots?”

Peony looked up and blinked at him. He looked down at Lance’s feet, as if expecting them to be there.

“You don’t know where they are?” Peony asked, then returned to drawing.

“Stop what you are doing and focus on me,” Lance said. “I want you to tell me what happened, from when I was standing in that corner,” Lance pointed, but didn’t look. “All the way up until right now. Be very careful not to leave anything out.”

“So you can figure out where your boots are?” Peony had a bright, helpful look on his face.

Lance reached for his sword, then closed his eyes and counted to five. He’d killed men for this kind of insult. Only he was under orders not to reveal his station, and also to keep the thaumaturge alive, if possible. He released the sword and opened his eyes. He couldn’t tell if the kid was faking it, or really this socially inept. He suspected the latter.

“Tell me what happened!” Lance shouted.

Peony shrank back, but launched the tale. He told the story in a rambling run-on manner: Lance disappeared; Sigrun agreed to help Tythos to get Lance back; Lance reappeared; Bird left; Tythos began teaching him about sigils; Sigrun wanted to try negotiation; Sigrun left; Tythos’s hand came back, but it was weird; the soldiers escaped,

“Oh yeah, you woke up and Tythos tripped on you, then you guys fought and he reached into your chest— Regina said you were dead— then Tythos hit you until you started breathing again and then he left.”

Lance blinked, absorbing all this. He had questions, but didn’t want to sit through any more of Peony’s explanations.

“Go get my saddlebags off of my horse,” Lance said.

Peony glanced down at what he was doing, then looked back at Lance,

“I’m supposed to be practicing. Can’t you get them?”

Lance glowered at Peony. The kid believed he outranked him.

“You still have your boots,” Lance said. “I need my extra pair.” He looked down at his feet for emphasis.

“Oh!” Peony blinked at Lance’s feet. “Oh yeah! I forgot, it snowed!” He got up and streched. “Sure, I’ll help you out.” He smiled at lance and walked out the front door. He didn’t shut it behind himself.

Lance shook his head, then looked down at what the kid was doing. He’d heard of sigils. If possible, one of the things he was supposed to do was find out what he could about them. The little charcoal doodle on the piece of wood didn’t make any sense to him.

Lance sat down by the fire and tried to think if he could get away with killing Tythos. He rubbed at his chest. He was pretty sure he had a cracked rib. He could dispose of Tythos and pass the blame onto Sigrun, but that wouldn’t matter. He had been threatened with loss of status if he failed to deliver Tythos and Sigrun to Ginnung Gap.

Lance made a sour face. He was well enough connected. He thought he could call in some favors and avoid a loss of status. He was going to kill that old, barbaric, bearded, classless brute.

“Lance!” Peony burst in through the door that was still hanging open. “Sigrun’s horse is gone!”

“Show me,” Lance said, standing up.

Peony disappeared back the way he’d come. Lance walked to the door and shouted after Peony,

“What about my boots?”

***

The snow had stopped falling. The world had settled into the sharp clarity a fresh snowfall brought. The night was bright enough for Bird, and he’d gotten on top of one of the bluffs before the moonrise. From atop the bluff he’d got a good look at the valley. There was a lot more movement than he expected.

Bird counted three units of soldiers moving in the valley. They appeared to be going door to door, which alarmed him at first, but he’d seen movement in the houses after they left. These soldiers weren’t killing everyone in the farms they visited. His next guess was they were looking for someone.

Bird was about to head back and roust the party, to stay ahead of the soldiers, when he saw Sigrun leave the log house.

“What the hell?”

He watched as she went to the stable, then came riding out a minute later. She rode down the lane, then turned down the road and kept going. Bird kept one eye on her and the progress of the soldiers. He was pretty sure he’d have to go get her, so he wanted to watch where she went.

In an almost comical set of circumstances, from Bird’s vantage point, Sigrun and one of the units of soldiers passed right by each other. She keep losing track of the road and was guiding her horse on the other side of the trees as the soldiers turned down another farm lane.

Bird shook his head. Some people were lucky and didn’t know it. Movement caught his eye back at the farm. Two men exited and took off in different directions. It was the two soldiers Tythos had dragged in.

“That can’t be good.”

Bird was watching where they were going, when Tythos exited. He stood for a second, looking at the trails in front of him and picked one. He began making his way along Bird’s back trail. Bird sighed,

“You trying to find me, or just so bad you can’t tell the difference between running and walking footprints in the snow?”

Bird pursed his lips. This group of people had him muttering and talking to himself. He rolled his neck and looked at Sigrun’s progress. She was making good time, wherever she was going.

Bird was getting ready to head down, when another person exited. He stopped and watched for another minute. This person didn’t move like anyone in the party. He watched for a long minute before concluding this had to be Regina.

“What are you playing at?”

Bird shook his head. He didn’t know how he was going to gather everyone. Movement overhead caught his eye. He held very still watching the sky.

“Oh no,” he whispered. “There wasn’t that much blood. Couldn’t have been.”

He strained his eyes, trying to pick out darker shapes against the stars. The trees were getting in the way. He checked back with the valley again. One of the units of soldiers were going to beat him to the farmhouse no matter what he did. It looked like Tythos was going to catch up with him soon. The man ran like a wolf. He set a pace and just kept going.

Bird looked back at the sky. He didn’t see anything. No movement.

“Come on, let me be wrong this time. I really don’t want to be right.”

He looked back down at the valley. He’d lost track of Gina. He scanned back and forth, but didn’t see any sign of her.

“That’s a neat trick.”

Bird looked to the sky again. He needed to climb a tree to get a clear view, but he didn’t dare. He didn’t see anything. Maybe he had imagined it.

“Please let me have imagined it,” Bird closed his eyes for a moment and prayed, “Please, please, please… just let me be wrong. Let the snow and blood not have woken one. Let them be asleep. And if one’s awake, let it move on. Surely there wasn’t that much blood in the valley.”

The soldiers were walking down the lane toward the farmhouse. Someone exited the farmhouse and went to the stables. Looked like Peony.

“He making a run for it?”

Peony ran back to the house, stood for a moment, then ran back to the stables. Bird didn’t know what he was doing. The soldiers split up, two headed for the stables, five headed for the main house.

“Who’s in there? Lance?”

Bird shook his head. He checked the sky, but still saw nothing.

“That should be fine. Those two wouldn’t kill anyone…”

***