The Gathering, page 24
part #1 of The Hundred Series
Yvonne sipped her water and absorbed the information that was being exchanged.
“Are you going to leave that?” Dundac asked, peering around Firon’s shoulder, eyes on Yvonne’s plate. She glanced down to find she had left more than half of the plate untouched, but her stomach was uncomfortably full.
“No. Do you …” She did not get a chance to finish, as the Hunar stretched across Firon and lifted the plate away.
“You are too thin,” Suanna commented from across the table, frowning.
“I cannot eat any more just now,” Yvonne said, biting her lip against a smile as Suanna turned a disapproving scowl on Dundac.
“You’ll need to sleep again soon,” Firon commented unexpectedly. Despite sitting next to her, he had been so quiet he was almost forgotten around the table. “Healing is exhausting.”
Whatever she might have said in answer was overtaken as the others cleared the dishes away, making space for Pieris’ map, Sillman commenting that he would wish to have such a map for himself.
Pieris shook his head slightly as he set the map on the now-empty table, dishes piled haphazardly on the large sideboard in the room.
“It would take another winter,” Pieris told Sillman.
“But you have the knack of it now,” Sillman pressed.
“Leave him be,” Suanna interrupted. “It is an extraordinary piece of magic. And a lot of hard work. Be glad it exists at all. If it was easy, we’d all have one.”
Yvonne wondered how long it would be before Sillman suggested that he should have the map, as the leader of the Hundred. Despite the fact that they had no official leader, and were all supposed to be equal in their tasks.
“It’s also only cued to me,” Pieris added, smoothing the part closest to him. He was looking at the surface of the map as he did so, carefully avoiding Sillman’s eyes.
Yvonne bit her lip against another smile, and was sure she was not the only one.
“Very well,” Sillman said, with remarkable grace. “We were trying to work out where the wagons could have been going, once they left Coll Castle,” he explained to Yvonne.
Pieris gave the map a series of commands that had the image focused more tightly on Coll, and the surrounding land. The road from the back of the castle was not on the map, as a local route. It could lead almost anywhere. Yvonne could understand the Hundred’s frustration.
“I may be able to track them,” Yvonne said. It felt like half a lifetime ago that Guise had come to her with that request. She was about to go on when an enormous yawn caught her by surprise.
“Tomorrow,” Suanna said firmly, before Sillman could say anything. “Another night’s rest will do us all good,” she added, sending a frowning look to Sillman. “And the horses need it, too.”
“I’ll make sure they get some extra feed,” Idal promised.
Yvonne yawned again, eyelids heavy, and left them to their planning, making her way back upstairs before falling back into the lavender softness and into sleep. She needed to heal. The castle’s lord might be dead, but they still did not know what had happened to the wagons, or the children.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They started their journey at the castle. The rest of the Hundred wanted a final look to make sure nothing had been missed. The bodies were gone, of course. There were many ways of disposing of bodies, but the broad area of scorched earth outside the castle’s entrance suggested that magic fire had been used. It burned everything, reducing bones to ash in moments. The Hundred had been busy whilst she slept.
The great hall looked odd, with the bare walls, and the fractured throne, carelessly thrown across the room, the stone floor blotted in places with old, dried blood, some of it much darker than it should be, particularly where the lord of the castle had fallen.
Yvonne’s stomach twisted with the memory of the vettr’s tongue rasping against stone.
She also remembered the body on the floor, surrounded by the Hundred. A spike of irritation rose. There were so many questions unanswered. Not least, what had actually turned the lord’s blood so black.
With the lord gone, she wondered how they were going to get answers.
And she felt cheated. The rest of the Hundred had defeated the lord, not her. The rest of the Hundred had not been the ones in the dungeon.
There was no time for her to go through the entire castle, but Guise, who had also been back here whilst she healed, had identified one of the rooms as the lord’s study, and wanted another look. His information said that the slavers’ wagons had passed through the castle, but there was no evidence of them anywhere.
The study was a wood-panelled room that had clearly been designed with comfort in mind, with a thick rug across the floor, a large desk, and several comfortable chairs. It was an old-fashioned room, cluttered with objects. It did not match the bare walls in the main hall. Yvonne noted the contradiction and wondered how long ago the young lord of the castle had been corrupted.
She spotted a flaw in the wood panelling, a point that did not quite line up, jarring against the fine craftsmanship. She moved across to it. Castles this old tended to have a lot of hidden places. Guise followed her, and she was somehow not surprised when he managed to get the secret door opened in moments. Not the first study he had searched.
The wood panel opened to reveal a small space in the stone wall that was filled with a leather-bound strongbox heavy enough that Guise struggled to pull it out of the space into the room. The box was unlocked, which surprised both of them, and held a collection of leather pouches that made Yvonne’s eyebrows lift.
“That is a lot of money.”
“Not just money. There are gems here. Jewellery,” Guise added, lifting a couple of the pouches out of the box to look underneath. He rose to his feet and set the pouches on the desk, opening them to reveal a spill of coins that made Yvonne’s brows lift again.
“That is a lot of high-value coins for the lord of a small castle to have.”
“Indeed.” Guise was frowning as he tied the pouches off again and set them back in the strongbox, returning the box to its place in the wall and putting the panel back. “I can have people watch the place,” he said in response to Yvonne’s silent question. “See who comes back for the money.”
It was a fair plan.
Too many questions, Yvonne thought, turning her back on the money and searching through the papers in the study. What had corrupted the lord? What possible connection could there be between an old, remote, castle and the slavers? What use did the lord have for all those coins?
“Well, this is interesting,” Guise said. He was standing by the window, holding what looked like a nearly-new ledger to the light.
Yvonne went to stand by his shoulder and read the entries his finger was resting next to.
“Your associate.” Her brows lifted. “Interesting, indeed.”
“It’s a connection of sorts.” Guise turned the next page, a low sound of irritation escaping as he saw they had reached the last entries. “That was about a month ago.”
“He must have been here before he went to Three Falls,” Yvonne speculated, turning back to the desk to see if there was anything they had missed. There was a letter from the Valland King, the ruler of the land, carelessly discarded on one corner of the vast surface. “And then onto Fir Tree Crossing.”
“Yes.” Guise still sounded annoyed. “That is not where he should have been. He was supposed to be in the Royal City before Three Falls.”
“He lied to you?” Yvonne looked up from the letter she was reading, surprised.
“Found something?” Mica asked, coming into the room, followed by Sillman and Suanna. “The rest of the place is empty. Even the stables.”
“There’s a lot of money hidden in the room,” Yvonne told Mica, most of her attention still on the letter. “Too much for this castle.”
“So you re-hid it?” Mica asked, looking around.
“We could use that money,” Sillman said, his eyes also travelling around the room.
“Really?” Yvonne’s attention shifted, brows lifting in unfeigned surprise. “We don’t know if it does belong to the lord. It could be stolen.”
“What’s that?” Sillman asked, nodding to the letter in her hand.
“A summons from the King. He was not pleased that the lord had failed to attend.” It was confirmation of the information Dundac had given them. Yvonne wondered how long it would have been before the King had sent soldiers to drag the lord of Coll to his Court.
“One of my associates seems to have done business with the lord here,” Guise said, before Sillman could ask more questions.
“Good. Let’s find out what he knows,” Sillman said.
“He’s dead,” Guise said, voice dry.
“Did you kill him?” Mica asked, simple curiosity on his face.
“No. Someone got to him before me,” Guise answered honestly.
“It looked as if Ubel had been dealing with the slavers,” Yvonne added. “He was at one of the warehouses in Three Falls. And his barge at Fir Tree Crossing had been used for smuggling.”
“So, there’s a connection of some kind between Guise and Coll?” Sillman asked, frowning. Yvonne’s brows rose. It sounded like a simple question, and might be a logical deduction, but she could not help feeling there was more to it. Sillman was being deliberately provocative.
“No,” Guise answered, his voice flat. “Between Ubel and Coll. He was a trader with many connections.”
“Have we learned everything here?” Yvonne asked. “I haven’t tried to find the track yet, and it’s nearly midday.”
“I agree. We need to be moving,” Suanna said, frowning at Sillman. “You can snip at Guise on the road just as easily as standing here.”
Sillman’s colour rose even as Guise’s lips twitched.
“Very true,” Guise agreed.
Yvonne shook her head slightly, casting one final glance over the lord’s desk before leaving the room, heading for the rear of the castle where they had left the horses near the smaller but no less fortified entrance.
~
She stayed on foot while the others mounted their horses, leading Lothar as she walked out under the thick walls and raised portcullis. The space between her shoulder blades itched as she left. Her skin had been prickling with unease the whole time they had been in the castle and she was not quite sure why. It might have been the odd echo of an empty building around them, one that should be bustling with life and the day-to-day business of both running the castle and managing the surrounding lands.
As soon as her foot landed on the wooden bridge across the moat, her tracking sense woke up, a surge of power sending another wash of unease across her entire body. There was a well-defined path. She could only hope it was the one they were looking for.
Still, she stayed on foot until they had crossed the bridge and were almost at the tree line, letting herself absorb the traces she had found. More than one wagon had passed this way, leaving a tear through the world and the impression of fear and misery behind. Only when she was quite sure she had the full trace in her mind did she get on Lothar.
“Can you follow them?” Mica asked, for once not in jest.
“There’s a very strong trail. I think it’s the right one. This way,” Yvonne turned Lothar and moved him on to his smooth-striding trot that he could keep up for hours at a time. The others might be able to move faster, but she would back her old warhorse’s stamina against any of theirs.
~
The roadway vanished almost as soon as they crossed the tree line, becoming little more than a grassy track, marked by wagon wheels.
And the track continued, on and on, for the rest of the day.
They camped a little away from the trail, stopping only long enough for a few hours’ sleep, all of them up and ready with the dawn to keep going.
About mid-morning the next day, the narrow trail they had been following through the woods widened out, the trees thinning to give way to small fields and a village beyond them. A typical sight in this fertile land, where ancient forest was broken up by small villages, with a few fields and livestock to support the population. Most of the villagers who had settled here had been born far away, Yvonne knew, disillusioned with life in the big cities, and wanting a simpler, quieter existence.
Her first thought on seeing the village was that if quietness was what the villagers had wanted, they had certainly found it. The prickling up her spine told her that something was wrong even before her conscious mind had identified the source.
This village had once been a prosperous place. The houses had glass in their windows, and all the roofs were well-maintained. Mostly thatch, none of them sagging or rotten.
And it was completely empty.
There was not even a stray cat or dog wandering between the buildings. The doors were closed, windows shut and shuttered. No one had left in a hurry. There were no signs of struggle. It was just empty.
The sense of unease spread from her spine across the rest of her body. She sent her senses out, seeking any trace or sign of life. Nothing. Around her she could tell that the rest of the Hundred were doing the same, exchanging uneasy glances as they came to the same conclusions she had. There was no one here.
“My sources report similar villages nearby,” Guise told them. He was the only one who did not look uneasy, but Yvonne knew that he was exceptionally good at hiding his feelings. A necessary survival skill among the Karoan’shae.
She remembered the maps that they had discussed. The seemingly impossible reach of the slave merchants, who had been gathering children and young people far and wide. And the odd, blank, space around Coll Castle that had raised their suspicion. No reports of missing children or abductions. No reports at all, in fact.
They were in the middle of that blank space. She wondered what they would find as they moved through it, and shivered lightly.
“Daylight’s wasting,” Annabelle said, her voice serious for once.
“We should look around a little,” Sillman proposed, normally genial expression replaced by a scowl. “See what we can learn.”
They left the horses together, just outside the perimeter of the houses, and split up, moving through the dozen or so houses in ones and twos, opening the shut doors and checking inside each one.
Nothing.
None of the doors were locked.
All the interiors were neat and tidy. There were no signs of disturbance anywhere. No rotting food.
Everything was in its place.
There was just no one here.
Sillman observed that from the amount of dust gathering in the houses the occupants had been gone a while. A matter of months, perhaps.
Idal reported that the fields all had their gates open, pinned back so that any livestock had been able to leave of their own accord. The farm buildings were the same. Any animal feed had been eaten already.
Firon observed that there were no signs of scavengers.
Yvonne’s flesh crawled. No people. No animals. No scavengers. And the village had been empty for months.
Even after their search through the village, they had no better answers as to what had happened. Not until Idal, glancing back towards the horses, checked in his movement.
“What’s that?”
It was something that they had all ignored until now. A sturdy pole in the town’s centre. Yvonne was used to seeing them in farming villages across the lands, and doubtless the others were, too. Villagers flung canvas over the pole and stretched it out to make a basic tent that was used for festivals, or twined ribbons around it for other celebrations.
And occasionally pinned notices to it, for everyone in the village to see. Or, at least, those able to read.
There was a sheet of parchment pinned to the wooden pole, edges fluttering slightly in the breeze.
As they walked towards it, Yvonne could sense the crude preservation spell laid on it.
“A circle mage,” Annabelle commented, lip curling.
Yvonne made a low sound of agreement, Elinor’s words playing through her mind. Circle mages liked elaborate robes. They thought that being able to create flashes of lightning and pretty colours made them true sorcerers. And did not bother to learn the finer points of magic. They also despised Hunar. Apparently quiet use of magic, and helping people, was beneath the circle mages.
“I know this one,” Sillman said, face reflecting distaste. “He was peddling his services to the highest bidder, last I heard.”
“Well, it seems he found a new master,” Guise said, eyes on the parchment.
The ink was fading despite the preservation spell, but it was still possible to read the proclamation.
“This place is now the property of the King of the … What is that word?” Idal asked, peering more closely.
“Made up kingdom,” Yvonne said, folding her arms across her middle.
“That’s not what it says,” Idal began, then turned and saw her expression, eyes widening slightly in comprehension. “Oh. Not really a kingdom.”
“No. That’s the old name for what’s now Coll Castle,” she told him. “Seems like the lord had extraordinary ambition.”
“So, the lord proclaimed he was king of this land?” Suanna sounded sceptical.
“The King would never have stood for it. If he had known,” Dundac added, voice shading to thoughtfulness.
“It does explain why Lord Coll did not come to the King to swear his oaths,” Sillman agreed. “Although how the King could not have known …”
“The village is empty,” Yvonne reminded them, arms still folded across her middle. Her skin was crawling again. “There’s no one here to tell the King what the lord was doing.”
“More questions.” Annabelle sighed.
By silent agreement, they returned to their horses and rode forward, Lothar prancing in unease as he crossed the perimeter of the town, snorting and swishing his tail all the way until they crossed the invisible perimeter on the other side when he abruptly reverted to his normal, placid self. Too busy keeping her own seat, she barely noticed that the others were having similar difficulty with their own mounts. Whatever magic Lord Coll had performed here, whatever the circle mage had done, it had left a powerful residue, and they had still not reached the end of the trail.
