Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (50 page)

By way of explanation, he removed a half-full bottle from within the depths of his torn, baggy cloak. “A very interesting garden, our healer keeps,” he said. “A number of herbs grow there. Some cleanse wounds, others... ease pain. Permanently, in large enough doses.”

“So, the guards, did you...?”

Emmett shook his head. “No, even now I could not do that. They were friends of mine, once upon a time. Just a dash, enough for a draught of slumberwine. Only one guard keeping watch, and he was grateful for a cup to warm him after a long winter’s night.”

Together, they crept along the underground passage. Around the corner from their cell was a small alcove, into which had been set a wooden table and stool. A snoring guardsman, dressed in rusted chainmail, was sprawled across the table. In front of him was a pewter cup, at the bottom of which were a few last dregs of dark red liquid.

“How long until he wakes?” Raven asked.

Emmett appeared uncertain. “An hour or two,” he replied. “Mayhap more, mayhap less.”

There was a stone staircase nearby. Raven went to the foot of it and strained to listen. Silence. It seemed their escape had yet to be noticed. “Are there other guards on patrol?” she asked, returning to the alcove beside which Emmett stood waiting.

“It’s possible,” he ventured. Raven decided that their former guide disliked dealing with certainties. “There aren’t that many of them, not really. There’s Eli here,” he pointed at the slumbering guardsman. “Then there’s Tam, Denys, Mikkel and Gerhardt, the sergeant. The others may well be asleep at this time, or upstairs. You shouldn’t have too much difficulty reaching the village, nor leaving it.”

Raven shook her head. “I’m not leaving without our friend.” Gently, she reached down to the guardsman and slid his sword from its sheath. “I also made a promise to the Baron that I intend to keep.”

The older man’s eyes widened for a moment, then he nodded. “I understand. This is a more dangerous path, however.”

Emmett looked utterly miserable. Raven laid a hand on his shoulder. “You have done a lot for us already,” she told him. “We would understand if you wish to leave, to return home.”

His shoulders sagged even further. “No, there is nothing for me there, not any more. I would see this through to the end. It has been a long time coming. Besides,” he added, “you will need me to help you reach the Baron’s chambers.”

Raven took the lead as they climbed the staircase. They went as quietly as they could; there seemed little reason to alert the guards to their presence if they could avoid doing so. They emerged in an anteroom of sorts, obviously meant for the guards’ use. As well as a table and chairs, several wooden racks arrayed along the walls contained weapons of various kinds. Raven examined these, before taking a lethal-looking crossbow in addition to the sword she already held. There was a leather strap attached to it, which she fixed to her belt. She preferred to keep a hand free, if possible. Before they left, she also passed Cole a heavy mace topped with sharp spikes. Emmett refused to accept a weapon of any kind.

On leaving the guardroom, they emerged in the mansion’s main hallway. Raven eyed the same portraits she had belatedly noticed the day before. Like everything else about the Baron, it was brazen. The clues were there for anybody that had the knowledge to piece them together. The same face throughout the centuries, the exotic origins. He had lived for so long and wielded power so great that he no longer held any fear that he might be discovered. No doubt it amused him to flaunt the truth of his nature in such a manner.

It was Cole who noticed the change first. “It looks different,” he said.

Raven looked around at the hallway, and she saw it too. Whereas the night before last it had appeared grand, with a brilliant white tiled floor, marble staircase and luxuriant carpet, the space in which they were standing now seemed affected by the same torpor that pervaded the village outside. The floor was streaked with grime, the carpet was worn thin and ragged curtains hung limply from their rails. Where before everything had been bright and vivid, now the colours were muted. It was as if a century had passed in the space of two nights. And the years had not been kind.

“What happened here?” Raven wondered aloud. It didn’t seem possible that such a transformation could occur in so short a time.

“I don’t know, but it could be a... a glamour of some kind, perhaps?”

Raven glanced towards Cole. “A spell, you mean?”

Cole shrugged. “Similar. You said yourself that these
rakh
are able to change their own appearance. Perhaps the Baron’s power has grown beyond others of his kind.”

It was as good an explanation as any. Emmett hurried towards the double-doors that led to the dining hall, and beckoned for them to follow.

“Why this way?” Raven hissed.

The older man hushed her to silence and pressed his ear to the door. Evidently he heard no sound, as he pulled the right-most door open a crack and stepped into the gloom beyond. “If there are any guards about, most likely they’ll be keeping watch on the main stairs,” he explained as Raven and Cole followed him inside. “But there’s a back-stair that leads up to the master’s chambers. Mayhap it will be unguarded.”

They found it easily enough. A plain wood door to the left of where they had entered revealed a narrow staircase leading up. Raven caught Cole casting nervy looks over his shoulder at the rows of benches and the table upon the dais. All now stood empty, but the events of the night of the Baron’s supper still weighed heavy upon them both.

When they reached the top of the staircase, Emmett once again listened at the door they found there. This time, they all heard what they had feared. Footsteps thumped ponderously along the corridor beyond. They became louder as they approached the door they were huddled behind, then went past and began to recede.

Emmett saw Raven’s grip on her sword tighten, and he shook his head. “Only as a last resort. Please,” he begged.

When the footsteps had gone, they slipped through the door into the upper hallway beyond. As Emmett had said, there didn’t appear to be many guards on duty at this time. Hopefully just the one was patrolling the entire upper floor, and he would not return this way for some time.

Several doors led off from the hallway they now found themselves in. “Which is the Baron’s chamber?” Raven asked.

Their former guide hobbled along the hallway, which was in the same state of disrepair they had noted downstairs. He approached a corner, but instead of following the corridor around the bend, he stopped outside another door. Raven pointed towards it with a meaningful look, and he nodded. Raven took the lead again, Cole following close behind. She slowly pulled the handle on the door, so as to make no sound, and tiptoed inside.

The Baron’s chamber was almost pitch-black. A thin crack of grey light was visible around the edges of what appeared to be an enormous curtain spread across almost the entire opposite wall. All was still, aside from a low humming noise she was unable to place. The door closed with a soft click after Emmett entered behind them, and Raven waited for a few moments to allow her eyes time to adjust to the gloom. Gradually, she began to see the outlines of pieces of furniture; an armoire set against one wall, a dressing table and chair set before it and a bed. At least, she took it for a bed. It was positioned directly in front of the great curtain, but seemed jumbled and uneven. She took a few steps forward and saw that in place of a mattress, the bed was seemingly composed of dozens of cushions and pillows of varying sizes and colours.

Whatever it was made up of, that it served as a bed was clear. Lying spread-eagled in the centre of it was the unmistakable form of the Baron. He wore a long, white nightshirt that was open at the chest to reveal a pelt of thick golden hair. The soft sounds of steady breathing confirmed that he was asleep.

Raven wondered whether that was the key to it: the illusion of grandeur inside the manor house, even the mirage of the disappearing village that had fooled a generation of hunters. Perhaps when the Baron slept, all that he had created faded away to reveal the ugly truth lurking beneath.

It had to be now. Raven crept closer, taking care to make no sound nor stumble over any half-seen objects lying underfoot in the darkness. Three steps. Four. Slowly edging nearer to the mound of cushions. The Baron dozed on as she approached, his chest gently rising and falling. A dozen steps brought her level with the sleeping figure. She gripped the sword firmly and raised it high, shifting her weight ready to bring down her full strength in a single blow.

But as Raven stood there, preparing to strike, the Baron’s green eyes suddenly flicked open. With a gasp of surprise, Raven swung down with the blade, but it was too late. The Baron grinned with a mouth full of sharp feline teeth and caught her wrist in mid-air. His grip was like iron, holding her fast. She squirmed, trying to twist her arm free, but his fingernails bit into her skin like claws.

She heard a commotion behind her. Cole was rushing towards the bed to help her. With a sneer, the Baron made a sign in the air similar to the one he had traced that night in the dining hall and she heard Cole drop to the floor with a thump. Raven redoubled her efforts to free herself, but now found herself fighting even to breathe. The Baron’s free hand shot up and grabbed her by the throat. His eyes burned with animalistic fury as his grip tightened. The pupils were vertical slits. Around her the world began to fade. Her vision darkened at the edges until all she could see were those green eyes, boring into her soul. She heard Cole shouting from the floor, but his words were faint, indistinct.

With the last of her strength, Raven fumbled at her waist, hoping to find the crossbow she had picked up earlier, but her hand came away empty. It was gone. She tried to remember where she had lost it, but it was impossible to think now. Her arm fell limply to her side. All her strength had gone, and the blackness that surrounded her vision crowded in until almost everything else faded from sight.

Then she was falling. Raven felt herself flying through the air and landing with a dull thump.
Papa! No!
her mind cried out, cast back to an earlier time. It took a heartbeat to register that the Baron’s death-grip on her throat had loosened, and then she was gasping for air, filling her lungs with a feeling close to exultation. The world came rushing back, and she sat up.

The Baron was sitting up also. With a trembling hand he was pawing at the feathered end of the bolt protruding from his chest. On his face was an expression of dumbfounded surprise. He wasn’t looking at Raven, though. His gaze went past her to the figure standing at the foot of his bed. Emmett still held the crossbow raised, the startled look on his face almost a reflection of the Baron’s.

Raven heard a ragged, bubbling sound and saw bloody froth forming around the bolt. It had evidently pierced a lung, and the creature that had so recently tried to throttle the life from her was struggling to draw a breath of his own. Dark blood began to seep from the wound, staining his white nightshirt. His jaw worked noiselessly, and then it was over. The Baron’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and he collapsed back onto the bed of cushions.

“I... I didn’t know what else to do,” Emmett murmured. He seemed dazed. “It was on the floor, by my foot. It seemed such a simple thing to do. I... I had to stop him.” The faraway look in the older man’s eyes vanished. He blinked at them, as if seeing them for the first time. Then he glanced back at the crossbow he still held, and dropped it to the ground.

“Thank you, Emmett,” Raven said, sincerely, her voice coming out in a croak. If their former guide had not intervened, she did not doubt she would even now be lying lifelessly on the floor of the Baron’s chamber.

Cole, now freed from the Baron’s spell, was poking around the unusual bed. With a sweep of his arms he pulled the curtain aside, and bright white light poured into the room. Behind it was a great round window, beyond which stood the grey trees of the Spiritwood. Large flakes of snow were still falling. But Cole was looking around the room. “There’s a door over there,” he said, pointing.

“It might not be a good idea to go in there.” Emmett’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Raven felt the tug of curiosity draw her closer to the door. It was plain wood, with no distinguishing features. And yet she felt a great sense of foreboding when she approached it.

“Perhaps our equipment is in there,” Cole wondered aloud. Emmett made no further reply.

Raven saw her hand go to the doorhandle, moving almost of its own volition. She felt separate from her body as the handle turned. The door creaked open, and the humming noise she had noted upon entering the Baron’s chamber became louder. She tried to will her feet to turn around and carry her far from that room, but they ignored her. A thousand miles below her, her feet took slow, cautious steps through the doorway.

The smell hit her first. The stench of old blood and rotting meat. Decay. A cloud of flies took off as she entered the room, buzzing angrily above the room’s only piece of furniture. In the centre of the room, between the racks of sharp metal implements, was a plain wooden table. A naked man lay upon it, unmoving. It was Harri.

The world seemed to spin away from her, no thoughts in her mind but a ceaseless wail of agony and loss. She barely even heard Cole enter the room behind her and gag. “Oh god...” he moaned.

The young hunter’s body was a bloody ruin. His left shoulder ended in a ragged stump, the white of bone showing through the gore. His right leg was missing also, while his body was covered with a maze of slashes and gouges. One side of his head was bloody where an ear had been torn away, but otherwise his face was untouched. His eyes were closed, but there was no peace there. Features that she had once gazed upon so adoringly were now contorted by fear and pain. All that had made him beautiful to her was gone, replaced by ugliness. What remained was a gruesome parody of the man she had known.