The Fall of Lady Westwood (10 page)

Valery’s brow creased, and he dropped his hand. “Corporal Endek, what is it?” The corporal handed Valery a rolled length of tattered parchment.

Valery read, shaking his head slowly. He looked up at Endek, a dark brow quirked. “Did this come by runner?”

“Yes, Sir. Just arrived.”

“All the way from Druas?”

Endek nodded.

Valery cursed, smacking the parchment against his thigh. He turned and walked several paces away, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Sir,” Endek asked. “What are your orders?”

Valery was motionless for over a minute, the only sounds the faint groans of the soldiers, and the night wind whispering through the trees overhead. He turned back to the corporal, Valery’s eyes flashing a bright silver in the darkness. “If the runner came from Druas, he’s going to need to feed, and soon.”

“Yes, Sir. He can barely stand.”

Valery looked down at the bound soldiers, and gave a quick nod of his head. Corporal Endek stooped and grabbed the arm of one of the captives.

“Not that one, Corporal.” Valery glanced at the two figures still holding Laird. “I think Taidon there has plans for that one.”

One of the men holding Laird chuckled, a rapacious grin lighting his face.

“No!,” Laird yelled. “I told you what you wanted to know. Leave them alone!”

Valery, his silver eyes cold, pointed the parchment at the kneeling man. “I changed my mind, human.” He gave a quick twitch of his head to Endek, and the corporal plucked another soldier from the ground, carrying his struggling form off into the darkness.

“You fucking
bastard
! Monster!” Laird struggled anew, blood spraying from his lips, his eyes blazing with rage.

Valery was before him in an instant, the long fingers of both hands extended around Laird’s head. With a swift, brutal movement, he broke Laird’s neck, the sound like a muffled snap of a branch. Laird slumped over with a long, fading wheeze. The two figures holding him dropped his lifeless body to the ground. The other captive soldiers became frantic, yelling into their gags, eyes wide with terror. One of them actually managed to raise himself to his knees, before being struck back to the ground by a growling Taidon.

Valery nudged Laird’s corpse with his boot. “Adril. Take that back to the men before he cools. They’re going to need all they can get.”

Adril scooped up Laird’s body as if it was so much firewood, heading back toward the encampment. Taidon knelt to hogtie the hands and legs of his chosen captive, growling at him as he worked.

Valery glanced at the parchment again, breathing a curse. He strolled away from the captive men, and Taidon joined him at his side.

“You can’t resist the redheaded ones can you, Taidon?”

“We all have our vices, Sir.”

Valery frowned. “I don’t understand what you see in them. They’re our food.”

“Do you see your Rayja as food?” Taidon’s voice rumbled, the tone carefully neutral.

Valery raised an eyebrow. “Careful Lieutenant, Taidon.”

“Apologies, Marshal.”

The two walked in silence for a few moments, the moonlight dappling on their dark skin as the branches swayed overhead. A lost, pain-filled cry erupted in the distance, spiraling upward before being abruptly cut off.

“Sounds like Corporal Endek delivered our gift.”

Taidon grinned, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight.

“The men will have to feed all they can tonight,” Valery said holding up the parchment. “Our plans just changed.”

“Sir?”

“It would appear the Consul has decided to move faster than we’d planned.”

Taidon shook his head, looking down.

“Let the men rest for today, Taidon. We’ll need them first dark tomorrow. We have less than a week.”

“A week! Marshal, that’s half the time we’d planned.”

Valery shrugged. “There is the Night Road. That would save us two days at least.”

Taidon shook his head. “We wouldn’t get through one checkpoint. Those cursed dogs always smell us out.”

“Then it’s off the Road we stay.”

“In less than a week, Sir? We’d never make it crossing open terrain.”

“We have to, Lieutenant.”

Taidon raised his arms, palm up. “I don’t think we can push the men that hard, Sir. Plus we have a bigger problem.”

Valery glanced at his Lieutenant. “Oh?”

Taidon nodded. “Food. The men won’t last long without feeding soon.”

“That can be remedied, Lieutenant.”

Taidon tilted his head, considering. “Perhaps the captives? Other than mine of course … ”

Valery chuckled, shaking his head. “Consul wants live captives. Apparently, the pens of Druas need some fresh bloodlines. These will do.”

“Only a few of them look strong enough.”

Valery tapped his Lieutenant on the arm with the parchment. “Consul didn’t say they
all
had to be alive.”

“Yes, Sir,” Taidon said, flashing his grin again. “But even with the ones we feed on tonight, it still won’t be enough if we travel that fast. We’ll need more.”

“Then we’ll feed at our destination,” Valery said, turning to his Lieutenant. “We don’t have a choice, Taidon. We must succeed. If we don’t, we may as well meet the daylight.”

Chapter Seven

McClearn Farmstead

O
wen paced outside the stables, fingering the ridiculous black habit he wore. He’d seen the traveling mendicants before of course, and had always found them an odd mixture of both unsettling and sad. Now, he was going to try to impersonate one!

He stopped, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and stared off to the west. The setting sun was turning the fields a striking mixture of pinks, purples and sienna. West was where they were heading, where she was.

Sophie.

Just the thought of her had him pacing again, his flimsy cloth slippers squelching in the dirt of the stable yard. He needed to get her back. Gods knew what that evil witch Lady Westwood was doing to her. He’d gotten a taste of it himself at the hands of the corrupt noble’s soldiers. When they’d dragged him out of the barn, he’d found himself stripped to the waist, tied against one of the poles that supported the roof of the stable block, and beaten savagely. He’d thought he could hear the cries of poor Sophie, but really they could have been his own, interspersed with his foul oaths and threats of vengeance. The brutes had paused to gag him with a foul smelling cloth, and then beat him anew. It was only when his back ran with blood, and he slumped in his bonds did they relent. He had little memory of the next few days.

He rotated his shoulder, the scar tissue across his back still feeling tight and sore. “I’ll have you back soon, Sophie,” he muttered, staring west into the setting sun once more. “I’ll die before I let her have you a day longer.”

He didn’t know why he had such a thirst for vengeance. The soldiers were just like many others in Muurland: primitive animals, paid to enforce the will of others. While there were some honorable soldiers, there were too many corrupt ones. It was just the way things were. But what galled him most was the fact that they’d lashed him at
her
behest. Lady Westwood. The same woman who could, at that very moment, be doing any number of heinous things to Sophie.

When his father had told Owen he was to work at the McClearn farmstead, there’d been a huge row between father and son. Owen loved the excitement of the city, just as his father did. He wanted a chance to make his own way in the rough, wild environment of Wyndhaven. The danger, intrigue, and murky politics all appealed to him. Anything seemed possible.

If he was honest with himself, he also enjoyed that regular, infamous feature of Wyndhaven life: the monthly slave auctions. He’d once snuck out from home to get a peek at what went on at the docks during those events, and the sights he’d witnessed both disturbed and fascinated him. It had been completely worth the whipping he’d gotten from his father upon his return home.

Initially, the prospect of two whole years spent toiling at the dirty, drab,
boring
farmstead depressed him. But then he’d laid eyes on Clayton McClearn’s daughter, and things suddenly didn’t seem so awful after all.

She, of course, wanted nothing to do with some idiot city dweller, but he’d made sure to take any chance he could to see her. Eventually she’d warmed to him, and though she’d never have admitted it, something had grown between them. Nascent, uncertain, but it was there all the same. Then, disaster.

He wanted to be there at House Westwood with Sophie. He wanted to protect her, to hold her, to tell her he would stand by her no matter what happened next. He wanted to finally kiss those swollen pink lips of hers. The ones he’d dreamt about at night in his stifling bunk above the stables.

How many times had he awoke with his erection tenting the blankets? How many nights did he fall asleep to the visions of Sophie’s deep cleavage that her conservative work shifts could never quite conceal? He even had disturbing, erotic dreams of darker pleasures with her. She stirred him like no other lass ever had.

But those bastard soldiers, and that harpy of a woman had taken her from him. Damn her.

“Owen, get the horses hitched up on that wagon,” his father Isaac called from the shadows of the stable block. “We leave at nightfall, lad.”

“Father, we should leave now. Every minute we wait … ”

Isaac stepped out of the shadows dressed in his own mendicant’s robes, the fading sun shrouding him in patterns of darkness and light.

“
Patience,
Owen. We’ll have one chance at this, and that means we stay to the plan. Now go.”

Owen harnessed up the two oldest horses Clayton McClearn possessed. Isaac felt it would paint a more convincing picture of itinerant priests, supported by the kindness of strangers alone. Owen made sure the dark cloth shroud was properly lashed over the simple frame that would cover the wagon’s occupants. They’d been blessed to have the sewing talents of Rory’s eldest daughter Erin, and the shroud was perfect. In the low light of night, none would be able to discern their deception, save an actual band of true itinerants. Owen prayed that their luck wasn’t that bad.

Soon all was ready, and Clayton McClearn, dressed in his high-collared finest, the engraved McClearn broadblade at his hip, pulled his horse close to the covered wagon.

“Remember,” Clayton said, his eyes glittering in the hollows of his face. “Wait until I leave. She mustn’t associate me with the priests. If she does, it’s off.”

Owen and Isaac, both perched up in the driver’s seat, nodded. The pair of men in the back of the wagon, both members of Isaac’s trade guild, shifted their weight and murmured their acknowledgment.

“Afraid to be tarred with the stain of mercy and goodness are you?” Isaac quirked a grin under the hood of his habit.

Clayton shook his head, his horse snorting. “If they knew which bastards sat in this particular wagon, no priests would ever be allowed to travel these lands again.”

Isaac chuckled, then his mouth thinned, his eyes hidden in shadow. “Just make sure you get out of there, Clayton. This was my plan, but I don’t trust her. She’s unpredictable.”

“Aye, I know her well enough. If we’re lucky she’ll be off balance, not calculating. If so, we’ve got a chance. Are you sure this will work?”

Isaac nodded, gesturing with his hand. “The plan is sound. The mendicants are allowed free access to any noble’s stead for twelve hours. It’s a mockery, of course — the noble’s hide whatever they don’t want seen by outsiders — but it
will
get us in.”

Clayton moved his horse around to the opposite side of the wagon and pointed at the junior Galt. “And you, listen to your father. This is no time to be rebelling against authority again.”

Owen clenched his jaw, but nodded. “I will, Sir. I just want her back, is all.”

Clayton lowered his voice. “We all do, Owen. Be a good lad and do us proud.”

The slap of reins shot Clayton’s horse forward, and in moments, he was away, the sound of galloping hooves receding off into the low whispers of the evening breeze.

Chapter Eight

House Westwood

Sophie awoke to the sound of the lock turning.

She never in her wildest dreams imagined such an innocuous thing would elicit such dread — and something else. She could hear it as if time had slowed to a crawl: the tumblers moving, the barely audible scree of metal on metal. Then the air pressure in the dark cell that passed for her sleeping quarters changed; a rush of cooler, fresh air to mix with the humid closeness that had surrounded her all night.

“Up, girl. We’ve work to do today.”

She’d come to hate his voice, the overseer. She hated his whip more, but his voice every morning was the first confirmation to her that this really wasn’t just a nightmare.