Some of them said it was as though the woods were trying to kill them. They recounted stories of tree branches slapping them from their horses, of stones rolling by themselves across the road to stick in the wagon wheels. I couldn't hear any more. Not alone. The kinds of things they told me were things the entire order of knights needed to hear.
I only extricated myself by telling them to come to the estate and air their comments and criticisms to the order. I didn't have it in me to make the decisions on my own. It wouldn't be fair to them or to the town.
And I wasn't sure what decisions to make at any rate.
If I expected them to come and regale us all with stories of woodland terror, and that we would discuss where to house them as they recovered from their scares, I was sorely mistaken.
When they did come, it was with a complaint that had burrowed beneath their psyches and sent them packing. The woods coming alive was just the latest atrocity.
The migrants didn't just come to New Denver to hide out from Hunter. They came to New Denver to check out the new leader, the evil woman they thought planned to take over the nation. They wanted to know what made her so special that Hunter would abandon all sense of justice to punish the nation because he couldn't punish her.
It grew boring to be honest. It was, after all, everything I expected of people when it came to me.
I sat beside Lance as each one stated their case, their journey, their needs. He smelled of smoke and the tang of metal. Sometime during the session, he reached out and took my hand beneath the table. It reassured me that I wasn't alone in all of this. His callused fingers stroked my wrist and I had to extract my hand from his because it didn't seem respectful to listen to the stories such as we heard while I kept yearning for one more touch.
I thought I heard him hum beneath his breath, his way of mulling over the information we heard. We listened. We sent the migrants on their way with a hint of where they might stay: the brothel would have to earn its keep differently for a couple of nights and become a boarding house until we figured out how many migrants we might expect.
It was a stop gap measure and we all knew it, but we were already tired when the last migrant entered the room.
He stood just inside the doorway. His cheek looked like it was healing from an old bruise and was yellowed and sore looking. There was a cut above his eyebrow, and when he lifted his finger at me, I noted several healing lacerations across his knuckles.
It couldn't possibly touch me at this distance, but I felt the stabbing of its contact just the same and flinched.
"You've had it good here," the man said. "You have plenty of food. I see that your buildings are still standing. No one is sleeping in the streets."
"It's a small town," I said. "Bigger cities like yours have always had homeless. I imagine they always will."
He directed a cool gaze my way, one that made my back feel as though a draft had lifted my shirt.
"I lost my sister and my nephew," he said. "They had to go to debtor's prison because when her husband left her, he left a mountain of debt. The Ruby skulls decided that she needed to pay with her house."
"Hunter's judges left a woman with a newborn homeless?" I said.
"Oh, they gave her barter for one night in debtor's hostel. It's a place where—"
"I know what a debtor's hostel is," I said. "It's a transition house of sorts that in theory gives the debtor a cot to sleep on in a room with a dozen others. The idea is to give a temporary lodging until she can make arrangements. It's meant to encourage and motivate you to be a responsible citizen. Do I have it right?"
He nodded but it was a scowling movement. "Yes, in theory."
"And where were you?" I said, pinning him with my gaze because the accusation in his voice needed to be given right back. "Why didn't you take her in?"
I expected him to lift his chin in defiance but instead he hung his head. His toe worked the floor and it was disconcerting to see a man of his size looking so ashamed. I could barely hear him when he spoke.
"Where do you think?" he said.
I looked him over, from the bruised cheek to the threadbare clothes and holey shoes.
"The same hostel."
He met my eye for a brief moment. "I would have done anything to keep her out of there. The hostel is notorious for hiring derelict sorts of men to keep the peace among the inmates. They stuff as many people as they can into one room because they get paid in barter for the number they have each night."
Lance sucked in a breath, indignant at the implication.
"That sort of incentive just motivates people to find criminals where there are none," Lance said. "Not serve justice. How could Hunter not know that?"
He was missing the point of course. It wasn't about Hunter instituting a corrupt and perverse form of justice where crimes are invented so the jailers can earn more barter. It was something far more base.
I caught Sadie's eye across the table and her fist clenched on her glass of water. She understood that same thing I did, that was clear.
"How long did it take?" I said to the man.
I could see from the corner of my eye that Lance canted his head at me, bewildered. Of course he would be. He was a man of honor. There were things that probably just didn't occur to him.
"Many of those men are animals," the man said. "She had a barter token for one night, like I said. I gave her my cot and slept on the floor. I could hear a baby crying sometime during the night. It was shrill and pained and it wasn't coming from anywhere it should be. Woke me up from a dead sleep and only then did I realize I was being pinned down. Several men held down my arms, my legs. Someone sat on my chest. Some of these were men I knew. Men who knew me. Who had grown up with me. They knew she was my sister. And still they took their turns with her. All while I could do nothing. While the baby cried. While she cried."
I could barely swallow down the clump in my throat.
"And where she now?"
He caught and held my gaze finally. His black eyes were like knives.
"Dead. She and the baby. That one night was more than enough. She didn't have a token for a doctor. No one cared unless they could show proof of barter to the Ruby Skulls, and when they turned her out into the street the next day and she bled to death in an alley. I found the baby two days later when I was released."
I couldn't hold his gaze. He didn't say he'd put up a fight for his sister, but the evidence was all over his body. No doubt he'd been pummeled mercilessly while his sister suffered.
I leaned further away from Lance. I didn't want to touch him. I didn't want to touch anyone. I wanted to curl up in my bed and sleep for days.
"You have to help us," he said. "Hunter and his Ruby Skulls and his judges are a plague. They told us they would keep our town safe. It's been anything but. It's grown worse. It doesn't matter how you live. They'll find something you've done wrong. They fine you when they can. They'll take your barter and your home and then you're left with nothing. Not even justice."
I didn't recognize my own voice when I spoke. All I could do was push myself up from the table and cross the room. I didn't touch him, and I knew he wouldn't want it anyway. I just wanted him to see my face. Look me in the eye and judge me whatever way he saw fit.
"We can't do anything about other towns," I said. "We have everything we do to keep this one together. But you're welcome to stay here. I have a room here at the estate. I'm sure we can find you bedding. You might have to share –"
"It's not just the town," he said. "Surely you heard from the others. The woods all around attacked us as we tried to get here. It's as though nature is trying its best to get rid of us. Humanity is a stain on this earth. That's why we're suffering. We don't belong here because we can't live together without hurting each other."
Myste rose from her seat and I held my hand out to her, to ward her off. The man was at his breaking point. One wrong thing and he'd collapse into tears and I had the feeling he'd hate that.
I turn
ed to Chas, letting the man compose himself.
"Do you think you can find this man some bedding. Get him some food."
I turned back to the man.
"We'll talk about it," I said. "The best minds and best warriors of New Denver are here in this room. We'll do what we can."
He said nothing but gave me a curt nod before he spun on his heel and left with Chas on his heels. I eyed Dallas who watched him go with a thoughtful expression. He twirled one dreadlock around his finger and chewed the inside of his cheek. I made a note to talk to him later. I wanted to hear his thoughts, but not right now. Right now, something else was on my mind.
I collapsed into a chair when he was well out of sight and earshot, heaving a great sigh.
"I didn't have time to tell you," I said aloud, addressing everyone. "But I believe him. Something was out there at my house today."
I turned to Marlin. "It's what I wanted to ask you about."
I explained the event. "You said you heard something like it before," I said. "Do you think it could be part of whatever is happening with nature?"
I watched as Marlin's throat convulsed.
"No," he said. "What you encountered is very different than what's happening with the woods and stuff."
"That doesn't sound encouraging."
He shook his head. "I imagine it isn't." He tapped his fingers on the table, obviously not sure how to break the news.
"So?" I said.
"So," he said. "I'm guessing what you saw was a hell hound."
-4-
There was a ruckus in the room as everyone digested the words. It was Sadie who spoke first, running her palms over her face as though she couldn't believe her misfortune to get caught up in the whole affair.
"A hell hound?" she said. "Do I even dare ask, what in holy hell is that?"
Marlin almost absent-mindedly stuck his finger in his ear and waggled it in circles beneath his beanie cap as his gaze swung to hers.
"A shifter of sorts," he said so matter-of-factly, I wanted to clobber him. "And Hell is far from holy, Sadie."
This last was stated with the patient sort of timbre of an old world teacher. She stuck up her middle finger at him, not at all impressed with his impromptu lesson.
I pressed my index fingers onto the table to keep from gripping him by the threadbare t-shirt collar and shaking him. He was too collected, too calm, as he delivered just teasers the way a mother does telling stories at night to children. I had no patience for it, not when there were people spilling into town like beans from a sack.
"And?" I said steadily enough that I was pleased with my delivery until Lance cut his eyes at me and I realized my tone was anything but steady and patient. I bit down on the side of my cheek to reign in the annoyed tone.
"Marlin?" I said.
He swung his head in my direction, eyebrows lifted in query.
"Why would a hell hound be tracking us?" I said. "What does it want from the town?"
With one swipe, the beanie cap slid over his hair. He tossed it toward a freestanding lamp that stood beside the door, an inert soldier with a glassy bubble beneath a ragged shade. It was clean of dust and had a heft to its iron that kept it from rocking back and forth as the hat hit it, but I wondered why Musk had kept the thing at all.
The way the hat sat on the top, it looked like a limp bit of rat pelt.
I scanned Marlin's posture even as the rest of the knights murmured aloud and begged him to get on with it. I wanted to hear it all too, but there was something about the way he stood that bothered me more than my own impatient need to hear what he had to say. He looked nervous. Even the way he was tapping his toe seemed off since there were no ear buds stuck in his ears for once to instigate the movement.
He hadn't just heard the thing before, I realized.
He'd faced it.
"I doubt it's harassing the town," he said, finally, carefully. "It has a very specific task. One it hasn't had in a thousand years."
Everyone in the room went silent. I could see the tension on each face. Every knight leaned forward in their chair. I crossed my arms over my chest, aware even as I did so that it looked defensive. Hell, I felt defensive. That thing had come at me in my own home. It had dropped dead animals on my step for days.
"This task," I said. "I can't believe I have to ask this, but what is it?"
He blew air from his pursed mouth slowly before he spoke, and that reaction told me he fully expected me to freak out when I heard what it was. I didn't care. I needed to hear it. We all did.
"Well," I said.
"It's meant to guard things of a magical nature."
"Things of a magical nature," I echoed.
His bottom lip pursed into his top as he tried to smile.
"Or it's meant to drag you kicking and screaming to Hell." He seesawed his hand back and forth in the air in front of his chest. "Depending on which sort of hell hound it was."
I patted my torso down, trying to quell the rising unease in my belly even as I tried to look nonchalant about the declaration.
"Well, I'm still here," I said. "So I guess it wasn't the dragging me kicking and screaming sort."
He lifted one eyebrow. "One might hope," he said.
Myste reached across the table to tug on the bottom of Marlin's shirt. She pulled it hard enough toward her that he stumbled as he went off balance. He had to grab for the table to keep from tripping.
"Back in the fields. During the fire—"
"The hell hound," he said, finishing the thought.
Sadie rose to her feet. I noticed she swayed a bit.
"And stalking us on the trail?" she said.
He shrugged. "I doubt it. The hound will stay close to the magical item it's guarding."
Every eye swung to me and the thread of information I'd lost that he'd said earlier came spinning back to tie my stomach in knots. In my mind's eye, I was back in the fields, fighting the fire and hearing that awful sound echoing through the air.
"You said you've heard it before?" I said.
"Yes," he said. "It's been hundreds of years and I wasn't sure it was the same thing at first. But if you saw the hell hound today, I'm willing to bet it's the one that guards Excalibur."
My mouth went dry. "I'm not it's guardian?" I said.
"You might have possession, but you're not its guardian. The Lady will want it returned at some point."
"And that some point, I guess, is when I die?"
I didn't need for him to nod to know the truth of it.
"If she gave it to you, she intended you to have it until that moment when you..." he coughed. "Expire."
"Let's not sugar coat it. Not when we speak of hell hounds and women being raped and babies dying. I think I can take the concept of my own mortality by now."
I sank down into my chair and when Lance sought my hand with his, I brushed it aside gently. There was already too much stimuli to absorb without confusing things with his sympathy and comfort.
"The hell hound," I said. "That's why it's been watching me."
"Not you," Marlin said. "The sword. It will companion the magic until you expire and then it will deliver it to the Lady."
Myste cleared her throat in a purposeful way. She waited until everyone was looking at her before she spoke.
"By chance, do all magical things have these hounds?"
I blinked. It was a good question. If magic was beginning to creep into the world, would there also be more of these beasts about? Would we have to contend with them, watch out for them, find some sort of exorcism for them?
But there was an even more important reason to know.
"Do they?" I said to Marlin. "Does Hunter have a hound guarding his Blood Blade?"
Marlin pursed his lips and yanked the edge of his shirt back from Sadie's grasp.
"How do I know?" he said, pulling his shirt down to cover the bit of pooch that strained over his jeans. "Do I look like an encyclopedia? "
I thought of the fear on his face when
he'd heard the beast in the fields when we'd been fighting the fire. It had been real. I eyed him carefully.
"You look like you know more than you're telling."
He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders as though to dare me to dare him to say more. But he changed the subject so awkwardly, I wondered at the legend he owned of being some great adviser.
"At least there's good news," he said. "It's not here to kill you. Just waiting for you to die." He stepped over toward the lamp stand and tapped his finger against the iron trunk. The fixture, unused for nearly a generation wobbled on its base.
"How pleasant," I said. "But you didn't answer my question."
He lifted his chin and reached for his beanie, making the lamp wobble enough that he had to catch it. His gaze drifted to the ceiling, where there was an ornate, and equally useless chandelier.
He slapped the cap on his head and pulled it down.
"There was no question, that I could hear."
"If I remember my legends," I said. "Merlinus Ambrosius was gifted with past and future knowledge, so I'll ask it more plainly this time" I crossed my arms over my chest as I stared him down.
"Does Hunter have a hound guarding his Blood Blade?"
Marlin had the grace to look chagrined.
"Fancy bit of memory you have there, digging up that old name."
I was aware that the others were confused. No doubt they knew Marlin had magics and skills, but I didn't know if any of them had done any reading in their lifetime or if they could read at all. I'd never discussed with them the truth that Marlin had shared with me about him being the original Merlin who worked with the legendary King Arthur. And I'd never asked him about his past or any of the salacious details of a legend twisted into a dozen branches.
But he was the real Merlin, and I wanted to know if this one aspect of the story was right. I waited, watching his mouth twist into a line of denial before I lifted a single eyebrow to warn him not to lie.
He huffed. "I just want to be clear," he said. "I am not living backwards in time, and my father was not an incubus. He was a regular Celtic man, if such a thing can be said of Celtic men."
Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3 Page 25