by Joshua Khan
The scarred man. The one Thorn had seen at Graven. The one who’d killed Rose. And now he knew he was behind these murders, too. Thorn was looking at a jigsaw and could see a picture forming; he just needed a few more pieces. “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“No, it’s not like that. It wasn’t his real face I saw.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was a mask.”
K’leef frowned. “Why wear a mask?”
“Why else? He didn’t want us to know who he was. That way, if we were caught, we wouldn’t be able to identify him.”
“What sort of mask?” Thorn asked.
“A broken one, made outta stone. What I first thought were scars were the cracks.”
A broken mask? Why wear a broken mask?
Unless the mask itself was special…
Thorn punched the wagon wall as the pieces fell into place. “We’ve been fools! All this time we’ve been thinking the scarred man was some powerful sorcerer, but he’s not—he’s a nobody. An anybody, if what Lily told us in the Shadow Library was true.”
K’leef interrupted. “That’s ridiculous, Thorn. Your father just said he saw him cast black flames against Lord Shadow. That’s not the work of a ‘nobody’; that’s a very important somebody indeed.”
“Don’t you get it, K’leef? It’s not the person, it’s the mask,” argued Thorn. He knew without a doubt that he was right. “Was it made of black stone, Dad?”
“That’s right. Like polished marble.”
Richly dressed in clothes covered in wine. Alcohol-soaked. A hideous, smashed-up mask. Thorn had seen it, held it, even. At the fair, the night Rose had died.
The night the “scarred man” had killed her, too.
“Obsidian,” said Thorn. “The Mask of Astaroth. He must have found it and put it together.”
“Who?” asked K’leef, confused.
Thorn continued. “Lord Shadow wasn’t saying ‘Pain.’ He was pointing at his murderer when he spoke. He was saying his name.”
“Name?” said Vyne. “He knew his murderer?”
Thorn jumped up. “I’ve got to get back to Castle Gloom. Lily’s in danger. We’ve left her alone with him, and she doesn’t know!”
“Who, Thorn?” asked Dad.
“Pan. That’s what he was saying. Pan. Lord Shadow was killed by his own brother.”
There was a moment of stunned silence while they all absorbed this dreadful information.
Then, “With Lily dead, he’ll be the next Lord Shadow,” said K’leef. “And with the mask he’ll be unstoppable.”
“That’s what he was doing in Graven: raising the dead. Testing out his powers,” added Thorn. The very man he expected to protect Lily was planning to kill her!
They hurried down the steps and back into camp. The music still played, and men and women danced by, but Thorn could only think of the distance back to Castle Gloom. A day’s ride on a horse, but on Hades? An hour? Maybe two?
A man stepped out from behind a tree, but Thorn barely noticed him. Just another roamer.
The man drew his sword as he approached Vyne, and Thorn turned as the steel glinted in the light. The sword rose up. “Look out, Dad!”
The man rammed the pommel into Vyne’s temple, and Vyne collapsed with a groan.
Thorn blinked, unable to believe who stood in front of him.
Tyburn!
“No!” Thorn threw himself at the executioner, but Tyburn sidestepped and Thorn crashed into the ground, whacking his head against a mud-covered rock.
Eyes bleary with pain, Thorn tried to focus on what was happening.
Tyburn stood over the unconscious Vyne and nodded with satisfaction. “I knew you’d lead me to your father, sooner or later.”
Thorn’s skull throbbed. He touched his forehead and his fingers were bloody. “You…were right behind us?”
Tyburn clamped a pair of iron cuffs on Vyne. “It’s easy for a man to track his own horse.” He then inspected Thorn’s injury. “Nothing too serious.”
“Not that it matters, right?” Thorn snapped.
“I suppose not.”
The roaming folk had gathered around. No one intervened; they all knew Tyburn, and it wasn’t wise to interfere in the business of an executioner.
But not everyone was wise.
Maximilian barged his way to the front of the watchful mob. “What’s going on?” He looked Tyburn up and down, clearly unimpressed. “No refunds!”
K’leef spoke up. “You’ve got this wrong, Master Tyburn. Thorn’s father didn’t kill the Shadows. It was the earl.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you, m’lord.”
“Let my son go.” Vyne struggled to his feet. “You’ve got me, and let that be the end of it.”
“That’s not how it works. Thorn aided a traitor—K’leef—so all three of you must suffer the same fate.” Tyburn glanced at him. “I’ll make it quick, boy. You won’t feel a thing.”
K’leef joined Thorn and put his hand on his shoulder. Thorn didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They were all going to die together, but K’leef didn’t seem afraid.
“You’re a blind fool, Tyburn,” said the Sultanate boy. “You’ve left Lily unprotected, just when she needs you most. All so you could chase us through the woods.”
Had anyone ever spoken to Tyburn like that before? Thorn seriously doubted it.
K’leef wasn’t finished. “Go ahead, put our heads on spikes. That’s all you’re good for. But know this: Lily will be dead by morning, and you will have failed. Then…what is the point of you?”
Thorn could see there was something—hesitation, perhaps; maybe doubt—in Tyburn’s eyes.
“You’d better explain your thinking,” said the executioner. “What do you claim the earl is up to?”
“He hired this man”—K’leef gestured to Thorn’s dad—“and five other men to ambush Lord Shadow. Lord Shadow, the most powerful necromancer in the New Kingdoms. Did you never stop to wonder how six half-starved brigands could kill such a sorcerer?”
Tyburn looked unsure. “Lady Shadow’s jewelry was found on them. Tracks led from the site of the murder straight to their hideout.”
“How very convenient,” said K’leef.
Tyburn shook his head. “Earl Pan is a drunk and feeble fool. He doesn’t have the stomach for anything but wine, and he does not have the power. Everyone knows that he has no magic.”
“He has both the stomach and the power,” said Thorn. “He’s found the Mask of Astaroth. I saw him with it at the fair.” Thorn was careful not to mention that Lily saw him with it, too, when she probed Rose’s memories. He continued. “The mask must have been smashed when Astaroth was first defeated. Pan put it back together, and he’s using the magic stored in it. That gives him all the power of the ancient necromancers, the greatest sorcerers of House Shadow. Lily’s dad never stood a chance. Pan’s been using it all over Gehenna. He’s the scarred man I saw in Graven, commanding the zombies.” Thorn faced Tyburn. “Lily’s my friend and she’s in terrible danger and that’s the whole truth. If you don’t believe me, then cut my head off right here and now and be done with it.”
Tyburn frowned. “It just doesn’t seem possible….”
Thorn’s heart sank. He didn’t believe them.
Then help came from the most unlikely source.
“They’re telling the truth.” Maximilian had his hand raised. “I sold the mask to the earl.”
“What?” exclaimed Tyburn.
“I thought it was junk! How was I to know?” said Maximilian. “Last year, just before Halloween, I showed the earl this chest of, er…rubbish that I’d gotten off a nomad from the Shardlands. The earl started drooling, I swear. He took these pieces of a mask, made of obsidian, I think, and pushed a hundred sovereigns into my hand. How was I to know it actually was magical?” He kicked a stone angrily. “If I had, I would have asked for double.”
Thorn turned to Tyburn. He had to believ
e them now.
But Tyburn wasn’t listening. Not to them, anyway. He cocked his head toward the path.
Thorn knew better than to speak now.
Fire crackled. A piglet’s skin hissed on the spit. The wind rustled the leaves.
Wait…
Hoofbeats. The jangle of armor.
Tyburn drew his sword.
A scream broke the night’s quiet. A roamer stumbled back from the crest that hid the camp from the road. He fell and slid down the leafy slope.
A crossbow quarrel jutted out of his back.
“Get down, boy!” Tyburn threw himself over Thorn, knocking them both to the ground as quarrels thrummed through the air and Black Guard riders charged into the camp.
Crossbowmen emerged from behind trees and shot off another volley; the air hissed with their deadly missiles. The riders wheeled around, slashing left and right with their swords. More men screamed and died. The gypsies ran, some for safety into the trees, others to grab weapons.
Tyburn slapped a key into Thorn’s hand. “Go free your father.”
“I told you he was innocent, but you didn’t—”
“Get on with it.”
A horse trampled through the bonfire, kicking flaming branches everywhere.
Thorn, head down, sprinted to his dad and unlocked the manacles. Vyne rubbed his wrists as he glanced around frantically. Then he grabbed Thorn’s arm and started to pull him toward the nearest wagon. “Slide yourself under and stay there, no matter what happens.”
Thorn twisted out of his father’s grip and picked up a thick fallen branch. “I want to fight, I can—”
“Now, Thorn!”
Horses whinnied and spun as the riders searched for their targets. A horseman saw Thorn and charged. Thorn didn’t have time to run. He raised his branch, knowing it was useless.
Suddenly, the horseman’s reins burst into flames. His mount, startled by the fire, reared and threw him off. Thorn ran up and smacked the branch into the man’s helmet. The rider went limp.
Thorn grinned at K’leef. “Thanks. I owe you. Now if you can do that another ten times, we might just make it out of here.”
The Sultanate boy, leaning against a trunk and ashen-faced, gasped for breath. “I could barely do it the once.” But the exhaustion didn’t stop him from grinning back.
A white-fletched arrow zipped overhead and took a crossbowman in the throat.
“Run!” shouted Vyne as he loosed another.
Thorn took the rider’s sword and handed it over to K’leef. “D’you know how to fight?”
K’leef stared at the weapon. “Not in the slightest.”
“You’d better start learning real quick.”
“What about you? Don’t you need this?”
“I’ve something better.” Thorn ran. Straight to Hades. The beast was flapping his wings with excitement and tearing deep grooves in the earth with his claws. He twitched his shoulders, eager for Thorn to get on.
“You really are a bloodthirsty fiend, aren’t you?”
Thorn leaped on.
Hades surged upward. He rose over the trees, and Thorn gripped for all he was worth as Hades arched backward, readying for a dive.
“Stop showing off and get on with it!” Thorn scolded him. “The fight’s down there!”
Men screamed as Hades swooped over the camp. The monstrous bat grabbed one in his claws as he flew past, lifted him into the air, and hurled him over the treetops.
Thorn’s dad swung an ax now that his arrows were spent. Even K’leef was fighting, waving his sword desperately at a pair of crossbowmen. Tyburn didn’t fight. He slaughtered, chopping men down with gruesome ease.
Hades plunged down in among the soldiers, jaws open wide and fangs glistening. Horses screamed and men tumbled. They were of Castle Gloom and knew, and feared, the monster. A few crossbowmen shot a ragged volley at him, then fled.
Hades beat his wings and growled as he settled himself among the carnage.
It was over, Thorn’s first battle. And he had survived it.
Bodies lay here and there, black-clad soldiers and roaming folk. Streaks of blood ran within the mud and a few men moaned, injured but breathing. A few riderless horses wandered aimlessly in the ruins of the camp.
His stomach churned. A roaming man lay in the dirt with a crossbow in his chest. His expression, frozen in death, wasn’t one of fear or pain, but surprise.
Thorn dismounted, but his legs seemed to have turned into rope and he wobbled. They’d tried to kill him. If a crossbow quarrel had been an inch or two straighter, he’d be lying in the dirt, too.
Hades looked over the dead men, salivating. Thorn knew what that meant.
“Hades, I don’t think that’s—”
Hades bit off a head. He crunched down, then spat out the helmet.
“Ah, well. Waste not, want not,” said Thorn with a sigh.
Tyburn handed him a waterskin. “Fighting’s thirsty work.”
“This one’s alive,” said Vyne. He stood over a rider, the man Thorn had clubbed. The horseman groaned as he sat up and struggled with his helmet. When it came off, Thorn saw the bloodied face of Cornwell, the captain of Troll Gate.
Thorn liked Cornwell. He always tipped the stable boys well.
Tyburn squatted down in front of the captain. “You’d better explain what you’re doing here.”
Thorn stood there and offered the man his water. What else could he do?
“You’ve a strong arm, young Thorn,” said Cornwell.
“Give me words, Captain,” warned Tyburn.
Cornwell shrugged. “The earl said you and the boy had freed K’leef. I was ordered to deal with it.”
“You believed him?” asked Thorn.
“Does it matter? He gave an order, and I followed it.”
K’leef looked at them. “Now what?”
“Get back to Castle Gloom,” said Thorn.
“We’ll ride,” said Vyne.
Tyburn shook his head. “We’ll never make it in time. Not on horseback.” He looked meaningfully at Thorn. “It’s up to you, boy.”
Vyne looked horrified. “If you think you’re going off to fight the earl by yourself, you can forget it. I saw what that man did. He just snapped his fingers, and black flames ate his brother and his family. Arrows ain’t no good against sorcery.”
“I’ve got to go back to Lily.”
His father met his gaze. “She’s that important?”
“Lily? She’s stuck up and proud and totally full of herself. And real annoying. I can’t stand her, sometimes.”
His dad smirked. “So I guess you like her a lot, then?”
“Yeah. I guess I do,” said Thorn. “She ain’t got no one else, Dad.”
“I think you might need these.” K’leef handed him a bow and fistful of salvaged arrows. “There aren’t many ballads sung about princesses and peasant boys, you know.”
“K’leef, I—”
“But there are plenty about princesses and heroes. You go save her, Thorn.”
“Thanks.” Then he whispered, “Got any idea how?”
“The mask,” said K’leef. “It’s both Pan’s strength and his weakness. With it, he’s everything; without it, he’s nothing.”
“Understood.”
Thorn tugged the thick fur at the base of Hades’s neck and the bat reluctantly dropped his second helping of head. Thorn looked down from his seat. “Dad…”
“You get going, son,” he said, his face marked with pride and not a little fear. “I’ll see you again soon.”
Thorn wanted to stay with them longer, but it was getting late.
He just hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Knights wear armor,” said Mary as she added another layer of jewels to Lily’s hair. “Ladies wear gowns for the same reason. To conquer.”
“And they’re just as cumbersome.” Lily straightened and stretched, trying to get some space between her lungs and the bone corset of her dress.
The
underskirts were linen. Then came velvet and silk all covered in precious gems and embroidered with miles and miles of thread, creating legions of demons, devils, ghosts and ghouls and bats, clouds of them. The bodice’s ribbed frame was made of sculpted leather covered with silk.
She wore her hair up and that had taken all day with three maids working on it. Her mother’s diamonds were entwined with small roses made out of glass and mounted on a spiky tiara of iron. Dusty silver shimmered in the iron so it looked as if it had starlight trapped within it.
“What’s that?” said Lily, staring at the small pot and brush Mary had in her hands.
“Paint for your lips.”
“I know, but it’s red,” complained Lily. “Don’t you have anything darker?”
“Plenty of vampires in your family.” Mary held up the brush. “Pout.”
Lily did.
Mary turned her to face the mirror. “Have a look.”
The kohl smeared around her eyes transformed their grayness to silver. The lips were the color of fresh blood.
“Now the Mantle,” said Mary.
The Mantle of Sorrows slipped over her like a high-collared coat with a train that turned to tendrils of mist yards behind her. It was cold and caressed her skin, as if the layers of material she wore were finer than tissue.
As solid as smoke, as real as a dream.
“A true princess of darkness,” said Mary, admiring her in the mirror. “No, a queen.” Then she fussed over the pleats. “How does it feel?”
“Heavy.”
Mary carried over a loaded tray and set it down on the dressing table. “Pick one.”
The masks, both horrific and beautiful, looked up at her from the tray. Leering devils and skulls and monsters, their eyes blank, waiting for her to give them life.
“Pick one, Lily.”
Which suited her?
She was Lily. She was thirteen and loved climbing trees and had once had a small puppy named Custard.
She was Lady Shadow. She was heir to Castle Gloom. Her ancestors had been masters of dark magic. She could summon the dead.
Lily and Lady Shadow. They were utterly different but each the real her.