Unmasked (Rise of the Masks Book 1)

by Kaplan, EM

  "I'm alive?" Rav asked.

  "Imagine my surprise," Mel said. She smiled wanly, strained and pale with anxiety. Then they embraced like long-lost sisters.

  "But how did you come to be here?"

  Mel shrugged, looking unhappy. She was covered with dust and not outwardly injured, but she held her head as if she were in a great deal of pain. Rav knew that feeling, when her head was full of thunder. "Like you, I think. I was caught. Captured and brought here."

  Rav sat up suddenly, running a hand over her relatively smooth belly. "Did I have the child? Did I lose it?" She was surprised to be anxious at the thought.

  "There’s no child," Mel said and, with the tensing of her neck, pushed aside her own discomfort. She seemed to hesitate, as if she were going to say more. But Rav couldn't wait and interrupted her.

  "But my womb grew and grew though I had not been violated. It grew from magic and from the stone’s poisoning. I thought there was a child. Why is my belly small?"

  Mel looked uneasy, but then said, "I’m sure it seemed so, with the size of your belly, but there’s no baby. There’s no child now. But there may be one day. I . . . I took your pain, Rav." Rav sucked in a breath and stared at her friend in astonishment and, at first, disbelief. But then she examined herself. No knives of pain, no all-consuming terror, no being ripped apart from the inside out. Consumed her pain?

  "You are a paineater. Why did you not tell me?" Visions from the stories her people told flooded her mind. Great healers who could eat the pain and suffering right out of a person's body. With a paineater, anything could be endured, all suffering could be alleviated. A tribe could survive and flourish in the worst of conditions. And a paineater as powerful as the Great Mother could cleanse all evils. Mel creased her forehead at the term, which told Rav her friend had never heard the word before.

  "I don't know what that is." Mel shook her head, light colored hair falling on her shoulders. "I didn't know I could do this. Until recently."

  "Paineaters are great healers," Rav said cautiously. "But I've never met one." Until you, she thought. Beyond the strain in Mel's face, there was a look of something that had not been there at the Keep. A lot of sand had shifted between then and now. Things had changed. For both of them. Rav's hand went to her belly, smooth now, and not uncomfortable.

  Mel said she might still have a child one day, and Rav believed her. She was glad for the well-being of her future child, whenever it came, no matter who had fathered it. She was the mother. When Rav looked up, her friend was staring at her intently, dark brown eyes unwavering, unspoken words clearly fighting to come out.

  Mel hesitated one more time, looking at Rav and then at her keeper, but then said, "When I . . . took your pain, I met your child that will be. She’s not here now, but she will be one day. I saw the face, the eyes, the shape of the head, and the mouth. I took pain from you, and I took the pain from your child. I freed you of the poison. That's why your belly shrank and why it doesn't hurt anymore. I took what was writhing and festering and killing you. What’s left is just the impression of your future child. And Rav . . . " Her voice faded and she looked away rubbing a hand to her neck.

  "Tell me it all. I want to hear it. What did you see? What do you know?" Rav demanded, tightening her grip on Mel's smooth, cool fingers.

  Mel took a deep breath, clearly telling only a half-truth. "Your daughter will be lovely, Rav. She will be perfect. Absolutely, completely well. And healthy. And utterly human."

  Chapter 52

  Rob was ten paces from entering the back of the house through the kitchens when he heard the first screams. The terror-filled shrieks carried up the snowy lawn from the tent city. The daylight was fading though it was still early. He had heard nothing from Ott or the delegation of Masks since dawn that morning. He had walked through the tent city restlessly, checking on the construction of the temporary shelters, and then finally had turned back to the house. The first screams turned him in his tracks and sent him scrambling back down the lawn.

  Harro advanced on him from out of the shadows, caught him by the arm, and pivoted him back toward the house. "Trogs," the stableman panted hoarsely. "They’re attacking the tents. We need weapons. Go back to the house and secure it. Arm yourself."

  Rob let himself be led for a good ten more steps before he put his legs into it and powered back up to the house. He went to the wood shed, which had been converted into a temporary armory—as much as it could be with their lack of weaponry. He grabbed a roughly-fashioned metal blade, wondering if he could pretend to have any skill with it. He turned to follow Harro back toward the tent city, but the stableman grabbed his arm again in a tight grip.

  "You must protect the house. Secure it," the big man growled at him, his beard darkening his face like a mask. "You are the master now." Then he turned, stepping quickly into the dusk, leaving Rob, who hesitated another minute before running to the house.

  Rob's explosive entrance froze all activity in the bustling kitchen. His shouted orders caused hands to grab whatever weapons could be found—carving knives, fireplace irons, and heavy pans. The kitchen maids slammed shut and shuttered the windows. Feet pounded down hallways and up staircases to spread the urgency, to allow noses to be pressed against the glass looking for inhumanly large shadows on the blue-white snow of the lawn under black trees.

  A scream erupted from inside the house, which nearly stopped Rob’s heart, but then a pointed finger turned all eyes toward the tent city where flames now shot upward in the darkening sky. Rob halted and rubbed a hand across his face, feeling the anguish of the people in the tents as if it were his own. There was no time to douse the flames with snow while the trogs butchered the people in them. Rob needed to get them out of there immediately.

  Then, as luck would have it, the perfect envoy crossed his path; the houseboy Charl stood at the windows with the others, gripping the high sill with white knuckled hands. The young man was quick and smart. He would need to be. Rob laid a hand on his shoulder and drew him away from the others.

  "Charl, are you up for a task?"

  Fear, glinting in the young man's blue eyes quickly galvanized to anger, then to action. "Whatever you need, sir."

  "I need you to locate your Uncle Harro." The young man's brow furrowed. "He's down among the tents." His eyes widened. "I need to you find him. Carefully. And tell him to get the people up here into the house. Evacuate the tent city. Those people need to be up here. We'll house them in the great hall." Whoever is left, he almost added, but bit that thought back along with a curse that he had not done this sooner. "Can you do this?" he asked Charl.

  Thoughts seemed to flash across the young man's face as he considered the danger, the excitement, and the honor. And the danger again. "Can I have a weapon?" he asked.

  Rob immediately unbuckled his belt with its sheathed dagger attached. It was just a hunting knife, one that he always carried, but he had his rough hewn metal sword now. Charl could make better use of the knife, so Rob strapped it around the young man's narrow waist, notching it tighter. It still hung low, but it wouldn't impede his speed or stealth.

  "You understand what you must do?" Rob asked, suddenly more concerned for Charl's safety than finding Harro. At least, at this moment, the young man in front of him was the life he most wanted to protect—the young life that was currently not in danger until Rob decided to send him into it.

  Charl nodded resolutely, firm and steadfast. "I'll do it."

  Rob gripped the nape of the young man's neck, just as he had done to Ott earlier. He nearly changed his mind. Then he nodded. "Good man," he told Charl, who straightened his shoulders more—shoulders that might not be done filling out. Rob spared a heartbeat for a prayer that they would both live to see him full-grown. "Go out the back. Keep to the trees. Do not attack a trog unless to defend yourself. I repeat, do not approach them unnecessarily. Do your task. Find your uncle. Save the people down there in those tents." Charl nodded again, and then ran down the hall toward the ki
tchen and the back door.

  Rob watched him go. More than likely, the young man's father, that refined houseman Haught, was already down there. Most of the strong-backed men and women from the house had been at the camp constructing the now-useless wood-framed shelters alongside the miners—most of them were down there still, facing the trogs now. Then Rob gritted his teeth and headed toward the side staircase, pounding down the stone steps in a heavy torrent of footfalls.

  He needed to make sure the cellar and lowest floor were secured. An image of the gaping black pit in the ruins of Cillary Keep flooded his mind. The trogs had broken into the Keep by coming up through the ground, by tunneling somehow up through the foundation itself. The floor of the cellar here was hard, tamped dirt covered by slabs of stone that had been cut from a mountain. Impenetrable by most standards, but Rob didn't know for certain if the trogs could be kept out. He couldn't live with the thought of the trogs pushing up through the earth directly into the house, his house.

  He passed an older serving man in the stairwell. The man was moving with purpose, clearly aware of the situation outside. "Have you checked on your lady friend and her children?" the man called to him. Rob halted in his tracks, already a flight of steps above the man. Jenny?

  "Why? I saw them upstairs," he shouted downward, thinking back to earlier in the day. Gods. It was night now, and he hadn't seen Jenny since morning when they'd left their room.

  "Good. I hadn't seen her return to the house." The man was tilting his neck to send his voice upward to Rob. The man started back down the steps, but stopped at Rob's frantic shout.

  "What do you mean 'return to the house'?"

  "She went down to the tents this afternoon because one of the younger children left something there—a poppet or a dolly or some such thing. He said he wouldn't be able to sleep without it. So she took him and—"

  Rob cursed, shouting at the man to check the cellar for him, and pushed himself the rest of the way up the stairs, gripping the handrail and yanking upward when his own feet were too slow. He raced to the room where Jenny had planned to keep the children during the day, running down the hall and startling several people who were already frightened. They clung to the walls out of his way. His footsteps took him to the playroom where he flung open the door. He counted Jenny's three sons, plus two more children they'd brought up the lawn. His eyes sought Jenny, the shape of her back, her dark hair pulled back in a tie. He found a woman's back as she knelt over the children. But the woman wasn't Jenny.

  "She's not back yet," the nursemaid said with a quaver of uncertainty. "When I heard the door just now, I thought you would be her." The children's eyes were all wide with fear, but he couldn't offer them a calming word. Not when he couldn't soothe himself—not when his chest threatened to cave in on itself and the blood rushed away from his head.

  In his moment of abject terror, Rob covered his face and prayed. Not to Lutra, the otter goddess, for luck. Not to Dovay, the bear god, for patience. Not to the one god of the frighteningly powerful Masks. But to his own long-dead and departed mother. He prayed for Jenny's safety, and selfishly, he prayed for comfort for himself, for something in the great, vast world beyond his experience to help him find the strength to stand and to alleviate the crippling fear in his chest.

  If the threads of the world were somehow held together so that the woman he loved were protected and returned safely into his care, he'd find it in himself to believe once more, to have faith, to . . . cherish the good things that he'd been given the chance to receive, the good things that far outweighed all the evil that had been done to him as a child. And so, he sent fervent pleas to the memory of his mother, the last-known benevolent presence in his life.

  Chapter 53

  Ott's hands were bleeding.

  In the collapsed mineshaft, he had grabbed a shovel at first, but the metal blade scrabbled uselessly across the larger rock fragments. Then, he'd tried a pickaxe, but had thrown that aside as well because the stones were too loose. Nothing worked as well or as fast as his hands, though misery heaped on misery as he smashed his fingers between stones trying to pry them out. And he needed his hands to last.

  His shirt had already been half ripped to shreds, so he stripped the rest of it off, tearing it to bind his hands. He tried not to think of the bodies in the chamber behind him where their blood seeped into the dirt floor, but it was either that or think about Mel. He caught a sob in his throat, refusing to let it out. He couldn't remember how long ago he had last eaten or had drunk. Right—it had been back at the big house, sitting across a small table in the room he had shared with Mel. A bowl of hot cooked oats. Strong tea. A hunk of cold, smoked meat. He would have to stop soon and eat from the supplies Guyse had left inside the entrance. He would have to start a fire and melt some snow to drink. What was Mel doing? Was she somewhere where there was food or drink? What were they doing to her? He could barely think of feeding himself.

  He shuddered. His legs suddenly collapsed and caused him to sprawl on hands and knees, prostrate in front of the pile of rocks that barred him from her. He looked up at the wall of boulders and stones and failed to see any progress despite the pile forming from rocks he'd removed and the blood welling on his dusty knuckles. He hung his head and wondered where his battle fury was now. Could it propel him through a wall of rock? How far could fury carry him against a mountain? Where was it when he needed it? But no, his vision was normal, no red, just the pale green glow of the stones. Even numbness would have helped at this point, but no, again; he was so wretchedly sensitive he felt every granule of the green-crusted rock around him. He almost wished it would all cave in and crush him. But then, what would happen to Mel if no one were coming for her?

  So, he pushed himself to his feet and traced the edge of the next stone with his raw, swollen fingertips.

  Chapter 54

  The tent city churned with sounds of struggle. The clang of metal on metal combined with the hoarse cries of human combatants and their trog counterparts. And alongside that were the moans of the wounded and dying.

  The stableman Harro grunted from a blow to his chest. He had blocked the better part of it, but it was a sizeable strike that smashed his arm back into his sternum. He shoved his attacker back and kept an eye on the man behind him who wasn't doing badly considering he was a miner, not a fighter. The shorter man was steady in his bearing and stocky with his weight centered lower in the legs than Harro; and he kept his back to Harro's back as they blocked blows from the trogs' heavy axes.

  For a minute, Harro could almost imagine his older brother Haught behind him, the way they had played as boys then played harder as young men. Haught was taller than the miner and more skilled, and he preferred a bow and some distance from his assailants. Well, he was here somewhere in this tent city, and Harro would find him. For now the miner would do.

  The trogs came at them one after another in a steady stream of animal hide and blood, their harsh breath sounding like that of bulls charging, their thick-skinned faces shadowed in gray skin and grimaces. Residents of the tent city fled screaming. Others cowered in terror, unable to move. Those were the ones that the trogs hauled off, lifting them over their shoulders, jogging easily back to the gaping hole in the center of the tents, and plunging downward into the foul blackness. Then another trog would take the place of the previous. They were in seemingly endless supply, inexhaustible in their strength and thorough in their taking of the tent city. A smell like acid burned the inside of Harro's nose, but he didn't pause to wipe either that or his sweat-drenched hair from his face and beard.

  Off to Harro's left, fire erupted near the cooking tents. Flames licked upward, feeding greedily on the flammable cloth and furs inside them. The stench of burning hair and smoke mingled with the sharp, sulfurous fumes rising from underground. A trog with a leather harness strapped over his massive gray chest accelerated toward Harro with a great, wheezing roar, nostrils flared, eye whites bright in the darkness. Bare, rough-skinned feet pounded thr
ough the mud taking steps as long as a man was tall. Sinewed arms hefted a great axe toward Harro's head, aiming to cleave it from his shoulders.

  "Feint to the right!" Harro shouted to the miner at his back. He hoped the man would realize that he meant the man's right, Harro's left. But they separated, parting in opposite directions. The trog's axe blade sank into the miner's shoulder, hacking downward and out to the side of his chest, nearly severing the entire arm from the body before the axe went to the ground. Harro cursed, then tamped down his chagrin at the loss of the man and used the trog's momentum to spin the beast and plant his own weapon into the back of its neck. He didn't pause to wrench the weapon out, but left it. It wasn't a very good weapon, and he rearmed himself with a sword from another fallen miner who wouldn't have use for it any longer.

  Now mobile, not tied down to a partner or single combatant, Harro moved quickly through the camp assessing damage, urging the fallen to stand if they could, and putting his foot into the seat of the pants of those who were too scared to move. He unwittingly spurred others, who like him were moved to act and who were unencumbered by doubt or terror. They picked up what weapons they could find and gathered others to them, collecting those who were able to walk or run. They banded together and, it seemed to Harro, gained some momentum against the trogs, whom they now fought in small groups, which balanced the odds a little better against the massive creatures. Three men could successfully hold off a trog.

  He thought if they put their backs to the fire and pushed outward, they had a chance at creating a solid front. Now they had some fifty men and women in their effort. With some luck, they might be able to sweep the snarling, grunting trogs back to their hole as long as they moved slowly and stayed together. They had to pay attention to the fire, but they could use it to their advantage. It was the only thing more powerful than the trogs at the moment. And together, they had less to fear. The beasts were still terrible to behold, but when there was a man to either side of him, Harro felt bolstered and forged ahead.