by Evans, Trent
He donned his hood again, his face cast once more into shadow. A scream sounded outside, close, and she put her hands to her ears.
Owen grabbed her by the wrist, threw the bolt and yanked open the door. The hallway was deserted, but she could hear sobs from a couple of the rooms nearby.
“Owen, we should at least unlock them.”
He shook his head. “There’s no time.”
They dashed through the dark hallway and out into the torch lit courtyard. She froze in terror at the sight she beheld there.
There were guards lying everywhere, most of them horribly injured or already dead. She saw movement above and looked up. Yelling in horror, a man plummeted down from the battlements, his body striking the dirt with a sickening crunch. Two guards nearby, both armed with swords, fought desperately, metal clashing with metal, with two very tall men clad in long dark coats swinging huge shimmering blades. She’d never seen anyone like them before, and she took a step toward the group, her feet seemingly moving on their own.
“Come on,” Owen said, his voice harsh in her ear. She felt her arm yanked hard, and she stumbled after him. They ran across the courtyard toward a wagon covered with a all, dark shroud, the horses harnessed to it neighing and bucking against their bonds. Another tall man in black robes strode toward them, and for a moment, Sophie balked, pulling at Owen’s grip.
“It’s okay. It’s Hugh.” Owen hauled on her arm, keeping her moving. “He’s with my father’s guild. He’s helping us.”
The man dropped his hood, and smiled at Sophie, the deep friendly lines around his blue eyes softening his gruff, bearded countenance. “Glad to see you, lass.”
Owen looked around. “Where’s my father?”
Hugh’s expression sobered. “He and Galan went looking for you.”
Owen shook his head, anger in his eyes. “What is he doing? That wasn’t what we talked about.”
“Neither was all this,” Hugh said, waving a hand. He pointed behind him. “We have a bigger problem now, lad.”
The portcullis was down. They were trapped.
“We need to get that gate back up, or we’re done for,” Hugh said, helping Owen lift Sophie up into the wagon. The night brightened suddenly, and all three of them ducked. A great explosion blasted into the sky from the direction of the stables, followed by a billowing ball of flame and smoke rising into the air.
“Dear Lord,” Hugh muttered. “We’ve got to get her out of here.”
Owen clapped Hugh on the shoulder. “Stay here with Sophie. I’ll try to find the windlass and get that gate up.”
“Here, take this.” Hugh pressed a sword into Owen’s hands. The farmhand leaned over the edge of the wagon and pressed an urgent kiss to Sophie’s lips. “Keep your head down. Hugh will protect you.”
“Wait! Owen!” she called out, but he was already gone, darting into the darkness, the clang of weapons and screams of the dead and dying all around. She ducked her head as something flew by close overhead, the air currents rippling the dark fabric that covered the wagon.
“Get down lassie, he’ll be back,” Hugh said, his hand pushing down on her shoulder. She dropped down to the floor of the wagon, trying to ignore the sounds of horror all around her. She felt the wagon shift, and Hugh’s face peeked in at her from the driver’s seat. He flashed a quick reassuring smile, then was gone again.
The wagon began to roll, slowly at first, then lurching up to speed. Another series of booms echoed through the courtyard, interspersed with harsh male voices cursing and shouting. Sophie heard a woman’s scream and she peeked out of the shroud.
Stumbling across the yard, her ankles linked in a short hobble chain, was the woman Sophie had seen in the field pulling the plow. Her arms were bound tightly behind her back, the leather girth squeezing her waist in its brutal embrace. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
“Here! Tani! Get in!” Sophie leaned out, waving her arms out of the side of the shroud. Tani turned her head toward Sophie’s voice, the woman’s expression turning confused when she recognized her.
Then Sophie saw him. It was the plowboy, Escott.
He was shuffling after Tani. His right arm hung limp, the whole right side of his body covered in soot and blood. He had been burned, badly.
Sophie nearly called to him too, but it was too late. Someone rushed up on the boy from behind, tackling him to the ground. In the low light it was difficult to see who it was, but it definitely was not a guard, the attacker much too tall, the clothing dark, perhaps black.
The man who’d tackled the plowboy pinned him facedown to the ground, and Sophie could see too-long fingers, complete with sharp nails, wrap around the struggling boy’s head, pulling him up in a straining arch, Escott’s eyes rolling back, showing the whites.
She cried out, covering her mouth as she saw the bright blade flash down, slashing into Escott. The boy uttered a lost, agonized groan, then lay still. His attacker leaned down close to the dead boy’s head, as if he were whispering to him.
Sophie turned back to Tani. A man in black hooded robes dashed out of the darkness toward the fleeing woman, and Sophie cried out. “Tani, hurry!”
The bound woman reached the side of the moving wagon. With Tani’s hands bound, Sophie struggled to pull her in. Finally, she got the upper half of Tani’s body up over the side, her legs dangling off the ground. The robed man reached them before Sophie could pull her all the way in, the man grabbing Tani’s kicking legs. The woman shrieked, craning her face up at Sophie. “Oh Gods, don’t let them—”
“Quiet, girl, I’m trying to help you,” the robed man said, hoisting Tani’s legs up easily and dumping her fully into the wagon.
“What —” Sophie said, then stopped, seeing him strip off the robes, revealing a uniform she’d seen before. The bright epaulets of military rank.
“Isaac? Is that you?”
He looked up at her, as the wagon pulled away. “Sophie, where is Owen? Is he in there with you?”
“He went to raise the gate. Isaac, get in!”
She watched Isaac pull his broad-blade. The weapon was the same style as the one her father had kept hung over the mantle at the farm. She felt a wave of homesickness pass through her. How she wanted to be home again. Safe.
Isaac dashed away, angling toward the base of the stone battlements.
“Isaac, what are you doing!”
He never answered, disappearing into the inky maw of the gatehouse doorway.
“Stay inside the shroud, Sophie!” Hugh called back at her. “They’ll be back!”
Sophie closed the fabric, plunging the wagon into blackness again. She could feel the trembling form of Tani huddling against her.
“Tani, what’s happening?”
Tani looked up at Sophie, the woman’s eyes two large pools of fright. “They just burst in. Out of nowhere.”
“Who did? Who are they?” Sophie placed a hand on the sweat-slicked shoulder of the bound woman.
There was another male shriek from outside, quite close, and Tani flinched. “I - I don’t know. They move very fast though. They surprised the guards. They … ”
Sophie could see the tears overflowing again, and gentled her grip on Tani’s shoulder. “They what, Tani? Please.”
“Their eyes. They glow.”
Ice gripped Sophie’s spine, and her stomach sank.
Nocturne.
When they were but young girls, her father had told her and her sisters tales of the nocturne. Killers in the night, feasting on the blood of humans. Bedtime stories, fables. Now, she remembered the lost look in her father’s eyes when they had asked him about them.
“It’s okay, Tani. We’re taking you out of here, just lay still.” She felt the fear coiling around her heart, the dread threatening to suffocate her. Comforting Tani helped Sophie stay the fear that threatened to paralyze her. If it really was the nocturne out there, the downed portcullis was the very least of their problems.
She heard a grinding of metal, so loud
it seemed to reverberate through her chest.
The gate.
Sophie looked out and saw the portcullis rising. It stopped halfway up, but it would be more than enough to allow the wagon through. Then she saw twin pinpoints of shimmering silver up on the battlements.
It’s true. Gods help us.
She shivered.
Two figures came barreling out of the dark gatehouse doorway, sprinting for the wagon.
Sophie crawled toward the front. “Hugh, slow down! They’re coming back!”
“It’s about bloody time,” he muttered.
The two men clambered into the back of the wagon, and the horses picked up speed at Hugh’s harsh yell. He looked back at the two men. “Galan?”
Isaac lowered his eyes, jaws clenched, shaking his head.
“Damn it. Damn it,” Hugh said, facing forward again. Isaac lay a hand on his shoulder.
Owen accidentally climbed atop Tani, unaware she lay under the base of the shroud. He reared back at the woman’s surprised grunt.
“Who?” He tipped his head toward Tani.
Sophie opened her mouth to reply.
“She’s coming with us,” Isaac said, scrambling past Sophie to join Hugh up front.
Sophie cleaved herself to Owen. She feared she’d never see him again. Now that he was back in her arms, she wasn’t letting him go. With him with her once more, she allowed herself to hope. They might just make it after all.
“Here, help me get her arms untied,“ Sophie said, easing Tani over onto her side. They freed her arms and Tani flexed the stiffness out of her wrists.
Then Sophie saw the look in Owen’s eyes, and her heart began hammering in her chest.
“They were everywhere. Dozens of them.”
“Is it … them?” Sophie’s voice was a whisper, barely audible over the din just outside.
Owen gave her a slow nod, his face looking drawn and pale.
Fear.
She’d never seen it in his eyes before, and it terrified her to see it now.
Owen pulled her to him, and she gathered herself into a tight ball against his side. She suddenly felt cold, and so very weary. She reached out to Tani, taking her hand, and the poor woman huddled against Sophie’s back.
Before her captivity, the naked breasts of a woman pressed to her back would have scandalized Sophie. Now, it not only didn’t bother her, she could actually appreciate what men saw in them. She wasn’t sure what to make of that self-revelation. It was just one more thing she’d have to examine later — if she managed to live through the night.
Owen eased the shroud aside, and they watched the manor recede behind them. Flickering orange light reflected off the stone of the inner walls of the battlements. Smoke rose from the courtyard, a smudge against the starry sky. Yells, screams, and the noise of battle could still be heard, its volume fading by the second as they pulled further away.
Isaac peeked in from the front. “We’ll meet Clayton soon. You three stay hidden.”
He and Owen exchanged a long look, then Isaac was gone.
Sophie looked up at Owen, his eyes luminous in the darkness. “What’s wrong, Owen?”
He glanced down at her, his mouth twitching. “Too easy.”
“What?”
“They let us go.” He closed the shroud, and stroked her hair. “Don’t worry over it. We’re safe now. You’ll see your father soon, and we’ll be away from here.”
The tension in his body gave lie to his words. She tried not to think about it.
She closed her eyes and lay her head on Owen’s shoulder. How she wanted to look upon her father again. She missed him terribly. Seeing him would mean it really was over. Soon!
“You’ll have to tell me who our companion is,” Owen said, smiling down at Sophie.
She smiled back. “That’s Tani. She —”
A surprised curse silenced her. Owen craned his head toward the front.
“Hugh, to your left!” Isaac bellowed.
There was an awful screaming from the horses, and a pained grunt from someone in the driver’s seat. The wagon lurched once, then shook violently. Tani cried out, burying her face in Sophie’s back. Owen’s arm clutched tight to Sophie.
The wagon seemed to rise up from the front almost as if time had slowed to a crawl. Sophie heard Tani shriek in her ear, and then stars burst in her field of vision as her head struck something hard and unyielding. Her last conscious thought was of the weight of Owen’s arm being yanked violently away. Then blackness took her.
Chapter Eleven
McClearn Farmstead
“These came for you this morning, Sir. Arrived by rider from Wyndhaven.” Rory’s wife Ilarra pressed another handful of letters into his hand. She pushed a lock of her straight blond hair out of her eye, and left with a squeeze to Clayton’s arm.
More missives arrived every day. He’d written the letter to the guild that Isaac had haltingly dictated to him during his sporadic moments of lucidity. Considering the state Clayton had found his friend in, he considered it a miracle the man could speak at all.
He’d found Hugh Moren’s battered and broken body shortly afterward, his bright red blood soaked into the dirt of the road. The overturned and crushed wagon was next, the carcasses of the two horses torn to pieces. So much blood.
And not a trace of Sophie or Owen.
He sipped from his tea, and sat down on the porch steps of the main farmhouse. The afternoon sun was waning, the colors muting, washing out into the grays and purples of the coming evening. The yard was empty, the fields deserted. Harvest was still a few weeks away, so the tending needs were minimal.
The hands avoided him at all costs. Even Rory seemed to limit his interaction with his friend and employer. Ilarra was the only person who seemed to treat him the same. Perhaps she was able to look past the sorrow etched into the crags of Clayton’s still handsome face. Maybe it was just relief that her Rory had been left safe on the farm, rather than being involved in the disastrous rescue attempt.
Clayton tore open one of the letters and read it. He set it aside on the weathered floorboards of the porch.
Another one.
He’d thought Isaac mad, the grandiose delusions of a man delirious from his head injury.
Clayton had been wrong.
From all over the land, the responses came, nearly all of them in the affirmative. He’d seen nothing like it since The Levy. Whatever the nocturne had put in motion was gaining speed, events now uncontrollable. He looked west at the setting sun. Clouds were billowing into the sky, their shapes tinged with ominous blues and purples. There would be storms soon.
He’d asked Isaac over and over if he could remember anything that may have happened to Sophie or Owen. Nothing. While he did remember Galan dying at the hands of one of the nocturne, he remembered nothing of the attack on the road. Usually, Ilara would shuttle him out of the room after a few minutes, admonishing Clayton that he needed to allow his friend to convalesce. It didn’t matter though.
Nothing mattered anymore. His daughter, his flesh.
Gone.
It would have been easier to have found their corpses in that wreckage. To have returned them to the ground with his own two hands, just as he’d done with his wife. Instead, he had the agony of the unknown, an unknowable fate at the hands of an implacable, monstrous enemy.
He remembered the last Incursion well. He remembered what the nocturne were capable of doing to captives. The thought made him tense with rage, with loss. “It cannot end this way.” he whispered, shaking with anger
It won’t, Clayton.
He looked down at the folded letter sitting on the porch, the paper fluttering in the evening breeze.
* * *
He closed the barn doors, the breeze having turned chill, the clouds blotting out the last of the setting sun. Perhaps the storms would reach the farm too. He’d thought of riding tomorrow. Just riding. Maybe he’d never come back. Maybe he’d ride until he met his wife and daughter in the nex
t life.
Someday.
He cocked his head at the sound of horses. A rider?
Turning he peered down the road. Not just one rider. It was several, rather well armed riders. He folded his arms over his chest. Protocol be damned. Why should any of it matter to him anymore?
The riders surrounded him, their plate mail polished, the swords honed, the metal bright in the last light of the day. But one of them got his attention.
It cannot be.
“Clayton McClearn?”
The man was tall in his saddle, his armor covered with a rich fur-lined cloak billowing in the breeze. His eyes were hard, his square jaw tight.
“Lord Westwood,” Clayton allowed the slightest movement of his head. It was quite likely these men were here to kill him. His heart was loping. He tried to remember where in the barn he had placed the axe. If he could get inside, they’d have to dismount to follow. He would have a chance.
The Lord dismounted, his cloak blowing over a shoulder. He looked up at one of his men, nodding and holding a hand up. “You and I have something in common, McClearn.”
“Aye?”
The Lord stepped closer, his hand on the pommel of his great sword. “We’ve both lost something dear to us.”
Clayton felt the tension ratchet up further. He scanned the men. Just a glance, but enough.
Swords all; the big bruiser to the far left had a spear and a mace. That one would be sticky. Yes, definitely best to get inside the barn.
“What is it you speak of Westwood?”
The Lord placed a gauntleted fist over his breast plate, the fingers splayed over the white painted House Westwood crest. “I’m missing a wife. You’re missing a daughter.”
Clayton shifted his weight, placing a hand against the gray wood of the barn door. “What of it, Westwood? Your wife’s predations weren’t enough? Have you come to finish the job?”
The Lord lowered his head, chuckling. The mounted men glanced at one another.
“I’ve come to ask for your assistance, McClearn.” The Lord raised his gaze, his dark eyes blazing. “I want you to help me find my wife.”