Mordon had used the wells as a supply of fresh water, just as Simper did when they were out searching for useful items. It was only because of Mordon that Simper and his men were still alive. On one of his raids to Scatley’s hidden supplies, he watched from the seclusion of a collapsed building while Scatley and three of his men poured a mysterious powder down a well. Mordon had waited long enough to witness one of Widley’s survivors pull up a bucket of water from the well and drink. The newcomer had either not seen what had transpired or didn’t care; a thirsty man might drink anything available.
That night, Mordon had waited patiently on Donderly Street for Simper or any of his men to show. Three men had appeared like apparitions from the piles of one broken building. The building had been Fiser’s storage and emporium before the stone bombardment. In only moments, Mordon had announced his presence and came to where they stood. “I saw Scatley poisoning the wells. After Scatley left, a man drew up water and collapsed. He tried to get up and fell again. When he did manage to gain his feet, he made the mistake of following Scatley. I wasn’t about to follow and see how the poor fellow faired.”
A large man with light grey hair responded, “My name’s Cort. We’ll inform Simper.”
That was all that was said that night. As far as Mordon knew, they didn’t lose anyone from bad water. But then no one from Simper’s group ever used water that did not come from the stream or wells opening beneath the broken buildings. Nolton or his men must have been told by one of Simper’s men.
Mordon picked up a ladle from a bench next to the open cistern and dipped it into the clear water. He finished three containers of water before his thirst was quenched. Mordon looked around the interior of the tower. His eyes met a large supply of things he had scrounged and a fairly large stack of the pilfered supplies he had taken from Scatley.
There was a dry stone shelf 10 feet wide running all the way around the cistern. Within the last two years he had found, disassembled and reassembled, everything he needed to live a comfortable life. There was wooden shelving supporting a large array of books: something Wicliff had insisted from Mordon was learning how to read and write. Wicliff could not read himself but still expected the young Mordon to have more schooling than he had ever had. A large four posted bed complete with bedding and comforter stood to the right of the cistern. He walked over and placed his old sword in a large barrel filled with light grade oil. There was a time Mordon could recall the face connected to each sword in this barrel but no longer. His had given him years of service and deserved a rest. The Wilson blade was of much better quality than he had ever been able to afford. Any of his personal weapons had been supplied by the garrison’s armory. The departing army had taken anything of service along with them.
Mordon munched on the last of the bread stolen from Scatley’s camp. Each portion he swallowed was like bits of gold dropping into his desperately empty stomach. His eyes looked up the set of ascending stairs he had built to reach the tower’s inspection door, nearly 20 feet up the inside of the tower. It had taken him months to carry what he needed from various locations in the city through the narrow alley and into the tower. They were sturdy, and he was proud of their construction. He was thankful for all he had learned from the castle carpenter. There were two intermediate landings and three sets of stairs to the top landing. They were not wide by any means, but sufficient for a safe exit at the door above.
By leaving from the high doorway, it brought him out on the castle’s east wing roof. He had spent endless hours watching the broken city around the castle. Twice he had watched Scatley and his men trying to gain access into the fortified house Nolton was in without success: they must need someone with a little more imagination. Mordon would have Nolton out on the ground within hours, at least his hatred of the man made him feel as if he could. Scatley had been trying to gain entry for months.
The remains of buildings blocked his view over to Donderly. While he had been up there watching, Scatley had attacked and retreated from there at least a dozen times. How he was keeping his men from deserting him was beyond Mordon’s ken. Their morale must be at low ebb based on how many times they had been unsuccessful in their attempts at surprise. Scatley must be terrified of the conqueror, or someone in the man’s army, to stay so faithful in his attempts of killing everyone in Widley.
While Mordon nibbled on bread, cheese, and salted beef he sipped his stolen ale in contemplation. He wondered why it was so important to kill everything with two legs, or any number of legs for that matter. In any army, he had served in and had won a conflict, the people had been left alive. Even the losing army needed to continue eating and living normal lives. Farmers and blacksmiths, cooks and seamstresses, sawyers and mercantile were frequently more important than those who fought the battles. Battles were often fought because of pride or arrogance, no less than for solely might or ethical and religious reasons. But the people needing to continue everyday supplies were, for the most part, left alone.
Why had this army changed the rules? It was as if they wanted no one left to expose the travesty being committed. Not in all the years he had been old enough to know what was happening around him did King Widley do anything to deserve this reaction. The attacking army was in such numbers they could have sent a quarter of their men and arrived at the same conclusion. There had been no warning sent in from the horde. There had been little time for King Widley or his small army to respond to the advance; they struck without warning.
It was easy to understand why the invaders had taken the women, at least the women pleasing them. The rest of the women had been slaughtered along with the men and children.
What mind could conceive of this terrible waste with such unrestrained hatred? Mordon still had not come to grips with the blatant slaughter of everyone within reach, even the animals of the field had not escaped the cruelty doled out by the invaders. If they were not butchered and eaten, they were left to rot after being mutilated; it was senseless. It was as if the invaders were so tortured by their own actions they could not conceive of leaving a soul alive to point fingers at their despoilment. Evil had come, and evil had left its trail as surely as a slug on cobblestone.
CHAPTER 3
Bats flew in and out of the opening far above Mordon’s head. The wispy sound of their wings, and the delicate sound of claw attaching to wood filtered down to his troubled mind. It was not like he had never thought these thoughts and wondered about the same things on many previous nights. He was still troubled about Trabor and Qxental. Either of those two particular men would have given him a real struggle. How could they together be so quickly dead?
Mordon had to quietly laugh at himself, Fool, most people die quickly these days.
With such restive concerns, Mordon put away what he was eating and filled his mug with another splash of ale. He climbed the stairs and grinned when he realized he was listening for squeaks. At the top platform, he lifted the heavy oak bar from across the door and pushed the door out into the night. The stars were out in force, glistening as sunlight on rippling water. He left the door open giving the bats another exit. Mordon silently walked the full length of the wing on the central wooden walkway, and then down the gentle slope to look south out over the wreckage of the city. He set his mug of ale on the waist high stone wall of the upper structure. Leaning against the wall, he exhaled a heavy sigh staring out at the dim buildings beyond the courtyard and thick outer wall.
He stood there for a long time remembering times past. He was thinking about Tracy at the Blue Frog. Mordon had not missed the nod Wicliff had given the girl, and the knowing wink directed at them both. Mordon had been fifteen at the time, and big for his age. He may have been man-size, but his mind was far from being worldly about anything but horse manure and weapons practice. Tracy had pulled him away just as the other women had pulled his friends for years, from table and ale, laughter and slapping-of-backs, to the stairs in the Blue Frog and up their ste
ps.
It was with total shock and wonderment he discovered what happened behind the row of doors on the landing above the tavern floor. Tracy was gentle with him. Her patience and allure left him unable to accomplish the simplest things. It did not matter to either Tracy or Mordon. Just being with her satiny body, and seeing everything he had only guessed about was beyond wonderful. They had played on her bed as two children finding out about each other’s bodies. It wasn’t until his second visit with Tracy he found out how exciting a woman can be.
Since then, Mordon had been with many women, some soft and beguiling as Tracy and others as hard as the pommel of his sword. Now there were no women in Widley. It was difficult being without a woman from time to time, but not devastating. Thinking about the different women he had enjoyed brought a grim smile to his face. How long it would be before he ever saw another woman was problematic in answering. Mordon might have to leave Widley and travel some miles before seeing a lady. Wherever the army had been would be barren of life. Though it may be as possible a woman survived somewhere just as he had survived. The idea gave him hope.
A nighthawk called its eerie call above his head in search of its evening meal. Mordon looked up and out into the night sky, but could not find the elusive bird. He heard it call several additional times before it moved west over the broken buildings. The flutter of bat wings came near enough he saw the small body of the bat dodging about in the starlight. Somewhere off to the north came the sound of a wall crashing down, startling Mordon.
The sound reminded him of how tenuous and dangerous it was to search the ruins for needed items. Mordon had been in Jameson’s Clothier Shop, or what was left of it, when the south wall collapsed outward, causing the roof to fall. He had luckily been on the opposite side of the room. The three or four clothier shops had been stripped of anything useful soon after the main army left; the wretched clothes left behind had to be washed and sown together just to be able to wear.
There had been ample gear for a soldier to use available for collection. Leather breast plates and bloody jerkins had been left aplenty on the dead. Mordon did not enjoy the gathering of such items, but knew the practicality of doing so. He had as much clothing and armament as he would ever need. Now days he sought only weapons, swords specifically, usually gathering them just as he had done this afternoon. To be weighed down with knives and daggers was senseless. If any fighting needed to be done, a fist or his fingers were nearly as lethal as a knife. The only weapon he carried was, and would be, his Wilson blade. He felt fortunate to have come by such a fine weapon.
Mordon walked the edge of the roof inside the parapet back toward the door into his tower. From off to the north came a deathly scream at distance. It nearly echoed the sound he had heard this afternoon. Someone had gotten careless and died. Scatley must have changed his routine enough to catch one of Nolton’s men out at night. Mordon hoped it wasn’t Nolton. He wanted that privilege left to him.
Out of whim, Mordon walked up the gentle slope to the ridge and listened in the starlight. Except for the normal sounds of the night, nothing new arrived for his ears to hear. He turned to walk back to the door when another scream, much closer than the first, assailed his ears. It had been cut short by a blow he could not hear. Scatley was either getting luckier, or someone joining him was a great deal smarter than his own leader.
Instead of returning to the cistern tower door he walked down the slope of the roof to the northern parapet. He walked along the parapet until coming to the end of the east wing roof. From almost below him in the dark street he could here running ending in terrified whimpering. Mordon could not see a thing in the darkness. He glanced to the east, the moon was just thinking of rising above the horizon. This was why he preferred the daylight: a ghost needed to see before allowing any prying eyes to note his passing. There was dead silence, even from the bats, when a third scream made him take a step back from the parapet. His curiosity made him lean forward and peer into the blackness. It was probably impossible, but he swore he could hear a blade tearing through meaty flesh. He must be eighty feet above the street where he stood.
Mordon crossed himself with a religious sign he seldom used anymore to ward off evil. It had never helped in the past, but maybe doing so would lessen the unease building in his body. Perhaps his hiding place was not as secure as he thought.
Scatley had proven it was impossible for him to get smarter, so whoever it was chasing down the tough men of the gangs must be a new element in the game. The back of his scalp prickled with the knowledge he had been so close to that element. Whoever it was killed anyone it could find. Maybe the conqueror had gotten tired of Scatley’s ineffectiveness and sent a better man. But why kill their own men?
It seemed more likely one of the gangs had gone insane. They had probably all gone through enough to drive their sanity from them. But they had to be more than just crazy. To make the rugged men of the gangs, and even Scatley’s mercenaries be terrified, they had to outsmart anyone they killed. They had to be brilliant. Mordon looked down into the street wishing he could see what had happened, and who had made it come to pass.
Three screams . . . were there three men down or just one? He could understand one man being scared out of his wits and finally being cornered; whimpering his last chance at life good bye. But how many men had chased the whimpering sod to the end?
No further sounds emanated from the street below where he stood. The full moon finally crept above the horizon, shining like a beacon across the land and desolation of the ruined city. As much as he wanted to lean from the parapet and look down once more, his silhouette would be in stark contrast to the lines of the castle wall, so he thought better of it.
“Hell with it,” Mordon spoke softly enough he could barely hear his own words. Tomorrow he would search out what was left below in the street and maybe get some answers. Retracing steps he had taken a thousand times before, Mordon reentered the inspection door and barred it behind him. The candle was still burning on the small stand next to the cistern. From up here, what water he could see looked as black as a bat wing. Standing on the top platform like a statue in the near dark, Mordon remembered the ale mug sitting on the ledge.
“Damn it,” he cursed as he reopened the door and softly treaded back across the roof. He could not take even the very slim chance of someone in one of the surrounding buildings seeing the mug in day light. To Mordon, anything out of the normal would stick out like the moon rising in the night sky. When he neared the parapet, he crouched and reached out for the mug . . . it wasn’t there. He looked on the roof at his feet, but the mug had vanished. It was unlikely the light breeze had blown the pewter mug over the side of the wall. Mordon was certain he would have heard the crash of metal against stone, after a fall from the ledge on which it had been placed. His chest felt as if it were being constricted. The increasing rate his heart was pounding made him feel it might drop into his stomach.
If someone took it, then they had watched him resting against the parapet, as relaxed as a puppy at suckle. Mordon thought he had everything figured out in Widley, but someone was mixing up the game he had learned to play so well. He cursed and started back for the door at the opposite end of the roof. When he stepped onto the high platform in the tower there was no light below to see anything. It was like looking down into a bottomless pit of blackness. The new moonlight was coming from the wrong direction for it to provide any light from the hole overhead. The only indication of anything below him was the slightly lighter blotches of bat dung on the roof over the cistern and his bed.
Mordon slowly drew his new sword and moved away from the door. The soft moonlight at his back was casting a very dim shadow of his silhouette across the tower chamber. He let his eyes adjust to the interior moonlight, wondering if a breeze had extinguished the candle or if it had had a faulty wick. There was enough length in the candle to have burned for another couple of hours. Mordon’s frustration was beginn
ing to raise his ire above a level he had not felt in over a year.
He was not feeling fear but something closely akin to it. There was no sense of another being in his tower, but he started feeling a sense of loss. There was something in the very air making him believe his life was about to change. It had taken a great deal of sweat to create this comfortable niche within Widley. The exertion he had expended just being a ghost sucked time from his life like a leach. The close encounter with the something or someone earlier in the day and the deaths surrounding him since then were beginning to abrade his nerves.
Mordon sheathed his sword and drew the door closed, placing the bar across it with a thud. He could see everything in his chamber without light; so many times he had traversed the interior of his place of dwelling. He turned in complete blackness. Once finding the edge of the landing with his booted foot, he strode down the first set of steps as if the chamber was ablaze with light. Upon reaching the lower landing, the feeling of being watched hit him like a fist might his chin. The presence was standing right beside him. He almost reached for his sword, but did not.
“Who are you,” he asked the darkness. Mordon reached out his hand in the direction he felt the person standing, but could feel nothing. It was as if they were within reach, but were not at the same time. The unease rushing through his veins prompted, “I ask again, who are you?”
There was nothing but silence. The presence left as magically as it had arrived. Mordon stood on the landing, trying to gain some sensibility and stability from the nearly overwhelming sense of presence that had blocked his decent to the chamber floor. His nerves were definitely coming apart. Maybe whatever Scatley had dumped in the water around town had gotten into the water here. If it had not been poison, then whatever it had been definitely caused hallucinations, Mordon was sure of it.
Mordon of Widley Page 3