"You’ll not leave me, ever!" Suzanna shrieked, running to him. She kicked him as hard as she could in the belly. "Do you hear me, McGregor? You will never leave me!"
From behind the tall garden wall, the morning sun burst over the stone and blinded her. She threw up an arm to shade her face and staggered backward. Unlike Dearg Dul and her coven of revenants who slept away the day and came slithering out when the sun went down, Suzanna was able to walk about in the light. But her nature had grown so dark over the preceding months, she rarely left the confines of the keep, preferring the shadows of Vent du Nord.
Slipping into the library from whence she’d come, she hovered in the doorway, staring moodily at the unconscious man.
"What to do? What to do?" she repeated, wringing her hands. She could not lift him and her powers were not so advanced that she could levitate his body or transfer him from one place to another with the force of her mind.
Suzanna began to pace frenetically across the rich green library carpet. Now and again, she would stop, glower at the body in the garden, then recommence pacing.
"I’ll have to wait for nightfall," she mumbled, cursing her inability to master the techniques of mesmerism the Dead One had attempted to teach her. It was one thing to put McGregor into a deep, dreamless sleep, but another to rouse him from slumber and control his thoughts and movements, to wipe his mind clean of memory. The complicated spell that allowed him to see her as his lady-love took all of her fledgling magik energy.
She strode to the double doors and chewed on her bottom lip until blood welled. Her body ached, and she wanted him in bed that very moment. Now, she would have to wait until the Dead One rose, and that would be hours.
"Gods-be-damned hell!" she shrieked, pulling at her straggly hair. "I can not wait—"
The echo of the giant knocker striking the keep’s main doors brought her head around. She stared through the library, wondering who would dare visit Vent du Nord. The keep had developed a reputation as being a place inhospitable to travelers and the inhabitants non-desirous of visitors. Vendors did not journey to Vent du Nord from Boreas Town, and peddlers rarely ventured up the serpentine bridgeway that led over the crashing waves of the North Boreal Sea, which separated the keep from the town.
Her forehead crinkled with fury, Suzanna marched to the wide entrance hall, the skirts of her nightgown slapping against her legs. Since the servants would not waken from their revenant slumbers until the sun had ran its course, and the only still-mortal being within the keep was fast asleep in the garden, she had no choice but to shoo away the one who had dared intrude on her privacy. As she flung the doors wide, scowling, she was not expecting the hard fist that drove into her face, crushing her nose.
Eyes wide, blood streaming past her lips, she crumpled to the floor in a heap.
* * *
"Did you kill her?" Dolan Loure asked his brother.
Brice stooped down and studied the fallen woman’s chest. "Nay, the witch still breathes."
"Where are the servants? And what is that smell?" Dolan sniffed. "Smells like corruption to me."
Brice only shrugged. "With my allergies, I can’t smell a bloody thing."
Dolan nudged his head toward the unconscious woman. "Tie up that bitch while I go see what died."
Brice flinched. "Could it be the lad?" The two of them were absent without leave from their posts at Briarcliff Keep. If they were too late and the witch had slain Riain, they might as well fall on their own swords and be done with it.
"Just tie her up," Dolan repeated and ran into the keep.
Brice pulled a length of hemp from his coat pocket and, with jaw clenched, hunkered beside the de Viennes woman, flipped her over, and dragged her arms behind her back. He made quick work of binding her wrists before using a second length of rope to hobble her ankles.
"Bri!"
Brice leapt to his feet and ran toward the sound of his brother’s call. He found Dolan standing about ten feet from a body in the garden. "The lad?"
"I don’t know," Dolan whispered. He seemed incapable of moving.
Brice took a deep breath and peered at the body. "I think it’s the McGregor lad they’ve been searching for."
"Not Riain?"
"This lad’s hair is blond."
Dolan let out a wavering breath, then joined his brother. "Is he dead?"
Brice dropped to his knees. He turned the man to his back and looked him over. "Doesn’t appear to be hurt, but he’s about as unconscious as a man can get and still be pumping blood."
Dolan looked back into the library. "That stench is getting worse. You don’t smell that, Bri?"
"I don’t even smell you, and that’s about the worst odor the gods have ever created in a two-legged creature." Brice shook the young man and frowned. "We need to get him to a bed."
"Can you lift him while I find the source of that stink?"
Brice didn’t bother to answer. He scooped up the unconscious lad, grunting with the effort as he stood. "Do what you gotta do. I’m gonna find this boy a bed."
Brice followed his brother inside and through the library. When Dolan turned left toward the soaring marble staircase, Brice turned right, heading for what he knew must be the business end of the keep.
He staggered up the stairs and bumbled into several chambers until he found the one that had once been occupied by his brother and the still-sleeping man. He was washing the man’s face clear of dirt smudges when his brother entered the room.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Brice inquired. When his brother did not answer, he looked over his shoulder to see Dolan standing in the doorway, as white as the sheets that now covered the man on the bed.
"They’re all dead…"
"Who?"
"The servants, tinkers, what looks like visitors, maybe." Dolan ran a trembling hand over his face. His eyes looked haunted. "I counted forty, and every last one has been dead for weeks. They’re all piled up in the cellar."
Brice sat down heavily on the end bed. "Please to the gods tell me Riain ain’t one of them."
Dolan shook his head. "He ain’t that I can tell, but some are lying atop one another and I couldn’t see their faces. Those I could see…" He shuddered. "Their faces were white as snow. She must have…" He swallowed. "Poisoned them, maybe."
"The woman is insane. What can you expect of a witch like her?"
"How did that one get to be here?" Dolan asked, pointing toward the bed. "And why?"
Brice shrugged. "How would I know? Last I heard, he was in Chrystallus with his father."
"But if he’s here…" Dolan let his words hang like a scythe over the conversation.
"Then Riain may be, too."
Dolan shuddered again. "Then we’d best go pry them bodies apart and see if we can locate him and hope to the gods we don’t!"
With a tired sigh, Brice slapped his hands on his knees. "Lead on, brother. Let’s get it over with, ’cause we’ve a long day ahead of us."
Dolan nodded. "And a lot of dirt to dig."
* * *
Sitting on the stone fence that ringed the burial ground behind the keep, Dolan and Brice looked up when enraged screams spewed from inside Vent du Nord.
"The bitch is awake," Dolan snorted.
Running a dirty arm under his sweat-dripping chin, Brice nodded, so tired he did not have the energy to answer.
They had buried fifty-nine bodies in the communal grave they had just finished covering. It had taken them all day to find and wrap corpses, cart them to the burial ground, and stack them like cordwood by the tall Grieving Tree until the mass grave could be dug. The smell had finally pierced Brice’s clogged nose, but after a while, neither man noticed the stench. Working until their muscles screamed for mercy, the brothers were determined to give a decent burial to the hapless victims of the mad woman of Vent du Nord.
Dolan was leaning on the handle of his shovel, his forehead resting on his grimy hands. There was a slight breeze as the sun crept slowly
to the horizon. In a quarter of an hour or less, dusk would be upon them.
"Are you hungry?" Brice managed to ask.
"I couldn’t eat if I were," Dolan replied, staring at the ground.
"Thirsty?"
Dolan nodded.
Brice drew in a long, weary breath and got to his feet. He bent backward, trying to relieve the ache in his muscles. "I’ll get water from the well."
"I’d rather have a jug of mead," Dolan said softly. He looked up, his eyes haunted by the horror of the day. "Or a keg, if it’s handy."
Brice smiled tiredly. "Wonder if the lad’s awake yet."
Dolan looked at the keep. The shrieks were loud enough to wake the dead. "If he can sleep through her racket, he may never wake."
Brice grunted agreement and tramped to the well about a hundred yards up the pathway. Just as he reached the flagstone receptacle, he heard the caw of a raven and looked up. The black raptor landed on the roof of the nearby potter’s shed and cocked his head as though asking Brice what he was doing.
"You’re a bit late if you’re looking for carrion, bird," Brice mumbled. He stabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "They’re all neatly tucked in for the night."
The raven looked the way Brice pointed. "Caw!" it cried, then flapped its midnight wings. A lone ray of dying sunlight shafted across the bird of prey’s tail and, for a moment, turned it flame red before it leeched away.
Another cry in the heavens drew Brice’s attention. He was amazed to see a golden eagle swoop by. He returned his eyes to the raven. "You’d best make yourself scarce, little bird, before that bad boy makes a meal of you!"
From the battlements of the keep, a raucous noise arose. Brice turned to find a cast of red-tailed hawks perched atop the crenulations. He stared with openmouthed wonder, for there appeared to be at least three dozen. "What the hell?"
Dolan was trudging wearily up the path, both shovels slung over his shoulder. He frowned when he saw Brice at the well. "Thought you were going after water, Bri?"
"Caw!" The raven sprang into the air, the flap of his wings loud in the encroaching dusk.
"Look up there." Brice turned to point to the keep’s battlements. "And there!" He swung his arm to the eagle perched atop one of the barbicans. "What do you make of that?"
* * *
Dolan peered through the gathering dusk and was about to answer his brother when he heard a strange noise behind him. He twisted his neck to look, though he kept on walking toward the well. When the mounded dirt of the communal grave heaved upward, then sank, he stopped dead in his tracks. When it heaved again, his mouth dropped open.
"I’ll be a Diabolusian warthog," Brice snorted. "That gods-be-damned raven flew in through the library door. Do you fathom that, Dolan? What the hell are you standing there for, Dole?"
Dolan couldn’t have answered has his life depended upon it. As he stood staring at the recently covered grave, the dirt rose high in center, then a dozen or more small sinkholes began to form over the mound. When the first claw-like hand thrust up through the dirt, Dolan let out a shriek of terror.
"Run!" he yelled, careening past his brother and dropping the shovels at Brice’s feet.
"Why? What the hell crawled up your butt?"
"Brice! Run!" Dolan screamed as he reached the library door and began to frantically motion his brother to him.
Brice snorted and turned to see what had so frightened his brother.
They were climbing out of the communal grave with lurching movements that bespoke of stiff limbs and single-minded purpose. Dirt fell off their clothes in clumps and streaks as they came lumbering up the pathway toward Brice.
"Sweet Merciful Alel!" Brice gasped. He made to follow Dolan.
"The shovels!" Dolan yelled. "Brice, get the shovels!"
* * *
Accustomed to doing whatever Dolan bid, Brice ran back, scooped up the shovels, and with the metal implements clanking, raced for the door.
"Hurry!" Dolan demanded and grabbed his brother’s arm, jerking him the rest of the way inside. "I’ll get this door. Make sure the main one is locked and bolted!"
Brice ran as fast as his dirt-caked boots could take him through the darkened room. He vaguely noticed Suzanna de Viennes on the floor, barely heard her wild laughing as he thundered by. Dropping the bar in place over the door, he looked wildly about him, realizing the kitchen would be a prime entry for the stiffs coming their way.
"You can’t escape them, fool!" Suzanna chortled.
Wishing he could send his boot into the bitch’s mouth, Brice gained the kitchen just in time to see the back door opening and a mud-smeared body lurching into view. Even without benefit of a light, he knew whatever had entered was not human. He shrieked and turned, running for the library. "They’re inside! They’re inside the keep!"
Dolan met him at the library door and threw his brother a shovel. "Aim for their heads. Decapitate them!"
Brice caught the sharp-edged implement and spun around, dazed by the sight of the raven flying up the marble stairs. He shook his head to rid himself of the image. With his brother at his side, they moved into the main hall just as the first of the beings shuffled into view. In the faint light, the things that came at Brice were mere nightmare shadows, but he knew all too well what visages were behind the upraised claw-like hands and dragging steps.
"By the gods, brother," Dolan whispered. "We’re in deep—"
It was the most horrendous sound Brice had ever heard. A cacophony of ripping, tearing, grinding, slurping echoed through the cavernous room. And to the accompaniment of the piercing noise was added Suzanna’s cackling, until she realized the creatures lumbering toward the two warriors had stopped and were turning to meet an unseen force behind them.
"Kill them!" Suzanna shrieked. "Kill the Chalean trespassers!"
From the library behind them, Brice and Dolan heard glass breaking. They spun around, fearing they would see more dead ones struggling to get through the barred garden doors. Instead, they were stunned to see the golden eagle hopping through a broken section of the portal. Before either man could react, the eagle disappeared before their eyes and became a tall, muscular warrior with a thick mane of shoulder-length black hair.
"Get the hell out of my way," he demanded, shoving them from his path.
Brice got a good look at the warrior’s steel-gray glower and knew he’d looked into one of the windows of hell. He grabbed his brother’s arm and held on.
Suzanna’s face became distorted with fury as she watched the warrior advancing on the retreating creatures. She began screaming for Raphian’s help, flinging incantations at the warrior’s broad back.
The warrior cast the witch a look that would have quelled the bravest man, but it had no effect on Suzanna. With offhanded ease, he swiped a long arm clad in a spiked gauntlet behind him, neatly ridding one revenant of its head and taking a soul-mortal bite from another, who walked into the forward swing as those dead ones came at him.
"Damn," Brice breathed as the giant waded into the fray with gleeful abandon—snapping off a head here, knocking off another there, punching his spiked fist through body after body and ripping out backbones.
Her shrill cries growing hoarse, Suzanna thrashed wildly, rolling over and over in an attempt to free her hands and feet.
"Where is the bantling?" the black-haired warrior asked as he turned to the Loures.
Brice exchanged a glance with Dolan. "M…McGregor?" he managed to ask, staring at the blood dripping from the man’s arms.
"Cree," the giant snapped. "Where is Riain?"
"He’s here?" Brice whispered, memories of childhood tales of the Cree clan’s ability to shapeshift speeding through Brice’s mind. "The raven!" He pointed to the marble stairs.
The giant grinned. "Much obliged, humans!" Spinning on his heel, he headed for the stairs.
"Humans?" Brice echoed, swallowing. He yelped as light flared in the room. He and Dolan plastered themselves to the wall.
There w
ere four tall, thin males standing in the archway that led to the kitchen. One carried a lantern and the others stood slightly behind, licking their lips.
"Not them!" the warrior called. "They belong to the Reaper."
The man with the lantern seemed to sigh with disappointment, then he turned his avid gaze on the woman rolling about the floor.
Suzanna scooted around until she could see what was happening. When she viewed the nomads advancing on her, she let out an ear-splitting scream.
* * *
Amardad took the stairs two at a time. He thrust his head into several rooms before he found Riain. "Has she turned him?"
Riain did not look around. He was checking McGregor for bite wounds. "It appears not."
"He’s in a deep sleep, then?"
"Aye."
"She must be nearby, but we haven’t found her hiding place. The Dead One would not be far from her revenants."
"Dearg Dul’s whereabouts are unimportant now. How do we wake him?"
"We don’t," Amardad snorted. "Only the one who cast the spell can wake him, and she’s being crunched and munched right about now."
Riain cursed and strode from the room, brushing rudely past Amardad.
* * *
"Do not touch her!" Riain thundered from the top of the marble steps.
Nomads hunkering beside Suzanna jumped, stumbling into one another in their haste to put distance between the woman and themselves.
Suzanna’s eyes flared, then narrowed dangerously when she realized the man strolling deliberately down the stairs was the man she had given up her immortal soul to have. "Cree! You will pay for harming my servants!"
Riain descended the stairs with a nonchalance that had all eyes glued to him. His footsteps were firm, measured, and carried with them a purpose that left no doubt of his authority.
"Release Raven," Riain commanded. "This is between you and me."
"He also belongs to me!" She giggled insanely. "Are you jealous, lover?"
"The only emotions I have ever expended upon you are fear and hatred."
"You are right to fear me. Even now Raphian is on His way to punish you."
Riain glanced up the staircase at Amardad, who nodded in agreement.
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