Chapter 22 – Stains on the Snow

No new snow fell on Cadryn and Mareth’s tracks through the marshaling yard of the Redoubt while they were in the storeroom. This was a welcome sight, given how tired Cadryn’s good leg felt as he lead the way back to the toll house. Behind him, Mareth hummed the tune from the music box, now tucked away inside the two large bundles of supplies they hauled on their backs. Cadryn was doubly grateful for the wide snow shoes he wore, given how much he swaying like a fat sea bird as they marched along.

Coming to the narrow stairs down to the back entrance to the toll house, he crouched to remove the wide meshed shoes from his boots. The smack across his backside almost knocked him face first into the snowdrift lining the tall wall. He glared back a Mareth in false anger. Oh, how breaking tension quickly melted into easy familiarity it seemed.

“So I have this abuse to look forward to,” he asked, smiling.

“Only out of sight of the others,” she answered, “I have a serious reputation to uphold, Keeper Bence.”

“Of course, Second Mareth,” Cadryn said, and turning round, helped with her other snow shoe.

She kissed his forehead, but suddenly stood up, stance rigid, “You hear that?”

He did now, in the stillness of the marshalling yard, a sound started to filter in, reverberating up the stairs to where they were.

Voices raised in anger, one of them unfamiliar.

“It’s coming from the toll house courtyard,” Cadryn said.

Ditching their packs, they descended as quickly as possible, the wooden stairs to the Toll house were built on the outside of the Redoubt’s perimeter wall, clinging to the vertical surface by iron rods driven into the mortar of the larger structure. Their view into the court yard was blocked by the upper story of the toll house itself. Mounting the stairs, they could see guard post on the far side around the building’s eves. The shutters were mostly closed, but Cadryn could see two figures, likely Felina and Encara, moving about within the shadows.

“I implore you,” gasped a rough, exposure-worn voice from the courtyard below. “I’m telling ya the truth! That damn troll is going to be here any minute to finish us off . . . just- just let us inside.”

“Other gates open,” Felina yelled out from the guard post, “you’re free to go on down the road.”

As they made it down to the walkway that ringed the second floor of the toll house, Mareth patted Cadryn on the shoulder and pointed to the southern gate.

“I’ll go take up a position to cover you from above.”

“Ahh, so I’m going to down there?”

“You’re good at talking to folk,” she beamed, and took off at a steady jog.

Cadryn sighed, his breath a tiny cloud of protest in the light of his lantern. Shifting the light to his off hand, he went into the toll house, and turned the corner to go down to the entrance in the dining room.

As he passed the office, an arm shot out. Seizing his wrist in a vice-tight grip the hand attached to it yanked him into the room before pulling him up onto the toes of one foot. Deafening Silence paused, mid cross swing of her mace into Cadryn’s face. Her braid followed through the motion of her body though, whipping around her shoulder to smack him hard in the eyes.

“Gyyyaahh!” Cadryn howled, nearly dropping the lamp, “It’s me!”

“So I see,” Silence replied, releasing him to stumble against the wall. “It’s just Cad,” she said over her shoulder.

Behind her, Sefton Atwood lowered a crossbow, and shifted his gaze back to the courtyard. He was dressed in his night robes, a large floppy sleeping cap snuggly gripping his shiny pate. He spoke without looking their direction. “So the rest of the night shift has arrived, excellent. Mareth should be in a position covering the courtyard by now.”

Cadryn wondered how Sefton always seemed to just know things like that. Rubbing at his stinging wrist he looked at Silence. She wore one of the spare chain shirts over a plain grey night tunic that only managed to reach her thighs, leaving her legs bare down to a pair heavy furred boots. If she was cold, she gave no sign, and looking at her she filled the room with an aura far icier than the storm just passed. It was the second time in as many weeks she seemed oddly, dangerous.

“I’ll watch your back,” Silence said, moving over to the door down to the courtyard.

“I’m in good hands then,” he said, stepping up to the door.

“That’s not all your in to . . . from the stink on you,” she whispered darkly before unlatching the door and opening it wide.

Cadryn did not have time to process that comment as the courtyard below came into view. The piles of snow along the walls glowed like mounds of butter, lit by the lanterns at the two gates and the handful swinging in the wind from the underside of the wraparound walkway. Seven figures, lightweight, waxed-cotton cloaks pressed high around their faces against to the cold, huddled together in the cleared roadway. Their boots crunched on the frozen cobblestones as they turned to the sound of the door, and Cadryn recognized them at once.

It was Darcy’s Gang, or at least, what was left of it.

The largest of them, a ruddy man of perhaps thirty, emerged from the group, his thick hands held high. The man wore a sword belt, but the weapon remained secured within the scabbard. He gestured at the northern gate.

“Please, Keeper, we’re not looking for a fight. We just don’t want to die like the others.”

“He tor’em apart!” howled a thin boy, barely old enough to hold a blade. “Then he ate’em, oh Conor!” the boy sobbed, sinking to his knees in the slush.

Cadryn held up the lantern and approached, trying to get a better look at the surviving gang, they were miserable lot. All showed signs of frost injury, all of them could barely stand. They weren’t a threat to anyone in this condition. The memory of Vaast challenging them when the gang had seized Flick for a hold up arose in his mind, he knew what the commander of the Night Shift would do if he were here.

“Why did Grass Stain attack you?” he asked.

The leader shrugged. After a moment, one of the smaller figures, a red haired woman with a braid not unlike Silence’s spoke up, her voice soft and almost inaudible for the wind.

“Tis the storm,” she said. “Trolls must eat before the sleep of winter. The snow came, and we heard his wails. He was mad with rage for food when he fell upon us.”

“Aye, it’s just so,” said another man, cracking the knuckles of his shaking hands. “He started eating’em before they was even dead.”

“Please, Keeper,” their leader whispered, now only a few steps from Cadryn. “We never meant to fall to banditry. We only came seeking a new life on the frontier. Dracy, she gave us a choice when we crossed her path those long months ago: join or die.”

The deep anger rose in Cadryn’s guts at the man’ words. “Where. Where is Darcy now?”

“Gone,” the leader said. “She abandoned us a few days ago.”

“Bitch,” added the one with shaky hands.

“She’s got a new game,” the woman with the braid said, and meeting Cadryn’s gaze in the lamp light, he thought he caught a smile. “She works for the necromancer now.”

“How could you know that?” Cadryn asked.

“We were close,” the woman said, and he knew well the look that passed across her face. “She told me about him.”

Cadryn and the remains of Darcy’s gang stood in the early dawn chill, staring at each other for nearly a minute before Felina called out from the Guard Post.

“So, we killing these assholes, or what?”

They stiffened, hands going for weapons, but Cadryn held his own empty hand high.

“No, I don’t think it’ll come to that, right?”

The leader signaled the others to be calm.

“Sefton,” Cadryn yelled up at the toll house, looking over his shoulder. “We have somewhere we can lock them up securely, correct?”

“We do,” Sefton replied, “there are . . . appropriate accommodations.”

Cadryn nodded to himself, fixed the man before him with his most serious of looks. “You will all surrender to me, and I promise, on my honor as an Imperial soldier, that you will be treated fairly . . .”

They looked at him, like a stray dog once beaten might a man offering it a bone.

“Or you know, the troll,” Felina remarked.

The remnants of Darcy’s Gang, tired or running for their lives, surrendered.

The Underground Cells, true to their name and now to that original purpose, had more than enough functioning cells to hold the seven prisoners. After being relieved of their weapons by a very thorough Felina, they were provided a hot meal prepared by Bahsa while Silence checked them for injuries and disease. While waiting for the cells to be prepared, Sefton and Encara each took turns questioning the prisoners about their identity and history, respectively. Cadryn and Mareth, after collecting their abandoned packs at the top of the stairs, made a second trip with Rof in tow to get proper bedding and a dry change of clothing from the storerooms to supply the cells. When they arrived, they found Korbinian setting up more lighting and a heating stone.

When they were settled, the prisoners, one and all, collapsed into much needed sleep. The immediate issues now resolved, all the Keepers, including Vaast, assembled in the toll house dining room to discuss what to do, given the night’s revelations. Bahsa had laid out a second meal, for them now, of roast chicken with herbs, a sharp cheese, and several flaky loaves of dark rye bread. The air was quiet aside from eating as the first rays of a sharp, wintry dawn slipped through the blinds to creep across the table. Moving aside his plate, Sefton Atwood took out his pristine log, turned to the coming day, and set his quill flying.

“This matter deserves consideration,” he began, “now that we’ve eaten, what is everyone thinking?"

“If Zahkar is gathering living servants, than it’s possible his purpose here is more than just collecting forces to sell at the battles down south,” Bahsa offered to the table as she packed her pipe. “The fact he’s recruited a scout is all the more troublesome.”

Felina scoffed. “Don’t oversell her, Darcy is just a killer, who happens to live in the woods. Maybe she’ll do us a favor and shank the ol’ Ivory.”

“Not a chance,” Vaast rumbled, and then coughing, helped himself to a long pull of mulled ale. “I’ve met his ilk before, mark me; they don’t die that easy.”

“Few mages do,” Mareth said, blowing on her morning tea.

“Some have,” Encara corrected, waving a chicken bone at Mareth. “Necromancy is just one of the hardier disciplines.”

“Just our luck,” Rof said, pausing to belch, “at least the tow- our defense, will be in order.” He winked at Cadryn.

“Good news, from the Engineer, at least,” Cadryn said, just pleased the man had not revealed the dwarves work in town to Sefton at this moment in time.

“Well,” Silence said, as she rose, dipping over to lift a satchel whose leather strap creaked under the weight of its contents, “you all seem to have this well in hand. I’m going to check on the prisoners before starting my patrol.”

“Yes, I think that it would be best if the Night Shift got their rest in,” Sefton replied, looking at the yawning faces across the table. “Day Shift, stay on alert for Grass Stain or anything suspicious. I’ll check in with the town at midday, maybe some of this snow will be gone by then.”

A series of ‘Ayes’ answered, and they all filtered out to their various tasks, the night shift shuffling back to the Sleeping Chamber as the sun crested the treetops. Somewhere in the distance an owl shrieked in protest of a night lost to the storm. The low, purpled lights of the Chamber welcomed them, and the Night Shift, with the exception of Captain Vaast, started settling down to rest.

As Cadryn slipped into his alcove, and wiggled out of his pants. The shock of cold wool against bare skin was erased by a now familiar wave of smoky hair falling over his face. Mareth smiled down at him, her breath a warm breeze against the chill of the chamber.

“It thought we were being sneaky,” he whispered.

“I’m just saying good night,” she replied, crouching down beside his head. She pulled her hair back, and looped it with one hand into a loose knot. Peering up at the ceiling of his sleeping alcove she pointed at the gems. “So be honest: how many are about me?”

“A few,” Cadryn admitted, but when no reply came, he looked and could see Mareth was staring intently, saw her lips moving.

“Nine, ten . . . Cadryn,” she said worry plain in her voice. “One of your gems is missing.”

“Huh,” he said, and counting found she was correct. “I don’t remember the last time I really checked.”

“So you don’t know how long it’s been missing?”

“No,” he said, and remembering Encara’s warning of potential madness, a finger of dread tugged at his heart. “It’ll turn up.”

“It better,” Mareth said, and her eyes scanned the room, settling on each of the other Keepers.

*******

The dawn’s clean light, burning across the field of unbroken snow, gave the illusion of a sweltering desert of pure white sands. The paradox of the image would have been deeply pleasing to a proper member of the Assemblage of Discordance. Perhaps someone like Dulcet Shriek, or maybe even Gilded Poverty herself, if she were still alive. As it was, the glare from the snow merely blinded, and left the edges of her furred boots soaked and sticking. Of course, if she was patrolling where Sefton assigned her, like a good Imperial soldier, like a good little Keeper, none of this would be an issue.

Deafening Silence, was neither of those things, and in her true heart never had been.

Ahead of her, at the edge of the forest where her first cell of cultists had died at the hands of Cadryn and Nine on his first cursed day at the Neeft, waited her new cell. Ten, they number. The Holy number of the Emperor, who wielded ten taken blades of power. Each wore robes of deep Indigo, no sign of rank or order. To the ignorant they might be any sort of wandering monks dedicated to the Empire or its godlike ruler.

Silence’s heart quickened, she would need this expanded force, given that the rotting bastard Zahkar was on the move sooner than expected. Their design would not be undone by such ilk, or the affections of a mewling girl for that matter.

One of the waiting cell members, a massive Provalian man with coal black hair pulled back into a top knot took a step forward. He raised his hands, palms over eyes, fingers upright to the empty blue sky above. The others joined him.

“They do not see, for they are blind,” he intoned.

“The path is plain to those with will to see it,” Silence replied, performing the gesture in reverse.

“It is good to see you, husband,” she said, her skin going flush as the memories of their last night together in Throne-home returned.

“Contain thyself,” he growled as his eyes feel to her swaying hips, but gave her a wolf’s smile.

“Very well,” she replied, her voice a match to the wind across the snow.

“Is the ritual circle prepared?” he asked, loud enough for the others to hear now.

“Half, at best, the loss of the first cell put a stop to any progress . . . I trust you’ll be able to get it ready soon.”

“So He commands.”

“So it shall be.”