The guard jogged away to the earthen casement at the center of the fort. The laces of his boots flapped in the dust. The quality of recruits here was pathetic. Most of them were Samuval’s castoffs, driven out for being too lazy or too stupid to serve the freebooter chief. Alderhelm seemed to attract the sorriest ones, and its commandant, Midgrave Freemantle, hired them all. It was his way of making up the losses his garrison was suffering.
The guard returned and called up, “The commandant is in the keep, Lady.”
Doing what? she wanted to shout but did not bother. It was far simpler to go there herself.
She dispatched the guard with a message for Sergeant Jeralund, one of the few professional soldiers in the garrison, then descended the rough-hewn log steps to the bailey.
Around the inside of the stockade were assorted shanties of logs, planks, and canvas. They belonged to the civilians allowed to dwell under Lord Freemantle’s protection. They were a picturesque lot, the usual scum and scrapings too inept or weak to survive in the bigger towns. Breetan didn’t mind gamblers, quacksalvers and purveyors of strong drink. She did despise third-rate ones.
On her second day here, she had to make an example of one of them, a nasty little procurer called Three-Lips for the large scar just below his bottom lip. Touring the fort in civilian clothes, Breetan met Three-Lips at the entrance of his establishment. He made overtures she found offensive, and she knocked out two of his front teeth with the bronze knuckles she carried. Furious, and still unaware she was a knight, he sent two hired blades after her. She beheaded one and disemboweled the other. Three-Lips she had hung from the flagpole atop the commandant’s keep.
She climbed the mound at the center of the fort and entered the keep. Five paces inside she found Lord Freemantle struggling into his armor. He was a stout man, and in summer wore steel only when the situation demanded it.
“I know, I know,” he said irritably. “The patrol is overdue.”
“Another six men lost.”
“Maybe not.” Freemantle gave up on his pauldrons and shoved them back at his beleaguered manservant. “They aught only be delayed.”
Breetan laughed, a sharp, mocking sound. “The pattern is plain,” she said, planting hands on hips. Unlike the commandant, she was at ease in her three-quarter plate, enameled in sable, as befitted a Dark Knight. “We’ll find them with their throats cut, just like the others.”
For the past three months, someone or something had been whittling down his troops. One here, three there, soldiers went missing only to be found with their throats cut. Freemantle’s reports to the Knights’ citadel in Gilthanost had resulted in the arrival of Breetan Everride. Her task was to put a stop to the slaughter.
For six armed men to disappear together was unusual, however. No group of that size had gone missing before. The patrol had been on its way to reinforce the sentinel post at the Shattered Rock crossroads. Twice in the previous three months, the sentries’ relief had arrived to find the two men slain or, more disturbing, simply gone.
“I’ll ride out with a company and see what we find,” she told Freemantle.
“Don’t go far. There’s little daylight left.”
She almost laughed at him again. The commandant was afraid to go out after dark? What were things coming to out here?
Sergeant Jeralund and twenty men were waiting for her at the gate. Breetan’s horse had been brought from the stable. She mounted and rested the butt of a cocked and loaded crossbow on her thigh.
“Sergeant, we have ground to cover. At the double, if you please.”
Jeralund drew his sword and thrust it in the air. “All right, you donkeys! Time to be war-horses! At the double!” he roared.
This late in the day, only a few travelers remained on the road. They dived for the ditches when Breetan’s column approached. In ragged order the mercenaries lifted their booted feet and jogged behind their elegantly mounted leader.
Breetan was a member of a select organization within the larger Knights of Neraka. According to reports compiled by its headquarters, the Black Hall, the only elves remaining in the province were slaves. Breetan believed the reports were wrong. Who but rebellious, forest-bred elves could be at the bottom of all the trouble?
All seemed normal in the forest. Alert for ambush, Breetan saw only squirrels scampering from branch to branch, heard only birds singing in the treetops. Her dark red mantle hung limply from her shoulders. No breath of breeze stirred the air. Beneath her helmet, her sunbrowned face was flushed from the heat.
Dusk had fallen by the time the column reached Shattered Rock. The soldiers tensed as they neared the crossroads.
Shattered Rock had earned its name from a great boulder on the southwest side of the intersection. The sharp-edged block of gray granite, roughly cube shaped, resembled none of the native rock in the vicinity. Local lore held that it had been dropped by a giant in centuries past.
Opposite the boulder was the sentinel post, a thick- walled, flat-roofed stone hut. The windows were covered by stout planks, with loopholes for archers. Out front, an iron tripod perched atop the ashes of a cold campfire. At Breetan’s command, the company broke ranks and surrounded the hut.
No one answered Jeralund’s calls. The brass-strapped door was bolted. Both windows were shuttered and likewise fastened from the inside, It required two men with war axes many minutes to hack through the heavy door. While they labored, Breetan ordered a large fire laid where the roads met. By the time the battered panels yielded, darkness was almost complete and the bonfire’s light was welcome indeed.
Jeralund brought a brand from the fire to light the way, and Breetan entered, crossbow at the ready.
The missing men were not inside. The single room was a shambles. Everything in it, from the two cots to the bowls that held the sentries’ provisions, had been smashed. The soldiers’ bedding had been trampled into the muck on the floor.
The ladder to the roof trapdoor had been torn down. The trapdoor itself, like every other opening, was secured from the inside. Jeralund had himself boosted up. He threw the thick bolt, pushed the panel upward, and levered himself onto the roof. It was bare but for a scattering of leaves. The hut’s walls continued up past the roof, creating a two-foot parapet. Jeralund turned to survey the crossroads and the woods beyond. He exclaimed hoarsely.
“What?” demanded Breetan from below. “What do you see?”
Jeralund’s face appeared in the trapdoor opening. “Bodies. In the trees!”
From his vantage point, with the light of the bonfire to aid him, Jeralund had seen what no one on the ground had been able to: corpses hanging from high tree branches. The dead were lowered to the ground and identified as the members of the overdue patrol, plus the two guards assigned to the sentinel post.
Breetan glared at the bodies, now decently covered with their own cloaks. More than the Black Hall must know of this outrage. She would have to send word to the Knights’ headquarters in Jelek. Unfortunately, her return to Alderhelm would have to be delayed until morning. A night march through hostile territory was too dangerous. They would have to pass the night here.
The decision was not popular with the men. Numbers and a stone stronghold hadn’t saved their comrades. They clamored to return to the fort at once, but Breetan wouldn’t consider it. She ordered half the company, led by the sergeant, to stand guard while the others rested. The fire would be kept burning throughout the night and, an hour after midnight, the sleepers would relieve those on guard.
Breetan placed her bedroll below the east face of the great boulder, so the first rays of the morning sun would wake her. She set her helmet and crossbow within easy reach and settled in. It wasn’t the first night she’d bedded down in full armor. The bonfire and alert eyes of the watchers eased the worry of ambush. Bright embers drifted skyward with the smoke. Breetan fell asleep watching them wink out like dying stars.
She had positioned her bedroll just right. The light of the rising sun, filtered through the forest, fell on her face. As was her way, she went immediately from sleep to wakefulness. The smell of wood smoke hung heavy in the muggy morning air. Above, the sky was cloudless and blue as a robin’s egg. Birds trilled in the trees. What Breetan did not hear was the bustle of a soldiers’ camp coming to life. The rough voices of her company were completely absent.
Carefully, she stretched out a hand and felt the stock of her crossbow. She eased the weapon to her but suffered an unpleasant surprise. The bowstring was cut, the bolt gone.
