dragon figurines atop the walnut mantle, walked the short hallway to the adjacent main kitchen, and pushed open the doors.
As he had suspected, the kitchen staff sat eating and chatting around the cleaver-scarred butcher's block. The moment he entered, the eight young women on staff-Brilla tolerated only women on her staff-gave a start and the talking fell abruptly silent. Cale smiled knowingly. Because he allowed Brilla a free hand in running the kitchen, he usually only made an appearance when something had gone wrong with the meal.
Eight pairs of exhausted, apprehensive eyes stared at him and nervously awaited his next words. None of them said a word.
'Everything is all right,' he assured them, but the apprehension written in their expressions did not change. He looked from one pretty face to the other and realized thathe did not know most of their names. Have to remedy that, he thought. He had always made it a point to know everyone in the household, even kitchen help.
When at last he found a familiar face among the girls, he grabbed her with his gaze.
'Aileen, where is Brilla?' Aileen gave a slight start when he spoke her name.
'In the pantries, Mister Cale,' she responded immediately. A slight, very attractive girl with wispy blonde hair and bright green eyes, Aileen had been on staff since the summer. 'Shall I go and get her?'
'Thank you, Aileen.'
She jumped down from her stool and hurried out the other side of the main kitchen, toward the pantries. Gale winced when she began to shout.
'Brilla! Brilla! Mister Cale wants you! Brilla!'
While he waited, the rest of the young women halfheartedly picked at their plates and studiously avoided eye contact. They^ must have heard that he was an ogre.
After a few minutes, Brilla waddled defiantly into the main kitchen, a dead chicken clutched in one thick- fingered hand, an apprehensive Aileen clutched in the other.
'Mister Cale,' she acknowledged with a nod. She scooted Aileen back to her stool. 'Go, girl, finish your meal. I told you he doesn't bite.'
Blushing, Aileen took to her stool. Brilla turned her sour gaze back to Cale.
'I hope this is important, Mister Cale. I was just preparing to pluck the chickens for tomorrow.' She held up the dead chicken for emphasis.
In a good humor, Cale barely suppressed a smile.. Brilla stood almost as wide as she did tall, her thick legs as sturdy as tree stumps. With her long black hair pulled back and tied into a sloppy bun, she reminded him of the archetypal dwarven oenoen, the esteemed house matron, but without a beard.
Careful, man, he reminded himself jovially. You'd be as dead as that chicken if she knew you were comparing her to a dwarf.
Unlike most of the household staff, big Brilla was not and never would be intimidated by him. He respected her for that. That's why he left her alone to run the kitchens.
'Mister Gale?'
He swallowed the last of his smile and put on his expressionless, head butler's face. 'I wanted to congratulate you.' He crossed his hands behind his back and nodded to include the kitchen staff, 'To congratulate all of you, for work well done. Lord Uskevren has informed me that the meal received numerous compliments.' He paused dramatically before adding, 'Particularly the dessert torte.'
At that, Brilla beamed. She had created the recipe for the torte herself and had personally selected the Calishite barkberries. She turned her broad smile on her staff, the eight of whom were sharing tired smiles of their own.
'Did you hear that, gir-' A high-pitched scream cut short her praise. Brilla cocked an eyebrow. 'Now what was-' Another wail rose and fell.
At first, Cale thought the screams merely the giddy squeals of an empty-headed noblewoman, but another terror-filled shout, this one from a man, changed his mind. Something was wrong.
Instinctively, he fell into a fighting crouch, though he had no weapon. The kitchen girls jumped down from their stools.
Loud thumps suddenly sounded through the walls and startled the girls. They began to chatter fearfully. The heavy stomp of boots and angry shouts joined the frightened screams and carried down the forehall from t?e feasthall.
With his keen ears, Cale thought he caught the sound of the savage snarls of an animal intermixed with the shouts. What in the Hells? With the girls clamoring beside him, he could not make out any other details.
'Quiet down,' he ordered.
Nine mouths clamped shut. He walked to the kitchen door, pushed it open a bandwidth, and listened.
The distant but distinctive sounds of shouting men, plied iron, and panicked screams filled the air. A battle!
Suddenly, from close by, he heard a man shout in surprise, then a loud scream of pain followed by vicious snarling. The sound made the hair on tike nape of his neck rise. That had come from the parlor.
As though reading his mind, Brilla observed nervously, That sounded like an animal loose in the parlor.' As one, the girls gasped and clustered together fearfully.
Gale let the door close and turned to the women. 'Get in the herb pantry,' he ordered, as calmly as he could. Judging from the sound, the source of the growls was a big aninia), 'Block the door and don't come out unless I say so.'
They stared at him blankly, dumbfounded.
'Move! Now.'
That got them going.
.'Yes, yes, of course,' said Brilla. 'Mister Cale is right. Come along, girls. Hurry now.'
While casting nervous glances back at the wall through which the sounds of combat were made, Brilla quickly led the fearful staff out of the rear of the main kitchen toward the herb pantry. Cale waited till they had gone, then barreled through the kitchen door and raced toward the feasthall. He stopped cold when he reached the parlor, his favorite room.
Shouts, screams, and the crash of breaking dishes sounded loudly through the feasthall's double doors. Across the parlor near the archway to the forehall, dimly visible in the candlelight, a bipedal form in tattered clothes hunched over the body of a slain household guard. The wet chomping sounds of a feeding animal filled Gale's ears. When he gasped in surprise the creature looked up from its meal, wide eyed and startled. Gale's stomach roiled. He had expected an animal, not… this.
Strings of flesh clung to the creature's dirty fangs and inch-long claws. Yellow eyes stared out of a blood soaked, feral face. When those eyes found Cale, they narrowed to ochre slits. A purple tongue half as long as a man's forearm wormed out of its mouth, swept its lips, and slobbered up the last bits of flesh that clung to its face. It gave a low growl, a sound as savage and merciless as the fiercest animal, yet inexplicably human. It left the corpse and took one step toward him. His stomach fluttered nervously.
It registered in his mind that the creature had eaten the fallen guard. Ghouls, he realized. Ghouls are in the house! He had never before encountered undead, but he had heard enough tales to recognize the warped body of one of the creatures. No wonder the monster's growl had sounded vaguely human.
The panicked shouting from the feasthall grew louder, increasing in intensity. Men screamed, ghouls snarled- lots of ghouls-and women shrieked in terror. Cale, however, could spare no thought for the events hi the feasthall. The ghoul before him began to prowl across the parlor toward him.
Involuntarily, he backed up a step. He reached for a weapon, patted himself for anything, but quickly realized that he had nothing. He cursed himself an idiot for leaving the kitchen without at least a carving knife. Think before you act, he rebuked himself.
Picking its way through the eclectic collection of furniture, the ghoul stalked closer. It moved in a hunched crouch, a vile, sickly-gray predator ready to pounce. As it approached, it tensed its clawed arms, smacked its lips, and gave a thoughtful snarl. Cale could have sworn it actually leered at him.
It knows I'm unarmed, he thought, and he realized that this savage, flesh-eating monster still retained some intelligence.
What in the Nine Hells is happening? Where's the house guard?
He knew the answer the moment he thought the question. One of the house guards already lay dead on the
