Beyond it, I found a spacious stable with eight stalls, only two of them filled. One with a horse that must have belonged to Jacquard. The other with Crimson.
He whinnied in a fitful rage as he saw me, tossing his head in the stall. He must have put up a tremendous fight after they found him, because they had bound him in a cat’s cradle of ropes, much like they bound me, securing his legs, flanks and neck, so he could only shake helplessly until they returned.
He was the main course Laurent spoke of, that they would enjoy after finishing me.
I threw open the stall door and saw he had finally wriggled one hoof free to kick at the wall. I 328
hugged his neck to calm him. It did little to still my own rage, which began to boil over. “It’s all right, boy,” I seethed. “It’s all right. We’re leaving this place.”
Night fell like thick tar. The flame beneath the vat had nearly died out, but I could still smell the sulfur amidst the barn’s choking dust.
At long last, I heard their horses approach and gallop around the barn to the rear stable. The door to the stalls creaked open and there was a murmur of confusion and rage. I smiled, imagining their faces as they discovered Crimson was no longer bound in their cruel trappings.
Then came quick footsteps and the sound of the connecting door as it flew open. The men rushed into the center of the barn with their lanterns, scanning the darkness for me and Jacquard.
They found Jacquard soon enough. His dead body now hung where the Lycanthru had positioned me, between the two pillars. It had taken an hour, with Crimson’s help, to string him up properly. It was monstrous, I knew. But far less cruel than the Lycanthru tying me there alive.
They held their lanterns up to his face to confirm he was dead. They wondered among themselves what had happened, how I had escaped, where I had run off to, where my horse had gone.
More of them poured in, as I hoped they would. At first there were only a dozen or more. Then I counted eighteen, soon twenty-five, finally thirty-329
three. They flooded in so quickly I nearly lost count, but I kept them in my sights. I had to know how many there were. They huddled together in outrage, blaming Jacquard’s carelessness, blaming one another, demanding answers.
They prepared to search the barn, raising their lanterns and looking about. Only one of them sniffed at the alcohol in the air and fingered a piece of the hay that I had stuffed into Jacquard’s shirt.
I smiled. They had each brought the very weapons I needed.
I stood up suddenly from the overlooking hayloft and stared through the enormous square hole at the men searching below. Hay and dust fell from my shoulders and my spreading cloak as I raised the repeating crossbow. My first shot tore through the lantern of the man standing in front of Jacquard’s corpse. It yanked the lantern from his grip and knocked it into Jacquard’s back, which I had dressed with hay and doused in liquor. The body burst into flames, a human candle that lit the length of both thick ropes. The fire caught on the pillars, also sprinkled with alcohol.
Everyone gaped at the erupting blaze as I shot through the lanterns of two other men. The first one struck the ground and started an insignificant flame on one side of the barn. But the second hit its mark on the opposite corner where I had spilled more liquor, creating a blaze that roared to life against the wall. It followed the trail of alcohol that lined the interior, the fire scrambling along the wall to connect at each corner.
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The Lycanthru’s eyes bulged as the room heated up rapidly. Crimson whinnied and rose from the darkness
