lanky hunter, with raptor eyes, and a hooked nose, and he had ranged the Reyhall Forest since he was in swaddling clothes. He was one of Lord Brach’s favorite men, and he was the head of one of the wealthiest, and the most well connected families in all of Westland.
The Duke had deservedly earned the reputation, not of a stalwart nobleman, but of a ruthless interrogator, and a fearless and formidable battlefield warrior. His exploits during the conflict against the half-breed beasts at Coldfrost had earned him the nickname “The Butcher.” In the frigid north, he had served both Lord Brach, and King Balton, extremely well. It was the luck of the gods though, that put the Duke in the position he found himself in now. He was about to be able to earn the favor of the new King and elevate his standing with his liege, Lord Brach, as well.
Back before the Summer’s Day festival, the day after King Balton died, but before the news was made public, the Duke had been summoned to a library room deep inside the walls of Lakeside Castle. He had come to Lakeside with a small group of his men, and a nephew that his wife had elevated to some sort of godly status in her mind. She could have no children of her own, so she latched onto a select few of her sister’s children.
The nephew was an archer. The Duke, at the direction of his wife, and her gaggle of honking sisters, had come to the castle to ask Lord Gregory if the boy could accompany the group going to the Summer’s Day Festival. Of course, there was already an archer of great skill among the Lion Lord’s party. Of course, this outing to the Festival had been planned for months, and of course, this was an inconvenient last minute request. So, of course, a fat pouch of golden lions had been passed to Lord Gregory. The Lion Lord had declined the bribe politely, but did make a suggestion to the surprised Duke. Duke Fairchild passed a far thinner bag of coin to Lord Gregory’s archer, who suddenly decided that he needed an assistant. The nephew was pleased to be hired for the position. Duke Fairchild was pleased to be rid of the boy, and was on his way before anyone could change their mind.
Since the boy was out of his hair now, the Duke wanted to take care of some other business. He dismissed his men to the tavern near the North Road Gate with simple instructions. They were not to get too drunk, and they were to still be at the tavern when he returned from his engagement.
After sneaking through one of the many back entrances into the castle proper, the Duke eased into the secondary dining hall, and scanned the crowded room. It was just before midday, and most of the castle staff were there, taking a meal before going off to serve the nobility. It hadn’t taken him long to spot what he was after. She was a server in the hall, and he wanted her to serve him privately, just like she had served him the last time he had been at Lakeside Castle without his wife. It came as a great shock when his brief conversation with her was interrupted by a nervous young pageboy, sporting the King’s sigil on his breast.
Disgruntled, but not so much as to disregard a Royal Summons, the Duke followed the boy through the castle, wondering the whole way, how his presence had been so quickly discovered.
He had met Lord Gregory in the stable yard as the Summer’s Day party was about to depart, and he had only just left his men. The midday bell hadn’t rung, and he couldn’t fathom how anyone could know he was in the city, much less send a pageboy to summon him in a particular room inside the castle.
As the boy led him deeper and deeper into the castle’s depths, he began to grow nervous. He wondered if some of the things he had done to his captives after the Battle of Coldfrost was coming back to haunt him. Had he offended one of the Greater Lords? He searched his mind for every single encounter he had ever had with King Balton and the favored courtiers. He couldn’t remember ever doing anything that might warrant this strange summons. What made it worse was that all the faces he saw, nobleman and servant alike, all looked sullen. He could tell that something was dreadfully wrong. He only hoped that he wasn’t the cause, or the one who would take the blame, for whatever had happened.
The library room was small and crowded. A candelabrum on a polished oak reading table provided insufficient light. The table was pushed against a desk, and the surfaces of both were covered in open maps. There were four – no, five – men in the room, Duke Fairchild was certain. The only faces that were illuminated in the sparse light, were those of his liege, Lord Brach, and the nearly albino skinned Royal Wizard, Pael. The Duke wondered, when he saw the creepy wizard smiling at him, if the mage had used some sort of devilry to locate him.
The other men in the room were standing out of the candlelight at the back wall. Their faces couldn’t be discerned. This was obviously intentional. They were either observing, or silently guarding. Duke Fairchild knew that they were there whether they wanted him to or not. Their presence only served to put him on the defensive, and his liege, Lord Brach, noticed.
“There’s no time for formalities, Vincent. I can sense your concern,” Lord Brach said. “I trust you can keep the words spoken here to yourself?”
It wasn’t really a question, but the Duke answered with a nod. The two men knew each other as well as any two men possibly could. The trust between them was deep and generations old. Brach often used Fairchild’s skills to extract information from rogues and road bandits, and Duke Fairchild’s stronghold was ideal for housing prisoners, who might suddenly need to disappear from the realm altogether. Duke Fairchild was relieved by the expression on Lord Brach’s face. From it, he could tell that he was not the focus of this strange meeting.
Pael looked at Duke Fairchild as if he were studying the inside of his skull. Pael’s gaze was unnerving, but Vincent Fairchild didn’t blanch under the scrutiny. He had committed horrors that were unspeakable. It would take more than the stare of a man, so white that he could’ve been carved out of marble, to unsettle him.
“The King is dead,” Lord Brach said finally. “Poisoned, or magicked; we’re not sure which, but that is not your concern. We’re keeping it quiet for now. I only tell you so that you might see the magnitude of the duty we’re placing upon you.”
“Bring the stableman!” Pael commanded.
The strange wizard had a sinister, giddy quality about him that touched a nerve in the Duke.
Two of the men standing against the back wall stepped forward into the light. Fairchild instantly recognized one of Lord Brach’s personal guards. He acknowledged the man with a nod.
The other was dressed in what were once probably quality working clothes, but were now stained filthy with sweat, vomit, and more than a little blood. The stableman’s face was swollen on one side, as if he held an apple in his cheek. Fairchild saw that there was another man still concealed in the shadows. He silently congratulated himself for counting correctly.
“Last night, while the King lay dying, the King’s Squire, a boy called Mikahl Thayne, made ready for a sizable journey, and then fled the castle,” Lord Brach explained.
Thayne, Fairchild knew, was the name given to bastard born children. Thayne was the god of the needy, the protector of the lost and alone. The Duke filed that bit of information away and continued listening.
“He left sometime in the night after assaulting this man.” Lord Brach indicated the stableman with a look of extreme distaste. “We assume he left through the Northroad Gate. It was the only one open throughout the night.”
Duke Fairchild, at that point, knew what his duty was. He was, after all, a hunter and interrogator. He was glad he had brought Tully and Garth with him on this most fortunate of errands. They were both experienced and loyal men, men who understood how to track and kill the sort of prey they would be after. A look of eagerness and longing crept over Duke Fairchild’s face. The expression was lustful and predatory, like a hungry beast with the scent of blood finding its nostrils. Pael, who had been silently studying the Duke, read the intent in the man’s countenance, and found that he was pleasantly surprised.
“Learn what you can from the stableman, and then dismiss him properly.”
Fairchild hadn’t needed the emphasis on the word “dismiss” to understand his Lord’s meaning, but he nodded for the benefit of the wizard, and the hidden spectator. Lord Brach continued:
“We want this squire alive, if at all possible. His manner of departure, and the timing, suggests that he was involved, and is possibly carrying a message to an unknown party. We would like to know who that someone is, no matter what the cost.”
“Bring him alive!” Pael commanded then, his eyes conveying an intensity that Fairchild understood completely. “No matter what his condition is, if he is alive and can speak, I will be able to leech his mind of the knowledge we seek!”
“I understand,” Fairchild told them, with more than a little eagerness showing in his voice. “If it pleases milord, can your man escort the stableman back to the stable? I would do so myself, but it seems that time is of the essence here. I have other preparations to make, and men to round up and outfit before I get to him.”
With a nod, Lord Brach granted the request. Duke Fairchild was turning toward the door to leave, when a
