Down Among the Dead Men (Forest Kingdom Novels) Page 5

  Giles Dancer walked down a long stone passage that had no beginning and no end. Torches burned on the walls to either side of him, but made little impression on the darkness that filled the passage like a living thing. The Dancer walked through the corridors of Castle Lancing with his sword in his hand, searching for the werewolf.

  The shapeshifter was as cunning as it was deadly, and it had taken the Dancer some time to work out which of the baron’s guests was the werewolf, but now he knew. The creature couldn’t be far ahead of him. He padded softly down the narrow corridor, his calm, cold eyes searching the gloom for any trace of his prey. It seemed to him that he’d been searching for the werewolf for a long time, but the Dancer was patient. He knew he’d find it eventually, and then he would kill it.

  He walked on down the passage, and a slight frown creased his forehead. He hadn’t known Castle Lancing was this big. Surely he should have got somewhere by now. And there was something about this case he ought to remember; he was sure of it, but he couldn’t quite place what it was. A sudden sound caught his attention, and he stopped where he was and listened carefully. The sound came again: a low, coughing growl, not far away. The Dancer smiled. This should be interesting. He’d never killed a werewolf before. He hoped the creature would put up a good fight; it had been a long time since anyone had been able to challenge his skill. Man or beast, sorcerer or shapeshifter, it made no difference to him. He was a Blademaster, and he was unbeatable. He moved slowly forward, listening carefully all the way, but there was only the silence and the shadows. And then he rounded a corner in the passage, and the werewolf came out of the darkness to meet him.

  It was tall, well over seven feet in height, its shaggy head brushing the roof of the corridor. Its thick fur was matted with sweat and blood, and it smelled rank, like a filthy butcher’s shop. The close-set eyes were yellow as urine, and its wide, grinning mouth was full of heavy pointed teeth. The werewolf snarled at the Dancer, and ropy saliva fell from its mouth. The two of them stood looking at each other for a long moment, and then the Dancer smiled and hefted his sword lightly. The werewolf howled and threw itself at the Dancer’s throat. He sidestepped easily, and his sword cut into and out of the werewolf’s stomach in a single fluid movement. The creature howled again and spun around to claw the Dancer, the horrid wound in its gut healing even as it moved. The Dancer slipped the silver dagger out of the top of his boot and drove it between the werewolf’s ribs with a practiced twist of the wrist. The creature screamed in a human voice and fell limply to the stone floor. Its blood was as red as any human’s. The Dancer stepped carefully back out of range, and watched calmly as the werewolf’s panting breath slowed and stopped.

  And as he watched, the creature’s shape blurred and changed, the fur and fangs and claws slowly melting away, until there before him on the floor lay Jessica Flint, with his knife in her heart.

  The witch called Constance stood in the reception hall. A cold wind was blowing from nowhere, and the shadows were too dark. Four men were tying nooses and throwing the ropes over the supporting beam above them. They paid the witch no attention as they worked, and though their mouths were smiling, their eyes were puzzled and confused.

  The first man to finish took a chair from beside the wall and positioned it carefully under the noose he’d arranged. He stood on the chair, slipped the noose around his neck, and then waited patiently while the others did the same. Finally all four men were standing on chairs with nooses around their necks. They pulled the nooses tight, and without looking at each other, one by one they stepped off the chairs. They hung unmoving from the roof beam, slowly strangling. Their hands hung freely at their sides as they choked.

  Constance stepped around them, giving their twitching feet a wide berth, and ran into the main corridor that led off from the reception hall. A guard was hacking a trader to pieces as he tried to crawl away. A lengthy trail of blood on the corridor floor showed how long the trader had been crawling. Neither the guard nor the trader noticed Constance at all. She walked on through the fort, and everywhere she went it was the same: scenes of madness and murder and grotesque suicide. One man sat in a corner and stabbed himself repeatedly in the gut until his arm became too weak to wield the knife. A woman drowned her two children in a hip bath, and then sat them both in her lap and sang them lullabies. Two men duelled fiercely with axes, hacking at each other again and again with no thought of defending themselves. They gave and took terrible wounds, but would not fall. Blood flew in the freezing air and steamed in wide puddles on the floor. All through the fort it was the same; men, women, and children died horribly for no reason that Constance could see or understand. Their eyes were not sane. It was very cold in the fort, and darkness gathered around the shrinking pools of light.

  Above and beyond all the madness and death Constance could hear a continual dull thudding, like a great bass drumbeat that went on and on. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and it was a long time before Constance realized she was listening to the beating of a giant heart, immeasurably far away.

  She came at last to the dining hall, where hundreds of men and women and children sat at dinner. She entered the hall warily, but still no one knew that she was there. She moved over to the nearest table, and her face twisted with disgust as she saw what they were eating. The meat on the platters was raw and bloody, and maggots writhed in it, twisting and wriggling as they squirmed out onto the table. Lengths of purple intestines hung over the edges of the table, twitching and dripping, and bowls were full of bird’s heads, the dark little eyes alive and knowing. The witch looked away and realized for the first time that the man sitting before her at the table was dead. His throat had been cut, twice. Blood had run down his neck and soaked into his shirtfront. He smiled politely at Constance and offered her a wineglass. It was full to the brim with blood.

  Constance backed quickly away as she realized he could see her, and one by one all the guests turned to look at her. They were all dead. Some had been stabbed, some had been burned. Some had died easily, while others had been all but hacked apart. Four carried their necks at a stiff angle to show the livid rope marks on their throats. Constance shook her head dazedly, pressed her lips together, and tried not to scream. And then, one by one, the gathering of the dead raised their arms and pointed behind her. Constance turned slowly, unwillingly. Whatever it was they wanted her to see, she knew she didn’t want to see it. But still she turned, and a scream rose in her throat as she saw MacNeil, Flint, and the Dancer hanging on the wall behind her. They’d been pinned to the stonework by dozens of long-bladed knives. Their dangling feet were a good six inches off the ground, and from the amount of blood that had pooled on the floor beneath them, they’d been a long time dying.

  Constance whimpered faintly. There was a series of scuffing noises behind her, and she turned back to find the dead rising unhurriedly to their feet. They advanced slowly on her, each carrying a long-bladed knife. Constance started to back away and slammed up against the closed door. She frantically pulled the handle, but the door wouldn’t open. She spun around, and the knives were very close. Constance screamed.

  MacNeil snapped awake as the scream broke through his dream. He tore at his tangled bedding and sat bolt upright, his mind still howling demons demons demons. He thrashed wildly about him for his sword, and then stopped as he realized where he was. He let out his breath in a long, slow sigh, and the dream fell away from him. His face was covered with a cold sweat, and he rubbed it dry with the edge of his blanket. His hands were still shaking slightly. He took a deep breath and held it a moment. It didn’t help as much as he’d hoped. He looked quickly about him. Constance was sitting up beside him. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking. The echo of her scream was only just fading away. The Dancer was standing by his blankets, sword in hand, looking around the empty hall for a target. Flint stood at his side, also clutching her sword. Her eyes were vague and only just beginning to focus.

  MacNei
l slowly relaxed. It’s all right now. It was just a dream. You’re safe now. The last of the panic died away, and he was himself again. He reached out and put a comforting hand on Constance’s shoulder. She cried out at his touch and flinched away from him. And then she looked up and saw who it was, and some of the tension went out of her. The calm poise of her face was gone, shattered by her nightmare, and MacNeil was strangely touched as he saw how open and vulnerable she looked. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, promise to keep her safe from the world. Even as he thought it, the familiar calm features reappeared as Constance regained control of herself. She sniffed once and rubbed her face with her sleeve.

  “I’m sorry,” she said muffledly, “I had a bad dream … a nightmare.”

  “I guessed that,” said MacNeil dryly. “Are you all right now?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “I’m not,” said MacNeil. “I was having a pretty bad dream of my own, and I can’t say I’m sorry it was interrupted. If you hadn’t woken me up, I’d have probably felt a bit like screaming myself.”

  “You had a nightmare?” said the Dancer, frowning.

  “Yes,” said MacNeil. “So what? Everyone has nightmares.”

  “Including me,” said the Dancer quietly. “What are the odds on three of us having nightmares at the same time?”

  “Four,” said Flint.

  MacNeil looked at her sternly. “You fell asleep on watch?”

  Flint nodded unhappily. “I must have dozed off for a moment.”

  “That’s not like you,” said the Dancer.

  “No,” said MacNeil thoughtfully. “It isn’t.”

  Constance looked at Flint, started to say something, and then changed her mind. “Your dream,” she said finally. “What was it?”

  Flint frowned. “I dreamed about the time I fought a walking dead man. Only in my dream, I lost.”

  “I dreamed about a werewolf I killed a few years back,” said the Dancer. “Only … things were different in the dream.”

  Constance looked at MacNeil. “What about you, Duncan? What was your dream?”

  “What does it matter?” said MacNeil. “It was just a nightmare.”

  “It might be significant. Tell me.”

  No, Constance. I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone. I can’t tell anyone about the time I almost turned and ran.

  “I dreamed I was back in the long night,” he said finally “Fighting the demons again.”

  Constance frowned. “Demons …”

  “I hardly think that’s significant,” said MacNeil. “I mean, we were talking about them earlier on, weren’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Constance, “we were.” She thought for a moment, and then looked seriously at MacNeil. “My dream was different. You all dreamed of things that happened to you in the past. I dreamed of what happened here in the fort, not long ago.”

  “A kind of Seeing?” said Flint.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Constance shuddered suddenly. “I saw the people here go insane and kill each other and themselves.”

  For a while, no one said anything.

  “That’s certainly one explanation,” said MacNeil. “But if that is what happened, where are all the bodies?”

  “They haven’t left the fort,” said Flint. “We’d have seen the tracks.”

  “I don’t know,” said Constance. “But what I dreamed is what happened here.”

  “Are you sure?” said MacNeil.

  “Of course I’m sure! I’m a witch! There’s something in this fort with us. Something powerful. It sent us those nightmares. It’s testing how strong we are, looking for weak points. Only I was stronger than it thought, and I Saw something of the truth.”

  MacNeil chose his words carefully. “I think you’re reading too much into this, Constance. I’ll agree it seems likely these dreams were sent to us, but that’s all they were—dreams. Anything else is just guesswork. We’ve been through every room and corridor in this fort; there’s no one here but us.”

  “Don’t look now,” said the Dancer very quietly, “but that’s no longer true. Someone’s watching us from the door.”

  In the quiet of the night, a lone figure stepped out of the trees at the edge of the Forest, and scurried quickly across the clearing toward the fort. Moonlight filled the clearing as bright as day, and there wasn’t a shadow anywhere for Scarecrow Jack to hide in. He ran on, head down and arms pumping. If the guards had left a lookout on the battlements he was a dead man; they couldn’t avoid seeing him in this much light. But he’d waited almost an hour, hoping in vain for a cloud to cover the moon, and in the end all he could do was make a run for it and trust to his luck. Given the small number of guards he’d seen, the odds were they hadn’t bothered to post a lookout, but Jack hadn’t survived this long in the Forest by trusting his luck. Except when he had to. His nerves crawled in anticipation of the arrow he’d never see before it killed him. The fort finally loomed up before him, and he threw himself forward into its concealing shadows. He sank down on his haunches and leaned against the cold stone wall until he got his breath back. The night lay dark and silent all around him.

  Scarecrow Jack was a tall, slight man in his mid-twenties. Long dark hair fell to his shoulders in a great shaggy mane that hadn’t known a brush or comb in years. A thin length of cloth knotted around his brow kept the hair out of his eyes, which were dark and narrowed and always alert. He wore a collection of roughly stitched green and brown rags that barely qualified as clothes and seemed to be largely held together by accumulated dirt. They smelled rather pungent, but in the Forest the green and brown rags enabled him to blend perfectly into the background, hiding him from even the most experienced of trackers. No one found Scarecrow Jack unless he wanted to be found.

  Jack had started out as a footpad, a lier-in-wait, but almost despite himself had slowly developed into a local legend. He’d lived alone in the Forest for almost nine years, living on its bounty and by what his wits could bring him. He developed an uncanny accord with the Forest and the creatures that lived in it, and every year the human world had less attractions that might call him back. And yet he never forgot his humanity If anything, the harsh world of the Forest taught him the value of mercy and compassion.

  He never robbed anyone who couldn’t afford it, and would often poach fish and game to provide food for poor families unable to provide for themselves. He never let a tax collector pass unrobbed, and would help those who turned up lost or distressed in his part of the Forest. He had a way with birds and animals, and small children. Officially he was an outlaw, with a price on his head, but no local man or woman would turn him in. Scarecrow Jack was a part of the Forest and accepted as such. He kept apart from people, for he was by nature shy and ill at ease in company. Some said he was one of the wee folk, or a rogue goblin, or even the result of a mating between human and demon, but he was none of those things. He was just a man who loved the Forest.

  Scarecrow Jack.

  He got to his feet, still keeping carefully to the fort’s shadows, and uncoiled a length of rope from across his shoulder. He checked the knot that held the grappling hook secure, and looked up at the battlements with a calculating eye. He hefted the rope a moment to get the feel of the weight, and then threw the hook up into the night sky with a swift, easy movement. Moonlight glinted on the steel hook as it arced over the battlements and disappeared from sight. Jack waited a moment to let the hook settle, and then pulled carefully on the rope until it went taut. He tugged hard a few times, to be sure the rope would bear his weight, and then climbed nimbly up the outer wall of the fort. His experienced feet found a good many footholds in the apparently smooth stone to help him on his way, and he soon reached the battlements and dropped lithely down onto the inner catwalk. He crouched motionless in the shadows for a long moment, but there was no sign of anyone watching.

  Jack quickly made his way down into the courtyard, and padded silently over to the stables; the
number of horses would tell him how many guards there were. But even as he approached the stable he knew something was horribly wrong. He stopped by the slightly open doors and sniffed cautiously. The thick, coppery smell of blood was heavy on the night air. Jack eased the doors open and crept slowly forward, one step at a time, and then stopped dead as his excellent night vision showed him the wrecked stalls and the dark stains on the floor and walls. Jack frowned. By their condition, the bloodstains had to be weeks old, but the smell of blood in the stable was so fresh and strong as to be almost overpowering… . He checked the floor for tracks. Two people had come and gone recently, but there was no sign to show what had attacked the horses. Jack scowled and left the stables.

  The air outside was clear and fresh, and he breathed deeply to clear the stink of blood from his nostrils. Jack looked thoughtfully around the empty courtyard. He’d known something had to have gone wrong in the fort for it to have seemed deserted for so long, but this … worried him. It wasn’t natural. It grated on his senses, like a roll of thunder too faraway to hear. Jack couldn’t put his feelings into words, but that didn’t bother him. He lived as much by instincts as reason. He glared warily about him and followed the guards’ tracks across the empty courtyard and into the main reception hall.

  Four horses stood close together, fast asleep. Jack remembered the state of the stables and nodded under-standingly The four nooses hanging from the ceiling were less easy to understand. Jack scowled. The bad feeling he’d had in the courtyard was even stronger here, and once again he could smell blood on the air. It was cold too, unnaturally cold. Something bad had happened here; he could feel it in his bones. He checked the dusty floor for the guards’ tracks, and moved carefully past the sleeping horses. They seemed disturbed in their sleep, as though bothered by bad dreams, but they didn’t wake as he passed. Jack followed the tracks out into the corridor, and then stopped and peered about him uncertainly. The gloom wasn’t much of a problem to him, but he didn’t like being inside buildings. They made him feel all trapped and nervous, and he kept thinking the walls were closing in on him. He shivered once, like a dog, and then put the thought out of his mind. He had a job to do.