Deniably Dead (Arucadi Series Book 4)

by E. Rose Sabin

  The boy’s eager response elicited a grin from Thornbridge. “I might punish you for being careless enough to get caught,” he said. “I won’t kill you.”

  “No, you wouldn’t kill Ril, would you?” Camsen ventured, judging his growing suspicion logical enough to take a chance. “He’s your son.”

  “What? No!” Ril shrieked.

  Thornbridge shrugged “He didn’t know. Never told him.”

  “You should have,” Camsen said.

  “Time never was right,” Thornbridge said.

  Ril crept forward, close enough to be within Thornbridge’s view. “You’re my father? And you never told me?”

  Thornbridge turned a face now filled with pain toward Camsen. “You should’ve killed me,” he said.

  “And left this lad never knowing who his father was?” Camsen said. “I didn’t spare you for that reason, but I do know what it’s like to grow up not only fatherless but never knowing who my father was. My mother was raped by a sailor off one of the merchant ships that put in to Port-of-Lords. His ship sailed away the next day. She never knew his name, never saw him again. When the ship he sailed on returned, he was no longer aboard. She did the best she could to raise me, working menial jobs, whatever she could get. She had no education, could not find decent employment. When I was eleven, she took me to the temple of Ondin and asked that they take me in and train me for the priesthood. It was the only way she could be certain that I would be properly educated and be able to make a better living than she ever could.”

  “Spare me the morality tale.” Thornbridge spoke with greater strength. “Ril’s mother is still alive. I send her money, enough that she can live fairly comfortably. And I employ Ril, but I’ve tried to do so in a way that insulates him from any suspicion that falls on me or on my men.”

  “Why’d you never tell me?” Ril demanded, voice and face filled with anger. “Why’d my mother never tell me?”

  “For your own safety,” Thornbridge said, frowning at Ril. “And because I couldn’t trust you to keep your mouth shut.”

  “I wouldn’t’ve—”

  “You wouldn’t mean to, Ril, but you can’t keep quiet. I’ve never seen a boy who loves to talk the way you do.”

  Ril hung his head.

  Camsen hid a smile. Thornbridge knew his son’s weakness. And clearly he did love his son. But why had Thornbridge chosen a life of crime? Certain he would get no answer to that question, he asked a different one. “You were trying to protect yourself, and the boy too, I suppose. But why then did you let Ril get involved in your crimes?”

  “He was only supposed to pass on information that would help us. He wasn’t to be involved in any of the robberies. Never had been until this one. He begged to be allowed to go with us. I gave in. Shouldn’t have. I knew it was a mistake.”

  “No it wasn’t,” Ril said, angry again. “You prob’ly never would’ve told me you’re my father. I would’ve never known.”

  “And you’d have been better off not knowing. But I think your mother would have told you sooner or later. Now, enough of this. I want to know why I’m in this wagon and where we’re going.”

  Camsen spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “You’re in the wagon because your men ran off and left you lying in the road in the hot sun. You seemed near death, and I believed you would die if I left you there. Your men might have returned for you, but I couldn’t be sure of that. As to where we’re heading, I’m not certain. I’m hoping to meet friends on the road ahead. If I don’t, I suppose we’ll end up in Pescatil, since that’s where this road leads.”

  “Pescatil!” Thornbridge tried to sit up and was struck by a coughing spell.

  Camsen gave him more water from the canteen, which was now nearly empty.

  When his coughing subsided, Thornbridge shook his head. “There’s nothing in Pescatil. Why would you go there? It’s mostly a ghost town.”

  “It’s the next stop on the way to our destination. I thought it might be a place where we could replenish our supplies.”

  “It’s not likely. Only a very few farmhouses remain occupied, and the farms are poorly managed. I don’t believe you’ll find any shops open, and I’m certain you’ll find no inn.”

  Was he telling the truth, or did he have a hidden reason for not wanting to go to Pescatil? Camsen couldn’t ask the question directly, but he felt more determined than ever to continue on to that town. “My companions and I agreed that, should we become separated, we would reunite in Pescatil so that we could resume our journey together,” he said, hoping that the declaration would draw out more of an explanation from Thornbridge.

  But the bandit leader only said, “I think you should be prepared for a great disappointment.”

  They all fell silent after that until Jeppy called out, “There’s a stream up ahead. It’d be a good place to stop, water the horses, and get ourselves a bite to eat. Is that okay, Master Wellner?”

  Though Camsen begrudged the delay, the horses could not keep going for too long a stretch without a break, and as he had no idea how much farther they needed to go to reach Pescatil, he called out his assent to Jeppy’s request.

  Perhaps with luck this would be their last stop before arriving in Pescatil.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  RETURNED

  Lore awoke to find the morning sun streaming in through the window, casting a golden glow over the room. He rose and found his clothes laundered, pressed, and neatly folded, lying on a chair by the bed. His marvelous hostess had gathered them up, washed, and returned them while he slept, knowing he had nothing else to wear. Indeed her kindness made his stay worth more than a trium, and he resolved to pay her extra, counting on getting more funds from his friends when they arrived.

  He dressed and headed toward the dining room, hoping that he hadn’t slept so late as to have missed breakfast. The enticing odor of bacon frying relieved him of that worry. And was that the scent of baking bread that teased his nostrils? He entered the dining room just as his hostess entered from the kitchen carrying a tray laden with, yes, warm bread, blackberry jam, and a glass of milk.

  “I thought I heard you up and about, Master Kaplec,” she said with a smile, setting the tray on the table. I had my breakfast some time ago, but I was sure you’d soon be wanting yours.”

  “Yes, indeed, and you are an absolute wonder, Mistress Carran. A true gem.”

  “Well, you sit down and start on this, and I’ll have bacon and eggs for you in just a—”

  A loud, frantic pounding on the door brought her words to a halt. “Oh, my,” she said. “Who can that be? I’d better go see. I’ll be right back.”

  She bustled off, wiping her hands on her apron. The pounding continued. Frowning, Lore went to his seat, but hesitated to sit, hungry as he was. No one would hammer at the door like that except in an emergency. As he paused, his hand on the back of the chair, a scream rang out. Another. And another.

  He ran into the front room. Screaming, Mistress Carran backed away from the open front door. A tall, thin man in filthy and torn clothing stood framed in the doorway, his hands stretched toward Mistress Carran. He was saying something, but Lore couldn’t hear what it was over Mistress Carran’s screams.

  The screams stopped. Mistress Carran stopped backing from the man, who had not moved. “Mel,” she said, paused, shook her head. “It can’t be you. You died eight years ago.” She broke into sobs. “You aren’t Mel. You can’t be. Go away. You’re dead.”

  The scarecrowlike figure spoke then, his voice raspy as though from long disuse. “Eight years?” His furrowed brow reflected utter perplexity. “How can it be? I only know that the pain was terrible, and I passed out, and then this morning I woke pain free. And everyone around me was also getting up to their feet, and we all looked around us trying to figure out why the field we were in had changed so much over night.”

  “Those aspirants poisoned you, and all of you died. Not last night. Eight years ago. Eight years, Mel! So how can you b
e here now?”

  “I don’t know, Anya. If I died, then somehow I’m alive again. We all are. And I’ve come home. Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  She didn’t answer, just stared dumbly at this man who claimed to be her husband. And he stood staring back at her, hands still open and stretched toward her pleadingly.

  Lore tried to think, to decide what to do. Then the man’s words penetrated his muddled thoughts. We all are, the man had said. And Lore thought of the ragged, dirty groups he’d passed on the road, plodding wearily toward Pescatil.

  Kyla! He ran out the kitchen door to the back of the house, raced to the stable, and got his horse. He mounted and prodded the horse into a gallop. It wouldn’t be a long ride, but it had to be a quick one.

  Reaching the house where he’d left Kyla, he jumped off the horse. He approached the house with caution, almost immediately seeing it was no longer empty. Through the open door he could see a man moving around in the front room. A woman looked out through a broken window and watched his advance. He halted at the door. The man he’d seen came to him.

  “This is our home, and we’re reclaiming it,” he said without preamble. “My wife and I and my sister and her husband. So be on your way. There’re four of us, and we’re prepared to defend what’s ours.”

  “I’m not here to contest your ownership. I want the woman who was lying in one of the rooms.”

  A young woman, probably the man’s wife, joined her husband “You mean the dead woman we found here?”

  “She may be dead,” Lore responded. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve come to get her.”

  “You’re too late,” the man said, as a second man came out of the room where Lore had left Kyla. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone? How?” Had Kyla awakened, returned already from the dead, as these apparently had?

  “Friends of ours took her. She was nobody we knew. They offered to take her into town to see if anybody recognized her. If nobody does, they’ll put her in a grave. Why’d you leave her here anyway?”

  “In a grave? No!”

  “Why not?” the woman asked. “She’s dead.”

  “That’s debatable,” Lore snapped.

  “Then why’d you leave her here?” the woman asked, scowling, hands on her hips.

  “I thought it would be safe. The place was deserted.”

  “Yeah, well it’s not deserted anymore,” the second man a tall, burly fellow, put in, elbowing the others aside. “You’d best be on your way.”

  “Can you tell me where they’d, uh, bury her?” Lore asked in desperation.

  The first man shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “We were just grateful that they took her off our hands. Got enough to do here without having to worry about burying a corpse.”

  “And we have a lot of work to do,” the burly one said, moving menacingly toward Lore.

  With a heavy heart, Lore turned away, his earlier euphoria turned to ashes. With dread and a sense of hopelessness, he got back on his horse and set off on a new search for Kyla.

  Already on the outskirts of Pescatil, it wasn’t long before Lore reached the main street running through the town. He slowed his horse to take stock of his surroundings.

  Derelict buildings, some barely standing, others mostly whole but in need of paint and roof repair, lined both sides of that street. The amazing thing about those buildings was not their look of abandonment but that people were walking along the street staring at those structures in disbelief. Tears ran down many faces. Men and women walked into and out of some of the buildings, examining the extent of damage, Lore judged by their actions.

  Most of the people were too focused on the condition of the buildings to take note of Lore’s arrival, but one young couple stood in the middle of the street directly in Lore’s path. He turned the horse to go around them, and they turned toward him. The man held a young child in his arms. “You don’t belong here,” he said accusingly. “There’s nothing here for us, much less for strangers.”

  “How will we live?” the woman asked in a pleading voice. “Everything is gone. We have no food, no way to feed our child.”

  “Or ourselves,” the man added. “The stores are all abandoned.”

  The woman stared hungrily at the horse, and Lore suddenly realized that while they’d been talking, other people had begun to take notice and slowly draw near. People desperate for food would have no hesitation about taking and butchering his horse. Remembering he’d been told that she’d been taken somewhere to be buried, he asked, “Is there a cemetery anywhere nearby?”

  For some reason the man started laughing. “Cemetery?” He choked out the word. The laughter turned bitter as the man continued. “Look around you. This whole place is a cemetery. A cemetery of dead people brought back to life. For what? To die again? Of starvation?”

  Dead people brought back to life! The groups of people he’d passed trudging along, heading in the direction he’d been riding must have kept going on to the town, not stopping for the night as he had.

  It all started to make some kind of sense now: Mistress Carran’s husband, come back to her after—what had she said? Eight years dead? The people working on the house where he’d left Kyla. They’d said the house was theirs, but it had had a long-abandoned look when he’d left Kyla there. Mistress Carran had spoken of “the misfortune.” Some catastrophe eight years ago had apparently claimed the lives of most of Pescatil’s inhabitants. And now something had brought them back to life. Why hadn’t Kyla been restored as well? Could he be certain she hadn’t?

  Alive or dead, he had to find her. But the crowd around him was growing menacing. He needed to get away from them and find someone willing to help him. Not for the first time he wished he were a better horseman. At least his horse had had a chance to rest and eat after their long journey. He tugged on the reins.

  The horse reared, kicking out at the people surrounding it. They backed off. One man drew a pistol and pointed it at the horse.

  “Don’t shoot!” Lore shouted, fighting to stay on the horse.

  Someone grabbed the reins from his hand. The horse struck out again. Lore lost his balance and toppled to the street. The horse broke through the crowd and galloped away.

  “You scared it off,” a voice shouted. “Now where’ll we find meat?”

  “You should have shot it,” came another shout, apparently directed to the man with the pistol.

  “I tried. Pistol jammed,” someone answered.

  Lore heard all this through a daze. He struggled to clear his head. The headache he’d had from his collision with the tree and had finally gotten rid of was back in double strength. He moaned.

  “He’s awake,” a male voice near him noted.

  “Not for long.” The declaration was accompanied by a blow to his side. Someone had kicked him.

  He groaned.

  “Leave him alone, Abner,” a woman said. “He’s already hurt.”

  “So?” the male voice said.

  “So hasn’t being dead for years taught you anything?”

  Other voices murmured in the background. Lore could make out only a few words here and there. He was losing his grip on consciousness.

  “What’s it supposed to have taught me?” he thought the man answered.

  Blackness descended on him before he heard the woman’s response.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  revelations

  Hot, tired, and eager to give Dark Star a rest, Renni rejoiced to see that she had at last reached the outskirts of a town that had to be Pescatil. Now she needed to find a place where she could stable and groom Dark Star, get food and water for him and for herself. She wondered whether she was the first to reach here or whether she might find Zauna or Lore here. Camsen would be coming along behind her, though necessarily traveling at a much slower pace. She had no idea where Zauna was or whether Lore was even alive. So searching for her companions would wait. Care for Dark Star would not.

  She passed narrow dirt roads that see
med to lead to farms. She considered turning down one, finding a farmhouse, and asking for food and for grain for Dark Star. The problem was that she had little money, and she hated to have to beg. Also, gazing down these roads, she saw overgrown fields that suggested abandonment more than active farms. Furthermore, when she peered down those roads, she could see no buildings of any sort. So she kept going, hoping to see someone from whom to ask directions or perhaps to see a sign advertising an inn or boarding house. But the road seemed curiously deserted.

  A little farther, and she came to the first sign she’d seen that indicated she was in fact approaching a town. A lamppost stood beside a road branching off from the main road on which she traveled. That lamppost seemed welcoming, and on an impulse she turned onto the road it guarded. Along one side of the narrow road were empty fields, but on the other she saw a house where several people were working on rebuilding what had clearly fallen into serious disrepair. She slowed Dark Star with the thought of dismounting to ask information, but the horse shook its head and continued past, apparently attracted to something further down the road.

  She let the horse go, seeing first the neatly groomed lawn and then the house shaded by trees and looking well kept and inviting. And in back of it a barn! Dark Star turned in to it without guidance from her, perhaps sensing the possibility of food. She stopped in the welcome shade of a conellum tree, dismounted, and tethered Dark Star to a low limb, then made her weary way to the front door and knocked.

  The door eased open and a motherly-looking gray-haired woman peered out. “Oh, dear! Are you another one?”

  That puzzling question made Renni step back. “Another? I--I’m a traveler on my way to Pescatil from Marquez. I just wanted to ask directions. I’ve been riding quite awhile, and my horse needs a rest.”

  “Oh, my! Like the young man who came yesterday. I let him board for the night, but he left in such a hurry--”

  “Young man? Did he give you his name? I’m to meet someone here and--”

  “He did, but I’ve had such a shock today, and I’m that flustered, I can’t remember what he told me. See, he left right after Mel came back from the dead.”