Unmasked (Rise of the Masks Book 1)

by Kaplan, EM

  What was there left for him now that Treyna was gone?

  Harro was now almost certain his brother Haught had perished in the attack. He hoped Haught had died well. At the house, Harro had avoided his nephew Charl; there was nothing to do for the boy. And Lila, his brother Haught's wife, had come across Harro when he was still fresh from the battle, blackened with smoke and gore. The look on her face was one of pure horror, and she had shrunk back from him in the corridor outside the great hall, one pale, blue-veined hand raised to her mouth, her blue eyes wide in fear. A thousand thoughts might have crossed her mind at that point, but the one Harro recognized for certain was the repulsion. He'd never been able to win her good graces, even as the only brother of her husband. She was too fine a woman.

  He toed an object in the mud distractedly, trying to see what it was. He nudged it this way and that in the mud, till he finally bent over and picked it up. The handle of a cooking fork. He pitched it aside and flung the thick mud off his fingers.

  Col Rob was dead. Young Rob would take the reins of daily life at the house. He'd do fine with the support of the people, as long as those insidious advisors kept their power-hungry claws retracted. And the woman Jenny. She was small, but for sure there was something steely about her. Rob would do well to try to keep her beside him.

  Harro did not even have an animal of his own: he’d had no more horses since he'd moved into the house. He'd given over care of the animals to his underlings. And they'd done well. His expertise was no longer necessary. He'd trained them well. And he was glad for them.

  So, the question remained for Harro: what was there left for him?

  He suddenly remembered the day he'd chosen the stables while his brother had been taken into the house. Haught and he had been together, inseparable their whole lives though they were as different as two boys could be. Their parents had been stablehands. They'd been raised with the animals, but his brother Haught had shown promise for indoor manners and matters of the mind. He was quick, clever, and handsome. One day, Harro had watched his brother enter the house, Col Rob's wiry arm over his shoulders, leading him away. Harro had watched for a moment longer, and then turned back to his chores, carrying feed for the animals. He couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old.

  Harro had spent his life looking up the hill at the house, thinking about his brother. The fine clothes. The warm bedrooms. Hot baths whenever he liked. Hot meals at a moment's notice. True, Harro was a houseman of sorts now, but he'd never found his true place. Now, he had nothing. Not an animal of his own to handle. Nothing of his own, really. Not until Treyna.

  He looked at the pit again, then approached it indirectly, letting his steps take him first to the right, then a little to the left, then to the right again before he found himself at its edge peering downward into the blackness that might kill him. The odor was not as harsh as it had been during the fight. Either it went with the trogs when they had retreated, or he was getting used to it. He stood there quietly for a few minutes longer. Then, he slowly lowered himself so that he was sitting at the edge, dangling his legs into the pit, his rear pressing into the cold wet mud.

  After a few more long minutes of the coldness sinking into the seat of his pants, he slid off the edge and descended into the pit.

  Chapter 70

  In the deserted camp the wind picked up, whistling through the shredded tents and making them flap frantically. Nobody stirred. No humans straggled to pick up their scattered and bespattered belongings. No trogs remained either, dead or alive. The moon flashed once between the clouds, and then the silver-laced clouds veiled it lightly. The first flakes of snow began to drift down, swirled by gusts of wind, falling downward to mix into the freezing mud.

  Fingertips grasped upward, slipping through the debris. Small fingers, a woman's fingers, rose above the edge of the pit. A black top of a head appeared. Slick with sweat and melted snow. Black eyelids opened over bright white eyes that gleamed. Mel flexed her fingers, searching for a handhold. Below, her feet scrambled for purchase. Before she found it, strong hands shoved her upward over the edge of the pit, and out.

  Next came Rav, half lifted, half pulled out by Mel. Then the others, one by one. As a group, they stood together at the edge of the pitch, catching their breath, hoarse rasping in the cold wind. They shivered, each one of them, trog's breath mixing with human as they stood in the dusting snow.

  Part 7

  Unmask

  Chapter 71

  Two days after they emerged from the pit, Ott lay in his room with his hand stretched out on the cold bed next to him wondering how long Mel had been gone and if she'd touched him or even looked at him while he'd slept. He had no memory of it, though he wished he could feel some kind of lingering sensation of her hand on his skin, some trail of residual warmth where she had run her fingers down his arm maybe or her hand on his messy hair. But nothing.

  He was once again floundering . . . falling. He could walk perfectly well. Legs moved when he needed them to. His shoulders, arms, hips, hands, his whole body was functioning fine—better than ever—but his insides roiled in a black turmoil. Bits and pieces of his murderous rages were coming back to him, sickening him.

  He and Mel had yet to talk about what had happened. They'd barely spoken at all. The first night, he'd left her and gone directly to find Rob to report what they had encountered underground, what they'd learned about the trogs, and to see how Rob was handling the death of his father. By the time Ott had gotten free for the night, Mel was asleep, so he'd washed up in the bathing room and slid under the blankets next to her. He'd fallen asleep almost instantly and when he woke up late the next morning, she was gone.

  She was probably avoiding him, probably trying to find some other bed to sleep in for the night, the next, and all the others that followed in an interminable, neverending line of night times that he'd be spending alone till the end of his days. How could she not be thoroughly repulsed by him? He was a monster, just as bad as a trog. A slaughterer. An uncontrollable beast capable of going berserk with battle lust. The memory of the way it felt to snap a neck was imprinted on his hands, in his fingers. He pressed his head back into the pillow in disgust.

  How can I blame her?

  Maybe he could teach himself to control it better. And promise her that he'd never kill again. Or try not to.

  Nice idea, you dunce. Now think about reality.

  And what was reality now? Ott groaned to himself as he lay in bed and ran a hand up his belly to his aching chest. Nothing was predictable about him. Even his body. He was a hand taller than he had been a week ago and a hand again as broad through the shoulders. Thank Lutra he was somehow able to compensate for his body's changes as well or else he'd be stumbling and falling over his own feet like a newborn colt. At least he was spared that humiliation even if he had no control over the changes. Was he the same person as he was before? He couldn't say with any certainty that he wouldn't keep changing and stretch as tall as a giant . . . if such things as giants existed. And why not? It turned out that ogres were real, more or less, so why not giants or gnomes or elves or . . . or Masks.

  He groaned again and pushed himself up out of bed, tired of feeling sorry for himself. He should pity Mel, if anyone. Her parents were dead, her poor choice of lover had turned out to be a mindless berserker, and she had a foot in two cultures, neither of which probably seemed like home at the moment. A squeeze of panic had Ott suddenly standing straight up.

  Was she going to leave him? Was she going back to wherever it was that Masks came from?

  He shoved his legs into his pants and jerked a shirt over his head. Oh, God. Or gods. Whichever would help him. He'd be happy to pray to any and all of them, the animal-guided deities of his people or the single god of so-called civilized people. He had to find Mel and convince her to stay with him. He didn't know what he was going to say. He didn't know what he could offer her. He didn't even have a house or a piece of land. He didn't even own the clothes on his back
because he'd outgrown his in the last few days. Maybe he could just put his arms around her and just . . . and just . . . he didn't know what.

  He lunged down the stairwell to the kitchen, feet pounding the stone steps. Nan looked up at him as he came in.

  "Pants on fire again I see," she said with an indulgent smile at him. He grimaced and waved a hand at her as he jogged past the cookfires. He stopped at the door to grab an outer shirt and coat and to jam his feet into his boots. He was using borrowed boots because his own didn't fit anymore—they felt as if he were trying to wear his nephews’ child-sized shoes. Nan followed after him, wiping her hands on the apron tied around her wide waist. "What is it this time, then? What's the terrible emergency?" she asked.

  Bent over at the waist while he tugged at his boots, he muttered, "Usual idiocy."

  "Don't hurt yourself," she advised. He did a double-take and saw she was pointing at his boots. "Most people use the bench so they don't fall over."

  He stopped and, straightening, took a deep breath, standing with only one shoe on. "Nan," he said, "I'm a completely self-absorbed half-wit. I only ever think about myself. And when I realize I may have hurt someone, I try to fix it. Except, by the time I get to that point, some universal good luck happens and the person is no longer mad at me. How am I supposed to learn my lesson if no one ever stays mad at me? But this time . . . .this time, I think I've really fouled everything up. I'm an idiot, Nan. How am I going to fix it this time now that I actually have something to fix, now that the good Lady Lutra has left me on my own? Now what do I do?"

  Nan, the sturdy, flour-dusted cook, smiled at him, half of her mouth quirking upward in the corner. She shook her head. "Gods, Ott. You're so damned attractive. If I were half my age, I’d make a play for you myself." Then she laughed, leaving him further bewildered. "Half my age and twice again as good looking."

  He tugged a hand through his hair with frustration. "Can no one be mad at me?"

  "Have you tried being a little less puppyish?" she said drily. She turned her back on him, but said over her shoulder, "I expect you're looking for Mel. She's out in the cellar with the trogs."

  Ott froze as the cook's words sank it. Mel out with those animals? What was she thinking? If she wanted to gawk at them to satisfy her curiosity, she should have asked him to go with her to protect her. Without another word, he charged out the door, letting it slam behind him. Before it closed, he could hear Nan’s laughter.

  Chapter 72

  Ott jogged across the snow-covered yard to the sheltered entrance of the original cellar doors. Fresh flakes had fallen during the night, but already a pathway had been tramped through the powder. He opened the cellar door, expecting to find it the way it had always been inside—dark, deserted, cold, and smelling of dirt—but was confronted with sharp changes. Lights flickered yellow, but the cellar walls glowed greenish, as if tainted by whatever glowed in the mines and underground. He did a mental forehead slap. It was the agamite, of course, flowing through the trogs and everything around them. The presence of the trogs activated it like the glowing bugs he saw in the warm nights down south.

  Just inside the cellar doors, Ott was stopped by two guards. Or sentries. Or . . . he frowned. Houseboys? They were barely old enough to carry the spears by their sides. And they sat on chairs. Gods above, these two children wouldn't be able to do anything if the trogs tried to push them aside if they managed to break out of their cages . . . The smell hit him hard. It was an enclosed space with a lot of animal bodies. Ott looked ahead further and gaped at what he saw.

  Trogs sitting casually at tables. Eating. Reclining on cots. Sleeping.

  And Mel sitting among them. No, not sitting, kneeling. With a trog's hand on her head, on her beautiful gold-tipped hair. Touching her. Their hands on her. The one lying in the cot in front of her, looking at her.

  Ott’s vision flooded with red. His strangled exclamation drew all eyes toward him. A feral growl rumbled up from his throat, and he crouched ready to lunge at them. So help him, if they had harmed her in any way, he would go all beast on them in a way he'd never experienced yet. Lutra, he had to try to get a hold on himself. If he lost control again, he might lose her forever. He tried to take some deep breaths, but was pretty sure it looked like rabid panting through bared teeth.

  But he was brought up short when he met Mel's eyes and saw the expression on her face. It was nothing short of beatific. Ecstatic. Gods above, she was beautiful. Her smooth skin and dark shining eyes. It halted him in his tracks.

  "Mel?" he said haltingly.

  She leaped to her feet and rushed toward him. The trog whose hand had been on her hair lay still, strapped to the cot where he lay. Passive.

  "You came!" Mel said, taking his face in her hands, pulling him downward so she could raise her mouth to his. He bent toward her, confused, grateful, but mostly just . . . confused. The smell of her flooded his nose and filled his senses. The red in his vision abruptly faded as he closed his eyes and met her kiss, suddenly coming awake to the warmth of her lips on his, the soft moisture and intimacy of her mouth. She tasted like fruit, a flavor that made him fantasize about warmer climates . . . maybe the ocean, maybe just a warm bed.

  She pulled away from him and smiled. "I didn't know if you'd come. I hoped you would, but I haven't . . . seen you really." A flutter of concern and unhappiness crossed her face, and then disappeared. It hurt him, that little moue of distress. He'd do anything to protect her from it if he could, especially if he were the one causing it. Thank Lutra, whatever higher power—or whatever base insecurity of his—had led him to the cellar, he was willing to take it. Blessing? Coincidence? His unfailing sheer dumb luck? Whatever it was, he was glad of it.

  She took his hand and led him to the side of the chamber against the wall. "I haven't been able to find you these last two days," she said. He had trouble focusing on her words when she looked at him like that, so close he could feel the breath of her words stroking across his neck and chin. Her fingers wound themselves through his, stroking his palms and wrists like she was trying to get under his skin. Not close enough for him, as far as he was concerned. He freed a hand and wove it into the silky hair at the back of her neck, pulling her mouth back to his.

  When she broke away, he let her lead him by the hand closer to the trogs, though it was against his every inclination. No, he'd rather a wall of granite separate them. The way it used to be before the monsters had erupted from the ground. And changed Ott into a monster himself.

  She said breathlessly, "I'm so glad you're here. I've been speaking with the trogs using Bookman as an interpreter. I think I may be able to do something for them." He was distracted by the way her hair fell over her shoulder even though she was dressed in just a simple woven shirt. He liked the way she looked in it. Kind of like she carried warmth with her. He wished she had room for him to crawl inside of it with her.

  He frowned, "Bookman?" He looked around. The girl Rav was there along with her trog. He felt a little sick when he thought of them together so much. He wondered how Rav’s family would feel about it when the news of her rescue reached them.

  "The trog who is Rav's companion," she said, gesturing at him.

  "You call him Bookman?"

  She shrugged. "It's as good a name as any at this point. Until we get to know him better. He's telling us a lot."

  Ott didn't want to know him better. It gave him shivers to think that Mel had been conversing with him. They'd moved closer to the trog strapped onto the cot. The straps didn't look very tight, but the trog didn't look hostile. Downright docile, Ott thought, if he could believe the act. Which he didn't. He expected the trog to snap his restraints in an instant, grab Mel, and flee back down his hole. She moved to kneel again beside the reclining trog, but Ott put his hand out and stopped her.

  "What are you doing?" He tried to keep the frantic cadence out of his voice but didn't think he was successful.

  She said only, "Watch." Then she took the trog's coarse paw in hers
, despite the low growl of protest that escaped Ott's throat. His skin crawled, and his hand itched to smack the trog off her. Gods above, she was kneeling again and putting the thing's hand back on her head. A voice in his head protested loudly, outraged. And then she smiled at Ott. And smiled at the trog, patting its side gently. Its filthy, reeking side.

  What followed next was something Ott didn't quite comprehend. He felt, more than anything else, a weird gripping motion roll through him. Not as bad as down in the tunnels when the blocked mine shaft had been blown open and he'd been knocked unconscious. But it was a strange wave of something that made the walls tremble around him and forced him to loosen his stance to keep his balance as if the ground were shaking. And then it went through him, a strange, bit-by-bit kinking that unsettled his stomach and made his mouth water with nausea.

  He swore and squeezed his eyes shut for a couple of long blinks. When he was able to look around, he was glad to see that no one was looking at him. He followed their gazes to the trog on the cot, who thankfully had not taken advantage of his disorientation and was lying peacefully, flushed and . . . pink-faced? Ott blinked and leaned forward. Holy gods. The trog had shrunk and turned paler . . . more human. And Mel had done it.

  "How did you? . . . " he started to ask her. He froze when he looked at her, and his stomach clenched up. She was slumped over her knees on the floor, forehead against the edge of the cot. In two steps, he was there to take her up in his arms. Her head fell back from her neck lolling loosely. She was pale as the driven snow and covered with . . . soot? "Lutra, Mel, please tell me you're not hurt." A thousand things ran through his head, but they were too jumbled to make it out of his mouth.