He stepped inside cautiously, but the dining hall had clearly been empty for some time. A shape on the dais caught his eye. When he moved closer he saw a pale-robed figure propped up in the large wooden chair in the middle of the top table. Where its head should have been was just a gaping wound caked over with dried blood, through which the white of bone was visible. He had had little to do with the Brotherhood over the years, but had seen the elder in Westcove on occasion, when the older man made one of his infrequent trips to the mainland. The colour of the robe was enough to tell him it was he who had been placed in the seat, as if presiding over the chaos all around them. Captain Brandt left the hall gladly, having seen enough.
His face was ashen when he rejoined the two crew-members, who were bickering over the best way to strike a flame in a rainstorm. “You all right, cap’n?” asked Dorric.
“Take the bodies into the hall,” he commanded, ignoring the question. “It is dry, and the chairs and benches can be used for kindling.”
Jan spat. “Why? What are they to us? Let the bastards rot, I say.” His rodent-like features twisted into a disdainful sneer.
Captain Brandt stormed over and roughly grabbed the front of his shirt. “They were Westermen!” he growled into the sailor’s shocked face. “They may not have all been born near our shores, but they were of the sea, like us. You’ll show them respect or I’ll toss you back down to the ship head-first.” He shoved Jan back. “I don’t know who did this, but they will pay for it, I’ll see to that. It shall not stand. But, for now, we’ll take care of them as best we can. Build the fire.”
With every minute that passed he became surer that Cole’s version of events was the truth, but he needed to find solid evidence. Otherwise, who would believe him? He turned to go. “Cap’n, what will you do while we deal with this?” Jan asked.
“Search the keep,” he replied. “There may be survivors, or some of those who committed this act.” Or... other things, said the voice of superstition in his head.
It took longer than expected, not helped by his unfamiliarity with the layout of the fortress. It wasn’t particularly big, its size restricted by that of the rock on which it was built, but much of its interior was a maze of winding stairs and passages. For long hours he plodded along them, peering through every doorway he came to. More than once, he took a turning he was sure he had never been down before, and ended up in a wing or passage he had already searched.
In stark contrast to the grisly chaos of the banquet hall, the rest of the keep seemed untouched by the violence. He found dormitories where the beds were all fastidiously made, laboratories full of strange and complex glass apparatus, and tools and instruments that served mysterious and unknowable functions. All were neatly arranged on their benches.
He walked through an enormous library, its stacks stretching up to the vaulted ceiling. The only sign it had recently been used were several dusty tomes left open on reading tables in the centre. The kitchens and servants’ quarters were the same. In the kitchen, spoiled meat and vegetables were in various states of preparation on the benches, and untended pans sat on stoves. Captain Brandt peered into one and saw the charred remains of an unknown dish. The water had boiled away long before and whatever was being cooked had been left to burn. Yet, of signs of struggle, there were none. It was as if all the keep’s inhabitants had been called away at once, unaware of the violence that was about to occur.
The only movement he saw during his travels was outside in the courtyard. Occasionally he passed a window overlooking his two crewmen, dragging limp forms towards the banquet hall, swatting irritably whenever a seabird flew too close.
He was passing through a wing of larger rooms that seemed to double as sleeping chambers and studies, most likely belonging to the senior Brothers, when he caught a noise at the edge of his hearing that made his blood run cold.
It was a tiny sound, gone in a heartbeat, but in the cold silence of those stone halls it was unmistakable. A footstep. He froze, straining his ears. For over a minute he stood still, hardly daring to breathe. Then, another noise, equally fleeting. The scrape of wood moving across stone.
I am not alone, he thought. But with whom did he share this lonely corner of the castle? A survivor? Having seen for himself the carnage of the Great Hall, he did not see how one of the scholarly Brothers could survive such a ferocious attack. One of the attackers, perhaps? One left behind to take care of anyone curious to find out why the Brothers of the Crag had fallen silent.
But what if something else had been stirred by their arrival, and even now stalked these lonely halls? The idea surfaced unbidden in his mind. He thought then of the lifeless forms stacked high in the courtyard; their empty, sightless eye sockets staring accusingly from faces as pale as a fish’s belly. He thought of the dark magic he had seen the Archon perform the day before. What else is he capable of? he wondered.
Another footstep, and in his mind’s eye he saw a haggard figure, dressed in brown robes, torn ragged by blades and stained dark with old blood, shuffling through the silent passageways. Saw cold hands, their fingers stiff and mottled, reaching for him in the dark...
A line of sweat trickled down his spine, but Captain Brandt forced himself to turn towards the source of the noise. His mind might be running wild with all manner of gruesome thoughts, but he wasn’t about to be chased from the keep like some beardless boy.
Many of the doors along the passage were ajar, and he guessed that the attackers had conducted a search of their own. Only one was closed. Inevitably, it was from behind this that the noises appeared to originate. Captain Brandt drew his sword in one smooth motion, and gently eased the door open.
The room beyond was empty, and of a style similar to the others along the passageway; a combination of study and sleeping quarters, but larger. While decorations in the other rooms were sparse, here the space was dominated by an ornate four-poster bed, hung with red velvet drapes fastened back with gold cord. Shelves of books nearly as tall as those in the keep’s library lined the walls of the study area. Beneath them was a dark hardwood desk, across the top of which were strewn a great many papers.
Captain Brandt crept towards this, and saw that the topmost papers were correspondence. A name jumped out at him, Elder Tobias. So it was he to whom the room belonged. It was confirmation of what he had already surmised given the opulence of the room’s furnishings compared to the others.
He looked away from the letters as another footstep reached his ears, closer than the last. On the far wall was a small stone arch, with steps beyond that led down. How far down, it was impossible to tell. It was clear, however, that it was the source of the strange noises.
Still gripping his sword, the captain crossed quietly to the archway. One by one he slowly descended the steps. As he went deeper into the foundations of the fortress, he tried to push thoughts of lumbering pale forms and ice-cold fingers far from his mind.
The stair led down in a spiral. After the first few turns, as he left the chill daylight of the surface behind, the air became warmer. In its place, he began to see the orange flicker of candlelight rising up from below. He relaxed slightly. Nothing supernatural in nature would require the comfort a flame brings to the darkness.
Captain Brandt inched closer to the light, and saw another archway a turn of the stair below him. He held his blade before him, keeping his body tense and ready to strike at the slightest movement. When he was only a foot away, a shadow moved across the candlelight and he sprang, slashing his sword around in a tight arc.
There was a shrill scream and a thud as the room’s occupant threw himself to the ground in a tangle of limbs. “Don’t kill me!” The voice was a wail.
The captain strode forward and shoved the struggling figure onto their back with his boot. He brought his blade around and pressed the tip against an exposed throat. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Wait, who are you?” In the flickering candlelight, the captain saw a young man, with a lean face and
tufts of boyish fluff on his upper lip and chin. The youth was peering at him with both fright and curiosity. “You aren’t one of them.”
“I’m asking the questions,” Captain Brandt growled, and poked the boy in the ribs sharply with the point of his sword. “Your name. Don’t make me ask for it a third time.”
The boy gasped. “Cas... Caspian,” he groaned. “C-Caspian Gretch.”
“What are you doing down here in this...” the captain glanced around them. There were in a small room, filled with boxes overflowing with sheaves of paper, and little else save a small plain table and a stool. Its purpose was not immediately apparent. “place,” he finished, lamely.
“W-we were attacked,” the boy stammered. “At the banquet. One minute we were all sitting, eating and making merry, the next...” he tailed off, miserably.
“And how did you escape?” Captain Brandt prompted with another prod of his sword.
The boy turned his head aside. “I was seated near the door. I chanced to look up, and I saw the Archon sitting there. He had a look in his eye, I didn’t like it at all. I snuck out, to get some air, and then it all started.”
“What happened, boy?”
“They started dying, is what.” Tears welled in the young man’s eyes. “They locked the doors so I couldn’t get back in, and then they was all screaming. I... I ran. I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran away while my brothers were cut down.” He looked shamefaced. “I listened to it. I hid as best I could, but I could still hear them crying out. When it was quiet again, I came down here. Figured I could keep hiding till it was safe.”
After the young man had finished speaking, the captain sheathed his sword. His words had the unmistakable ring of truth. He offered his hand and pulled the boy back to his feet. Now he was able to take in the scraggly frame and tender years, he could well believe the boy was one of the Crag’s novices. “Olyvar,” he said, not unkindly. “Olyvar Brandt, captain of the Havørn.”
“Well met, captain,” said Caspian, more at ease now he no longer had a sword at his throat. “When you jumped out at me, I thought one of the Archon’s men had found me at last.”
Captain Brandt shook his head. “Something tells me they would have struck first and worried about your name later, or more likely not at all,” he said.
“True enough.” The young man glanced down at his feet, shuffling in the dust of the cellar floor. “Is it bad? Up there, I mean.”
“Have you not seen for yourself?”
“No,” the young man replied guiltily. “I’ve been down here two days past, too scared to so much as climb those stairs. Each time I tried, I thought I heard noises above, so I stayed put.”
Captain Brandt frowned at the boy’s cowardice. “A group of Brothers bearing the green star, among them a giant and a man with eyes like emeralds, passed through Westcove yesterday. You’re safe now, I believe. I’ve searched the keep, or much of it, and found no living soul save yourself.”
“None but me?” The young man slumped onto one of the stools. He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I thought if I got away, then others probably did, mayhap hiding in places of their own.” He appeared dumbstruck. “They’re all gone?”
Captain Brandt stood uncomfortably, glancing around the room. He saw now that further archways on either side of the one he entered through led deeper into the keep’s sub-levels, but whatever lay beyond was lost in darkness. He imagined hiding underground for long hours, days even, with no sunlight to mark the passage of time. Waiting for the swordsmen who had murdered your fellows to find the stairs, to stumble down them at last. Had the boy slept? Captain Brandt wasn’t sure that sleep would have found him easily if he believed he was being hunted and could be discovered at any moment.
“Is there anything you can tell me about the attack, what their purpose was?” he asked.
The boy sniffed and rubbed his face. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “While I was hiding in the hallways, looking for somewhere safer, there was lots of shouting. The Archon, I think. He was looking for something.” He shook his head. “No, looking for someone, best I could tell. He was angry, there were more screams. He came here for something, and I don’t think he found it.” He looked up. “Not that I’m not grateful to see an friendly face, but why are you here, captain?”
Captain Brandt didn’t answer straight away. He held the boy’s gaze, weighing him up. How far could he be trusted? “When I said none in the keep lived, that was the truth, but not all of it,” he said slowly. “We found another one of your brothers, me and my crew, adrift in the sea ‘twixt here and the ‘Cove.”
“You found someone?” The young man leapt to his feet, his eyes wide in shock. “Who?”
Captain Brandt rested his hand lightly on the pommel of his sword, moving subtly to block the archway to the surface. “The lad’s name was Cole,” he said, watching the young man’s reaction carefully.
“Cole!” Caspian beamed and clapped his hands. “He got away? How? Was he hurt? Does he still live?” he asked, suddenly anxious.
Despite himself, Captain Brandt smiled. “Aye, he lives. I sent him on his way myself with fresh clothes on his back and gold in his pocket, not one day past. As for the how, he told me he’d jumped from the cliff. To look at him, you could believe it, although he looked like he’d struck every rock on the way down.”
“That wasn’t from the fall,” Caspian replied with a grin. “Two days ago he battled the giant on the training grounds.”
“He fought that brute?” It was the captain’s turn to be shocked.
“Not just fought, he nearly won,” said Caspian proudly. He told the captain the story of the day of the Archon’s arrival; Cole sparring with Eirik, then the second bout against the Archon’s monstrous manservant. At mention of the giant’s metallic arm, the captain interrupted and quizzed the young novice about it at length, its appearance and operation. “Never heard of such a contraption,” he muttered, perturbed. Caspian’s story ended with a battered Cole being carried back to his sleeping cell. “The banquet was that night, but Cole was still in the novice’s wing. If not for that fight then...”
The captain nodded slowly. If not for his earlier encounter with the giant, then Cole would no doubt have been with the rest of his fellows when the Archon’s men struck. “It is quite a tale,” he said. A thought came to him. “Could it have been Cole the Archon was looking for?”
The young man nodded. “Yes, it’s possible.” He went to a nearby stack of papers and began to rummage through the sheets. “Probable, in fact,” he went on as he searched. “I’ve been reading some of the Elder’s letters, some from the Archon himself. He was very interested in Cole. Until you told me he escaped, I didn’t think about it, but it makes sense. That was probably why the Archon was so angry when I heard him.”
“But why Cole?” Captain Brandt mused. As much as he had liked the young initiate, he had not seen anything especially remarkable about him.
Caspian looked up. “Cole has, um, powers,” he said awkwardly
“Powers?”
“I don’t really understand it myself,” said the young man apologetically. “All the novices were kept in the dark about it. We heard rumours, but the Brothers didn’t talk about it much. It’s something to do with the crystals, though.”
Captain Brandt thought back to what he had seen in the tavern the evening before, when the Archon had put some kind of spell over the barkeep, Einar. He remembered how the priest’s great gem had lit the interior of the bar with an unnatural green glow. “Caspian, do you know what Cole does with the crystals?” he asked.
The young man shook his head. “Not really. It’s to do with dreams, I think.”
“Dreams?” The captain was more confused than ever.
“Yes. Cole can use the crystals to go somewhere, somewhere no-one else can go. I don’t know any more. I tried to ask him a few times, but Cole didn’t like to talk about it. Some of the other lads used to give him stick about being
too close to old Merryl as it was.”
Captain Brandt sat silently a moment, brooding over the young novice’s words. Once again, he felt like he was groping for answers in the dark. It was like trying to put together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. He thought of the bodies upstairs. A whole castle slaughtered, but to what end? “These papers,” he said, gesturing around the room. “Are there any answers here?”
Caspian shrugged. “There could be,” he conceded. “The elder used to make copies of the letters he sent to the Spire. I found a few of them. Might be that somewhere he talks about Cole.”
“Bring what you can,” said the captain, turning back to the stairwell. “Meet us in the courtyard in ten minutes. We’ll be leaving before this storm grows any worse.”
“Wait!” Caspian’s arms flew imploringly towards the captain. “You want to take me with you, to leave the Crag? To go where?”
“I’m not sure,” Captain Brandt admitted. “But there’s nothing more here for you, lad. I haven’t decided yet what we do next, but whatever we do, you know what happened here, and that could be of use. It could help bring whoever did this to justice.”
“Why do you care?”
Captain Brandt grunted, and started to climb wearily back up the stairs. “Somebody has to,” he replied.
* * *
Captain Brandt was standing in front of the great wooden doors of the banquet hall, when the scraggly novice appeared, blinking in the light. Under his arm he carried a large bundle of papers. He saw the boy’s eyes widen when he noticed the red streaks across the flagstones, which the rain had yet to wash away.
“So much blood,” muttered Caspian, shivering in the drizzle.
Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) Page 12
