by Dylan Doose
“Fantastic,” said the guard, after he gave a yawn. Then he squinted at Ken. “Aren’t you a bit old to be an apprentice?”
A second lazy guardsman—one whom no one in the party had noticed because he was lying against the wall just around a corner under the shade of an olive tree—gave a snicker at this. What made it all the more irksome was that he wasn’t even looking at Ken, yet he still found his mate’s joke to be a laugh.
“Aren’t you two a bit useless to not have been reported to the duke?” Ken said, and his tone made it more a statement than a question.
“And who are you, boy?” the guard asked Aldous, ignoring Ken’s remark.
“I am Lord Wardbrook’s herald and the documenter of his journeys.”
“Fantastic,” said the guard without any enthusiasm, to which the shaded olive tree guard gave another chuckle. “You’re here to see the duke? ”
“Yes,” Theron said, his patience quickly thinning. Gate guards, useless bastards puffed up on paltry power. “We are here under contract of the Duke of Dentin, and time is of the essence, as we are here to deal with your Obour problem.”
The guard’s eyes went wide at this, and the olive tree man stood up.
“Well, why didn’t you say so from the get-go?”
“I thought you would recognize the name Theron Ward and have opened the gate,” Theron said, venom dripping from his words.
“We don’t recognize much, sir. Do we, Sam?” said the first guard.
“We don’t recognize much at all, sir, not much at all,” said the one named Sam.
“Ah, a very useful skill for a guardsman, the ability to not recognize much,” Theron said to Ken, who gave him a cynical smile.
“Open up!” the first one yelled, and the wooden gate began to creak open.
“I will warn you though, me lords and lady. It ain’t an Obour problem no more—it’s an Upir problem now. A farm just a few miles south from here was attacked two nights ago. Whole family dead. A friend found ’em this morning.”
“Were the bodies burned?” asked Chayse before Theron had the chance.
“No, we gave ’em a proper burial.”
“Ah,” said Theron. “Now you likely have an Upir problem and a ghoul problem.”
They passed through the gate into a small courtyard; the stables, the smithy, and the keep were all pressed against the inside of the walls. A large balcony faced into the courtyard on the highest floor of the keep. Three archers stood atop it, peering down at Theron and his band. Several more archers stood in the battlements.
It was a small fort, but well protected, the walls being on a hill as the first line of defense, and should they be breached or taken by an escalade, the invaders would find themselves in a small, but open courtyard, at the mercy of the keep’s archers.
They came to the oak doors and Theron did not wait for the guard named Sam to open them, for he was lagging behind. Theron dismounted and opened the doors himself then turned to Sam.
“See our horses to stable. See they are fed and watered.” Theron was stern and clear. Whether or not tending to the mounts of the duke’s guests was part of Sam’s duties meant little to Theron. It also seemed to mean little for Sam, for without argument he shrugged and did as he was told.
The walls were stone, the floors packed dirt, covered in fresh rushes, a pack of hounds sleeping in one corner. The keep of Dentin had homeliness that Salvenius’ keep did not possess.
Aldous gave a sigh as they walked into the court. Theron turned to the boy to see that his eyes were shut and he was massaging his temples.
“What ails you, Aldous?” Theron whispered so the duke’s man would not hear his words.
“I feel something… I think there is magic here,” Aldous whispered back.
“An Upir is a sort of magic,” Chayse murmured.
“No, I mean here.” Aldous gestured around him at the stone walls. “Right here.”
“We will find out soon enough,” said Ken.
The thin, mustached, long-faced messenger who had come to Wardbrook was standing direct center of the court, as if he had been doing so all day. Likely he had.
“Please, do come with me,” he said. He gave a long sniff then flared his nostrils and scowled when Theron and the rest got close. This was the first time Theron had smiled since his arrival at Dentin.
They were shown to the duke’s study. The room was vast. The ceilings were as tall as those in Wardbrook’s library, and the walls were stacked with just as many books. From where Theron stood, the place looked pristine, finely dusted, and everything was in order. In the center of the room, sitting in a reading chair and looking deathly pale, was a young man of perhaps Aldous’ age.
“Welcome to Dentin,” said the pale young man. “I am Duncan, Duke of Dentin. Please take a seat and make yourselves at home. Tea? ”
Theron had heard that the Duke of Dentin was a large man, not far off Count Salvenius in size. Likely this was Duncan the second.
“Do get our guests some tea, Fabius,” said the duke as his quick eyes shifted to the thin-mustached man who had summoned Theron from Wardbrook, then shifted back to Theron, Chayse, Aldous, and Ken, not lingering on any of them longer than a moment.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Theron said as he took a seat in a fine armchair, and the others did the same. The study was hot and stuffy with a fire going, yet the duke sat curled up in multiple sheets and furs, despite the season.
“It is I who must thank you, Theron Ward,” said the young Duncan as he gave a slight bow of his head. “I have heard many bards sing of your deeds in my halls and in these dark hours that have befallen Dentin. I knew you were the man to return this place to the light.” He looked Theron in the eyes. “The past two years have been horrific here. It started with my father’s death. A strange and sudden illness overtook him. His last morning he was jovial and enjoying his favorite breakfast dish. Come nightfall he was taken by fever, and by the next morn he was dead. Mother was taken over by a most terrific melancholia, as was I, of course, for I dearly loved my father, but over months and seasons my ailment passed, whereas Mother’s only seemed to worsen.”
“What symptoms does she suffer?” asked Theron, while the others listened intently to the duke’s story. It was important that a hunter always have a good idea of the whole story surrounding a contract, for monsters were drawn to suffering like flies to shit, and although the duke’s tale might have nothing to do with the evil they would soon face, more information was never harmful.
“Of course she has the lack in appetite, as has risen again in myself. In private, she question’s her faith—she questions the God of Light.” The duke whispered that bit, as if he feared anyone would overhear his mother’s blasphemy. “She only eats once every two days, perhaps, and when she does, it is very little. She has become skeletal in form, and the servants must clean her. For alone, she does not leave her bed.
“By some fortunate twist of fate, or so I thought, a month past a mysterious woman who claimed to be a healer arrived in town near the same time as the first news of the Obour. She said she could cure my mother’s ills, restore her to the way she was before Father’s death.”
“But she did not?” Theron asked.
“She said…” the duke began, then shuttered.
“What did she say?”
“She said that she needed the blood of the beast, a creature of darkness, a thing of the devil,” said the duke, his bagged eyes closed tight.
“Then?”
“I am ashamed to say, but I saw her arrival at the same time as the Obour to be some dark sign, an answer to my prayers in a form most grotesque. I wanted to leave nothing to chance, so I sent for one as skilled as you, to slay the devil and bring me back a vial of its blood. Just a single vial. The mysterious woman said it would be sufficient for her to weave her spell.”
Theron stood from his seat at this mention of dark magic. “I am sorry, Your Grace, but we will not aid you in this pursuit o
f dark magic. Such a spell would likely turn your mother into the manner of thing that I have pledged my life to kill.” Theron made for the door, and the others stood as well.
“Please wait, good Theron, please wait,” the duke said in a tone most pitiful. “Stay and listen to the rest.”
“Very well, sit back down, everyone,” said Theron after a moment. He sat, and the others did the same.
“The woman, she left three days past,” the duke began. “As we supped, she asked which hunter I sent for. I told her I sent for the best hunter in the land, for I wished to be certain of success. I told her I sent for you, Theron Ward. At the mere mention of your name, the woman went paler than her already most pale complexion, and her wide eyes looked as if they would burst. She stood from the table, and like a wraith she flew from the room with inhuman speed.” A tear ran down his cheek; he made no effort to wipe it away. “My men, they searched for her, but to no avail. ”
“What good is a vial of blood to you now if the woman has fled?” Ken asked.
“No, no, you misunderstand. I have no wish for the blood or the spell. The woman is clearly a villain.” The duke huddled beneath his furs, shivering. “I know not who I can trust.”
“You can trust me, my good sir,” said Theron as Aldous asked, “What did she look like?”
But Theron knew the answer, knew it deep in his gut even before the duke said, “Her hair was black, but not like yours, like slate, like the blackest slate.”
Is it luck? Or am I cursed? Do I hunt her, or does she hunt me? She and I are bound, and only in death shall we part.
“Her eyes, emerald green?” asked Ken. “The strangest green you have ever seen?”
The duke’s eyes went ever wider.
“You know this woman? And she knows you? What is your relation?” The duke pressed himself against his chair, clearly afraid of his own tale and now afraid of those who sat before him.
“Of course you heard of what happened at Norburg a year past?” asked Theron.
“I know what I have been told, but I don’t believe it,” said the duke.
“Well, you better start,” said Ken.
“We were there,” said Aldous.
“The only survivors,” said Theron.
“And her as well? The emerald-eyed healer? She was with you?”
“The emerald-eyed witch ,” said Ken. “That devil whore is no healer, Your Grace. And aye, she was there, but she wasn’t with us. She was the one who brought Norburg to ruin. She was the rouser of those rats.”
“What do you mean?” The duke was shaking hard now, and he waved away Fabius when the mustached man returned to the room with the tea.
“She was controlling them,” said Aldous. “Through some hellish sorcery, she was controlling them.”
They took a moment to explain the events that had unfolded at Norburg, then about how a small pack of the rats had come to Wardbrook with a seeker, as some sort of assassination attempt.
“Fabius!” the duke yelled after the tale was complete, and in a matter of moments his man appeared back in the door. “I need a drink—something strong, Fabius, something very strong.” Fabius disappeared to carry out his orders. “This Emerald Witch, will she strike Dentin? Strike with her swarm of rats? For we are smaller and not as well equipped as Norburg. We have less than a quarter of guardsman that Norburg does. Are we doomed, Theron? Tell me now, are we doomed?”
“Norburg’s Count Salvenius was a damned fool, and he was under some spell of the witch’s,” Theron began. “As I said when we described the events to you, Norburg was betrayed from within, and no one was prepared. What you must do is get the citizens of your townships to come to your keep. You must brace for conflict, for if she was here and she fled, she will return. I don’t know when, but she will, and you must be ready.” Theron grabbed the duke’s shoulders in a firm hold. “When we return from carrying out our initial contract, when the Upir and perhaps a ghoul or two are dead, I want Dentin Keep to be fortified with men ready for a scrap. For if she comes with the entirety of her swarm, there will be slaughter. And if by chance she has some connection to the appearance of this Upir in your midst… Strange that her appearance and the arrival of the Upir coincided…” He waved his hand. “No matter. We will hunt it.”
“The previous contract hardly seems a problem now,” the duke protested, and reached out as Theron and the others stood.
Theron exchanged a glance with Chayse.
“Your Obour is now certainly an Upir which has feasted, and since you buried the remains of the feast instead of burning the bodies, you now have ghouls as well. If we leave him, then by the time we are done with the rats you will be facing a horde of ghouls. Or worse yet, you will need to face both an army of rats and a horde of ghouls at once.” Theron released the duke, and with his party made way for the door. “Fear not, Your Grace—we shall make great haste in our slaughter, and we shall return to aid you in yours.”
I’ve blockaded the windows. I’ve blockaded the door. It has been a week and I am perilously low on water and food. I feel the pangs of hunger and the longing of thirst. It is hard for me to even hold this quill steady. If you find this, whoever you are, then it means they have gotten in; they have gotten in and they have consumed my flesh. They look like the men, women, and children of my village, wretched, nightmarish versions. Their skin has gone gray and their eyes have yellowed. They look dead, but I assure you they are not! Nor are they alive. They seem to exist in some state in between. What frightens me most is the moaning, and I daresay, in the moments of my truest terror, I can hear them talk; they talk to me. They say they are hungry and they beg for my flesh; they beg and moan to eat the flesh from my bones. Yesterday, little Timmy nearly broke through the southern window, nearly squeezed his way through the barricade. I got close and tried to speak with him, to ask him why he was doing this, why he and the other townsfolk begged to consume me. He bit my arm in response. Luminescent forgive me. Oh, Luminescent, please forgive me. I cracked apart his skull with the leg of a chair. He lies dead in my living room. I’ve boarded the window back up, but they will come through again. I hear a rustling from the living room. My God, there he is, there is little Timmy standing in the doorway to my study, his skull shattered, his gray brains oozing from the chasm… If you are reading this, I have been consumed.
Bloodstained letter found near the mostly consumed corpse of Lord Edgar Alabaster Pote in his estate.
Chapter Twenty
Trail of Dead Crumbs
T he farmhouse was empty. Maybe.
“What if they’re hiding?” Aldous asked.
Theron just looked at him.
“What if we get bitten?” Aldous asked, his nerves firing as he stared at the blood-spattered sun sigil, the symbol of the Luminescent hanging above the family’s fireplace. Little protection he gave them—as little protection as he offered my family.
“By what?” Theron asked.
“By the Upir, or the ghouls,” said Ken.
“It will hurt,” said Chayse.
“Will we turn into them, is what I mean,” said Aldous.
“No. That is mostly a myth. The family turned to ghouls because the Upir sucked them all completely dry,” Theron said, and Aldous shuddered. “Not a drop left in them. They must have been sleeping when it came. After a day or two, sometimes three, the Upir’s emptied victims rise as ghouls, or minions to the Upir. Their bite can’t turn you into anything but their dinner, for ghouls feed only on human flesh.”
Theron walked from the small home out into the field. Aldous followed .
“What if we get bitten by the Upir?” he asked.
“I just explained that. Were you not listening?” Theron asked, and stopped by four freshly dug—then un-dug—graves in the ground.
“They just got up and left,” Aldous said with a shudder. Of course he had heard stories about Upirs and ghouls and Lycos, and harpies and so on, but even after he’d witnessed the Rata Plaga, he still held the ho
pe that he would never need to see any of the others. That perhaps they didn’t truly exist.
“If Upirs drain humans to make ghouls, then what makes a human into an Obour then an Upir?” asked Ken, as he strode over to join them.
“Greater Upirs spill their blood into a fresh human corpse,” Theron began as he crouched over a grave and inspected the turned up earth. “Two days old at most.” He glanced up. “The blood regenerates the corpse and then it rises as an Obour, eventually becoming an Upir. They’re nasty things, Upirs. Greater Upirs even worse. They look like us, completely human, except, of course, when they unsheathe their fangs. Lesser Upirs, on the other hand, are skeletal, with white and purple flesh, and red in the eyes. He will be slow, the one we are hunting, engorged on blood from his recent feeding.” Theron paused. “Well, relatively slow, compared to if he were not engorged on blood. The ghoul tracks will lead us to him. After they rise, they go in search of their master.”
They followed the tracks for three hours as daylight died. On the near horizon was an abandoned windmill.
“No doubt with a deep, dark cellar full of damp and cobwebs, and for our sakes ghouls and an Upir,” Aldous said.
“No doubt,” Theron replied with a broad smile.
Aldous sighed.
The fading sun cast a red glow behind the windmill; the wood was rotten and the decay was visible from their hundred paces out. They crouched in the bushes, waiting.
“What are we waiting for?” asked Aldous.
“Do you want to go in there?” asked Theron. “We have no idea how many ghouls the Upir has already risen. If there is a good score of them, I’d rather have the scrap outside than in the tight confines of the windmill.”
“So we wait here until they come out for an evening stroll?” asked Ken.
