Durik could tell how surprised Logan was by his lack of a sharp response. The baroness continued.
“Last year was the twenty-fifth summer since Kathryn was born. As is tradition, she was granted new estates to oversee in Upper Forthyn. Handling their day-to-day running has been used as a means to prepare the barony’s heirs for generations. Three weeks ago, however, Kathryn disappeared. We believe she has been kidnapped.”
Silence followed Adelynn’s words, before Logan finally found his voice.
“You have my sincerest condolences, my lady. May I ask who is responsible for this outrageous act?”
“We believe the northern clans had a hand in it,” Adelynn said. “Relations have become… increasingly strained of late.”
Logan looked at Durik, but the orc kept his response to himself. He had already advised the baroness that he didn’t believe the clans were responsible – they had nothing to gain from snatching her daughter, and in the weeks since her disappearance no one from the clans had come forward. She was convinced though, and Durik didn’t yet have any evidence to prove otherwise.
“If that is true then they will be brought to task,” Logan said. “You have my word!”
“Punishment is my prerogative, Master Lashley,” the baroness said. “Confine your word to the return of my daughter. That is what truly matters to me.”
“Of course, my lady,” Logan said, offering another bow. Behind Adelynn, Amara had finished devouring her prey. The great beast clacked down from the edge of the balcony and ruffled her feathers, lowering her head for Adelynn to stroke, like a child seeking attention. Durik resisted the temptation to also reach out and stroke her plumage – such an act would be disrespectful towards the roc’s mistress.
“My lady Damhán and a small number of my personal guard will accompany you north,” Adelynn said as she ran her fingers through Amara’s crest. “She makes no pretense to advise you on the skills that saw you hired, but she will act as my eyes and ears during the search and will report back to me regularly. You may also find her particular abilities of use.”
Durik watched Logan struggle to mask his unhappiness at the prospect of Lady Damhán’s companionship. For her own part, Damhán remained inscrutable.
“I suppose it best we discuss the matter of payment,” Adelynn went on. “As I have already discussed with Pathfinder Durik, I intend to spare no expense–”
“Baroness, with all due respect,” Logan said, daring to interrupt, “being of assistance to you in this gravest of matters is reward enough. Knowing I am serving the future of the barony and of Terrinoth is the greatest prize I could ever hope for.”
Durik raised an eyebrow. In his youth Logan had harbored a hunger for wealth that would have given a Dunwarr dwarf pause. The orc supposed that, after years of actually possessing gold, it had lost its allure. Adelynn allowed the merest hint of a smile to break through her controlled expression.
“Very well. If you have no more immediate questions, then Gerold will show you to your chambers. I have ordered lodgings to be prepared within the keep, and a luncheon will be waiting for you. I must ask, however, that you depart tomorrow morning. We have already lost precious time awaiting your arrival, Master Lashley.”
“Time I intend to make back with all haste,” Logan said. “If you might indulge me, I have one more question though. What estates were given to your daughter in Upper Forthyn? Where was she last seen?”
Adelynn glanced at Lady Damhán. She was the one who responded.
“The town of Fallowhearth, Master Lashley. That is where our search begins.”
Chapter Three
Logan had been relieved to hear the baroness was providing personal lodgings in the keep, rather than somewhere out in Highmont’s provincial streets. As it was, the chamber proved draughty and damp and the bed coarse, but he still slept better than he had done since leaving Sixspan. Durik had been given a hastily converted guard room next door, a slight which the orc, typically, didn’t seem to mind at all. They ate a supper of stewed rabbit together and a breakfast of bread and cheese the next morning, brought by a young servant boy.
It was still dark outside as Logan followed Durik down and out into the castle’s courtyard, fastening his cloak as he went. He wasn’t relishing the thought of a full day’s riding. In fact, he wasn’t relishing the thought of doing anything he had promised to do the day before. Turning down the baroness’s offer of payment had brought on a gratifying sense of his own wealth, but it was one thing showing off to old money, another agreeing to do their dirty work. He had briefly considered stealing away in the middle of the night, though he had eventually decided against it. Pride truly was a curse, but he also had no desire try to outrun a roc, not at his age.
The roc started to seem like the better bet almost as soon as he reached the courtyard. Damhán was already there and mounted, riding sidesaddle on a great, mottled gray steed. Together they looked like an apparition in the torchlit darkness. Unexpectedly though, Lady Damhán’s presence wasn’t the worst thing to greet Logan that morning.
“Hello again,” Captain Kloin said with a horrid, petty smile that Logan felt was becoming far too familiar. He was mounted alongside Damhán, flanked by half a dozen of his crooked-nosed, pig-stinking men-at-arms. For a split-second Logan thought they were going to arrest him. Then he realized his predicament was even more unfortunate.
“We are to provide a personal guard for Lady Damhán, by order of Baroness Adelynn,” Kloin said when he saw the look on Logan’s face. “Needless to say, I don’t think the baroness trusts her noble advisor with a pair of vagabonds such as yourself. She will have a more fitting escort.”
“Truly?” Logan asked, looking at Damhán. “Him, of all people?”
“Play nicely, children,” Damhán said without a hint of humor. Kloin urged his horse over to Logan, stopping beside him and looking down at him imperiously.
“I told you I would see you again,” he said.
“You must be a prophet, Captain Kloin,” Logan answered, injecting every ounce of sarcasm he could into the words. “Perhaps you can tell us what has happened to the baroness’s daughter, and save us all a long trip north?”
“Oh, I’m rather looking forward to our little adventure together. Joining the Borderlands Four. Or three, if the rumors I hear are true. Where’s your final companion? That witch the stories all talk so highly of? Dezra the Vile?”
Logan felt Durik’s strong hand clamp over his shoulder. He forced himself to take a breath, and then did the most vicious thing he could think of – he smiled back at Kloin.
“We are going to have such fun, you and I,” he said.
A horse had been provided for Durik, a heavy black stallion. Usually such mounts didn’t mix well with orcs, but then Logan knew Durik was no ordinary orc. The pathfinder spent a few moments murmuring in the ear of the beast and feeding it an apple, and the stallion made no protest when he mounted it. Logan did likewise with Ishbel, gritting his teeth as he hauled himself up into the saddle. His bones were stiff and cold this early in the morning, but damned if he was going to ask for help in front of this particular assembly.
“Kloin, lead us out,” Lady Damhán ordered. The captain cast a last venomous look at Logan, then turned his horse towards the gatehouse. The rest fell in behind him – Damhán first, then Durik, Logan, and the remaining men-at-arms, the last leading a packhorse laden with food panniers and a chest that Logan assumed belonged to Damhán.
The streets were deserted, but for a single drunkard who stumbled from an alleyway near the north gate and was almost flattened by Kloin. Beyond the town walls, a rough, rugged countryside was slowly being brought to life by the gathering dawn. Frost bristled across tall grass and skeletal hedgerows and gave recently harvested fields a tough, hardpacked appearance. The clouds were low and gray, and stayed that way throughout the day.
They traveled e
ast first, towards the wicked peaks of the Dunwarr Mountains, then picked up the crossroads between Kellar, Last Haven and Highmont. Their route took them north. Logan could all but feel the chill gnawing into him already.
They rode until the day was wearing thin, and then some more. Logan complained about the lack of lunch, albeit only to Durik, who seemed unfazed. By the time they stopped for the night at a grubby little wayside inn, Logan’s whole body ached. It was a struggle just to dismount. He ate a cold dinner and shared a room with Durik, struggling to sleep through the snoring of the big brute. It felt strange to be back on the road again, especially with the orc. Why had he missed this so much? Was he really just unable to accept that his best days were behind him? Surely only a fool would fail to see that if he kept trying to relive his youth, it would catch up with him in the worst possible way?
“You look terrible,” Kloin taunted over breakfast the next morning.
“So I look the same as you do every day?”
Durik actually laughed, earning a withering look from them both. The pathfinder had been in a fine mood since they’d left Highmont. Logan wasn’t surprised. Brittle autumn air, grubby fields and grubbier taverns, dark northern forests encroaching with ever-greater regularity onto the road, the white caps of the Dunwarrs drawing slowly closer – it was just the sort of bleak, uncomfortable journey Durik had always relished.
On the third day they passed a straggling column of about ten families. They were dirt-poor northerners in drab wool and pelts, and they scrambled to get off the road as they heard the sound of hoofbeats approaching. Damhán stopped the column beside them.
“I come with the authority of Baroness Adelynn,” she declared loudly. “Where is this group bound for?”
The peasants exchanged worried glances. Wherever they were going, it certainly looked to be permanent. Mothers had babes strapped to them, and several were wheeling handcarts and barrows heaped with possessions. One stooped, wizened old creature actually had a lamb in a wicker basket mounted on her back. It bleated pitiably.
“Forgive us, my lady,” one man said, stepping forward from the stinking, shivering huddle. He dragged back his liripipe’s hood, only meeting Damhán’s eyes furtively. “We are southward bound, for Highmont.”
“You have come from Upper Forthyn?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“And why have you abandoned your homes there?”
The commoner glanced back at another man, as though seeking his support – the figure nodded, placing a hand on the shoulder of the first and speaking to the party.
“We are afraid for the lives of our families,” he said. “There have been rumors about raiding from the north. The clans are on the move.”
“The clans have attacked settlements in Upper Forthyn?”
“As I said, my lady, there are rumors, and there are few enough men capable of bearing arms to protect us at Fallowhearth.”
“Have you actually seen any clansfolk recently?” Damhán demanded. Logan saw a little steel enter the man’s eyes, drawn out by the adviser’s demands.
“I have not, my lady. But the harvest is in, and every village is speaking of the clans coming down out of the Dunwarrs. I will not gamble with the safety of my mother or my partner here. I won’t stay. And we won’t be the only ones.”
Damhán seemed to consider the man’s words for a while, then snapped at the man-at-arms leading the packhorse.
“Parchment and ink,” she ordered. The guard obeyed, dismounting and bringing her the items from her chest. She leant the scrap of paper on her saddle and scrawled something on it, before folding the slip and handing it back to the man-at-arms.
“Take this to Baroness Adelynn immediately,” she ordered. Then, pausing only while a second man-at-arms secured her quill and ink back in the chest, she spurred her horse on up the road. Logan spared a glance at the sorry group of families, apparently forgotten at the side of the road.
“Come,” Durik said from beside him. Logan met the eyes of the man who had spoken to Damhán and offered him the smallest of shrugs, before spurring off after the party.
On the third day they turned north of the dark, brooding edge of Blind Muir Forest and stopped outside an inn a few miles short of Fallowhearth. Durik had requested the halt and, to Logan’s surprise, Damhán had agreed.
Southern Forthyn had been an unpleasant experience, but as far as Logan was concerned Upper Forthyn was practically wilderness. The land was more forest than field, the soil craggy and infertile. Bristling pine tops were dominated by the vicious white caps of the Dunwarrs, presiding over the cold land from both the north and the east. Logan had never been so far into this particular corner of Terrinoth, and he found its remoteness chilling. The golden fields, ripe orchards, gentle hills and clear brooks that surrounded Sixspan Hall now felt like a slow, lazy dream, one whose warmth was lost with waking.
They passed through a hamlet of squat thatch and unadorned wattle, seemingly deserted but for a few chickens that scattered beneath their hooves, then paused at the roadside inn beyond. From a glance it made what Logan considered to be the unseemly establishments of Highmont appear palatial in comparison. Topped by a thick nest of thatch, its timber walls brittle-looking, its tiny windows crooked and unaligned. On one side of it stood a mossy old marker stone that pointed the way to Fallowhearth, while on the other was a timber barn, barely different in appearance from the inn itself.
“The Forester’s Rest,” Durik said as they reined in outside. “Last inn on the road to Fallowhearth.”
“You say that like it means something,” Logan said, looking with distaste at the churned-up mud of the front yard.
“It does,” Durik said, dismounting and beckoning to Logan to follow. The old rogue sighed and grunted at the effort it took to get down off Ishbel. Durik was already knocking on the front door as he waded after him.
“Do you smell that?” the orc asked.
“I’m trying not to smell anything,” Logan answered, glancing back at Damhán, Kloin and the guards. They were watching in silence on the roadway, still mounted. He sniffed.
Unsurprisingly, the inn’s yard stank, but beneath it Logan caught an even more pungent, powerful smell. He recognized it instantly. Sulfur.
“Ah,” he said, understanding now.
The door to the inn opened. Logan found himself looking down at a squat, rotund woman, clad in a stained apron. She was almost wider than she was tall, and had a few notable patches of bristle across her flabby, red-cheeked face.
“Whatcha want?” she grunted in an accent that Logan found nigh impenetrable.
“Greetings,” Durik said, splaying a hand over his broad chest. “My name is Durik, and this is my companion, Logan.”
The woman inhaled hard through her nose, hawked, and spat a wad of slime into the dirt at Logan’s feet. Then she nodded past them both, at the retinue still on the road.
“They your companions too, orc? That gray lady looks like trouble.”
“Oh, she is,” Logan agreed wholeheartedly. Durik frowned. The squat woman continued.
“You’re here for the dwarf, in’t cha’?”
“Is she still here?” Durik asked.
“Not here,” the creature said, then poked her head round the door and pointed. “There.”
Logan realized she meant the barn sitting hunched on the inn’s flank.
“She wanted more space,” the innkeeper explained, then paused. A dark look crossed her face, and her apron twitched. Logan abruptly noticed a small, grimy child pulling on its strings, half hidden by the woman’s bulk.
“I told ya to wait inside wiz your brother,” the innkeeper hissed, shooing her back into the dark interior.
“Your lady friend,” she said, after facing Logan and Durik once more, “said she wanted more space. Didn’t say anything ’bout comfort. So I gaves her the barn. My gran
dnan was a dwarf, see, and she always taughts me to be polite to guests. Hospitable.”
She wrestled with the word, and spat again. Logan managed to marshal the faintest of smiles.
“Has she paid up in full?” Durik asked.
“Uh-huh,” the woman said, looking at Damhán and the men-at-arms once more, clearly weighing up the threat they posed versus the wealth they potentially had to offer. “Says, do you and your friends want to come in for some refreshments? Shake off the mud from the road? I gots three rooms available. The premium ones.”
“Perhaps next time,” Logan said, as Durik nodded to the innkeeper and turned towards the barn. Saying nothing of how supposed dwarven hospitality was best secured with an open purse, Logan followed Durik round the side.
“What a delightfully vile specimen,” he said once he was certain the sounds of the innkeeper shouting at her children were loud enough to mask his words. “She fits her surroundings so perfectly!”
Durik said nothing. The pair came to a halt in front of the barn doors.
The last thing Logan expected was the explosion which followed.
It blew part of the thatch away and shook the whole rickety structure. Durik caught Logan before he collapsed with fright, ears ringing as straw rained down around them. He thought he was having a heart attack.
The flames followed. They caught in amongst the remains of the barn’s roof, leaping hungrily all along the thatch and rearing up like a goaded serpent. More flared from within the structure, licking through the gaps in the rough wall planking. The sight would have been horrifying, were it not for the sudden blaze’s two unnatural aspects – firstly, that the flames were purple in color, flaring to violent pink in places, and secondly, that they produced no smoke, and didn’t seem to be consuming any part of the building.
“What in the name of Fortuna…” Logan started to say. A further crash cut him off.
The front doors to the barn slammed open, accompanied by a gust of air and a swirl of pink fire. A figure burst from the inferno within, her small frame alight from head to toe, engulfed in the unnatural conflagration.
The Doom of Fallowhearth Page 4
