Tobin looked shocked. “No, sir! The cottage is used by the cooks sometimes during the winter season, so it’s well stocked. I haven’t been letting anyone in.”
Logan tried the door on the right-hand side of the corridor and found himself in a cramped bedroom, the sheets of its small cot unkempt and stained. He grimaced and backed out, trying the door to the left. A small eating room with a table and a single, rickety-looking chair. Another door led back through to what Logan took to be the kitchen with the festering smell.
“You don’t mind if I sit?” he asked rhetorically, before easing himself carefully down into the chair. His back was still aching. Tobin stood awkwardly by the door, still dripping with muck and looking like he was about to throw up. Logan was glad he was in no fit state to make a run for it, because he was in no fit state to try and catch him again.
“What’s got you so afraid then, Tobin?” he asked, stretching his stiff legs out under the table. “What causes a man to lock himself away in this sty for a whole month? You’re practically on your deathbed.”
Tobin blanched an even paler shade.
“It’s just the bad food, sir!”
“I pray so, for both our sakes,” Logan said. “Because if I start breaking out in sores or black welts I’m coming straight back here and putting you out of your misery.”
He laconically stabbed his knife into the grubby tabletop, letting it quiver there.
“Start talking.”
“I signed on to work the Fallowhearth kitchens at the end of summer,” Tobin began hesitantly. “It was my first time.”
“Where were you working before?”
“Strangehaven, sir. I got talking to a rotisseur from Skydown who said there were better opportunities in Frostgate during high season. But when I went there the work had all dried up. Fallowhearth was all I could find.”
“What a tragic story,” Logan said, without a hint of compassion. “Those are dark locks you’ve got, Tobin, and even darker eyes. You don’t look like you’re from Strangehaven. In fact you don’t look like you’re from anywhere north of Tamalir.”
“I was born in Summersong, sir,” Tobin said, almost apologetically.
“Hah,” Logan said. “I knew it! I’m from Summersong originally. That explains our shared good looks. Please, continue.”
Tobin seemed to relax fractionally, though Logan made a mental note to get out of the way if he looked like throwing up – his cloak had suffered enough in the past few weeks without adding some destitute cook’s bile to the muck.
“So you found work for the winter at the citadel,” he said. “And you were in the care of the lovely Matron Mildred. Did something happen between you two?”
“Of a sort, sir,” Tobin said unhappily. “She’s… something of a hard taskmaster. All the other servants fear her. She threatened to have me caned once for undercooking the seneschal’s tusker shank. For what it pays, it’s not worth it.”
“So why not just quit?”
“I can’t, sir. Not with indentured seasonal work. I have to wait until spring, but I can’t bear it any more.”
“So you’re just going to run away,” Logan said with a smirk. “Smart man. I do that all the time.”
“I’m waiting for the next caravan bound for Frostgate,” Tobin said. “As soon as it arrives, I’ll be gone.”
“I bet you will,” Logan said. “So you’ve been holed up for the last month. Have you heard about the baroness’s daughter?”
“Lady Kathryn?” Tobin asked, clearly nonplussed. “I think she took control of the estates here about a year ago. She spends most of her time in the citadel.”
“Did you see her often when you were working there?”
“No. I’m lower-kitchen staff. I’ve only served the food on a few occasions.”
“Well, Tobin, you’ve been delightfully unhelpful. Apologies for nearly murdering you.”
Logan plucked out his knife and then, gripping into the edge of the table, hauled himself to his feet.
“You are an absolute coward, my lad, and I respect that. I wish you well, though do excuse me if I don’t shake your hand.”
He waved Tobin aside as he limped for the front door.
“I’m Logan, by the way,” he said as he went, flashing his best winning smile at the unfortunate cook. “Logan Lashley.”
Tobin showed no reaction. Logan paused at the door.
“Logan, Hero of Sudanya? Master of Sixspan Hall? One of the Borderlands Four? Most famous rogue of his time?”
Tobin shrugged.
“How can you be from Summersong and not know who Logan Lashley is?” Logan demanded angrily.
“I… I was very young when I left, sir,” Tobin said lamely. Logan dismissed him with an angry wave and, sighing, stepped out into the night.
• • •
It was dark by the time Durik returned to the keep. He only got as far as the front gate. Logan and Ulma were already there, the rogue on one side of the lowered portcullis arguing furiously with Captain Kloin on the other, while the dwarf just stood, looking too tired to care any more. Kloin gave Durik his sneering smile when he saw him approaching. The pathfinder noted their belongings, dumped unceremoniously in the dirt outside the gate.
“Well, three is a party,” the captain said as Durik came to a stop next to Ulma.
“Durik,” Logan said, turning to the orc. “Please restrain me before I stab this bastard. Or better yet, stab him for me. You have a spear, you can definitely reach between the bars.”
“I thought the orc was a pacifist,” Kloin mocked.
“What’s happening?” Durik demanded, ignoring the barb.
“This peasant in armor won’t let us into the keep,” Logan said, locking eyes with Kloin.
“You have no reason to be in the keep,” the captain replied with equal vehemence.
“Apart from the fact it’s where my bed is,” Logan hissed.
“Not any more. My men are sleeping in those chambers. There was no room in the barrack block.”
“Your men are stinking pig-soldiers,” Logan said. “We are the Borderland Four!”
“Three,” Ulma muttered under her breath.
“Lady Damhán will hardly approve of this when she finds out,” Durik said, rather more levelly than Logan.
“Lady Damhán is locked in her room with some ancient book,” Kloin said. “She left strict instructions not to be disturbed until dawn. And Seneschal Abelard has retired to his bed, which leaves me acting warden of this keep.”
“You really stayed up this late just to spite us?” Ulma asked. “I’m actually quite impressed.”
“These are dangerous times,” Kloin said, grinning past the portcullis’s bars. “And the safety of this citadel is my first and only priority. I’m sure you’ll be able to find wonderful accommodation in one of Fallowhearth’s inns.”
“I will end you!” Logan all but screamed. Sighing, Durik took him by the shoulder and steered him away from the triumphant captain.
“It is late,” the orc said. “And Kloin is right. There will be a bed for us somewhere.”
“This is why you’ll never get on in life,” Logan snarled up at him. “Never accept injustice when it’s heaped upon you by bitter, inferior men!”
“Quite right, little rogue,” Durik said in his most placatory tone, patting Logan as he led him back into town with Ulma in tow. “You can kill the captain in the morning.”
• • •
It began to rain. Logan’s anger turned to surly silence as he found himself back at the Black Crow. Several of Ulma’s quarter crowns managed to elicit the fact that there were a few spare beds upstairs. A few more, and the diplomatic purchase of a pot of stew and some flagons of ale, managed to secure the room. There was little demand for accommodation in Fallowhearth these days, the innkeeper admitted, t
hough not before he had pocketed the money.
The three sat at a table in the corner of the taproom, a small, smoky space with a dying fire that hissed and spat as rain fell through the chimney. Only a few hardy patrons remained at the bar, glancing at the unlikely trio and muttering in low voices. One greeted Ulma in passing.
“My, don’t you get around,” Logan said, shaking the rain from his cloak before sitting down.
“Someone has to,” the dwarf answered, taking a long, slow draught of her ale. “I’ve heard all sorts of stories tonight.”
“Such as?”
“Supposedly there’s a half-man, half-crow preying on the townsfolk. Giant spiders, a whole neighboring village that disappeared overnight, buildings and all. The usual mutterings about necromancy. Some of the townsfolk claim in the months leading up to Lady Kathryn’s disappearance, a strange woman was in the habit of visiting the castle. According to a few she was a peddler of dark magic. One even claimed she had seduced Lady Kathryn.”
“Rustics and their dirty little minds,” Logan said, taking a cautious sip from his tankard and grimacing. It tasted rank, but what else should he have expected from a place like this?
“Could this woman they speak of have been from the clans?” Durik asked. “That could have been the source of the rumors about her kidnapping.”
“I don’t know,” Ulma said. “But there’s more. Giant crow-man or not, it seems people have been going missing. At first, I assumed it was just folk getting out of town, like those villagers we met on the road north. But everyone I spoke to was adamant. The butcher’s daughter is missing, and an old vagrant well known about the town hasn’t been seen for weeks.”
“How can you tell if someone around here is a vagrant or just a normal townsperson?” Logan asked innocently. The other two ignored him. Typical.
“So, the baroness’s daughter isn’t the only one to disappear,” Durik said. “That complicates things.”
“You’re overthinking,” Logan declared, setting down his tankard and pushing it away from him. “It’s obvious what is happening here.”
“Feel free to enlighten us, O great investigator,” Ulma said as she saw her drink off and signaled to the bar for another.
“Fallowhearth is a miserable northern town presided over by a miserable northern warden, Abelard. The harvest is poor and there are people flocking south looking for a better life. Maybe there are even rumors that the clans are getting more aggressive. The rest of the barony doesn’t care. Baroness Adelynn won’t intervene to chasten the clans, it’s just not worth her while. Coincidentally, the baroness’s daughter has just taken up residence. She’s a bright child but she’s also very much used to being in charge. So how do you solve all those problems? You kidnap her!”
“You think Abelard has taken Kathryn and is hiding her somewhere?” Ulma asked. Logan gestured expansively, trying to make the dwarf understand.
“It all makes sense! How else could she vanish from inside the keep without a trace? Abelard stuffs her in some dungeon he doesn’t tell us about, then sends a letter to the baroness saying the northerners have snatched her. He probably expects Adelynn to come north herself and there you have it, he has a personal audience with the baroness and she gets to see how bad it is up here. Maybe she even goes to war with the clans and stops them using Upper Forthyn as a highway to Frostgate every season. That also explains why Abelard looked so unhappy when he realized it was just us and one of the baroness’s advisors who had been sent north to deal with this whole mess.”
“You have a point,” Durik said, mulling the claims over as he helped himself to their shared stew pot.
“I wish it was the most outrageous suggestion I’d heard tonight, but it doesn’t even come close,” Ulma added.
“I take it from all this that your missing cook came to nothing?” Durik asked Logan. He scoffed, internally damning the orc’s perceptiveness.
“The poor man was in the process of fleeing the town. Apparently, he was tired of Matron Mildred’s despotic reign. I almost left with him.”
“Told you it would be the easiest lead to follow,” Ulma said.
“But your theory doesn’t explain everything,” Durik pointed out. “How does the book in the fireplace fit in, and why have other people been vanishing? Abelard can’t be taking them all?”
“I can’t imagine him dressing up as a giant crow either,” Ulma added, fishing into her leather smock to tip the barmaid as she brought her a fresh drink. Logan wondered how much the indomitable dwarf had already imbibed that night.
“It doesn’t explain what I saw in the cemetery either,” Durik went on. “There was a family missing from their crypt. And it looked as though they got up and walked out.”
Logan laughed, then realized he was being serious. That was just the sort of story he could do without before going to bed.
“I looked for any sign that I was mistaken. The markings were old, but clear enough. More people came out of that crypt than entered it. And they walked out.”
“Was there any sign of Kathryn, though?” Ulma asked.
“Only the tomb-keeper’s testimony.”
“Bet he was a withered, half-demented old creature,” Logan said.
“He was young, and seemed sound of mind, if a little too earnest. Certainly he was no fool, regardless of what the seneschal’s hatred of the cult of Nordros may lead him to think. I believe what the keeper said. Or, I believe he thinks he saw something.”
“Two very different things,” Ulma mused.
“True. Whatever he saw, the trail goes cold beyond the cemetery gate.”
“Which means we’re no further forward than we were when we arrived,” said Logan. “Except for the evidence that there’s someone in this cursed town practicing necromancy.”
“Maybe,” Durik said. “Necromancy has been unheard of in Forthyn for years. The dark reign of Waiqar is long since ended, and practicing is a capital crime. The tomb-keeper had certainly never come across any cases, and his family have been tending to those graves for generations.”
“So what do we do?” Logan asked, his tone surly. Unaccounted-for corpses were just the sort of thing he didn’t want to be investigating further. “I’m open to suggestions, including having that bastard Kloin beheaded and mounted on a pike come the morning. That might improve the look of the town.”
“We should ask the butcher what has become of his daughter,” Durik said. “But not before we tell Lady Damhán about at least some of this. We report to her, after all. And that can wait until we’ve all had a good night’s rest.”
“I should be so lucky,” Logan grumbled, finishing the last of the stew.
Chapter Eight
The weather showed no sign of improving the next day – if anything, it got worse. The rain continued to fall, and dark clouds kept gathering. Logan felt sure they were conspiring together about something sinister.
They took some gritbread for breakfast in the Black Crow, then returned to the castle. This time there was no Kloin to waylay them. Lady Damhán received them in the castle’s hall, empty but for a serving maid waiting on the lady’s breakfast. Damhán seemed unconcerned with Kloin’s ousting of the band from their chambers the night before. She informed them she had sent the captain with Abelard earlier that morning to investigate rumors of a clan raid against a village barely an hour’s ride east of Fallowhearth. The town garrison – just thirty men-at-arms, not counting the levies – was so small that Abelard had previously been able to do little about stories of attacks, but Lady Damhán’s willingness to lend her dozen-strong retinue to the task meant Abelard was now able to ride out. Or, Logan suspected, the seneschal just wanted to seem busy now that the baroness’s representatives had arrived.
They presented the previous day’s findings to Damhán, minus Logan’s theory about Abelard. She chewed slowly on the cold piece of fowl the mai
d had served to her, listening intently.
“I will pay a visit on the town butcher this afternoon,” she said once they had finished. “In the meantime, I wish for you to go after Abelard. Help to track the clansfolk. If possible, capture some and bring them here.”
“It is very unlikely the clans are involved in the disappearances, my lady,” Durik said.
“I am aware of that, master pathfinder. But the clans may still have heard something, and it is necessary for us to make sure. Once we have one or two, I will send them south to Highmont, to Baroness Adelynn. It will reassure her that we are being proactive and close the line of inquiry leading back to the clans.”
“If they aren’t willing to come quietly, it would amount to kidnapping,” Ulma pointed out.
“Is that a problem?”
The trio looked at each other.
“Well,” Logan said, sounding quite unconcerned. “We have kidnapped people before.”
“Once,” Ulma clarified. “And it was a Uthuk Y’llan, so…”
“If you think it wise, my lady, we will follow after Abelard,” Durik said. “But I doubt it will further our search beyond the closure you mention.”
“Any luck with the book?” Logan asked.
“A little,” Damhán said, looking less than impressed at being questioned by the rogue. “I have sent ravens to the sorcerers’ guilds in Highmont and Last Haven seeking their opinion on a number of aspects.”
“Is it… safe?”
“Yes,” Damhán said. Her tone brooked no more questions. Durik bowed them out of the chamber.
“This is a waste of time,” Logan said as they waited outside for their horses to be brought from the stables.
“Mostly, yes,” Durik said. “But Lady Damhán’s orders do have some merit. The clans may not be responsible for Lady Kathryn’s disappearance, but they could have a sighting of her, or more recent knowledge of her whereabouts. And it will help to prove the clans haven’t taken her. That should help focus Damhán’s attentions elsewhere.”
“How will we convince any of them to come to Fallowhearth?” Logan asked. “Relations between the barony and the clansfolk don’t exactly seem to be at an all-time high right now.”
The Doom of Fallowhearth Page 8
