The Scarecrow (Master of Malice Book 1)

by Peace, Cas

  Hearing nothing, he moved forward again. His deformed hand reached out to rip away the vagrant’s tattered clothing, his fire-damaged flesh stretched impossibly tight over the crippled bones. Had the light been sufficient, the captive would have seen the leprous mottling of what skin was left.

  Lifting his other hand, grinning and salivating in anticipation, Reen clasped his dreadful cane in both clawed hands and brought it closer to the man’s chest. Fused to his body in the molten pool of fire, it had taken days for Serrin to separate it from the Baron’s ruined flesh. Once it had come away, it had retained an essence of him within, burned unnaturally into the transformed wood even as the power had burned into Reen. Now it was a tool, a vehicle for the absorption of the life force that was the only thing keeping Reen’s vengeful, fire-ravaged corpse alive.

  Savoring the terrible screams of his victim, Reen sucked the life-giving energies into his wasted body, feeling once again the renewal of desiccated flesh, the flow of real blood, the movement of impossibly twisted muscles.

  The shattered chest of his captive gaped in a silent howl.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The inland road southeast of the fishing village was heavy with snow. The icy easterner Sullyan had abated with her powers the day before had returned with a vengeance, and she wasn’t inclined to expend any more energy in calming it. So they slogged through the biting blasts with their fur-lined cloaks clasped tightly about them and their hoods drawn up for protection.

  Once away from the coast, trees served to shelter the road and cut down the full force of the wind. The snow piled in drifts on one side of the road and the muscular stallions forged a way through the lesser depth on the other side. At least the exercise kept the horses warm.

  Their riders, thankful for their Artesan powers, redirected their own body warmth to their extremities, always the first parts to suffer from the cold. Fur-lined leather boots and gloves helped, but the inaction of sitting a horse did nothing for the circulation. They were all relieved to top a rise—exposing them once more to the gale’s icy teeth—and see the scattered smoke of a small village.

  Sullyan nudged Drum, sending him down the track that led to the village. Icy wind or not, there were still people abroad, and she halted the huge warhorse as they came abreast of a shepherd driving a cart full of fodder to feed his winter-bound beasts.

  “Is this the village of Foxdune?” she called through the gale.

  The shepherd glanced up at her. His face was partially obscured by the heavy sheepskin coat he wore, but they could see his eyes, brown and suspicious, taking in their gear, their horses, and their weapons. “Aye. What business is it of yours?”

  “King’s business,” Sullyan said shortly. “Is there an inn?”

  The shepherd spat on the ground, causing Cal to draw the first three inches of his sword. Seeing the swift movement—and the disapproving expression on the young captain’s face—the shepherd half-raised one arm in defense. His weathered face paled. “Your pardon, I meant no offence. Aye, there’s a tavern, if you can call it that. This end of the village, house with a red door. Stabling for beasts round the back.”

  Cal sheathed his blade with a click, staring hard at the shepherd. Sullyan thanked the man courteously and moved on, leaving him sitting his cart in the middle of the road, watching as they rode away.

  “Why are folk always so suspicious?” grumbled Cal, drawing his iron-gray alongside Drum. “You’d think we looked like robbers or cutthroats. They could be polite until given better reason.”

  Sullyan grinned. “Any stranger abroad in winter, especially in weather such as this, ought to be viewed with suspicion. The common people do not have much. You would be cautious if you were confronted by three well-armed riders. Do not wonder at their mistrust.”

  Cal subsided, but she could see he wasn’t impressed. He knew what it was like to have nothing. He had grown up with a troupe of Roamerlings, and they carried only what they could take upon their wagons. But then, she reflected, Roamerlings were notorious thieves, shunned by so-called honest citizens, so Cal should understand better than most the caution strangers often engendered.

  They rode into the village and found the inn. It was the only building with a red door, and copious amounts of wood smoke streamed from its chimney. Riding around the building they found the stables and dismounted. No grooms came forward to take their mounts, so they led them inside and saw to their comforts. At least the place was clean, with plentiful fresh straw, grain, and water.

  “Not too much corn,” advised Sullyan as they filled the mangers with grain and sweet hay. “We will not stay long. I want to be back at the Manor by nightfall.”

  Once the horses were settled, they braved the strengthening gale and crossed the yard to the inn. The door opened at Tad’s touch and they stepped out of the buffeting wind and into the warm calm of the taproom.

  The few patrons inside turned their heads in astonishment at the three armed travelers. The innkeeper, a tall, raw-boned man with a scarred face partially covered by a meager red beard, scowled until Sullyan approached him and removed her snow-covered cloak, revealing her rank insignia. The man’s inhospitable expression mellowed.

  “Colonel,” he said, having examined her gold rank badge. “What can we do for you? We don’t often get King’s … er, men in Foxdune.”

  She grinned at his confusion. She was still the only woman in Elias’s fighting forces, although the populace was becoming more used to seeing the many women who served him as runners.

  “I am Colonel Sullyan, and we are here on King’s business. We would appreciate your help, but for now hot food and drink are our priorities. What can you offer us?”

  The inn was famous locally for its mutton stew, and the three of them soon found out how well-deserved that reputation was, although the ale was only passable and the fellan too weak. But the sustenance was very welcome and they thawed their frozen bodies by the roaring log fire before Sullyan beckoned the innkeeper over once more.

  He told them his name was Galt, and he had lived in Foxdune all his life. Sullyan accepted the second pot of fellan she’d persuaded Galt to make, this time with extra grounds, and his eyes widened at the gold bits she placed on the table. His demeanor, pleasant enough before, now became positively eager. He ignored his other customers and sat down at their table.

  “How may I help you, Colonel?”

  “We have come from the fishing village that supplies the holy Order of the Wheel, on the island off Serna Bay,” Sullyan said, seeing a wary glimmer of understanding flicker in Galt’s brown eyes. “They told me that about four years ago, a young lad from this village was taken to their shores and ferried across to the island, there to become one of the clerics of the order. Would you know of this?”

  Galt cast a swift glance over his shoulder to the three other patrons who were sitting at the bar, helping themselves to ale in his absence. None of them appeared to be listening. Sullyan’s eyes narrowed at this display of caution.

  “That would have been young Serrin,” Galt replied, his voice low. “What’s he done now? Killed one of the clerics?” Galt’s face paled and he stared at Sullyan in horror. “Here, they haven’t cast him out, have they? He doesn’t want to come back here?”

  She exchanged glances with Cal and Tad. Her most pressing question had already been answered. Nevertheless, she determined to wring as much information from Galt as she could. She might learn something of interest.

  “I take it the prospect would not please you?” she said.

  “Please me?” he barked, only belatedly remembering he was being circumspect. “No one was more pleased than I when they took the young vandal away. There wouldn’t be many here who’d be pleased to see him back. Not now his mother’s dead, anyway.”

  “What did he do to turn the village against him?”

  Galt scowled. “It wasn’t so much what he did, as what he was. He was strange, unnatural. Things happened around him, weird things. You know w
hat I mean.”

  She was only too afraid she knew exactly what he meant, but she wasn’t about to let him off that easily. “No, Galt, I do not know. Tell me.”

  “You know,” he repeated, nodding his head at her, “things no one else can do. He bewitched cattle, he made crops fail. It rained just when he said it would and it was sunny when he said so. He was a … you know … a witch.”

  He whispered the last word through clenched teeth and Sullyan lost patience. She had heard it all before. She spoke clearly and with menace as she stared hard at the innkeeper’s pale face.

  “You mean he was an Artesan, and he was persecuted for it. Well, Artesans are now prized and valued by the King. Have you not heard the proclamations? You should have; they have been cried throughout the land. It is now a capital offence to cry slander on an Artesan, and the penalties for their expulsion or repression are severe. In the King’s name, I could impose the direst of reprisals on you and your village for what you did to that poor boy.”

  Sullyan’s anger and the fire behind her eyes cowed the prejudiced innkeeper thoroughly. He drew back before her threats and began, rather desperately, to beg her forgiveness. The customers at the bar slunk swiftly out the door before she could turn on them, too. Sullyan cut off Galt’s pathetic apologies with a wave of her hand.

  “Enough. You have already told me what I came here to learn. Serrin is not here and has never been back since he was forced to leave. That is well. Were I that poor boy, I would not wish to return here no matter how beggarly I found myself.

  “We will leave this miserable place. You have been paid amply for your hospitality, such as it was. Never let it be said that Artesans of the King’s forces do not pay their dues, even to those with such bigoted minds as yours. We bid you good day.”

  She swept from the inn, leaving the outer door open and swinging in the gale as Cal and Tad hastened to follow her. Neither of them gave the astounded innkeeper another glance.

  Tad and Cal caught up with her in the stable, where she was saddling Drum. The low but vicious mutter of invective coming from the black’s stall warned them against speaking to her and they readied their own mounts in silence. She led Drum outside and vaulted into the saddle, urging him out of the village at a gallop as if it had the plague. Which in a very real sense, it did.

  By the time they rode up to the horse lines at the Manor, she was calm again. Overseeing Tad’s substrate construct that facilitated their return journey had dissipated the disgusted fury left by the innkeeper’s unthinking prejudice. The King’s favor and the King’s College might finally be turning the tide of popular opinion, but it would take years, if not generations, to wipe out such pockets of superstition as Foxdune.

  She swung down from Drum and gave the huge beast over to the stablemaster. Cal and Tad were dismissed to their own duties and she made a brief and welcome contact with both Robin and Morgan as she made her way to Blaine’s office to discuss these latest developments.

  Halfway through Sullyan’s meeting with Blaine, Robin entered the General’s office. Sullyan glanced up at her life mate and he smiled at her as he took the chair next to hers.

  “Morgan’s with Elisse and Bull,” he said, accepting the fellan Blaine held out to him. “Rienne and Cal are, uh, greeting each other. Bull was quite happy to mind the children.”

  Sullyan smiled at Robin’s modest phrasing. Rienne would be pregnant again before she knew it at this rate. But the size of their family was their affair and Sullyan was at peace with her own barren condition. Having Morgan was enough for her. She felt no envy of her friend.

  “What did you discover on the island?” Robin asked. Sullyan recounted it once more for his benefit, also relating her experience at Foxdune, which Blaine hadn’t yet heard.

  The General was silent once she had finished, head bowed, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes unfocused. Robin watched him for a moment and sighed, turning to his life mate.

  “Do you really think the Baron could have survived that fall? Even if we discount the slashed wrist theory, if the fall didn’t kill him, the cold would have. And he was in no condition to swim for the mainland in any case. It would be too far for the best of swimmers, let alone someone in the Baron’s condition. It’s surely no great surprise the fishermen found no trace of his body.”

  Sullyan kept her eyes on the General’s face as she replied to Robin. “I believe he could have survived the fall. That ‘mighty leap’ he was seen to make could conceivably have carried him out far enough to avoid the rocks, and I can see no reason for making such a strenuous effort if he did not expect to survive.”

  “But why bother, if the sea was too cold? What would be the point?”

  She regarded him. “What indeed? Remember, his correspondence was entirely unmonitored.”

  Mathias Blaine raised his head and caught her gaze. He spoke slowly. “He could have drowned and been swept out to sea. His despair could have driven him to that, without his being so distraught he took no thought for the rocks. Which would you rather as a way out of life: dashing your body against sharp rocks with no guarantee you’d be killed outright, or a swift and numbing passage into oblivion? I know which I’d choose.”

  Sullyan knew Blaine suspected she was right; he just didn’t want to admit it and she couldn’t blame him. She held her peace and returned his gaze.

  “So what now?” asked Robin. “Do we assume he’s dead, or do we suspect he’s still alive? If he is still alive, he can’t be in any condition to work more mischief. So what do we tell Elias?”

  “And Aeyron.”

  Sullyan’s soft voice filled the room. Her adopted brother had suffered the worst physical torture of any of them at the Baron’s hands, and the scars ran deep. Much had been ripped from him with the knife stroke that had hacked away part of his right hand.

  General Blaine sighed and looked down, ignoring both questions. “Will you go to Elias, Brynne?”

  She nodded wordlessly.

  “Just put the facts before him and let him draw his own conclusions. We can’t keep any of this from him, but I don’t think we should color his judgment with our personal suspicions.”

  Sullyan agreed, but she knew the first thing Elias would ask once she had given him all the facts would be what she thought about them. She would have to play the interview by ear.

  Blaine carried on. “But I really don’t think it would be wise to distress Prince Aeyron with any of this unless we have good reason. You might want to talk it over with Timar to see what he thinks. It’s not for us to go bandying unfounded suspicions about with no real proof.”

  Sullyan wasn’t happy with this. The almost inevitable but unquantifiable threat the Baron posed to them, if he was alive, was a serious matter. If he was at large and capable of planning any kind of revenge, however small, then she and Aeyron and Elias would be his most obvious and immediate targets. She would speak with Timar, certainly, but she fully expected her adopted father to agree with her. Distressing or not, Aeyron had a right to know.

  “I had better leave for the castle, Mathias,” she said. “Will you contact Taran? Tell him I am bringing the Baron’s possessions to be returned to Jinella.”

  She left the General’s office with Robin beside her. They now occupied one of the grander suites on the top floor of the Manor, due to Sullyan’s royal status. She washed and changed in the spacious bathing room, casting wistful glances at the empty bathtub. When she came back into the large living area, Robin eyed her seriously.

  “You really believe he survived that fall, don’t you? You think he planned the whole thing, faked his suicide to throw us off the scent, and had some rescue set up. But what I don’t understand is how he managed it from all those miles out in the middle of the ocean. And why on earth would he murder the one person who’d befriended him? He must have known all that blood would be found. Did he think no one would notice there was too much blood to make slit wrists a credible story? He must have guessed someone from Elias’s
court would investigate.”

  Sullyan shook her head. “I do not have all the answers, Robin. What I do know is this: That blood was not the Baron’s. There is a missing untrained Artesan boy who was undoubtedly involved with Reen. Important parts of the suicide story do not make sense—although the idea he’d tried and failed to slit his wrists came only from Frar Durren, who saw blood on the Baron’s hands. No, there is much more to this affair than we yet know. These Roamerling deaths in Bordenn also bother me, and until we have satisfactory answers to the parts of the puzzle that are missing, or until the Baron’s body is washed ashore, I will not rest easy.

  “Do not forget what Reen tried to do. Even if the destruction of the Veils is now beyond his capabilities, he could still wreak havoc in Elias’s kingdom. Especially if he has somehow persuaded Sofira to shelter him. I would prefer to err on the side of caution and keep us all on full alert for the time being.

  “Now, I must go to the capital. Hug Morgan for me. I doubt the King will release me tonight.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was warm and comfortable in Elias’s private chamber. The lamps gave a mellow glow to the air and the fire leaped and wavered in the grate. A winter wind whined around the castle walls, but it didn’t have the bite of the easterner farther north. Sullyan settled into a padded chair at her King’s invitation and accepted the mug of steaming fellan he poured for her with his own hand.

  She watched him as he sat beside her, noting the worry lines around his eyes, and the slight pallor of his skin. She felt a sudden rush of empathy for him and irritably took hold of her emotions. She must always be on her guard with this powerful and attractive man. She took a steadying sip of scalding fellan.

  “Are you well, Elias?”

  He raised his head and gazed at her, giving a wry smile. “I must be slipping.”