Chapter 4
Assault
An uneventful week had past, the promise of coronation creeping closer on bygone days rife with talks of a new reign and the intervention of mysterious interlopers, all gossip aimed toward how the Savage Art had returned to Attoras. Since then Master Dieral had plagued Shala with all kinds of questions in preparation for the big day. They were endless in nature, and trivial detail to her mind. She did not care much about the proceedings as long as she was Queen by the end of it.
She only tolerated him to a point and then steered her path towards a flight of stairs. Any stairs would do. Sweating and breathing heavily to keep up, Dieral surprised Shala with his determination. The Princess flattered herself, thinking he would not have gone to the same lengths if it were Patrick ascending to the throne; in fact the heavy-set man did not even flinch as they passed the kitchen and the aromas that wafted from the open arches.
In accordance to Dieral's exuberance there had been a silent resignation that Shala would be Queen and that would be the end of it. Of Swarztial she heard nothing and she thought that maybe he had taken her warning of a wrathful Queen seriously.
Her threat was obviously bolstered by the arrival of the Wolf himself and the way he'd done so made others ask; “Are there more of the Wolves left?” Nobody expected it to turn out the way it did, Swarztial must've seen months of planning fall apart. She was even hopeful that he had gotten it over his parasitic heart to flee Attoras in search of a new host to feed his ambitions. Shala knew better however, so she remained on her guard, even when the instinct was to relax.
In the meanwhile Shala had grown worried as to some other absences from the castle. Her father's dogs went unattended for two days and when finally released from their kennels in the basement they rushed the length of the castle in search of a familiar touch like Shala's. They were starved out, and the Princess saw to it that they ate. Apparently the Kennel Master, Lorrie, had disappeared without a trace, and with no wife or brood to report it, the hounds were trapped piteously. Angered at the usually trustworthy Lorrie, Shala then noticed for the first time the absence of many other familiar faces.
That said Shala woke to a strange day. For one thing she came to with a shrill draft penetrating the room and parting the bedpost curtains. It was its persistence that finally ushered her from slumber to grabbing for a mug of water at her bedside. Then she heard the commotion. She stood up stiffly, almost in annoyance that the castle could be this spirited with the sun not even in evidence yet. From her bedroom window she saw much ado in the courtyard, where almost the entire household guard had been assembled in rank and file as far as she could tell.
Marshall Gibbon was roaring commands, taking issue with the slightest flaw in the men’s presentation or alignment. Shala wondered if she’d ever meet a man with a harsher voice than he. On that thought she was surprised that deBella had not come to wake her yet. Being stirred from a warm bed by the handmaiden could never be described as gentle.
“It is about boundaries, Your Highness,” she had said one day after waking a disgruntled Princess, “I'm in a position to prod and poke, and so I must, lest you become a ruler who frowns upon good council and hard decisions.”
“Waking me at this hour is good council?”
“The best council,” answered deBella, “in the north dawn is late and twilight early, our farmers oblige to wake before sunrise and so must you.”
“I was unaware I am in the business of toiling in the dust,” said Shala to a deBella who was unwilling to turn it all into an argument.
She studied the sky, as it already promised to be a miserable day of clouds accompanied by a southerly wind sweeping through town, pulling high the chained lantern posts. Cold, she thought, it would be cold today. With no visible sun and the wind strewing a blizzard from the peaks of the Black Mountain it could get surprisingly cold even in the early autumn months.
Groggily she tidied herself without assistance, and not for the first time realized that dressing and titivating was much quicker on her own, without having chambermaids or deBella faffing over her needlessly. She did however always appreciate their tendency to light a fire in her chamber hearth on days like this, which was missing as of yet. The cold must've come suddenly through the night, Shala decided. Maybe deBella has decided to sleep in today? Maybe I should go wake her as a gesture of good council? thought Shala to her own amusement. But then what still of her chambermaids? It was unlikely that all of them would suddenly abscond. She shrugged the thought away.
She left her chambers and called over a stationary guard to walk beside her as she made for the stairs. The man hurried to fall in step with her.
‘Soldier, what are they doing in the yard?’
‘Assembly Your Highness, the Marshal wants to march the men through town and perform a routine of drills at the barracks by the south side proper. They will be ready for a grand parade after your coronation Highness,’ said the soldier. ‘Just keeping the men sharp I suppose,’ he added, realizing the Princess didn’t like the sound of that, frowning the way she did. ‘Nothing to worry about Highness, I heard they are locking all the gates into the bailey, no one gets in or out until the guard is back, so there is no trespasser to fear.’
‘Thank you soldier,’ murmured Shala, walking slowly to the flight of stairs.
They must think me a fool to overlook the fact that the soldiers of the garrison - not the household guard, should mainstay the parade. Someone had ordered them pulled from the castle. Of course there were many stand-ins like the man Shala had just spoken to, but the essence of a guard was always the few and the trustworthy.
Not for the first time she wondered again on her mysterious champion and whether he was still close. Sometimes she just wondered whether he was real.
At first the thought of someone marauding the rooftops and watching her through windows was unsettling. Just last night she dreamt that the Wolf was sitting among the newly placed stone gargoyles on the battlements in the darkness of night, prowling the towers, watching every development, and skulking after her comings and goings with that mask of his. It hadn’t been a pleasant dream, even if the man had proclaimed himself as a Wolf and as a friend. Today however she sincerely hoped he kept his word and kept a close watch; just because Swarztial had tried every legal avenue of disposing of Shala did not mean the man would stop short of trying the nefarious. She felt this was a premonition of her own imagining, vague on specifics, but unnerving all the same.
She made of breakfast a quick affair, sitting quietly in the lonely dining room eating only half a bowl of porridge. Today it was bland, being used to Kaell mixing in a lot of extra butter. Again she wondered at the whereabouts of Kaell and why he hadn’t pestered her by now.
When she asked Peron, the guard at the table, he remarked he could have sworn seeing him making regular trips to the infirmary.
Curiosity turned to worry. ‘I warned him not to follow me there!’ she said aloud. Before she knew it she was on her way to the halls of healing. She would've gone there anyway, as a daily visit from her was essential to keep Pilgrim's contained. Were it not for the duty of a long line of proud ancestors Shala would gladly leave any royal life and turn to a life of healing first and foremost, maybe even travelling the world doing so. Those are silly thoughts to have. I will never escape duty.
Some of her disciples were already occupied in the infirmary, and things were rather quiet with no new incoming patients, so she could roam from room to room without having to linger too much. The place still haunted her for taking her father, the very place her father had dedicated his life to. She suppressed such thoughts, because it didn’t help hating the place. To her great relief Kaell was not taken up and she realized her paranoid mind was going to get the best of her yet. It’s Swarztial's fault...
She came to their longest standing patient, the bronze man. He looked much better of late, and slept peacefully as of now. With his skin clearer Shala spotted scars on his face, small
white lines that come from weapons smashing through the helm. He must’ve been a mercenary, she thought. And he certainly had the build for it. It was hard judging the man’s length while he was curled up on a bed, but Shala could now see he was probably bigger than any of the men on her guard. With her father's condition and his passing she had neglected to realize just how imposing the man seemed. Where had he come from? she thought, not having given it any consideration till now. Till now I haven’t given many things consideration. Shala realized the man might even be a criminal, but she doubted it. Besides, criminal or not, the infirmary did not discriminate until a man's life was saved.
Shala stood rooted in the doorway a moment more; there was something enigmatic about this man, an ageless strength. It was all the more apparent with him not playing at death's door anymore. He was not young, but he looked like a man who had survived many battles.
As though feeling Shala's stare on him his eyes flew open, and before she could slip out of the door he sat up, looking at her intently, his eyes much too focussed for someone who had just been sleeping soundly. Thoughts of him being a criminal came rushing back, and the urge to back out of the room and flee was certainly there. Looking at him, he had a stern face, a strong jaw and a shock of dark hair that seemed naturally swept backwards.
With her dumbstruck and silent he took the liberty of speaking. ‘I was out of it for most of my time spent here, but I understand Your Highness has much to do with my well-being. I thank you kindly.’ He sounded sincere, and feeling she could risk it, approached his bedside and sat down on the stool next to his bed.
‘You recognize the daughter of the King?’ asked Shala.
‘You are unmistakeable, Highness. I had fleeting moments of clarity when you cast the healing hands upon me. A more angelic experience I have not yet had.’
Shala blushed. ‘I was here every other day, but I can't believe you've improved so much. Are you... are you a warrior?’
‘I can hold my own,’ said the man.
Shala suspected his answer was overly humble.
‘May I ask your name?’ asked Shala.
‘You may, Highness. My name is Bhask, of no particular standing or relating to any family ties worth mentioning,’ he said with an openness that had Shala at ease.
‘And Your Highness should be resting up for your crowning, I've been told it can be quite taxing,’ said the familiar voice of Joshua. Shala looked up to the door, acknowledging the oldest member among her disciples with a smile as he entered. The elderly man was a tireless worker, and was more often than not to be found in the halls of healing. He joined the two of them.
‘He has made some rapid resurgence, Highness,’ said Joshua gladly, ‘we knew him to be strong, but I did not think he’d make it after struggling so long. When we brought you in here you were even bigger!’ he said to Bhask. ‘You lost some mass and strength with all this time in bed, but then I've never seen a man consume as much broth that was not the Master Dieral himself,’ said Joshua laughingly.
‘I find recovery often partners with great appetite. I apologize if I seemed to be the glutton.’
‘Not at all. You know, you remind of someone. And seeing you awake I notice a striking resemblance to a man I thought was dead,’ said Joshua.
The big man smiled. ‘I have walked a road long enough to tie a rope along the waist of the earth. And I might have done exactly that were it not for the Starwall. It is very possible I have met you before healer, but I cannot remember under what conditions it might be. Or where for that matter.’
Joshua nodded and they said nothing more on the subject.
‘Can I trust that we don't have to fear you within our halls?’ Shala asked him.
‘Most certainly Highness. I am no trouble, and certainly not while I still feel as weak as a pup.’
‘Then get well soon. If my eyes are to be trusted, you'd be welcome to join the garrison of Attoras, if you don't mind Marshal Gibbon's insanely loud voice.’
The man chuckled. ‘I have heard the praises he heaps upon your soldiers even in my less lucid moments; now there's a man that's sure to get even the dead marching!’
Shala snickered, but she was still surprised at the man's sudden return to health.
‘Did you change his treatment?’ she asked Joshua, hoping Bhask wouldn't mind them discussing it.
‘Not at all, Highness. We are mostly baffled; this recovery of his was spontaneous and sudden, and I would say it had nothing to do with our efforts.’
Shala looked curiously at Bhask and then back again at Joshua. ‘We've never seen someone recovering without treatment, and still Pilgrim’s takes those we give the best to – and you mean to say he made it through on his own?’
‘Yes Highness, like I said, it is troubling, - good news as far as our man here is concerned, but troubling in that we now know even less about the disease it seems.’
‘I could do with some certainties,’ sighed Shala.
‘We’ll not have them in this life, Highness. The best we can do for this man is let him be, sleep will take care of the rest,’ said Joshua.
Shala nodded and her thoughts returned to the original reason for her visit. ‘Have you seen Kaell the cook, Joshua? Or even my handmaiden, deBella?’
Suddenly Joshua’s brow creased. ‘Highness, I might be raising fears for no good reason, but the castle today is devoid of familiar faces. Some of the regulars are simply missing. deBella hasn't been here for some time and I heard both Masters Jalson and Dieral go into a fit of rage early this morning. Master Jalson rumbled adamantly that his kitchen hands should not bother returning. He mentioned Kaell’s name a few times.’
Shala stood up, worried. ‘Be on your guard Joshua, something is amiss, I do not feel safe having my guard marching through town.’
‘Let me walk Your Highness out!’ prompted Joshua, and Shala thought his bid to speak to her privately was poorly disguised. They bade farewell to Bhask, who thanked them for their visit.
Joshua stopped her just outside of the infirmary. ‘I definitely recognize that man, Highness. And with the others missing, seeing him, I don't know what to make of it. I think he was here twenty years ago. But my memory is fuzzy.’
Shala frowned. ‘Who else will recognize him?’
Joshua was in thought. ‘Gremhalden.’
‘Alright. I will see if I can drag the old Knight here. He might be able to shed some light on the matter.’
Shala set off, scouring the castle. She made no show of it, but she looked for deBella and she looked for Kaell. But in searching she found the halls hauntingly lonely. Her imagination was going to get the best of her today.
It was with some relief that she had a brush with Gremhalden, who walked the corridor limply, mumbling by himself. She was not that keen to run into him but she would at least have the opportunity to ask him to escort her to the infirmary so as to validate whether the man there posed any threat.
It took her only a moment to realize he had been looking for her as much as she him. ‘Should be in your room Your Highness!’ he grumbled, ‘some fool has left us defenceless today! I will stand by your door. And since when is deBella one to disappear? That hag always has something to say when its least welcome, but dare go looking for her and she falls right off the face of the earth!’
Shala was summoning the courage to chastise the Knight for speaking so of the handmaiden when they were interrupted by Squire Rolf, running to catch up to them, and the look Gremhalden gave him would normally have let the young idiot wilt beneath his gaze. That he didn't even pay the old Knight attention already raised some alarm.
‘Princess!’ he exclaimed breathlessly, his face an arrangement of worry.
‘What is it?’ asked Shala, almost immediately annoyed by him.
‘It is Master Dieral. I think it is his heart! He was in the lower storerooms when he collapsed. I think he is dying!’
She and Gremhalden exchanged glances, the gravity of the situation da
wning on them.
‘Lead on,’ commanded Shala, habitually touching the urn at her side. They left Gremhalden in their wake, him stranded with his bad leg and the slightest dismay visible on his face after wanting to lock up the Princess in her room. She followed Rolf for the length of the corridor before grabbing him by the wrist and stopping him. ‘I may need help, Joshua keeps watch in the infirmary. Go fetch him. Tell him what has happened!’ Nodding urgently Rolf set off again in the opposite direction. Not for the first time this month Shala ran like a mad person through these halls.
In her mind all she saw was the man that was supposed to place a crown on her head in five days' time dying. She hated herself for the selfish thought. Saving him was all that mattered. Despite her haste she noticed a few oddities. The usual servants who roamed the castle were few and scant toward the east wing, and where the storerooms were located it was devoid of any guards.
That was a problem; if Dieral needed to be transported then no amount of determination could see Shala, Rolf and Joshua carry the man alone.
It was there that she first heard the music, the faint pluck of strings puzzling her in the basement passages. But with more pressing concerns it was gone from her mind as soon as it passed beyond hearing. The corridor to the storerooms was circular, and around each new bend she anticipated seeing the hulk of Dieral slumped against the wall.
Coming full circle however there was nothing to be seen of the man. What was Rolf playing at? Did he make a mistake or did I hear wrong? Maybe I should check the storerooms themselves? But there were cobwebs in some of the passages where Dieral was supposedly stricken, telling Shala no one as fastidious as Dieral had wandered here for some time.
Hardly noticing it over her own breathing she again heard the music. It was enough to pique her curiosity, and she pursued it in hope of finding Dieral in the process.
She followed what little noise she could hear, up and down and listening hard if she was getting to closer to the source, going deeper into lonely storerooms. Then it came to her that it was indeed her very own music box, or at least a music box playing the same tune. She did not know why yet, but hearing it here terrified her.
She was roaming a windowless corridor when a shrill wind shrieked through the length of it, and snuffed out the braziers on the wall. Shala stood in abject darkness, and the hairs on her arms and neck rose. The music still played eerily. She felt strung up by fear, like a puppet. Calming herself with the cold, she fumbled her hand into the urn. Holding her hand aloft she summoned the light, the pale gleam showing her the corridor outline. She was still alone at least.
Yet staring out in front of her she realized for the first time that something was staring back, noticing that the heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor was smeared with a dark substance, and painted in the shape of a misshapen face of horns and eyes and twisted mouth. A knot formed in her stomach as her mind already came to a conclusion as to what the substance might be.
Steeling herself she marched forward. From ahead came a stink, foul and wretched, and from the little space underneath the door seeped a wind, as if the room had the need to breathe. The music stopped. With a trembling hand she turned the knob, pushed, and swung it wide open. She stepped into the room, bringing light to it.
She wished she hadn't, that the place had rather remained dark. There was nothing to be recognized of the store but blood and carnage. A shriek built up in Shala’s throat but it collided with the impulse to wretch. She did neither, and clamped her glowing hand across her mouth, staring in mute horror and nausea, finding herself sitting on her legs. Hesitantly she moved her hand forward and away from her face to cast the light further into the room.
The bodies of Council members and servants, and many other castle residents were strewn over the floor, entrails spilled, heads spiked up against the walls and torsos hanging from hooks on the ceiling. In them she saw familiar faces; castle faces with names she could choke on seeing them this way. She saw Pasco and Lorry and Lenise... Many others were unrecognizable. The reason for their sudden disappearance became unbearably clear to Shala.
She would never forget how badly this room had shaken her, how friends could be alive one moment and then, this...
Many measures of blood had been used to paint the wall, and they all formed different insignias and symbols, telling something of the ritual that had been practiced here. “Our rite has already taken hold in Attoras,” the wraith had said. The wraith had not lied.
In revulsion her gaze could not linger on one atrocity for too long, but she was inextricably drawn to one bloody insignia in particular. On her feet again she shed light on it by coming closer, and the shape indeed was lines of blood that formed the chained hands solemnly holding a candle, perfectly illustrated by a careful hand, and yet an utter mockery of House Evrelyn's insignia.
For whatever reason possessed her she wandered further into the room, the evil here playing so fearfully on her that she felt the light go out of her. She searched the room and found nothing alive in it, no one to even save. It was a place of death. She feared that Kaell and deBella and all the others must be among the unrecognizable, their bodies torn to shreds.
It was too savage to be the work of a human butcher, and yet no beast would have endeavoured to display the carnage so. She found the music box behind the pillar, bloody fingers having fumbled on the surface to wind it.
Her disquiet and unease culminated with the idea that someone must have wound the thing just recently and set it playing, and done so knowing she'd come here. Someone must be here, and close too. Someone must still be here. She had the overwhelming urge to simply get away.
She turned to leave, her mind struck numb by what had happened here. If only she could reach the door this nightmare would end. Then again the moment she walked into this room she knew it was all very real. She was just about to start running when men poured into the room, bearing torches of their own and showing the room in new light. Shala was relieved.
But it was Swarztial that led them, a select few council members behind him and also soldiers with drawn swords. Even then it was not lost on her that the men were of the council guard, and not her own. They were accompanied by Rolf the squire, no sign that he had ever done any effort to bring down Joshua at all. There was now a dread feeling to their arrival.
‘Your Highness!’ cried Swarztial with a tone of shock, Shala realizing they had found her standing beneath the blood-painted insignia of her own House. Suddenly his face turned into a snarl as though he gained some appreciation of what had happened. ‘Again you bring evil into this castle, what murderous demoness have you become? Guards! Take her before she can ply more of her devilry! She will be the death of all of us!’ he shrieked.
Shala had no idea whether the council guard would take her down, but either way she dashed right at them, brightening the light in her hand to make a brilliant flash. In its blinding display she weaved through the men and out the door. She heard the protests behind her and the angry shouts of Swarztial. She did not stop running, flying through the halls.
By the time she made it to the library the alarm bells in the town started ringing, loudly and unceasingly, the din much more urgent than the tower bells they rang for her father’s funeral. Through tall library windows she looked down into the castle yard and saw that all hell had broken loose, not at all confined to the castle alone.