Chapter 33

I could smell when we reached the Caladienne Valley. The air smelled of spice flowers, Nilla and the sharp piney pitch of the trees. At the crisp mountain air that came down off the glacier and put rainbows in the sky. Home. There was no place that smelled quite like the Valley and I was eager to get off the car and stride my way home. I knew Davlos had been taking care of it, had probably cut this year’s hay and repaired the house. Made sure my mum and dad’s graves were mowed and looked after.

The mares I turned loose in the Valley would have foaled Diomed’s first crop. There would be new calves on the milk cows, new piglets if Davey had called them all back from the wild. He would have dug up the emergency cash and hired indentured to help bail and put it up in the barn. The apples would be ready for cider, the berries long past. I wouldn’t have jam for the winter.

I laughed at myself. My mother was dead and she was the one who’d canned and made sweets. Dad and I jerked, smoked and took care of the meats, hay and cider. I wondered how her grapes did this year–they would still be harvested until fall. I was a fool to think I would be allowed home to stay but I wanted to see it one more time before whatever happened did.

Someone knocked on my door. “Caladia,” the conductor said. I slid the door open, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I’d slept three days?

“What day is it?” I asked.

“Friday. August 16.” He continued on down the corridor to the next door calling out, “Caladia next stop.”

We had gone three days travel in one and a half! Why, this new technology would connect the two coasts in weeks instead of months. If they could lay tracks and I had no doubt that they couldn’t do that as speedily. The railcar slowed gently as the door opened. Bright sunlight blinded me for a moment and I felt someone’s hand on my back. Turned around to snarl at the Dragoon as he fell backwards.

“Sorry,” I apologized and helped him up. “You startled me.” Once on his feet, I put my hood up and melted into the crowds waiting at the station.

Caladia had grown, too. More shops and businesses, more fancy residences on the high side of town with the prettiest views. I saw a new Constable’s office and jail where before we hadn’t needed one–we sent prisoners to Albans. A big fancy governor’s townhouse connected to an officer’s base. Barracks, stables and a court house, all flying the Oldlands flag of the Emperor Ehrenberg. I didn’t see the warlord’s banner which indicated he wasn’t in residence.

Usually when dad and I had ridden in, we’d stabled our horses at Hidden Ponds Hostelry but the owners knew both of us well. I knew there was another livery in the bad section of town so I headed down Albemarle Street. It was totally changed, there was a parade ground and a huge stable complex housing hundreds of cavalry mounts.

I asked the groom lazily currying a Wheeler if there were any rental places left in town.

“You mean horses?” He asked, leaning against the big brown gelding’s flanks. He was currying against the hair growth and the big harness horse was getting irritated. I knew he would kick and used my glamour to quiet him.

“Yes, of course I mean horses,” I said calmly.

“Well, there are sylphs here, too.”

“Sylphs?” I was shocked but he thought I didn’t know what they were. He went on to explain and to tell me I could rent them by the day, the week or buy them outright. They were mounts captured in skirmishes, wounded and healed or stolen off dead Border trash.

“Ain’t easy to master, though. Ain’t like riding a horse.”

“Where can I find this stable?”

He told me, gave me directions and even drew me a map. “You look familiar,” he said and I studied him. He did, too. “You ever been out at Mrs. Callum’s boarding house?” He asked and I remembered. He had been that boy in the Mercantile and carried my new things to the Chemung Hotel where I had drooled over the delicious Cinders.

“No, I’ve never been past Albans,” I said and took off. Halfway there, I felt the compulsion to eat come over me and drive me to my knees. I needed to eat and soon but I was in the worst place to be so affected. I couldn’t, daren’t take a human or an animal. No one suspected I was here yet and a drained corpse would certainly tell them I was.

I broke into a warehouse near the outskirts of town and found it was a slaughterhouse. The smell of blood drove me nearly insane with hunger and thirst, it was everywhere.

Cattle sheep and bison were in holding pens around the processing house and underneath a grated floor, I found a concrete cellar where the blood and offal would be drained out yet had not been cleaned in some time. It smelled terrible, as if it had been there for months but my hunger did not care. I slithered beneath the bars and drank until the trembling stopped and my need was satisfied.

Covered in blood and reeking, I slipped through the dark streets until I reached the river and waded in, leaving my pack hidden on shore. I lay on my back and floated as I contemplated the stars. It was taking more and more animal blood to satisfy my perverse thirst and less time between feedings. I was terribly frightened that soon, one day soon only the blood of humans would sustain me.

When I was sure that I was clean, I climbed out and walked the night until I was dry enough to move quietly. I found the stables and the sylphs. They watched me with their dark, liquid eyes as I slid silently through the aisles choosing a tall male that was more heavily built than the others yet his legs were proportionately longer. He was the color of dark smoke with a yellow striped mane and tail, the perfect camouflage for night travel in the woods.

I used my glamour on the creatures in the barn so that not one made a sound as I saddled, bridled a pair, mounted and rode out onto the road that went up over the hill through the woods towards home. I knew these woods, they were my backyard. I saw signs that made me uneasy–blazes where before there had been none. Trails that were now well-defined when they had been deer tracks. In my eagerness, I pushed the sylphs to the limit of their endurance so it was only midmorning of the next day when I crested the rise that led down into Cayden’s Valley.

I did not skyline myself. I did not rush headlong down to the house that I saw had not only been repaired but added onto. The field had been hayed once and the second cutting was well on its way to maturity. The South slope was golden with wheat and I saw oats standing tall, waving in the wind with that silvery green that only oats could produce. The far fields were tasseling with corn. It looked to have been a prosperous, fruitful year.

My eyes were drawn to the barns and paddocks. My heart lightened in joy as I saw the spindly legged foals scampering at the sides of their mamas. With total disbelief, I saw Peony and the mares I’d left behind at Henry Chalfount’s.

Toward the end of the day, I saw Davey come out of the house and head towards the barn. In the light of a kerosene lantern I saw him milk, feed the cows, horses and pigs. When he was done, he climbed onto the newly rebuilt porch and stared out over the valley and up towards the mountains. I didn’t see anyone else–no hired hands, no women and especially no soldiers.

I slipped down the old trail that I’d used as a child and came out near the wine cellars dad and I had built in the hill near the house. Already partly a cave, we’d just expanded it to hold mum’s wine efforts.

The house was quiet from the back. Windows dark but that section were the bedrooms and dad’s office. The kitchen, parlor and living room were in the front. I slid off the sylphs and tied both of them under the huge blue pine dad had transported when he decided on the spot for the house. Under its low hanging branches was a trap door that led directly into my bedroom.

It hadn’t been opened in nearly a year and it groaned loud enough to be heard down to the barn. Yet nothing stirred. I slid down the old ladder, reached the dirt floor of the tunnel and made my slow cautious way into the house. When I pushed open the door into my clothes hutch, my room was empty. The bed still had my mum’s hand sewn quilt on it, my toys and clothing were still scattered where I had left them. It still smelled of juniper and sage pot-pourri that mum left on my dresser.

Silently, I ran my fingers along the furniture’s dust free edges heading for the door. In the hallway between bedrooms, I paused before the three steps down into the kitchen, the room I suspected Davey would be occupying. I knew he wouldn’t use my mum and dad’s room out of respect and seen he hadn’t touched mine. So he was living either in dad’s office or the parlor.

I came around the corner and stood just behind the wall that separated the kitchen from the front porch. I could smell pork cooking and it made my mouth water. The sounds he made, the spoon clinking against the cast-iron pot, the sound of China settling on the table, silverware being laid on the plank cherry table all brought back memories. Buttermilk poured into crystal glasses. I could smell everything he was cooking.

“Is there enough for two, Davey?” I asked quietly and to his credit, he didn’t jump.

“Toby,” he said and there was a wealth of feeling in the short syllables. I came around the corner into plain sight and he studied me. “You’ve grown into a man, young Tobias. Sit. I’ll put another plate on.”

I pulled up a ladder-backed chair to the wall and sat while he fetched another plate, silverware and glass. He poured me wine and dished out a heaping helping of Brunswick stew.

“Can you eat, Toby? Are you hungry?” He set it down in front of me and I put my fork into it. The first bite tasted like nothing at all. I forced myself to eat another and it suddenly had an elusive flavor and filled me. Better yet, it stayed down. “Did you find your father’s horses, Toby?”

“Yes. I did,” I was silent remembering Beau and Diomed. “Did Henri Chalfant bring the mares home, Davey?” I asked.

He nodded. “When he heard of your…death, he brought them back to the farm and expressed his condolences. I told him I would honor your agreement but he declined being an honorable man. Will you tell me of your troubles?”

“Thank you for taking care of the farm and my parents’ graves, Davey. I saw the flowers you put on them. I promised when I came back home I would do them a real marble headstone but…things happened.”

He nodded again. “I will see to it, Tobias. What will you do?”

“I can’t stay here, I know that,” I sighed. “This is where they’ll look for me, where they know I was headed. I’m surprised that they weren’t waiting for me.”

“They were here yesterday. Rode up on big horses and searched the place top to bottom. They seemed surprised that you weren’t here. Especially the woman,” he said holding a platter in his hand.

“Woman?” I looked up.

“Red-haired. Beautiful but cold. Said her name was Blackfin and the others called her ‘him’.”

“Blackfin.” I stood up abruptly and searched the house with my other sense. Just as I felt the presence of the wizard’s foul stench, the door to my parents’ room opened to reveal her, my grandfather and soldiers.

I bolted for the door and was met by more soldiers. Rangers and Hussars who held out both swords and muskets. Leaping, I tore into them with blows that knocked them back with staved in ribs, cracked heads and crushed bones. Slashed with my nails and disemboweled them. Bit into their necks and drained them in seconds as I ripped out their throats.

I was almost through their ranks when something smashed into my back with the most incredible pain I had ever felt. I turned around to stare at the red-haired wizard and he was drawing back his bow to let loose another a silver-tipped arrow. He let go and I snatched it out of the air but behind me, one of the soldiers left alive skewered me with his sword pinning my hand to the ground. I could not wrench it free but I twisted slashing the other arrow across his throat. All around me were deadly silver covered weapons.

In the end, Blackfin pinned me to the ground through the hands and when I had fallen, he stood over me and used his twin daggers to immobilize my legs to the dirt of my front yard. He stood over me as I bled into the soil of my home, bleeding where my mother and father had spilled theirs.

“Where were you hiding?” I gasped and he sniggered.

“In your precious mother’s bedroom hidden by a masking spell your gracious Lyr Averon provided once we translated some of the texts you opened up in Fælin.”

“Fælin?”

“The city you found.” He turned to look at Davey who stood motionless in the doorway.

“Davey?” I asked painfully and his face twisted to become an Elassan.

“Your friend Davlos would not cooperate,” Blackfin said with a shrug. “So we fed him to your pigs.” He turned to my grandfather. “You want anything from him before I–?”

The coward shook his head and turned away. Pain wracked my body and I could not heal it. Silver poisoned me. My stomach twisted with the taste of human flesh in it. He opened his robes, drew out a silver orb and blew gently on it.

“Lyr Averon, I have him,” he spoke and before my eyes, the King of the Elassa gestured. A mist came out of the orb drifting towards me, enveloped me and wrenched me loose from the ground. Tore me loose from the hold of his silver. I screamed in mortal pain, got to my feet and ran. Calling for the sylphs. Flung myself on the one’s back and flew towards the hill before the glacier. I heard their screams of disbelief behind me but kicked the big gray male sylph on.

They followed on horses but could not keep up as we ran across the glacial shelf that skirted the actual field. Through wavering eyes, massive blood loss and unbearable pain, I ran the sylph across the ice escaping to the only place I could think of.

When at last I fell, the animal stood over me and then laid down as it kept its head on my back as if to hold me there. Blood stained the ice to mark my final resting place but at least I could die with my eyes on my beloved Valley.

Hands rolled me over. A creature clad in white fur bent on one knee near me. Examined my hurts and gently, lifted me up onto its shoulders. Carried me a great way across blinding white ice before we descended into a dark tunnel below the ice. My wondering eyes saw a vast city laid out before me and then, I was sinking slowly into a darkness I was not certain from which I would ever wake.

The End.

To be continued in Book 2:

The City Under the Ice.