Betrayal at Falador (8 page)

It is so easy,
he thought to himself before continuing,
to take advantage of their innate fear.

“They say a monster is loose!” he cried. “A creature that devours its victims! They say they do not know what it is, and they secretly encourage us to let our own imaginations build their monster into something mythical.

“Werewolves!” He punched the air viciously. “Vampires! Ghouls!” With each word another savage punch, and with each blow a roaring tempest of voices shouting encouragement.

“But what has it attacked so far? A single woman barely out of girlhood! A lone gypsy caravan, isolated from any help, with just a grandfather and young mother to protect a defenceless child! Look at your neighbour, my friends, and ask yourselves why we should be afraid. Search amongst you for any who would not fight to protect their families from a beast that kills the old and the weak. This is no werewolf. This is no vampire or ghoul. But it is not human either. What human would do such a thing?”

The faces of the men showed doubt under the torchlight.

“It is something masquerading as a monster—something designed to instil fear into our souls,” he said, his voice filled with certainty. “What else could it be?”

The men shook their heads.

“Goblins can be found in these parts—we all know of the settlement north of here. Could it be a goblin?” he asked, facing the foremost onlookers directly, one after the other.

“Goblins aren’t smart enough.” The voice was thick with the rural accent.

“But what else can it be?” This second voice was familiar to the speaker, for he had told the man exactly what to say.

The result was exactly as he had hoped.

“There’s a dwarf that lives hereabouts. Just off the road to Taverley, a few miles north of here. He lives on his own, as a hermit.”

Doubtful expressions drew the speaker’s attention. Some of the crowd still needed convincing.

“A hermit?” the speaker yelled suddenly. “Does he show a hatred of people?”

“He don’t like them getting too close!” the rural voice shouted out, and several nodded in agreement. The dwarf was a well-known hermit who had lived in the lands of Asgarnia for two dozen untroubled years, but as the farms of men had grown closer, he had become an angry neighbour.

He’s perfect,
the speaker mused.

“Dwarfs are known for their cunning,” he said in a thoughtful manner. “They are the masters of metal, hoarding their treasures, unwilling to share even the basest trinket. What lengths would he go to in order to protect his privacy? How well do we know him? We cannot trust a creature like that!” His fiery eyes observed new jugs of alcohol being passed amongst the crowd, and to his delight he noted several men swaying uncertainly.

“How can we trust a thing that hoards its wealth?” he continued. “Dwarfs are known for their love of shiny metals. They share the magpie’s lust to decorate their homes with what is precious to humankind. Gold! Silver! Rubies! Where a dwarf makes his home, you will find such things.”

The speaker had lit the fire of envy in the eyes of the onlookers, and as they drank he could see the effects of his appeal to their greed. Each of them pictured what secret wealth the lone dwarf might possess in his isolated log cabin.

“I say we go and see the dwarf,” the rural voice called from the rear of the crowd. “Ask him about the murders!” A dozen voices rose in agreement.

“It will know something, my friends! The caravan was only a few miles from its lair when it was attacked.” The speaker had changed his approach. The dwarf had been demoted to an “it”, his home rechristened a lair.

He smiled as the angry voices echoed amidst the dell. A lair was so much easier to burn than someone’s home.

The clear night glittered with so many stars that Theodore thought they must be beyond count.

He had sat up late with Castimir, talking extensively of their childhood together in Rimmington, a town that lay several days’ travel from Falador. The two had shared laughter, reliving the halcyon days of their youth, their faces lit under the strong moonlight that softly touched the thatched rooftops and white walls of Taverley. The fountains glistened in the gloom, their faint music of cascading water an eerie enchantment.

Now Theodore looked once more at the stars, a great loneliness in his heart, a sudden feeling of smallness as he observed the heavens above him.

“Is it true, Castimir?” he asked. “What they say about the stars?”

The young wizard looked at him for a long minute, aware that their conversation was nearing its end and that it would soon be time for them to part. It had taken considerable effort to break through Theodore’s reserve, a protection the squire built around himself to keep others at a distance.

You didn’t have that before you joined the knights,
Castimir thought with sadness.
If you have changed like that, how must you think I’ve changed?

“What do they say about the stars, Theo?”

“That if you travel far enough, they change.” Theodore stared wistfully skyward.

“I cannot say, for I have never travelled so far. The stars in Catherby are the same as they are here—fixed in the heavens by the gods to guide seamen and reveal the secrets of the world to astrologers.”

A sudden cough sounded from nearby, and Theodore’s hand instinctively found the hilt of his sword. A moment later Ebenezer emerged from behind a fountain, his hand holding a clay pipe as he walked tentatively toward them.

“Did I hear you correctly, saying that you believed the stars to be fixed forever in the heavens, just to be used by astrologers?” He eyed Castimir with a sparkle in his eyes.

“That’s what we were brought up to believe,” the young man replied. “I know you well enough, however, to know that you do not agree.” The wizard looked at Theodore warily, knowing that he would not approve of Ebenezer listening in the darkness.

And still the squire kept his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

“I have a number of different theories about them,” the old man replied. “Though I have yet to decide which one best suits the facts as I know them. But nothing is forever—not people, not places, not worlds and not stars. Everything is subject to change.”

“Must you question everything, alchemist?” Theodore asked, unwilling to be drawn into another argument in his final moments with Castimir.

“Absolutely!” the old man replied proudly. “If you do not ask, you do not learn—a favourite maxim of many mothers, that too few children bother to practise. It is a philosophy of mine that everything must be questioned. To leave the natural world in the hands of the gods is to give even them too much credit.”

With that, Ebenezer lit his clay pipe and stood close to the two young men, pointing out the constellations to both squire and wizard. As they observed the heavens on that cold, cloudless night, a shooting star sped across the horizon and vanished behind the glistening peaks of White Wolf Mountain to the northwest.

Not a hundred yards away, Gar’rth lay in a pool of cold sweat.

Curled beneath some blankets they had laid down in the hall, he had watched as Ebenezer, finished with his chemicals, decided to stroll out for his evening smoke. The alchemist had paused at the door before opening it, looking down at Gar’rth’s shadowy outline.

“Are you all right, Gar’rth?” he asked the motionless youth. Although he did not understand any of the words save his name, Gar’rth was familiar with the manner in which they were spoken. Soft words, comforting words, the words of someone who cared. It had been long years since Gar’rth had heard any words like that.

“Thank you,” he had responded. The only words that Gar’rth had so far been able to learn, he said them with a sincerity that would make the most practised dissembler feel envious.

Gar’rth had struggled to keep himself from shaking as Ebenezer spoke to him, but when the old man shut the door he stopped trying to fight it. He lay in utter silence, his body shivering so much that even the glowing embers of the fire offered him no comfort.

Shortly afterward he began to sweat, a cold sweat that erupted from his pores and drenched the bedclothes. He was familiar with his ailment, and despite the potions that the druid had brewed for him, he knew he could not expect his condition to improve. He doubted that he would
ever
be rid of it.

Lying there, he recalled the taunts that his blood-brothers had heaped on him those many months ago, before he had escaped.

You can’t change what you are, Gar’rth. You’re one of us. You can’t change the way you’re born!

He had escaped, crossing rivers and borders, living off charity where he could before accepting the fact that he had to steal to survive. The one thing he never did was to harm an innocent person—that was a rule he would not break. He could never do that, for if he did then he knew he would be lost.

After the sweating came the spasms, which wracked his body as if there were something inside that hungered to be released. As he tasted his own blood in his mouth, he sniffed the mixture of crushed herbs that Ebenezer had prepared for him. Usually they soothed him, but now they affected him little.

It was the most violent attack his ailment had ever made against him, and he knew it would be worse the next time.

Crying was rare where he came from. It showed weakness, and a youth of Gar’rth’s age crying would have incurred a harsh punishment. But he was far away from that place. Covering himself entirely with the sweat-drenched blanket that was now cold against his skin, he wept, his black eyes pools of anguish.

EIGHT

The furnace bathed the room in a red glow of warmth, enough to heat the entire log cabin in winter, when the ground was frozen and the trees had shivered off their leaves.

But something had awakened him.

Living in isolation had given him a sense for trouble, and he could feel in his old bones that something was amiss. Something was coming—something dangerous.

The old dwarf’s hand shot out and grasped the heavy battle-axe that he never let out of his sight. The weapon was a comfort in his hands, yet as he stood he became aware of a sensation that he had rarely felt before. Cold fear knotted his stomach.

There was something outside the cabin, something truly terrible, something that exerted a fearsome presence through the stout wooden doors that he knew would not offer him any protection should the source of his fear decide to enter.

His mouth was dry and the words he had been preparing to shout died on his lips. Never in all his many decades of life had he felt such a presence.

Something sniffed at the door and the hardy dwarf stood back, whispering a half-remembered prayer to his most favoured deity, Guthix.

Let it come,
he thought.
It’ll find me ready to defend my home.

He did not feel the cold when he was hunting, and the only danger the snows presented was the possibility of leaving tracks for hunters to follow.

Only chance had put the gypsy caravan in his way. His mother had told him, years ago, that it was wrong to waste an opportunity. Ever since he had feasted on the family, he had watched warily as armed men searched the frozen woods and questioned travellers on the road.

His treats were becoming more of a risk.

This made the bloodlust stronger.

So strong had it become that the thought of taking an unprotected maiden or errant child no longer excited him. His dark thoughts had turned their attention to the isolated farmhouses and log cabins that populated the forested land between Falador and Taverley. How the residents would fear when he devoured a family in their own home!

The log cabin that he had decided upon was a squat building more isolated than any other. For two nights he had watched it from his vantage point on a steep rise. Tonight he had ventured closer.

But when he sniffed the door frame the scent was different. The occupant was not human, he realized, and he was unfamiliar with the smell.

No matter,
he thought.
Variety is what makes life interesting.

He jumped away from the cabin, gathering his strength in readiness to throw himself into the oakwood door.

The dwarf had fought worse than goblins in the dark caverns of his race’s mines, but something here was very wrong.

He heard the creature sniff the ground outside, just a few yards from him, and he heard it back slowly away from the door, most likely readying itself for an assault.

It’s intelligent,
he thought to himself as the cold fear once more wound his stomach in a knot.
It knows I am alone.

I have lived a hundred years,
he told himself firmly,
and if I am to die this night, then it shall be in the way in which I have lived my life—with my axe in my hands, facing my foe.

He took a deep breath and summoned his courage. Then he stepped toward the door to open it.

He stopped at the last second, his head turning in the night air. He could hear people—many people—stomping over the frozen earth and shouting.