The Scarecrow (Master of Malice Book 1) (39 page)

They gathered round to see what had been discovered. Denny praised the swordsman for his keen sight, for the small pieces of painted wood had been flung into a stand of evergreens and were only visible from a certain angle. If the man hadn’t turned his head at just that precise instant, he might not have seen them.

Denny pulled the wood from the bushes. It was the right color, according to the description given, and Denny identified it positively. He glanced up at his men as he flung the wood back on the ground, exhorting them to be vigilant as they renewed their chase. They remounted and resumed the search.

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T
he smallest member of the ruffians’ group grinned as he watched from another stand of evergreens, this one surrounded by a thick tangle of snow-laden bramble. The risk that the Major might order a search of nearby undergrowth was one he’d had to take, but the brambles would have discouraged any attempts to wade through them and, in the end, Denny hadn’t even glanced that way. As the ruffians’ leader had guessed, recovering bits of wood or scraps of clothing wasn’t part of Denny’s brief. Following a trail that might lead to the brigands themselves was.

The little ruffian shook the cold from his limbs and shinned up the stout sapling growing in the copse’s center. The recent snowfall had covered his original tracks and now he crawled carefully along the overhanging branch that let him down just outside the ring of briar. He listened intently to the sounds of Denny’s men before slipping after them, carefully setting his feet in the same tracks left by their horses.

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G
eneral Blaine, King Elias, and Robin took their leave of the innkeeper who had provided their night’s lodgings, ignoring his protests at the handful of gold Robin pressed on him. Throughout Loxton Province, Elias’s own demesne, the High King paid a network of tavern keepers and landlords to hold rooms available for those traveling on King’s business, but these were Lerric’s lands, where no such arrangement existed. And although Elias was High King and overlord of Albia, he didn’t believe in taking advantage of his position when he could afford to pay his way.

The provisioning of fifty-three men and Elias’s appropriation of the inn’s three best rooms deserved some recompense in the King’s eyes. Especially as the innkeeper went to some lengths to entertain and amuse his distinguished guests, including the offer of his young, flaxen-haired daughter to warm the King’s bed. Although Elias felt real regret at turning down his host’s most tempting offer, he was no barbarian. His own scruples aside, the landlord’s implication that Lerric would have accepted the offer—would, in fact, have considered it his due—was more than enough to dismay Elias, who sent the disappointed girl away with more coin than she would normally see in a year. Elias retired to a cold and lonely bed, honor intact, but frustrated and angry.

Now he rode at the head of the company, wrapped tightly in his sheepskin-lined cloak, bundled beneath his warmest clothing. This far south the climate should have been more temperate, but the winter had as firm a grip here as it did in the north. Elias’s hands were frozen within half an hour of riding.

Blaine could sense the King regarding him and Robin enviously. They were snug and warm in their cloaks, able to regulate their body temperature to keep feet and hands comfortably warm. Elias was aware they had to pay for their use of power, but to the King it seemed unfair they should be warm while he suffered the cold. His mood, already sour, worsened as he rode.

Blaine sighed. Elias still suffered from misplaced love and it often rendered him snappy and ill-tempered. The innkeeper’s inappropriate offer last night had angered and shocked him, but Blaine could see how hard-pressed Elias was to refuse the gift once he realized he wouldn’t be thought barbaric by accepting. His queen’s betrayal and her removal from his life had hit Elias hard, and even after three years he still hadn’t recovered from that fundamental wounding. His love for Brynne Sullyan, born of her selfless service and the wrong he did to her, only served to compound Elias’s misery and sense of abandonment. If she had been free to return his love—and Blaine suspected she would have if not for Robin—Elias would have been a happy man.

As it was, he was prickly at best. This coming meeting with Lerric, never one of Elias’s easier client kings, and the probable appearance of his stiff-backed, spiteful daughter, was bound to bring all Elias’s baser qualities to the fore. Especially if Lerric trotted out his usual list of complaints and Sofira chose to be difficult.

All in all, thought Blaine, it was likely to be an unpleasant two days.

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N
ow that his plans were moving forward, it was necessary to increase the number of men Reen could call on to obey him without question. Of the original three sent by Lerric three months ago to pull him from the sea, one was about his master’s business elsewhere and the other two were fast approaching the end of their usefulness. Although Reen had found other means of renewing his energy, there were still times when he was forced to take what they could ill-afford. Both men were little better than slack-jawed idiots, their life energies so reduced they could only be given the simplest tasks.

Reen had intended that he and Sofira would already be wed before coping with an occurrence such as this visit, but he was still learning how to use the powers that had been thrust upon him and wasn’t yet ready to make his final move. Elias’s God-be-damned announcement, while throwing up an interesting possibility too tempting to resist, complicated matters. And if the High King did suspect Lerric of collusion in the Baron’s disappearance from the island, Reen had to be all the more careful.

He didn’t believe Elias suspected Lerric. He had gone to great lengths to ensure his “suicide” was convincing, and he knew Patrio Ruvar was ignorant of the terrible but fortuitous accident that befell Reen on that hellhole of an island, as well as the true story behind Reen’s “friendship” with the unfortunate Serrin.

It had been Serrin’s slavish devotion to his “friend” that enabled Reen to survive the hideous flaying of his body, and the boy’s unconscious use of his embryonic Artesan talents had healed the worst of the burns and kept Reen alive during those agonized days when all he wanted was to cast his ravaged body into the sea to quench the Fire that had taken root deep in his soul.

When Reen finally emerged from that hellish torment, when he learned how he’d been altered and how Serrin had kept him from death, he had laughed aloud. What irony that the Almighty should place within Reen’s wracked, transmogrified body the means to wreak vengeance upon those who profaned the purity of God’s given life! Serrin, that embittered and friendless boy who had given his aid so selflessly, so unknowingly, was the first sacrifice to Reen’s new powers, the first to lose his life as well as his sacrilegious, Hell-given gifts.

He had realized he could use Serrin’s vigorous life force to ensure he survived the perilous leap into the sea. It had been simplicity itself to drain the boy enough to keep him unconscious without killing him prematurely. The forged letter, left once the supply boat had gone, was a masterly stroke, ensuring no one looked for the boy before Reen was ready to leave. The idea of using the boy’s life blood to authenticate his “suicide” was another stroke of genius, and some of the lad’s stolen energy was used in disposing of his body at the site of the Baron’s transformation, ensuring it could never, ever, be found.

Yet Reen, so new to his altered state, had underestimated his frailty. The boy’s youthful energy was all but used up in the painful toil to the island’s peak and his mighty leap to clear the lethal rocks surrounding the island’s base. Despite his careful plans and the men sent by Sofira’s father, Reen nearly died in the freezing sea. He had scarcely managed to hold his breath while the waiting boat strained against the waves to pull him to safety.

Since then he had refined his control over his new powers, learning each day how to hone and direct this God-given gift, this weapon of vengeance against his enemies. With this greater understanding came the realization that he would be unable to deal with Elias’s visit or exploit it to his best advantage unless he had access to more men and more life force. He must increase his hold and build himself a band of loyal followers who would obey his every whim, whom he could control even at a distance should the need arise.

Once Sofira left him, taking her concerns over the King’s visit to her bed, Reen summoned his first two slaves and ordered them to bring him, one by one, certain members of Lerric’s forces; the swordsmen of his personal guard and those on night duty at the palace.

Each of them, knowing the men who summoned them, came trusting and unaware, succumbing to the terrible, leaching forces thrust violently into their bodies through the medium of Reen’s cane. The Baron drank avidly, savoring each terrified soul, taking only enough to chain each man to his will. There were so many that his body swelled with their life force, fed on their youth and strength, exulted in the sheer physical power coursing through his veins.

He was most careful over the marks he left. Now his control was finer, the site of his violation was subtler. A small red mark was all that remained of his feeding, and he took care to vary the location of each. On the chest, over the heart, was easiest as it was the point of concentration for life force, but it wasn’t his only option. He should be able to take what he wanted from almost any area of exposed flesh, and there were plenty of victims on whom to experiment.

The last thing he wanted was for Lerric to investigate the outbreak of nasty sores among his swordsmen. Not that the client king himself would be immune from Reen’s control should he prove troublesome, and it was this concern that made the scarecrow so keen to bind Lerric’s daughter to him legally. Once Elias’s inconvenient visit was over, Reen would hold the marriage ceremony as soon as possible.

He smiled at the thought. He would have no trouble convincing Sofira. She was ready to give herself to him, although she’d get more than she anticipated on her wedding night—much, much more.

Around midmorning, Reen summoned two of his new servants. As the swordsmen stood before him, the red-haired and the black-haired, he noted the tremble of their limbs. They remembered their ordeal of the night before only as a dimly perceived sense of terror. Reen had been careful to ensure they would be incapable of giving him away, especially if any of Elias’s men should question them. So although they went in terror of him and were bound irrevocably to his control and his will, they knew nothing damning about their condition, nothing that could implicate Reen. They would remember and act upon what he told them, not what they saw with their eyes.

Pleased with his night’s work, Reen gave the two men their instructions. He had thought long and hard about Elias’s visit and how he could turn it to his advantage, and he’d decided on a course of action that would eventually guarantee the architect of all his woes, the one true enemy of his God, would be brought before him. Scarcely able to contain his glee at the torment he intended to inflict, Reen sent his minions away, a deep ruby glint suffusing his ruined eyes.

D
enny and his band continued their sweep of Loxton Forest, finding more evidence of the brigands’ activities. Pieces of carriage, wrenched apart for their valuable decoration; discarded scraps of clothing, stripped of gold thread and jeweled adornment; even parts of the horses’ harness scattered among brambles and snowdrifts. Some of these items were clumsily hidden, but most were just tossed aside once their valuable parts were removed. The night’s snowfall had clearly been trusted to cover the wanton destruction.

The trail was leading them nearer a confluence with the southern section of the forest, the part allocated to Ardoch and his men. Denny guessed the brigands had taken the coach deeper into the forest, away from the main trail where they’d waylaid Sir Regus, and that they had probably decided to go separate ways or perhaps quarreled over sharing the spoils. He imagined each one grabbing and tearing in an effort to secure some small piece of gold or silver, tossing away the valueless remains as they went.

They would have known they wouldn’t be pursued until dawn. They’d want to have gleaned all they could by the time day broke and then they could either hide their haul until the furor died down, or quit the forest for the nearest town.

In Denny’s opinion, the latter was more likely. Loxton Forest was a cold and comfortless place in winter and any self-respecting brigand would rather be by a warm tavern fire supping the results of his efforts rather than camping in cold caves awaiting reprisals by the King’s Guard. He wasn’t hopeful of their capture.

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A
rdoch and his twenty men were having less success than Denny. They had seen no evidence to indicate the site of Sir Regus’s ordeal or the bandits’ trail. They did scare up a small herd of deer, disturb a flock of ravens tearing noisily at the frozen corpse of a fox, and creep up on what a scout reported to be the ruffians’ camp, but which turned out to be three peasants from the local village searching for firewood. Ardoch sent the peasants on their way, advising them of the dangers of staying in the forest with an unpredictable group of ruffians on the loose. The Torlander sent his men back to the search, muttering unflattering opinions of scouts who couldn’t tell woodcutters from brigands.

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A
round midday, Denny’s scout gave a yell and the Major halted his band. He could see the scout returning, but the man didn’t appear to be in distress or fear. Denny sat his horse and waited.

The swordsman drew his mount alongside. “I’ve found what remains of the coach, Major. The axles, wheels, and the main structure have been abandoned on the trail just ahead. It’s been completely stripped out, even down to the gold tassels on the cushions. It’s little better than firewood now, not worth saving. But there are fresh hoof prints around it, and horse droppings. I’d say the ruffians were here not much more than an hour ago. I reckon they dragged the coach here in the early morning, ripping it up as they went, and then abandoned it to take the horses and whatever else they’d stolen to the nearest town. We can’t be far behind them.”