Down Among the Dead Men (Forest Kingdom Novels) (7 page)

“Can you use your Sight to find the outlaw?”

The witch shook her head. “My Sight is still clouded by whatever’s here in the fort with us. If we were to go out into the Forest, I might be able to help you track him down.”

MacNeil shook his head. “We’d never find Scarecrow Jack in the dark, and by morning he could be miles away.” He looked thoughtfully up at the battlements. “If he could get over that wall, so could anyone else. We’d better keep our eyes and ears open.”

“Perhaps I’m missing something,” said Constance, “but why should a footpad like Scarecrow Jack want to break in here? What could he be looking for, in a border fort?”

“I was wondering that,” said Flint. “This isn’t the kind of thing he usually does, according to all the stories. It’s not his style at all. Is there something here we don’t know about, Duncan? Something we haven’t been told?”

MacNeil smiled slightly. “Nothing much escapes you, does it, Jessica? All right, let’s get back to the dining hall, and I’ll tell you the whole story. I don’t want to talk out here. You never know who might be listening.

Back in the dining hall, MacNeil pulled up a chair and gestured for the others to do the same. He waited patiently while they got settled, and then leaned forward.

“One of the reasons we’re here,” he said slowly, “is to find out what happened to the hundred thousand ducats of gold this fort was supposed to be guarding.” He looked around at the others and smiled as he watched their jaws drop.

“A hundred thousand ducats,” said Flint reverently. “That is one hell of a lot of gold.”

“Damn right,” said MacNeil. “It’s the payroll for all the border forts in this sector. It was only supposed to stay here overnight, while arrangements were made for it to be broken up and distributed, but unfortunately that turned out to be the night the fort broke off all contact with the outside world. You can imagine the heart flutters that caused at Court. So, officially we’re here to find out what happened to the fort’s missing personnel, but we’re also supposed to find the gold and make sure it’s intact and secure. You can guess which of those orders has top priority.”

“That’s why you insisted we check every room earlier on,” said Flint.

“Right,” said MacNeil.

The Dancer looked at him steadily. “Why weren’t we told any of this before?”

MacNeil smiled and shrugged. “They don’t know you like I do. Anyway, I’m telling you now. If Scarecrow AJack has somehow found out about the gold, you can bet he’s not working on his own anymore. He couldn’t even move that much gold without help.”

“How do we know it hasn’t already been moved?” said Flint.

“The odds are against it,” said MacNeil. “All the signs would seem to suggest that we’re the first people to have entered this fort since … whatever happened.”

Constance frowned. “Scarecrow Jack usually works alone. And I’ve never heard of him being interested in gold.”

“Everyone’s interested in gold,” said Flint.

“Not Jack,” said Constance. “He’s different.”

MacNeil looked at her. “You know Scarecrow Jack?”

“I met him, once,” said Constance. “A few years back I was searching for mandrake roots not far from here, and I got lost. Jack found me and showed me the way back to the main trail. He was very polite, very sweet, and extremely shy. I liked him. He’s a simple enough soul, happy with the life he leads. The Forest gives him everything he needs. But … I suppose anyone can be tempted.”

“Exactly,” said MacNeil. “So, we’ve got to find the gold, or what happened to it, before Jack gets back here with his friends. For all we know, there could be a small army out there, just waiting for him to report back.”

The Dancer looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “We’d have a hard job defending this place against even a very small army.”

MacNeil shrugged. “All we have to do is keep them away from the gold for a few days, and then the reinforcements will be here. But to do that, we’ve got to find the damned gold first.”

“All right,” said Flint. “Where do we start? We’ve already looked everywhere once.”

“Yeah,” said MacNeil. “Which means we must have overlooked something … some clue. So we’ll just have to search every room and corridor and hidey-hole all over again, and keep on looking until we do find something.”

“Now?” said Constance. “At night?”

MacNeil looked at her sardonically. “Still bothered by your dream, Constance? Afraid the nasty demons are going to jump out of the shadows at you?”

Constance looked at him steadily. “You can be very irritating at times, Duncan. Something here in this fort drove the people insane, so that they killed themselves and each other. It’s still here, and it’s still dangerous. And evil is at its strongest during the hours of darkness.”

“I’m sorry, Constance,” said MacNeil, “but there’s no real evidence for any of that.” “My Sight—”

“Is clouded here. You said so yourself.”

“You’d have believed Salamander!”

For a long moment no one said anything.

“The sooner we start this search, the sooner we’ll be finished,” said MacNeil quietly. “We’ll make better time if we split into two teams. The first one to find anything sings out. Flint, you and the Dancer start at the entrance hall. Check it over thoroughly, even if you have to rip the walls apart to do it. Then start working your way back, room by room. Constance and I will Start here and work our way out to meet you. Between us, we should cover every room in the fort.”

“It’s going to be a long job,” said the Dancer.

“Then we’d better make a start, hadn’t we?” said MacNeil.

CHAPTER THREE

Wolves in the Forest

Scarecrow Jack moved through the dark woods like a speckled ghost, his feet making no sound as they trod a path only he could see. Jack was a part of the Forest and knew its secret ways. Trees loomed over him like sleeping giants, their gnarled arms stirring uneasily in the gusting wind. Milky shafts of moonlight spilled through occasional gaps in the overhead canopy, and collected in shimmering pools on the forest floor. Jack stopped suddenly and dropped down to crouch motionless in the shadows. Something was wrong in the Forest. He sniffed cautiously at the air, but only familiar scents came to him: the sharp, taut smells of bark and leaf, and the rich smoky aroma of broken earth. Jack concentrated on his inner magic, the simple basic accord between him and the trees. There was a storm coming, a bad one by the feel of it, but he already knew that from the afternoon clouds and the closeness of the air. Something was
wrong
in the Forest … something old and terrible had been disturbed from its ancient sleep… .

There were giants in the earth in those days
.

Something evil was abroad in the night. The birds and the animals knew. The night should have been alive with the small, furtive sounds of hunters and their prey, but instead the darkness was still and silent, and animals and birds alike huddled together in their lairs and waited for the evil to pass.

Jack frowned, worried. How could such an evil have awakened in the Forest without him being aware of it before now? And then he smiled grimly as he realized he already knew the answer. He’d been so taken up with his new partners of late that he’d had no time for anything but them. Half the Forest could have burned down, and he wouldn’t have noticed it till he smelled the smoke. Jack sighed regretfully. He wasn’t happy with the way things were, but for the moment he was powerless to do anything about it. He’d just have to wait and keep his eyes open. His eyes … or someone else’s. He grinned broadly as an answer came to him. He stood up and closed his eyes, cast his mind out among the tall trees, calling in a soundless shout. He opened his eyes and waited patiently, and a few minutes later a flurry of whiteness came sweeping through the night toward him like a silent ghost. Jack put up his arm at the last moment, and the owl landed heavily on his forearm and settled itself comfortably. The claws pricked his arm through the thin rags, but didn’t penetrate his skin. The owl looked at him seriously, and Jack met its great golden eyes with his own. An understanding passed between them.

He was flying through the Forest, gliding on outstretched wings. The night was unnaturally quiet, and an evil presence beat in the darkness like a giant heart. He turned in the evil’s direction and flew toward it, curious. The trees swayed by on either side of him and then fell suddenly away as he burst out of the Forest and into the clearing. Moonlight flared around him like a shout of thunder as he fluttered to a halt in midair. A great pile of stone and wood lay at the center of the clearing—the border fort. Once he would have used it as a resting place or a nesting ground. But not now. The evil was there, waiting. A great eye crawled slowly open deep in the darkness, and the owl turned and fled back to the safety of the tall trees and Jack was suddenly himself again, the contact broken.

He lifted his arm, and the owl flew back into the darkness and was gone. Jack frowned thoughtfully. While in the border fort his senses had been dulled by the unyielding presence of the human world, but now that he was back in the Forest all his instincts cried out against entering the fort again. Unfortunately, he no longer had a choice in the matter. Jack shrugged and padded off into the trees, accelerating slowly into a steady lope he could maintain for hours if he had to. He was already late, and Hammer hated to be kept waiting. Jack smiled widely. There were a lot of things about Jack that Hammer hated.

His smile vanished as he thought about Jonathon Hammer. The man might be a cold bastard, but he’d undoubtedly saved Jack’s life, and Scarecrow Jack always paid his debts. He scowled briefly. It was his own damned fault for getting caught off guard in the first place. A simple little hole-in-the-ground trap, disguised and baited, and he fell for it. Literally. If Hammer hadn’t come along at just the right time, the guards would have had him for sure, and Scarecrow Jack’s head would have stood on a pike in the nearest market square as a warning to others.

Jack ran on through the night, brushing noiselessly past the hanging branches of the close-set trees. Too many of them were dead and rotten, a legacy of the Darkwood. Jack felt their presence like an ache in his soul, a barely cauterized wound in the Forest. Normally he would have stopped and checked each one for signs of life or regrowth, but tonight he didn’t have the time. A flickering light appeared in the darkness ahead, and he slowed to a walk. He moved silently forward and crouched motionless in the shadows at the edge of a clearing. Jack watched Hammer striding impatiently up and down beside a blazing camp fire, and tried to figure out how he was going to make Hammer understand about the fort.

Jonathon Hammer was a tall, muscular man with impressively broad shoulders. He was in his late thirties and looked it. He wore his dark hair short, brushed forward to hide a receding hairline. His eyes were deceptively warm, as was his smile, but for all his efforts there was a cold, vindictive quality to his face that never left it. He wore a simple leather vest over a white cotton shirt, and plain black trousers stuffed into the tops of his muddy boots. By his dress he could have been anything from a trader to a clerk to a bailiff, but the long sword hanging diagonally down his back marked him for the warrior he was. Hammer was a good six and a half feet tall, but the hilt of the sword stood up beside his head, while the tip of the scabbard was almost long enough to brush the ground behind him. It was the longest sword Jack had ever seen, and from the width of the scabbard it looked like a heavy sword as well, but Hammer moved easily with it on his back, as though unaware of its presence. He also carried another sword on his hip, but though he occasionally took that off, Jack had never seen him remove the longsword from his back. He even slept with it on.

In his time, Hammer had apparently been most kinds of soldier. He’d served as a mercenary for hire, a baron’s man-at-arms, and as one of the king’s guards, but he’d always been too ambitious and greedy for his own good. Wherever he went, sooner or later he’d start a still, or a crooked gambling school, or fight an officer he didn’t like, and then he would be off on his travels again. It was on one of these that he’d found the longsword, but that was one part of his life he never talked about.

Most recently he’d been part of a company of guards escorting a wagon load of gold to the border fort. He’d never seen so much gold in one place before, and it had filled his dreams ever since. With that much gold he could raise his own army of mercenaries and take the Forest Kingdom by storm. King Jonathon the First … Jack smiled. Hammer never had believed in thinking small. He’d stayed with the guards just long enough to see the gold safely delivered and stored, and then he deserted and took to the Forest, lying low while he plotted some way to take the gold for himself. But that night something had happened in the fort.

Hammer had stood at the edge of the clearing, listening to the screams, but hadn’t dared investigate alone. He watched the fort for the next few days, but there were no signs of life. It took him awhile to track down the archer called Wilde, and acquire the services of Scarecrow Jack, but he apparently regarded it as time well spent. With those two at his side, he’d been ready to face anything the fort could throw at him.

Unfortunately, the Rangers got there first.

Jack crouched in the shadows at the edge of the outlaws’ clearing, and studied Hammer and Wilde with narrowed eyes. Delay was dangerous; the later he was, the more Hammer would make him suffer for it. And yet still Jack hesitated. He needed time to think about the two men he’d become allied with. Hammer was one thing. He owed Hammer. But Wilde …

Edmond Wilde was sitting on the other side of the fire, hungrily gnawing a greasy chicken leg. He was tall and lanky, somewhere in his late twenties, and dressed all in shabby black. He had a thin face with dark, close-set eyes, and in the darkness he looked not unlike an unsuccessful vulture. His black hair was long and greasy, and he was constantly tossing his head to clear the hair out of his eyes. His movements were awkward and furtive, as though he was ashamed to draw attention to himself. But put a bow or a sword in his hand, and he was a different man. His back straightened, his eyes became cold and alert, and an aura of menace hung around him like a shroud. Wilde was almost as good with a bow as he thought he was, which meant he was a master bowman.

The bow lay on the ground at his side, unstrung so as not to stretch the cord. It was a Forest longbow, almost seven feet in length. Jack had tried to pull it once when Wilde wasn’t around, and found he could hardly bend the thing using all his strength. Since Wilde wasn’t exactly muscle-bound, Jack assumed there had to be some trick to it. He would have liked to ask Wilde, but he didn’t. Wilde wasn’t the kind you could ask things of. He had been on the run when Hammer found him, though he’d never said from what. Given what Jack had seen of the man’s tastes and attitudes, Wilde was probably wanted for rape or murder. Or both.

The archer never talked about his background, but though his clothes were patched and filthy, they had originally been of a fairly high quality. His language was unfailingly coarse and vulgar, but the accent was often decidedly upper-class. Not that that proved anything. The only thing Jack was sure of where Wilde was concerned was that the man was a complete swine. The bowman all but worshiped Hammer as long as he was in earshot, but had all the loyalty of a starving weasel. Hammer kept him in line by fear and brutality. Wilde seemed to accept this as normal behavior where he was concerned. Jack smiled sourly. He could understand that. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing wrong with Wilde that hanging wouldn’t cure. He was a loud-mouthed, hypocritical, vicious bastard—nasty when drunk and unbearable when sober. He’d steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes, and then complain because there weren’t more of them. But still he was a master bowman, and Hammer said he has a use for him, so he stayed.

Jack sighed again. Of all the people in the world he could have become obligated to, it had to be Jonathon Hammer. He shrugged and padded out of the trees and into the clearing.

Wilde jumped, startled, and scrambled to his feet with his hand on his sword. He scowled shamefacedly when he saw who it was, and sank down beside the fire again.

“Our noble savage is back,” he growled to Hammer. Hammer ignored him and glared silently at Jack. He hadn’t even stirred when Jack made his dramatic entrance, but his eyes were very cold. “You took your time,” he said finally.

“It’s a big fort,” said Jack. “I looked everywhere, but there’s no sign of any of the gold. There are no bodies either, just a lot of blood. It’s been there some time. I got a good look at the Rangers who are staying there, but they spotted me, and I had to run for it.”

Hammer frowned. “Did they see enough of you to recognize who you are?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“That was careless of you,” said Hammer. “Very careless.”

He rose unhurriedly to his feet and lashed out with the back of his hand, sending Jack sprawling to the ground. He’d seen the blow coming but hadn’t been able to dodge it in time. Hammer was fast for his size. Jack scrambled back out of range and watched Hammer warily. He could feel blood trickling out of his left nostril, and he wiped it with the back of his hand, leaving an uneven crimson stream across his knuckles. Wilde chuckled happily. Jack ignored him and stood up slowly, ignoring the pain in his face. He didn’t say anything; he couldn’t. He owed Hammer. But once he’d helped Hammer to get his precious gold, all debts would be paid, and then Scarecrow Jack would vanish into the woods so quickly it would make Hammer’s head spin… .

Hammer sat down by the fire again, and after a moment Jack sat down opposite him.

“What did you learn at the fort?” said Hammer, his voice calm and relaxed, as though the sudden violence had never happened.

“Getting in and out of the fort is easy,” said Jack, gingerly patting his nose with his sleeve. “There are only four Rangers in there, and they can’t even mount a proper night watch. I don’t think they know where the gold is, either.”

“Maybe they’ve hidden it somewhere,” said Wilde.

“I looked all over the fort,” said Jack, still looking at Hammer. “There’s no sign of the gold anywhere.”

“Just four men,” said Hammer thoughtfully.

“Two men, two women,” said Jack. “One of the women is a witch.”

Wilde stirred uneasily. “A witch.
I
don’t like magic.”

“Witches die just as easily as anyone else,” said Hammer. “Providing you haven’t lost your touch with a bow.”

Wilde smiled lazily. He picked up his bow and strung it with a quick, practiced motion. He took an arrow from the quiver lying beside him and notched it to the string. He looked unhurriedly about him, his eyes searching the darkness beyond the firelight. And then he drew back the arrow, aimed, and let fly, all in a single fluid motion too fast for the eye to follow. A white owl fell out of the darkness and into the clearing, transfixed by Wilde’s arrow. It wriggled feebly on the clearing floor, blood staining its snowy breast. Jack darted over to kneel beside it. The bird’s struggles were already growing weaker. It looked reproachfully at Jack.

“You shouldn’t have followed me, my friend,” said Jack quietly. “I’m mixing with bad company these days.”

He took hold of the shaft just below the flight and snapped the arrow in two before pulling out the pieces as smoothly as he could. The owl hooted once softly and then was quiet. Fresh blood welled out from the ugly wound. Jack placed his left palm over the wound and closed his eyes. His mind went out to the Forest, and the trees gave him their strength. He took that strength, channeled it through him, and let it flow gently into the injured owl. The blood stopped flowing, and the wound knitted itself together and was gone. Jack opened his eyes and leaned back on his haunches. Magic took a lot out of him. The owl struggled back to its feet. It swayed unsteadily a moment, getting used to not dying after all, gave Jack a hard look, and then spread its wings and flew back into the familiar darkness of the Forest night.