Chapter 21 Aubert
Aubert
As evening drew close, we neared the inn Lucas had said was another hour’s walk ahead, traversing thinning woods.
In that last hour, Comrade had told us that we were perhaps two days away from the capital. He cocked his head as though listening, glanced at me, and then indicated his desire to walk ahead. Milord was still stretching her legs, and it was clear she had some business with Benoit.
If Comrade was signaling to me to join him, I certainly would. It was becoming increasingly clear that I was not the only one in the group with secrets.
No longer the newest of the men, for Matteo fulfilled that role, I had nonetheless been slow to fall into an easy rhythm with them.
They did not trust me, and I could not fault them that.
Except for Milord, who seemed perhaps too trusting, though she could count on all of us to react quickly and strongly if danger presented itself.
I had to admit that I found Milord enticing, and I hoped that I would get to see her female face.
She had never been anything but unfailingly polite to me, and though I found myself in agreement with Guillaume that many nobles and royals could not be trusted, her steady friendship was beginning to win me over.
“Do you hear anything unusual on our path ahead, friend Aubert?” Comrade asked.
I nodded, my lips set in a grim expression. I tried to describe what I had heard, even if I lacked the words for it.
“There is an unknown danger, one of which I have not heard the likes of before. It rends the sky with wings, and plucks victims from the ground, and leaves them many leagues from whence it took them. Sometimes they are still alive at that point, most times not.”
Comrade whickered softly.
“Such things are not unheard of in the faerie realm, but in the human realm? That poses a grave risk to us and our quest. I suspect my patroness would have warned me if we were to encounter such a beast, and she has not, but it would be beneficial to be on our guard.”
I relayed this message to the rest of the men, and was working on a diplomatic way to tell Milord to be prepared for an encounter with something strange…
…when we walked into the clearing.
At first I thought we were not alone, and I halted in my tracks to remove as many sounds as possible from my ears. I could hear my own heartbeat, and those of the five humans and the horse traveling in my party.
But my eyes perceived other human forms. Four of them, arrayed in the clearing as though they were playing a game of Scatter and Seek.
There were no other heartbeats, though.
I heard Guillaume’s blades before I saw them glint in the late afternoon sunlight.
“Cover her eyes,” he growled.
If Matteo did not suspect by now, surely he knew upon hearing this phrase uttered. What would we have to do with our most talkative new member, to keep his tongue in check so as not to spill all our secrets?
But it was too late; I looked and saw that Lucas was rooted to the spot, his eyes large and perturbed. If he had acted immediately, perhaps he would have been able to reach Milord in time.
To shield her eyes. And guard her heart.
I was not prepared for the sight of it either.
One man’s torso was upright, the height it should have been if it had had legs still attached. This was because it was impaled on the tall stump of a tree, with jagged protruding chunks of wood. Perhaps it had been struck by lightning, to gnarl its trunk so…or perhaps it had been something worse.
Another man’s torso was prone on the ground. Its legs—or another person’s legs—were nearby, detached, angled against any logic that the joints should have permitted.
A woman’s entire corpse was a jumble of bones and flesh, organs spilling out onto the dirt. Or rather, mud, since the ground had been churned up and made wet, now a dark reddish brown, no doubt sticky to the touch.
Tattered cloth also hung from some branches, most of it soaked in so much blood as to be a deep, dark red, giving no clue as to what the original colors had been.
I could hear the flies beginning to assemble, even though these corpses were very fresh; one or two drops of blood escaped their bounded arteries still, perceptible to my ears as one sound in the mix. A drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The last body was small. It had been a child. But all that remained was the body, no head in sight.
Somehow, that was worse.
As one, our eyes sought the figure of the Chevalier atop Comrade, watching as she took in the gory scene. Suddenly Lucas was at her side to support her as she swayed, but she did not fall.
Admiration blossomed in my heart as she drew herself up tall in her saddle…
only to lean over the side and retch, fortunately not hitting Lucas, as he managed to dart out of the path of her vomit while still supporting her somewhat.
Faerie gifts do indeed come in handy, I mused, inasmuch as they might complicate our lives.
Benoit was barking orders before Lucas flashed back to the Chevalier’s side.
He, Guillaume, and Matteo were to dig graves; I was to forage for calming herbs, either to be used in a bath or a tisane. Lucas would run ahead to the inn he had scouted earlier.
There was one part of the plan I disliked: the urgency of arrival, and what it would require.
Stepping around to the side of Comrade that was clear of vomit, I leaned into the horse’s ear to whisper: “May I ride with you and Milord to the inn?”
He flicked an ear rapidly, in what I was beginning to learn was annoyance.
“You may. I am strong enough to carry you both with little exertion. But do not become accustomed to it, as I am dedicated to the Chevalier more than to any of you.”
With that, I set about a quick foraging job, muttering under my breath at the commotion the others were making, since it obscured the sounds of the leaves I needed to find.
Comrade had set off at a slow walk already, and so I conducted and concluded my search with haste, my fingertips stinging from digging in the dirt so quickly.
I managed to catch up and then hoist myself atop Comrade without dislodging Milord.
I gently wrapped my hands around her to steady myself; normally I would have wanted to talk first, hear the consent on her breath, so subtle that many people never manage to hear it.
She was not talking, though, and if I had not heard her heartbeat, a little more erratic than usual but not dangerously so, I would have feared greatly for her.
On the brief ride, I tried to put the impromptu grave-digging from my mind. I had spent plenty of time digging in the dirt before, to be sure…but only to get things out, never to put things in.
The prospect of reversing my normal order of operations chilled me, even as I knew it was long overdue.
I had left corpses in my wake.
Even if I had not murdered them, someone else had.
Even if I had not buried them, someone else would have.
Our arrival jostled me from my thoughts. Lucas helped me get Milord inside and undressed. I would have left, or turned my head, but Lucas looked at me with a plea in his eyes, and I found that I could not resist.
We eased Milord into the bath, and I marveled at her in her woman’s form, delicate and beautiful, not unlike some of the flowers I had cultivated.
“I must return to help the others,” Lucas said glumly. He then glanced rapidly between me and Milord, a question in his eyes.
“I will stay with her,” I murmured. He nodded with gratitude, then was gone.
I was not going to touch her, not at first. Putting the herbs I’d chosen into the bath, and keeping some back for a tisane later, occupied my attention.
I had turned my back to give her privacy, but then I heard something I had never before heard in my life: her skin turning to gooseflesh as she chilled.
The flick of each hair standing upright, displacing the water in such minute ways that no human without a faerie gift could have possibly perceived it.
There was only one way someone could be cold in a hot bath: if they were going into shock. And even knowing that I did not deserve her, that this was not how I wanted our bodies to first meet, I knew that I could provide something she needed.
I stripped off my muddy clothing and got into the bath with her, cradling her cold body to me.