A guard yelled back at the tower door, a mastiff snarled and was cut off. There were grunts, the sound of something metal clanging violently into the wall.
Argoth turned and looked at the gate, but the shadows obscured everything.
Something dark flashed in the corner of his vision and dropped from the sky. It thudded to the ground not two paces from where Argoth stood. At first Argoth thought it was a pile of rags, and then he realized it was one of the mastiffs that had been guarding the tower door.
It lay in a broken heap.
16
A thundering crack sounded from the base of the tower. A dim light briefly shone where the door should be. Argoth thought he heard Droz’s roar, but almost as soon as it started, all fell silent again and the light vanished.
There was no moaning that would suggest someone had been injured. No movement. Nothing but moon shadows and the monstrous dog at his feet.
Argoth drew his sword and began to increase the flow of his Fire.
Hogan walked over to the dog and pushed at it with one toe. “She said she wasn’t part of a dark grove.”
“That is what she said.”
Purity had a past with the lore before she came to the Order, just as Argoth did. He had broken all ties with his former masters. Was it possible she had not? “Be ready for anything,” Argoth said.
A guard called down from the battlements. “Ho? What’s about?”
They ignored the guard.
Hogan took off his mantle and laid it over his saddle. Then he removed the Hog from its bindings. The blade of the weapon shone with a dull gleam in the moonlight.
They moved forward, but could take more than a few steps before Argoth stumbled across three bodies, all of them broken and lying in a heap like the dog. He found a dead guard a few paces farther, and another. When he reached the small wall, he saw the tower door hung ajar.
Someone or some thing with immense power had come through here. Oh, Purity, he thought. Secrets within secrets.
“A breach!” Argoth yelled up. “Breach!”
The guard on the battlements took up the alarm.
Hogan pushed the door open with the business end of his Hog.
Inside two lamps had fallen and spilled their oil onto the floor. Two pools burned. The dim light revealed guards lying in broken heaps. Droz was among them. There was no blood, but the gruesome angle at which he lay told them all they needed to know.
Shouts rose in the courtyard. But Argoth couldn’t wait for those men. Besides, they would probably meet the same fate as their comrades. A dreadman of a high level might have been able to cause such carnage. But how fast must the man have been moving to dispatch all these men with hardly a sound?
“Let’s try to take this one alive,” said Hogan. He picked up a lamp. “I’ll go first.”
They approached the pitch-black chamber that led to the stair. Nothing.
Something crashed below, then silence.
“Hurry,” said Hogan and began his descent, Argoth close on his heels. They could not move as fast as he’d like because the movement would extinguish the lamps.
They took the second set of steps three and four at a time, their flames guttering with the movement. Hogan’s lamp blew out. Argoth didn’t expect that to be a problem because whoever had forced his way in would have a light. But he was mistaken. They soon found themselves facing the open doorway to the cleansing room, and all inside was as dark as ink.
They heard Purity’s frightened voice from inside. “What do you want?” she said in terror.
It wasn’t her words that stopped him. It was the fact that the intruder hadn’t brought a light. Who would have come down without a lamp?
Hogan turned and relit his lamp with Argoth’s flame, then stepped through the doorway. Argoth followed.
Hogan held his lamp aloft. There on the floor lay the door to Purity’s cell. It had been wrenched completely out of its fittings. Argoth looked at the cell itself and saw someone large hunkered over her. Purity struggled in his grasp.
The man seemed not to have heard Argoth and Hogan approach. Hogan changed his grip on the Hog. But it was too dark to see clearly. They needed light. Argoth spotted a small pile of straw used for the cells lying in a heap to one side. He kicked a portion of it away then lit it with his lamp. When it ignited, he threw his lamp down into the middle of it, cracking the lamp and spilling the oil about.
The fire flared, illuminating the room and the back of the rough figure.
By this time, Hogan had approached the cell. He stood, lamp in one hand, axe held high with the other. “Put her down,” he commanded.
The man supported Purity with one arm and with the other fingered the king’s collar around her neck. Her blanket had fallen to the floor to expose her injured and bandaged body. Purity struck at the man, but she was so weak her blows had no power.
The huge man wore an odd cloak of grass. But then he turned, and Argoth saw it was not a man. It was nothing like anything Argoth had ever seen. The grass he’d thought was a cloak was part of the creature, some patches whole, some burned. Then it opened its too-wide mouth and took in a ragged breath.
“Purity,” demanded Hogan. “You said there was no dark grove.”
A terrible fear lit her eyes. “Run,” she said. “It’s full of souls.”
Hunger had tried to devour Purity like he had all the others, but the thing at her neck fought him. It stunk of the men’s magic. As he tried to feel along its weave to untangle it, the word for what it was came to him; it surfaced from the murky waters of his mind like a giant fish. It was a king’s collar, something forged in the secret fires of the Kains that could prevent even a Divine from using magic. He marveled for a moment-how could Barg, a common butcher, know such things? He couldn’t, shouldn’t know such things. Unless Barg wasn’t the only man he’d eaten.
He looked more closely at the collar. If such a thing could harness a Divine, it might be able to harness a Mother.
That thought made him hold very still. The Mother had been sleeping and shut him out. She could not know about this. He could not wake her. Hunger kept his thoughts quiet.
The Mother was going to eat his family. He knew that. No matter what he did, she would eat them. Perhaps in the end, she would eat him as well. But this collar, this might bind her up tight. After all, humans had beaten the Mothers before. She said so herself.
Humans with magic.
Hunger looked at the Sleth woman. He’d need to plan very carefully. The Mother was strong. But perhaps this time the prey, with this slip of magic, might turn the tables and catch the predator.
Someone called out from behind him. He turned and saw two men-a Mokaddian with a sword and a Koramite with an axe. Stink rolled off both of them in waves. There was the Mother’s magic, but hers was always fresh and clean. This, this was something else.
Hunger recognized the Mokaddian but couldn’t put a name to him.
Then the Koramite struck him with his axe.
The force of that blow knocked Hunger back a step. Such power surprised him. But it didn’t matter. Hunger was a man of dirt, and he caught the Koramite by the throat and held him up. He could snap him like he had the other men above.
But there would be secrets in these two men. Plenty of secrets. Some of which might show him how to defeat the Mother. He should eat them. They weren’t human. They were Sleth. In fact, by all laws he should kill them. Eating them would not make him any more abominable than he already was. And it just might prevent the Mother from working her evil further.