"Don't!" was the last word he managed to speak.
"Our patron has great plans for you," Ubad said to him. "A bride and a daughter."
Pain smothered awareness until it, too, numbed in a growing chill that filled Welstiel's body more quickly than darkness filled his sight.
When his eyes opened again, he was lying on the floor of his room in his own feces and urine, stinking like an unwashed peasant after his dying body released its waste. It took moments for him to realize he no longer breathed, and panic made him suck in a mouthful of air.
Breath brought no calm-or any effect at all. His body felt cold and distant as the stone walls of his room.
Heightened anxiety widened his senses. He heard the thrum of a spider as it worked its web in the ceiling corner. He sat up, clothing sticking to him with filth, and he saw his father and Ubad by the door, watching him. At their feet was a grimy peasant girl, bound and gagged, eyes wild with fear. How long had he lain in this room?
Welstiel felt the girl's body heat.
The sight of her… the scent of her warmed flesh made him feel… starved.
"Come, my son," Bryen said. "Instinct will guide you. Put aside thought of last night. There will be time enough for that. Now, you must feed."
Welstiel could not remember his father ever speaking to him with this mild taint of compassion. The night before, he would have given much for a kind word. Now he did not care for anything…
… only the warm flesh beneath the girl's jaw where it flexed with the soft rhythm of her pulse.
He crawled at first, forgetting the stench of his own flesh, and then scrambled like an animal on all fours, rushing across the room. The girl squirmed in her bonds. She tried to scream through the gag as he fell on her, sinking his teeth into her throat until blood flowed into his clumsy mouth.
Strength and comfort filled him, and then a peace that was wholly unsettling. He stopped gulping and slowly swallowed the pleasure on his tongue.
When Welstiel could take in no more, he raised his head to look down at the body clenched in his arms.
The girl's eyes were open. Her jaw slacked around the gag. Her throat was a torn and mangled mess, and blood had run across her face and soaked into her loose dress. Her heart beat twice and stopped.
Welstiel looked down at himself. His shirt was soaked with blood. His heightened sense of smell took in its coppery scent amid the stench of his own wastes. He dropped the corpse and rolled away to huddle on the floor by the bed.
"What have you done to me?" he cried.
But Welstiel knew the answer. There would be no return to light and life. Nothing in his arcane arts could ever rectify this.
"How could you?" he whispered.
Ubad glided to Welstiel's desk and poured fresh water into a basin. He picked up clean towels and came to Welstiel.
"Remove those clothes and clean yourself. Your father needs you."
"Get away from me. Both of you."
"Do as he says," Bryen ordered. "Your bride is waiting."
Chapter 14
W inter was not far off, and dense muck upon the roads made the journey to Apudalsat longer than expected. Or so it seemed.
The first time Wynn insisted upon taking her turn at the reins, Leesil was surprised, and Magiere was openly concerned. Did they think her so helpless that she couldn't drive a team of gentle, well-trained horses?
"I'm not so sure-," Leesil started.
"I have spent more time with horses than you have. " Wynn cut him off. "And with far less complaint about them."
Leesil scowled at her and crawled into the wagon's back to give her room to come forward. Wynn climbed onto the wagon's bench, taking the reins Magiere held out. When Magiere stayed upon the seat beside her, Wynn shot her a glare…
"I will be fine," she said in an overly polite tone. "You should take some rest, as well."
"I'm not tired," Magiere answered, eyes ahead on the road.
She had barely spoken those words when Wynn jumped as Leesil wrapped his arms around Magiere's waist.
"Hey!" Magiere snapped, but it was too late.
Leesil heaved, and Wynn ducked aside as Magiere tumbled backward into the wagon's bed.
"Leesil, dammit!" Magiere snarled. "What do you think?"
That was all she said, and Wynn did not look back to see how Leesil had silenced her. Leesil's mood, if not Magiere's, had oddly improved since the morning they left KЈonsk.
Chap scrambled up on the bench beside Wynn and settled there with a low grumble.
Aside from this one moment, their passage was peaceful, though the nights grew colder and the roads more troublesome as they reached the marshy region of eastern Droevinka. They pressed on for several days, sometimes starting before dawn and not stopping until well after dusk.
Like Leesil's, Chap's demeanor had altered. He was not his old self, begging or grouching about meals, but he had become more compliant. No longer growling each time Magiere mentioned their journey's purpose, he remained silent. Wynn was uncertain what disturbed her more, his change of attitude or his constant watchfulness as he gazed all day into the thickening wilderness. She often tried to discern what he watched at any particular moment. She saw little, hearing only croaking frogs, an occasional plop of something surfacing in a pond or marsh, or the far-off screech of a bird. The stench of a bog assaulted her nose now and again.
Near dusk on the seventh day, Leesil was at the reins when he pointed ahead.
At first, Wynn could not spot what he wanted them to see. Against the gray-white clouds, the distant skyline was only just visible through trees along the open road stretched out before them. Far ahead was a dark knob like the jut of a barren rock mesa, its top peeking above the trees on a tall hill. Wynn recognized it as the crest of a keep.
Magiere's eyes followed to where Leesil pointed.
Sympathy wrestled with wariness in Wynn when she saw Magiere's anxious expression. Each piece of Magiere's past found so far promised the next to be darker still. It was not long before they crossed a stone-and-timber bridge spanning another of the many sluggish streams.
The water was clogged with dead branches and masses of sprouting reeds, and the road beyond climbed a large rise in the land. Down a short side path to the right were the remnants of an empty village. Thatch or timber roofs were pocked with holes or had collapsed entirely. A small stable at the village's near end had a broken fence. Cottage doors were ajar or missing.
No one in the wagon said a word as they passed the village of Apudalsat.
Leesil had earlier said its name meant "water downs village" and the reason was apparent as the main road swerved toward the keep and met with another bridge. This one was a long mound of piled stone and packed earth that spanned a wide pond turned green with floating scum. The village was situated on a rise in the marshland, with filmy water, bogs, and quagmires on all sides of it. Once they crossed over, the road straightened, and the keep loomed before them as they crested its hill. Leesil pulled the horses to a stop, and they all climbed out.
Wynn grabbed her pack and approached the keep before the others finished gathering what they needed. She had searched a few abandoned buildings and strongholds with Domin Tilswith, but nothing quite like this. The keep near Magiere's village was well mended by comparison.
Half the wooden gate in the outer stockade had rotted away long ago, and the remaining half was dank with decay.
The main building's top had crumbled, leaving large moss-covered stones embedded in the courtyard around it.
Wynn looked back toward the deserted village, but she couldn't see it through the forest. "What happened here?"
"Civil war, famine, perhaps sickness that swept through long ago," Leesil said. "Any of these could leave a fief without enough people to carry on work to support it. And it's certainly not a prized piece of land. Who knows what the main livelihood was here."