Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - Wyndmaster 1 (5 page)

“What the…?” the Dungeon Master began but then something heavy hit what might have been one of

the gatehouses, and the sound of splintering wood and falling stones made the dining table shudder. The

screech of the portcullis being lifted was easily identifiable.

“What’s happening, Papa?” Celeste asked with her eyes wide. “Are we under attack?”

“We’d better not be!” her father snarled. “I pay the military a goodly sum to protect my estates!”

Lord Charles pushed his chair back—the dainty piece of furniture crashing to the floor—and then stood,

tossing his napkin to the table as he strode angrily out into the hallway beyond the dining room.

“Fredericks!” he bellowed. “What is that racket?”

Celeste got shakily to her feet, her entire body trembling as she heard screams and shouts. A loud thump

sounded and then the thunder of horses’ hooves pounding over the drawbridge. She backed away from

the table—her hands over her ears—as the shouts intensified and the screaming began.

Her father came running into the room, his eyes wide. “Come, Celeste!” he shouted with a hand

outstretched toward her. “We must flee!”

“Papa, what’s going on?” Celeste asked as she took her father’s hand and he drew her toward a

tapestry hanging on the south wall.

“Barbarians, thieves!” her father snarled from between clenched teeth. He reached up with his free hand

to snatch the tapestry from its hanging rod to reveal a door in the wall Celeste had not known existed.

Just as he put his hand on the heavy round iron pull, a crossbow bolt shot past his shoulder to bury itself

in the wooden portal.

“Stay where you are!” a booming voice shouted.

Lord Charles fumbled with the door handle, scrambling to open the secret passageway and get his

daughter inside. But just as he pulled the massive door toward him, a dagger sang through the air,

narrowly missing Celeste.

“The next one goes in her back!”

Spinning around like a cornered animal, the Dungeon Master hissed, jerking his daughter behind him.

“Leave her be! She is an innocent child!”

Celeste peered around her father’s shoulder to see the room becoming overrun with warriors, all fully

armed with swords and daggers. They were a lethal-looking sight with angry faces that made her heart

quiver in her breast.

“Where is he?” one man demanded, stepping forward with his sword held out in front of him.

“I have no idea to whom you are?”

Celeste gasped as the man with the sword lunged forward and the tip of the weapon was pressed to her

father’s throat. She felt his hand jerk in hers.

“Thurston is dead,” the leader snapped. “He told us you have our commander here.” He increased the

pressure on the sword point until a fine stream of blood oozed down Lord Charles’ neck. “Where is

he?”

Trembling violently, Celeste had pushed herself close to her father’s back. Her teeth were chattering

and she was terrified. As cosseted as she was, she was not accustomed to such violent behavior. Not

once in her life had she ever heard her father raise his voice in anger until this night nor had he ever shown

any indication he was capable of the aggression being exhibited by the intruders. Her idyllic world was

crashing down around her ears and she was having a hard time coping with the drastic change.

“I don’t know of whom you are speaking,” Lord Charles stated, his chin raised. He swallowed

hard—flinching at the stinging pain touching his flesh.

Vargas DuMond turned flinty eyes to the young woman hiding behind the back of the lord of the manor

and he smiled nastily. “What say you we ask your doxie, then?”

“How dare you?” Lord Charles shrieked, eyes flaring. “This is my young daughter you slander, you

animal! Speak with respect of her or I’ll?”

“You’re no longer in charge here, you bastard,” Vargas snarled. With his free hand, he tapped the

pocket of his jerkin. “I have the authority of the Federation backing me up. Hand over the Commander

or by the grace of the gods, I’ll snatch up that tasty morsel behind you and throw her shapely ass to my

men for their pleasure!”

Celeste whimpered. She had no idea what that meant but from the stiffening of her father’s body, it was

something horrific.

“My daughter is an innocent girl,” Lord Charles said, his lips quivering. “She has never known?”

“She’ll learn quickly enough,” Vargas interrupted. “Won’t take much doing on her part to lie on the table

with her legs spread.”

Gasping, Celeste thought she would faint from the vulgarity of the man’s words. She could feel her

father’s body trembling with rage and his hand tightened on hers.

“Leave my girl be and I’ll take you to him,” the Dungeon Master said.

The leader stepped back, taking the sword point from Lord Charles's throat. “Then do it before I hike

her skirts up o’er her head.”

Releasing his daughter’s hand with some effort?for Celeste did not want to relinquish the only safety she

felt?her father took her by the shoulders and looked into her terrified eyes.

“Be brave, child,” her father said. “I’ll allow no harm to come to you.”

“Papa, I don’t understand. What’s happening?” she said as tears fell down her pale cheeks. “Who are

they looking for?”

Lord Charles put a hand to his daughter’s cheek. “Stay here. I’ll?”

“She comes with us,” the leader snapped.

“No!” the Dungeon Master thundered, spinning around to direct a steely glower at Vargas. “She is too

young and innocent to see?”

“Then it’s time she grew up and took a good look at what her sire is, don’t you think?” MacDougal

interrupted.

“I will not have my child subjected to?”

“Bring her,” Vargas said, snaking out a hand to grab Lord Charles’ upper arm and jerking him forward.

“No! I beg you! She should not see?”

Celeste flinched as the leader backhanded her father into silence, leaning toward him and saying

something that bled the color from her parent’s features.

“Do we understand one another, milord?” the leader sneered.

Seeing her father lower his head in submission frightened Celeste even more and she could not even

begin to imagine what evil thing her father had been threatened with to render him as meek as he turned

and led the men out of the dining room.

The young man who strode up to her had a stern, hard expression on his face but he made no attempt to

put hands to Celeste. He simply cocked his head in the direction the others were going and she stumbled

away from him, wringing her hands at her waist as she walked, her steps hindered by the tears wavering

in her eyes.

It was out of the main hall, down the steps and across the night-darkened lower bailey her father led

them. The air was crisp and she shivered as the cold air wafted over her shoulders. Looking around her

she saw armed men on horseback holding her father’s people at bay, a few of those she thought might be

Dragonmoor guards lying face down on the ground, their hands behind their heads.

Other than accompanying her father to certain rooms of the main building such as the dining hall, the

chapel, solarium, and library, Celeste had never been inside the outer buildings. She knew the name of

each structure on her father’s estate and thought the upper floors of the keep were where most of the

castle’s retainers lived thus a place she had no reason to visit. But when her father took a key from his

trouser pocket, unlocked the massive door to the keep then took a burning torch from the wall to light

their way inside, she realized the place must be off limits to most of the staff for there were cobwebs

festooning the inner guardroom and the smell of mold and decay was overpowering.

“If the Commander has caught lung fever from being in this vile place…” Vargas began but MacDougal

put out a hand to restrain him.

Dank and dismal, malodorous and as cold as an artesian spring, the room through which Lord Charles

led them had the feel of death about it. It was an overpowering sensation that had the men shifting their

shoulders and Celeste putting a trembling hand to her mouth to hold back the whimper of fear that

threatened. When he unlocked a second door and started down a long curving stairway, it was all

Celeste could do not to beg her captors to allow her to stay above ground. Although her fright grew in

leaps and bounds, she was even more afraid of the burly men who kept sending her hateful glances so

she meekly followed the others, keenly aware of the man behind her bringing up the rear.

For what seemed like half an hour the group descended into the dampness of the keep. The lower they

went, the colder it became and the stronger the scent of decay. Absently putting her hand on the stone

wall beside her, Celeste jerked it back, grimacing at the slime that came away on her palm. She ran her

hand down her skirt, feeling sick as the feel of that unknown substance seemed to cling to her flesh.

When at last the group reached the bottom of the stairs, her father held his torch to another unlit one

flanking the door then unlocked the portal. He paused, turning to look at the man he thought to be the

leader of those who had invaded his home.

“I beseech you do not allow my daughter to see what is beyond this door. She is only a child with a

tender heart. She?”

“Has no idea who and what you are,” Vargas snapped. “It’s high time she learned.”

“If you have any decency, don’t do this,” Lord Charles pleaded.

“I’m about as decent as you are compassionate. Move, Dungeon Master!”

Celeste frowned at the term. She had no idea what it meant though she knew what a dungeon was.

There were references to such places in many of the fantasy books she read. But her father was a

physician, not a man who ran a jail for miscreants. Surely these men had come to the wrong man, had

mistaken her father for someone else.

Vargas shoved Lord Charles into the pitch-black room beyond, the Dungeon Master’s torch sputtering

as he stumbled forward, the light from the flames illuminating the various vile appliances scattered about

the room.

“It’s a bloody torture chamber!” the man behind Celeste hissed.

“Where the hell else did you think he’d be, Seth?” another man asked.

“Where is the commander?” Vargas ground out.

“Through there,” Lord Charles said, arching his chin toward a darkened doorway.

“He’d best be alive,” Vargas warned and snatched the torch from the Dungeon Master’s hand.

Barely cognizant of the fingers that had wrapped themselves around her upper arm, Celeste found

herself moving toward the doorway through which the tall, burly leader had passed.

“
No!
” her father shouted, trying to get between her and the doorway. “She should not see this! Do not

let her see! He is unclothed and?”

Those men who had entered the doorway beyond, and who were now ringed about something in the

center lit by the torch in the leader’s hand, were strangely quiet as her father scuffled with two other

massive warriors who restrained him. His furious words, his demands that she be spared whatever

gruesome sight lay beyond made Celeste cringe as she was pulled steadily forward until she stood behind

the backs of the men who formed a barricade in front of her.

“Bring her here,” she heard the leader say in a husky voice.

“No!” her father shrieked. “Celeste, no! Do not go in there!”

The men in front of her turned to look back at her with fierce, brooding eyes then—like a silent

wave—shuffled aside, fanning back in an arc to each side to allow her a view of what lay beyond.

“See what your father has done,” Vargas spat.

When he had heard the noise coming down the stairs, Sierran had thought it was his torturer coming

back. He had been unable to stop the fear that pushed at his throat. The mere thought of more pain, the

prolonged sting of the slow, deliberate slices into his flesh set his insides to shaking. At the moment he

heard Vargas’ unmistakable bark of a voice, he thought he was dreaming, but then he’d realized his men

had come for him and he closed his eyes in thanksgiving to let fresh tears streak down his temples.

Slowly turning his head toward the harsh glare of the torch that lit up the room, his narrowed gaze fell on

Vargas and the agony in that man’s stunned eyes hurt more than any cut that had come from the Dungeon

Master’s blades.

“Bring her here,” he heard Vargas say and wondered who his man meant. What woman should see the

awful things done to him? He was looking into Vargas’ green eyes—pleading silently with him for

understanding—as a young woman was drawn forward and he shifted his attention from the soldier to

her in surprise.

“See what your father has done,” Vargas told her.

At first there was nothing to see save the man bound to the high slab but as a drop of blood fell over the

side of the gray stone to plop to the floor, her lips parted in shock.

“Take her away!” Lord Charles screamed. “Do not allow her to see this!”

“Move your little ass, wench,” Vargas said. “We want you to take a damned good look.”

Her legs feeling like stone, Celeste reluctantly came closer to the slab. Very slowly her attention shifted

upward from the crimson stain on the floor to the ghostly pale face of the prisoner. She saw dark brown

wavy hair falling over the man’s sweaty forehead. She saw livid bruises on his face then as full horror set

in, she saw the scores upon scores of cuts on the flesh of his arms and chest. She came to an abrupt