Mistress Of Masks (Book 1) (8 page)

“Do not …waste this second chance. May the First Father go with you…”

He exhaled his last breath then and his face shifted, the imitation of Orrick’s face morphing into the unfamiliar features of another.

There was no time to stare in amazement. Thinking fast, Orrick dragged the dead man’s body into a corner and rolled it on its side, facing the wall. With any luck he would appear to be sleeping. Next he scattered fistfuls of straw bedding to cover the bloody pool where the headsman had died and the gory trail to where the body rested.

The door rattled, and the guard called, “Time’s up, Fenric. Let’s go.”

Orrick positioned himself to block the view of the body as the door swung open. Would the guard notice the switch?

“Come on, headsman. Your oarsman is impatient to be off.” The guard barely glanced at him.

Hope surged within Orrick as he ducked out the door of his cell. It seemed an eternity he had been locked away in the confined space. The torches lining the walls were bright to his eyes, so long accustomed to shadow. The limping turnkey led the way down the corridor, past other silent cells, and into the warren of passages that burrowed into the heart of the prison keep.

Orrick kept his head down, his hood pulled low, expecting every step of the way to hear a cry of alarm ring out as his deception was discovered. How long could it be before the headsman’s body was found? Grip tightening on the handle of his axe, he eyed the hunched shoulders of the guard ahead. One way or another, he would escape tonight. He wouldn’t be taken alive and stuffed back into that cell.

As he contemplated silently dispatching the turnkey and proceeding more swiftly without him, the echo of voices and approaching steps reached his ears. Another moment and a pair of guards appeared. They were too busy conversing with one another to spare more than a glance at Orrick and his escort as they passed. But the encounter convinced Orrick he was less conspicuous in the other man’s company. The turnkey would live as long as he was useful.

They descended a winding stairway to the lower levels. Down here the walls and ceiling glistened with moisture, and the smell of fish was stronger. With the odor, a cool draft seeped upward, kissing Orrick’s grime-encrusted skin and promising the nearness of freedom. He heard the water before he saw it, the sound of lapping waves magnified and bouncing from wall to wall.

At the bottom of the steps they entered the watery cavern beneath the keep. Here there were enough barrels of provisions to keep the prison stocked for months. There was a pier where supply boats from the mainland could moor. One waited there now, bobbing on the tide.

The oarsman hailed them noisily, impatient to cast off. But as Orrick was about to go to him, the turnkey planted a fat hand on his chest. “Not so quick, Fenric. You know how this works. You’ll be on your way all right after I gets me fee.”

“What fee?” Orrick asked, keeping his voice rough so the man wouldn’t notice it wasn’t Fenric’s.

The guard cleared his throat and spat. “Don’t play stupid, headsman. I got you to and from the prisoner, as promised. But me services don’t come free.”

“It seems they will have to, as I have no coin,” Orrick said impatiently.

“No coin, eh? Then this shiny medallion will do well enough for me.” The turnkey grabbed the medallion and chain around Orrick’s neck, the emblem of the First Couple that had belonged to Fenric.

Orrick caught the guard’s thick wrist. “The medallion is not for trade,” he snarled, wondering as he did so why he was loath to part with it. It was not as if he were an adherent to Fenric’s religion.

The turnkey sneered. “Maybe you don’t understand, headsman. Without my nod, no visitor leaves this island. At least, not in one piece. So if I was you, I’d reconsider giving up the shiny.”

He gestured toward the shadows, and Orrick realized they were not alone—two more guards waited to back up their friend. So. They had planned this in advance.

“Final chance,” Orrick said. “Get out of my way or I’ll remove you myself.”

The guard’s eyes widened, and his cheeks flushed with anger. “You’ve got an arrogant tongue, headsman. Seems my friends and I will have to teach you a lesson by cutting it out.”

He drew his sword, and that was all the encouragement Orrick needed. Knocking aside the incoming sword, he swung his axe and felt the blade bite deep into the side of the turnkey’s neck. Warm blood spurted from a penetrated artery to wash down Orrick’s hand. Gurgling softly, the guard collapsed.

Before the turnkey hit the floor, his friends in the shadows charged. Orrick buried the head of his axe in the chest of the first to reach him. The second man managed to draw sword before Orrick fell on him. Hauling the body of the first man in front of him like a shield, Orrick blocked his enemy’s first swing, then shoved the body into him, knocking him off his feet. The sword fell from the guard’s hand to slide across the stone floor and plunge over the edge, into the murky water.

The unarmed guard, now pinned beneath the weight of his dead comrade, licked his lips, eyes darting around for a means of escape. While Orrick debated whether it was worthwhile to kill him, the clatter of boots on the stairs warned him someone had heard the scuffle. More guards were coming.

Orrick sprinted for the small boat moored against the dock.

“Quickly, take up your oars,” he shouted to the lone oarsman, as he tossed his axe into the boat, jumped aboard, and hauled the rope in after him.

“Whoa now, I’m not getting paid enough for this,” the oarsman protested. “Nobody warned me there’d be any killing.”

Cursing, Orrick shoved the man overboard and took up his oars.

The first guards had entered the cavern, their shouts echoing up to the roof. “A prisoner is escaping!” someone cried. “Drop the water gate!”

Orrick leaned against the oars, even as the cavern rumbled with the sound of turning gears and the grating noise of the portcullis being lowered over the cave’s only exit. When that gate came down Orrick would be trapped inside, all hope of escape lost.

He rowed harder, reaching the mouth of the cave just as the gate dropped. It crashed through the bow of the boat, splintering the wood. Cold water rushed over Orrick’s legs.

He abandoned the oars and dove into the dark waters, plunging deep beneath the surface. Here he tried to wriggle beneath the gate but his loose cloak snagged and held him fast. His lungs ached for air, and he was so disoriented he could hardly tell up from down. But he fought his way free of the clothing and kicked away from the gate, swimming in the direction he hoped would take him to the surface. To air.

When his head broke the surface, he didn’t know which side of the gate he had come up on. Was he free or not? Coughing and gasping for air, he looked around and saw a long stretch of lapping water. Stars and a pale moon glowed up above, and the Morta den ‘Cairn on its rock loomed against the sky, a vast gray shadow.

There was no time to celebrate his escape. He must put distance between himself and the prison, before they raised the gate and pursued. Bobbing on the water, he had little sense of direction but he struck out away from the prison and in the direction he hoped would lead to the nearest shore.

Orrick woke to the sound of gently lapping waves and the feel of gritty sand beneath his cheek. With a groan, he rolled onto his back, expecting to see, as he did every morning when he opened his eyes, the low ceiling of his prison cell. Instead, he saw a menacing sky, heavy with dark clouds. He bolted upright, memories rushing back to him—his escape from the prison, the hours he spent after, battling the waves as his arms grew weaker and weaker. The long struggle to keep his head above water before finally giving up the fight and allowing the swells to carry him where they would. He had given himself up for dead then. Yet here he was, not only alive, but free. Free!

But he shouldn’t let his hopes soar too high. He could be recaptured at any moment. Come to that, he didn’t even know where he was. He looked around with interest. Where was this ghostly mist-shrouded shore where the ocean had seen fit to deposit him? The fog was thick over the shale and sand covered beach, spreading out to either side. The ocean lapping at his feet was the same oppressive gray as the lowering sky. He saw no sign of life.

There was a sloping rise at his back, leading away from the shore. If he climbed it, perhaps he could rise above this unnatural fog and get a clear view of where he had landed. As he drew shaky legs beneath him and climbed to his feet, he put his hand down on something—a white stick poking up from the ground. On second look, it was no stick at all, but a bone. Orrick had cleaved flesh from enough bones in his lifetime to know a human thigh bone when he saw it. Same for the jaw bone lying nearby.

With a scowl, he backed away. What was this murky bone-yard he had been cast upon? The graveyard of the underworld? But, unsettled though he was by the ghoulish discovery, he wasn’t unnerved enough to return to the sea that had vomited him onto this shore.

Hunger gnawed at his belly, reminding him he needed to find food soon. Clothing too. He had been forced to slither out of half his clothes to escape drowning last night, and now he stood chilly and damp in nothing but trousers and a pair of ill-fitting shoes taken from the dead headsman, Fenric. Fenric’s religious medallion hung around his neck too, small good it would do him unless he could find someone to trade it to, in exchange for food.

With that idea in mind, he abandoned the beach and stumped his way up the rocky incline. He passed other piles of bones along the way. The rotting stench wafting on the breeze hinted there were more corpses nearby in less advanced states of decay.

At the top of the rise, he looked down to find himself at one end of a small island, stretching perhaps two miles end to end. There were no dwellings in sight and no trees, except a few scrappy shrubs. The ground rose in irregular mounds and dropped in wide pits, broken up by narrow sunken paths snaking between the hillocks. Here and there, the terrain was dotted with heaps of stones and tall obelisks. Above the scene hung a persistent haze, like a cloud of ill omen, blanketing the ground and swirling around Orrick’s ankles as he walked. Even the sun above couldn’t penetrate the screen of scuttling gray clouds.

On his way down the hill, Orrick passed one of the manmade obelisks, identifying it as a grave marker. The pillar was ancient. Years of wind and rain had deteriorated the runes inscribed across it, leaving them unreadable. Orrick went on and soon came to a more recent burial site, one that hadn’t received the same careful treatment as the last. It was an open trench, where numerous decomposed corpses had been dumped into the same shallow hole and left uncovered. Whoever these people were, they had not been worth the cost or dignity of a grave marker.

That was when Orrick was certain on what ground he stood. There could not be two such islands near the Morta den ‘Cairn. Whether through accident or fate, Orrick had reached exactly the place where Fenric had instructed him to flee. The Isle of Bones. Once a burial place for the ancients, the island was now a dumping ground where the keepers of the Morta den’ Cairn rowed over and deposited the corpses of dead prisoners. Knowledge of the hundreds or thousands of corpses decomposing beneath his feet and all around him made the death stench more pronounced to his nostrils.

For the first time, he smelled something else too. A strange mingling of scents that belonged to neither man nor beast but held hints of both. A surreptitious glance suggested he was alone, but Orrick was in the habit of trusting his nose before his eyes. The latter was more easily deceived. Without betraying his awareness that he was watched, he walked on. If his stalker did not wish to be seen, he would allow them the false security of concealment.

Reaching one of the sunken paths snaking between the mounds, he discovered fresh footprints in the earth. Someone had been here recently. A grave digger transporting a dead body? Or something more threatening? But the tread of the boot-prints were short and narrow, like those of a woman or a large child. He took note and moved on.

A heap of ornate stones rose up ahead. This mausoleum must have belonged to some respected personage in ancient times. Certainly it wasn’t built for the sort of carcasses being laid to rest on the island these days. Orrick paused to lean against the tomb’s wall and catch his breath. This hilly terrain was hard on legs weakened by too many months sitting in a prison cell. Lack of food and his recent struggle in the ocean hadn’t done him any favors either.

A scratching sound came from above, and a stream of pebbles trickled down from the roof of the mausoleum. Instantly alert, Orrick demanded, “Who’s up there? Show yourself!”

He was answered with silence. Moving away from the stone wall, he craned his neck and was rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of a narrow green boot dangling over the edge. Before he could see who it belonged to, something struck him hard across the back of his shoulders. The attack came, not from the roof, but from behind. Carried down by the weight of his attacker, he hit the ground, twisting beneath a snarling mass of fangs and fur. The face looming over him was that of a wild creature with the bulging eyes of a man but the claws of a bear and the fangs of a wolf.

The monster lunged at Orrick’s throat, and he instinctively raised an arm to block the onslaught. Sharp teeth sank into his forearm, tearing a yell of pain from him even as the beast’s claws scored his unprotected chest. His scrabbling hand found a rock on the ground and he brought it up with all his strength, smashing it again and again into the creature’s head. A curtain of blood rained down, temporarily blinding him. Feeling the beast’s hold slacken, he struggled free of its weight.

He had a good look at his adversary now—a creature with the size and form of a man but with the matted and patchy fur of a wild animal covering its naked body and stretching the length of its muscular arms and legs. Stubby horns sprang from its forehead, and its wolf-like snout extended over a wide mouth with wicked-looking fangs. A crimson stream ran from the beast’s injuries, coating one side of its face. But the protruding eyes behind the veil of blood were startlingly intelligent. And enraged. The man-beast loosed a howl of pain and fury.