FITZROY AND HIS MEN SLAMMED THE DOOR AND slid the bolt and did not come out to look for the escaped prisoner. Stalwart felt trapped in a nightmare, like a fly in hot soup. Why had Nicely and Grand Master denied him? He had the rest of the night to wonder that, and he was not going to come up with an answer.
So here he was, shut out on a freezing night with no cloak—and no lantern. He found the ancient hitching rail snapped in two and Lumpkin gone. Spooked, pulled loose, and fled? Spooked by what? What had Fitzroy meant about not throwing Stalwart out on the moor tonight especially? What haunted the dark besides owls? The lantern was a battered ruin, kicked by the gelding in his struggles. He hoped it had managed to make a getaway and was not lying dead at the bottom of the Quarry by now. Or being eaten somewhere by something.
Tucking his hands under his arms, he retraced his path around to the balcony and the lights of the royal suite. Fitzroy would certainly send a report to Leader about him, but he was not inclined to wait for the results of that. He wanted to be inside as soon as possible. Either Bandit or Dreadnought would be on duty in the royal suite. He scrabbled up some rocks and stepped back to aim. Not at the windows themselves, but at the door.
The door was open.
Silence up there. Candles burning bright and ghostly smoke trailing from the chimneys above. Yet the door stood open on a freezing night like this? It had not been open when he went by the last time. All the little hairs on the back of Stalwart’s neck started to dance.
There was only one tree on Starkmoor, it was said. Ages ago someone had planted a seed or dropped an apple core under the royal balcony. In that sheltered, sunny nook, it had prospered enough to send up a very spindly sapling. It was still so puny that the Guard had not gotten around to chopping it down, although three years ago it had been strong enough to support Stalwart the Human Squirrel. He had grown faster than it had, but at the moment he had no choice.
With Sleight tucked through his belt, he started up. The sapling bent. It creaked pathetically. In the darkness he fumbled, scratched his face, lost his temper, but eventually was able to grab hold of the balcony rail and haul himself over. He felt better then, although he knew that monsters could climb, too.
“Starkmoor!” he said loudly, the rallying cry of the Order. As he stepped in, he went to rap on the door, but his knuckles never reached it. Whether he first noticed the stench or the ugly sucking noises didn’t matter. Something was alive in there.
Only just alive. There was blood everywhere. Furniture had been scattered askew and if the candles had been set in candlesticks instead of chandeliers, half Ironhall would be in flames by now. And the smell…He had heard many stories of the Night of Dogs, of how the monsters had climbed the walls, ripped out iron bars with their teeth, and of how they had to be hacked into pieces to kill them. They stank as they died.
The one on the floor was as big as a horse, and it was not quite dead. It had trashed the room in its death throes. It was still writhing, kicking, making horrible gurgling sounds as it tried to breathe. Something had ripped out its throat.
Something or someone? Silvercloak? Nothing human, certainly. Had the killer somehow set one monster against another?
Stalwart just stared as he struggled to make sense of this. All Ironhall had been dragged into his nightmare. The hellhound could not stand. Its head was bent backward so that the huge hole in its neck seemed like a gaping mouth, yet it sensed it had company and began beating its legs faster, trying to reach him, making little progress but hurling a chair aside. Where was the Guard? Why had no one heard this struggle and come to investigate?
If Silvercloak had sent the monster against the King, then it should have been chopped up by the Blades. If the Blades had set it out as a trap for Silvercloak, then how had he managed to dispose of it so easily? That did seem more likely, though. That would explain why there were inquisitors in Ironhall and no Blades in this room. When Master Nicely had mentioned dogs, Lord Roland had squelched him as fast as he had squelched Stalwart.
Where there was one deadly booby trap, there might be more. The moor now seemed much less dangerous than the royal suite.
Stalwart gagged. “Nice doggy!” he mumbled, and rushed out to the fresh air.
He descended the tree at a cost of two fingernails, a painfully scraped shin, and three branches. Now what? He peered around at the night apprehensively. A rapier would be as useless as wet string against one of those monsters.
The need to inform Bandit that Silvercloak might be on his way had passed. The present need was to save Stalwart from whatever was haunting the moor. If the royal suite had been booby-trapped, anywhere might be booby-trapped, including the gate. He knew a way into Ironhall that no one else did, though. As a soprano, in his Human Squirrel days, he had climbed to the fake battlements and hung a suitable memento up there for everyone to see. Grand Master had given him two weeks’ stable duties for that.
At the far side of the Quarry, where the curtain wall met the bath house, there was a narrow gap between the wall and the curve of the corner tower. He had worked his way up that crevice, feet against one side, back against the other. He was older and larger now. He was cold and weary. It was dark, and frost might make the stonework slippery.
But he was very highly motivated.
He stumbled off through the night, waving his rapier before him like a blind man’s cane. Every footfall sounded like a drumbeat. He fought a temptation to walk backward, watching for glowing eyes following him. The monsters might just as easily be waiting up ahead anyway.
He must go more carefully now, for there was no path. Ahead lay the Quarry, which was close to impassable even in daylight. He should be safe if he kept very close to the wall, although he would have to fight through thorn bushes and climb over rocks. There were places where the ledge was very narrow.
He spun around, heart pounding. “Who’s there?”
Silence.
Imagination? He had thought he had heard something.
He went on again, moving as fast as he could over the rough ground. He ought to be due for some good luck soon, surely?