Page 84 of Traitor Son

There was a sudden outburst of howling and Ophele’s quill jerked, spattering the page. The noises of the devils were familiar now, but no less terrifying for it as they circled around the cottage, sometimes to the north, sometimes to the east. It made her mouth go dry and her heart thumped painfully in her chest, jerking in spasms of fear. The nightly chorus had begun.

Sometimes she heard familiar voices outside in the road. It might be Sir Miche’s voice, drawling and unconcerned, complaining about being bored. Or Sir Edemir, commanding the nearby defenses with the same calm competence he ordered his secretaries. Ophele had learned all their rhythms by now, measuring her nights by the comings and goings of the heroes outside her door.

It amazes me that I may write so familiarly of them, the Knights of the Brede.But they are even better men than we knew, I assure you, always chivalrous and gallant, and very sensitive of propriety, when I am still the only woman in town. Sir Auber says that his brothers and their wives are meant to come later this year, so perhaps I will have a little society then.

Many people have come already, hoping to settle the valley and take oaths to His Grace. Most of them must stay on the other side of the Brede for now, because of the devils, but Sir Tounot says there is much provision forthem, and they have negotiated with the local lords to be sure they are all safe and have some work. Sir Tounot is the one that manages them, and I am sure he does it so pleasantly they could hardly mind at all. He is a handsome man with a cleft chin and curly hair, and so well-spoken that one finds oneself agreeing with him no matter what he says, because he says it so well…

She could have filled pages with stories of the duke’s men. By day, there would have been a little spiteful pleasure in writing about them, knowing how Lisabe would squirm with jealousy. But at night, she was reminding herself with every rasping snarl outside the windows who it was that stood between her and the devils in the dark.

I have never seen the devils myself, so I cannot know what they look like. But I know all their noises. The ghouls just sound nasty, always growling and snapping, like a rotten dog. Only, there are so very many of them…

She didn’t know how many. No one would tell her, not even Sir Miche, which could only mean that there were a great many indeed, so many they thought she would be frightened if she knew. Hundreds, maybe, to make such a racket. Thousands? The noises outside were constant now, an escalating cacophony that built and built until she wanted to scream for it to stop. Rasping, snarling, all of the noises had teeth, tearing at the little town of Tresingale.

I can never decide which is worse, the stranglers or the wolf demons. Remember that one summer when we heard squealing noises in the wood, and it scared everyone to bits until we found out it was just an elk? The stranglers are a little like that, if the elk was laughing in the dark. They call most often at sunrise and sunset, when everything else is quiet. As if they are laughing at their own wickedness.

The wolf demons are more frightening, I think. I can’t even tell you what it is like to hear one close by, as if their teeth are iron and they are howling through the metal. I think if I saw one of those, I would just crumple over right there. But I hate stranglers. Sometimes I fall asleep and wake up to hear one cackling, and it sounds so close, like it’s right outside the window. I would rather a wolf demon killed me in one bite than to be waiting for a strangler to creep up upon me. I would never wish you to hear them yourself, but oh,I wish you were here, Azelma. You would laugh at them, I bet, and tell me I am a silly girl. I wish I had thought to ask if you could come with me when we left Aldeburke, for then I would not be so alone. It is hard to be so afraid all by myself.

Sometimes her quill ran away with her.

Ophele scrubbed a hand over her face and hardly noticed when it came away wet. This was not a letter she could send home. Rising, she crumpled it up and thrust it into the fire, reaching for a fresh page.

These letters were not only for Azelma. In the dark of the night, when the fire burned low and it seemed every devil in the world was about to batter down the fragile walls of the cottage, the words poured out of her, the only outlet for her terror. Who else could she trust? In whom could she confide? Certainly not the Knights of the Brede, who went out into the dark with the creatures every night. To them she could only be a foolish girl, at best. They could not know her cowardice. Her worthlessness. For she was the daughter of their enemy, a backhanded insult to their lord.

She started over. She tried to sound hopeful. She tried to sound brave. In the early hours of the morning, she read her letters anxiously again and again, but it was so hard when she had no gauge for what was normal, or what things she should already know.

If His Grace read her letters, he would only despise her more.

Ophele told herself good stories. She wrote about the building of the town, and how beautiful the wheat was, growing green on the hills to the north. She wrote about the wall and how exciting it was to watch it every day, knowing herself a small part of that great enterprise. She wrote about Eugene and Master Didion and the grand manor to be built on the high hill. But she did not write that it was to be made in the likeness of Tressin, the ancient house that her divine father had burned to ashes.

Of her husband, the Duke of Andelin, she wrote nothing at all.

* * *

By the time Remin came home, the fire had burned to coals.

It was not the first time he had found the princess asleep at the table, her head pillowed on her arm and her quill still loose in her fingers. Therewas a small glass phial at her elbow in a shape he recognized, and he plucked it up, sniffing the dried herbs tied to its neck. Remin had seen enough such beakers to recognize it at once: one of Gen’s tonics, and this one for sleep, if he recalled his limited herbology correctly. Gen looked in on the princess regularly, and said she was looking a little worn.

Of all the problems currently before him, the princess’s correspondence ranked very low, but Remin eyed the piles of paper as he went to wash the blood from his hands. Her handwriting was too messy to read from a distance, but he wouldn’t have done so in any case; it was Juste’s task to read her correspondence, to be sure there was nothing dangerous. Even if she was the Emperor’s daughter, there were some lines with his wife that Remin would not cross.

That was also why he did her the courtesy of transferring her to the bed, when he would have left anyone else to wake up on their own. Remin held his breath as he slipped his arms under her, but her lashes didn’t so much as flicker. She only rolled over and reached for a pillow when he laid her down, curling up small in the center of the bed.

Remin regarded the small bare feet beneath the single ruffle of her chemise, and pulled up a blanket.

Everything about her was a problem.

He just didn’t have time to solve everything, as June passed and the devils came relentlessly on. In three years, they had never seen so many. During the war, he had required nightly counts of the carcasses from his men, but even without that comparison, he would have known they were seeing many times that number now.

And summer was just getting started.

It was so hot. The days were long, but the men had to rest in the shade during the hottest hours, or he would have lost dozens to sun sickness. Sweating, he and his knights took their own turns moving stones and hauling heavy filler up to the tops of the walls, a mixture of crushed stone, lime, and other materials that bonded into a sort of concrete. They worked on the palisade, felling a hundred trees a day. They already knew how inadequate that barrier was. The guards on the palisade were being dragged off by stranglers every night, and they were burning through torches faster than they could make them.

Devils were slipping through. A few ghouls got into the cow pen and tore a precious milk cow to pieces. A wolf demon gave the buildersat the barracks a terrifying night; they told Remin the next day about the poison-green eyes they saw glowing in the dark, and the shadow pounding against the walls, howling fit to freeze their blood. The barracks stood the test, but two builders did not. They were headed for the Gellege Bridge the next day.

And those were just the attacks Reminknewabout.

“No sign of Rollon,” Jinmin reported, after a week-long attempt to reach Ferrede. Remin and his men were meeting in his tent once a day now, reporting and coordinating their activities and adjusting as information came in. “Only made it fifty miles before I had to turn back. It was bad at night.”

During the war, Jinmin had once referred to an ambush by three Vallethi warbands asa surprise.

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