Page 105 of Stardust Child

“With the stipulation that you may bring only one journeyman each, and all of you must stay within the ring of torchlight,” Justenin replied, dismounting his horse. The scholars had been complaining for days that they could hardly observe the devils from the height of the city wall, and in the interests of furthering House Andelin’s relations with the Tower, Justenin had taken their part in the argument.

Which meant he got to play nursemaid every other night, to make sure they didn’t get themselves or anyone else killed in the excess of their enthusiasm.

“We thank you for your efforts, sir knight,” Master Torigne said, beckoning to one of the four journeymen. “Do you think we will have a better look at the creatures from the north wall?”

“As well as any other direction,” Justenin replied, leading the way up the road on foot. Purple twilight stretched across the sky overhead and the fire of sunset was fading behind them as they made their way along footpaths to the wall, through one of the as-yet-untamed stretches offorest within Tresingale. It was an eerie place in the twilight, especially with devils calling from beyond the wall.

“Strangler,” he said aloud, as another clicking chirp sounded, a noise that could almost be mistaken for a bird. “They always call at dusk.”

“Perhaps communicating with each other?” Master Forgess was first as they approached the palisade, heaving himself up the ladder. The north palisade was fifteen feet high at its tallest point, and the long ladders creaked and shook as each man ascended. Justenin turned immediately to haul it up after him, handing it down the line to be hooked under the rough platform. He had stood enough watches that the thought of leaving a ladder at his back made his skin crawl.

Especially when there were already three ghouls on the outside of the palisade, working at its timbers like beavers.

“Thought you’d like to see ’em, master,” said one of the nearby guards, his lips curling. “Cracking all their teeth apart, the stupid buggers.”

“Do they really? You have observed damaged teeth?” Master Forgess immediately bent over the side of the low wall, making Justenin inwardly hiss and move to grab for him if necessary.

“Black blood on the wood, and missing teeth on some of the carcasses,” he replied. “We always thought ghouls the stupidest of the devils, but it is interesting to see the lengths they will go to kill us.”

“No sense of self-preservation? How fascinating,” Master Torigne murmured, and Juste glanced at him, one eyebrow lifting.

“No,” was all he said aloud, shifting aside to leave them to their speculation.

He had forgotten how dull it was, standing a watch. As the sky darkened, the pitch of the conversation lowered, and Justenin paced back and forth along the same twenty feet of platform, a restless habit. Night watch was dull, but also fraught, for the guards had to remain alert for stranglers slinking through the slightest shadow, and a moment’s inattention could mean a human corpse by morning.

The scholars were not making it any easier.

“I must ask you to keep your voices down,” Justenin repeated, with great patience. “You wished to observe the devils; observe them. If you have questions that cannot wait, please address me rather than the guards. That is not a wolf demon. You would know it by its eyes before you saw anything else at this distance.”

With Juste’s poor eyesight, he could not have discerned anything more than that poisonous green glow. All that night, he found himself remembering sections of Ophele’s treatise, from her descriptions of the devils’ calls to her speculations about their function. Master Forgess hunched behind the low wall like a hunter at a blind and Master Torigne bent periodically to murmur to him, exciting exclamations that forced Justenin to hiss at them again to be quiet. If they were frustrated that there were so few devils to be seen, they could only blame themselves.

It was just lucky for everyone that a strangler decided to try its luck further down the wall a few hours before dawn. A shout, a hissing shriek, and then a sudden cacophony of thuds, clangs, and swearing as the nearest guards all lunged together to subdue the creature.

“Stars, is that one of them?” Master Forgess leaped to his feet and would have raced off down the wall at once if Justenin hadn’t yanked him back. “We need to see it, tell them not to ki—”

There was another garbled shriek, abruptly terminated.

“I will not,” Juste said, low. “It is not worth the risk. Often, one strangler will serve as a distraction for the others, and everyone must be doubly on their guard, or it might beyouthat finds one of them coming through your window some moonless night. I will take you to examine the corpse once everyone is back at their posts.”

“But itisa strangler?” Forgess was craning his neck, trying in vain to see past the knot of guardsmen. “We haven’t had a chance to see one of them yet.”

“Of course, it is a strangler,” Justenin replied, his eyes narrowing.“The creatures calledstranglersare named for their strong hands and very long fingers, which boast an extra joint on the index, middle, and ring finger. They are noted for being excellent climbers, managing even very sheer surfaces with ease, and can remain suspended for hours at a time in pursuit of their prey. Their hands boast exceptional crushing strength, which makes light of wooden and leather barriers, and may even crush poor quality iron.”

It was a direct quote from Ophele’s treatise, and neither man showed the slightest sign of recognition.

“Youhaveread the materials I provided to you, have you not?” he asked.

“A pamphlet is no substitute for examining the creatures,” Forgess began dismissively, even as Master Torigne lifted a hand.

“We prefer to form our own impressions, sir knight,” he said, placating. But for all his outward serenity, Juste had never been a man to suffer fools.

“Did you need to personally observe the predations of an owl or cat to believe they hunt by night, or were you content to rely on your copybooks?” he asked sharply. “Yes, only stranglers can climb. Their fingers allow them to find even very small grips, which is why we have to plane the outside of the palisade smooth. And while they do not have the intelligence of men, they do still appear to coordinate their efforts…”

The lecture settled his temper, though Forgess was still looking mutinous, his round face even more florid than usual.They needed the Tower,Juste reminded himself as he took them to see the corpse of the strangler, stretched out full length on the rough plank platform and nearly seven feet tall. That was another curiosity of stranglers in particular; they were long in the body, but like cats, they could squeeze through almost unbelievably small spaces, as if their bones were less solid than those of natural creatures.

And why did devils have teeth, if they had never been seen to eat? he wondered, watching Forgess open the thing’s mouth. It was a question that had not yet occurred to the scholars. Forgess had pulled out his measuring strings and was calling sharply to his journeyman to record such elementary observations, it was clear they had not read a single word of Her Grace’s treatise.

“Shall we have a cart brought around?” The journeyman asked excitedly. “This will be the first specimen—”

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