“She knows it does,” came another female voice, somewhere near Jespyr. “Which is why she delights in making it. Too strong a dose this time, sister—they’ve been out for ages.” A pause. “You’re a Destrier?”
Jespyr’s voice was even. “Don’t I look like one?”
“Not really. Your face is missing that boorish, murderous quality.”
“Come closer. You’ll see it.”
When the second woman came into view, Ravyn noted the same make of clothes. Her mask was bone as well—a wolf skull. She was just as tall as the other woman, just as broad in the shoulders.
“Who are you?”
The one in the ram mask opened her arms wide, a false welcoming. “Blunder’s blight. Her vile outcasts. Her infected. Welcome to our hold, Destriers. It won’t be a long stay. But I can promise your last hours on this earth will be full of wonder.”
It wasn’t a well-guarded fort. There were no sentries, and though dozens of men, women, and children passed through the courtyard, none of them bore weapons save a few bows and hunting knives. All were civilians, save the two women in charge. The one in the ram mask was called Otho, and her sister, with the wolf skull, Hesis.
The sisters moved around the post in tight, predatory circles. They didn’t, for a single moment, believe that Ravyn, too, carried the infection.
“I know who you are,” Hesis said. “Nephew to our vile King. You want me to believe that a Rowan would appoint an infected man as Captain of his Destriers?”
“It doesn’t matter what you believe,” Jespyr seethed. “It’s true.”
“And yet we found a charm on him. A viper’s head in his tunic pocket.”
Ravyn twisted against the ropes. “That’s a spare.”
Hesis laughed. She hit Ravyn across the face with a closed fist. The back of his head slammed against the pole—his headache so fierce his vision winked.
The Nightmare let out a low hiss.
“Say we suspend all disbelief,” Otho hedged. “If you’re infected, what’s your magic?”
An easy question. And a long, complicated answer. “I can’t use Providence Cards,” Ravyn ground out.
“Yet you travel with a veritable arsenal.”
“I can’t use all the Cards.”
Hesis sucked her teeth. “Sounds like another lie, Destrier.” She hit him again.
“And your magic?” Jespyr demanded. “So we might know the merit of our kidnappers?”
Hesis disappeared out of Ravyn’s view, her voice close to Jespyr’s. “I can see through the eyes of crows,” she said. “They speak to me, whispers and notions. It’s how we found you lot. You made quite a lot of noise in the wood. Nests were upturned. I saw a hunting party in black cloaks cross Murmur Lake, coming our way.” Her voice went slick with amusement. “My sister is an alchemist. That smoke that knocked you out? That pretty little headache, pounding in your skull? She made it. With magic.”
“You’re giving me a headache just fine on your own,” Jespyr muttered.
A thud sounded on the pole. Jespyr groaned—then two more thuds as Hesis struck her.
Petyr swore, thrashing against the ropes. Ravyn bit down—hard.
The Nightmare’s warning was but a whisper. “Careful.”
The women turned, their focus finally landing on the Nightmare. “Who the hell are you?” Hesis said. “That’s no Destrier sword we pulled from your hands.”
A smile crept into his voice. “I was born with the fever, my blood dark as night. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
“You must know of another stronghold,” Ravyn offered. After so many years of lying, the truth was fragile upon his tongue. “Deep in the Black Forest, near the dried-out creek bed that runs northeast. A place children are brought when the Destriers and Physicians come sniffing too close.”
The women’s spines stiffened. Hesis let out a sharp exhale. “The children are brought there by highwaymen, not Destriers.”
“All you know is that they wear masks.”
Otho’s laugh came out a bark. “You expect me to believe it was you who saved infected children all these years?”
“And I.” Petyr’s voice snagged. “My brother Wik as well. And you—you shot him. A man who lived outside the law for people like you.”
Otho paused, watching Ravyn through the holes of her mask. “Yet your Captain still does the King’s bidding. Still arrests infected folk and their kin. Still does unspeakable things to them.”
Jespyr exhaled. “He doesn’t—”
Hesis hit Ravyn square on the nose. He heard a snap all the way in the back of his head. Twin streams of blood fell from his nostrils over his mouth.
The Nightmare clicked his jaw. Once. Twice. Thrice.
“The Twin Alders Card,” Ravyn managed, his words thick with blood, “that’s why we’re in the wood. We seek to unite the Deck—to heal the infection. We won’t breathe a word of this place.” His voice quickened, his control slipping. “After Solstice, when the mist is lifted, come to Castle Yew. We’ll heal your degenerating—cure anyone who wishes to be cured. But you must let us go.”
When they said nothing, utterly still, Jespyr’s voice sounded from the other side of the post. “Our brother is infected. He’s degenerating—dying. Please. Let us go.”
A ring of steel, then Otho and her ram’s skull were an inch from Ravyn’s face, a cold knife pressed against his throat. “Even if what you say is true,” she seethed, “there are people here who have lost loved ones to Destriers. Parents, children. Our own mother’s charm was destroyed, and a Rowan Scythe sent her to her death in the mist. There is payment due to the people of this fort. And a Destrier will pay it.” She stepped back, nodding at her sister. “It’s time.”
Hesis disappeared into the fort. Clamoring voices sounded, growing louder. Doors banged open and the fort emptied itself, a crowd forming. Everyone wore skull masks—save one. A man, led by a rope. His face was bloody, his eyes wide, teeth flashing. He was tethered, but still he thrashed, fought.
Just as Ravyn had trained him to.
Gorse.
“We will have our payment, Captain,” Otho said. “Now.”
The Nightmare remained tied to the post next to Petyr, fingers curling like claws.
The Destriers—Ravyn and Jespyr and Gorse—were unleashed in the dirt courtyard, rough instruments shoved into their hands. A club with rusted nails driven into it for Jespyr, a riding crop with rocks tied to its tassels for Gorse.
And for Ravyn, the dull, rusted blade of a scythe.
“For the kin of a Rowan,” Hesis said behind her mask. She pushed him toward the others, and the crowd closed in around them.
It was clear what was meant to happen. The three of them hemmed into a circle, armed with poor weaponry—this was a blood sport. The kind without winners.
A man wearing an ewe skull called out to the crowd. “Are we ready to smell Destrier blood?”
A roar clashed against the walls of the courtyard. It rose up over the jagged fence into the forest, a long, devastating cry. Bile crawled up Ravyn’s throat. He forced it back down.