She had to admit a grudging respect for the vore and the marcus. She’d lost the track more often than she cared to admit. It had been sheer luck to find a vore print, followed by hoofprint, followed by a booted footprint. From there she had followed them to the village, and staked it out until they left.
It was her first real look at her prey. The vore was bigger than she’d imagined. The human was smaller then she expected, and she couldn’t tell its sex. They still had the babe in the sling. She would have attacked on the road, but they moved too quickly for her to catch them alone before they were welcomed to the Manor proper.
How were they feeding the babe? If the marcus was a woman, perhaps she was nursing the babe. Or perhaps the vore?
Or maybe this was one great game of bluff and she was chasing a will-a-wisp.
Iris blew into her cold hands, trying to warm her fingers. It didn’t help, so she slipped her right hand under her cloak, below her breast. Through her leathers, she rubbed at her scar.
There had to be a way. The need burned deep within her; she couldn’t think of giving up the chase. There had to be a way. It was a litany in her head, a thought she could not free herself from.
The wind died down. She ignored it. There had to be a—
A pig squealed, then another. She turned her head, following the sound.
Pig. That meant a pig sty. That meant pig shit and pig piss and…Iris grimaced. But it might work.
Covered in that muck, she’d be able to move about and maybe learn something. Take no overt action, just scout. Watch. Listen.
She didn’t move, not yet. She picked at her plan, thinking it through, looking for flaws.
The harvest wouldn’t last forever. She’d strip down, cache her gear. Take a knife, nothing more. Find the sty and soak for a bit in the mess. The pigs wouldn’t care, at least she hoped they wouldn’t. She could wait there until things quieted, then move about carefully and learn what she could. If her prey left in the meantime, she’d pick up the trail again.
She closed her eyes and tried to picture the maps she’d memorized. There were the main roads, but there was also that mountain pass to the Wastes. It was a fair bet that the marcusi was headed there.
Iris nodded and started to ease down out of the tree. At least the stink of pig muck would be better than the cloying scent of pine.
Well, different, at least.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Royal Master Librarian Jacoben’s gut roiled in sick, squirming knots as sweat pooled in the small of his back.
The main doors of the library were open, the chill air sweeping away the warm, sweet scent of paper and ink. He watched as the palace guards with their filthy boots hauled open boxes and barrels of books and scrolls into the Royal Library—his library—like so many sides of beef, stacking them willy-nilly on the tables and floors. A chaos of knowledge, treated with utter disdain.
When a page fluttered to the floor, a guard snatched it up and crammed it into his crate.
Jacoben could barely breathe. He opened his mouth to protest, but the sight of the Queen’s Bondmaiden, Avice, stilled his words, cleaving his dry tongue to the roof of his mouth. She was a lovely woman, but her was the cold beauty of the blade. Something about the way she moved spoke of a cat, waiting to pounce when the mouse twitched.
He stood stiff and silent at her side, his cold, clammy fingers laced together to keep them from shaking.
There were whispers. Rumors of disappearances.
Of deaths.
“There’s more coming,” Avice sniffed. “At least another wagon-load.”
Another wagon-load? Looking at what had already arrived, Jacoben realized with horror that that would be all of Orval’s collection. The Librarian swallowed hard, trying to get moisture in his mouth, trying to protest, to spit on this woman for this atrocity.
Then he recalled his lovely wife, his oldest son—just about to start his apprenticeship, and his youngest daughter, first learning to walk. And the others. Six mouths, altogether, to feed and clothe and nurture and…bile rose in his throat.
He could not risk it.
He and Orval had their differences, certainly, and the man was definitely wrong in his interpretations of theEpic of Xyson. But to strip a man of his books, his life’s work.…
Jacoben looked at the volumes around him, organized systematically, cataloged, the knowledge of the Kingdom.
Hislife’s work.
