03 - Hour of the Daemon Read online

  He stopped and glanced over at Alaric. It might work. It might be their only hope, but Alaric might never forgive him.

  Dietz considered that: his friend’s anger, or his friend’s death? “I can live with anger,” he said softly. Then he kicked his horse into motion again, keeping close to the buildings, with Alaric’s horse right beside him.

  It took him the better part of an hour to find someone willing to direct him honestly, and another hour to reach the right street. Then Dietz was explaining the situation to a household guard, who studied the pair of travellers closely before nodding and sending a servant to fetch someone in charge. Two minutes later they were being shown inside, their horses led away by a stablehand. A few minutes after that, Alaric was being placed in a comfortable bed, a physician already being summoned to treat him. Dietz was offered a room as well, but said he could not sleep until he had heard from the physician. At least, so he had thought, but he sat down to wait by Alaric, and quickly fell asleep, exhausted by the day’s events. He barely remembered a pair of men lifting him bodily and carrying him to a bed of his own.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alaric stretched, yawned, and stretched again. He tugged sleepily at the heavy coverlet, burrowing deeper into its warmth, and dozed again for a second, but the sun was streaming in from the window nearby and falling full upon his face; some fool had left the bed curtains open. He reached up absently and caught the nearest curtain in his hand, tugging on the heavy fabric to pull it shut again… and started awake.

  Bed curtains? Coverlets? He vaguely remembered the night before, and agreeing with Dietz that they needed some place to stay. Clearly, Dietz had accomplished that task without his help, but when had they ever stayed in an inn with such luxuries? Never, that was when. So where was he?

  Blinking against the strong sunlight, Alaric peered around him. He was indeed in a comfortable bed, complete with coverlet, curtains and heavy wooden posts. Thick pillows were piled up behind him, and he was fairly certain the lump near his feet was a bedstone. Luxury indeed! Past the bed, he saw a finely appointed room, with a handsome carpet, an elegant writing desk, nicely carved armchairs, and a large, ornate wardrobe. The walls were papered with a striped pattern, interspersed with a shield bearing a coat of arms, and Alaric turned and yanked the curtains away from the head of the bed, staring in shock at the paper and the heraldry revealed on it: a pair of silver swords, crossed on a black field.

  It was the von Jungfreud family crest.

  He was home.

  That was impossible! They were nowhere near Ubersreik, unless he had been unconscious for weeks. He did feel weak, but surely he would have awakened at some point during such a journey. This was definitely one of his family’s homes, however. Then he remembered. Of course! The house in Altdorf. Each of the elector counts had a mansion in the Empire’s capital, for themselves and their representatives whenever they needed to attend court. Many of the other major nobles did as well, and the von Jungfreuds were no exception. This must be that house. Alaric had seen it once, years before, but didn’t remember every room. The wallpaper, however, was impossible to mistake. He had fallen back into his family’s clutches. He glanced around wildly, hoping to find his clothes nearby, but they were nowhere in evidence. They were probably in the wardrobe. At least he hoped so. Perhaps he could dress, find Dietz, and be away before—

  “Awake at last, I see.” The gruff voice came from the door that was still swinging open, and Alaric froze in the act of tossing the coverlet aside and leaping out of bed. He sank back onto the thick mattress instead, sitting up straight and smoothing the coverlet with one hand as he watched the speaker approach. Tall, blue-eyed, with dark blond hair and handsome if heavy features, it was like looking in a distorted mirror. Enough people had certainly told them that over the years.

  “Heinrich,” Alaric said, pleased that he’d kept his voice calm and even passably friendly.

  “Alaric. Feeling better?” His older brother stopped near the bed, spinning the desk chair around and sinking down onto it with his thick arms folded across the back, facing Alaric.

  “Much, thank you.” He did, too. Alaric was starting to remember how ill he’d felt the night before, weak and feverish, and confused. He remembered seeing things, strange, horrible things, and he remembered starting at everything. He remembered being tied to his horse, although that had seemed like a bad dream, all fuzzy around the edges. Now his head was clear, however, and he felt well-rested and fit, if weak. “I take it you took us in?” He wanted to ask about Dietz, but didn’t want to give his brother the upper hand any more than necessary.

  “Of course.” Heinrich’s frown indicated that it had hardly been his choice, simply his duty. The von Jungfreuds had always known their duty, all except Alaric. “When your servant appeared at our gate and announced that you were deathly ill, we brought you both inside and sent for the physician. You had a high fever and were delirious. He prescribed a herbal concoction, which we have been feeding to you daily, along with some broth.”

  “Daily?” Alaric glanced at the window. “How long have I been ill?”

  “Three days.”

  “Three days!” Now Alaric did jump out of the bed, stumbling, but managing to cross the room and wrench open the doors of the wardrobe. His clothes were indeed hanging within, clean and mended, and he began tugging them on. “Thank you, Heinrich, for your help, but I must be going. Will you send my man up, please?” He assumed Dietz was all right, otherwise Heinrich would have said something.

  “What is the rush?” His brother had not moved from the chair, which was a good sign.

  “I am pursuing some men,” Alaric explained carefully, pulling his trousers up and then reaching for his shirt. “We were already several days behind them, and now it may be too late to catch them at all.”

  “Why are you chasing them?” Heinrich’s tone was mild, but Alaric wasn’t fooled. He knew his brother too well, even after all these years.

  “They robbed a friend,” he answered in what he hoped was a casual tone. “We promised to go after them and retrieve what they had taken.”

  “All the way from Middenheim?”

  Alaric cursed silently; Dietz must have told his family that.

  “It must be quite valuable, whatever they took, for you to go to such lengths,” his brother said.

  “Sentimental value only,” Alaric answered, “but we did promise to go after it.” He shrugged, buckling his vest in place. “If they are too far ahead of us, we’ll simply have to return and admit defeat, but I want to make sure first.”

  Heinrich rose from the chair, moving it carefully back to its place by the desk. That was a bad sign. It meant he was angry, and had to control himself carefully lest he hurl the furniture across the room. Alaric vividly remembered breakages from their youth.

  “What are you really doing, Alaric?” his brother demanded. “Where have you been the past year? You dropped out of school and all but disappeared. Father has been worried sick!”

  “I doubt it,” Alaric answered dryly. “Unless he thought I might be embarrassing him again. Now if you’d said Mother was worried, I’d have believed you.” A horrible thought struck him. “Is she all right?”

  “She is fine,” Heinrich replied, “and yes, she was worried as well. We all were. You had a promising career ahead of you as a scholar, Alaric.”

  Alaric could almost hear the thought behind the statement: promising but useless. “Why did you throw it away?”

  “I didn’t throw anything away,” Alaric snapped, tired of hearing the same old complaints from yet another family member. “I was never cut out for it.”

  “Just like you weren’t cut out for the military life?” He could hear the sneer on Heinrich’s face.

  “That’s right.” It wasn’t worth arguing. It never had been. The von Jungfreuds were a military family. Every one of them was involved in defending the Empire from its many enemies; everyone but him.

  “I never did unders
tand why Father let you get away with that,” Heinrich admitted, moving back into Alaric’s line of vision. “None of the rest of us had a choice. None of us were given the option.”

  “Would you have taken it?” Alaric pulled his sword and his boots from the wardrobe and turned to face his brother. They glared at each other for a second, and then Heinrich laughed.

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Of course not, you’re a born soldier,” Alaric agreed. It was true. Heinrich of all of them had taken most easily to the family occupation. He was big and strong, and good with a blade, and he readily followed orders. He was not so good at giving them, but that was not a soldier’s role. He could carry out instructions and had thrived on the military training they had all received as children. “I was born to be… something else.”

  Heinrich shook his head. “What does that mean, Alaric?” He sounded and looked sincere. “What is that? You are a von Jungfreud, you were born to fight. Father needs you on the line with the rest of us!” His mouth twisted into a sneer again as he glanced at Alaric’s battered clothing. “Not wandering as some… vagabond, some layabout, some wastrel traveller.”

  “I am fighting,” Alaric shouted back. Heinrich had always been able to goad him into rage, and they had fought often as children and as young men. “I have battled things you cannot imagine, things that would have left you a gibbering fool. Not all battles are fought with armies and soldiers.” He raised the sheathed sword in his hand. “This was a gift from Todbringer himself, for services rendered unto all Middenheim.” He took a step forward, and a part of him was pleased to see his brother shrink back slightly, uncertain how to deal with his sudden and unexpected rage. “I have been places and seen things none of you could handle. And I have fought Chaos—and won—time and again. You have no idea what I have been through—none!”

  “Perhaps not,” Heinrich admitted more quietly, his own anger spent. “It has been some time. Stay here a while, Alaric. Tell me what you have been doing since you left. You say you have been fighting, and I believe you, for you were never a liar or a coward. You say I have no idea, correct that.”

  Alaric was surprised by the honest curiosity and interest he saw in his brother’s eyes. For a second he was tempted. Then he laughed bitterly. “Why, so you can report it all to Father?”

  “He has a right to know,” Heinrich answered. “You are his son, and a member of his family… and you are a soldier in this war, whether you like it or not.”

  “How is he?” Alaric asked, changing the subject.

  “The same: still fighting, still giving orders, and still holding the line.”

  “And grandfather?” Their grandfather was the Graf von Jungfreud, the leader of the clan and the master of the fortress at Black Rock. Alaric remembered him as a towering man of massive build, iron-grey hair, and features chiselled from stone, every inch the military leader. Their father was his oldest son and heir, but the Graf had shown no sign of slowing down when Alaric had last seen him. That had been years ago, however.

  “He does not charge into battle as often,” Heinrich answered, with something suspiciously like sorrow in his voice. “He lets Father command the attacks most of the time, but his voice is still strong and his eyes are still sharp, and his mind is as solid as ever.”

  Solid; yes, that was a good word for it, Alaric thought as he pulled on his boots and buckled on his sword belt. Grandfather was not a stupid man, but he was not smart either. He had always been too set in his ways, too unwilling to consider change, too quick to dismiss even the idea of breaking with tradition, just like their father.

  “And the others?”

  “Gunter has his own command now.” Heinrich’s voice held a hint of envy. Gunter was their eldest brother, and their father’s heir. If he was not as good a soldier as Heinrich, he was a better leader, the type of man that men followed without question. “Morgan has taken charge of the hunters, and Deverick has his own forge. Randal serves on the border, as does Heintz.” Alaric nodded. All their brothers still alive and well, then. That was more than he’d expected, given the constant warfare along that side of Reikland.

  “And you are here?” he asked, picking up his jacket from where it lay across one of the armchairs. “Since when did you become a diplomat?”

  Heinrich snorted, as Alaric had expected, and he hoped his brother’s disgust at the thought was enough to keep him from noticing that Alaric was now fully dressed and ready to depart. “Father likes to have one of us here at all times,” he answered, “to keep us visible to the elector counts and the Emperor. Deverick cannot be expected to leave his forge, nor Morgan his hunts, but he rotates Gunter, Randal, Heintz and I each month.” His face split into a broad grin. “Just my luck that I am here when the prodigal son returns.”

  “Mine as well,” Alaric answered, knowing there was some truth to that. He and Gunter had never gotten along well, the oldest and the youngest, the one most honour-bound and the one least willing to follow tradition. If Gunter had been here, he would have helped Alaric recover and then sent him back to their father, in chains if necessary. He had no problem with Deverick, but no great rapport with him either, nor any with Randal. He had always gotten on well with Morgan, since they were the two most independent of the brothers, but it had been him, Heinrich and Heintz, the three youngest, who had played together as boys. Thus it was Heinrich and Heintz he would have had the best chance to slip away from, because they were the two he could most closely predict.

  “Father will be happy to see you,” Heinrich said, as if reading Alaric’s thoughts. He had been pacing while they talked, and somehow he was in front of the door, those heavy arms folded across his broad chest. “So will Mother.”

  “A family visit will have to wait,” Alaric replied smoothly, although his heart was hammering in his chest. “I really do need to get after those men.”

  “Because of some sentimental item they stole from a friend?” Heinrich shook his head. “You’ll have to do better than that, Alaric. What is it you’re really after?”

  For a second, Alaric considered telling him about the daemons, the statues, the gauntlet, the mask, and the cultists: all of it. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t even a question of Heinrich believing him. He was actually fairly certain he could convince his brother. They knew each other well enough for Heinrich to recognise that he was telling the truth. However, that might be even worse than being thought a liar, because Heinrich was utterly loyal to their father. He would report every detail back to him as soon as possible. If their father knew what Alaric was doing, the sort of foes he had faced, and the dangers the mask represented, he would do one of two things:

  Either he would send a small army to retrieve the mask, stomping about openly, destroying any chance of catching the thieves, who would use the confusion to slip away for good.

  Or he would order Alaric, along with his own men, to find the mask, and bring it to him at Black Rock, because he would think it could be used as a weapon.

  Alaric had never agreed with his father on much, and he had hated the man many times over the years, but he was still his father, and Alaric still loved him. No one, not even someone Alaric truly hated, deserved whatever the mask could do to them. If it was anything like the gauntlet, it would damn the wearer’s soul forever. Alaric could not allow that to happen to any member of his family, not even his father.

  “I can’t tell you,” he answered finally, meeting his brother’s gaze. “Please don’t ask me to. Just believe me when I tell you it is important, not just to me but to all of us.”

  Heinrich studied him for a moment, and then he nodded. “You have grown up, Alaric,” he said, grudging respect in his tone. “You are no longer the little boy who refused to follow orders just because they were orders.”

  “I still hate orders,” Alaric said with a grin, and Heinrich laughed.

  Then he stepped aside.

  “I will tell the servants to prepare your horses. I believe your man is down in th
e kitchen, or near it.” Heinrich held out his hand. “Good luck, Alaric.”

  Alaric took it and clasped it firmly. “Thank you.” He hesitated. “Tell Father and Mother… I am well. I am all right, and I have found my calling.”

  “I will,” Heinrich assured him. He smiled. “Now go. The trail will grow cold otherwise.”

  Alaric nodded, not sure what else to say, and stepped past his brother, and out into the hall. The room was on the third floor, it turned out, and he found Dietz sitting in a room down on the first floor, chatting with one of the servants while chewing a sausage he had skewered on his knife. Glouste was curled up in his lap, chittering happily and stealing bits of sausage with her quick, clever paws.

  “We’re leaving,” Alaric informed him as he strode into the room.

  “You’re better, then?” Dietz asked, standing and finishing the sausage, before sheathing the knife and joining him. He didn’t look surprised or concerned about Alaric’s sudden appearance or statement. Glouste chirped a warm hello as she shifted to her usual spot around Dietz’s shoulders.

  “I’m well enough,” Alaric replied, although he felt a little light-headed from taking the stairs so rapidly. “I should eat something, though.” He could tell his friend wanted to ask what had happened, but shook his head. They’d have time to talk later. For now, he just wanted to get out before Heinrich changed his mind.

  Dietz must have sensed his haste, and did not ask anything else. Instead the older man led him into the kitchen, where he apparently knew all the staff by name, and Glouste was clearly a favourite. The kitchen staff quickly set Alaric up with a plate of food and a mug of ale, and he had finished all but a few bites when a servant came to say that their horses were ready. Dietz knew the way to the stables, and Alaric followed him, after accepting some food and a wineskin that the staff pressed upon him.

  The horses seemed well-rested and had clearly been well looked after. That was no surprise, though; a good soldier knew the value of caring for his steed. Their clothes and other gear had already been packed into the saddlebags, along with fresh supplies. Alaric thanked the stableboy and handed him a coin. Then he pulled himself carefully into his saddle, wary of over-exertion before they’d even left. He felt fine, however. A few minutes later they were riding down the street and away from the von Jungfreud house. Alaric refused to look back.