"Gerlad?"

"Yes?" Their voices echoed off the book-lined walls of the large library, Gerlad seated at his usual spot near the window and raising his eyes from his reading as he spoke.

"A shipment is arriving from the coast tomorrow afternoon. Shall I make arrangements to meet the delivery?"

"Yes, Ellontin, please do. I've a full schedule. May I suggest that you bring with you a sturdy stable hand? I'm expecting my horse will be among the cargo."

Ellontin nodded once to his older brother and looked back down at his papers, Gerlad following this motion in nearly mirrored perfection. This was how they spent their days, deciding on the many business transactions that took place on and around their holdings. These were the Stonage brothers and they were heirs to one of the richest fortunes Flaxley had ever known, save the O'Donnells themselves. They had always been well off. Never in need for food or shelter. They'd moved from Flaxley with the famine had come, for fear of their holdings being depleted completely. With them, they brought their many servants and their families, a populous that settled in this area nicely.

Gerlad took in a breath and spoke again, this time without looking up from his reading, "I hear tell of some goings on in the area and that it might be wise to carry a weapon with you when you go."

"Oh?" Ellontin lifted his eyes to look across at his older brother.

Gerlad nodded and lowered the reading to his lap, "Some of the help has been talking about a 'mad slasher'." He rolls his eyes with a helpless shrug, "Apparently, some of the people from Flaxley have fallen victim and there's a rumor of a curse...or demon...or some sort of nonsense."

Gerlad stood and moved to one of the shelves, slipping the leather bound book back into its place, "I don't believe for a moment that there is some kind of demon at work, Ellon, but people have been killed and we need to protect ourselves."

Ellontin set his own reading aside to stand as well, "I'll be careful, Gerlad."

~~~~

A breath. The moist air swirling before him as it passes from his lips. It travels only moments to disappear with the darkness. The cover of the tree nearly blocks all light, even what little comes from the stars on this night, as he stands waiting and watching. One hand slides over the other then moves slowly upward to grasp the cloak and pull it over his broad shoulders then across his face. Now, his eyes are all that show behind the thick dark cloth. Watching. Waiting.

The hunger kneads at his soul. It jolts his being. With a breath, he feels the cool air enter his lungs and closes his eyes with it. Memories pass over him like invaders. And though he may try and defend his stronghold, they are relentless...

~"Come on, son!"~

~A laughing smile. Pale, but healthy skin. Eyes alive with light. Large hands taking him up. Strong arms swinging him around.~

~The laughter of a woman. Her hair pinned up and away from her face. She sits on a picnic blanket. A large basket, filled with food. Her belly well rounded with impending child.~

~"Higher, Father! Higher!"~

~~~~

"Jefferson, bring my side bag from in there, will you?" Ellontin called out over his shoulder as he tightened the last strap on his horse.

The stable hand, Thomas, who he had asked to come had injured himself that day and Ellontin was forced to bring along Jefferson. Jefferson was slow, though a nice boy. Boy. He was nearly twenty-two years of age, but dull witted and that made people treat him as if he were a child. He acted much like a boy of nine or ten might. This didn't stop him from working hard and becoming a valued member of the extended family of servants who worked for the Stonage family.

"Yes, sir." Jefferson's voice emitted from the open stable door before he emerged with the side bag in hand. "Here."

"Thank you, Jefferson. You can bring your horse out now and we'll ride together." With that, Jefferson turned to walk back into the stables. Ellontin mounted his horse, shifting his weight back and forth to settle in on the saddle. He smiles as the other man guided his horse out and moved up next to it.

"I ride good." Jefferson said, to which Ellontin just nodded then reigned his own horse onward.

He turned and looked back as Jefferson righted himself on the saddle, "It'll be dark soon. I wanted to do this earlier, but with Thomas hurting himself, we were delayed. We shall try and make it there as quickly as possible, alright?"

Jefferson nodded with a smile and soon the two were traveling along the road with the setting sun behind them. It would be well into the night by the time they arrived at the shipping yards, but Ellontin had been assured, by the message he received that afternoon, that someone would be there to meet them.

~~~~

Twisting at the edge of his cloak, he battles the wicked foe still within his mind. Scenes from the nether worlds of memory and thought catch him with their painful hooks. He turns his head in pain, clenching his eyes shut tightly against the tide within him...

~"All will be well, son. Yer mother will be well when the babe is born."~

~A hand pressed gently to his forehead, another held close to his own so he can play nervously with the ring there. A light at the door and Father turns to see the nursemaid enter.~

~"Tis time, m'lord."~

~And he was gone. The last moment of peace. The last moment before the other came.~

~~~~

The building was dark when they arrived, the two large statues that guarded the front gate of the ship yard met them with the usual solemn stare. Ellontin never understood where the statues came from or why they were placed so, given the poor financial state of the ownership of these yards.

"I was told someone would be about," he snaps as he slides off his mount. He holds the reigns up to Jefferson without looking at him, "Take my horse to the stables and see if they left a hand there to help us. I shall look within the offices of the main building."

With that, the man strode off toward the main entrance to the building where a dim light could be seen from within.

~~~~

A soothing breath has brought him back to now. Sweat that had beaded on his forehead now mats his hair into place. And then it happens again, another wave of images from places far beyond his conscious reach. He struggles physically to maintain his stronghold, but still the soldiers march onward...moving over him...crushing him with their heavy boots...

~"Hello, my son."~

~She's so sickly looking. Her hair swept over her head, her pale skin and lips cracked from dryness. In her arms, she hold weakly to a bundle." ~

~"This is your brother."~

~He peers over the bed linens to look at the undersized thing that lay sleeping there. It did this to her. It made her weak and tired.~

~She smiles at him and cups a hand over his cheek before he is used out of the room by a nursemaid.~

~~~~

Jefferson rode around the back of the large building and looked both ways before seeing what appeared to be a stable. He slipped from his horse and walked closer to the darkened building, lifting his lantern and calling out..."Hello?"

A moment's wait was all he needed and he turned with a sigh back toward the main building where Lord Ellontin will be. No one was there. Why did they come here if no one would be here? Lord Ellontin and Lord Gerlad are sometimes not very smart. They like to think that they are, but riding out into the night and not having anyone here to meet them isn't very smart.

A distant sound caught Jefferson's ear. It was the kind of noise that made people rush to help someone. A muffled yell. A loud thumping. Shattering glass. Jefferson ran toward the building, slowing only as he past the huge statues that always made him scared, now facing away and outward from where he was.

The place was silent and dark when he arrived. "Lord Ellontin?" he called out into the large door that hung ajar. When silence met him, he spoke again with less volume than before as he tried to hear the sounds of this unfamiliar place, "Lord Ellontin?"

He quickly tied the horses to a post just outside the door and stepped inside, shining his lantern in before looking around this front room, "Are you there?"

With a swallow, he moved as quietly as possible toward the doorway at the back of the room. "Nobody was in the stable," he said to the darkened room beyond, "I think we might've come here for nothing."

When he rounded the doorway and after the light from his lantern eliminated the room beyond, he stood frozen with shock. Then he did all he knew to do. He ran. He dropped the lantern and ran out of the offices, taking hold of his horse and running with it before climbing on in mid-gallop. He spurred the beast onward and rode as fast as he could.

His heart raced as his mind tried to calculate the routes to home. No, the ways to Flaxley. No, the way home. Nevermind where, he just needed to leave. The light grew ever-brighter behind him. The heat on his back like that spit forth from the mouth of the devil himself. Nevermind the huge monster statues looming over him as he rode between them. They would only watch as he left, but what did that to Lord Ellontin would surely be a worse demon to fight.

Home, then. He would go home and speak nothing of this to anyone.

Ernie 04/2001


Field of Death: Part IX

... He stood in front of a tumbled pile of blocks, each the size of a large boulder. Setting his shoulder to the first, he began trying to move the lettered toys into some order, knowing that if he could only get them in the right sequence, he might be able to read the word it formed and catch a killer…

Finally he thought he had it right, and stepped back to read what it said….

And a huge hand in a bloody glove swept down from the sky, and with a howl of laughter, scattered all the blocks….

Ian roared with anger. Then, once more setting shoulder to a block, began all over again.

If only he could read the message…

*********

"Wake up!"

"Blocks…"

"Ian, damn it, wake up! Fire!"

Ian shoved himself up on one elbow. He'd come straight back to Camelot after leaving the scene of Tyler's death, and had ended up staying the night here in his office on the cot he kept in the corner for such occasions. But he was awake now, not so much because of the word `fire' but because Timmons never used his first name while they were on duty unless all hell was breaking loose. He reached for his boots. "Where?"

"The shipyard, at one of the offices."

"How bad?" He finished tugging on his boots as he listened.

Timmons shrugged. "Don't know yet. The watch on the west wall saw the flames and the alarm bell was already ringing when he found me to report. The watchmen in the yard most likely had already seen it. Our men are on the way down there to help."

"Good." Ian walked briskly for the door and the pair started down the stairs. "I'll want to speak with the watchmen after." He paused briefly at the bottom of the stairwell. "It's not an O'Donnell building, is it?"

"Don't know that yet, either, m'lord."

Ian nodded, then walked on. Horses were saddled and waiting in the courtyard, but for some reason, all Ian could think of for a few seconds was the last time a fire roared on the docks, and of Elspeth and Lerrad standing defiantly on the burning deck of their ship.

He shrugged it off, then mounting the horse, rode pell-mell out the gates with Timmons for the shipyard.

*********

It was the wide spread damage caused by that last fire that had moved Ian to take precautions against another such disaster. After a long series of meetings with merchants and ship owners, large vats, similar to those one might see in a vineyard for pressing grapes, were set up at intervals along the waterfront. It was the responsibility of the folk doing business there to see that each vat was full with water at all times and that a supply of buckets was handy. The shipyard office was the first building to burn since the water supplies had been mandated, and so it was the first building saved. The fire was out in less than half an hour.

Blackthorn tossed a last bucketful of water at a smoldering timber and then stepped back. The front of the building had suffered the most of the damage, but the flames had barely touched the rest of it. Still, it would take some work to repair the place. He turned as he heard Timmons call for him.

"Here's the watchman who sounded the alarm, milord. You may be interested in what he has to say." He nudged the man "Go on, Cuthbert. Tell milord Blackthorn what you saw."

The man nodded, brushed some hair from his eyes with one sooty hand. "I saw him, I did. He rode out of here lickety split, going like the devil himself were behind him."

"Him? You saw someone set the fire?"

Cuthbert fidgeted a bit. "Well, I didn't say that! I just saw him ride in wi' the other. He rode around the back while th' other went in, then he ran back about and followed the other in. Next thing y' know, he bolts outside, jumps on his horse, and then races off. Thought he was goin' to smash his horse into one of the statues at the gate, I did!"

"Wait, Cuthbert, wait! You say there were two men?"

"I just said tha' didn't I? It was that Ellontin Stonage and th' other that rode off was that big lumpkin servant, that Jefferson."

"But Ellontin wasn't with him?"

Cuthbert blinked. "I know what I saw, and I only saw one. Most like he went off to get help for the fire when that Jefferson rode off. I saw the flames when I looked back at the building, then I ran off to ring the alarm. Master Ellontin is with one of the other bucket teams, I'll wager."

Ian shared a glance with Timmons, who nodded silently and moved off and into the building. "You did well, Cuthbert. I'll be sure to let the Merchant's Guild know of your work tonight." The other man grinned, then Ian followed Timmons inside.

"Over here, sir!" Timmons held a lantern over a shape huddled on the floor. "Flames never reached him."

Ian scowled, knelt down, and turned the body over. It was Ellontin Stonage, and he'd been stabbed to death.

In his coin purse they found a wooden block with the letter E.

Blackthorn 04/2001