Excerpt: The House of Raeno

Gethryn moaned, dredged from inconsistent dreams by a persistent dull thudding. He shifted against the tabletop, warmed by the press of his cheek, and opened his eyes briefly. Still dark, not dawn yet. No time for visitors, but the thudding continued, loud enough to wake the dead. Loud enough to wake the household; the thought snatched him and yanked him awake. Blearily, he ran his tongue over his sleep-furred teeth and heaved himself up.

“All right all right, shut up,” he said. He fumbled at his belt for his keys, and stepped out of the gate-keeper’s lodge and into the chill of the pre-dawn twilight. The pounding continued, and with it a scrabbling, as of nails on wood. A sudden keening stilled his heart and made his blood run cold.

“Lordship?” he asked, but there was no answer. He glanced around; the empty courtyard was awash with mooncast shadows, and only the softest, ordinary noises came from the stables. “Amvar preserve me,” he said, then, in a whisper so low as to have almost no breath behind it at all, “Kemest, keep me safe.”

Hands shaking, he unlocked the viewing window in the lesser door, and swung the panel down. He didn’t put his face too close to the wood, but glanced out into the space a visitor’s face should rightly be. There was no one there.

Regardless, something was breathing. A shuddering, rattling sound, that seemed to hitch for a moment before the scrabbling began anew.

“Who’s there?” he snapped. “Show yourself.”

The keening picked up again, high and sorrowful, and the thought struck Gethryn that this noise would follow him to the grave.

“I said who’s there. Answer, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

“I said help me!” It was little more than a whisper on the cruel breeze. “Let me in, you have to let me in!”

“Stand, so I can see you,” Gethryn said. “And stop banging, you’ll wake everyone up.”

The keening rose, turned into a wailing sob, then dissolved into a hacking cough in which words could be discerned only infrequently. “Can’t… can’t… Let me in!”

Gethryn unsheathed his knife and jabbed the point through the open window. When nothing new happened, he followed it slowly with his face. There was a dark bundle on the cobbles below, but the angle denied him a clear view.

“Get back,” Gethryn said, “so’s I can see you.”

The coughing continued, but the bundle shuffled back jerkily. A white face, pale as the silver moon, looked up at him, and Gethryn felt the cobbles vanish from beneath his feet.
Bright eyes stared, wide and glistening, leaking dark liquid. Pale lips quivered, streaked with black. “I beg of you,” it said. “Please, let me in.”

Gethryn shook his head, retreated. Trouble, this was certainly trouble. His knife fell from his grip, and he found himself skidding across the cobblestones, sprinting for the door to the main house.
He went as quickly and as quietly as he could, but his boots made a terrible clatter on the stairs, and even the waxed canvas of his coat rustled abominably loud.

“Stefan, sir.” He knocked on the steward’s door as hard as he dared. “Sir, we have a…” He couldn’t finish. What did they have? A problem? A demon? He had no idea. Something bad, he thought, the vision of that snow-pale face at the forefront of his mind even as he knocked again, a little harder this time.

The door opened. “What’s wrong?” Stefan asked. He didn’t look as though he’d just woken up, didn’t even look as though he’d been to sleep. “Out with it.”
“I… Come quick, at the gate.” Gethryn gestured for Stefan to follow, and headed back down the stairs. He couldn’t explain it, not out loud, so he hoped that Stefan could hear his thoughts, that the steward would know what he wanted to say without him having to say it.

Back at the High Gate, the scrabbling had begun again.

“Just there,” Gethryn said, pointing at the door.

“Who’s there?” Stefan asked. He held his hand out towards Gethryn. Fumbling, Gethryn removed the keys from his belt and handed them over. With every fibre of his being, from his skin to his bones, he wanted to cry out ‘no!’ and stop Stefan from opening the door, but Gethryn held back by the wall, and noticed too late that his knife was no longer on him.

Stefan swung the door open. “I said, who are you?”

Gethryn edged forwards, stopping only at the sight of that shining face. There was a hand, too, he could now see, clutched tight against a distended stomach. It was swathed in a thick cloak, but portions of paler clothing could be seen, and all of it looked streaked with filth.

“Help me,” the creature said, staring up at Stefan. It extended a claw, its free hand Gethryn realised, and dropped something on the floor at Stefan’s feet. It gleamed dully, but Gethryn couldn’t make out what it was. “Please, they’ll kill me…”

“You should be dead,” Stefan said, glancing down at the object. The creature cringed, silent, head bowed. After a moment, its shoulders started to shake. Stefan made an exasperated noise, and picked up whatever the creature had dropped. “Be thankful Kerell isn’t here,” he said. “You can come in. Get up.”

“It can’t get up,” Gethryn said. “It’s hurt.”

Stefan gave him a look that he couldn’t interpret, but that nonetheless made him wish he’d never spoken. “Get back to your post,” he said. “I’ll deal with him.”