Chapter 133: Explosive Accusation
Nyrielle hadn’t moved since taking a seat on the icy throne next to Lord Ritchel. To the assembled Frost Walkers, it felt like a goddess of death sat among them, waiting for someone to make a wrong move to give her an excuse to fall upon them and reap their lives. Drinks and half-finished meals sat forgotten and the councilors kept their movements to a minimum lest they break the delicate silence that had descended on the great hall like a fresh blanket of snow.
They didn’t have to wait long, however, before they began to hear the steady beat of a pair of drums. The drumbeats were low, slow, and punctuated at regular intervals by a sharp slap on the body of the drum.
Odette tightened her grip on the arms of her chair as she recognized the sound of a funeral march. Silently, she counted the beats, four heavy -THUMP-s followed by a sharp -CRACK- and then the drum beats resumed. Five people, one death.
Her eyes flicked to Lady Nyrielle in the hopes of seeing something on the other woman’s face that would give her the answer she badly needed to hear. If only one member of Hauke’s fishing party had died...
The odds were that her son had survived, particularly when the Eldritch Lady of the Vale had said there was a blood debt to be paid. When she looked at Nyrielle’s face, however, she saw only a cold, expressionless mask with eyes that looked past the councilors to the great doors behind them.
As the procession came closer, Paulus frowned, barely resisting the urge to turn and look at the door. The footfalls were measured in time with the drum beats and they were very heavy, but why was he hearing the clank of chains? It made no sense for a funeral procession to carry heavy chains, unless...
Unless Imnek was sloppy or hurried, Paulus realized. All Imnek cared about was taking his trophy. If he had torn the horn from Hauke’s head but left the young man alive, surely they would need to bind him with chains to prevent him from going completely out of control. One dead, likely the vampire’s pet witch, and the other driven insane by the loss of his horn. Just the idea of it made it difficult for Paulus to keep a grin from forming on his face.
The doors opened with a forceful -BOOM- as if they had been struck by a powerful force rather than simply being pushed open. Other than Ritchel and Nyrielle who remained seated, the gathered councilors stood, turning to bow respectfully to the fallen.
No matter what they may have suspected, however, nothing could prepare them for the entrance of Ashlynn and the procession that followed her.
Paulus’ eyes went wide as he realized that both Hauke and the witch, Ashlynn, were alive and well. The body carried on the litter belonged to a nameless horned soldier, a nobody in the grand scheme of things whose name Paulus had never bothered to learn.
Of the two guards carrying the body, only one of them looked to be injured with bandages visible on her arms and wrapped around her head, but otherwise, no one even looked hurt. Ashlynn and Hauke moved with purpose and grace without so much as a limp or a flinch to indicate injuries covered by their clothing. How was this possible?
More distressing than the survival of Hauke and Ashlynn was the sight of two Tuscan corpses, hauled behind the funeral procession like hunting trophies. The sharpened Frost Walker horns had been removed from their tusks, but Paulus had met with them often enough to realize that neither body belonged to Imnek.