Chương 39: Chapter 34 — The Escort

⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ Current XP: 3, 650 / 10, 000 The Guild board had thirty-four postings when Fenwick arrived that morning. He stood in front of it and read methodically — top left, working right, noting region and creature type and reward structure. The missing postings had grown. He counted five now, where there had been only three postings four days ago. He wrote them down without comment and moved on. The escort posting was near the bottom.

⟨ Posted Sign ⟩ Lady Elvabeth Mae Nutter, of Nutter Estate, requires a safe escort from Thornwall to her home, approximately two days' travel. The carriage dispatched for collection has not arrived. Lady Nutter awaits alternative arrangements: standard Guild rate plus expenses. Discretion requested. Fenwick read it twice. No combat expected. Two days of road travel. Standard rate.

The word discretion suggests Lady Nutter wanted it handled quietly, which was perfect for a ghoul and a wizard who were working on experience but did not want to be noticed. He set up the job with the Guild, set a time, and left. On his way to the Barn, he stopped by the Order and knocked on Nibbles' door.

"The research," said Fenwick.

"Into hunger zero. Has anyone started?"

"Brother Aldous began yesterday," said Nibbles.

"The library's undead section is smaller than I would like. He's working through what we have." He paused.

"It may take time."

"I know, thank you," said Fenwick.

"Keep me informed." He left to pick up Max. Lady Elvabeth Mae Nutter was waiting in the Guild's reception hall with three large trunks, a hatbox, and an expression that suggested the reception hall was considerably beneath her standards and she was enduring it with great personal fortitude. She was a red squirrel — the expensive kind, if such a distinction could be made, her coat brushed to an expensive gleam, one that required at least one spell if not more. Her dress was deep burgundy silk with cream trim.

Her tail was immaculate. Her whiskers were positioned with precision. She looked at Fenwick.

"You are the escort?" she said.

"Brother Fenwick, of the Order of the Eternal Flame," said Fenwick.

"Yes." She looked at him. Her whiskers made a small, precise movement.

"And the hero," she said.

"I was told the hero would be accompanying."

"He's outside," said Fenwick.

"He prefers the fresh air." This was true. It was also true that Fenwick preferred not to have the escortee eaten because she was rude.

"I see," said Lady Nutter. She looked at the door.

"And the carriage." Not a question. Two days late, and nobody had explained why, and she had been sitting in this reception hall with three large trunks and a hatbox waiting for someone to tell her something.

"There has been a development," said Fenwick, "regarding the carriage."

"Clearly," said Lady Nutter. Jenkins arrived twenty minutes later. He was a donkey, broad across the chest, with ears that caught the morning light and a grin that suggested he was genuinely pleased to be wherever he currently was. His wagon had been repaired in at least four different places with four different materials. Two large iguanas stood in the traces, blinking slowly at nothing in particular. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Jenkins hopped down from the seat with the energy of someone considerably younger than his years suggested and looked around with satisfaction.

"Well now," he said.

"This here's the Thornwall Guild hall, ain't it? Always did like this building. Had a fella once told me the east wall was gonna fall over — must've been, oh, fifteen years back now, maybe sixteen — and I said to him, I said, Denny, that wall's been standing four hundred years, it ain't fallin' today — and you know what? Still standing. Ain't that something." Lady Nutter's left eye developed a very slight twitch.

"This," said Fenwick, "is Jenkins. He'll be taking us to Nutter Estate." Lady Nutter looked at the wagon. At the iguanas. At Jenkins, who was patting one of the iguanas affectionately on the flank and telling it something about road conditions.

"I see," she said. There was a small hitch in the middle of it that she covered immediately. They were an hour out of Thornwall when Jenkins found his rhythm.

"Now this stretch right here," said Jenkins, from the driver's seat, "this is what I call the good road.

Some fellas say the south road's smoother but I been on both and I'll tell you, this here road — my father used to say a good road's like a good friend, you know it when you're on it — and this road, I known it thirty years, and it ain't let me down yet, 'cept for that one spring when the flooding came through and took out the east verge, but that was the flooding, weren't the road's fault—" Lady Nutter's tail bristled once and was still.

Lady Nutter was sitting in the wagon bed on her second-best trunk, back perfectly straight, eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance. Her best trunk was somewhere under Jenkins' supply crates, an arrangement she had mentioned twice and which had not changed. Max walked beside the wagon, cloak settled around him, hood up. From a certain angle in certain light, he was simply a large figure keeping pace, which was not unusual enough to attract attention. Lady Nutter had looked at him twice.

Both times, Max had been looking at something else — a hawk overhead, a stand of trees, the specific way the road curved ahead. Both times, she had looked away before he looked back.

"You're very quiet," she said to Fenwick, after the second hour.

"I find it restful," said Fenwick. She looked at him. At the road ahead. At Max, walking with the sword strapped to his back and the cloak moving around him.

"The hero," she said quietly.

"He's not what I expected."

"He rarely is," said Fenwick. Jenkins began a story about a goat he had once transported. Lady Nutter's tail bristled to twice its usual volume. She did not look at it. Neither did anyone else. They found the carriage forty minutes down the road. Or what was left of it. Jenkins pulled the iguanas to a stop and looked at the scene with the expression of someone who had seen a lot of roads and knew what this kind of damage meant. For once, he said nothing.

The vehicle had been overturned and pushed into the verge, one wheel still spinning slowly in the morning air. The lacquered panels were scored with claw marks — deep ones, multiple, by something that had hit fast and meant it. The harness had been torn loose. The luggage that had been in the boot was scattered across the road, some of it opened, most of it strewn across the landscape. The carriage swans were still there.

Four of them, white, covered in blood and wounds, precision attacks that had killed them before they had a chance to be spooked. If they ignored the blood, they looked almost peaceful and still in the grass at the verge's edge. They had been hit quickly. Whatever had done this had not lingered over them. Lady Nutter's eyes moved across them and stopped. The one nearest the verge was larger than the others, older, with a specific fold to his left wing that she would have recognized anywhere.

Horatio had called him Percy. She had never called him anything in front of her parents. When she was small, Horatio had let her groom him in the stable when nobody was watching, and once — just once, she had never told anyone — she had sat on his back for approximately four seconds before Horatio had lifted her off and looked at her with the expression of someone who had not seen anything and would continue not having seen anything. She stood in the wagon bed and looked at Percy, and did not say anything at all.

No footman. No driver.

"Horatio," she said quietly. Her footman's name, apparently. Said quietly, with more emotion than she had shown the whole journey, directed to an owner who was not there to answer to it. She stood in the wagon bed and looked at Percy and did not move. Her tail was very still. Her whiskers were very still. Everything about her was very still until her eye started to water and she turned her head. Huffed a bit and actively worked on straightening her perfectly straight dress. Max was already moving.

He circled the wreck in widening arcs, the cloak trailing, head moving with systematic thoroughness, reading a scene. He crouched at the claw marks. Stood. Moved to where the swans were. Crouched again. Found something on the road, examined it for a moment, then left it in place. He came back to where Fenwick stood.

"Flying," said Max.

"Pack. Came fast." He looked up at the sky. Then back on the road.

"Took them. Didn't eat." Fenwick looked at him.

"Didn't eat," Fenwick repeated.

"Swans, yes," said Max.

"People no." He looked at the empty road ahead; whatever had done this had gone. His dark eyes moved across the treeline on both sides, looking for something that might still be there and might still be waiting. Fenwick looked at the claw marks. He took out his notes. ⟨ [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ⟩ [Sindy — Private Log — Day 66] Five missing postings on the board this morning. Two more today. Swans killed. People taken. He said, "Didn't eat." He understood the distinction immediately.

▌ Becca, if you're reading this: ▌ Something is taking people and not eating them. ▌ Something that we haven't encountered yet.