Tenebroum

Chapter 49: An Inexplicable Aftermath

When the morning dawned and the only evidence of last night’s vicious storm were the puddles in the streets, Baronet Geldin was overjoyed. Well, he would have been had someone from the guard not seen fit to send a messenger that woke him up at the crack of dawn. That was an entirely unacceptable turn of events, especially considering everything he’d already been through in the last few weeks.

With the coming of the autumn rains, the danger of riots and fires had finally stopped! This should have been the one night he’d been able to sleep in with his wife, but no, instead, a mailed fist had woken him up to tell him he was needed. These riots were already well past anything he should have had to deal with already as Fallravea’s Captain of the Guard. He’d bought this post with a few well-placed bribes and pledges of eternal loyalty to his dear cousin because of the respectability that came with it. Normally it was practically a ceremonial position. Beating rioters bloody and getting up in the dark to deal with things personally was never supposed to be part of that deal. He had a whole web of underlings for exactly this reason.

At least, he was supposed to, but as he made his way from the local watch station to the city constabulary, the mystery only deepened. No one knew, it seemed, what he’d been woken up for. All anyone knew was that he was urgently needed by the next person in the chain of command, so one at a time, he was handed off to the next highest-ranking officer on the list in a way that would have been comedic if it wasn’t so frustrating.

“If you can’t tell me where we’re going, I’ve got half a mind to go back to bed until you find someone who can,” Lord Geldin grumbled. Walking beside the lad that had been sent to fetch him to the palace for reasons no one would explain.

“Please, sir - the night captain is at the palace gate. I’m sure that he knows just what’s going on,” the young errand boy pleaded, knowing he’d be the one punished if Lord Geldin failed to appear.

“At the gate? Why in the devil would Bruden be waiting in the damp when he could just as easily wait for me in the guard post or the entry hall?” the Baronet wondered, mostly to himself though his escort answered anyway.

“I’m sure I can’t say, sir,” the messenger answered. “Everyone is standing outside the gate. That’s all I know. No one in or out until you get there.”

That at least mollified Lord Geldin. He’d much rather be in bed sleeping with his wife, but if he had to be out and about at this ungodly hour, then the least he could expect was for everyone to treat him like the important person that he was.

Minutes later, they arrived at the wrought iron gate, and there was an obvious pall over everyone, but there were no clues as to why. “Why in the name of all that’s holy did you get me up this early, Bruden?” he demanded. He’d learned that when you had authority, you should throw your weight around as early as possible so there was no confusion about who was in charge when he was young, and the lesson had only gotten more important as the years had gone by.

“Sir,” the way that the night captain came instantly worried the Baronet. Unlike him, Bruden had been in the guard for almost two decades. He was a professional, and he was very obviously spooked. “It all started a few hours ago when there was a message for Lord Reigen at the main gate.”

“So - did you have the message delivered to him?” the Baronet asked, trying to be patient.

“We tried to, my lo- sir, but he was at the Count’s palace, you see,” the man answered. Yes, he was definitely spooked and trying to avoid something, though, for the life of him, the Baronet couldn’t imagine what would make such a sturdy fellow teeter on the brink like this.

He looked past the gate to the palace grounds and garden, and the only thing he saw amiss was the wreckage of a drowned party between the hedge maze and the fountain. That made Lord Geldin smile. He’d been to precious few of the parties that Count Garvin had thrown since everything had started to spin out of control, and the nobles - the ones that really mattered, had sought to put some distance between themselves and the commoners. He liked to think they’d left him out because he was too busy with his official duties, but he knew the truth: he was the third son of a lesser family, and this was as far as he was ever likely to rise.

“So - they had a little rain on their parade - they won’t bite the head off your messenger,” he answered, still smiling that their fun had been ruined. “I still don’t see how you need me for any of this.”

Captain Bruden didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he gestured to two of his men that were standing by with torches and started walking toward the palace, leaving the Baronet to catch up. Something about their grim silence made him stay quiet, and eventually, it proved to be enough to kill even the smile that had been inspired by the drooping flower arrangements and soaked platters of food that had been left out all night.

The realization that all of that was something the servants should have addressed by now was his first clue that something might actually be terribly wrong, and it came to him moments before he saw the bloodstains on the front door. Lord Geldin reached for his sword immediately at the sight, only to realize that he hadn’t belted it on in his hurry to get dressed. Reluctantly he pulled a dagger from another sheath and held it like a protective talisman.

“What happened?” he asked, finally working up the nerve to speak.

“We don’t know,” Captain Bruden answered. “The messenger took one look inside and ran back out into the pouring rain. We haven’t been able to get much out of him about who or what he saw.”

The way the men stopped, it quickly became apparent to Lord Geldin that they expected him to do the honors and open the door, or at least to chicken out and order someone else to do it. He was determined not to do that, though, in case this was a prank. So, he pushed the door open without the slightest hesitation and stepped inside to show his decisiveness.

That decision almost immediately backfired as he windmilled on the slick travertine tiles of the entryway and only avoided falling onto his ass in a pool of blood thanks to his right hand’s death grip on the front door.

Lord Geldin didn’t have time to get over that first shock before a larger second one hit him like an ocean wave. Dawn’s light was only just starting to shine through the windows on the east side of the building, and many of those still had their drapes drawn, but what light crept into the room was enough to see that the place was a charnel house.

In recent years Count Garvin had lavished money on his own vanity, and the grand entryway to his palace had been refurbished twice. The first effort had seen the stairs replaced with something broad and sweeping to match the new stonework, and the second had covered half of everything in a layer of gold and gilded scrollwork.

This third renovation had covered the other two in a layer of blood. That was the first thing that struck the Baronet as he struggled to put on a brave face in front of his lessers. Everything was covered or spattered in thin layers of partially congealed blood. It was only after that shock started to fade that he realized there were no bodies to go with it.

How could one end up with so much blood and no bodies at all? He had no idea, but he knew what needed to happen next before the panic that was slowly making its way up his spine forced him to flee. Ever so carefully, so he wouldn’t slip and fall, he walked to the east windows and began opening the curtains one at a time. Every extra bit of light made the horror show that much worse, but it was necessary, and it made him seem more decisive. That’s what he told himself, at least.

“Light banishes the darkness,” he said, mostly to himself. “All the priests say it, and light is the only thing that could possibly protect us from whatever did this.”

Once he started, the other men began to help him, flooding the room with dim morning light that was still brighter than any torch. It was only when he had opened up every last window that could be opened that he was forced to come face to face with the facts: no one had survived whatever happened here. They couldn’t have.

Here and there were scraps of fancy dresses and costumes of the rich that had been here last night, but there were also serving trays and parts of uniforms that spoke to the servants that would have been attending to their needs. Even though Lord Geldin wasn’t an imaginative man, he could see how this bloodbath would have played out. The only thing that was missing was who did it.

“Who could have done such a terrible thing?” he asked the other men at a complete loss. Captain Bruden shook his head in silence, unable to speak, and one of the soldiers that accompanied them in tried to suggest goblins, but they’d all fought goblins in recent enough memory to know the signs. The room would be stacked with bodies, and all of them would bear the marks of the green skin’s hunger.

No, it didn’t make sense, but then he doubted anything ever would.

“We need to find evidence of something,” Lord Geldin said firmly, using his dignity and his title to prop up his failing bravery. “I won’t send letters to the king and the holy city with nothing more than blood to go on.”

He only realized after he said it that he would probably have to do exactly that. The Geldins were pretty far down the lists of accession for Greshen County, but then, anyone who was anyone had been here last night. There were likely still some of the elder Gerwins at their estate in the country, and of course, Baron Laxly was in his manor outside the city, but it would take time to call them back, and in an emergency, like this, everyone would be looking to the captain of the guard for answers, so he’d better damn well have some.

They spent the next hour searching the lower floors, but in the end, the only thing there was to find was a terrible hole dug into the basement. It was where all the bodies had been dragged to. That much was obvious, but how it had gotten there or how long it had been there, no one would even guess. It had been dug right up through the foundations of the castle - right through solid stone, and though one of the soldiers dropped a torch into it to verify there was a ramp they could walk on, no one dared descend the stairs for a closer look.

In the end, they moved as much furniture as they could in front of the basement door to keep whatever it was from getting out again, but as they did that, Lord Geldin heard a distant whining. He silenced the men that were with him, and slowly they followed it up the stairs to the west wing.

There at least, the blood thinned out significantly, eventually becoming nonexistent. From a distance, he’d had no idea what the strange, painful sound had been, but once he got closer, it became obvious. When they opened the final door to the small nursery, they found nothing more or less than a squalling infant. Lord Garvin’s son Leo the Fifth, was the only survivor of everything that had happened here. It was a sort of miracle to find a baby untouched amidst this terrible disaster, but there was nothing to tell them why they would let a baby live when everyone else had died so gruesomely.