Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(29)

“A fort!” he reported. “Looks empty.”

Hugh looked at Sam and nodded at the column behind them. “Get Sharif.”

The kid turned his horse and rode back. Half a minute later, Sharif came riding up from the back. The lean dark-haired scout had been covering the rear. Sam followed him.

Hugh touched the reins, and they rode on. The path turned. A wooden palisade rose to one side of the road, a ring of sharpened tree trunks ten feet high. A crude guard tower stood on the right, just inside the palisade walls, overlooking the road. A bell hung from its ceiling. The gate of the palisade stood wide open. The road curved to the left, widening into what used to be Main Street. An old pre-Shift two-story house crouched on one side, a trailer on the other, both mostly eaten by the forest. He could just make out the sharp point of a church steeple in the distance between the new trees.

The palisade lay silent. No sentries. No movement.

Hugh glanced at Conrad.

“This is new,” the older scout said. “Wasn’t here nine months ago.”

Sharif dismounted. Light rolled over his dark irises and flashed green. He inhaled deeply, crouched and sniffed the road.

“Nobody’s home,” he said quietly.

Hugh dismounted and fixed Conrad with his stare. “Stay here with the boy.”

If something happened to those two idiots, Elara would screech at him for days.

Hugh walked inside the gates. Three large log houses waited inside, two to the left and one to the right. In the back, an animal pen stood empty. The wind brought a hint of carrion.

“The road smells odd,” Sharif said quietly.

“Human, animal?”

“Odd. Nothing I’ve smelled before.” He held out his arm. The hairs on it stood straight up. “I don’t like it.”

Shapeshifters had a freakishly strong scent memory, and among all of the shapeshifters, werewolves were the best. They had no problem taking a whiff of blood and sorting through a couple of thousand scent signatures to identify a guy they’d shared a drink with once two years ago. Sharif had been with him for five years. If he hadn’t smelled it before, it had to be one hell of a rare creature or something new.

New. Hugh smiled. “Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?”

Sharif rolled his eyes for half a second before schooling his features into a perfectly neutral expression.

Hugh turned to the nearest house, walked up the wooden stairs onto the porch and touched the door. It swung open under the pressure of his fingertips. A simple open floor plan with the kitchen and dining area to the far left and the living room space to his right. Dinner was laid out on the table. He moved across the floor on silent feet to the table. The reek of rotten food made him grimace. Fuzzy blue mold blossomed on the abandoned food. Looked like pulled meat of some sort with mashed potatoes on the side and a serving of formerly green vegetables. A fork lay by the nearest plate, its tines covered with mold.

He crouched and looked under the table. A broken plate.

Sam was hovering nearby. Hugh pointed at the plate. “Thoughts?”

“It happened in the middle of dinner?”

Hugh nodded. “There is a walkway built along the palisade and a tower. What was under it?”

Sam blinked.

“Go look.”

The kid took off.

Sharif crossed his arms. “I don’t like it.”

“I heard you the first time.”

Sam came back. “A broken plate.”

“What does that tell you?”

“There was a guard on duty. They brought him dinner.”

“And?”

“Something killed him so fast, he couldn’t raise the alarm.” Sam paused. “Was he shot?”

“No blood spatter,” Sharif said. “But there is this.” He slid his finger down the wooden frame. Four long bloody scratches gouged the wood.

“And this.” He crouched and pointed to the floor.

A bloody human nail.

Sam’s face turned pale. “Something dragged them out of here.”

Hugh pivoted to his right. A row of guns and swords on the wall, just by the door. It would take him less than a second to cover the distance from the table to the wall. “Something smart and fast.”

“Vampires?” Sam asked.

“It’s possible.”

“I don’t smell the undead,” Sharif said.

“But you do smell something. If Nez has resorted to snatching people from isolated communities, he wouldn’t use the regular bloodsuckers to do it.” Hugh straightened.

“But why?” Sharif asked.

“That’s a good question.”

Vampirism came about as the result of infection by the Vampirus Immortuus Pathogen. The pathogen killed its human host and reanimated it after death. Because every loose vampire would slaughter anything it could get its claws on, to an average human, the idea of vampires was terrifying. But to Roland, the undead were an effective tool. He’d made his first one accidentally, thousands of years ago, and he found them exceedingly useful. He wanted to seed his Masters of the Dead into every major city. They were his spies and his secret arsenal.

To accomplish this goal, Roland had to position the People as an operation with a flawless record, beneficial to the community. They presented themselves as a research institution with a focus in undeath, financed by casinos and other similar venues, and they offered a valuable service. They removed and neutralized any undead reported to them free of charge, and they offered the dying a chance to guarantee a payout to their families. If you were terminally ill and chose to donate your body for voluntary infection by the Vampirus Immortuus pathogen, the People would deposit a substantial sum into the account of your choice. The People acted like academics, dressed like high-priced lawyers, and treated the general public with utmost courtesy, and it worked. The general public happily forgot that each Master of the Dead, armed with just one vampire, could wipe out ten city blocks in less than an hour.