The Outcast (Summoner #4)(32)
Still, even if the servants’ quarters were colder, they were decorated as ostentatiously, and Arcturus could see passages lined with paintings, tapestries, even suits of armor and racks of gleaming weaponry, as the winding stairway took him higher and higher.
When he reached the top floor, Arcturus paused, wondering which way to go. A long, darkened passageway stretched in front of him, while the balcony overlooking the atrium lay to his left and right, with doors studding its walls.
An idea came to Arcturus, and he smiled. He knelt and unraveled the summoning leather that Elizabeth had given him, leaving the square of pentacle-embossed leather on the ground in front of him.
Moments later, Sacharissa materialized into existence, her tail wagging like a metronome. She whined and nuzzled against Arcturus’s palm, then nipped him lightly for keeping her confined for so long.
“I’m sorry, Sacha, but you’d better get used to it.” Arcturus smiled, ruffling her ears. “Now keep quiet. You’re not supposed to be out.”
The dog demon rolled on her back, whining hopefully as she waited for a belly rub. Arcturus obliged, shaking his head ruefully as she wriggled with pleasure. She was still a puppy at heart.
“Can you smell Elizabeth for me, girl?” Arcturus murmured. “I need you to find her.”
Instantly, the demon was on her feet, her ears upright and alert, nose close to the ground. He could sense her excitement, pulsing through him like a rush of adrenaline. A hunt. It was what she was born to do.
Already she was snuffling the ground, prowling forward with the low gait of a lion stalking a gazelle, the soft padding of her feline feet barely making a sound in the echoey hollow of the murky passageway ahead.
“Attagirl,” Arcturus said, rolling up his summoning leather and following her into the ill-lit aisle.
He could almost smell the scent that Sacharissa was pursuing, just as he had smelled Elaine in the summoning room. It wasn’t as powerful as when he looked directly into Sacharissa’s eyes, but it seemed as if the demon’s senses were bleeding into his own.
Elizabeth’s scent was like a symphony of notes in Sacharissa’s mind, and Arcturus found it hard to concentrate as the new sensation wafted through him.
And yet, there was another, stronger smell breaking through, made up of leather, musk and soot. Even as it became stronger, Arcturus thought he could make out a short, stocky figure in the gloom ahead, a flickering light hanging in the air beside it.
It was Ulfr, squinting at them beneath his bushy eyebrows as the pair approached. Arcturus stepped into the light of Ulfr’s lantern, and was suddenly suffused with guilt. He had not thought to thank the dwarf—he owed Ulfr his life after all. If the dwarf had not gone for help when Arcturus was under attack, the young summoner would likely be Wendigo droppings by now.
“I … I wanted to thank you, for fetching the teachers,” Arcturus stammered, suddenly shy under the dwarf’s glower. “I should have come sooner. I’m sorry.”
“No thanks or apologies needed,” Ulfr muttered, turning aside. “’Twas not for the love of you, but to get back at those noble brats. Many’s the time they’ve taunted me. Now who’s laughing.”
The dwarf broke into a grim smile.
“You have my thanks all the same,” Arcturus replied, his heart sinking at Ulfr’s words. “We are not all like them.”
“Aren’t you?” Ulfr growled, his brows beetling as his face darkened with anger.
He grabbed Arcturus’s arm and pulled him a few steps up the corridor, ignoring the warning growl from Sacharissa. The dwarf spun Arcturus around and stabbed a stubby finger at a painting hanging on the wall.
“This is what humans do.”
It took a moment for Arcturus to register the scene before his eyes, for the image was cracked and faded. Then his eyes widened in horror.
A column of dwarves were depicted midmarch down the center of a parade, complete with a pennant-waving crowd on either side. They were naked and soil stained, with metal collars around their necks, and heavy chains kept taut between them. Behind, men on horses were frozen in the act of flailing whips at their bare backs, and if Arcturus looked closely, he could see red-furrowed wounds on the dwarven skin, and the red rivulets of blood that streamed beneath them.
“They hang these in the servants’ quarters, especially the dwarven floors. ‘Lest we forget,’ so we’re told,” Ulfr spat. “Well, I won’t forget, they can be sure of that.”
“Who are they?” Arcturus asked.
“The captives from the last dwarven rebellion, many years ago,” Ulfr said through gritted teeth. “They want us to remember that we lost the last one. And the one before that.”
“It’s cruel,” Arcturus said, horrified.
“Aye. Like all your kind,” Ulfr said.
Before Arcturus could think of an answer, someone cleared their throat behind him. He spun to see a thin, yellow-toothed man standing behind him. The newcomer wore the robes of a servant, and his expression turned to one of surprise as he took in Arcturus’s uniform.
“Are you lost, my lord?” the man said with a bow, his voice nasal and obsequious.
“No need to bow, Crawley, he’s no lord,” Ulfr said derisively. “He’s that commoner.”
“Indeed?” Crawley’s eyes lit up with sudden interest, and he leaned in to examine Arcturus closely. “Fascinating.”