The Ghost Princess (Graylands Book 1) Read online

  “What the hell was that?” someone asked.

  “Sounds like it’s coming from the Sentries’ camp,” said Arkady.

  Hobbs waved his hand, motioning everyone to be quiet, and slowly led everyone in the direction of the Sentries’ camp. As they approached, they saw the dim hint of fire, but they couldn’t make out any people. They could, however, hear shouting and commotion as if a fight was breaking out.

  Soon, the shouting stopped, and the night was silent as ever. There was no sign of movement or people, although Krutch thought he saw a huge shape move through the camp before everything went still again.

  Hobbs motioned Arkady to sneak closer and take a look. He crawled through some bushes, and all was calm before they heard him shout out, “Devil shit! Guys, you better take a look at this!”

  They moved in, and everyone was struck dumb upon finding what was left of the Sentries and Mage. One of them, a younger man who looked about Krutch’s age, had his throat slit. There was a woman whose head was found five feet from her body—the face split down the middle. The lead Sentry was hacked up into pieces, and the Mage was broken in half at the spine.

  All their faces were frozen in shock and pain. Blood was pooling around the campfire, and Krutch threw up upon seeing it.

  “Where’s the woman?” he asked, trying not to look at the bodies. “What about Rien?”

  Hobbs and the other pirates looked at each other, dumbfounded. Cyfer, cigarette in mouth, walked over to the other side of the camp and said, “There are two sets of tracks leading away from here. One of them looks like a woman’s. The other ...”

  “Should we go after her?” asked Arkady.

  “Does anyone really want to chance finding out what did this?” Krutch said.

  Everyone was silent.

  Hobbs stood beside Cyfer and stared at the tracks. “He was big, whoever he was. You have any idea what the hell’s going on?”

  “At a guess,” Cyfer said, “and I could be wrong, but this looks like the work of the Enforcer.”

  The group was stunned into silence at the mention of it. Krutch looked around, seeing the expressions range from horror to dread. “What’s the Enforcer?” he asked.

  “No one really knows for sure,” Cyfer replied. “He’s this big guy that wanders around the country, killing whoever and whatever he finds. No one knows why, or if there even is a reason. They say he’s immortal and can’t be killed—more like a force of nature than man.” He paused, finishing the cigarette and dropping it on the ground. “That’s really all there is to say for certain on the guy. To sum up: the Enforcer roaming the area is bad news for pretty much everybody.”

  The men were silent—many of them looking confused and ill. They stood there staring at each other for what felt like a long time. Finally, after a long pause, Krutch said, “Anyone else thinking maybe we should drop this job?”

  “Hey, whoa, whoa,” Hobbs said, raising his hands up, as if to tell Krutch to simmer down. “Let’s not lose our heads here—”

  He hesitated, realizing he said this standing right next to a severed head.

  “Um, what I mean is, let’s keep our cool. First of all, we don’t know for certain the Enforcer did this. And even if he did, let’s not forget there is still a huge reward up for grabs. Are we going to turn that down because some overgrown freak might have done some of our work for us?”

  “What..?”

  “Now we don’t have to worry about dealing with Sentries or a Mage.”

  “I think I’d rather deal with them than the Enforcer,” one of the other pirates murmured.

  “Not to mention,” Hobbs continued, undeterred. “Are you forgetting we got more of our boys waiting by the coast? Even if it is the Enforcer, he’s going to be outnumbered twenty to one. And finally, most important, we got Krutch Leeroy with us! Don’t you guys know he once faced off with the Enforcer and won.”

  The other men’s faces lit up, and some voices of agreement started rising in favor of Hobbs.

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on there,” said Krutch, now raising his hands in a simmer down gesture. “I did what now?”

  “Hobbs’s right,” said another pirate. “They said you once took on the Enforcer and held your own.”

  “Since when..?”

  No one listened. All around him, the other pirates joined in agreement of Hobbs, certain they could handle the Enforcer as long as Krutch Leeroy was there.

  He could only stare at them, wide-eyed and feeling like he was losing his mind. “Did you guys not just see me ask who the Enforcer was?!” he shouted. “I’ve never seen the Enforcer in my life, much less fight the guy!”

  “Sure you did, boss. Everyone’s heard about—”

  “I THINK I WOULD KNOW!”

  8

  Based on the throbbing pain in her head, Katrina guessed she wasn’t dead. Ordinarily, this kind of headache meant a severe hangover, and for a moment, she thought everything was normal. Even the sound of water rushing nearby didn’t remind her where she was or what she’d been going through. It wouldn’t have been the first time she blacked out drinking and woke up in some random, strange place.

  But there was something about this headache that seemed different from the usual hangover. Its pain was more piercing and situated mainly on the right side of her head. She also didn’t have the dryness and bubbling stomach that accompanied a hangover. In fact, she realized, she was anything but dry—she was soaking wet.

  Her eyes managed to peel open, and she saw only the static black dots of dizziness and a shining white sky beyond. Suddenly, her view was blocked by a young woman with a bright, perky face leaning over her.

  “Hello!”

  Startled by the woman’s presence, Katrina moaned and tried to sit up, but the pain of her head was joined by a throbbing ache in her right shoulder. She tried to speak, but her throat clogged, and she gagged, as though a great deal of water went down the wrong wind-pipe.

  “Take it easy,” the woman said. “You’re probably still a little out of it.”

  “What,” she managed, fighting her way through the coughing. “What happened..?”

  “I was traveling west, following the river, and I happened to see you and pulled you out. You almost drowned.”

  Memories of the previous night came back, and her body tensed immediately. She instinctively gripped Marcus’s sword—which, to her surprise, she’d held on to—and looked in all directions, feeling like the Enforcer or a pirate might jump out from anywhere. Unfortunately, moving her head around so much only made it and her shoulder hurt worse.

  “You okay..?”

  “Give me a second,” Katrina moaned, clutching the side of her head.

  Fighting off another haze of black spots, she got a good look at her apparent rescuer. She was young, looking like she was in her early twenties. She was a pretty and petite girl, with ash-gray hair to her shoulders and large crimson eyes. She had pale, almost porcelain skin highlighted by her dark clothing.

  “Who are you..?”

  “My name’s Lily,” the girl replied. “Lily Blackthorn.”

  “Ka—” She hesitated and finished, “Rien. My name is Rien.” It was strange, she thought. She hadn’t come close to revealing her real name to someone in years.

  Lily nodded and stood up, a slight smile on her face. “Well, you’re lucky I happened by.” She sat down on a nearby stone and started rubbing her hands in her hair in an effort to dry it off. “I think there’s a waterfall not far from here. If you didn’t already drown, you probably would’ve gone over.”

  Katrina moved slowly, trying not to aggravate her injured head. She sat upright and looked around. It appeared to be morning, but the sky was overcast, and the air was cold. The clouds darkened in the south, and a cool breeze drifted from that direction. She was still in the woods, though she had drifted to an area less crowded with trees. As far as she knew, the river that went through the woods headed westward.

  Well, she thought. I was going that way
anyway.

  Her smirk dissolved upon thinking about Captain Marcus and the others, and in an instant, her stomach dropped. Granted, she barely knew any of them, but they seemed like good people, and they had given their lives trying to defend her. Guilt came with the memory, and every part of her body felt much heavier. They died protecting her ... and all she did was panic and run.

  She looked at Marcus’s sword. Seeing it in the daylight, she was again struck by how much it reminded her of her father’s sword—the thick, shining blade stretched about five feet long, and the hilt was gold and silver with red rubies engraved within. A fine weapon—probably with a name and history behind it. It made her think of her people ... the ones that counted on her and believed in her.

  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry ...

  “Are you okay..?” asked Lily.

  “I,” she said, shaking her head. “I have to get to Bevy.”

  “That’s where I’m going. I don’t mind the company if you don’t.”

  Katrina stared at the smiling young woman, and in her mind, she saw the faces of Marcus, Nelson, Brooks, and Warren. Then she saw Rasul Kader and his ransacked room. As much as she hated to admit it, and as much as she tried to avoid it, she had been drawn into something and was a marked woman because of it.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, taking a swig from her flask, which—thankfully—didn’t get filled with river water. “I—um—it’s not safe to be around me.”

  Lily’s smile shifted into a wry smirk, and she mumbled, “Join the club.”

  “What..?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, returning to her friendlier expression. “Never mind.”

  Katrina hesitated, but continued, “Look, I don’t want to get into it, and I appreciate your helping me, but I—um—I have a lot of shit going on, and I don’t want to get you caught up in my baggage.”

  “I understand. Believe me, I know all about—uh—baggage.” She paused to chuckle, and Katrina heard a little ...

  Worry..? Sadness..? Dread..?

  ... in her voice. “So I understand if you think it’d be safer to keep a distance,” Lily continued. “It’s just, well, if we’re both going to Bevy, how are we going to avoid each other?”

  Katrina tried to find an answer, but came up blank. Thinking it over, she also considered—even if they separated—there were still pirates and the Enforcer roaming the woods. Either way, she realized, it wasn’t safe for Lily to travel with or without her.

  “I guess you got me on that one,” she said, sighing. “We might as well stick together.”

  Lily’s face lit up with another smile, and she said, “Great! I’m always open for company.”

  Katrina took another swig of her flask and picked up Marcus’s sword. With a sigh, she accepted it was going to have to be her sword for the time being. She and Lily started northwest to Bevy, and just as they got moving, Katrina thought of Rasul Kader again. And the girl he was searching for.

  He never said anything about what she would look like or what her name is. She stared at Lily and sensed there was something ... unusual ... about her. Then she remembered Warren saying he didn’t believe in coincidences.

  Taking one more drink from the flask, she muttered to herself, “I so don’t need this.”

  * * *

  Miles to the south, flakes of snow drifted down from a dark and gray sky. High up in his tower’s apex, Jacob Daredin returned to his meditations. He sent his spirit out and overlooked the land for miles, taking inventory of the various players on the board.

  Most important of them all, the Princess, he saw walking north toward Bevy. But she was not alone—another was traveling with her. It was another woman, and there was something unusual about this one. She was a dark woman, and he sensed a strange emptiness in her. He looked at her long and hard, wondering whether she would prove to be an asset or hindrance.

  He saw the Sentries and their Mage, dead. A rather serendipitous turn of events, he supposed, as it was evidently the Enforcer that did it. Nevertheless, more Sentries were stationed in Bevy, and he could see they would not stay still for long. He also sensed another with them—not a Mage, but a holy man of some sort.

  Kader was no closer to finding the Princess, and neither were Krutch Leeroy and his bungling pirates. They were fast proving to be unreliable hooligans—far more trouble than their worth. Leeroy in particular seemed, at every turn, wanting to simply flee. Watching the fools, Daredin considered Rictor may have been right after all.

  With a hiss, his spirit returned to his body. Stretching his back, he walked to the tower window and looked out over the vast ocean. Four more days until the Devil’s Moon. Things were moving too slow, and too many variables were entering the equation.

  He called Carlyle Hawke to his chamber and told him it might be time to summon demons.

  9

  Katrina suggested she and Lily stay off the main road as they made their way to Bevy. Lily didn’t dispute the idea, saying she was avoiding the main roads anyway. Despite the cold and dreary day, she strolled casually through the forest, practically skipping. Watching her, Katrina debated whether she should tell her everything—or even anything. Part of her considered the girl should be at least somewhat aware of the danger. The other part didn’t want to ruin her apparent good mood.

  In a way, Katrina envied her. Numerous times since leaving the river, she found herself reaching for her flask, but would stop and remind herself to stay sharp. A thickening fog formed around the forest, and although the attack in Dictum proved she remained a formidable fighter, it had still been years since she truly wielded a sword in combat.

  Between her craving for a drink and dread the Enforcer or pirates would swoop in from the fog any second, she felt tense every step of the way.

  “So,” said Lily. “What are you heading to Bevy for?”

  “Erm,” she mumbled, “There’s something I need to take care of.”

  “I’m hoping to catch the Autumn Festival. I hear they’re a good time, but I’ve always been away when it happens.”

  Katrina nodded, but didn’t reply.

  “I hear this year’s supposed to be a big one on account of the Devil’s Moon and all.” Lily paused, waiting for an answer, but didn’t get one. “Would I be wrong in guessing this thing you have to take care of has something do with drifting down the river?”

  “You would not.”

  “Should I know what it is, or would that be better kept secret?”

  “I’ve been debating that,” she answered, but said no more on the subject.

  This part of the Derelict Woods was long stretches of plains with the occasional steep hill or cliff. It seemed the main road was the only road through the woods—if there were ever other paths or trails, they were long faded from time. Katrina’s legs and feet started to burn and ache, and with each step, she longed for a bed to drink herself unconscious in.

  Scattered throughout the woods were remnants of buildings made from brick and stone. Here would be the remains of what was once a wall. There would be a few lone pillars that might have once been part of some grand castle. Many were varying shades of gray and black—some brown from dirt and filth. Most were buried beneath moss and forest growth.

  “What is this?” she wondered aloud. “What used to be here?”

  “Couldn’t say,” said Lily. “There are ruins all over the forest for miles. I think there was a kingdom here once—all full of castles and cathedrals. I know there’s an ancient city further south. Some old Eldér or historian would probably know.” She paused and shrugged. “That’s why they call it the Derelict Woods.”

  “Probably a lot of ghosts in this forest,” she said, feeling a chill upon seeing the withered remains of a statue that once upon time might have been of some great king or queen.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Lily said. “There are stranger things out there.”

  Katrina was reaching for her flask, but stopped herself. She cleared her throat and asked
, “You from around here?”

  “No. But I’ve been through more than once. I move around a lot.”

  “Kind of young to be a drifter. You don’t have a home?”

  Lily shook her head.

  “Nothing..? A family..? Anybody..?”

  She shook her head again, and Katrina saw something in her eyes—a sadness she recognized. Lily either didn’t know or didn’t want her to know. Being a drifter herself, with more than her share of baggage and bad memories, she understood acting evasive and vague. After all, she thought, she was the one wandering aimlessly around the country using a phony name.

  Graylands is where people go when they don’t want to be found.

  “I did used to live with this family,” Lily said, perking up. “When I was younger. Their name was Hammond, and they took me in and took care of me. They lived in this big cottage Mr. Hammond built himself. I remember he had this stained-glass window he found in some abandoned ruin, and he built it into the ceiling.” She paused and smiled, as though the memory itself warmed her. “It was like this bouquet of flowers—red, blue, yellow, green, and white—and I remember the sun would come through, and there’d be these rainbow beams of light that shined into the house. I used to sit there and stare for hours ...”

  Lily trailed off and glanced at Katrina. She chuckled and cleared her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m babbling.”

  “No, it sounds beautiful,” said Katrina, although listening made her heart feel heavy. “What happened to these people?”

  “Well,” Lily said, still smiling although it looked weaker. “Graylands is a dangerous place.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry.”

  “No bother. What about you? Where are you from?”

  “Not from Graylands. I’m, uh, from the north.”

  Katrina fell silent, and after a pause, Lily asked, “That it..?”

  “The world is a dangerous place.”

  Lily nodded and dropped the subject.

  They continued walking, mostly in silence. Every so often, Lily would spark up chit-chat—mostly about trivial things. Ordinarily Katrina hated that, but oddly enough, she found herself enjoying the girl’s company.