Sons of Evil: Book 1 Book of Dread (2 page)

Outside the door she heard the
guards muttering to one another as replacements came on duty. She heard a few
low, knowing laughs, and realized she was likely the topic of conversation. She
heard the shuffling feet of the relieved guards moving away, and then things
fell still once again. The brief interlude reminded Sasha that time was
passing. She decided she needed to move on.

Sasha carefully removed the
chain and key from the secret panel, then laid the chain in the king’s
partially open hand. Thinking better of this, she risked slipping it over his
head, gently whispering in his ear as she did so, the king smiling through his
drunken stupor at the empty promises she made. She slipped the key down the
front of his shirt and left him to his drunken repose.

For a long moment she stood
looking at the book. It felt foreign to her, a strange thing full of malice and
hate, but it was dear to this king who had brought so much harm to his own
kingdom, who ruled cruelly and without mercy, and who, upon waking, would never
allow Sasha even the simple, hard life she had known. Fighting off her
instincts, Sasha grabbed the book and held it to her chest. That done, she
moved quickly, ignoring the rising bile in her throat and pushing away her fear
of this last hurdle she needed to cross to attain the dubious freedom of the
fugitive. She tousled her hair, pulled on her sleeve to exaggerate the tear in
her blouse, then went to the door. She opened it only enough to allow herself
out, shutting it swiftly but quietly behind her.

“King Landri does not want to
be disturbed,” she said as she moved past the guards and down the hall, keeping
her head down and avoiding any eye contact. As she fled she heard a few
snickers of laughter but not what she feared most, an order to stop, a question
about the book.

Sasha walked briskly down the
stairs, through the servants’ quarters and outside the castle without pausing
to look at or speak to anyone. Her time here was at an end.

Once outside the castle walls
Sasha fled into the night’s dark embrace.

Darius Stoneman hefted another
basket of corn, feeling the oddly pleasing dull ache in his back as he poured
the ears on the cart. It was an ache born of a good, honest day’s work, and
just like the sweat that covered his body he knew it would soon be gone,
leaving him with the satisfaction of what he had accomplished.

He looked to the summer sun,
sinking fast toward the horizon, and if he needed any other convincing that the
work for the day should be considered done, his rumbling stomach reminded him
how late supper would be. As his brother, Luke, added more corn to the cart,
Darius said, “That’ll do for today.”

“As you wish, my liege,” Luke
replied, adding a mock bow to hide the grin that spread across his face.

Darius didn’t try to hide his
smile. He and Luke had always gotten along well, and he knew there was no
malice behind the words. Being seven years older, Darius had spent many of his
teenage years with Luke tagging along, wanting to join in on his elder
brother’s adventures, and Darius had rarely found it an imposition. Luke was
smart, quick with a joke, and good with a secret, and as the years passed an
honest friendship grew between them. When Darius had been forced into service
in Longvale’s army, he was surprised at how much he missed his little brother. Darius
shook away the creeping dread that stalked him when he thought of the army. His
leave would soon end, and he would be thrust back into service. And it would
not be long before the king’s men came for the seventeen-year-old Luke as well.
Luke was still filling out, still thin although not overly so for his age, but
thinking of him being in the army almost made him look frail to his older
brother. Darius frowned as he pictured Luke having his wavy brown hair shorn
close, and then having a sword and shield shoved into his hands. He rubbed his
own hair, the sandy-colored locks that once touched his shoulders reduced to
little more than stubble.

Darius grabbed his shirt,
which he had hung on the cart while they worked, and hopped into the cart’s
seat, grabbing for the reins. Luke was there an instant earlier.

“Allow me,” Luke said. “A man
of your advanced years needs his rest.”

“That I do,” Darius agreed,
folding his hands behind his head and leaning back as if to nap. With a start,
he sat up straight. “Wait a minute. Last time you drove the cart, you and old
Bess nearly took out half the garden.”

“That was a rabbit that
startled her,” Luke replied, “and you know it. Besides, it wasn’t all bad. Had
a nice little stew for dinner that night.”

“Fair enough,” Darius said. “Just
try to stay on the path this time.” He eyed his brother, who flicked the reins
to get them started with a look of utmost concentration on his face. Darius
laughed and nudged him with his elbow, and soon both young men were joking and
looking forward to a well-earned supper and a good night’s rest.

The cart path curled around
the edge of the cornfield, and as their home came into view so did the young
woman sitting on a small rock. She was disheveled and dirty, and she looked as
if she had not slept. She rocked slowly back and forth, cradling a book against
her chest as if it were a newborn child.

Darius placed a hand on Luke’s
arm, a silent request that he stay put, then leapt clear of the cart and went
to his sister. He knelt beside her, peeled one hand free of the book and held
it in his own.

She looked at him, and
recognition spread across her face in a smile. “Darius,” she said in a voice
barely above a whisper. “I thought you were fighting the war.”

“I was,” he answered, matching
her smile despite the knot in his stomach. “Still am, actually. I’m just on a
short leave.”

She nodded, but her eyes lost
focus as her mind went elsewhere.

“Sasha,” Darius asked, “why
are you here?”

“I…don’t know where else to
go. I can’t be here…it’s not safe. But…I’m so tired.”

“Let me help you inside. After
you rest a bit we can talk.”

“No!” she said, louder than
she wanted. She calmed herself, then went on. “I’m not sure I want to go to Mom
and Dad…it might put them in danger.”

“What’s happened? Who are you
running from?”

“King Landri.”

That gave Darius pause, not
because he thought well of the king—few did—but because it confirmed for him
that Sasha’s problem was a dire one. “His men would look for you here,” he
stated.

She
nodded. “I shouldn’t have come, but I have nowhere else to turn.”

“You know they’ll want to
help,” he said, referring to their parents. “Regardless of the consequences. You’re
their little girl. Always will be.”

She smiled at the truth of
that. “I’m glad you’re here. Maybe if I tell you first…”

Darius waved Luke on, telling
him he’d catch up shortly, then listened while Sasha told him what had happened
two nights ago, and of her endless flight since.

Darius found it hard to keep his
eyes from wondering to the book while she told her tale, and even now it was
only with an effort that he raised his gaze to meet hers. “You haven’t slept in
two days?”

She shook her head.

“That ends any question about
coming inside. Risk or no, you need rest and food. Since you still have the
book, I assume you’ve found something useful inside.”

“I haven’t been able to open
it.”

“Really?” Darius said,
surprised. He considered his sister quite capable and industrious. “Mind if I
take a look?”

She held the book out toward
him, but as he reached for it he suddenly pulled back.

She shook her head. “It’s all
right. You don’t have to take it.”

He grimaced, then snatched the
book quickly, as if hurrying to take it before he could change his mind. He
made a half-dozen attempts at the latch, turning the book as he did so. Giving
up, he handed it back to her. “Everything about it’s odd. Gave me a shiver just
touching it.”

“Same with me. When I first
took it, it was like picking up a snake or a hairy spider.” She looked down and
saw the way she was clutching the book again and added, “You get used to it.”

He rose and held out a hand to
help her up. “C’mon, let’s go home. We’ll work this out together.”

“Okay.”

As they walked, Darius said,
“What you did took a lot of guts. Not that I’m surprised. For what it’s worth,
I think you did the right thing.”

“Thanks,”
she said. She laid her head on her little brother’s shoulder and together they
went to the house where they had grown up.

Kevin and Marissa Stoneman had
hardly had time to let out gasps of surprise at seeing Sasha before Darius set
some ground rules—they needed to talk, but Sasha needed some food and sleep
before they did so. Such was the stern warning in his eyes that they did as he
asked through supper, the table banter minimal and the questions that boiled
inside them making discussion about the weather and the meager corn crop more
pointless than usual.

After they had eaten, Sasha
modified the plan, unwilling to make her parents and Luke wait any longer. “I’ll
tell my tale and then rest a bit,” she said, smiling at Darius. “It’ll give
everyone time to think.”

When she had finished Luke was
red with embarrassment and anger, Marissa was weeping softly and clinging to
her husband, while Kevin nodded his head, pondering what he had heard. He
patted his wife’s hand as he pulled away from her, telling her things would be
okay, then went to Sasha and kissed her on the cheek.

“Sleep now,” he said, taking
the book from her and laying it quickly on the table. “We’ll figure this out in
the morning.”

Sasha had kept herself
together through a king’s assault and days and nights of uninterrupted flight,
but at these kind words she finally broke down. She wept, unashamed, while her
father held her. They remained frozen in an embrace for several minutes, her
soft sobs the only sound. When her tears finally abated, she felt the tiredness
wash over her like a deep, warm ocean wave. Her mother took her hand and led
her off to bed.

Kevin sat down at the table
and bit at his right thumbnail, as he often did when thinking. Darius and Luke
waited patiently, knowing better than to interrupt. When Marissa returned, she
started to announce Sasha comfortably asleep, but seeing her husband’s pose,
she instead worked at the dishes, Luke joining her to have something to do. Darius
sat next to his father and waited.

Kevin glanced at his son and
said, “Seems there’s nowhere in the world one can hide from trouble anymore.”

Darius nodded his agreement. War
had been a way of life in the three southern kingdoms of Corterra for nearly a
decade now, and as if that didn’t create enough suffering, there had been
periods of drought, famine, and plague as bad as history recorded to further
deepen mankind’s misery. The Stonemans, for the most part, had been lucky. Their
home was old but in good repair, their land not abundant but yielding enough to
keep food on the table even after the king had excised his share. Darius had
been conscripted for the war, but had survived with no outward sign of injury. Sasha,
until now, had found employ in the king’s castle. All-in-all the Stoneman
family would have to consider themselves fortunate. Now the two men looked at
the book on the table, neither able to see it as anything other than a
harbinger of dark days ahead.

“What do you think it is?”
Kevin asked his son.

The question surprised Darius,
not in its content, but that it had been asked. His father was a fair, honest
man, but he rarely shared his thoughts or asked for opinions where important
matters were concerned. Darius had expected a period of brooding silence, then
a pronouncement of some course of action. The first had happened and the latter
likely still would, but the question was a sign to Darius that his father now
clearly viewed him as a man, not just a son. “A diary? War plans?” He pondered
for a moment. “Sasha said the king referred to its power, as if it protected
him. Information that might be used against someone, maybe? But he’s king. Why
would he need to bother?”

“He did rise to power in a way
that raised a lot of questions,” Kevin said, referring to the unsolved murders
of King Thrum and Prince Frelis. “Questions that no one dared ask aloud once
Landri was king.”

Darius shrugged. “Everyone
believes Landri was in some way involved in the murders. But even if someone
knows of a direct connection, he’d be the one holding the secret evidence, not
Landri. If the book implicated the king, he’d have destroyed it.”

Kevin
grimaced and shook his head. “Your reasoning is good, but we’re getting no
closer to an answer.” He took up the book with a visible shudder, and then
studied the strange clasp. “We need to open it to see what’s inside. Otherwise
we have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

He had not doubted his
daughter when she said the latch was not easily undone, but the rational part
of his mind insisted that he at least give it a few stout pulls. He was
unsurprised that the effort gained him nothing. He stood up, retrieved a dull
knife, and slid the end of it into the opening between the clasp and the pages,
angling the knife so the book’s edge, upon which the handle rested, would act
as a fulcrum. With one hand he pressed the book tight against the table, while
with the other he used his crude tool. He grunted with the strain, the muscles
of his arm, toned from years of work in the fields, bulging.

With a loud snap the knife
broke, sending Kevin onto his back. He shook his head at the now worthless
piece of metal in his hands. As Darius helped him to his feet, he said, “I’m
half tempted to try an axe on it, but that would likely only damage the book.”

They stood
shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at the tome, which rested comfortably on their
table, mocking them. “Maybe that’s the answer,” Darius said. “If the latch
won’t give, then we carve away the part of the cover it’s attached to.”

“Grab a candle,” Kevin said,
as he gathered up the book and headed for the door.

They went to a small shed
where the tools were stored, and Kevin quickly found the axe with the aid of
the candle that Darius held aloft. As he headed to the stump of an old oak, he
saw Luke had followed them. He paused for an instant, then gave a quick nod of
assent to his youngest child, inviting him to join them. He placed the book
squarely on the stump, making sure it was well supported, then lined up the axe
with its target.

“The latch first,” he
announced. “One try at least.”

Kevin lifted the axe and
brought it down in a quick, sharp blow. A spark flew as the report of metal
striking metal echoed in the night. The latch was unharmed.

Kevin studied the axe’s edge
in the candlelight. “Struck it square, I guess. Don’t see any damage, just
bounced straight back up.”

“Try the cover now,” Darius
said.

Kevin lined the axe up again,
just to the side of the clasp. Again he raised the weapon high, and brought it
down hard.

The sound of contact was
different, no metallic ping, just a dull thud. The book lifted fractionally off
the stump and slid an inch to the right, while the axe bounced back a half
foot.