Chương 113: Chapter 112- The Garden

Astra's POV Astra stared pensively at the storeroom for a moment, dwelling on the horrors that maid might have been subjected to, as she considered what possible reason could anyone have to subject a person to that? Mr Cooper stepped forward to ask, " Your orders, my Lady? It seems quiet, do you want us to break up and search the grounds?" Astra shook off her musings as she glanced around the empty room, " No. Not yet at least. You do not mount a defense this heavy unless you are protecting something.

Let us inspect the primary target first and we will reassess." Her memories of the full layout of the estate were a little hazy, as she had only visited once long ago, and had not paid the closest attention.

Astra absentmindedly twisted one hand to trace out a spellform she had learned early on from Mira as a study aid, and as the spell took hold and a small trickle of mana left her chest, the memory shifted from a distant blur to something clearer, details she had overlooked beginning to surface as she examined them with a more critical eye. Astra had mostly stayed in the common areas of the castle, but there were no other places in her memory that would suffice for the sheer amount of space needed for the ritual.

After a few more moments, she traced the route out to the garden in her mind as she nodded to herself, before pointing at a door in the back wall, " Through there." The two pairs from 5th squad jogged forward, bracketing the door, waiting for Astra and Eli to arrive as the rest of the detachment followed in their wake.

The men entered the hallway beyond just ahead of them and, as the group progressed, the pairs continued their leap frogging, running ahead of the main group, checking each side room as they progressed. Now, with a clearer picture of what to expect, Astra was able to catch more signs of life than before. She had yet to actually spot another living being, but the signs were there for those who could interpret them.

A series of well kept decorative tables in a row along one wall were followed by a credenza that was covered in scattered jumble of mismatched vases, too many for any floral arrangement, as even the strangest display would not include a half cleaned chamberpot.

As they passed the open door of one guest room, she glanced inside to find the bed set haphazardly made with the sheets in a disorganized pile, a pillow in each corner instead of piled against the headboard, and curtains adorning the wardrobe instead of the windows on the far wall. Either the entire staff has gone mad, or they have all been made into those… things. She grit her teeth as they walked, and as they turned one corner she spotted a hobbling form disappearing around the far corner.

As Mr Taylor tensed to rush forward and give chase she stopped him with a hand on his arm, the shambling gait clearly marking the figure as one of the unfortunate caretakers. She shook her head when he glanced back, " Another victim, they are likely no danger, and we have more pressing priorities." Astra only caught sight of a single other living being during the entirety of their walk.

One of the turns along the route took them along the outer perimeter of a small inner courtyard, passing through a short colonnade on one side. After entering the passage they caught sight of a solitary figure standing in the courtyard, the being's back was turned in their direction as its head was turned upwards facing the sky. The man was so still that at first she had almost assumed he was dead, at least until he gave a slight shiver.

His upturned face had been still for so long that a small mound of snow had built on his face, the only clear spot around his mouth as his hot breath had melted it away. The figure was lop sided, one leg a few inches too long, and Astra initially assumed the man was missing an arm from the drooping sleeve of his stained banquet attire.

This notion was dismissed as a withered hand attached to the end of a long flexible tentacle extended from the sleeve to idly scratch the back of one calf before retracting back into the sleeve. Astra was about to call out to the man until Eli stopped her with a finger to his lips, before shaking his head and pointing to one of his ears, as she realized the figure in the courtyard had no ears, and sighed as they continued onwards. Just… Why? What is even the point of all this?

Does he have no love in his heart for his people? Even the most cold hearted wretch would do no such thing, as it would require so much effort to do something like this than just simply killing them. Astra's mind drifting back to her only real memories of the man. The Viscount had seemed normal, if a little cold.

As the halls around her filled with ghostly sounds of merriment, warm candle light, and the low murmur of a chattering crowd, she could picture the man, tall, severe, short cropped blonde hair with sharp, flinty brown eyes. The man had often worn a calculating expression, and his smile may not have reached his eyes at times, but that could have described a dozen other nobles of middling rank and not an unrepentant monster in human skin.

The peerage of the Imperial court could be a cut throat place at times, but it was the jostling of healthy competition and posturing, not literal slit throats. She would admit there was greater pressure on the middling ranks, the lower nobles could fade into obscurity, and the higher ranks had the power and clout to act as they wished, but those in between needed to be cunning. Especially if they wished to climb the ranks like Viscount Whitten had. But this? There had to be a better way.

Anything was better than burning the forest to harvest a single tree? Astra shook her head, there was no point in trying to puzzle out the reasoning of the mad. When they reached the entrance to the rear gardens, the men braced, forming a shield wall in front of the door to the outside as the rest arrayed themselves behind in preparation for what lay against the other side of the double doors.

Spears were planted, staves were raised, and bows readied, as Mr Cooper slowly counted to three before flinging open the doors, only to find… Nothing? The men warily stepped through the doorway out onto the wide open lawn, and were greeted by an expanse of untouched snow. The memories of laughter, a green lawn mounted by a wooden dance floor accompanied by slowly dancing figures and the soft music of a string quartet faded slowly from her mind.

The simmering anger remained in her heart, but a sense of melancholy filled her mind as she mourned the spoilage of a fond memory. Shaking the maudlin thoughts from her mind, Astra swept her gaze across the gray sky above and the soft white expanse below as she grimaced and spoke up, " Where in the Abyss are they?"

The gardens themselves held a few open structures, a gazebo on a low hill, a couple wooden pavilions, as well as several lines of low hedges and large flowerbeds that stood in stark contrast to the snow falling around them. The snowfall must have been recent since the garden was still in the stage one would expect in a late summer landscape.

The hedges remained lush and green and the flowerbeds were still in a full bloom that had yet to fade, the flowers still present drooping beneath the unexpected weight of the snow. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The reds, yellows, and blues were contrasting sharply against the freshly fallen snow like splashes of fresh paint against the brilliant white of the snow.

No matter the current state, there was little to block sightlines over the area, and the party was easily able to verify that they were empty, at least until Astra's vision drifted to the small grove of trees at the rear of the gardens, but she dismissed the area as too small to hold the numbers they were searching for. She frowned before sighing in frustration and gesturing towards Mr Cooper, " Break into search teams, pairs at a minimum, see Mr Cooper for your assignments.

If you find more of the residents, and they are docile, let them be for now. We will have the Captain task others for recovery once the battle is concluded, our priority is finding the ritual. Look for signs of passage from very large numbers; the townsfolk and slaves must have gone somewhere, but remember." Astra fixed them all with a stern glare, " No one goes anywhere alone, and do not hesitate to signal if you require assistance or find any sign of our quarry."

Astra took a few small steps away from the group, as the men would be less tense if she was not hovering over Mr Cooper, and she tried her best to settle her mind. As her gaze traced to the sky, the sun was hidden behind the clouds so it was hard to tell how far into the afternoon they had progressed, she did her best to remind herself they still had time. In the end, it did little to settle her nerves as Astra stared pensively into the sky as the snow drifted downwards.

Astra's POV"I'm sorry my Lady, nothing yet. We found a few more of the servants and took them to Astrid, but we're still looking."" Please be patient with the men, they are doing their best. We all know the stakes." Mr Cooper gave her an apologetic look before turning to leave, heading back into the keep to supervise the search.

Astra did her best to heed his words, but could do little to stop her mind from spinning out contingency plans as the slow onset of night only fueled her anxiety as she felt time slowly slipping away." Hey, we think we've found something." Eli's words brought Astra out of her thoughts as she turned, brushing the light dusting of snow from her pauldrons. He gestured her towards the gazebo, and as Astra caught sight of him she arched a brow as she found him carrying Tia in his arms.

Catching her gaze, he rolled his eyes with a faint smirk, " Apparently the snow is very cold on her feet. According to me she is a tiny little furnace, but according to Tia, her toes are about to fall off." Astra gave a faint smile of amusement, briefly lightening her mood as she followed the pair to the gazebo off to the side of the rear garden's lawn. As they approached she could see a faint shift in the snow around the structure, as if there had been a walking path covered by a recent flurry.

As they grew closer she could spot disturbances in the snow, someone had dug beneath the drifts and found some buried debris. Stepping under the roof of the structure, Eli pointed with an elbow at the grove in the distance before speaking, " Sasha went and checked out the trees back there and she found another gate in the rear wall leading into the back half of the courtyard. There were signs of a large gathering back there, a few discarded personal effects and the like."

Now that it had been pointed out, Astra could see the faint impression of a freshly covered path leading from the grove to the Gazebo and further on to a gate leading into the keep. He kicked a few small objects in the snow, a piece of breadcrust, a broken comb, a discarded and tattered shawl, and a small shoe fit for a child." Best we can tell, they brought a small group through here, resting or stopping at this gazebo for some reason before taking them into the keep.

They might be feeding them or speaking to them, but my bet is that they were keeping the guards and the staff separate, especially if they were already deformed like that." His gaze swept across the snow before he looked back at Astra, " Sasha doesn't want to lean one way or the other, but my gut says they broke them into small groups before taking them somewhere. Most likely so they would be easily contained if they resisted, which means there would have to be some reason for them to resist."

Astra glanced down at the small shoe once more, her gaze hard as the simmering anger churned in her gut once more, " Aye, a reasonable enough assumption. I assume you found more?" Eli nodded, " Yeah, might be a dead end, but the best clue we found so far. I'll show you the trail we found and you can tell us what you think."

Astra followed as he turned and headed towards the side gate to the garden that stood open at the end of the footpath they were following, a path she had not used the one time she had been here, but that she vaguely guessed led to the kitchens from her memories. She set her jaw as they walked, I doubt they were just bringing them inside for the evening meal.

The side gate led into a vegetable garden, the neat rows of green leaves standing in defiance of the snow, before turning into the wall of the keep next to a well and a small pavilion that sheltered what appeared to be a wash station for the staff.

As they approached, Astra's eyes snapped to a small streak of crimson low on the doorframe, Eli looked back at her after feeling the spike in her emotions before nodding at the streaking hand print with a grimace, " Yeah there are a few more of those, but I really don't like how small that one is." A reasonably sized dining room stood on the other side of the doorway, the wooden tables pushed aside to make a clear path in the middle.

The floor was dry, but the faint streaks of mud indicated that at one point there had been quite a few muddy feet walking through this place. The mud had faded, but as they entered a large kitchen, Eli put Tia back on the ground and pointed out where a few fixtures had been shifted aside, scuff marks low along one wall, and a small piece of cloth that had been caught on a fixture.

The trail led through the kitchens, through a preparatory room filled with large tables and hanging racks of knives, bowls, and other implements, and into a store room filled with dried goods. As they reached the far side of the room they entered a store room containing both dry goods and crates of produce that had begun to turn. Astra followed Elias as he barely paused before heading down a short stairway at the back of the store room into a cellar where Ms Fletcher was currently pacing back and forth.

The wall she was pacing along was split between a large rack of wine bottles and a small line of the casks, while the rest of the room was taken up by long shelves containing crates of root vegetables and casks of what Astra assumed was preserved foodstuffs by the labels. Astra picked up one to check the label, pickled radishes, before setting it back down next to a sack indicating it contained a ham packed in salt.

She turned to Ms Fletcher, the woman giving Astra a distracted nod as she paced around the perimeter of the room, examining the floor." Thank you for coming, Lady Astra." She pointed at where the faint marks Elias had pointed out ended in the middle of the floor, " Near as we can tell, a lot of people came through here. A whole lot, but we don't know why, and they don't seem to leave the room."" Hidden exit?"

Ms Fletcher nodded as she poked a second section of floor, " Likely, I checked the flagstones though, can't find any sections of false floor." Astra walked over to begin running her hand along one wall, " In that case, we will just have to help."

No more than a quarter hour passed before Astra heard a chirping across the room, she turned to look at Eli as Tia snuffled along the base of one wall. He bent to examine the wall as he noticed her glance out of the corner of his eye, " Says she smells blood, fresh blood but faint." Eli stood, walked over to a sack and reached inside to pull out a handful of flour, tossing it along the base of the wall as, along a small three foot wide section, a slight gust of white powder stirred in the air.

The four of them came to a halt, staring at the small cloud shifting from a soft air current, before looking up to share a grim look for a moment. Astra broke the silence first." Eli, can you go find Mr Cooper and let him know what we found? Tell him to send a runner to the Captain, but bring everyone else he can." Elias nodded and trotted up the stairs, Tiamat following in his wake as Astra turned to the only other person in the room." Ms Fletcher it is time for you to work your magic, find us a way inside."