The Ivory Star

Chapter 11

Angus awoke to sunlight in his eyes, straw in his mouth, and a stabbing ache in the back of his skull. He groaned, cranking his head around. Where was he? In the stable. Where was Eric? Gone!

"Goddamned Red Priests!" he snarled. Rage boiled up in him. "Someone's gonna pay!"

They had taken Eric, three shadowy black figures. Angus vaguely remembered trying to fight them, but he couldn't remember the blow that had felled him. One moment he had been on his feet, the next, nothing. He struggled to his feet, his anger shoving aside the pain in his head, allowing room for little else. He stormed out of the stable, into the courtyard. Denizens of the fortress hurried out of the path of this fearsome apparition, with his face twisted by rage, eyes shot with red ribbons, matted with dust and straw. He burst through the front door into the Great Hall, lurching across the room, toward the corridors beyond, toward Valerion's chambers. He passed an open doorway, and spied Valerion within, poring over a large map. He stalked into the room.

Valerion faced him, and his eyes flashed with anger. "What are you doing in my house at this hour!" he snapped.

Angus stamped toward him, fists clenched. "They took my friend," he growled. "He's gone."

"I know." Valerion's steely blue eyes gazed evenly at him.

Unnoticed by either of them, a door just down the hall cracked open, with a watchful eye and nimble ear within.

"What do you mean, you know?"

"Aye, as I said. I know. Now, shut the door so we may speak privately!"

"You have something to hide?" Angus's voice rose. He stepped forward, fists clenching.

"Impudent, blustering fool! Close the door!" Valerion growled, his eyes blazing with impending violence. Warm sunlight poured into the room from the open shutter, and the two men faced each other in taut silence. "Close the door," Valerion said, his voice as hard and cold as the bit of an axe.

With his jaw outthrust defiantly, Angus slammed the door as hard as he could, and the echoes shook the building. Then he spun to drill his gaze into Valerion. His words chopped out like blocks of ice. "My only friend is gone. And you know who took him. And you will tell me where he is. And you will tell me who they were. And you will tell me why! Or Robinius will pry my cold dead fingers from your cold dead throat."

The veins crossing Valerion's arms and neck throbbed with the effort of containing his rage. "No one threatens me in my own house," he growled. His callused paw stopped halfway to the leather-wrapped hilt of his broadsword.

Angus's teeth clenched. "We had no one to trust but you! An old man in the Ophidian forest told us to come to you, and we trusted him because he helped us. But you!" Angus spat on the floor. "You're no better than Sneev. At least he's not in league with the Red Priests!"

"Hah!" Valerion's outburst cut him off like cold steel. "You think I'm in league with the Red Circle? You are truly mad! And you are a bigger fool that I first thought."

"Then who were they?"

"They were not of the Red Circle. They were Knights of the Eagles."

"Who in hell are—?"

Valerion looked towards the door. "Silence!"

"What?"

"Did you hear that?"

"I heard nothing." Angus said, confused.

Valerion moved tigerishly toward the door and flung it open. He looked up and down the hallway. "Hmmm ... "