Realms of Infamy - James Lowder [138]
Uther stalked to one particular bookshelf, a place of honor near the hearth, and paused there. With his usual efficiency, he began to withdraw the tomes and scrolls and maps housed there. Most of the Stalwarts knew whose books they were; those few who didn't could guess.
"Outrage upon outrage!" Sir Hamnet cried, finally jolted out of his shocked silence by Uther's astounding impertinence. "Leave those volumes alone, you murderous brute!"
"These books have been shelved incorrectly," Uther noted without looking up from his task. "The cases nearest the hearth are reserved for histories, Sir Hamnet. Your works are fiction."
As he closed on the butler, the aged nobleman reached for his rapier and drew it with a flourish. "I'll run you through unless you put them back."
"Coward."
The voice was labored, the word thick and ill-formed, but it was clear enough to draw everyone's attention to the figure framed by the library's massive doorway. Captain Truesilver glared balefully with the one eye left him and started into the room.
The crutch braced under his right arm thudded like a coffin-maker's hammer with every other step. Without it Gareth Truesilver couldn't have walked at all; his right leg was missing from the knee down. Nor was that the worst of his injuries. Angry red blotches patterned his arms where the skin had been flayed away. Incisions held closed with thick black stitches snaked across the back of his left hand. There, the body snatchers' patron had pilfered the muscles and sinews, leaving the hand nearly useless. Similar scars creased the captain's once-handsome face; they traversed the angry purple bruises over his cheekbones, disappearing into both the gap that had once been his nose and the dark circle that had held his left eye.
The butler turned, muscled arms cradling two shelves of displaced books. "You should rest, Captain. The city guard will be here soon to take your statement." Uther shifted his gaze for an instant to Sir Hamnet. "I have spent the past three days aiding the watch in their search for the captain. If you'd told the truth the morning the guards found you screaming like a madman, we might have rescued him days ago, before the butchers had time to cut him up."
"Gareth," Sir Hamnet stammered, as if he hadn't heard the accusation. "We thought you lost. Helm's Fist, but I'm glad you're alive!"
"Liar," Truesilver managed in a slow, pained voice. From the way he mangled the word, it seemed likely a part of his tongue had gone to power some wizard's spell, too.
Awkwardly the captain hobbled to a stop in front of Uther. With his right hand, he lifted the largest book from atop the pile and pitched it into the fireplace. The flames danced along the spine. With a sharp pop, the tome flipped open, revealing a hand-colored map of the Hordelands. Fire hungrily devoured the page and set to work on the rest of the book.
Truesilver tossed another volume into the fire, and another. Sir Hamnet raised a hand to stop him, but a low and rumbling growl from Uther warned him away.
Helpless, he turned to the others in the library, his friends, his fellow explorers. But Sir Hamnet Hawklin found loathing in the faces of the Stalwarts, and disgust, and anger. They stared at him with open contempt, silently cheering the destruction of his life's work.
He tried to shrug off the contempt and shore up the barricades he'd built around his craven heart. But the walls were crumbling now. The society's shared glories fled him like deadfall leaves abandoning a winter oak. The myriad ceremonial blades and trophy shields hanging on the walls had been his to wield. The slaughtered monsters and conquered dragon had been his trophies, too, proof of valorous