Title: Protection of the Holy Knights - (Winter of Ghosts Book 2)Series: Children of Nall Multi Timeline Series #2, Dubric - Grimdark Writer's Cut #2, Winter of Ghosts #2
Published by: TamboWrites
Release Date: September 17, 2019
Contributors: Tambo Jones (author), Michelle Maakestad (illustrator)
Pages: 148
ISBN13: 978-1951023065
ASIN: B07X8TRT9Q
Add on GoodreadsHaunted by the ghosts of mutilated servant girls, desperate Castellan Dubric risked his page to look for ghost-stuff and catch their invisible killer. His bold move failed, and his page, Lars, nearly died. But Lars saw a scratch on Dubric’s prime suspect, Lord Risley Romlin, grandson of the king, who has motive, opportunity, a weapon similar to the killer’s, and an obsession with linen maid Nella.Each morning, another servant girl dies under the killer’s razor, each murder more vicious than the last and their bodies left in the snow. Details of the murders suggest dark magic is involved, magic Dubric had fought a war to defeat, and soon guards are murdered beside the women they were ordered to protect. Meanwhile Risley, determined to win Nella’s heart and ensure her safety at any cost, makes a bold move of his own.
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The first glints of sunrise flickered on the crenellations of the west tower as Lars, nearly fifteen-summers-old page for Castle Faldorrah, crawled out from beneath a chicken coop.
His mentor, Castellan Dubric, had sent him to the west courtyard before dawn to look for ghost stuff—whatever that meant—and, above all else, to stay safe and not be seen by the killer who’d stalked the castle for days. Yet Lars had failed every instruction. Intestines bound his hands in front of him, and, as he dragged himself to his feet, he spat away the foul taste polluting his blood-smeared mouth. His face and chest were covered in an egg maid’s blood as if he had rolled over her corpse. At least I’m still breathing, he reminded himself, and not puking after the murderous shit gagged me with a piece of her and stuffed me beneath that coop.
Sighing, he fell to his knees beside the dismembered body of the egg maid and muttered a curse as his shoulders slumped in shame. His shortsword stood jauntily in the back of her head, the hilt dripping with blood. Castellan Dubric was going to have his ass, that was as sure as the coming dawn, and not only because his failures led him to be captured by the castle slasher.
Whoever had killed the egg maid had hacked apart her body with Lars’ sword, shot her with a bolt from his small crossbow, and stolen his dagger. Lars had ruined the murder scene, ruined it by his presence, and any clue the killer might have left had been compromised. He was covered in her blood, with the stink of her death, and he was surely in deep trouble.
“Oh, dammit!” he cried, his face turned to the brightening sky.
He prayed for a moment and turned back to the egg maid’s body. A length of her intestine had been knotted around his wrists then trimmed, so everyone would see he did not kill her and would surely not be found guilty of her murder. Utter stupidity, perhaps, but not murder. He breathed easier and settled his rump into the cold mud to wait for Castellan Dubric to find him.
A tight cluster of milkmaids opened the west tower door and he cursed again.
One girl screamed, but all five stared at him, their eyes flickering with murderous fire in the dawn. “You bastard!” one screeched. They ran toward him like a pack, screaming and furious.
They had him outnumbered five to one.
Aw, shit, he thought. His bound hands fumbled to his thighs as he tried to shove himself to his feet, but his balance was off and they would be upon him before he—
His eyes flicked to his sword in the dead maid’s skull and he lunged for it, stretched over it. “Forgive me,” he whispered as he ripped his hands toward the blade and pulled, slicing through the slimy binds like a hot knife through soft cheese. In a blink he ruined both the scene and his alibi, but what choice did he have?