Laurell Hamilton - Never After

The manor house itself was squat and narrow, built of yellow stone that had molded over to black along the foundation. It was smaller than some of the outbuildings that fanned out behind it—what looked like a couple of enormous stables, constructed of weathered wood, and a few storage sheds. I saw three circular arenas, heavily fenced, and a huge pile of mounded debris. Something was giving off an unpleasant smell, heavy and meaty and foul, but I could catch only the occasional whiff as the wind shifted—and as we grew closer.

From some distance out we could catch the ceaseless cacophony of many dogs.

I happened to be riding in the wagon with Darius for this leg of the journey. I looked at him with a questioning expression that in no way mirrored the trepidation that had coiled in my stomach. I could not have said what, exactly, but something at Kannerly was very wrong.

Darius was looking about him with a small frown weighing down his cheerful features. “Strange sort of place,” he said in a hesitant voice. “It feels—off—somehow, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” I agreed. “I don’t like it.”

Harwin had circled back and now wheeled his rangy bay up beside the wagon. “There will be guards at the entrance,” he said. “I assume they’ll recognize your stepmother.”

“Harwin,” I started, but he spurred forward to say something to Gisele through the coach’s open window.

Another few minutes brought us to the gate, where four soldiers lounged, looking bored, though they all came to attention to inspect us. Gisele poked her head out and said in a colorless voice, “I have brought Princess Olivia and some companions to spend a day at Kannerly. We will travel on in the morning.”

The guard who seemed to be in charge studied her face for a moment, then glanced at me. Unimpressed, he waved us toward the gate. “Pull on through,” he said.

A footman and a butler awaited us on the exceedingly modest front porch, and two grooms raced up to take charge of the horses. The footman helped Gisele and Dannette out of the carriage, while the butler bowed to the queen.

“Majesty,” he said with an inflection of surprise.

“An unexpected detour on an unexpected trip,” Gisele said lightly. “Grayson, this is Princess Olivia, who has never had the honor of touring Kannerly. We will require five rooms for a night, dinner, and breakfast. We do not plan to stay past the morning meal.”

“Very good, majesty,” Grayson replied.

Just inside the door was a woman who looked less like a housekeeper and more like a tavern waitress, young and full-figured and sullen. She recognized Gisele, because she dropped an unwilling curtsy, but she neither knew nor cared who the rest of us were. In silence, we followed her through the house, which was clean enough, though not nearly to the proud standards of the palace. It was also rather bare—no portraits or tapestries on the walls, no rugs to soften the hard stone floors. I peered into a few rooms as we passed and saw nothing but dark leather furniture and heavy, blockish cabinets and tables.

The property seemed more like a hunting lodge than a family estate. The sort of place men would go without their womenfolk.

“Cozy,” I heard Dannette murmur to Gisele, who smothered a laugh.

The bedroom I was assigned was utilitarian and chilly. I took advantage of the amenities and then stepped over to the window, hoping for a scenic view. But nothing so pretty awaited me, since my room looked out over one of the monstrous barns and an attached arena.

Through the still, sunny, autumn air, I caught again the sound of barking. A little more distinct from this vantage point, so that I could almost make out layers of sounds. High, fast yips of excitement or distress; low growls of warning; an occasional howl that made my skin prickle all the way down my spine. How many dogs were there at Kannerly? And why were they so agitated?>

I intended to wait for Gisele and the others to get settled, so we could tour the grounds together, but curiosity and that growing uneasiness in my stomach shoved me out of my room. The housekeeper was nowhere to be seen, so I found my own way down the stairs and out the front door. The footman held it open for me, but made no attempt to stop me.

I supposed I could wander around Kannerly on my own and find out what made it so mysterious.

I hiked directly toward the nearest barn. With every step I took, the noise of the dogs grew louder and the stench from the mound of debris grew stronger. Other odors were also mixed in, the smells of dung and urine and wet fur, all of them so intense that I pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and held it over my nose to ease my breathing. As I got closer, I could hear the sound of men calling to one another over the whining and baying of the dogs. Although no one had told me not to investigate the property, I instinctively shrank back against a side wall of the barn, not wanting to be seen. I waited until their voices faded away as they headed toward one of the other buildings, and then I looked around for an unobtrusive entrance. A small side door had been left conveniently ajar, so I kept in the shadows and slipped inside the barn.

For a moment I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

Partly that was because the lighting was poor, provided by a couple of murky skylights and a handful of oil lamps. Partly because the scene itself made no sense.

There were cages. Dozens of cages—crates—stacked on top of one another. Each one held a dog that barked and howled and whined and scraped its paws at the flooring as if trying to dig its way free. Some dogs were quite big—too big for their quarters—others were so small, and so thin, they looked as if they might squeeze out between the slats. They were all mangy and matted, covered with dried mud and what took me a few minutes to realize was old blood. Most of them sported a variety of half-healed wounds; more than one had had an ear partially torn off, or a nose slashed, or an eye clawed out. Several were missing limbs. There might have been more horrors, but I couldn’t look long enough to find them. I pressed myself back against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut and still holding the handkerchief to my nose.

These were fighting dogs.

Kannerly was where my father bred and trained them.

The arenas must be where the handlers introduced them to the sport, after the animals had been beaten, starved, or whipped into a frenzy so they would attack on command.

My eyes still closed, I frowned. But the creatures in here were too thin and scrappy to last for long against the dogs in my father’s kennels back home. I called up a memory of the last time I had seen those beasts in action—when they had been loosed on Harwin and Darius and my other suitors. All those animals were well kept, well muscled, well fed.

The ones here must be bait dogs—prey for the fighters no doubt kept in much better condition in the other barn. Once an animal was relegated to a cage in this building, its life expectancy must be very short. Which no doubt explained the odor of rot and decay seeping from the large mound at the back of the property.

I barely made it out the side door before I fell to my knees and vomited. And then all the mixed, dreadful smells of the property overcame me, and I vomited again. And again, and again, until there was nothing left in my stomach but bile.

When I pushed myself to my feet and turned to stumble back toward the house, I saw Harwin running across the lawn in my direction. He must have spotted me from the house and instantly come after me.

Which meant he had known exactly what I would discover when I went roaming through Kannerly.

I could not talk to him—I could not speak to anyone—I could hardly think. How could such cruelty exist in the world? I turned blindly away from the barn, away from the house, and blundered on in a random direction, hoping my path didn’t take me past some fresh abomination. I had gone maybe twenty steps before Harwin caught up with me and took my arm.