The night watch guard's Arc

Chapter 6 of 10

The tower rose black against the sky at the top of the rise. Its stone was cracked and streaked with old rain. A carved cat sat over the arched door, worn smooth at the ears. The bell in the upper window swung on its own, slow and uneven, throwing dull clangs into the dark. The door hung open a hand's width. No light burned inside. The guard slowed his cats to a walk and raised his lantern. At the base of the tower, the cats stopped at the flagstones under the mahogany door. Two of them sat. One flattened his ears. None of them stepped closer. The guard did not push them. He had learned not to. He set his lantern down beside them and cupped his hand to his mouth. He called the missing guard's name up the wall. He called it twice. The bell rang again above him. No voice came back. The guard drew his blade from the sheath at his hip. The dark grip fit his palm. The edge caught the lantern light in a thin white line. He told his cats to hold the door. He told them if he did not call down within a hundred count, they were to run for the castle and not follow him in. The smallest cat pressed a paw against his boot. The guard stepped through the mahogany door alone. Inside, the air was colder than the moor. He climbed the stone steps with the blade forward. Roots had broken through the floors above. Thin trees grew straight up through the boards, their branches feeling for the window slits. Leaves lay in wet piles on the steps. He kept his back to the wall and counted landings. At the top, the bell chamber opened around him, its beams sagging, the great green bell swinging in short jerks over the stairs. A small dark shape crouched on the beam above the bell rope. A raccoon. It had the rope pinched in both paws and was pulling it hand over hand, chewing on something round and orange between tugs. It stopped when it saw the blade. It did not run. The guard lowered the sword. He stood in the empty chamber and listened for a man's breath under the beams. There was none. No coat on the floor. No lantern. No blood. The tower held nothing but the animal and the trees. The guard sheathed his blade and went back down the steps. At the door he told his cats what he had found. The bell had been a lie. The missing guard was still out in the woods somewhere, with no light and no whistle, and no bell he could ring to bring them to him. The guard picked up his lantern. He looked at the black line of trees below the rise. Then he called his cats into pairs and started down toward the woods.