Ghosts of Saltmarsh - Secrets and Lies part 4

Ghosts of Saltmarsh - Secrets and Lies part 4

The weasals kept a wary eye from the edge of the thorn bushes, at least the three females, while the charmed male talked with Ash. Ory and Gerrin watched from a few feet away and kept their on wary eye split between all four while Berrin watched from the gate, his bow drawn but pointed downward.

Ash gently stroked the chin of Ratbiter, the largest of the giant weasels, whispered something to him and turned to speak to Ory and Gerrin. Ratbiter turned with a smooth and sinuous motion and joined his denmates before all four disappeared back into the cover of the overgrown rose-bushes. 

"We should avoid that well," Ash pointed to stone-well surrounded by waist-high weeds and covered with a decaying wooden cover. "From what my friend has said it sounds like snakes."

Gerrin gave a shudder. "Good, I hate snakes."

"I always said having a druid in the party brings good luck," said Ory. "No chance having your new friends help us explore the house?" she asked.

 "Ratbiter I'd trust, but not his wives," said Ash. "They are very distrustful of us, and humans in general. Someone killed their last litter and it wasn't ghosts."

"Well, that surprises none of us," said Gerrin.

"Not after what your cousin told us," agreed Ory.

"Then its onto house," Gerrin nodded to the broken stairs leading to the porch with the leaning roof where the corner support was at an angle.

"I think we have seen enough of the garden," said Ash. She put two fingers to her lips and gave a piercing whistle. The raven came streaking down like a black dart thrown from the sky. "Coal, time for you to go watch Two-Ears."

"Mistress," croaked the raven and he launched himself back into the air. 

She turned and gave a nod of her head to Berrin who jogged over to them and slowly let the pull on his bowstring relax. Ash gave him a quick smile like sunlight breaking through a cloud and the wood elf grinned.

Quickly he slung his bow over his shoulder and slid his arrow into the quiver over his other shoulder. A shortsword was in his hand in a nonce. "The house," he said.

The four of them spread a few feet apart spaced like the points of a diamond. Gerrin closest to the right and the stone-well which they were bypassing, Berrin to the rear, Ash to the left and Ory in the lead.
Ory held a small wooden rod about a foot long in her left hand and had sheathed her long-bladed dagger but her right hand hovered over it.

Without seeming to look down she ascended the broken stairs finding the most secure treads and avoiding the rotted and creaking boards. Ory moved silently to the porch and the others carefully followed though a few creaks came from Gerrin's heavy steps. Berrin followed as quietly as their thief with the soft footsteps of an elf.

Ory paused at the broken doorway and examined it first with her eye than ran the rod in her left hand around the rusted handle, across the jam and reaching high tried to pass it over the doortop but even on her toes she couldn't reach. With a twist of her fingers the rod telescoped out till it was two feet long instead of one. She tested the doortop then stood back. She twisted the rod again and it was suddenly the length of a cane.

"Step back," she said quietly and reached out and caught the open edge of the door. It gave an ominous creak, but nothing more, and opened.

***

The smell of must and mold assailed them as the door opened. Ory pushed it fully to one side and Gerrin leaned into it till the hinges bent. He pulled downward and the lower corner of the door touched the porch. Withour repair the door would not shut again. Gerrin had no intention of anything blocking a hasty retreat.

Ory crouched down at the entrance. The rod in her hand was perhaps four feet but she held it lightly and let it touch the floor once, twice, then withdrew it and stood. "Tracks," she said.

The others watched her carefully as she stepped into the entrance hall, Gerrin following in her steps, then Ash and finally Bear. The smell did not bother the wood elf, though inside the old house it was palpably strong, a gagging taste, the air filled with spores. Ash simply experienced the natural process as she had done many times before communing with all types of flora and fauna even those quite unpleasant to human and humanoid senses. Gerrin grimaced and spat.

The light was dim but Berrin's elven heritage was of thick and overgrown forests. He saw well in the poor light and noted the bare and damp-streaked walls, the floor littered with small debris, the stairs rising to the right with a broken handrail and worn treads, the balcony over looking the hall with its balustrade leaning dangerously out over the hall floor. He wished for his bow but instead drew a throwing axe from its sheath at his belt.

Ash heard Bear draw his axe from his belt, glanced up the balcony above them and the sound of insects grew louder at the back of her mind. She withdrew a small petal wrapped ball of mud and mistletoe and held it lightly in the finger of her free hand. 

***

They were no more than fifteen or twenty feet into the hall before Ory stopped, raising here knifehand but not turning.

"Track splits," she told the others.

To their left there was a corridor, ahead there was a passage at the center of the further wall and stairs to their right. Ahead and to their right was an open space under the balcony landing beyond the staircase, perhaps another corridor.

Ory pointed to the lefthand corridor with her knife then straightahead to the passage at the center of the north wall.

"Which way?" asked Ash.

Gerrin looked to his right and grumbled out, "Stairs..."

"Left, " Berrin said. He was still behind them all by five or so feet and kept shifting his view from the balcony above them to the several openings branching from the main hall.

"Left," said Ash. She was no more than five feet from the opening to the left corridor.

"Straight," said Ory.

"Straight," Ash agreed."Bear?"

"Straight," Berrin said with a trace of a laugh.

"So it's straight ahead then is it," Gerrin hrumphed. "Fine."

***