LITMIR.BIZ

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women dressed in dark garments, carrying an injured and bloody girl between them. The way they were holding her, dragging her up the stairs by her wrists, made it clear they weren’t concerned with her welfare in the least; she was just another piece of garbage to be disposed of, no doubt the sooner, the better.

      The two groups stared at each other for a long second, both nonplussed at being interrupted.

      Thurzó recovered first, springing forward and pushing the point of his sword against the throat of the woman on the left, whom he recognized as Dorotya Semtész, one of Elizabeth’s personal servants.

      “Put her down, gently,” he told them.

      For a moment he thought Semtész might actually try to argue. She glared at him, pretending to dismiss the blade at her throat, but a glance over his shoulder at the rest of his party, all heavily armed and no doubt as angry as he, must have convinced her that arguing was a waste of time. Without a word she lowered the injured girl toward the floor and her companion followed suit.

      Thurzó kept his blade on Semtész’z throat as he said, “Bakoš, Kollár, help that young woman. Szabó, keep your eye on her—” he indicated Semtész’s companion with a nod of his head “—while I talk to this one.”

      As his men did as they were ordered, Thurzó nudged his captive off to one side, away from the others, with the point of his sword. When they were far enough away for his men not to overhear, he asked, “Where is she?”

      Semtész didn’t bat an eyelash as she lied through her teeth. “At her estate in Vienna. She’ll be there for a fortnight.”

      Thurzó knew that wasn’t true; he’d had men watching Báthory’s other estates for three days, and he knew she hadn’t left Csejte.

      Kollár interrupted him from behind.

      “She’s dead, sir.”

      That made three victims so far.

      God help them.

      “If Lady Báthory is out of the country, then I suppose this was all your doing?”

      Báthory’s servant was smart enough to see the trap he’d laid for her—admitting to the crime would mean she was as good as dead, since murder was a capital offense—but she surprised him by nodding in agreement.

      “Yes. The girl’s death is my fault.”

      He didn’t believe that for a moment, but he also realized the futility of trying to get information out of her when she was all too willing to confess to murder. Anything she said would be suspect, and all of it more than likely designed to delay him from carrying out his real objective—locating and arresting the countess.

      He didn’t have time for this.

      Thurzó grabbed the woman by the arm and led her back to Szabó, who was keeping an eye on her companion. “Put them in irons,” he told his lieutenant. “We’re taking them both back to Bratislava to stand trial.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Semtész glared at him, but he ignored her, his thoughts on who he’d take with him into the dungeon for Elizabeth’s arrest and who he would leave behind to guard the prisoners.

      He never got the chance to make a decision. Cries for help erupted from down below.

      Thurzó didn’t hesitate; gripping his sword, he rushed down the steps. The stamp of booted feet on the stone behind him let him know that several of his men were following. At this point it didn’t really matter who it was, just that he had some backup.

      Torches burned in sconces set into the walls, lighting the way before them, and the group of men quickly found themselves standing in a narrow passageway with rows of cells on either side.

      The cells were full of women.

      Some held the living. Some held the dead. Some held a mix of the two, and it was often difficult to tell the difference given the terrible state many of the prisoners were in. One glance was all it took to recognize that the women had been tortured. They had been beaten and battered and in some cases bitten, though by whom or what Thurzó didn’t know.

      He had his suspicions, though, oh, yes.

      Unlike the women they’d found upstairs, some of these prisoners needed immediate assistance, and he couldn’t just pass them by without giving aid. Leaving the dead to fulfill their mission was one thing; abandoning the living was something else entirely.

      Thankfully the doors to each cell were made of wood, rather than iron. That meant there’d be no need to wait for a blacksmith. Thurzó had anticipated the need to smash through a few doors once they were inside the castle, so several of his men were carrying battle hammers.

      “Break them down!” he called to his men. “Break them all down. Get these women upstairs and give them what aid you can!”

      His men immediately got to work, the wood resisting at first and then splintering beneath the repeated blows. The noise drew the other half of his party from the halls and chambers upstairs, where they’d been searching for the countess, and the added manpower made the job go that much quicker.

      Soon his men were entering the cells, leading those who could move up the stairs and into the great hall, where they received as much care as Thurzó’s men could provide. Those who were too injured to walk were carried upstairs by one or more of his soldiers; the gentleness these hardened warriors showed to the wounded struck Thurzó deep in the heart.

      When the last of the prisoners were upstairs, the bodies were carried out of the cells and lined up in the passageway one after another. Thurzó stopped counting when he reached forty-three.

      He’d checked the first few corpses—those that were reasonably intact, at least—and noted the same kinds of injuries as they’d discovered upstairs. They’d been bled dry like animals brought to the butcher’s for slaughter.

      His disgust now in full bore, Thurzó stood back and let his men work, his mind wandering to all-but-forgotten days, trying to figure out just where the countess was hiding.

      The upper floors were vacant, and they had covered every inch of the lower floors, as well. Lady Báthory had been inside these walls when the night had begun, and Semtész’s behavior seemed to indicate she was still here somewhere.

      But where?

      He cast his thoughts back, back to the days when he and Ferenc had run wild through these tunnels, and as the images rushed through his mind, one stuck out. A faint memory of Ferenc showing him a hidden door in one of the cells, a door that led to an unfinished tunnel...

      Thurzó slipped away from the others and entered the cell in question. Holding a torch, he walked over to the back wall and pressed on it several times, trying to remember how his childhood friend had done it all those years ago.

      Something about putting pressure on the right slab while standing...just so?

      The wall slid open silently, revealing the passage he remembered from his youth. At that time, the tunnel had led to a dead end, but he could see now that improvements had been made over the years, widening the tunnel and lengthening it, as well. Torches had been lit at regular intervals. The tunnel took a couple of sharp turns and then opened up into a wide chamber.

      In the center of the room, a large rectangular sunken bath was surrounded by half a dozen braziers. Each had a fire blazing inside, no doubt to help ward off the room’s chill.

      In the flames’ lurid light, the bathwater had an unusual crimson tint.

      Thurzó stepped forward, moving closer, and as he did so the smell finally hit him.

      A thick, coppery scent—one he was intimately familiar with from the time he’d spent on the battlefield.

      With slowly dawning horror, Thurzó realized the bathwater wasn’t truly water at all. It was blood, a vast pool of blood hot enough to give off steam.

      He’d

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