“Hurry up! We're almost there,” Tethina called in hushed tones.
Dasen looked up and realized that the words had come from far ahead, nearly out of sight around a bend in the trail. With a sigh, he pulled himself from his thoughts and concentrated on closing the distance. The task was not easy. With the aid of Tethina’s medicines, his headache and other miseries had abated, but even in perfect health he would not be able to keep up with her on these forest trails. His feet had never strode on anything more uneven than cobblestones, and even then not far. Here, he risked falling with every step. He had to watch each one, feel it out, then move cautiously to keep himself from the ground. Tethina had no such trepidation. She walked across the rough path – strewn with roots, rocks, leaves, and mud – as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Which, for her, he realized to his dismay, it probably was.
At least his apology seemed to have been accepted. In the moment after, Tethina had seemed to warm to him, had touched him gently, looked into his eyes with what could have been fondness. Dasen had thought they were making progress until she snapped her hand away and marched down the path like a drill sergeant. And like a drill sergeant, she watched him close their current gap. Her eyes were hard and disapproving, but at least she held back her insults. It was clear that patience was not one of her virtues, but through that, Dasen almost thought he saw a hint of fondness in her scowls. The very fact that she waited seemed a great concession. It was all quite unladylike, but he was in no place to complain – if he’d had a proper lady for a wife, they’d both be dead right now.
Dasen closed the final few steps to where Tethina waited at the edge of a clearing. She watched and nodded with what might have been approval. The forest was not so kind. A hidden root caught his toe and sent him lurching forward. He crashed into Tethina and expected them both to end up on the ground. As it was, she caught him and spun him into a nearby tree where he could arrest his momentum without falling on her. It was such a smooth, graceful move that Dasen was left stunned. He had been certain that they would be in a pile on the ground then he was standing, nearly hugging a tree and she was watching him with the smallest quirk of a smile. Is she somehow enjoying this?
“Be careful,” she said, smile fading to a scowl. She held her cheeks, obviously feeling her burns again. “We have to be quiet. We are almost to the village. The bandits are probably long gone, but I have a bad feeling. Everything is too still. We should be able to hear the celebration from the green. The birds should be heading that way to pick at the scraps, but the ones I have seen are flying away.”
"Is that where Randor’s Pass is supposed to be?" Dasen asked. His attention had been drawn to the opposite side of the clearing where he had an unobstructed view of the treetops to the west. Rising above those trees was black smoke.
Tethina turned. Her face blanched despite her burns. Her mouth hung open. "That is exactly where Randor is supposed to be.” Stunned, she scanned the trees. “This is bad. Can you follow me?” She stared at Dasen. Her tone told him the question was not rhetorical.
He only nodded, shocked by her sudden intensity.
“Okay but you need to be quiet. I mean silent. Not a word, not a scuffle, not a squeak. Do you understand?”
Dasen nodded again then gulped as he watched her dart off the trail and bound through the trees.
The forest this close to the village was much less wild than it had been where the coach had crashed. The trees were reasonably spaced – stumps marked where they had been thinned by the villagers. Only sparse underbrush grew between the remaining trees so their way was clear, but the heavy rains had transformed the ground into a seething maze of roots, rocks, and mud that made the trail look like well-laid cobblestones. Somehow, Tethina floated across that uneven mess as if it were cobblestones. The sight was so amazing that Dasen could only watch for several seconds before he managed to pop his jaw back into place and follow. What had he been thinking? He had no chance of making it across that mess without any sound. But he’d told Tethina he could, so he took a deep breath and planned his path.
As he took his first steps, amazement turned to awe. The forest did not appear to have a single flat spot, so he loped from one poorly controlled tripping fall to the next, always a hair’s breadth from disaster. The dangers the rough ground presented were exacerbated by his need to watch the elusive shadow that was his wife. She was soon so far ahead that he was lucky to catch an occasional glimpse of her flitting between the trees. The way she moved suggested a desire for stealth, but Dasen found it hard enough to keep her in sight – adding stealth to his run would have been too much for his overtaxed body and mind to manage.
Soon Tethina was further obscured by the first tendrils of smoke drifting through the trees. The smoke was dirty grey and clung to the forest like fog. It burned his eyes and had the caustic smell of green pine and tar. The same tar that had sealed the wooden shingles on the villagers' roofs, Dasen thought as he ran. That realization along with the sheer volume of the smoke confirmed his suspicion that this was not an accidental or celebratory fire. The entire village must be burning. How was that possible? With every villager already gathered, they should have had no problem controlling a fire. How could it have gotten that far out of control? Unless . . . unless the thieves from the road had started it, had kept the villagers from fighting it.
The thought hit Dasen like a fist between the eyes. His father had kept six guards with him plus Elton, who was worth at least six men. Plus five hundred villagers. At least a hundred of those were woodsmen in their prime, big men who swung axes for a living. How many bandits were there? How did they know they were here? How did they get past the forest master? Obviously, Ipid would be worth a fortune in ransom, but why involve the villagers? Why not attack the day before when they were on rain-soaked roads riding through heavy forest, ideally positioned for an ambush?
The piercing wail of a baby’s cry echoed through the forest, sending Dasen from his skin and leaving his questions unanswered. The sound was quickly muffled – cut short by a mother’s hand – but it made Dasen's heart race, thundering until he thought it might leap from his chest. Wrenched back from his thoughts, he realized that the smoke was all around him, leaving him on the edge of coughs and cutting his vision to a few paces. That haze had made the forest seem desolate, had lulled him into a false sense of solitude, but the wail had come from immediately in front of him. He was desperately close to the village and whatever dangers it held.
Having lost sight of Tethina, he was running blind in what he hoped was the correct direction. He slowed his pace, suddenly aware of the sound of his own shuffling feet. Blood roared in his ears, but it was not enough to drown out the stuttering cries of anguished women, the barely contained snuffles of stoic men holding back their emotion through will alone, the whimpering, breathless sobs of children who had long ago expended their ability to cry. Taken together, it was the sound of people pushed beyond their limits, of fear, and it reverberated through Dasen like a cold wave.
He was so absorbed by those horrifying sounds that he did not even notice when the trees came to a sudden end, leaving him gawking at the village green and the great mass of villagers gathered in its center. Only a strong arm around his waist kept him from the villagers and the plain view of whatever criminals were guarding them. Another hand wrapped around his mouth to silence the yelp that nearly escaped his lips. A firm body supported him to keep him from falling as his momentum changed. He whirled on the attacker ready for anything then let out a sigh when he saw Tethina’s eyes hammering him through the haze of smoke.
When her eyes had taken their toll, she signaled him to silence, turned, and crept to the remnants of two trees that had fallen across one another in ages past. The long forgotten logs were rotten and moss covered but had fallen in such a way that someone could view most of the green with little chance of being detected. Dasen followed
her through a spindly bush that guarded the logs, restraining outbursts as sharp thorns pulled at his legs and arms.
They squatted behind the barricade and watched through a space between the logs. The villagers were plain enough, but the haze of smoke obscured Dasen’s vision and burned his eyes. He suppressed coughs then covered his mouth with part of his sweat-soaked shirt to keep the smoke from his lungs. A glance at Tethina showed her doing the same with the hem of her silk dress. She squinted against the caustic smoke, peering into the haze like a mystic studying a crystal for the Order’s will. Rubbing the smoke and water from his eyes, Dasen joined her, searching hungrily for information, for his father, for Rynn, but the haze was so thick that he could not discern individual figures. He saw only a tight clump of bodies, holding one another protectively. Fear emanated from them like heat from a fire. But fear of what? Try as he might, Dasen could not see the source of the villagers’ distress. From what he could tell, they were simply standing in a great, unguarded mass as their homes smoldered in the distance.
The questions began to build again in Dasen’s mind. How many attackers must there be to create this crippling fear in five hundred proud villagers? Where were these attackers? Had they already left with their prize? If so, why were the villagers still so paralyzed?
Dasen could almost feel the rise in emotions that provided the answers. The muffled whimpers of the villagers grew in intensity if not volume and were followed by a tight silence that was even more dreadful. His eyes snapped to the source of the building fear and found a mounted man emerging from the smoke, riding in a slow circle around the huddled mass. The rider moved casually, but a steady wave of panic preceded him as the villagers crushed together in anticipation of his arrival before them. As if it were the very figure of death, they tried to disappear in his presence and became all the more apparent as a result.
For his part, the rider did not seem to notice the villagers, concentrating instead on the leg of chicken he was eating as he rode. As he became clearer, Dasen realized that there was something strange about the silhouette the rider cast through the smoke. At first, he thought it was a trick of his watering eyes, but when the man was in full view, he decided that it was no trick. The man and his mount were giants. The horse was every bit as large as the beasts that had pulled Ipid’s coach, and the man was a perfect fit for the creature. Compared to the villagers in the background, he was a full head taller and half-again as wide. His shoulders were thick. His arms, left bare by the leather vest he wore, were heavily muscled and as big around as Dasen’s head. Clutched in his hand, what Dasen had thought was a chicken leg was that of a goose. His other balanced a massive sword across the pommel of his saddle as if it were a fencing foil. Dasen watched the man ride around the villagers but could not make any sense of his appearance. The only men that came close to matching him were Morgs, but everyone knew that Morgs did not ride horses or shave their beards — the rider’s face had little more than careless stubble.
As the rider faded from view, a breeze appeared. The surprisingly cool breeze pushed some of the smoke away from the village, and Dasen said a silent prayer of thanks for the slight reprieve it afforded his burning eyes and lungs. The prayer died as his watering eyes found the bodies. There were at least ten scattered in his limited view, crumpled masses disfigured and oozing red into the puddles that already surrounded them. Dasen felt the bile rise in this throat and turned to be sick.
“Don’t,” Tethina whispered. “Fight it. They’ll know we’re here.”
Dasen pushed down the bile, fought to keep it there, as fear overwhelmed him. Who are these people? By the Order, what have they done? The bodies were mangled, but some of them were too small to be men. Arrows stood in multitudes from backs. Heads lay paces from bodies. Blood stained the grass brown as it dried in the heat. The smell of burning pine was replaced by the iron tinge of a slaughter house. Who could do this? How could Ipid’s ransom be worth this?
Still, Dasen studied the bodies, searched for familiar faces, clothes, or builds. He prayed that they would remain anonymous, that his father, Rynn, his guards, Elton would not be among the dead, that he would not have to see their bodies shattered before him. When he had forced himself to search each body, he turned to the villagers with hope mixing into his fear. But the faces he found, though occasionally familiar, were not known. His father, Rynn, Elton, his guards, even Pete Magee and his gang were nowhere to be found in the sliver of the green he could see from his sanctuary.
“What do you make of that?” Tethina whispered in his ear so softly he could barely make out the words. She pointed to the side where a dozen riders had formed a knot of conversation. To Dasen’s astonishment, all those men were as large as the first one he had seen. It was inconceivable. These were not Morgs, so how did this many men of such incredible size manage to come together in one place? The similarities between the men were considerable, he decided without much relief. They all wore tight-fitting leather pants, loose leather vests with open triangular necklines, and soft knee-high boots made for riding. Their faces were hard with sharp features that were often disrupted by gruesome scars. Their hair varied from clean shaven to long but was always tightly corralled either by the severity of the cut or with tight braids that were themselves clasped together with leather thongs. Finally, every man, save one, was huge, powerfully armed, and mounted on a horse that matched his girth.
Confounded, Dasen turned his attention to the aberration among them, hoping that the exception might explain the rule. At the center of the gathered riders was one man of approximately normal size. By Dasen’s estimation, he was about his height and only slightly broader, but compared to his fellows, he might have been a dwarf. Yet that man, by all appearances, was the leader. The others directed their conversation to him, and when he bothered to respond, they fell silent. Furthermore, the leader was simply a smaller version of the men around him. His horse was, if anything, the largest. He wore the same clothing, had the same short-cropped blond hair, angular face, and brutal weaponry. Despite the normalcy of his stature, he was every bit as strange as his fellows.
A hard nudge in the arm pulled Dasen’s attention from the scene. “So, do you know these gentlemen?” Tethina whispered. Her scorn was clear even at a whisper.
“I don’t know wh . . .” Dasen started too loudly. Tethina clamped a hand over his mouth and shot him a look that might have killed him.
“Are you incapable of being quiet?” she whispered with all the force of a scream.
Dasen held back a sudden wave of fury. Struggling to restrain his frustration, he gathered himself and spoke in the softest whisper he could manage. “I have no idea who these men are. None of this makes any sense.”
Tethina puffed. Her eyes turned to the fallen; clearly she would know them. Would they be her friends, relatives, enemies? How could she be so strong? So unfazed? He did not know any of these people yet he could barely keep his stomach from revolting, could barely keep himself from curling into a helpless ball. His emotions fought one another, disgust, anger, sadness, fear. Tethina seemed only to feel the anger. Her mouth was a line, her eyes slits. Her hands were clenched, entire body taught. Then he saw her mouth moving ever so slightly. At first he thought it was for curses, then he realized prayers. The prayer for the dead, and she said it for each body, moving from one to the next until they were all covered.
With a sigh, Dasen joined her, mouthing the short prayer without a sound and felt it calm the storm inside him. When they had finished, he took another breath and turned to Tethina. “We should go,” he whispered. “There’s nothing we can do. Our best hope is to find the forest masters. They will know how to handle this.”
Tethina glared, her anger clear, but she did not respond. She watched the village for a moment longer then nodded. “When the smoke drifts back.”
As if controlled by her words, the breeze faded a
nd smoke slowly reclaimed the green. Dasen used those last moments to scan the crowd a final time for his father or Rynn. He did not find them. He could only guess that they had already been sorted from the villagers. The kidnappers would not risk their payoff, he told himself, but something still felt wrong. The evidence didn’t fit the hypothesis, but logic dictated that the simplest answer was usually the correct one, and he could think of no other explanation that was not outlandish. In the end, he was left wanting as the smoke boiled over him, and he turned to leave.