Patricia Briggs (3 page)

“Lass,” said Talon, though he was no older than I was. “Aren.” The sorrow on his broad face made him look like the hound that lived on Albrin's front porch. “Your father….”

I glanced at the wagon, noticed something dark dripping from the back of it, and hastily looked back at Talon.

“Dead,” I said. “From the prints outside my home, one of them is riding my husband's gelding. His shoes are new,” I said.

I didn't remember looking at the ground when I walked out of the house. But I remembered the prints. Quilliar and Kith had taught me to track when we were children. I glanced at Kith, but, as usual since his return last fall, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Talon looked a little disturbed at my change of subject. He spoke slowly. “Caulem must have been coming for help, but they'd posted someone on the main trail to your da's. His horse ran into Albrin's yard covered from ribs to croup in blood. Kith rang the alarm bell and we all headed out. We left some men at your ma's, and the rest of us followed the horse's trail.”

I licked my lips nervously, wishing my thoughts weren't so clear. Father had just bought that horse from Albrin, but the track it had followed should have taken it past my parents' house before it ran to Albrin's yard. My parents had an alarm bell in the yard, too. Ma should have been out ringing the bell before the horse made it as far as Albrin's—if she'd been alive to ring it.

The raiders hadn't taken grain sacks from the barn because they already had enough grain, stolen from my parents.

“Ma?” I said softly, as if my quietness would change the answer I knew they would give me.

Talon looked around for help, but no one else took up the story. “They started at Widow Mavrenen's,” he said as softly as I had, the way he spoke to fidgeting young horses. “Killed her and that old dog of hers. Took everything that wasn't nailed down. They hit your folks' place next. Mistress Ani was there and your ma. We figure they must have put up quite a fight from the looks of things.”

He swallowed and looked uncomfortable. “Poul, he was with us, too. We left him and his da there to take care of things, but we were afraid, from the direction the raiders were taking, that they might decide to hit you up here before they left off.”

I nodded dully. Ma, Ani, and her unborn child were dead, too.

“There's no one farther out than us,” I said, telling them nothing they didn't already know. My voice was slurring, but I didn't care enough to correct it. “The old place up on the hill has been vacant since old man Lovik died of lung fever last winter. They didn't take much more from our place—just the pony, really. And Gram's silver mirror.” I hadn't looked for it, but it must be gone, too.

“How is it that you escaped?” asked Kith suspiciously.

His harsh tones pulled my attention to him. I'd grown up with Kith, fished with him when we were children, danced—and flirted—with him before he'd been called to war. When he'd come back to us, he'd come back with a loss that was more than his arm….

“Time for you to go home, can't fight with one arm. Too bad, really, you'd become quite a soldier…”

I swallowed, forcing Lord Moresh's voice away, knowing that they were all watching me. I'd never had visions like this before, as if all I had to do was think of something and the
sight
grabbed it for me.

“It was stupid,” I said, finally. I knew another time I'd have been angry and hurt at his suspicion. “I was starting down the stairs to the cellar to get some salt pork for…for Daryn's lunch when I heard them outside. So I hid down in the cellar with a rug over the trapdoor. I waited until it was quiet before I came out.”

I walked past them then, to the wagon. I think Albrin asked me something, but I couldn't focus on it. I lifted up the quilt—it wasn't one of Ma's, she never used flowers in her patterns.

I stared at the bodies lying in the wagon. Death had marked them so they didn't look like the people I had loved. Someone had closed their eyes, but I tucked the horse blanket over Daryn's head anyway, climbing on the wheel to get close enough to do it. Then I covered them back over with the flowered quilt.

“I think I have some information that the village elders need to hear,” I said, stepping down from the wagon.

“About the raiders?” asked Kith. “From what you said, you didn't even see them.”

“Mmm?” I looked up at him. If I'd told Daryn about my vision, he might still be alive. I'd promised to tell him about my
sight
if something bad happened. An atonement I couldn't make now except by proxy, with the village elders standing in Daryn's stead.

I even had a good reason to do it, to take my punishment. Magic was loose in the mountains again. I could feel the pulse of it under my feet. I didn't know exactly how it happened, or why. But Gram's stories had always ended….

The old woman smiled at the children who were bundled in quilts on either side of her.

“But someday,” she said, “someday, the magic will return. And with it will come the white beast, the sprites, and the giants. The gremlins, the trolls, and all that is fey.”

“But Gram,” piped the boy, “won't they be angry?”

If Quilliar had been right, Fallbrook needed to be warned.

I spoke quickly, hoping no one had noticed my lapse. “The quickest way to the village is back to our—to my home and down by way of the path next to Soul's Creek to the river.”

“What do you want to talk to the elders about?” pursued Kith doggedly.

“I have the
sight
,” I said.

There, it was said, never to be taken back. I could not have more effectively set myself apart from the villagers if I had slit my own throat. I couldn't bring myself to care. I would tell the elders, and pay the price they demanded.

The numbness that had protected me since I climbed out of the cellar was fading, being replaced by pain so great it made me want to scream. No one left of my family. No warm husband to huddle beside when I awoke to a crisp, spring morning—never again.

I had done my screaming in the cellar. I turned back down the trail toward—well, it didn't seem like home anymore. It had been that for—I glanced unobtrusively at the sun—only a little more than a day. The numbness settled back down again, like a soft quilt protecting me from the cold.

“What did she say?” asked one of the men I didn't know very well. I thought his name was Ruprick.

“She's in shock,” said Albrin shortly. “She doesn't know what she's saying.”

Kith's yellow gelding passed me and moved to block my path. Kith sheathed his sword and held out his hand. There was nothing in his face, but when I took his hand, he swung me up behind him, much as he had done in those long-ago days when I'd been his best friend's little pest of a sister.

His horse, Torch, danced a little, throwing me forward and giving me an excuse to press my forehead against Kith's back. If I cried, I could trust him not to tell. Though he'd become wary, behaving as if we all were strangers to him, he wasn't a stranger to me. I knew he could be counted on to keep secrets.

The group was slowed by the oxen, and Kith ventured ahead now and then, sometimes leaving the trail entirely. I could tell he was looking for signs of the raiders, though their trail had turned west just past the croft, away from the village. I hadn't seen any sign of them after that. Since Kith remained silent, I assumed he hadn't either.

Even insulated by my sorrow, I could sense the wild magic that had been gathering since I'd first felt it. The power caused me to sweat as if this were high summer rather than spring. The air was growing heavy with it. I felt as if I were breathing underwater—but no one else seemed to be affected by it. The animals knew, though. Even the imperturbable oxen started to act restless. The horses danced and skittered like untried two-year-olds.

Torch stopped abruptly, bracing himself. His hips dropped underneath me as he clamped his tail tightly against his legs. The oxen bawled and stopped as well, dropping to the ground despite the discomfort of the yoke.

“Raiders?” asked Albrin.

“I don't know, sir,” replied Kith. “I wouldn't think they'd bother old Torch, not after the campaigns he's—”

The earth bucked and heaved beneath us. Kith's gelding let out soft little murmurs of distress, his dun coat darkened with the sweat of fear. After a moment the animal's noises were hidden by the roar of the earth's anger. The sound was indescribable. An immense tree dropped not an arm's length from us, but I didn't hear anything when it hit because of the earth's incredible roar.

The shaking slowed. The magic that had consumed me eased, and I could breathe again. A rumble drew my attention to the southern peaks of the mountains surrounding our valley. Silvertooth Mountain slid downward, almost gently. The noise of it was quieter than the earthquake, distant—until it fell across the pass with a thunderous crash, blocking the King's Highway. The earth shook again.

The second time wasn't as bad, but it seemed to go on longer. Albrin's horse had been dumped on her side as the earth buckled beneath her, but during the lesser shaking the mare regained her feet. When the second quake stopped, I could feel only the barest hint of magic.

Except for Hob's Mountain, Silvertooth had been the tallest peak surrounding the valley. Now it looked as if someone had kicked it into Old Fortress, which was itself leaning aside. As we watched, dust rose from the fall, gradually obscuring the new landmark from view.

“This is a day of ill omens,” said Talon soberly, his hands steadier than his voice as he reassured the oxen.

I couldn't see Kith's face, but Albrin looked as if he'd just seen the end of the world. The oxen heaved themselves to their feet. The resultant jostling of the wagon knocked the blanket aside, and I stared into Caulem's dead eyes. My world had ended before the earthquake.

The smith spoke softly to the oxen, and they threw their weight behind their harnesses. The wagon passed us, and Torch sidestepped closer. Kith leaned over, the reins in his teeth, and pulled the blanket back into place.

We followed the trail by Soul's Creek until after it forded the creek and turned to parallel the river. For the first few minutes of travel, the view of the river was blocked by thickets of willow. When the willow thinned out, it wasn't the animals that called a halt this time.

“By the gods,” whispered Albrin hoarsely, forgetting we had been worshiping the One God for the last few generations.

Where the river had formerly run, there was nothing but the deep channel it had cut. Soul's Creek emptied into the rocky riverbed, and flowed where it would. Fish flapped weakly in the muddy river bottom, their gills fluttering uselessly in the open air.

“It will come back,” I said involuntarily. For a moment the
sight
was more real than the shifting horse underneath me. “By tomorrow night it will flow with mud, and next week the water will rush freely.”

Albrin gave me an odd look with a hint of coldness in his eyes. “What do you know of this, Aren?”

I gripped the back of Kith's shirt tightly and shook my head. “I need to talk to the elders,” I whispered. “Can we hurry?”

B
EFORE WE REACHED THE NARROW BRIDGE OVER
Canyon Creek, the sky had darkened ominously. Great clouds traveled south to north, though the more usual direction was west to east. A fine powder drifted down like dry snowflakes.

“Ash,” I said.

“From a fire?” asked Albrin, who'd been riding nearby since we'd seen the empty riverbed.

“No,” I answered, shivering a little. “Bodies.”

After that Albrin dropped away from us. The space between Kith and me and the rest of the group became noticeable. I understood how they felt; if I could have gotten away from me, I would have, too.

T
HE WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF THE VILLAGE WERE
standing in clusters along the edge of the river when we came into Fallbrook—as they might well have been. But the river had been gone for a while by then, so they were ready to be distracted by the contents of the wagon.

Albrin told them about the raiders, and sympathetic murmurs seemed to surround me. Someone tugged me off the horse, but I clung to Kith's stirrup tenaciously.

“The elders,” I said.

Albrin, who'd just dismounted, nodded, and said grimly. “Go with them. It will be a while before we can call them together. Planting must go on.”

So I allowed myself to be hustle-bustled into the warm inner sanctuary of the inn's kitchen by Melly, the innkeeper's wife. Everyone called her that, though the innkeeper had little to do with the inn. He spent his days tending his turnips, carrots, and aristocratic pigs whose pedigrees were longer than Lord Moresh's.

The inn had three sleeping rooms for infrequent travelers and several dining and drinking rooms that were in use much more often. Food and drink were paid for mostly by barter, though Lord Moresh and his armsmen paid in hard currency. My father said Melly made little more than she spent, but it kept her happy.