Riddle in Stone (The Riddle in Stone Series - Book One) (27 page)

Pond draped another heavy blanket around Edmund’s shivering shoulders as Edmund stared through the flames growing in front of him. Norb handed Pond a hunk of hard bread and a tin cup of steaming coffee.

Norb had ridden south for many hours while Edmund, Pond, and Thorax clung to Norb’s shield as it bounced off the rocks under the melting snow. Dawn was approaching and they hadn’t seen any goblins since the volley of arrows that fell around them as they sped away. Everyone hoped that their pursuers had given up the chase, but Edmund knew that they wouldn’t—not while they wanted the answer to the riddle and he was still alive.

“My god, what the hell happened to you, Ed?” Norb asked, holding out another tin cup of hot coffee. “Where have you been? And what happen to your—?”

“Never mind all that,” Edmund said. “What happened to Molly? Where is she?”

Still holding the tin cup, Norb slowly withdrew his hands.

Staring into the crackling flames dancing in front of him, Edmund whispered, “Where’s Molly, Norb?”

Brushing the snow off his bedroll, the stable hand sat on the other side of the fire. “I, I honestly don’t know where to begin—”

“At the damn beginning,” Edmund snapped. Norb flinched. “Begin at the beginning. What happened after I left?”

“Okay,” Norb said, trembling. “The beginning. All right. Well, I felt bad. You know, about what I said to you. You know, when we was back behind the Rogue and all. I can’t remember exactly what I said—”

“You said that M-M-Molly wouldn’t be interested in a guy like me. That I wasn’t a hero like the storyteller.”

“Yeah
. . .
that. I’m
. . .
I’m sorry, Ed. Honest.”

Edmund continued staring, unblinking, at the fire.

“Well,” Norb took a tentative sip of the coffee he had offered to Edmund. “I-I felt real bad afterwards. I did. Then I heard what you had done, given all of your things to Mol and all and how you up and left.”

Edmund didn’t move.

Sparks floated up from the fire and dissolved into the blackness above them.

Throwing a pinecone on the snapping flames, Norb went on. “When you hadn’t returned in a couple days
. . .
well, we was all worried. Me, Molly
. . .
everybody.”

At the mention of Molly being worried about him, Edmund’s head lifted.

Norb examined the rim of his cup. “Anyways, we searched for you for a bit, you know. Went as far as some of the eastern ranches and to the Barrens, but you were nowhere to be found. Nobody had seen hide nor hair of you. Then
. . .
” He took a tentative sip of the coffee.

“And then? And then what? What happened to Molly?”

The wind whistled between the fir trees on the surrounding hills. Above, cold stars shimmered blue and green.

Norb hunched closer to the fire, orange light flickering across his uneasy face.

“Molly?” he repeated. “Well, you know, we
. . .
we all thought that you were good and gone. Happy for a change and all that. Doing what you always said that you would do, you know. Adventuring and such. Honest. That’s what we figured.”

Appearing like a man needing to be absolved of some evil treachery, Norb looked at Edmund. But Edmund just glared at the hissing flames as they fought their way around the damp wood.

“Go on,” he demanded.

Swallowing hard, Norb gave a tired shrug. “So
. . .
so Mol went on with her life. She sold a few of your books to poor ol’ Tom and toasted to your health at every meal.”

Edmund’s cheeks flushed a bit, the corners of his lips lifting as he thought about Molly toasting him. For a moment, his body finally felt warm.

She loves me.

But she’s gone. Kravel has her. He thought she was my wife.

She should be my wife. She will be once I rescue her! I’ll ask her the moment I see her again. Damn that Kravel!

Kravel…. . . .

His scowl turned to confusion.

Wait a second . . .

“Poor ol’ Tom?” Edmund repeated.

Norb fingered the handle of his cup.

“‘Poor ol’ Tom’? You, you, you hated Thomas. What’s happened?”

“Who’s Thomas?” Pond asked, his mouth full of bread.

Edmund waved him to be quiet. “He sells antiques. My father bought a short sword from him years ago. I’ll explain later. Go on, Norb.”

“Tom is dead,” Norb said. “A lot of people are, Ed.”

Edmund’s heart lurched. “Dead! Who? How?” He stammered. “Wh-wh-what, what happened?”

“That’s just it,” Norb said. “We don’t rightly know what happened, or who or what is responsible. But some are talking about wights coming down from the hills like in the tales of old, you know? Everybody’s beside themselves. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Dead?

“Anyway, Thomas was the first to go missing. Then a few others, William the glassmaker for one. Henry and Bryce the night watchmen were two others.”

“Wait. Are they missing? Or dead?”

Norb threw another pinecone on the fire.

“Well
. . .
both. They were gone. And then we found them in the woods outside of town. Thomas was hanging from a tree with this big hook under his jaw like he was a caught fish or something.” Unnerved, Norb exhaled, his breath appearing in the cold. “His lower half was clean gone, like it were eaten by wolves. Fishing bait for wolves
. . .
that’s what he was like. It was horrible.”

A hook?

Damn goblins.

I can’t believe this . . .

Edmund’s body sank as if deflated.

You shouldn’t have said where Rood was.

I caused this. I caused all of this.

“Do you know what’s going on, Ed?” Norb asked, a pleading tone in his quivering voice. “’Cause nobody back home has a clue. Not even these Highmen, these knights that appeared in Rood right after you left. After Mol disappeared, they took over the town. They’re running things now. Organizing watches and everything.”

“Knights? In Rood?”

One of the hissing branches in the fire popped loudly, sending a large spark shooting into the snow. Norb jumped.

“Where’s Rood from here?” Pond asked. “Can we walk there?”

Edmund held up a finger, motioning for his pit mate to wait a moment. “Why are knights in Rood? Are they from Eryn Mas?”

“Yeah, King Lionel sent them.” Norb scanned the dark hills around them anxiously. “He wants Rood back in the Kingdom. He sent a company of these knights storming into town to help with what they call the ‘readjustment.’ Nobody was none too happy about it, I can tell you. The knights are bullying everybody something terrible. And this King Lionel wants us to start paying outrageous taxes and worse.”

“Worse?”

“He wants us to send two hundred young lads to Eryn Mas to join his army. Everybody told them that there weren’t two hundred young men in Rood and all of the surrounding farms put together. But they wouldn’t listen. Anyway, these knights took over everything, kicked Harris out of office. They say they’re running the town until a new lord of the Highlands is named. I thought that there was going to be bloodshed over the whole thing. There still might be, I don’t know.”

Behind him, the grey Percheron snorted and tossed her mane.

“Is that where you got the horse?” Edmund asked, trying to piece everything together.

Norb turned as white as the snow.

“I had to, Ed! Molly disappeared and
. . .
and these highfalutin knights and their nasty, arrogant squires weren’t going to do anything! So I
. . .
I
. . .
borrowed one of their horses and some of their gear. I had to! How else was I going to find Mol?”

Edmund shook his head in disbelief.

Knights in Rood . . . Goblins in the mountains . . . It’s like history is repeating itself.

Pretty soon there’ll be war.

And Rood will be caught in the middle again.

Poor Rood . . .

When Edmund was finally able to exhale, he said, “Go on. Tell me everything. You said you thought I was okay and, and, and Molly finally had money and was toasting to my health. Tell me everything in order.”

How many people have died because of your little adventure? How many people are dead because of you? You should’ve stayed in Rood. You were content there, but you were too stupid to realize it.

“Like I was saying,” Norb went on. “She was happy that you were happy. So she
. . .
she went on, you know.”

“Then what happened?”

“Nothing for a few months.” Norb gestured to Thorax lying up against Edmund. She was licking the calluses and cuts covering his shivering hands. “Then this dog comes limping into town like she was looking for someone, all upset-like. She was hurt. Somebody shot her in the leg or something.”

Edmund stroked Thorax’s head.

“Anyways, the dog is smart, you know what I mean? I can’t really explain it, but it was as if she knew something. So when Mol disappeared, I said to her, I said, ‘Do you know where Molly is?’ And she went wild. Barking and all. That’s when I took the horse and everything and rode out of town. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve been following her ever since.”

Good work, Thorax! We’d be dead without you!

Edmund patted Thorax’s side. “Go on.”

“Well, we found this ruined tower and some traces of an old campsite. But no signs of Molly. Then the dog here led me up this way, toward these mountains, like we were hot on Mol’s trail.” He threw another dead branch on the fire. The flames spit and snapped as ice on the wood dissolved and fell into the glowing coals. “There isn’t much left to tell.”

Wagging her tail, Thorax rolled onto her back. Edmund petted her.

“What, what about Tom and everybody? You said
. . .
you said that a lot of people are dead. What happened?”

“Tom is the guy who sells the swords, right?” Pond asked.

Edmund hushed him.

“It’s hard to say,” Norb said. “Thomas just up and disappeared one night. That was a month or so after you left, maybe two months. I don’t know. Anyways, days later Steig and Mary’s youngest kid, the one with the curly red hair, found him strung up like I said.”

Damn goblins . . .

Why would Kravel and Gurding go after Thomas?

Because you told them that he sold the sword to your father. They wanted to see if he had more weapons made from that steel.

Edmund rubbed his face.

You shouldn’t have mentioned Rood, Thomas, or anything else. None of this would have happened.

I’d be dead if I hadn’t told them . . . a rat cage over my head.

But Molly and everybody would still be safe.

Edmund wondered what the goblins did to female prisoners. He hadn’t seen any in the pits. Then he decided he didn’t want to think about it.

“Then what?” Edmund asked. “After you found Thomas in the tree, wh-wh-what, what happened next?”

Thorax sighed as Edmund scratched her stomach.

“Nothing happened, leastways not for a while. And then a couple of months or so later, the two night guards disappeared. We found their bodies in the woods, hacked to pieces. The next morning, I realized that Mol was gone.”

They each studied the fire, its flames snapping and popping as they twisted around the wet wood.

Then Edmund asked the question he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to. “You, you found everybody’s body,” he said. “Everybody but, but . . . but Molly’s? I mean, you think she’s still alive, right?”

“We’ve searched everywhere,” Norb replied, “and found nothing. Not a sign. It’s like she up and disappeared.”

And Thorax led him here.

You know what happened. Kravel told you. He thought she was your wife and he took her . . .

For many chilly moments, no one said a thing.

Edmund watched the sputtering flames, his hands shaking from the cold and exhaustion. Dawn was a couple hours off and he hadn’t slept in over a day and a half.

We have to rescue her.

How?

What’s this all about? What does the Undead King want from me? Why is he doing this?

He wants the answer to the blasted riddle so that he can figure out how Iliandor created those weapons and armor. And he’s going to use Mol to get me to come back.

What is in the buildings of wise men?

I don’t know . . . I just don’t know.

Far off, an owl hooted.

It was Pond who eventually broke the silence.

“Have you seen anybody else around here?” he asked. “Anybody out of the ordinary?”

For a moment, it didn’t appear as if Norb was going to respond. Then he said slowly, “A couple of months back, I came across a beggar dressed much like you two. Or not dressed, if you get me—”

“Did he say anything?” Pond asked, excited. “Did he say what his name was? What did he look like?”

Norb recoiled, startled by the intensity in Pond’s inquiries.

“He
. . .
he, he was disturbed. He appeared out of nowhere, cackling like a witch.” He stirred the fire’s glowing coals with the tip of his knife. “He poked me in the forehead and called me chicken. Then he grabbed one of my food bags and ran off.”

“Crazy Bastard!” Pond said to the motionless Edmund.

“That’s what I thought,” Norb replied. “But seeing him made me feel like we were on the right track somehow. The dog seemed to think so at any rate. I’ve been following her for weeks making a beeline toward these mountains. I was just about to turn back and get more supplies when we came across you two.”

Another silence enveloped the small campsite. Above them, the stars were getting old and a faint blue light was crowning the mountain peaks to the east. Tethered to a nearby tree, the giant horse swished its braided tail.

“I, I need to know something, Ed.” Norb said. “And I need you to be straight with me. Okay?” He looked up at Edmund, his lips dry and trembling. “Do you know where Molly is?”

Edmund felt the burn marks where his left eye used to be.

“Yes,” he said. “And we’re going to get her back.”