The Dreaming Hunt (34 page)

“What? Why? What did I say?”

“This old copper—Empire don't wan' nobody knowin' of it. That's why Halvar brought ye here to this hidden valley to live. So's them Imperials wouldna take ye, torture ye, and kill ye when they's done wit' ye.”

“I have no wish to live here! My home is on the Hauk—”

“Not anymore. If'n ye wish to live, of course. Ye're in the soup if them Kothites ever find out about this piece.”

Memory of the matching copper helm that Imperial soldiers had confiscated from him, not to mention the bracer the dwarven council had insisted on taking to pass up their chain of command, flashed through his head.

He was worse than in the soup. He
was
the soup.

 

CHAPTER

18

Will's steps dragged as the West Watch Road became more and more familiar to him. There was the stream he'd stopped to drink at when he'd fled the village that terrible night when his parents were murdered. So terrified and alone he'd been. Bits and pieces of it flashed through his mind as individual trees and stones sparked memories.

Even out here, far from Dupree, signs of recent greenskin attacks were everywhere. Burned-out farms, a distinct lack of living farm animals, and far too many fresh graves in village burial yards signaled that the insurrection had been more widespread than just an attack on the city of Dupree. If this was Anton's doing, he was succeeding at making a mess of the colony.

The party moved quietly and camped in the most secluded and defendable spots it could find. On several occasions, they heard movement nearby and went to ground, hiding from the threat until silence reigned once more. Whether they'd heard simple goblins or trained Boki warriors, Will had no idea. Nor did he have any desire to find out.

Imperial patrols were nonexistent. The empire was plenty fast to collect taxes out here on the fringes of civilization, but stars forbid that it should provide adequate protection in return.

They reached the crossroads a mile east of Hickory Hollow, and Rosana looked around curiously. “I know this place. That night Boki attacked our Heart caravan and you found me, Will. You and I passed through here, yes?”

“Yes,” he answered shortly. He'd stood in this exact spot when he'd chosen to leave behind his old life and follow the quest his parents had laid for him instead of returning to Hickory Hollow.

“Your village lies in front of us, does it not?” Rosana persisted.

“Yes.”

Raina piped up. “We should stop for a visit. Your friends and family will want to see you.”

“A few friends. No family,” he corrected tersely.

Eben frowned. “This is the place the Boki attacked, then?” He added quietly, “And where you lost your parents. If you do not wish to return there, we'll understand. We can take the Ring Road around it.”

Rosana touched his arm sympathetically. “I'm so sorry.”

It was not as if she'd actually opened any old wounds. They were already raw and bleeding. He shrugged. “The attack happened a long time ago.”

“Not so long,” Eben responded. “Less than a year.”

Will really didn't need all of them poking at his painful past like this. “I'm fine,” he insisted. “Can we just get moving?”

“In which direction?” Rynn asked soberly. “The fastest route to Shepard's Rest is straight ahead through Hickory Hollow. But if you would rather avoid it, this is the turnoff that will take us around the village.”

“Oh, for stars' sake. All of you quit fussing over me, will you? We are bound for Shepard's Rest, and there we shall go. If our path happens to pass through a village I used to live in, so be it.”

He took off marching toward the hollow, and after a moment's pause, he heard the others shuffle into motion. So what if the tragic events that had reshaped his life had happened in this place? So what if his parents had died in the woods just beyond the hollow? So what if he'd witnessed the murder of his family's closest friend and his own mentor atop that rise coming into sight ahead? It was just a place. A familiar place.
Home
. No. Just a place now.

The Knot rose before them. He looked up its rocky slopes expecting to see the great, spreading branches of the grandfather hickory that perched atop the promontory—

Where was it? Only dead gray limbs broke the silhouette of the ridge.

Oh no. No, no, no
. Not the hickory tree his mother had loved so much. He took off running, clambering over the familiar boulders and scree as if the past year had not happened.

He topped the rise and stopped, appalled. Of all the losses he'd suffered, all the horrors he'd seen, all the blows he'd absorbed, this was one of the hardest. The grand, vibrant, massive tree that had been the namesake, symbol, and unofficial protector of his home was irrevocably dead. The trunk was split, the bark fallen away to reveal the bare, bleached skeleton of the tree. Not a single hint of green, growing vegetation clung to any part of it. A few of the largest lower limbs had crashed to the ground and lay askew around the naked trunk.

He turned away, sick to his stomach and sick at heart. The life force of this entire little plateau was gone. He felt it through his boots without Bloodroot's grief in his gut having to tell him it was so. This little grove had died.

Rynn frowned. “It looks like a dryad grove that has lost its dryad.”

Too heartsick to care, he approached the far edge of the Knot. What of the town below? Would anyone still live there? Would all trace of his parents be erased? Was he the only remnant of their existence? Him and a half-mad quest to wake a long-departed king—a sad legacy, indeed.

Steeling himself to face utter devastation, he looked.

He stared down in shock. Not only had the village been rebuilt but it was at least twice the size of before. It was still muddy and squalid, but it bustled with energy. Men he did not recognize picked their way down the main street, and women he did not know leaned over new picket fences to talk with their neighbors. It was as if last year's fiery destruction of the Boki attack had never happened.
At all
.

Furthermore, the recent greenskin attacks had obviously not reached this place. A burgeoning sense of outrage started simmering in his gut. His parents had been
murdered
here. And there was no trace of it. How could all these people blindly move into the area, rebuild the village, and go on with their lives as if nothing at all had happened here? Peasants did not have the resources to—of course. The Empire had rebuilt this place. Forester's Guild, most likely. As if nothing had ever happened here.

His gaze slid reluctantly to the end of the row of cottages running south from the main intersection in the village. The last one on the end had not been rebuilt. Rain and wind and time had scrubbed the ashes away, leaving a patch of bare dirt where his parents' tidy little cottage had stood. A goat grazed unconcernedly in what had been his mother's kitchen garden, now a tangle of weeds.

All trace of the old Hickory Hollow had been …
erased
.

It was as if the Empire had just rolled over the tragedy, ignoring the loss of life, the ruined families, the individual stories that had been wiped out. They'd built new buildings and shipped in new peasants to work the lumber trade as if nothing had ever happened.

It was worse than if the village had been left a ruin. At least then some memorial to the fallen would remain, other than a dead hickory tree and its forgotten grove.

Hatred for the Empire and its callous disregard for human life drove like spikes into his skull.
This
was why he would finish the quest.
This
was why he would do everything in his power to help Gawaine overthrow Emperor Maximillian.
This
was why he would oppose the Empire with his dying breath.

Resolutely, he started down the hill toward the village that was no longer his home. He could not count how many times he'd walked this path. He remembered the lamp his mother used to burn in the window for him when he stayed out late roaming the woods around the village. It became visible just here in the curve of the path.

A new and heavy wave of grief filled his stomach, taking him by surprise. Had he actually been harboring a secret hope that his parents had resurrected and come back here to start their lives anew? Surely they would have sent word to him if they yet lived. After all, Will's father had known where he was headed after the attack. Ty had been the one to send him to Dupree to speak with Aurelius.

As unreasonable as it might be, his heart had apparently not accepted the evidence of his mind that all he had ever known was lost. Not until now. Not until he stared down on that barren little patch of dirt where his home had once stood.

His father would have rebuilt the cottage. And his mother would never, ever have allowed her garden to come to such ruin if she lived. No. His parents were well and truly dead and gone. The knowing sank into his bones, the weight of it driving him to his knees.

How long he knelt there, dry eyed in grief and loss too deep for tears, staring down upon his past and watching it drift away into the ashes of time, he did not know.

Eventually, he looked away and was surprised to see his friends standing silent vigil beside him. Even Rynn's head was bowed, his lips moving silently in what looked like some paxan ritual of remembrance.

Of a sudden, he felt old. A heavy sigh slipped out of his chest. “It is time to move on.”

The others nodded and picked up their packs. He did the same, and they finished the long trudge down the slope into the hollow.

“Where did the Boki surprise you and your friend on the watch?” Rosana asked, sidling up beside him and slipping her hand into his.

“Back on that Knot where the hickory stood.”

“It must have been a beautiful tree while it lived,” Rosana said softly.

“It was.” His mother always had loved that big, old tree. When there'd been talk of cutting it down during a particularly lean year to pay the village's Imperial taxes, his mother had argued stridently against it. His parents had anonymously donated much of their personal savings to cover the hollow's tax levies so that old tree would be spared.

“Can I 'elp thee find someone?” a male voice asked, startling him out of his reverie.

“We're just passing through,” Will answered the watchman. Odd. Once, he'd known every single person in the hollow.

“If ye be needin' supplies, the general store be the building wit' the red sign ahead a piece. And if ye be needin' to wet your whistles, the inn be across the street from the store.”

Rosana spoke up from at his elbow. “Thank you kindly, sir. I am a Heart healer. If any villagers have need of healing, let them come to me at the inn.”

Will was startled that Raina had not been the one to make the offer, but a glance in her direction showed her clutching her cloak tightly over her colors. Wise. If they wished to pass unnoticed, they could not advertise her presence any more than they could advertise an open-eyed paxan among their number. A quick glance in Rynn's direction showed his hood pulled down low over his forehead.

The watchman moved away, and Will muttered to Rosana, “We have no time to tarry for you healers to put on a clinic.”

“I wear Heart colors openly. Not stopping to offer a bit of healing to the locals would draw more attention than stopping. As long as Raina keeps her cloak on and does not do anything crazy, we will be done before you boys finish an ale.”

As it turned out, Will downed two ales and a big bowl of stew before the girls finished healing a motley collection of sick and wounded souls. Rosana traded most of her healing potions in return for raw ingredients to make more. He grimaced at the prospect of enduring a smelly pot of brewing potions over the campfire tonight.

Raina murmured, “Are we ready to go, then?”

Will pushed to his feet. “I've got no more business in this place—”

And that was when his old friend Tam ducked in the front door. “Will? Is that you?”

An urge to laugh—and to flee—rolled over him. He endured a back-thumping welcome from the big youth and sank back down onto the bench. “An ale for my friend, here,” Will told the innkeeper.

“Ye've got copper rattling around in thy pouch, 'ave thee?” Tam asked curiously. “Where'd ye go after the Boki attack?”

“My father sent me to West Watch Fort to report the attack. Then I got sent to Dupree with the news. One thing led to another, and here I am. What of the others from the hollow? How do you and the old locals fare?” He didn't know quite what to call the original dwellers of Hickory Hollow.

“Fine, mostly. Them Boki took some o' the men and sold 'em into slavery. But the Forester's Guild bought most of 'em out and brought 'em back 'ere. Guild built new cottages and brought in a bunch of new folk to harvest lumber. Times are good.”

“And my parents—they did not return or pass through this way?”

“Naw, man. I'm sorry. A bunch o' them Boki scurried off into the woods yelling crazy things about some yellow dragon. We was able to slip most of the women and children into the woods while they ran around chasing yer mum and paw. Saved a lot of lives, that night, they did, leading the Boki a merry chase until … well, the Boki caught up wit' 'em.”

“Were their bodies found? Buried? Can I pay my respects?” Will asked gruffly.

“Naw. Never found a hair of 'em. Just saw a bunch o' flashes o' light in the trees and the sound o' swords clashing like mad. It went on fer a long time. An' then, it jes' stopped. Quick as they came, them Boki left. They took a half dozen o' the biggest, strongest men from the village an' melted away into the night. Craziest thing I ever saw.”

“And Adrick? Was his body recovered?”

“Ole Adrick, the woodsman? He weren't 'ere that night.”