by C. Greenwood
Approaching a middle-aged woman who was dusting leaves off her porch with a broom, I greeted her politely.
“A fair evening, mistress.”
“I doubt it, stranger,” she said, without returning my smile. “The clouds have been threatening all afternoon, and I think we will have more rain before the day is out.”
She delivered this message without ever looking up from her sweeping.
I focused my attention on the gray bun at the back of her head, since that was all the view offered me. “Unpleasant weather then for a traveler to be caught in,” I suggested, wincing at my own lack of subtlety.
The goodwife ignored the hint, saying, “Aye, I suppose so.”
I was surprised at her lack of hospitality because I remembered the village folk as often willing to offer a bed and a meal in exchange for a few coins.
I said, “I don’t suppose you could spare a dry place for me to pass the night? I have a little money to pay for my shelter.”
“No,” she said abruptly. “I have no room for strangers under my roof.”
Although I felt my face redden at the brisk refusal, I kept my temper leashed and tried a different tactic, saying, “I understand. If you could just give me a little direction then. I’m looking for as friend here. His name is Ryce—no—Ryne, a trader. You must know him.”
Her broom pausing midsweep, her face paled.
“Get off my porch,” she said so stiffly I couldn’t tell whether it was anger or fear that made her voice tremble.
“Pardon me?” I asked, confused.
“You heard me,” she said. “Get away from here. We don’t want such as you in our village anymore.”
My heart picked up pace, but I kept my face expressionless, saying, “I don’t understand. I’ve only come to look for Ryne.”
“Then look at him you will,” she said coldly. “You don’t have to search far.”
She raised a finger, and my mouth dried as I realized she was pointing to the row of corpses swinging beneath the elder tree.
It was a moment before I could work enough moisture back into my mouth to ask, “What happened?”
My question was met with silence as the woman disappeared into her house, probably bolting the door behind her.
This was more or less the reaction I received wherever I tried to question her neighbors about the corpses in the tree. Not that I really needed much answer. It wasn’t hard to piece together. The Fists had come fact-hunting and Ryne and a few others of our friends had apparently been less than circumspect about their dealings with Rideon’s band. I tried to tell myself they’d had it coming for their carelessness. That was what Rideon would have said, I knew. But I still couldn’t shake the heavy feeling that settled into the pit of my stomach when I thought of the price the Hammond’s Bend folk had paid for our friendship.
I eventually gave up my questions as night drew on and turned my thoughts to other concerns. The sun was sinking low in the sky and thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. Three months in the tight little hut on a river barge had spoiled me, and I didn’t like the idea of weathering tonight’s storm outside. I began knocking on doors and asking for a meal and a bed, but as the goodwife had predicted, no one seemed interested in taking in a stranger, even for a generous amount of coin. On one or two occasions, I thought I even recognized the faces of the men and women who turned me away, but if they remembered me they hid the fact. Recognizing an acquaintance with one of Rideon’s band had suddenly become unlucky. With that ugly specter looming out on the green, I couldn’t blame them. Still, understanding didn’t help to improve my situation any.
At last, as I worked my way toward the end of the ring of houses, one goodman took pity on me. He wouldn’t let me under his roof for the night or even long enough to sit at his table, but he said if I was hungry I could help myself to a handful of winter-fruit growing on the tree behind his cabin. I could also refill my waterskin at the well behind the meeting house. I was grateful for even this grudging concession and decided a pocketful of fruit and a full skin of water wouldn’t be unwelcome.
It was while I was halfway up the fruit tree, head lost among the golden leaves, that I sensed I was being watched. I feigned ignorance and continued my fruit collecting until the furtive observer worked up enough nerve to approach me.
“Are you stealing from Dunnel’s trees?”
I ducked down out of the leaves to get a look at the speaker. She was a small girl, scrawny and unkempt, and dressed in gray homespun. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old.
“Not exactly,” I said as I picked my way down to earth.
The girl backed shyly away as my feet hit the ground, but she didn’t flee altogether.
This was the most interest any of the Hammond’s Bend folk had paid me yet, and I thought if I handled things right, I might improve my situation here.
“Who’s Dunnel?” I asked as if not really interested and turned my back on the child to pluck more fruit from the lower limbs.
After a moment I heard her sidle closer. “Dunell’s the village head,” she told me, after a long stretch which I pretended to ignore her. “Those are his winter-fruit trees you’re stealing from, and if he catches you, he’ll be angrier than Mistress Barkin when the goats got into her wash.
“Or as angry as the men who hung those people in the tree beside the meeting hall?” I asked.
I turned in time to see her eyes widen and cursed myself for being too blunt. Not everyone had my violent childhood.
I thought the girl would run away after that, but she surprised me by lingering.
“Mama says we’re not supposed to talk about what happened,” she whispered conspiratorially. “But I heard one of the bad men say they wanted people to see what could happen to all of us. He said…” she scrunched her face in confusion, “…he said we were to tell our friends. But I’ve never had any friends except the simple boy, Jerrit, and they hung him up in the tree with the others.”
She looked briefly sad but seemed to shrug the emotion away quickly. “Jerrit stinks now,” she continued matter-of-factly. “The birds used to come and peck at him, but they don’t anymore. I don’t think there is very much left for them to peck at.”
Suppressing a shudder at how easily she discussed such details, I knelt to be level with her and asked, “How long have Jerrit and the others been in the tree?”
She thought a moment. “A long time, I think. Since the day Sunflower dropped her kids.”
I didn’t care anything about Sunflower or her kids. I tried another approach. “Tell me about the men who hanged them,” I said. “Did they wear armor of shiny metal? Was it black and red, like the colors on a crest-feather’s back?”
She screwed up her face. “Maybe. It was a long time ago. But they were loud and mean. They asked questions and one hit Dunnel. Then they dragged Jerrit out of his sister’s house ’cause they said he was lawbreaking.” She stumbled over the unfamiliar word before continuing. “His sister said he didn’t do anything, but they didn’t listen. They took him and a few other people to the tree, and they hung them up, and then they were dead. Well, not right away, some of them weren’t, but after a while they all were.”
I felt a little queasy at her crude description. “And then what happened?” I asked.
“The scary ones made us all stand around the tree while they yelled about…things. About how we didn’t mind the Praetor good enough, and how we were friends of thieves. They said if we didn’t all do what we should from now on, we would be dead too. I don’t remember what else they said, but they rode away later that day and Jerrit and the others have stayed in the tree ever since. Dunnel says we’re not to take them down.”
She had drawn me a pretty clear picture of the scene, and any question I’d had as to the Fists involvement were closed. Clearly the Praetor had decided to take a firmer stance against the outlaws of Dimmingwood and their friends.
I felt a stab of guilt, wondering how many
more of the woods villages would suffer similarly for their connection with us. One thing was certain, the folk of Hammond’s Bend had paid a high price for befriending us. I wondered if we were worthy of their loyalty but swiftly pushed the thought aside. I had been living with Hadrian too long.
Thunder rumbled in the sky, and a few fat droplets of rain spattered on my head and shoulders. I realized the girl was watching me.
“You’d best get indoors,” I advised her absently. “Your mama will not want you standing around in the rain and tracking mud across her floors when you get home.”
At my warning, she looked duly concerned, so I guessed she’d been punished for similar infractions before. She nodded and started to run off but had gone only a few steps before stopping and turning back.
“What about you?” she demanded. “Won’t you get all wet and cold?”
I smiled at her concern. “I’ll be all right,” I lied. “I like the rain.”
She bit her lip, hesitating for a moment. “We don’t take travelers under our roof anymore,” she told me. “Da says best to take no chances. But we’ve a shed for the goats behind our house.”
She smiled secretively. “It’d be warm and dry in there, and Sunflower and her kids don’t take up much room. Da would never know if someone slept there, especially if they were away early in the morning before he goes out to feed the animals.”
My gratitude was genuine. “That sounds like a very cozy arrangement. I just might take you up on it.”
She nodded, pleased, then wordlessly spun away and scampered off into the rain.
I followed at a discreet distance.
* * *
Sunflower was mean tempered and smelled like a walking privy, two conclusions I arrived at within moments of bedding down in the filthy straw of the dark little goat shed. I almost would have preferred to sleep outside, except a steady downpour was descending now, raindrops drumming a staccato beat on the low roof overhead. I curled up and pulled my coat more tightly around me to keep out the cold wind swirling in through the open front and tried to get a little rest. I eventually drifted off, listening to the howl of the wind and the soft bleats and rustling noises of my bunkmates.
Sometime during the night I woke with a start, bolting upright. I held my breath and tried to figure out what had awakened me. The nanny goat was stomping her hooves, and the kids were shifting around in the straw, but I knew it hadn’t been any of these that had jolted me awake. It hadn’t been a sound at all, I realized, as I shook the lingering haze of sleep from my mind.
I cast my magic sense out like a net, but it told me little I didn’t already know. I was surrounded by unfamiliar presences, but then I was in the midst of a village after all. What then was this warning sense of impending doom throbbing through me? My talent had never spoken to me in such a way before… Or was it my talent that prodded me?
My eyes darted to the spot where the bow lay in the straw. Even in the dark I knew exactly where to find it. The suffocating sense of dread was growing. My belly felt weak and my palms sweaty. Whatever the bow was trying to tell me, it was a prodding I couldn’t ignore. My hands went to check my knives, and then I snatched up the bow and its quiver and scrambled for the entrance.
As I crawled out of the shed and into the drizzling rain, a series of inhuman, unearthly screams split the night air, followed by a great pounding as of many feet thundering over the earth. I whirled, trying to get my bearings, but the uproar seemed to come from every direction at once. After a moment’s indecision, I dashed for the green, where the greater part of the commotion seemed to originate. I heard human screams joining with the animal-like howls even as I approached. After rounding the corner of a cabin, I skidded to a halt.
The green ahead was a scene from a nightmare. Everywhere was blood and chaos amidst a scrambling, seething mass of shoving, fighting bodies. Horrible howling monsters on two legs made up the larger part of the mass. Even now, more of them flooded the green, brandishing spears and clubs as they poured in from the surrounding woods. It took me a moment to see through the thick layers of furs and feathers they had adorned themselves in to realize they were actually humans, despite the animalistic quality of their screams. They surged over the tiny village like swarming ants and already were beginning to drive villagers out of their homes.
The terrified villagers fled, screaming into the night, but most were being swiftly cut down even as they tried to make for the shelter of the trees. The fierce invaders indiscriminately slaughtered any who fell in their path. A few of the attackers were trying to set fire to the cabins, but the damp eves refused to catch, and the steadily falling rain swiftly drowned out the flickering flames. Even so, those villagers who had bolted themselves indoors once they saw the invaders’ intent began spilling out doorways and climbing through windows to escape the houses. Many of the villagers were fallen upon by the enemy before they had fled a dozen steps. A few quick-thinking individuals took up any tools at hand to defend themselves.
I took all of this in during the three seconds I hesitated before plunging into the fray. I caught the eye of one of the attackers along the outer fringes just as he caught sight of me, and we made straight for one another. Just before we met, he hefted the long spear in his hand and hurled it through the air at me. I dodged the flying javelin, feeling the rush of air as it missed my shoulder by a hair.
In a single motion I swept my knives from their sheathes and released one to arc through the air. The spinning blade flew true and lodged itself deep into the throat of the oncoming enemy. The strike was a deadly one, but the invader staggered forward a few steps, propelled by his momentum before crashing to the ground. I slowed only long enough to retrieve my knife before running into the thick of the fighting, armed now with the knowledge these fearsome attackers could be killed the same as any other men.
After what seemed like an eternity but could only have been a matter of minutes, it became clear we hadn’t a hope of driving them off. We were vastly outnumbered and facing an enemy of warriors.
I noted a group of women and children fleeing into the open doors of the meeting hall where evidently a large part of the village population had taken refuge. Foolish of them, they were only trapping themselves, saving the invaders the trouble of rounding them up. Already a number of invaders were converging on the spot.
I fought my way through the melee, collecting as many of our fighters as could hear my call or disengage themselves enough to answer it, and we cleared a path to the door of the meeting hall, arriving just ahead of the invaders. We organized ourselves enough to form a line to hold the invaders back.
I started out at the front of this line, fighting toe to toe against our attackers, but suddenly during the fighting, I became aware of a sibilant wordless whisper at the forefront of my mind. I fell still and listened to what the bow was telling me. That pause was nearly the end of me as an enemy spearhead almost caught me in the ribs. A gray-bearded villager saved my life by deflecting the strike.
I took the brief opportunity the villager bought me to step behind the wall of fighters and drag the bow from my shoulder. Aiming my arrows up and over the heads of the line of villagers, I fired away into the mass of the enemy until the moment I reached back to find I had nothing left to shoot. I realized then that the main body of the enemy was falling back. Why? We had finally organized some defense, but it was scarcely enough to hold them back.
Nevertheless, many turned and flowed off into the woods. Within minutes only small knots of fighters remained, those either too near victory or too deeply engaged to give up the fight. I left our line of defenders, the meeting hall now secure, and drifted off to join the smaller frays, lending my aid to the villagers who still fought for their lives. Sometimes I arrived in time to help, sometimes not.
The time came when I turned from slaying an invader to find there were no more of them left. The last of the enemy were even now disappearing into the shadows of the trees.
I stood in the ce
nter of the green and surveyed the carnage. Despite our efforts, the village lay in ruins, the dead littering the ground wherever I looked. Most of the bodies belonged to villagers.
I had never felt more frustrated. I had done everything I knew how, and still I hadn’t been able to defend them in the end. Why was I always too late to turn the tide?
Chapter Four
The first gray of dawn was touching the sky by the time I finished helping the Hammond’s Bend folk drag their injured into the meeting hall to be cared for. I stayed all that day, heaping up the corpses of the fallen enemy for burning. There were many of them, and none of us cared to grant them a more decent burial. Even less pleasant was the task of disposing of the dead villagers. Lined out among the corpses, I discovered the lifeless body of the shy little girl I had spoken to last night. I didn’t know her name, but I memorized her face, even as I hid the sadness her death awakened in me. The villagers needed strength now. The time for mourning would come later.
Blinking my stinging eyes, I wrapped the girl’s small body in the rough blanket her grief-shocked mother provided and laid her gently into the mass grave. That grieved me that we had to bury them like so many rotten melons dumped into a single compost heap. But there was no choice. The number of the dead was greater than that of the living, and so we did what we could.
At the end of the day, I rested on the front porch of a cabin, exhausted. There was work yet to be done, but the sun was sinking, and my strength ebbed low. An older village woman bade me sit and pressed a plate of stewed potatoes in my hands. It was the first meal I’d taken since yesterday, and I thanked her gratefully, inwardly marveling at how yesterday I had been all but ordered from this very porch. But today this woman and her husband couldn’t do enough for me. I was so wrapped up in enjoying the simple meal that I didn’t immediately notice when the village head joined me on the steps.
