Albanon found the others looking at him as well, even Roghar. He tightened his jaw for a moment as he considered their options, then nodded. Belen cursed under her breath, but made no move to ride any faster.
Knowing that the way out of the woods was close didn’t make the bend in the road approach any more quickly, however. Albanon felt as if he were conscious of every sound their group made and equally conscious of the deep silence that surrounded them. Birds should have been calling as the sun sank lower and the shadows stretched out across the road. But all was quiet. Even the horses seemed to realize something was amiss. They became harder to control, their hoofbeats irregular as they danced and shied. Their nervousness brought back Albanon’s. He fixed his eyes on the bend in the road. It came closer. Closer. Closer…
Then they were around it and the late afternoon sun painted the road. A bowshot away lay open countryside.
Albanon glanced at Immeral. The huntsman took his time studying the trees ahead so that they’d covered a third of the distance before he twitched his head in the slightest of nods. Albanon’s stomach rose into his throat. He glanced around at the others and drew a deep breath. “Hold tight, Splendid,” he murmured-then he kicked his heels into his horse’s side and shouted, “ Hyah! Hyah! ”
All six horses leaped forward in unison and their hooves became thunder on the road. The edge of the woods swept toward them. Albanon leaned low over his mount’s neck, urging the beast to greater speed. He imagined plague demons pouring out of the trees in their wake and didn’t dare turn his head to look.
They burst out of the woods and sped along the road like bolts flung from a crossbow. No one suggested slowing down. They must have run ten or twelve bowshots before Albanon glimpsed Tempest, riding at the head of their pack, rise slightly in her stirrups and glance back. Her eyes widened slightly, and Albanon risked looking back himself.
Nothing moved between them and the dark blotch of the Cloak Wood. The demons had not pursued them. He looked to Tempest again. The tiefling only shook her head and he knew she felt the same confusion he did.
They rode on after the sun had set, pushing the horses as hard as they dared and trusting to the sharp low-light vision of Albanon, Tempest, and Immeral as darkness gathered. The demons were still somewhere behind them. No one was willing to trust that they would stay in the woods. Sometime around midnight, they found an old ruined watchtower a little way off the road and made camp without lighting a fire. When the sun broke the horizon again, they continued on their way.
There was still no sign of pursuit by the demons from the Cloak Wood. Albanon even caught himself wondering if they’d just imagined the lurking creatures, fashioning illusions out of fear and shadows. That only lasted as long as it took him to suggest the idea to Splendid. She gave him a withering glare. “It takes more than shadows to frighten me. Fool yourself if you want to. They were there.”
They reached Winterhaven in the middle of the afternoon. As at Fallcrest, the outlying farms had suffered the most. Unlike Fallcrest, however, the farms of Winterhaven did not look simply abandoned. Roghar studied them as they rode past, then left the group to take a closer look at one farmstead. Albanon and Tempest held spells on their lips, ready to defend the paladin if anything leaped out at him. Nothing did, and Roghar cantered back to them.
“This farm was looted,” he said grimly. “It’s been stripped of anything portable that might be of any use.”
“Survivors from Winterhaven scavenging what they could?” suggested Immeral.
“I don’t think so. There were a lot of footprints-human, not demon-but no hoofprints or cart tracks. Whoever carried goods away from here did it on foot.”
“The Winterhaveners will know more,” said Uldane, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as them. Albanon worried about what they might find in Winterhaven itself. He’d visited the village once or twice during his apprenticeship to Moorin, but never for long. He had rough memories of it as a compact little community, snug behind a good stone wall. In his imagination, he saw that wall stained with soot and blood, its strong gates hanging loose.
His fears were unfounded. Winterhaven’s walls were unblemished, its gates scarred by deep claw marks but still whole and tightly shut. The buildings immediately outside of the walls were empty but they didn’t look like they’d been raided by plague demons or anyone else. From inside the wall, three or four plumes of white smoke rose cheerfully into the sky.
Uldane let out a sigh so deep it seemed like it should have come from a much larger body. “They’re all right,” he said, then he screwed up his face. “Although normally the gate stands open during the day.”
“Are you surprised they’re keeping it closed these days?” asked Roghar. He adjusted his shield so the symbol of Bahamut was more visible and rode closer. “Ho! Gatekeeper! Travelers wish-”
“I see you,” called a gruff voice from atop the wall. Sunlight glinted on the steel of a crossbow aimed at the paladin. On the other end of the crossbow, his head just visible over the parapets, was a dwarf. “What do you want?”
“Thair?” Uldane urged his horse closer to the gate. “Let us in! These are my friends.”
The dwarf lowered the crossbow and peered down, squinting. “Uldane, is that you?” His face broke into a wide, brilliant smile. “By Moradin’s hammer! How about that? Hold on. We’ll get the gate open for you.”
He disappeared from the wall and Albanon heard him calling out to someone. There were sounds of activity from the other side of the gate. Uldane turned back to Albanon and the others. Instead of the confident smile that Albanon expected to see, however, the halfling’s expression was taut.
“Thair is a blacksmith,” he said. “He shouldn’t be watching the gate.”
Belen shook her head. “If Winterhaven is anything like Fallcrest, they’ll have pressed anyone who can hold a weapon into watch duty. Any regular garrison will be exhausted-or dead.”
Half of the big gate swung open and a human man dressed haphazardly in piecemeal armor waved to them. “Inside, quick. We don’t like to keep it open for long.”
It seemed to Albanon that he looked at them and their weapons longingly as they rode past, not with greed or desire so much as with desperation. He gave Albanon and Tempest especially long looks. “Spellcasters?” he asked. Albanon nodded. The man’s eyes opened wide. “A priest?” he added hopefully.
“A paladin,” said Tempest, nodding at Roghar.
The man looked positively giddy as he pushed the gate closed and lowered a massive, ingeniously counterweighted beam across it. Albanon leaned a little closer to Tempest. “I think the people here will be disappointed when we say we’re not staying long.”
“Is our destination still beyond Winterhaven?”
Albanon nodded. He didn’t even have to think about it.
Thair shouted down. “Uldane, go to Wrafton’s! I’ll meet you-my shift is done soon. You’ll find everybody there anyway.”
Uldane answered him with a salute, then gestured for the others to ride with him. “Wrafton’s is Winterhaven’s inn,” he said. “We’ll find answers there. It’s the busiest place in the village.”
Albanon doubted that even the busiest place in Winterhaven was all that busy. After the crush of refugees in Fallcrest, Winterhaven seemed deserted. The smoke they had seen from the other side of the wall rose from only a handful of more than a dozen buildings. There were few people abroad and those who were stared as if frankly surprised that anyone had come to their village. All of them went armed. There were no children and no noises that might have suggested children at play in any of the buildings. In fact, the entire village was eerily quiet.
Even Uldane looked unsettled. He pointed across at a market cart that stood abandoned on one side of a wide square of beaten earth. Spiderwebs had gathered in the corners of the cart’s frame and patchy grass grew around its wheel. “That’s Delphina Moongem’s stall. She sold wildflowers out of it. She’d never l
et it look like that.”
None of them had anything to say in response.
Wrafton’s Inn was a long stone building with a high slate roof. No stableboy emerged to take their horses. Uldane showed them to the stables himself. Somewhat to Albanon’s surprise, there were several other horses in the stalls, a curious mix of good riding mounts and big beasts of burden. Uldane’s uneasy expression deepened. “I know these horses,” he said. “This one belongs to a farmer who lives just outside the walls. This one belongs to the local lord. Both of them have their own stables.”
“They could have ridden them here,” said Immeral.
“Both of them live within easy walking distance.” Uldane shook his head and led them out. “Come inside-we need to talk to whoever’s here.”
The interior of the inn was as grim as Albanon had imagined it would be. The big common room was as silent as a tomb and nearly as dark, the windows shuttered and the shutters secured with heavy bolts, the latter a recent addition by the look of them. There were people present, but nearly all of them lay asleep across benches or draped over tables. Early in the day to be passed out drunk, Albanon thought, then he realized that the sleepers wore various forms of armor and slept with weapons close to hand. The inn had become a kind of barracks.
The only conscious people huddled in a small knot around the bar, deep in discussion. Several moments passed before one of them looked up and noticed that the newcomers weren’t Winterhaveners. He nudged an older woman next to him. She practically jumped at his touch, then saw them and came over. “How can I help you, travelers-”
Her voice died as she laid eyes on Uldane and for an instant she froze. Then she rushed forward, dropping to her knees and wrapping her arms around the halfling, hugging him and crying. Uldane, a little smothered, did his best to soothe her. “Easy, Salvana,” he mumbled. “Easy. It’s all right.”
“I can’t help it,” said the woman over his shoulder. “It’s just that with so many people gone, seeing someone I know again-” She broke into a fresh round of sobs.
The door behind them opened. Albanon looked back to see Thair coming through. The dwarf’s eyes fell on Uldane and Salvana and he winced.
“Aye, sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you. Things can get a little emotional around here. You should have seen her when Shara came by.”
He might as well have pulled out a bucket of water and drenched them. Albanon blinked and stared at him. So did Roghar, Tempest, and Belen. Uldane pulled himself out of Salvana’s hug to turn and face Thair. “Shara’s been here? Recently?” he asked, his voice cracking a little bit.
Thair’s eyebrows rose. “Just three days ago.” He looked around at all of them. “You mean you didn’t know?”
CHAPTER FIVE
It’s been hard around here lately,” said Thair. The dwarf sat at the center of one of the inn’s long tables, with Albanon, Uldane, and the others gathered close. The sleepers at the table had been cleared away to give them some room, but Salvana and the rest of those who had been gathered around the bar kept their eyes and ears on them. Albanon was fairly certain that more conversations would follow once Thair was done with them.
“It’s been hard everywhere lately,” Belen pointed out.
“Aye, I’ve heard that,” Thair said with a nod. “But it seemed like this cursed plague took hold around Winterhaven earlier. When there were only rumors in Fallcrest, there was near panic here. People were disappearing from the more isolated farms and hunting lodges.”
Albanon held back a wince. That had been Hakken Raid, spreading the beginnings of the Abyssal Plague for Vestapalk while the dragon laired at the Temple of Yellow Skulls. He and Kri had used that time to try and plan a trap for Raid-a trap that had ended in Albanon’s own capture by Raid. How many lives might they have saved by acting swiftly and warning Winterhaven instead?
How many more lives might he have saved by not hiding in Fallcrest for the last week?
Thair seemed oblivious to his unease, however. His eyes had taken on a distant look, as if he stared at horrors he’d rather forget. “We pulled back inside the village walls, of course, but it was too late. Some were already infected with the plague-we didn’t realize then that it passes through the wounds inflicted by the demons-and they transformed among us. We had to kill them, but they weren’t the folk we knew anymore. The people they wounded before they were put down, though…”
He sighed, reached for his tankard, and took a deep swallow of thin beer, the best Salvana had been able to set before them. “We still knew them.”
“You had no priest among you?” asked Roghar. “The holy light of the gods can sometimes purge the plague from the infected.”
Thair’s chuckle was bitter. “We haven’t seen Sister Linara in weeks. She didn’t spend much time in Winterhaven to start with. She loved ministering to those on the outlying farms. We think the demons got her early.” Thair sipped again, then set the tankard down. “At first we only saw the demons at night, so we thought it was safe to leave the village during the day. We found out that wasn’t true. After that, we went out in squads, gathered all the crops we could and drove any livestock we could find back into the village. We’ve been living well enough, but it’s not much of a life.”
“If that’s the case,” said Uldane quietly, “it seems like there should be more people around.”
“Not everyone wants to live under siege.” Thair gestured around the inn. “We’re the ones who are too stubborn to leave what we’ve built-or too weak or too stupid. Everyone else fled in various groups to look for sanctuary in Fallcrest.” He dropped his voice. “If Salvana asks whether you’ve seen anyone safe in Fallcrest, I suggest you lie.”
Albanon nodded numbly along with the others. Had he heard of any refugees from Winterhaven in Fallcrest? Granted there had been other things on his mind, but the town was so packed with people that there must been some from Winterhaven.
On the other hand, he hadn’t heard Uldane mention any and surely the halfling would have.
Nor did he now. Instead, all he asked was “Shara?”
“She stopped for a night about three days ago, like I said. It looked as if she’d been travelling and sleeping rough-not that that’s anything to worry about with her. Borojon taught his daughter well. It seemed like she was just looking to take a night indoors.” Thair’s face tightened. “Her and her… friend.”
“Quarhaun,” Uldane said. His voice turned hard. “The drow.”
“Aye,” said Thair. “There were a lot of strange looks when that one came walking through the gate behind her. Some of us remember the drow raids. Shara vouched for him, though. Said he was a friend and could be trusted.”
“She’s taken up with him.”
“That was obvious. They were acting like first loves. The two of them together got even more strange looks than the drow alone.” The dwarf shook his head. “Jarren hasn’t been gone that long.”
Uldane gave a bitter, angry smile. “That’s what I tried to tell her.”
“He was a good man,” said Thair. “Drow are… drow.”
Albanon glanced at Tempest. None of the rest of them had known Jarren, Shara’s betrothed. Vestapalk had slaughtered him along with her father, and their deaths were the source of her single-minded desire for revenge against the dragon. In truth, she didn’t talk much about him. It seemed as if she preferred to keep her grief to herself, expressing it through her rage. The revelation that the relationship between her and Quarhaun had become romantic-as well as physical-had been a surprise to them all. To Albanon it seemed almost natural in some ways. The drow wanted revenge on Vestapalk as well, partly for the death of a number of his people, but mostly for Vestapalk’s attempt to transform him into a demon.
Albanon didn’t think much of the way Shara had run off with Quarhaun, leaving the rest of them behind, but it was her life, not his. Uldane, however, took a more personal view of it. And it seemed like he’d find matching views in Winterhaven.
/> Or perhaps not. Thair shrugged and reached for his tankard again. “But I’ll say this for that drow: he treated Shara well. Everyone can change. Maybe she changed him. She looked as happy as I’d ever seen her with Jarren.”
The angry smile froze on Uldane’s face. For a long moment, he didn’t move at all. Then he got up and walked out of the inn. “Uldane?” Thair called after him. “Uldane!” He looked to Albanon and the others. “What was that?”
“Uldane had words with Shara before she left Fallcrest,” said Tempest. “About Quarhaun and Jarren.”
“Ah,” said Thair. He took another swallow of beer. “I suppose that would explain why Shara didn’t mention him at all. Everyone thought it was strange that they weren’t together. After Borojon and Jarren were killed, Uldane was the one who saw her through the rough times. We always thought they were inseparable.”
“Trust a drow to make problems,” Roghar said. “Thair, where did Shara and Quarhaun come from?”
“They came out of the east,” the dwarf said promptly. “I saw them arrive. I asked Shara about it, too. She said they’d been travelling along the southern edge of the Winterbole Forest. Still looking for that dragon. We were just a stop on their search.”
The friends glanced at each other. “Which way did they go when they left?” asked Roghar. “West? Southwest toward the Ogrefist Hills?”
“Northwest to the Cairngorm Peaks. When Vestapalk first appeared in the Nentir Vale, that’s where he came from.” One of the men who had been standing around the bar sat down in Uldane’s vacated space. “Pardon the intrusion. I’m Ernest Padraig.”
“ Lord Padraig,” said Thair somewhat indignantly. “You’re still the ruler of Winterhaven, my lord.”
Padraig’s lips twitched. “Desperate times, Thair,” he said. “A lord whose rule doesn’t extend beyond the village walls doesn’t inspire much respect.” He looked at the rest of them with sharp, if weary, eyes. “I apologize for not speaking to you earlier-Uldane I know, but I wanted to take the measure of the rest of you while you talked to Thair. There are two favors I ask of all decent travelers coming to Winterhaven in these times.”
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