“Actually, that’s one reason Alend traditionally attacks through Termigan or Armigite rather than Fayle. And it’s why the Fayle was King Joyse’s second ally, after the Tor. You could make yourself old trying to run a military campaign through the forests of Fayle. The Care has more history of resistance – or maybe I should say of successful resistance – than most of the rest of Mordant.
“That probably explains,” he concluded humorously, “where the Fayle got his loyalty – and Queen Madin got her stubbornness.”
Terisa felt that if she never saw another hillside covered with gorse and nettles again she could die happy. “How much farther?”
He consulted the map. “Two days, if we’re lucky. It’s easy to get lost in woods and forests. And I’ve never been in Fayle before. Actually, Batten in Armigite is the closest I’ve ever been to Romish.
“But the good news” – he looked around – “is that we ought to start seeing people again soon. According to the map, we’ll go right through several villages. Technically, some of them will still be Termigan. But for all practical purposes we’re coming into the Care of Fayle right now.”
Simply because he said those words, she took a harder look ahead – and spotted what appeared to be a smudge against the horizon.
Frowning, she tried to squint her vision into better focus.
Geraden noticed the direction of her gaze. “What do you see?”
“I don’t know. Smoke?”
He squinted as well, then shook his head. “I can’t tell.” Terisa didn’t need to say anything; he had the same memories she did. After scanning the map again, he added, “That might actually be the first village. A place called Aperyte. Unless I’m wrong about where we are. If it has a smithy, the forge will smoke.”
“Let’s find out,” she said under her breath.
Self-consciously, he loosened his sword in its scabbard. Then he tightened his grip on the reins and urged his gray into a canter.
Her gelding followed. She was getting better at telling it what to do.
Between the trees, the ground was covered with clumps of dull grass and bracken. The first hint of evening was in the air, but she didn’t notice it; she was concentrating ahead, trying to see past a number of intervening wattle thickets. The wattle had bright yellow flowers that grew in sprays like mimosa blooms. The ground was rising: if she had turned in her saddle, she could have seen a panorama unrolled behind her. But she had watched Houseldon burn; she didn’t have any attention to spare for flowers and vistas.
The distance was greater than she expected. She began to think that the smudge she had seen was a trick of the light.
Then, abruptly, a knot of copses stood back from a clearing.
A corral with a split-rail fence filled most of the clearing. It wasn’t as big as it first appeared; but it was plainly big enough for ten or fifteen horses. Terisa – who felt that she was becoming an expert on horse manure – was sure that the corral had been full of horses.
Recently.
But not now.
Geraden stopped. He studied the clearing. “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?”
“The gate’s closed.”
He was right: the gate wasn’t just closed; it was tied shut.
“Why?” he muttered softly. “Why take all your horses out and then tie the gate?”
She lowered her voice. “Why not?”
“Why bother?” he returned.
Terisa had no idea.
After a moment, he breathed, “Come on,” and slipped out of his saddle. “Let’s go see what we’re getting into.”
When she had dismounted, he led the gray and her gelding away until they were hidden among the copses, out of sight of the clearing. There he tied the reins to a tree; but he didn’t uncinch the girths or drop the saddlebags.
Taking Terisa’s hand, he moved quietly toward the village.
Because she was trying so hard to look ahead, peer between the trees, she had trouble with her footing. Geraden, on the other hand, didn’t trip or stumble. For a moment, she couldn’t figure out how he knew where he was going. Then she realized that he was following worn lines in the dirt – marks made by people and animals that had reason to go in every conceivable direction from their homes.
He brought her to the back of a daub-and-wattle shed. Actually, it was little more than a shelter intended to protect straw for the horses from the weather.
Beyond it lay the village.
At a glance, Terisa could see perhaps a dozen huts, all built of daub-and-wattle, all with roofs made from what appeared to be bundles of banana leaves. Among them stood an open-sided structure that might have served as a meeting hall. The size of the cleared space gave the impression that there were more houses and buildings out of sight behind the ones nearby.
From somewhere among them rose a stream of thin, dirty smoke.
The village was disturbingly quiet. No people shouting to each other. No people at all. No dogs. No chickens scratching the dirt. No children whimpering or playing in the distance. The breeze raised a little furl of dust along the hard ground between the huts, but it didn’t make any noise.
“Oh, shit,” Geraden growled softly.
“Maybe they’re all at work,” she murmured. “In the fields or something.”
He shook his head. “A village like this is never empty. Not like this.”
“Evacuation? Maybe the Fayle got them all away?”
He thought for a moment. “I like that idea better.” Then he said, “As long as we’re whispering, let’s go see if they really are gone.”
Together, they crept into the village.
Its inhabitants really were gone.
So were all its animals and fowl; beasts of burden; pets. Terisa had the impression that even the vermin had disappeared.
Shadows lengthened across the bare ground. Dusk seemed to gather in the huts and peek out from their gaping doorways, their eyeless windows. The breeze brought the taste of something cold, a hint of something rotten.
She was afraid to ask Geraden if he recognized it.
The village did in fact contain a smithy, but the forge was cold. The smoke came from somewhere else.
Shortly, she and Geraden discovered its source. At the northern edge of the village, three huts in a cluster were on fire.
They had been burning for some time – had nearly burned themselves out. Only their blackened frames still stood. Small flames licked in and out of the fallen remains of the roofs; the smoke drifting upward had a bitter smell.
All three were full of corpses.
Terisa gagged when she saw the stumps of charred arms and legs, the lumps of heads protruding from the ash. “Is that all of them?” she choked thickly. “All of them?”
“No.” Geraden was having trouble breathing. “Probably just a few families. The whole village wouldn’t fit. These are the ones who didn’t get away.”
Inspired by nausea – and by the strange scent on the breeze, which didn’t have anything to do with burned wattle and charred bodies – Terisa muttered, “Or they’re the ones who did.”
He gave her a look like a whiplash.
She heard a faint, rustling noise – bare feet scuttling across the dirt. She looked around; her peripheral vision seemed to catch a glimpse of something as it slipped into the evening shadows. Then it was gone. She couldn’t be sure that she had actually seen anything.
Yet a chill went down her back as she remembered what Master Eremis had told the lords of the Cares. All Mordant is already assailed. Strange wolves have slaughtered the Tor’s son. Devouring lizards swarm the storehouses of the Demesne. Pits of fire appear in the ground of Termigan.
But that wasn’t all. Now she remembered it precisely.
Ghouls harry the villages of Fayle.
“Geraden—” She was barely able to clear her throat. “Let’s get out of here.”