"I haven't made my report on what happened in the forest."
"Thordin can report for both of you."
"I tried to tell him that." Thordin's voice was painfully deep. A jagged edge of scar curled under his jaw to show why his voice sounded like rough sandpaper. "The boy would not listen to me."
The younger man shook his head. "The man was under our protection, and now he's dead. I owe him at least this much: to report in person."
"The dead do not care about grand gestures," Thordin said. "They are just as dead."
"His name was Pegin Tallyrand, and he'd never traveled more than a few miles from his home. He traveled for days in the dead of winter to find us; then we let him get killed."
"We did no such thing, boy. You nearly died trying to save him."
"And you, Thordin-did you take no wounds? You are not one to let a fight pass you by."
Thordin grinned. "Ah, that is a fact." His face sobered as if a hand had wiped it clean. "I fought, but it was a great, bloody tree. You can hack at it, but you can't rightly wound it. And I thought the lightning had killed it already."
"It was dead," Blaine said, "nothing of life inhabited what we fought."
Jonathan stared up at the younger man. He had never really questioned that Blaine had a feel for the land. He knew things about what grew or crawled or flew, knowledge observation could not account for. Like Elaine's visions, Elaine's intuition was something they had relied on without questioning its source. Was it magic, too? Was Blaine a budding mage?
Jonathan searched the familiar face. The gleaming lamplight showed the same earnest eyes, the handsome, if somewhat delicate, face. Nothing had changed, but suddenly Jonathan was looking with fresh eyes.
"How did you know the tree was not inhabited by some life-force?"
Blaine shifted on his crutch, frowning. "I don't know." He tried to shrug but couldn't quite manage it with only one good arm.
"For pity's sake, Blaine, pull up a chair and sit down."
Thordin drew two straight-backed chairs from the corner of the room. He steadied one chair for Blaine to ease into. When the boy was settled, he sat on his own chair. Thordin looked too large for the thin chair.
Blaine let out a shaky breath. Lines showed at his eyes and mouth. The candlelight gleamed on the sweat on his forehead and upper lip. He was hurt, only staying upright through sheer determination. Tonight was not the time to question his abilities, magical or not.
"Make your report, Blaine, before you collapse and we have to carry you off to bed."
"I'm not…"
Jonathan waved the protestations aside. "Tell me what happened."
Blaine drew a deep breath, nodded. "We were in Chebney."
"Was the report of a monster just fancy, or true?"
"All too true," Thordin said.
Jonathan did not prompt him. He knew Thordin would continue in his own good time.
"A ghost walked the corridors of the meister-singer's house. A phantom beast with poisonous breath that had stolen the meistersinger's voice. He was said to have a lovely voice, but we heard it not, at least not from the man. The ghost stalked the halls, singing in beautiful, mournful tones, like a great ringing bell that tolled the hours of darkness. With daylight, it vanished, and the meistersinger could speak with us. But he could not sing."
"A meistersinger that cannot sing cannot defend his seat."
Thordin nodded. "That was why he was so frantic for us to come, I think. It was only a matter of time before some young upstart challenged him. Without his voice, he was lost."
"The beast had a spark of life to it," Blaine said.
"Thordin said it was a ghost. Ghosts are shades of the dead."
"The ghost had once been part of a living being," Blaine continued, finishing Thordin's story for him. "I could feel its life-force, faint, but there. It wasn't just some evil conjuration."
"Had an evil conjurer died recently?"
Thordin grinned again. "Not exactly. You might say it was the evil person who lived."
Jonathan shook his head. "It grows too late for riddles, Thordin. Just tell me." He did not like Blaine's talk of living ghosts and conjurations.
"It seems the meistersinger had poisoned his last rival, not to kill him, but to steal his voice, to close off his throat on the day of the challenge. It worked. He became leader of the city soon after the old meistersinger died of apparently natural causes. The poison had worked too well. Soon after his death, the beast appeared."
"Justice beyond the grave," Jonathan said.
"Yes."
"How did you banish the creature?"
"We got the meistersinger to confess what he had done in the public square. Once the truth was known, the beast never appeared again."
"Is he still meistersinger of Chebney?"
Thordin nodded. "Yes. There are no rules about how you win your challenge in Chebney. Even though he cheated, he is still their leader."
"It isn't fair," Blaine said.
Jonathan looked at the boy. "Life in Kartakass is not fair."
"Life anywhere," Thordin said.
Jonathan acknowledged that with a nod. "How did you meet the man that died?"
"He came to the inn where we were staying," Blaine said.
"You were not housed by the meistersinger?"
Thordin gave an abrupt snort of laughter. "After we humiliated him-hardly."
"He turned you out into the streets?" Jonathan asked.
"No, but it was made clear we were not welcome."
"The next time the meistersinger of Chebney needs our help, perhaps we shall not give it?"
"We destroyed his beast," Blaine said. "He won't need our help again."
"Evil, ambitious men make the same mistakes over and over, Blaine. If he attracted evil to him once, he'll do so again."
Thordin nodded. "He has a beautiful voice, but he is not very bright. I doubt he's learned his lesson."
"What drove this man Tallyrand out into the winter night to find you?"
"His village has been struck with a terrible plague," Thordin said.
"The dead walk the streets at night," Blaine added.
"Truly, or just tales to frighten children?"
Thordin shrugged. "You know how it is, Jonathan. A plague hits, and people are too hastily buried. They come awake in the ground, shout for help, and are thought to be fiends in the ground. It could be something as simple, and as awful, as that."
"He said the zombies didn't smell bad*. He seemed surprised at that. The walking dead don't stink in the cold because they don't rot. If Pegin had made it up, the dead would have stunk, perhaps breathed fire." Blaine leaned forward, wincing as his leg took more weight. "The story would have been embellished more. You know how stories grow."
"The man was very blunt and matter-of-fact. He didn't seem to be an imaginative sort. He talked of burying his own daughter, and a week later she was at his window trying to get inside."
"Was he sure she was truly dead?"
"Yes, of that he was sure."
"How many people have died of this plague?"
"Over half the village," Thordin said.
Jonathan shook his head. "Why did he not send for help before?"
"He heard a bard singing of your defeat of the beast of Mandriel. When the bard told him you were living and not some legend, the town decided to send for you."
"If half of them are taken, it is a serious problem, indeed, but I have had a missive from Calum. He has given us a new assignment. I can't put that off."
"I will go back to Pegin's village," Blaine said.
"Alone?" Thordin asked.
A stubborn frown made Elaine's face seem very young, like a child told he could not do something. "He died to save his village. We can't let him have died for nothing."
Jonathan sighed. There were times when duty to the brotherhood and larger goals chaffed in the face of more immediate needs. This was one of them.