Leading the skittish horses through the damp air, on into the ruins they fared afoot.
"Hoy, what's this?" called Tip, and he stepped to one of the fallen chimneys and picked up a broken arrow shaft. Black it was and fletched with ebon feathers, wet and mud caked. "Maggot-folk," he declared, stepping back and handing it over to Beau, that buccan to look at it briefly before passing it on to Phais.
"Aye," said the Dara, " 'tis one from the Rupt."
Even though they could see no foe across the leveled town, still they readied their weapons, and then on they went, Phais going wide to the right, Loric wide to the left, and Tip and Beau in between.
Soon they came to the end of the wrack, and Loric joined the buccen.
Beau looked up at the Elf and said, "Well, one thing for certain, even if the maggot-folk did this, the villagers must have got away."
Tip cocked an eyebrow. "How so?"
"No corpses, Tip."
"Perhaps any who were killed are buried, Beau. By those who escaped. That or they burnt up in the fires."
Loric shook his head. " 'Tis said that horseflesh is not the only provender favored by the Rupt."
Beau's eyes flew wide. "Surely you don't mean-"
"Over here," called Phais from the lip of a small ravine, her horse shying back.
And there in the shadows they found the dead-hacked, smashed, pierced with black arrows-men, women, children, babies, thirty-seven in all, bloated in death, some with great chunks of flesh torn away, as if eaten by animals. A faint miasma of rot drifted on the rain-washed air.
Beau turned away trembling, but Tip stood looking down, his face twisted in rage. "They're not even armed," he gritted.
"It matters not to the Rupt," said Phais.
"It looks as if they were herded here and then slain."
Loric nodded. "Aye, as lambs to slaughter."
"How long?" asked Tip.
Phais stepped before Beau and knelt. "How long, wee one?"
Beau swallowed, then turned and faced the carnage and after a while said, "From their condition, two weeks or thereabouts, or so I would gauge."
Phais canted her head in concurrence. "I agree."
"Does that mean there's a Horde somewhere in Gunar?" asked Tip.
Loric turned up his hands. "Mayhap. Mayhap not. This could have been committed by a small band of ravers rather than a full Horde. Yet whoever did so may no longer be in Gunar at all."
Beau shuddered. "All this slaughter by a small band of ravers?"
"Look and see," said Phais. "A third are old men and women. A third are but children or babes. The remainder are all who could have put up a fight-how effectively, I cannot say-yet they number no more than ten or twelve in all."
Beau nodded numbly.
Loric glanced at the waning sun. "We must make camp."
"Not here," said Beau. "Please."
"Nay, we will press on some way from this place of death."
"What about the dead?" asked Tip. "Shouldn't we bury them or place them on a pyre?"
Phais shook her head. "War yields little time for such, Sir Tipperton. We have no dry wood to give them proper burning, and burial would take many days."
Tip nodded sharply once, then turned away, saying, "Let's go."
"But I didn't want to look."
Tip nodded. "I know, Beau. Neither did I. But even though it's terrible, I think she's just trying to get us to look at war straight on-to look at sights such as that one back there without flinching-so we don't fall apart at the wrong moment."
"Nevertheless, it was hideous, Tip. The babies… the babies…"
Tears spilled down Beau's cheeks as the horses pressed oil through the gloaming, but Tip's own eyes were filled with rage.
Over the next days, down through Gunar they passed, following along the Gap Road, camping far from it at night, for mayhap Foul Folk went that way as well, though they saw none.
Gunar itself was a land embraced on the east and south by two long, arcing spurs of the Grimwall, reaching out like enfolding arms ringing the land 'round to hug it tight against the main range all along the northwesterly bound. This encircling reach was named the Gunarring, and in the southeasterly quadrant where these two spurs met stood the Gunarring Gap, a passage through the mountains and into the land of Valon. It was through this wide defile that the four hoped to escape through the Grimwall barrier and turn northeasterly to head toward the city of Dendor in Aven afar.
And so along the Gap Road they fared, a full two hundred miles down through the land of Gunar on a southerly course, passing across plains and among occasional stands of trees as the deepening spring days grew longer.
On the eighth night after leaving the ruins of Stede, as they made camp Loric said, "Somewhere not far ahead lies the hamlet of Annory, at the joining of the Gap Road and the one named Ralo. If the town yet stands, there we will resupply and gain another steed. Yet I would not have us ride into the village without first making certain it is safe. Hence, we will reconnoiter ere faring within."
"Reconnoiter?" asked Beau.
Tip looked up from the small smokeless fire he had built. "He means scout it out, Beau. And, Loric, I should be the one to do so."
Loric frowned, but Tip plunged on. "None can move as silently as Warrows. We're small, and that makes it easy for us to hide in the most scant of cover. Besides, just being a tagalong is beginning to wear thin."
Loric shook his head. "Tagalong thou art not, Sir Tipperton. Even so-"
"Even so," interjected Phais, "Sir Tipperton is correct. Ever have the wee folk made some of the best scouts."
Tip's eyes flew wide. "We have?" he blurted. Then, recovering, "Indeed, we have," he said more confidently.
Phais laughed aloud, then shook her head. "I was so told by Aravan, who occasionally took Waerlinga on his voyages to act as scouts."
Beau frowned in puzzlement. "A scout at sea?"
Again Phais laughed. "Nay, wee one, but aland instead, for Aravan's voyages were to places of adventure. And in these sites of peril he said the Waerlinga made the best of scouts-silent, small, clever, and, when properly trained, quite fierce in a fight."
"There you have it, Alor Loric," said Tip. "And Lady Phais agrees. Besides, if I don't do something, I'm going to go entirely 'round the bend."
Now Loric laughed and held up two hands in submission. "Well, wee one, we must not have thee go mad." Beau cleared his throat. "Wull, if you're-" "No, Beau," interrupted Tip. "One has a better chance of going undetected than two. Besides, we can't risk losing you and your medical skills should aught go wrong." Beau glanced at Phais. "He is right, Sir Beau." Beau frowned and shook his head, yet remained quiet.
The next day they rode another twenty miles ere making their way off the road and into the surrounding forest, jumping up a herd of deer which ran scattering among the trees. "Lor'," said Beau, "but if we'd only been ready, perhaps we could have supped on venison tonight."
'"Mayhap in Annory we'll find an inn where venison is served," replied Tip.
"I can only hope," said Beau as onward they pressed.
There was yet a goodly amount of daylight left as they passed among the trees, but Annory lay at the far edge of the woods, and so they continued forward. Yet ere the sun had fallen another three hands, they came to the final reach of the timber.
As they dismounted, Loric said, "We are nigh the splicing of the two roads; the village lies to the west less than a third of a league. Here we will wait until sunset, Sir Tipperton, for within four candlemarks after, the moon will rise nigh full and shed her silver light the better for thine eyes to see by."
And so they waited: Tipperton sighting down his arrow shafts, inspecting for trueness and finding them straight; Beau fretting and sorting through his medical bag, then as'king to examine Loric's wound, now some twelve days on the mend; Phais sitting quietly and sharpening her steel; and Loric standing watch.