Garander nodded.
“What happened to the shatra, then? Did he go with them? Or with the Ethsharites?” He gestured toward the southern sky, where the carpet had now vanished over the horizon.
Garander shook his head. “He’s dead,” he said. “That’s why they’re going.”
“Dead?” Grondar said, his eyes widening. “How? What happened?”
Garander bit his lip; he had not thought about how his parents would react to the news. Grondar looked more upset than he had expected. “I…I think one of the mizagars turned on him. Maybe it didn’t like him talking to all those people.”
“How did you find out?”
“Um…I went into the woods looking for him, early this morning,” Garander said. “I found his body with the throat torn open.”
“You did? Where?”
“In the forest. I told you.”
“Show me!”
“But I haven’t done my chores, and it’s almost noon!”
“That can wait! Show me!”
This had been no part of Garander’s plan; he hesitated, wondering if perhaps he should tell his father the truth, but that had rarely worked out well where Tesk was concerned. He mentally turned up a palm and said, “This way.”
He hoped that Tesk was well clear; he did not want to try to explain any anomalies to his father. Of course, the shatra would probably hear them coming.
He could have gone to either site, but he chose the one he had shown the Ethsharites, since it was slightly closer. He only remembered at the last minute to feign surprise at the disappearance of Tesk’s body.
“He was here!” he said, pointing at the blood-soaked moss and flattened undergrowth. “He was right here!”
“He isn’t here now,” Grondar said. “Are you sure he was really dead?”
“His throat was ripped open! I could see his spine; his head was half-off!”
“Then where did he go?”
“Well, he certainly didn’t get up and walk away,” Garander said. “Either some animal got him, or some of our guests stole the body for their magicians to study.” He pointed to the trail he and Tesk had made. “It looks as if something dragged him away.”
Grondar frowned. “That shouldn’t have happened. He deserved better. I was going to build him a pyre.”
“His demon part might not have liked that,” Garander said.
“Huh,” Grondar replied. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe it woke up and walked the body away.”
“Could it do that?”
“How should I know? I’m no demonologist.” He shook his head.
They both stared at the bloodstains and other marks for a moment longer, then turned and headed back toward the house.
They were perhaps halfway home when Grondar said, “Ishta will be heartbroken.”
“I know,” Garander answered.
“She’ll suspect something, with all the visitors leaving.”
“I know.” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you want me to tell her?”
Grondar did not reply immediately, but then said, “I think that might be best. You saw the body, and I did not. She may think I still hate Tesk for being a Northerner. She may accept it better from you. But I’m her father; it’s my responsibility.”
“I don’t mind,” Garander said. “I think she will take it better from me.”
“Then I will leave it to you.” Garander thought he heard relief in his father’s voice, though of course Grondar tried to hide it.
When they reached the house Grondar sent his son to the barn to feed the livestock and muck out, with instructions to come straight inside to eat as soon as he was done. Garander obeyed.
He was feeding the pigs when Ishta appeared. “Father said you wanted to see me,” she said.
Garander had been thinking about how to deal with this. He did not want to see his sister crying over Tesk, but he did not want her to give away any secrets, either. “I did,” he said.
“Is it about Tesk?”
He nodded.
“Is he all right?”
“The baron thinks he’s dead,” Garander said. “So does Lady Shasha.”
Ishta sucked in her breath. “They do?”
Garander nodded again.
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“I’m not going to answer that right away.”
“So you don’t. What’s going on, Garander?”
“If they all think he’s dead, they’ll go away and stop bothering us.”
“I know. I saw them leave. But is he all right?”
“I showed them his corpse,” he told her. “I helped them steal all his equipment. Then they left him in the woods-they thought his body might be booby-trapped, so they didn’t try to move him. But if anyone goes back to look, they’ll find what Father and I saw-the body is gone. Something dragged it away.”
“Garander, you’re scaring me!”
“They all think maybe a mizagar killed him because he was getting too friendly with enemies of the Northern Empire. Or maybe it was his demon. Whatever it was, it ripped out his throat; there was blood everywhere. And whatever it was came back later and dragged the body away.”
“Garander!” He could see her eyes starting to well up.
That was good. He wanted her a little upset, so she could fool their parents.
“But the thing is,” he continued, “how could they both steal all his equipment? Velnira had two soldiers carry away armloads. Lady Shasha had me and one of her wizards help her carry everything.”
“What?” Ishta tried to blink away the incipient tears.
“Isn’t it just a little convenient, him dying like that?” he went on. “But both sides will think it must be real, because of all the magical stuff they took. He wouldn’t let that happen if he were still alive, would he?”
“Garander!”
“But what if he had extra equipment? There were Northerners all around here once, and they must have left supplies behind, and Tesk would know about them.”
She just stared at him as he hung up the now-empty feed bucket.
“Did you ever hear Father talk about a spell the Ethsharitic army used to use to fool Northerners into thinking that soldiers were dead, when they weren’t? It turns out one of Lady Shasha’s wizards knows it; he says it’s called the Sanguinary Deception.”
“You fooled them!” Ishta burst into a smile.
Garander held two fingers up to his mouth.
“So Father doesn’t know?”
“He might tell the baron if he thought Tesk was still alive.”
The smile vanished.
“You’ll need to be much more careful than before,” Garander said.
Ishta nodded.
“Don’t wipe away those tears.”
She nodded again, and smiled feebly.
Lunch was a somber affair. Ishta did not say a word, and as soon as the meal was done and the table had been cleared she vanished into the room she shared with her sister.
The baron’s party had gone, leaving the west and north fields a mess; the Ethsharites had done considerably less damage. Grondar and his son went to work cleaning up the debris.
That took most of the afternoon, and for the most part father and son worked side by side in silence. The sun was low in the west when they headed back toward the barn to dump the bags of trash and put away their hoes and rakes.
They had just stepped inside when Grondar said, without preamble, “He’s not really dead, is he?”
Startled, Garander said, “What?”
“He’s not dead. It wouldn’t be that easy. Even if it was something Northern.”
“I don’t know,” Garander said.
“And the others-they wouldn’t have just left. They came here for Northern magic.”
“All his things were gone,” Garander said.
“But they both left,” his father insisted. “If one of them had found the body first, they would have taken everything, and the other side would have put up an argument.”
“Maybe they agreed to share.”