“Didn’t we think this was a forge?” Shiv stopped to look at tumbled stones blackened with fire. There had been a whole range of buildings along the inner face of the wall when we’d sat and spied on the place before.
“And this would be the mill.” I kicked at the last charred heartwood of a tangle of roof timbers.
“Someone had wanted this house razed beyond hope of repair.” Ryshad was walking cautiously through the rubble where the whole front face of the house had been pulled down, side walls and back reduced to broken outlines barely waist high.
“This is where I got in last time, where the window was.”
I stepped through the empty air above the chipped stones. Broken wooden frames and splinters of horn were strewn across a floor hacked and cracked by malicious axes. The stubby remains of the internal walls sheltered sodden drifts of grey ash bleeding black stains across the pale flagstones. I shoved a piece of timber with a boot to reveal a stark white outline where it had lain. I’d say no one’s been here since this disaster struck.”
“But what was the disaster?” wondered Shiv.
“Or who,” said Ryshad grimly. I could make a guess.
There had been rugs on these floors, carefully woven hangings, polished stone tables. A family had lived here and many more besides within the compound and in the village beyond, making what passed for a decent life on these rocks. Now there was no one, beyond vermin lurking in the drains and the nesting birds rearing their chicks in a quiet corner. Where had the people flown? Or had they been netted like the fat little fowls on the riverbank?
Ryshad’s thoughts were following the same scent. “I can’t find any bodies, nor yet any bones,” he said as he joined me.
“Is that good or bad?” Shiv was unsure and I had no answers.
Ryshad looked up. “Where’s Sorgrad? Or ’Gren, come to that.” He looked annoyed.
“You just said keep someone in view,” I reminded him. “I’ll bet they can see each other.” I used my fingers for the whistle the three of us had used for more years than I cared to recall.
Blond heads appeared above a ridge behind the derelict stronghold and Sorgrad beckoned to us. “Come see.”
“What were you looking for up here?” To my relief Ryshad kept his tone mild.
“Goat shit,”
’Gren answered brightly. ”Catch a goat, it squeals, brings someone running. We want answers—”
I waved him to silence.
“What do you make of this?” Sorgrad invited as we scrambled to the top of the rise.
We hadn’t come this way on our previous circumspect visit so we hadn’t seen the stone circle the brothers had found. That was a shame because it must have been quite a sight before the sarsens had been toppled.
“Wrecking this wasn’t a quick or easy job,” said Ryshad.
I didn’t need a mason’s skills to tell me that. Each stone must have been twice my height, massive blue-grey rocks roughly shaped and raised with some trick I couldn’t begin to guess at. The colossal fingers of stone had been the innermost circle within numinous rings of ditch and banked mound. Once we left the rise behind us, this was the highest point on a wide expanse of tussocky grass running away into mossy hollows and a few scrubby thickets. I couldn’t see anything else before the plain blurred into the muted colours of distant hills.
“What was this place for?”
’Gren had a foot up on one of the prone megaliths like a hunter celebrating his kill. Splintered scraps of timber and a snapped-off length of braided hide rope were discarded close by. Perhaps that’s how the wreckers had brought the giants down.
“We found one before. That was a grave circle.” Ryshad wrinkled his nose with unconscious distaste.
Sorgren squatted and casually pulled a finger bone from spoil dug from the pit where a stone had stood. “Sheltya lore links the bones of a people to their land and I don’t suppose these Alyatimm are any different.” He used the ancient Mountain name for the exiles. “You lowlanders are all for burning your dead but taking bones, breaking them, that’s a desecration in the Mountains, an act of war to the death.”
Ryshad nodded. “Break a rival’s house to rubble and dig up his ancestors, no one’s going to gainsay your victory.”
“If this is what passes for a shrine hereabouts, wouldn’t it be a pretty effective way of scuppering your enemy’s magic?” I couldn’t see anyone having a lot of confidence in the leader of the brown-liveried men now, even assuming he wasn’t already dead.
Sorgrad was scowling. “We’re not going to find an ally here.”
I’d been thinking the same thing. Still, I reminded myself firmly, we had Shiv and that meant magic to call on, as long as he could summon it without getting himself attacked. No matter, we’d got out of here without magic last time, thanks to Ryshad’s fortitude. Come to that, I’d been in tight corners when I’d worked some risky deceptions with Sorgrad and ’Gren. This was no different. We had our plan, we’d do what we’d come for and then we’d leave. Why did we need anyone else?
“No chance of supper,” grumbled ’Gren.
“Or a bolthole.” Ryshad’s face was grim.
“Someone’s still coming here.” Shiv was skirting around the edge of the circle, stopping here and there to poke a stick into the ditch that divided the sacred enclosure from the profane land around it. He pointed at a square stone set to one side within the circle.
’Gren, keep an eye out.” I followed Ryshad for a closer look and the brothers came too.
The stone was about the height of a table made to feed a farmhouse and maybe half as long again. The top was scored with interlaced circles and some had narrow hollows at their centre, steep sided and filled with rain. Judging by the grass growing thick all around, it had been left undisturbed by the wreckers.
I poked a long grass stem into one. “A handspan deep.”
’Gren blew at a crude mimicry of a boat fashioned from a scrap of wood and a dry furled leaf. It bobbed on the dark water. “What’s this?”
Sorgrad used his dagger to probe and fished a bedraggled lump of cloth out of another cup-shaped hollow. “Solurans are great ones for votive offerings at their holy places.”
“A prayer to keep a ship safe at sea would make sense hereabouts.” Ryshad tapped the little boat with a finger. “It’s not been there long.”
Sorgrad squeezed water from the sodden lump. “Token for a baby maybe, wanting one or to keep a newborn healthy?” Cords tied the coarse cloth into an unmistakable swaddled shape.
Ryshad stepped away to study the nearest toppled stone. “When would you say this was done?” He appealed to Shiv who was completing his circuit of the ditch.
The mage paused. “Well before last winter.”
“Someone still comes here.” Sorgrad dropped the baby poppet back in its hollow.
“Loyalty’s harder to kill than people,” I agreed.
Ryshad looked at us all. “Whoever might be coming could well have some answers.”
“And no reason to love Ilkehan, if he did do this.” I looked around at the devastation.
“Let’s set a snare.” Ryshad gestured. “We hide in the ditch, well spaced out, until whoever comes to make an offering is well inside.”
“What if nobody comes? It could be days,” ’Gren challenged. “How long do we wait?”
“Give it till dark?” suggested Ryshad equably. “It’ll be safer for us to travel by night in any case.”
“Where to?” ’Gren countered. “And night’s a long time coming, pal, this far north, this far into the year.”
“Shut up, ’Gren.” Sorgrad looked at Shiv. “If we catch someone, we don’t want him yelling for help and bringing trouble. What can you do about that?”
Shiv ran long fingers through his hair, face thoughtful. “I don’t want to work magic within the circle, that’s for certain but I can wrap silence around the outside.”