“Is there a town center?” Elizabeth asked.
“Market? Of course. It’s on the flat. The valley floor.”
“No, I meant more of . . . never mind. Is it going to be uphill all the way?”
“It is. And before you ask, my travels brought me here maybe ten or twelve times in the last twenty years. There were always people going in both directions along this road. A lot of them.”
“Why do you think that has changed?” Kendra asked.
I’d watched the two of them question others in the same manner for years, what we called double-teaming. Not triple-teaming, which would have included me, but we never did that, anyhow. When the women went into their questioning mode, my job was to remain quiet and listen.
That might sound as if they are slighting me, but we didn’t see it that way. We all have our individual skills, but as they say, too many cooks ruin the stew. Or soup. Whatever. Three people questioning makes a person feel picked on. Two clever women are inoffensive, and besides, they are better at it.
I make a better listener. My mind is practical and does not get emotionally involved. And there is the idea that three sets of eyes see more than two.
Tater finally responded to the question of change. As usual, he held nothing back and cut no corners. “Can’t say where the people are. What I suspect is that they are not here because of Kendra coming.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tater’s comment about the road not having travelers because of Kendra’s approach lay between us like someone passing gas in a flower shop. It gets noticed. He didn’t appear upset, confused, or angry. He had just stated the facts, as usual, and without judgment. How he had managed to come to that conclusion, none of us knew. Silence ruled the small meadow where we rested.
Elizabeth recovered first. “It may be for other reasons, Tater.”
He rolled his eyes and called, “Springer, get your butt back here before one of those things swoops down and snatches you.”
The abrupt change in conversation provided the chance I’d waited for. Behind my leg, out of sight of the others, my two fingers were held together and pointing at her, “Kendra, the pack on the horse is slipping to one side. Help me with it?”
She stood and walked beside me. We untied and tightened a few ropes until Elizabeth and Tater were talking. “What’s happening to you when the wyverns fly over?”
“I’m fighting it, or them.”
“Does that work?”
“Now that it’s happened so many times, my mind is closing down, shutting them out. Not all the way, but some.”
“Good. You’re making progress.”
“We have another problem,” she said.
“Tell me. Make it quick, Elizabeth just looked over here.”
“Think of walking in the forest and in the distance, you hear the faint sounds of a waterfall. The closer you get, the louder it is, and the more details in the sound you hear. It’s not a waterfall, but there’s something making itself known the closer we get to Mercia. Something evil.”
Elizabeth and Tater stood and gathered the blankets and supplies as calmly as if they had enjoyed a picnic together. She laughed softly at something he said. Tater threw a stick and Springer loped after it.
“Ride beside me,” I said, almost an order.
“You’re scared.”
“You use the word evil and wonder at my concern?”
She turned her back and helped put away the blankets. The day had turned clear and bright, the mud had mostly dried except in puddles on the road. The undergrowth had thinned as we climbed hill after hill, each seemingly larger than the last.
While knowing Mercia was built on a small mountain, the terrain and the desolate appearance took me by surprise. We entered a rugged land of barren rock covered with hardly enough dirt to grow grass. Here and there a tuft of green stood out. In contrast, Crestfallen was also built on the side of a mountain, one green and full of trees.
The few shrubs and grass all pointed at us from ahead, the stalks bent. Without the protection of surrounding plants, the ceaseless wind off the sea bent them all inward. We rode into a steady breeze that undoubtedly blew hard enough to scour the soil from the gray rocks.
Kendra leaned closer to me and lowered her normally loud voice. “Feel it? Inside your head?”
“No.”
She sat upright, without argument. There was something she heard or felt, something that eluded me. We rode until Tater waved an arm at the base of a jagged ridge. An arched stone bridge crossed a small river, and on the far side a flat area spread out. Even from a distance, several fire pits were evident, and two already had fires burning, with several people in sight.
My mind was working in strange ways. Instead of wondering who the people were and if they were dangerous, or why they were the first we’d encountered, I wondered where they had gotten the wood to burn. With no trees in sight, they had campfires. Inconsistencies made me wary.
We rode across the bridge and took a small trail that wound down below the ridge to the base of the bridge. As soon as we headed down the incessant wind quit. Quit is the wrong description. It continued blowing but blew above us and the depression with the fire pits. That explained why travelers stopped there. Freshwater and lack of wind.
The first and third fire pits had people at them. The air held a dampness the wind carried, and it was late in the day. Tater went directly to the second location, and we pulled up beside him and started unloading our things. The stone support for the bridge at the edge of the water acted as a dam to catch trees, shrubs, and branches carried by the river. A tangle of wood had piled up behind the support and dried in the sun. The same thing probably happened every spring. By late summer the supply of firewood would be gone because of the people camping at the location.
I knew none of that for sure, it simply seemed right. We hobbled the horses after they drank their fill from the river but would have to wait for food. There was none.
Tater and I hauled enough wood to last the night. A scrawny man with a scraggly beard wandered to our fire and introduced himself, as Scratch. From his appearance, the name sort of fit. He said, “You runnin’ away too? If so, you’re goin’ the wrong way.”
Elizabeth sat on a boulder conveniently located beside the fire pit or the other way around. She said, “Please take a seat and join us for some conversation, Mr. Scratch.”
“Scratch. Just Scratch, pretty woman. Just sayin’ most sensible people left Mercia when the trouble started back a couple of months ago.”
“Trouble?” she raised her eyebrows to encourage him to keep talking.
“From every which way.” He bent closer as if he didn’t want anyone at the other fires to hear him. “All hell’s about to break loose up there.”
“How so?” Elizabeth asked, and as always, she impressed me. She hadn’t asked for a warning, showed fear, and acted as if she cared. But she encouraged Scratch to keep talking.
“Them wyverns are acting nuts, some say, but not me. There’s more going on.”
“What would it be that concerns you?”
His face became drawn and serious. “I’m no mage but have a touch of powers, some say. The air is tingling, like right before a storm. Let your mind reach out, and you’ll know.”
Kendra said, “People feel a tingle and leave Mercia?”
Tater said in agreement, “That’s crazy.”
“Is it?” Scratch asked. “If so, then nearly everyone who can leave turned crazy. Only ones left there are foreigners. Everybody is gone, and nobody else is going there. Nobody but you four. We want to know why. Insist on it, if you catch my meaning.”