“By-the-water?” Jo exclaimed, leaning forward. “Flinn, the orcs are attacking Bywater!”
“Fliiiin?” the orc hissed again, this time with evident terror. “Flinn has caught Kushik! Flinn will kill Kushik!” The orc tried to bite the cords surrounding him, and he twisted and heaved against the ropes. Unexpectedly, a key cord snapped, and the orc reached out with one long arm. Flinn was on him instantly, and man and orc tumbled backward. Before Jo and Dayin could act, Flinn was withdrawing his knife from the crumpled form of the orc.
Flinn looked at Jo, his eyes narrow with anger. “Damn his hide!” he swore. He looked down at the orc and then dropped his knife in disgust. Shaking his head angrily, the warrior took hold of Kushik’s legs and dragged him off into the darkness.
When Flinn returned to the fire, Jo handed him a cup and looked at him. “You did what you had to do, Flinn,” she said calmly. The former knight looked at her and nodded once, curtly. They sat down on spare furs, and Jo shook Dayin’s thin frame. “Dayin,” she called gently, “you’re falling asleep. Why don’t you turn in?” The boy nodded sleepily and crawled into the tent, while Jo picked up her mug of mead and leaned closer to the small fire. Overhead, the blizzard still raged, but only a few snowflakes drifted down into the sheltered ravine.
“The orcs are attacking Bywater, Flinn,” Jo said. “Is there anything we can do?”
Flinn grimly clenched his jaw. “I have failed them twice in as many days.” He turned his gaze toward the dark, stormy sky and slowly shook his head. “There’s no way to help them now. We could never overtake the tribes, and we certainly can’t stop them.” He hung his head, rubbing his temples painfully.
“Flinn, we have to do something! We must warn them. Baildon and the others—they’ve been through too much already,” Jo cried. “First Verdilith and now orcs!”
“Calm down, Jo,” Flinn said gently. He put his arm around her briefly. Jo leaned against him, feeling the warm strength of his large frame. “There is something we can do, but it could be dangerous,” Flinn said.
“The… crystals?” Jo asked in a quieter voice.
Flinn pulled out his little pouch that held the stones. “Yes, the crystals. We can try to contact Baildon through one of the stones and warn him that the orcs are coming.”
“What if they’re already there?” Jo asked. “What if we’re too late?”
“If that’s the case, then,” Flinn said heavily, “we’ll at least know we tried.” He pulled out two stones, one a dark red crystal made with Jo’s blood and the other a light amber crystal of the abelaat’s. “Which should we use?” Flinn stared at the two stones he held up to the light of the fire.
“Yvaughan heard you using the abelaat’s crystal, Flinn, didn’t she?” Jo asked. “I know we have fewer of them, but that’s the one I think we should use.”
Flinn nodded slowly. “I think so, too, but… I mistrust the power inherent in the crystals. I think, somewhere, something knows when we use the stones.” Flinn shook his head. “I wish the orc hadn’t died. I wanted to find out why the tribes are bent on attacking Bywater.” He held out his hand. “Give me your knife, Jo. If I put the stone between two knives, I should be able to hold the stone in the fire long enough to heat it without burning myself.”
Jo handed him her knife. “Isn’t it obvious why the orcs are attacking Bywater? I mean, they must be starving here in the hills. You yourself said it was a bad winter already, and it’s only half over. Aren’t the orcs attacking Bywater for food?” Flinn shook his head and practiced positioning the crystal between the two blades. “Two orc tribes wouldn’t gather together to attack Bywater—maybe each tribe individually, but not the two of them together. No, someone or something is behind this attack, and I wish we had found out before the orc died.” He leaned toward the fire. “Now, let’s both concentrate on Baildon in Bywater.”
Jo leaned next to Flinn, and the two of them watched the amber crystal the warrior was slowly heating. She concentrated on Baildon and wondering what was happening to him now.
The moments crawled by. This stone seemed more resistant to heat than the other two had been. As Jo’s thoughts centered upon Baildon, she counted forty-seven strokes of her heart. Finally the crystal began to glow. Flinn caught his breath, and Jo leaned closer to the fire. A miniature scene began to form inside the amber stone.
It was indeed Bywater, or what was left of Bywater. Several buildings were in flames, and the streets writhed with hordes of orcs. Jo moved closer to the crystal. Literally hundreds of the creatures filled the icy lane, dancing in a ghastly revelry.
“We’re too late,” Jo whispered, her chin quivering. The villagers who had survived Verdilith couldn’t survive two tribes of orcs.
“Baildon?” Flinn whispered. The scene shifted a little, though only slightly. At the edge of town, two orcs stood over the body of a stout, bloodied man who still carried a cleaver in his hand. Although the man was lying face down in the muddy snow, they knew it was Baildon. A spear stood upright in his back.
The two orcs squabbled, one of them putting his foot on Baildon and pointing at the man. The orcs savagely shoved each other and bickered loudly. One wore a red-plumed helmet, and Jo figured he must be the Rooster. The other was probably Greasetongue. She wanted to ask Flinn if he understood anything they said, but his face was so intent that she didn’t dare distract him.
The crystal shattered. Jo had expected that to happen, but it startled her nonetheless. Silence fell on the little camp, broken only by the quiet snapping of the fire. Jo and Flinn both stared blankly into the flame’s depths.
“I should have been there, Jo. I should have been there,” Flinn said at last. “I shouldn’t have let Baildon talk me into leaving. He needed my help. I knew he needed my help.”
“Flinn, don’t talk like that!” Jo turned to him and gripped his arm. “Flinn, look at me! Look at me!”
Jo sensed the effort it took the warrior to turn from the flames and look at his squire. When he did, she grabbed his other arm and locked eyes with him. “Flinn, do you honestly think that you alone—that you, me, and Dayin—could have saved Bywater from all those orcs? Do you?” Her eyes flashed.
The man’s dark gaze narrowed, and his eyes glistened wetly. He reached out and gripped Jo’s arms, his touch painful. “I could have warned them somehow, could have held off the hordes while they escaped,” Flinn said raggedly. She leaned nearer. “Flinn, what do you mean?”
Flinn ground his teeth and glanced to the side. His grip on her arms remained tight. Jo hoped he drew some strength from her in that moment. At last he turned back to her. “That was the Rooster and Greasetongue standing over Baildon’s body,” he said slowly. “I know a little orcish—enough to get the gist of what they were talking about.”
Jo tightened her hands. “What did they say, Flinn?” His face flushed and he swallowed hard. “Tell me what’s wrong, Flinn,” she said. “Whatever it is, tell me.”
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and choked. “The orcs were… sent to Bywater. They were supposed to sack the village.”
“Why?”
“They were arguing because they couldn’t find my body. One said that the man beneath his feet—Baildon—was me; the other disagreed. I was supposed to be there—they’d been told that I would be there, Jo,” Flinn’s hands fell from Jo’s arms.
“Who told the orcs you’d be there?”
Flinn hung his head for a moment, then turned back to Jo. His eyes had grown hard as nails. “Verdilith,” he said, licking his dry Ups. “Verdilith sent the orcs to Bywater and told them I would be there. Verdilith promised them the town to sack as well as my hide. The orcs agreed readily enough, since they have no love of me and they were in need of food. But they didn’t find me, and they found only a portion of the town left for them to savage. Verdilith hadn’t told them what he’d done to By water only a few nights before.” Flinn spat into the fire. “The orcs were supposed to find and kill me.”