The captain of the company, whose name she had yet to ask, came to where Hava waited with the remaining scout and asked, “From Beran’s Hill?”
Hava could barely speak for a moment, her gorge rising as it had after killing the spy whom she had confronted at the School of the Powdered Women. She swallowed hard, refusing to vomit, and said, “I recognize some of them. Yes, they are from the town.”
“How far?” he asked the scout.
Before the soldier could respond, Hava said, “Less than half an hour if we push hard.”
The captain was a man of middle years, an experienced soldier who was at ease with being in charge. He gave Hava a brief nod and said, “Then we’ll push hard.” He looked over his shoulder and with a wave of his arm shouted, “Forward at the gallop!”
Hava didn’t wait but pulled her mount around and heeled its flanks hard, and in three strides the animal was racing down the road. She heard the squad of riders behind her and knew they were doing the same, but she didn’t spare an instant for a look back. All she cared about was what lay ahead.
Sparing the horse took all her self-control. The horse’s breathing had become labored, and she knew by the sound of him that he was going to need days to recover. To overtax his stamina put him at risk of permanent injury, so after a few minutes at a gallop she reined him down to a canter. Every moment was agony, but Hava focused on her need to reach Hatu.
She pushed aside her fears and reviewed her duties to her masters. Whatever happened in Beran’s Hill, she would need to return to Marquenet quickly to send a message. No matter what she felt for Hatushaly, the masters of Coaltachin would want to know as much as she could relay about this attack: who was behind it, how it had happened, and—probably most important of all—what Baron Dumarch’s response would be. Every fiber of her being told her that some larger scheme was in place, and this was just the prelude to war on a wider scale.
Smoke covered the sky to the north like a massive canopy, transforming a bright afternoon into a gloomy overcast one. Every breath she took tasted of char. As she topped the last hill before the long rolling meadows that led to the town, she saw more bodies, and the identities of those who had stayed too long before attempting to escape struck her hard. Old and young women, elderly men, children, many who appeared to have been trampled by horses, lying in contorted positions. Blood stained the ground in every direction, so that even the greenest grass bore a reddish-brown tinge. Hava didn’t even try to count the corpses; there were simply too many.
Despite her young age, she had seen more blood and death than most, yet this was different. She had come to know these people. She was unsettled by her feelings, which were strange to her, as she had seen death since her childhood, but the people she had seen dead before had been enemies. None of these people were her enemy.
Hava took a deep breath and collected herself. She was certain of one thing: this hadn’t been a simple raid for what could quickly be carried off, but a deliberate wholesale slaughter.
She urged her exhausted horse to move as quickly as possible, passing the smaller farms that surrounded Beran’s Hill.
The view on all sides refused to resolve itself, confusing Hava as she sought familiar landmarks and found none. What should have been a tidy shepherd’s cottage on the other side of a small rill, which became a swollen stream in heavy rain, was missing. A square of charred soil topped by a pile of still-smoking ash and embers had taken its place.
Gone were the colorful roofs of tile, thatch, and painted wood, so what had once been little bright boxes in the distance were now black dots and burned-out patches of land. She could mark their locations from the rising smoke that dotted the hills and meadows on both sides of the road.
As she reached what should have been the edge of the town, Hava pulled up. It took a few moments for her to get her bearings; there were no familiar landmarks left, just smoking rubble in every direction. Beran’s Hill was no more.
She had imagined all manner of things on her ride for help: returning to find a battle-scarred town, perhaps one still besieged. But while she had considered many possibilities, this complete and utter destruction had not been one of them. A scream of protest lurked, barely in check, a reaction to the sheer savagery of the attack.
She had seen evil, had even contributed to it, according to the requirements of her masters, but this was something far more vile. This was the obliteration of an entire population . . .
“Hatu!” she shouted without thought, a frantic panic rising so rapidly she could barely draw a deep enough breath to shout his name a second time. “Hatu!” she repeated, but only a breeze carrying the stench of burned flesh and charred wood answered.
The advance riders from the city were overtaking her, so she put heels to her horse’s flanks and moved deeper into the destruction, thinking she heard voices ahead. But as she urged her mount forward she realized that the exhausted animal was almost staggering. When she paid attention she heard the wheezing when he breathed and realized he might be ruined, for if his lungs were damaged, he would be useless. At best she would have counted it a waste of a valuable horse, but at this moment she just didn’t care.
She dismounted, leaving the drained animal to his own devices, and hurried on foot toward the faint sounds. She saw movement through the haze and pushed on, only holding back slightly because an inner voice was warning her to be cautious.
A few baronial soldiers were already here, from the garrison at Esterly, Hava assumed. She walked quickly through a dense cloud of choking smoke from a wall of smoldering wood nearby, her eyes tearing up from the acrid sting. She ignored the stench of burned human flesh and focused her attention on what was ahead, forcing her now-numbed mind to reject understanding what lay around her. She walked past Three Stars Road before realizing she had done so, paused for a confused moment, then turned back, fighting tears that threatened to blind her even more than the smoke had.
The charred corpses of those seeking to flee the flames were scattered all around. Hava turned in a full circle, uncertain of which way to go, then for a painful moment stood motionless and screamed, “Hatu!” Fear rippled through her body.
A few of the soldiers near enough to hear her turned to see what that shout was. A couple called out but she didn’t understand what they said. Tears welled and spilled, and she cried, “Hatu!” again and again.
She tried to get her bearings, but the rubble on all sides and the few surviving smoking walls gave her no sense of place. Overwhelmed by grief and rising panic, she almost collapsed, barely keeping herself upright. Every lesson learned on how to distance her feelings and retain her wits had fled. She was at sea and rudderless, confused and lost. She sobbed and fought to catch her breath.
After a while her training finally took over. She stared at a single point on the ground, a charred rock, and forced herself to center that rock in her mind and shut out the cascade of sorrowful images on every side. She took control of her breathing, slowing it down, and stood motionless for long seconds. Then she lifted her chin and looked slowly around, allowing the full horror to wash over her, but letting it “go through her,” as she had been taught, not permitting herself to grapple with it, hold on to it, or let it linger and rob her of her abilities.
Slowly the panic and horror faded, and she pushed down her feelings. In less than two minutes she felt somewhat back in control.
A man with a sword, not a soldier, appeared in front of her. “You the innkeeper’s wife?”
It took a moment for the question to register, and Hava nodded.
“I thought it was you. Come with me,” he said, turning without another word.
Hava followed him. She thought she recognized him as one of the company that had arrived during the festival . . . Had that only been yesterday? It felt like a week ago. She knew the captain’s name, but for the moment couldn’t recall it.
Hava followed the fighter to a hastily erected shelter near a low wall, four poles providing support for
a large canopy of heavy cloth, rigged up as a field infirmary. A healer had ridden with the company from Esterly and he was already tending to a dozen men resting on makeshift pallets of blankets and straw.
The one uninjured man other than the healer was the mercenary leader. He was standing over Declan, who was apparently sleeping. He motioned for Hava to come with him, while the soldier who escorted her left to return to his post.
She approached and said, “Captain . . .”
“Bogartis,” he reminded her.
“Yes, Bogartis,” she repeated weakly.
“You look like you could use the medic’s attention yourself,” he said when she came up close.
She shook her head. “I thought . . .” Her eyes betrayed her confusion, the inability to organize what she saw into a coherent whole that could be understood. She could only whisper, “What happened?”
“Someone turned an army loose here, girl.”
“Who?”
“Hard to judge. I just go where there’s money for fighters and don’t pay much attention beyond that. There are a few truly evil bastards I won’t serve, but I have worked for my share of mean ones in my day. I’ve fought for and against the same rulers over the years. But this . . .” He glanced around the ruins of the town. “Whoever did this is someone who wanted Baron Dumarch to know something.”
“What?”
“That his trap wouldn’t work.”
“Trap?”
“Your baron wanted someone to attack Beran’s Hill, almost for certain, but on the baron’s terms when the baron was ready. By everything I’ve seen—and I’ve seen a lot—the baron expected the attack from the east. And he expected to know it was coming.” Bogartis lifted his hand to his chin and scratched. He looked back at the unconscious smith, slowly shook his head, and said, “That lad put up a hell of a fight. Whoever trained him knew his craft. He wouldn’t back down a step and made the bastards pay.” He looked at Hava and saw she was waiting for some sense of what all this madness was about. “Someone anticipated the baron’s plans or has a spy in his court, but while the baron was preparing his enemy acted. Find out who truly hates your baron and it’s a good bet that’s who destroyed your town.”
Hava felt something go cold inside her. Hatu might be dead . . . Her wits cascaded and again she could barely hold on to any passing thought. Yet through the torrent of feelings years of training began to assert themselves once more and she realized she should return to Marquenet and send a message . . . Unexpected anger at the thought of what her duty required of her rose up, but she forced it aside. She would deal with everything later. At this moment she turned her attention to something immediate, something right in front of her.
She looked at the sleeping blacksmith. “What about Declan?”
“He’ll pull through. He’s as tough as anyone I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot of men fight.” He looked as if he was going to say something, then apparently changed his mind.
“My . . . husband. Has anyone seen . . . ?” Hava couldn’t bring herself to ask if he was still alive.
Bogartis put his hand on her shoulder. “Last anyone saw of him, he was alive.”
“When was that?” she asked, instantly finding the painful cold within begin to dissipate.
“Just before things fell apart, according to one of my lads. That priest and his girl and another man of their order were seen riding away with your husband slung across the neck of the other man’s horse.”
“He was hurt?”
Bogartis shrugged. “Maybe. If he was injured, perhaps they saw the end coming before the rest of us and fled with your lad to care for him.”
“Perhaps,” she said, her mind calming as she turned her thoughts to Hatu being alive.
“Excuse me now: I’ve got to see to a couple of my lads who may not make it,” said the mercenary captain. He moved back toward the makeshift pavilion.
Hava stood silently. She had thought she was the only person in town who knew of Hatu’s unique situation. Conceivably, she had been wrong and those who had ridden off with him also knew he was the heir to the throne of Ithrace. She was on the edge of collapse, but her mind saw bits of a puzzle that she couldn’t quite put together to create a coherent whole.
There was a reason Hatu’s identity had been hidden for his entire life and a reason the masters of Coaltachin had participated in hiding that identity. What was the baron’s part in this, beyond saying he was indebted to Hatu’s true father, or whatever it was Hatu had said the baron had said? She took a deep breath and gave herself permission to stop wrestling with her thoughts. She was beyond exhausted.
A mercenary approached and said, “We don’t have much, but if you’re hungry, my captain says you’re welcome to share our meal.”
Hava’s appetite had returned with the news that Hatu was likely to still be alive. “You don’t have much?” she echoed.
“Just what we had when we got here. We were going to reprovision . . . today.” He looked at Hava and his expression mirrored what she’d been thinking since arriving: It’s only been one day.
“Maybe I can help,” Hava said. “Come with me.” Quickly she led the fighter through the rubble of buildings until she reached what was left of the inn.
She was greeted by a sight so incongruous that she barked out an unexpected laugh. The concoction Hatu and Declan had smeared all over the roof had indeed been fire resistant. The timbers inside the building hadn’t been, so when she reached what was the stabling yard, the roof sat intact on the ground, at a slightly canted angle due to the timbers from the stairs on one side propping it up. It was blackened and scorched, but still there.
“What?” asked the warrior.
“Come with me,” said Hava, picking her way through the rubble. Finally she reached her destination: the entrance to the cold cellar. She tugged on a door. Despite being heavily charred, it resisted her efforts.
“Let me,” said the young fighter.
When she gave him a narrow gaze, he added quickly, “You’re about to fall over with exhaustion.”
She grudgingly admitted as much and stepped aside.
The soldier heaved at the door and it slowly opened until it was wide enough that he could step inside and push from within. Suddenly it burst free with a loud scrape and the soldier barely kept his balance, avoiding falling on his face with a quick step.
“Thank you . . .”
“Bernard,” he supplied.
Hava paused for a moment to really look at the fighter. He was close to her age, she judged, maybe a little older, but there was a battle-hardened toughness about him that put her in mind of the crew bosses back home. By twenty-five they were either tested and worthy or dead. This young man had a simple look to him, but she decided that was deceptive. He had a calm manner and seemed as if he might be the sort that listened and paid attention to what he heard.
“Thank you, Bernard,” she said as she passed him. By the light coming through the door she saw that the entire larder was intact. “I thought the raiders might not take the time to look for a cold cellar before setting this place ablaze.” She turned to the young warrior. “Get some of your fellows and bring a torch. We’re well stocked and there will be a need for food. Whoever survived the attack will soon be hungry.”
“Right back,” said Bernard as he hurried off.
When she was alone, Hava hurried to the far corner of the cellar. She moved a small barrel of salted meat, which was only for use should they run out of fresh, and dug at the earth underneath with her belt knife. As she had expected, the point hit the top of a box, and she quickly dug it out.
Relief rose up as she opened the top and saw its contents: a few coins for quick spending rested next to a half dozen precious stones. Taking what the baron had given and turning it into a profitable inn had produced enough wealth for her and Hatu to hide what was left of the baron’s gift as well as some of the profits. It was a Coaltachin habit to convert gold to precious gems when possible, as they we
re far lighter and easier to carry than metal coins. A gem trader had come through the town on one of Ratigan’s wagons just a week before, and Hatu had purchased a handful of stones. It was not enough to operate an inn for more than a few months or so, but it was more than enough to finance a search for a missing husband.
Hearing Bernard come back with the others, she returned the box to its hiding place. Within minutes, half a dozen able-bodied men were stripping the Inn of the Three Stars of the last of its resources.
Hava had helped dole out the food as the afternoon faded, and near sunset she had taken a moment to eat. She felt no pleasure in it, but swallowed every bite, knowing she needed the nourishment, as she sat with her back against a section of stone wall facing the pavilion erected for the wounded, ignoring the soot that now covered her back and shoulders. She would need to wash soon to get rid of all the grime she had acquired since arriving in town, but she pushed aside the question of where she would bathe.
A familiar figure appeared a short distance away, half hidden by the fading light and growing shadows and the still-masking smoke, though that had begun to fade as the winds carried it away and the last dying embers cooled.
Molly Bowman came to stand before her. “Good to see you.”
Hava felt tears rising again and understood in that moment she had come to care for Molly more than she had realized. Reaching out, she took the young woman’s hand and said, “Good to see you, too.”
She allowed herself to be helped to her feet. They hugged and Hava asked, “Your da?”
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