Deniably Dead (Arucadi Series Book 4)

by E. Rose Sabin

  “We don’t want to inconvenience you, Master Wellner,” Anya said. “Maybe we should let you rest here awhile. I can fix you a meal, and you can bathe while I get it ready.”

  “That’s a most generous offer, Mistress, but I wouldn’t think of imposing on you to that extent. After all, there are four of us plus Renni.”

  “I do feel we need to get to town soon as we can,” Mel put in before Anya could say any more. “I have a feeling about it. An itch that needs scratchin’, so to speak.”

  “And perhaps we can find accommodations in town,” Camsen said.

  “Well, that’s not too likely,” Anya said. “But I suppose Mel is right. We do need to see what’s happening there.”

  Camsen nodded and returned to the wagon. He lowered the back panel and helped Mel up onto the step that the panel became when it was lowered.

  Mel bent to gaze into the interior. “I declare! Jac, it is you,” he said. “Good to see you, man!”

  Renni couldn’t hear Thornbridge’s response, but Mel clambered into the wagon, and she did hear the two men exchanging enthusiastic greetings.

  Renni and Camsen together helped Anya Carran into the wagon. Camsen said he’d ride on the driver’s seat beside Jeppy to make a bit more room in the wagon. He helped Renni up and in, and then raised the backboard into place. Renni knelt in the space between the backboard and the coffin, and Anya and Mel crouched on the wagon floor, one on either side of Thornbridge. Neither asked about the coffin against which he leaned. As the wagon lurched into motion, Mel began to tell Thornbridge of the amazing resurrection that had occurred. Thornbridge kept shaking his head, seeming unable to absorb the incredible news.

  Ril leaned over the other side of the coffin, taking in every word. Amazingly, he managed not to interrupt with questions. Perhaps like his father, the boy was too stunned by what he heard to find words to say.

  Having little interest in rehearing the story, Renni gazed out of the opening in the rear of the wagon. When they entered the town, she saw on either side of the street homes with a long-abandoned look, but those homes were abandoned no longer. People were working on many of them, trying to make them habitable, sweeping out dust and dirt, polishing glass in any windows that remained unbroken. As the wagon trundled along, people paused their labors to stare at it, some glaring at Renni when they spotted her and others waving as she passed.

  Whoa! Trouble ahead! Camsen’s frantic sending jolted Renni into alertness. The wagon shuddered to a stop.

  “We’re here?” Mel’s eager query was answered by angry shouts. Renni rose and backed from the faces peering into the wagon.

  We’re surrounded. Camsen’s sending stated what Renni already knew.

  “You got any food in there?” Someone asked.

  “Get down here and let’s see what you got,” a male voice called. “Come out now before we pull you out.” Arms reached in and grabbed Renni, who was the closest to the opening. She was dragged roughly through the opening and over the backboard. As she was lifted away from the wagon, a man scrambled into it. She heard Anya scream, saw Mel being pulled out as roughly as she had been.

  Had they come here only to face death from those who’d been brought back to life?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TROUBLE

  Zauna found the boat trip from Harnor to Highport relaxing, after the harrowing events of the previous evening and the strange vision she’d seen in the crystal ball and the charge given her by the voice of the Dire Lord who had spoken to Veronica and through her assigned this mission. She spent the first day of the two-day journey just resting in her small cabin or enjoying the fresh, cool air on deck, watching the distant river bank slip slowly by as the boat made its way northward, hearing the chug-chug of its steam engine as the ship plowed defiantly against the southward-flowing current.

  After a good night’s sleep, though, on the second day she became restless, eager to return to land and continue her journey. She kept reviewing in her mind what the Dire Lord had told her. His warning to her that she must complete her mission by helping to get Kyla to her final resting place gave her both pride and fear. Pride that the Dire Lord had spoken to her and entrusted her with such a grave responsibility. Fear that she would fail at the task and doom them all—her companions, herself, and Kyla.

  She considered consulting her crystal ball to see if it might show her what she must do and whether she would succeed. But somehow to do so seemed wrong, as though she would invite disaster by seeking to learn her own fate. She would not attempt that, but she could try to send a mental call to Renni or Camsen to learn whether they’d found Lore or located Kyla.

  She tried Camsen first, and got an immediate response. We’ve met Renni, and we’ve almost reached the town. Something very odd has happened. We haven’t yet found Lore or received a communication with him. We haven’t found Kyla, either. Whoa! Trouble ahead! I’ll try to message you later. The message broke off.

  Zauna guessed immediately what “very odd” thing he must be referring to, but he’d broken the connection before she could ask. He must be discovering the amazing resurrection of people long dead and now returning to reclaim their lives. He wouldn’t know of Kyla’s role in that resurrection. She tried to reestablish the mental communication so she could explain what she’d seen, but he didn’t seem to be receiving. Nor could she reach Renni. Something must be preventing them from receiving, or at least from responding.

  Impatient now for the riverboat to reach its destination, still hours away, she stayed on deck, willing the boat to increase its speed and chafing at the knowledge that it could not.

  §

  Camsen’s relief at knowing Zauna was safe and on her way toward them vanished when a crowd of angry townspeople forced him to halt the wagon and send a mental call alerting Thornbridge and Renni of their danger. These must be the returnees, hungry and desperate, hoping the wagon held food. “Stay where you are,” he ordered Ril before jumping down to confront the mob. By the time he’d made his way to the rear of the wagon, men had dragged Renni and Anya from the wagon. He found his way to them just as Mel descended, stumbling and nearly falling.

  Camsen aided Thornbridge in getting down from the wagon, and once down, Thornbridge continued to lean heavily on Camsen as he gazed in awe at the faces of the people shouting and clamoring for food. Knowing he couldn’t make himself heard over the clamor of the crowd if he spoke aloud, Camsen mindsent to Thornbridge, You must know some of these people. Anything you can do?

  Thornbridge shrugged. I’ll try. Can’t use my power. It hasn’t come back.

  Camsen wasn’t sure he believed that. The man couldn’t mindsend without having regained at least some power.

  Men had scrambled into the wagon as soon as its occupants had been removed from it. They were throwing what supplies remained out to the eager crowd. Camsen saw no way of stopping them.

  Thornbridge yelled, “People, listen! We’re friends, not enemies. You know me, Jac Thornbridge. You know my Uncle Race and Aunt Dulcie. Are they here anywhere?”

  Thornbridge had lied about not having power. Thornbridge had to have used power to boost the volume of his shout, making it heard even above the shouts and cries of the surrounding mob.

  From somewhere toward the rear of the throng came a shout: “Race is here.” Camsen soon saw, using his elbows and shoulders to bulldoze his way through the crowd, a tall, white-haired man with an unkempt beard. “Jac,” he hollered as he neared, “Is it really you?” Despite the older man’s wild beard, his resemblance to Thornbridge was unmistakable.

  “None other, Uncle Race.” Thornbridge stepped unsteadily forward, and despite the surly crowd around them, the two men embraced. When they drew apart, they clamped their hands on each other’s shoulders.

  Thornbridge staggered, and Camsen stepped forward to steady him. “He’s recovering from a serious injury,” he informed the uncle.

  At that moment, Ril came around the wagon, worming skillfully through the cro
wd and shouting “Master Camsen, Master Camsen, they’re taking our horses. They’re gonna butcher them!”

  “No! They can’t!” Renni yelled, using elbows, knees, and her head to shove people out of her way.

  She didn’t make it even far enough to be out of Camsen’s sight before men grabbed her and held her, screaming and kicking but unable to break free. Camsen raised a hand reflexively, ready to hurl fire until he caught himself, knowing what damage that could do in a tightly packed mob. Innocent people would die.

  It was Thornbridge who acted, once again using power to make his voice heard. “Stop! Release her!” he bellowed, and the ferocity of his shout or perhaps the power that accompanied it sent a sudden stillness over the gathered host of returnees. Renni broke free from her captors and dashed around the wagon’s far side.

  Lost to Camsen’s sight, he could only hope she would manage to rescue the horses. The crowd began to stir and murmur. This time it was Mel Carran who raised his voice, and though not backed by power, he made himself heard at least by most of the gathering. “Is this the way you use the gift of life that you’ve been granted? Was it for this kind of behavior that you were brought back? I’m ashamed of you, ashamed to be one of you.”

  “All very well for you to say, Master Carran,” a young man shouted back. “You have a decent home to return to because your wife stayed behind and kept it up and ready for you all these years.”

  Cries of “That’s right,” and “You haven’t lost everything like most of us have,” followed the young man’s assertion.

  Thornbridge’s uncle called out, “So you begrudge him his good fortune? What of the good fortune we all have of being alive again? Is this the way you show your gratitude?”

  “We’re hungry,” the young man shouted back. “Our fields are nothing but weeds. Our houses are falling apart. Our animals are gone. How are we supposed to feel?”

  “Grateful to be alive,” an older woman responded, making her way to stand beside Thornbridge and his uncle. This must be his aunt. “We may be hungry now, but we have our wits and we have the same degree of health we had when those aspirants decided we should all die for our belief in Vito.”

  That mention of Vito, the dog they believed a god, got their attention. They listened more quietly as she continued. “Is this what you were saved to do—rob and rough up innocent people, guests in our town? Is this why we were brought back? You’ve already butchered a horse that didn’t belong to you, and I don’t know what you did to its owner.”

  At that Camsen caught his breath. Could she be talking about Lore? Could he have arrived here and been met like them by a hungry and half-crazed mob? What had they done to him?

  But Thornbridge’s aunt wasn’t finished haranguing the crowd. “If it was Vito who restored us to life, what would he think of this behavior?”

  “If it was Vito, why’d he wait eight years?” the belligerent young man who seemed to be the self-appointed spokesman demanded loudly.

  “Maybe to teach us humility,” she retorted. “That’s a lesson you need to learn, Abner Rushland.”

  “And if it wasn’t Vito that brought us back,” her husband put in, “it was some great power, and there was still a meaning behind it that doesn’t include robbing and killing.”

  “Well, maybe you can explain its meaning, because I don’t get how we could have been dead eight years and have no sense that time passed. Did anyone here dream during that time? Or felt they went anywhere?”

  Heads shook all across the gathered crowd.

  “Nor did I,” persisted the young man Thornbridge’s aunt had called Abner. “I just know I woke up from what might have been a deep, dreamless sleep. It didn’t feel like coming back from the dead, or from coming back from anywhere. And now I learn that I was gone for eight years. Gone where? I woke up in the same field I went to sleep in. I hadn’t gone anywhere. Or learned anything.”

  Camsen scarcely listened to Abner. His thoughts were elsewhere. He grasped Jac Thornbridge’s arm. “I need to find the rider of the horse your aunt said they butchered. They wouldn’t have killed him, would they?”

  “If we can get them calmed down and thinking sensibly, we can find out,” Thornbridge said. “Let Uncle Race and Aunt Dulcie talk to ’em a bit more.”

  Race Thornbridge had overheard the low-voiced conversation. “They’re still in shock,” he whispered. “They aren’t thinking rationally. Dulcie and I weren’t either until you showed up, Jac. We all need time to absorb what’s happened to us.”

  “Abner and the rest of you,” he called, “mob rule isn’t the answer to our predicament. We need to stop worrying about why we’re back and figure out how to get the things we need. Stealing isn’t the answer. Some of the men can go into the hills and hunt and trap animals for meat. We can catch fish from the streams. And the animals we had—the goats, the cows, the chickens—some must have survived. We need to round ’em up. Most likely there’s still grain in among the weeds in our fields. We can see what we can gather up for food while we rebuild.”

  Abner spoke up again. “We got no seed for planting. We got no materials for rebuilding. And no money to get what we need, nor no stores to buy from if we had money. We got no choice but to live like savages, as I see it.”

  “Yeah,” another man shouted. “We can’t be rebuilding if we’re off in the woods hunting wild boar. I ain’t too proud to eat horse meat while we make our houses livable.”

  “Well, but the horses aren’t yours to butcher and eat,” Dulcie said. “Look here, we’ve seen hard times before. We had the years of drought before Vito came and brought us rain. Those were hard years, but we all pitched in and helped one another, and—”

  “And there was lots of sickness, and people died,” a woman yelled. “My little girl, my Amy, took sick and died just a month afore Vito came and saved us.”

  “I know, Millie, I know,” Dulcie called back. “It was hardest on the children. But most survived. Now look. Hasn’t ever’body who was at that demons’ picnic come back to life? Anybody know of somebody not returned?”

  That question produced a lot of murmuring as groups conferred among themselves. No one seemed to come up with an answer. It soon became apparent that the consensus was that all who died of the aspirants’ poison had been restored.

  “Doesn’t that mean something to you?” Dulcie called. “To whatever power brought us back, life is precious. We who’ve received it back have no right to take it from others.”

  “We’re talking about killing horses, not people,” Abner argued with stubborn determination.

  “Where’s the young man that rode into town on the horse you took?” Race Thornbridge directed the question to Abner.

  Abner looked down at his feet, then lifted his gaze back to Race. “Took him to Vito. Thought we’d see if Vito’d bring him back.”

  “You killed him?” Dulcie asked looking horrified.

  “He wasn’t quite dead, I don’t think,” Abner said, looking down and shuffling a bit beneath her accusatory gaze.

  “He must mean they took him to the statue of Vito that Chon Iston was restoring when I was here last. Maybe Master Iston finished it.”

  “Where is it?” Camsen asked.

  “In the town square. Center of town.”

  “I need to get there. I hope Renni was able to save our horses.” He turned to Ril, who’d been lurking behind him and the Thornbridges. “Can you get around to the front of the wagon and find out what’s happening there?”

  The boy nodded and slipped away.

  “I hope you haven’t sent my son into danger,” Thornbridge said, scowling.

  “Your son?” Dulcie Thornbridge turned to her nephew, her eyes wide. “Did you call that lad your son?”

  “Since when did you have a son?” Race Thornbridge asked, his expression mirroring his wife’s.

  Jac Thornbridge shook his head. “Sorry I never told you,” he muttered. “Can’t explain now.”

  Abner had not missed t
his exchange. Camsen looked away from the Thornbridges to see the young man moving back deeper into the crowd and whispering into ears as he distanced himself from his challengers.

  “Abner Rushland, you come back here,” Anya Carran shouted. “Don’t you stir up any more trouble.”

  In response the young man and some of the cohorts he’d spoken to retreated farther and headed around the far side of the wagon.

  “We need to stop them,” Camsen told Jac. “They’ve already stolen all our supplies, and they’ve gone after the horses.”

  But at that moment, Ril returned with Jeppy, who rode astride one of the horses while Ril hung on to its reins. “We got this horse,” Ril announced. “Renni has the other one and took off somewhere ridin’ it. Guys tried to stop her, but they couldn’t, ’cause the horse kept buckin’ and rearin’, so I told Jeppy to get off the wagon seat and help me grab this ’un while the other was keepin’ everybody busy. Then Miss Renni jumped on that other one and took off and nobody could stop her.”

  Jac Thornbridge let out an oath. “That girl is too good at stealing horses,” he said.

  “You hush, Jac,” his aunt said. “Likely she’s saved its life.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DOG GOD

  Renni’s first thought was to ride back to the Carrans' house and the barn where she’d left Dark Star. She’d wrested this horse away from the hungry and half-crazed returnees, and she worried about Dark Star’s safety now that she’d seen the danger. She felt bad about deserting Camsen and the others, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Dark Star falling to those horse butchers.

  Then again, she’d heard enough to suspect that the horse they’d already slaughtered must have been one Lore had been riding. What had they done to Lore? She tried sending a mental call to him but got no response. He’d fallen silent since riding from the thieves’ camp, so his present silence wouldn’t alarm her had she not experienced the violence of the crowd that stopped the wagon and plundered all their supplies.