As he squeezed through the little door and maneuvered himself onto the little sheltered spring-dampered bench where the driver sat, Elyn reflected that whoever had bought these horses definitely did know his horseflesh. They weren’t matched, but they were both solid and compact little draft horses of the sort known as Zigans. The right side was a bay gelding with a white nose, the left a chestnut mare with a white blaze. Both had one white foot, with heavily feathered fetlocks. Both had stocky bodies, about a hand taller than the average riding horse, and both were about six years old. Their manes and tails were shaggy and long, and their coats were too rough to ever be glossy, but they were mild tempered and willing, and disinclined to be spooked by anything they’d seen so far.
“This is how you hold the reins,” Elyn said, putting them into Rod’s hands. “Don’t haul on them, but don’t let them go slack, either, or the horses will amble to nothing and stop.” She gave him a few more instructions, then sat back and watched him drive. He wasn’t bad and wasn’t nervous, so she said nothing, just let him give the beasts the minimal attention they needed for the relatively uncrowded road. Behind her, through the still open door, she could hear the others chattering away.
This might not be so bad, after all.
Just kill me now, Elyn groaned silently. Beside her, in the minimal shelter provided by the wagon’s canvas awning, five Companions endured a cold downpour with varying attitudes from acceptance to disgust, bracketed by the two steaming draft horses, coats so dark they looked black in the uncertain light. Elyn had finished putting on the last of their feedbags—doing the chore herself because her four charges were currently struggling to pitch a larger shelter for them. Their second-to-last stop on the Circuit yielded them a gift of grain from the locals. That pushed the wagon’s weight capacity to brimming, and now the six bunks inside bore six dozen feedsacks, leaving almost no room for people to sleep inside. Arville had cheerfully accepted the gift, saying it was important for people to accept gifts gracefully because it made the giver feel so good and encouraged them to be generous. Besides, they had tents! And the mattresses from the bunks! The rest readily agreed, including the Companions. Elyn endured. They couldn’t just unload the grain and sleep inside, because it would attract vermin. Or get soaked. Or both. Elyn insisted, though, that one bunk nearest the driver’s bench be kept clear in case of emergency. Being the senior Herald, she slept in it. And now, here they were.
The rain wasn’t why she was groaning. Oh, no. These sort of conditions were to be expected when traveling in the autumn. No, no, no. She was groaning because of why they were out here in the literal middle of nowhere.
Four moons into a planned circuit of twelve, they had been met by a series of increasingly frantic—and thus, increasingly incoherent—messages from a tiny hamlet on the edge of the Pelagir Hills about spirits “stalking” the place.
Now, in the first place, this little village—Bastion’s Stone, it was called—wasn’t even in Valdemar. So far as Elyn was concerned, they could go hire themselves a priestly exorcist or petition whoever (or whatever, there was no telling out there) they paid their taxes to—they had no claim on help from Heralds. In the second place, dispelling ghosts, assuming these were ghosts, assuming such things even existed, was not what Heralds did. In the third place, this was right off their circuit, and answering the call would take them away from people who actually had a right to expect Heralds and their help.
But the four youngsters were all over the idea, to the point that, when Elyn pointed all those things out and flatly vetoed the excursion, they sent back to Haven and the Heralds of the Council for permission to deviate from the circuit and to answer a call outside the Border.
And much to Elyn’s disgust and their elation, the answer that came back was, “Yes.”
Of course, this was ever so much more exciting than the endless round of petty disputes they had been called on to settle and the sad little band of pathetic “bandits” they’d chased down. Thus far, the circuit had been so entirely uneventful that the most they’d had to worry about had been the weather and the wild animals.
But that’s what it’s supposed to be like, Elyn thought resentfully. Most of the time, anyway. Property disputes, and ugly domestic quarrels, and minor criminals. And that’s important. We can be the impartial outside voice that settles things so that they stay settled. We are the ones who go away, so people don’t have to be angry with the neighbor that made the decision that they don’t like. We ride in on our pure white Companions, in our pure white uniforms, and people know that they can trust us to be impartial, because we haven’t taken a bribe, we aren’t friends with anyone, and we owe no one there anything. And if we didn’t do that, there would be no justice. That ought to be exciting enough for anyone. We can’t all be Herald Vanyels.
But of course, everyone wanted to be Herald Vanyel. Well, all but the part about dying horribly. Everyone wanted the happy noble bits, not the agony, or drudgework, or the dying. But the glorious heroic stuff? Sign them up!
“We’ve got the shelter done, Elyn!” Rod called from the other side of the wagon. “We had to sort of improvise, though!”
Kill me now, she thought again, steeling herself. Rod and his ‘’improvisations” were going to drive her not-so-quietly mad. Oh, they generally worked, but they looked so precarious she could never see how and never quite trust them.
Ducking her head against the rain, which was coming down harder now, she made her way around the end of the wagon to where the four were supposed to have pitched the canvas half-tent.
Well, it wasn’t a half-tent anymore, and it hadn’t been pitched. Instead, it was a sort of improvised slanted roof, tied up to various tree branches. To keep the branches from tossing in the wind, they had been anchored with the ropes and stakes that should have been used to pitch the tent. And instead of a straightforward flat or slanted surface, the canvas had been tied into a sort of sloping, flattish V-shape, so that all the rain that fell on it ran into a channel in the center and that in turn poured into the canvas water-trough they carried to serve the horses and Companions.
“We already filled our water barrel,” Rod said, beaming with pride. “Rigging it like this gives twice the rain shelter too! If it gets any colder, we can put a fire at this end and the slanting roof will carry the smoke away instead of trapping it.”
“Good work,” she said, torn between relief that he hadn’t tried anything more complicated and a kind of surprised pride that he’d come up with something so useful.
The Companions ambled up and tucked themselves in under the ample shelter with clear relief. Alma turned up in another moment, leading the draft horses, then hobbled them. They hadn’t bothered to actually tether the horses this entire trip. It wasn’t as if the Companions would let them wander off or get into trouble.
Laurel collected the now-empty feedbags and stowed them in the proper compartment. And now Elyn could go back under the awning to fire up the little cook-stove, since it was her turn to cook.
“Where’s Arville?” she asked, suddenly realizing the fourth member of the inseparables was missing—and she was about to cook, which up until this moment had meant he was going to be at her elbow, waiting, with a look on his face like a starving puppy.
“He said he heard something out in the—”
“Look what I found!” Arville cried happily, bounding up to them, arms and legs flapping with happiness like a demented scarecrow. “Look what I found out in the forest!”
The thing bounding at his side was like no animal that Elyn had ever seen before. The head was something like a wolf’s, but the body was lean and had a curved back like the pictures of hunting cats she’d seen. When the shaggy, soaked fur dried, it would probably be a dark gray.
And it came up to Arville’s waist. It was huge.
If it hadn’t been wearing exactly the same puppy-eager expression that Arville was, she’d have been terrified of it. It wagged its tail merrily.
And the
n it talked. Or tried to. Its voice, if it could be called that, was a mix of bark and howl limited by the chops and cut occasionally to form words. And it tried enthusiastically to be understood.
“Reyra!” it said. “Rye Ryu! Ryer Ryeree!”
It skidded to a halt on the wet grass and plopped its haunches down, staring up at her expectantly, its bushy tail pounding on the grass and sending up a spray of drops each time it thumped.
She blinked at it.
“He said his name’s Ryu, and he’s a kyree,” Arville supplied hopefully.
“Of course he is.” She looked at the thing carefully. Well, it talked. So it probably wasn’t going to unexpectedly turn savage and tear out their throats. And it wagged its tail, which was something that hadn’t been covered in her Fear-the-Monster classes. “And what does Ryu want?” she asked, hoping that the answer was not going to be “dinner.” They didn’t have enough meat to satisfy something that large.
“Rum ree ru!” Ryu said, his tail thumping soggily. That didn’t need any translation.
“He’s kind of—uh—Chosen me,” Arville said, looking guilty. “Pelas says it’s all right with him.”
Chosen him—some weird beastie out of the Pelagirs, and it’s Chosen him. She wanted to thump her head against the side of the wagon. Why couldn’t anything these four did be straightforward? She wanted to tell both of them that this was absolutely out of the question, that the big, soggy gray thing could just turn itself back around and lope into the forest where it had come from. But two sets of big brown begging eyes were boring holes in her soul, in exactly the clichéd way they were supposed to in silly stories. And Arville’s Companion was all right with this ...
“He’ll have to catch his own food!” she said sharply.
“Rall rye!”
“And he doesn’t sleep in the wagon! It’s cramped enough in there as it is, and he smells like wet dog. I don’t care if there’s a spare bunk when the grain is gone, he doesn’t get it. And he definitely doesn’t get my bunk.”
“Rall rye!” This didn’t seem to bother the thing at all. “Rye ree runner!”
“He’ll sleep under the wagon, he says,” Arville said happily. “When we get to the village, I’ll buy him a blanket to sleep on. Won’t I, boy?”
The tail thumped soggily. Elyn gave up.
The creature managed to not get too much in the way, dutifully went out and presumably hunted himself some dinner, and settled in under the wagon to sleep as if he had done so all his life. It was all Elyn could do to persuade Arville not to settle in next to him. And that gave her some pause when she climbed into her own bunk for the night. The bond that had sprung up between the young man and what looked like some kind of savage beast seemed harmless enough—but it also was disturbingly strong and clearly magical in nature.
So what if it wasn’t harmless?
:It’s harmless,: Mayar said instantly in her mind. :Really. The kyree are known to us. Yes, it’s a magical beast, like the Hawkbrother bondbirds. In fact, the Hawkbrothers know all about kyree.: She sensed something like a chuckle from Mayar. :Ryu is younger than he looks, a mere stripling. He’s been lonely. His sort are supposed to go out and find someone to attach themselves to. It’s a little like what we do, except that ... well, never mind. Think of him as a congenital helper, and he’s been looking for the right someone to help for almost a year now.:
Elyn could only shake her head. Well if Mayar saw no problems, and Arville’s own Companion had no objections, who was she to interfere?
She only hoped she would have no cause to regret the decision.
And then, just as she was drifting off, she felt the wagon ... vibrating.
At first she couldn’t imagine what it was. Thunder? Earthquake? Landslide? But if it was anything dangerous the Companions would be screaming their heads off.
The she realized what it was. It came from below.
Ryu was snoring.
Kill me now ...
Oh, what a surprise. The most impressive thing about Bastion’s Stone was a stone. A great big stone that the cluster of little houses huddled against, like baby chicks up against their mother. It was too small to have a market. It was too small to have an inn—one of the locals who was apparently the only one capable of brewing drinkable beer sold it out of his house, and you either drank it in the yard or took it home to drink with your neighbors. So far as Elyn could tell, the only reason for the village existing in the first place was so that all the villagers could share farming equipment and the team of oxen required to pull it. And, of course, because they had a really big stone.
:It’s like a Heartstone, without the heart,: Mayar commented.
Elyn sat down with the entire population of the village in the only structure big enough to hold them all, the communal threshing barn, and listened to what they had to tell her. Her four charges she told (a bit sternly) to stand and listen and not comment or ask questions themselves. She could tell that Alma was almost writhing with impatience at being muzzled, but that was too bad. At this point, these people didn’t need to have questions fired at them from five different people. One person had to be the voice of authority, and that person had better be her. Only when she was done would she give them leave to go question people on an individual basis, when it was clear that they were answering to her and not the other way around. Having multiple “authorities” only made for trouble.
As for the villagers, they all seemed to defer to the blacksmith, which was curious. Perhaps it was because he was the strongest, or just because, being in a trade that had “trade secrets,” he seemed the most important to them.
But when facing someone wearing a uniform and an air of unquestioned authority, he became almost comically deferential. Regrettably, with that deference came being tongue-tied.
“Just start at the beginning,” she coaxed, “when you all first noticed something wrong, no matter how trivial it seems.”
He mumbled something. It was a little hard to understand his accent; although what he spoke was similar to Valdemaran, the way the words were pronounced wasn’t always the same. She thought it sounded like, “I can’t remember.”
“Sure ye can, Benderk!” one of the others urged, studiously not looking at her. “Ye were the first t’say! ’Twere the Shadows.”
“Sounds like a wee laddie’s boggles,” Benderk mumbled. At least, that was what she thought he mumbled.
“Tell her, Benderk! Tell her ’bout them Shadows up at Stony Rill! How they was on’y there at twilight, lurkin’ like, but then they was them there rustlin’s and whisperin’s on’y no one was there, an that was by broad day! An’ then it weren’t jest whisperin’s but noises t’make the blood cawld, gibberin’s and gurglin’s an’ a mad laugh ’at made th’ dogs run away! Tell her!” The speaker was the fellow that sold the local ale; he had brought a barrel of it, and now he plied Benderk with a mug and a refill, and Benderk evidently found courage therein, for he finally raised his eyes to Elyn’s and pretty much repeated what the ale-seller had said.
“We mun know these parts, Lady,” he added. “We mun know every beast an’ bird in forest. Nothin’ never made no noise like that. Nor cast Shadows like the ones at night, neither. Nor man, nor beast we ever seen cast shadows like that. Half again as tall an’ broad as me, an’ I be no scrawny ’prentice. On’y hunched over, like.” He rounded his shoulders and tucked his head down between them by way of illustration. “An’ we never saw the Things, on’y Shadows, an’ fer all their bigness, left no tracks we could find. So we left Stony Rill alone, an’ that seemed t’satisfy it. Reckoned we leave them alone, they leaves us alone.” He shrugged, shamefaced. “We bain’t fighters, Lady, and this be edge of Pelagir Hills. Uncanny things come out of there, but bain’t mean no harm, so—”
She nodded. “A sensible way to deal with things,” she said soothingly. “I take it there was nothing much any of you needed up at this Stony Rill?”
He shook his head. “Kids liked t’play there i’ s
ummer, but didn’ take but hearin’ that laugh once for ’em t’find ’nother spot of cool water t’paddle in. We’re not lackin’ i’ water.”
Well that was the truth. They must have crossed thirty streams of varying width, depth, and strength to get here.
“But obviously something else happened?” she prompted.
The man nodded, and the others shuddered. “They’re comin’ into village, of nights.”
“You’ve seen them with your own eyes?” Somehow Elyn doubted they had. And sure enough, one and all, they shook their heads emphatically.
“But we hear them!” The words came out in a whisper. “Between th’ houses, howlin’ and gibberin’, and in the mornin’, not a sign of ’em. Not a footprint, nor hoofprint or pawprint. Th’ dogs an’ cats, they all hide when they hears it. An’ afore we started lockin’ ’em up at night, we lost some beasts to ’em. Heard ’em cry out, and in mornin’, was gone, an’ no trace of what took ’em.”
There wasn’t much else that Elyn could get that was useful out of them. “You’ll hear ’em fer y’self” seemed to be the only answer.
Despite the fact that the youngsters were burning even more to question the villagers, Elyn let the villagers go back to their homes. For one thing, the closer it got to sunset, the more nervous the villagers became, and she didn’t want to have to cope with a load of hysterical people wanting only to get behind their locked and barricaded doors. For another, she was curious to see if “they,” whatever “they” were, actually did turn up tonight. Their absence might well tell as much or more than their presence. There was no reason why something supernatural would hesitate to manifest with the Heralds here. But if “they” were not supernatural, then whatever or whoever it was that was doing this might well be cautious about showing itself—or themselves—right now.
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