William hunched over his bowl and ate methodically, almost mechanically. Tanyth watched Amber watch him with concern on her face. After his jovial manner earlier, the change seemed starkly apparent. As the meal wore on, conversations started quietly up and down the table. Sadie asked, “Do you think they saw?”
William glanced up at her and nodded. “Almost certainly. We may not have seen them, but it wouldn’t have taken much of a scout to have watched us movin’.”
Sadie nodded her understanding. “So, now we wait?”
William sighed and nodded again. “Unfortunately, yes, but we’re in a better position to wait him out now.” He looked at his wife beside him as she took his arm and patted it encouragingly. He gave her a small smile in return. “I don’t think we’ll have all that long to wait, really.” He turned back to Sadie. “I suspect he’ll be back tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”
“Then what?” Sadie looked concerned.
William shrugged. “Then we see.”
The dinner hour eased along and the company found comfort in being together. As the bellies filled and bowls emptied, Amber put a large pot of water on to heat for washing up. She stood back and directed the cleanup.
Sadie grinned at her. “Practicing up for when the inn is built?”
They laughed together. “Unless you’d like to take over for me?” Amber’s reply was delivered with a flick of a towel and broad grin.
Sadie dodged the towel and threw a grin of her own. “Not me! I’ve got my own cares to worry about. Don’t need that!” They laughed some more and soon the pile of dirty crockery was transformed into a stack of gleaming dishes on the mantle board, ready for morning’s breakfast. Many hands made the work go smoothly.
With cleanup done, they extinguished the extra lanterns and bundled already drowsing children off to bedrolls in the chilling barn. They giggled and shivered for a bit as they found their spots. As they piled together like puppies in a basket, the warmth of their small bodies under wool and straw soon lulled them to sleep.
William left one lamp lit, but turned the wick low, and most of the adults took to their bedrolls as well. Tanyth followed Megan and the children out and Bethany followed along so they were able to close the gate on their stall. Women and children alike piled their bedrolls close. The sweet smelling straw and the musky animal scents swirled in Tanyth’s nose and she remembered the strange dream of the single drop of blood as she fell off the edge of awareness, down into the well of sleep.
The raven sat hunched in the top of a fir. Heavy boughs protected her from the bite of the wind and she watched the shadows slipping through the moonlight on the field below. They moved through the open ground, the light of the moon behind them casting long, snaking shapes of black ahead of them. Four men. One walked oddly. One strode as if he owned the land and all he surveyed. She didn’t like being awake in the cold dark but these men disturbed her slumber. She croaked hoarsely and the night wind swept the soft sound away into the silvered dark. The men slipped between the houses and flickered in and out of sight as they moved through the shadows. She shifted her weight on the limb and huddled in the boughs, watching as they came to the end of the houses and considered the two tracks, one to the barn and one to the digging in the ground. They stood in the shadows of the last house–the burned one, its smoky stench still riding the winds–and huddled against the breeze, protected from view. She watched patiently, waiting for them to move. Perhaps there’d be food. Bright metal flashed as they drew steel. They slipped from shadow to shadow and disappeared into the woods heading for the barn. She opened her mouth but only managed a soft croak that was swept away on the night’s wind.
Chapter 27
Barn Dance
“No!” Tanyth gasped the word, a raw rasp in her throat. The gleam of steel in the moonlight still dazzled her eyes. She got her breath and sat up. “They’re comin’.” She said it louder and joggled Amber and Bethany. “They’re comin’!”
She crawled up out of the bed roll and slipped into her boots, ignoring the sharp straws that stuck to her socks as she did so. “They’re comin’!” She repeated it louder and grabbed up her staff. She slammed out through the gate in her stall and ran down the line banging on the wooden rails. “They’re comin’. Wake up. They’re comin’!”
She ran to the front of the barn and made sure the heavy bar was still in place across the large doors. She opened the smaller person-sized door to peek out and around the corner to where the guard should be. “Hey! They’re coming. Watch for them. In the woods! They’re coming!”
There was no response, no movement. “Hey!” She whispered hoarsely. “They’re comin’!” Her eyes scanned the moon silvered darkness but the guard who was supposed to be there didn’t respond. She got a cold knot in the pit of her belly. “Oh, Mother. Please, no.” She whispered the prayer and looked up to the tall spruce at the back of the village. She couldn’t see the raven, but she was certain that it was still there.
She pulled back into the barn and closed the door behind her. She turned and bumped into Jakey still pulling up his braces and looking a bit straw tossed. “What is it, mum?” He kept his voice low.
“They’re comin’. Four men. Drawn steel. The sentry isn’t answerin’.”
His eyes went to the door and then back to her. “What should I do, mum?”
Her eyes scanned the barn and saw the three-tined hay fork. She pointed. “That. Guard the door. Watch for whoever’s supposed to be guardin’ the front. Get ’em back inside if you can.”
He nodded, finally awake and focused on what she was saying.
She ran back through the stalls rattling her staff on the rails as she ran. “They’re comin’. Wake up. They’re comin’.” She kept saying it over and over as a kind of prayer. Not wanting to stop to see if people were moving. She felt like she was shouting in the quiet of the barn but her footfalls pounded in her ears as she ran to the back.
Amber and the kids were awake and moving in the stall. She turned haunted eyes to Tanyth who tried to smile reassuringly. “Stay here. Keep an eye open.”
She turned at a sound behind her to find Thomas already dressed, his boots on and stepping into his bow to string it. He caught her eye and nodded. “How many?”
“Four. Josh is with them but he’s still limpin’.” She nodded her head toward the front. “Jakey’s at the door, but the outside guard didn’t answer my call.”
Thomas jerked his head in a short nod. “I’ll check the back sentry. You check the workroom door. William should be there keeping an eye on the backside of the barn.”
They both ran to the workroom as more people woke. They ran past Charlotte climbing the ladder to the hayloft to wake the quarry boys up there and she smiled fiercely in the darkness as they sped past. All around the barn, Tanyth could hear the sound of people waking and moving purposefully.
She turned the corner toward the workroom while Thomas sprinted for the back door of the barn, bow pumping and quiver slapping against his backside. She burst into the dimness of the workroom and skidded to a halt. The banked hearth fire provided only a dim orange glow. The dark shadows disoriented disoriented her for a moment, but her mind laid the memory of the room over the shadows and shapes that she could see.
“William?”
There was no answer.
She started down the near side, in the narrow alley between bench and barn wall. “William!” Her voice sounded loud in her ears, but he didn’t respond. She hurried her steps but found nobody. “Better than finding his body, I suppose.” Her grumbling to herself made her huff a laugh and refocused her on the task.
She sidled over to the door which led out to the privy behind the barn just as the latch released with a soft wooden clack. She froze and the door began swinging inward. She held her breath and drew back her staff ready to thrust the iron shod foot into the most available soft spot she could find.
The door swung open. She saw a shape outlined by the light of the last quarter mo
on. The person edged the door open, but looked back over his shoulder as he entered. The moon light showed him clearly as he stepped over the threshold.
“William!” Tanyth hissed the word.
He jumped as if stung and slammed back into the door frame, banging the door loudly against the wall as he pushed it all the way open. His moon-dazzled eyes couldn’t see in the dim light of the workroom and she could see him squinting and trying to make out who was inside the door. “Mother Fairport?”
“Get in here! Close the door.”
He grinned at her and pressed a hand to his chest. “Mother have mercy, you scared the–”
He never finished the thought as a sword from outside the door glittered in the moonlight and thrust cruelly through his shoulder, pinning him to the door.
He stared at the metal and followed its length back to the man who held it just around the corner and outside of Tanyth’s view. “Hello, Andy. Just couldn’t stay away, could you?” William’s voice was smooth and calm, then his eyes rolled up and he slumped, his weight carrying the sword downward pulling it out of the door–pulling it out of the hand that held it.
Tanyth froze, not daring to breathe and waiting for the next person to come through the door. She ached to see to William, but dared not move from her place of concealment. The cold night air was rushing into the room and she could feel warmth fading even as she feared that William’s life had just been snuffed in front of her eyes.
“Mort. Get in there!” Birchwood’s voice was a hissing whipcrack.
Tanyth saw a shadow approaching the door and drew back her staff to strike.
Silvery steel edged through the door and then the burly shape of the man behind it. His head was lowered and casting side to side to try to make out what was inside. Tanyth held her pose, waiting for her moment and watching the man’s movement. She could see him spot the banked hearth as his head cleared the cast light of the moon and the orange light glittered on the moisture on his eyes. He stepped awkwardly over the sprawled body on the threshold. As he teetered to regain his balance, Tanyth struck.
The iron bound foot of her staff speared the soft bone of his temple just as he tried to turn his head in her direction. The blow caught him fairly and bone broke under the iron as Tanyth released her pent fury on her attacker. She pulled it back just as a leather clad arm made a grab for the staff, dodging out of the way as the dead man fell at her feet and Andrew Birchwood stepped through the door, his dagger in his left hand hand, pommel up and blade down.
He stood in the doorway and faced her. “You killed my man.” His voice was flat and angry. “You will pay for that, you know.”
Tanyth shifted her weight but Birchwood’s eyes didn’t move to follow her. She realized that he couldn’t see her and in that instant she struck again, driving the foot of her staff at his stomach with all of her strength. He was fast and managed to dodge her blow, stepping into the room and out of the dazzling moonlight. He made a grab for the staff with his free hand but she had more strength and better leverage. She wrenched it out of his grasp.
He sidled further into the building, his back against the outer wall and his eyes searching the darkness where he believed her to be. She sidled right along with him, her staff held in both hands across her body, waiting for the opening she knew had to come.
He paused to kick the planks of the table into her path and they clattered on the floor. She felt with her boot and kept her balance across the unevenness, getting slightly ahead of him and returning the favor by kicking the next set into his path. She had the advantage for the moment. Her eyes were used to the dark and she could make out his shape in the faint light of the fire. His eyes were adapting fast and she knew there would only be a few more moments before she’d be visible to him. They continued along their respective walls until they made it almost to the hearth. In a quick movement he reached with his free hand and pulled up a billet of wood and threw it at her. She dodged it easily, knocking it down with her staff even in the dimness, but while she was doing that, he tossed a handful of tinder into the fire and it caught quickly flaring up into a bright flame and giving him his first clear look at his adversary.
“You? The witch woman?” He sneered and almost lowered his guard.
She didn’t answer, saving her breath and her focus.
He stepped up onto the hearthstone, being careful to stay on his side of the fire and she saw his eyes flicker to the open door of the store room. A small smile of satisfaction curled his lips. “Through there are they?” He nodded. “Good. It was nice of you to gather everybody in one place for me. It makes it so much easier. What with William dead and that dear boy in the front. Too bad about him, but he was so protective.” He tsked.
Tanyth remained silent.
“Aww. Scared, little mother?” He shook his head sympathetically. “Killing men is a serious business and you’ve just killed one. How’s that make you feel now? A little sick? A little queasy?”
She sidled over to stand between him and the door, but didn’t say a word.
“You think you can stand in my way, little mother?” His look was almost incredulous. “One small woman with a stick.”
Tanyth smiled. It was not a pretty smile. It did not make her weather-worn face light up. The bones of the earth were her teeth. Her breath was the wind. The fires of the earth were alight in her eyes and her blood pumped with the strength of the sea.
Birchwood saw the smile and his eyes narrowed. “Alright, little mother. You should have stepped aside.” He stepped onto the hearthstone and his free hand swept the crockery from the mantle board in a rain of mugs and bowls. He followed the glassware leading with this blade and expecting the small woman to be flinching from the flying bowls. He was unprepared for the apparition that stepped into him through the hail of pottery or the staff that shattered his right arm. Unfortunately for Tanyth, he held the dagger in his left and his anger drove him through the pain. He slashed upwards just as Tanyth stepped in, sweeping the knobbed head of her staff into his temple on her back stroke even as his blade hooked up to score her from navel to chin inside her guard, the razor edge slicing cleanly through clothing and skin alike.
They stood for a lifetime frozen in the follow-through of their respective strikes. She saw the light fade in Birchwood’s eyes even as her own sight focused on the point of the blade just inches from her face. A single drop of her blood drooled in the fuller and dripped off the tip, a single perfect sphere of crimson shimmering in the guttering light of the burning tinder. Her eyes couldn’t follow it, but in her mind she saw it falling, falling, falling to splatter in a perfect starburst on the warm hearthstone.
Chapter 28
Morning Light
Long fingers of morning groped across the grass below her. The clash and clangor in the night had passed as suddenly as it had come. She smoothed her feathers with her bill, worked a bit of oil into them, and side-stepped into the growing light of the morning sun. Her black plumage warmed in the direct gaze of the All-Mother and she basked for a time and preened, straightening and oiling her feathers to make them sleek and smooth against the winds and weathers.
Hunger moved her, finally, and strong wings snapped to catch the morning air–once, twice, thrice–before gliding to a favorite snag thrust up from the edge of a pond in the forest. Cattails browned on the edge of the pond, completing the cycle she’d seen before, but her sharp golden eyes watched the edges of the water, between the reeds, watching for food, looking for–there. She pounced, sharp talons snatching the wriggling thing, strong bill crunching it. It would hold her for a time and her strong legs thrust her into the air even as her wings pulled her upwards. She glided between the trees and back into the shadows of the forest. A few strokes and a gentle bank brought her to a comfortable perch, protected from the wind and open to the rising sun. She settled there, listening, occasionally preening a rough spot on wing or back, letting the sun warm and lull her and, for a time, there was no time at all.
; The All-Mother completed her circuit of the sky. Darkness came for a time only to be banished by the All-Father’s silvery face. And even before he finished his survey, All-Mother returned. The raven fed herself on berries and juicy bugs. Winter was coming and, with it, the hungry time. She scoured her wood from hilltop to vale, from pond to break, dark wood to field. She listened and warned with her voice.
The men in the clearing were interesting and she took her perch above them, golden eyes watching. There was movement in the field again. Children ran. Women dug root crops and cut corn. She crooned. No more sweet corn for her, but perhaps some fruit would be left behind. She remembered sweet fruit from the ground and gave a soft croak of anticipation for the women to be done so she could search.
There was carrion down there, too. She smelled the meat on the breeze, but was unable to find it until movement drew her attention and she saw them putting the bodies in holes. They were wrapped in cloth but her talons gripped the branch beneath her and she knew cloth would not slow her long. So much meat would be good. She lifted her head and called loudly in anticipation and warning. The big male in the next valley might hear and she liked that idea. She called again and listened, but there was no answer.
The men below were done putting the meat in the holes. She danced in frustration as she watched them filling the holes, shoveling the musky earth down, covering the meat, hiding it. In moments it was done and the meat was gone. She crooned her frustration and looked about for her next meal. She was hungry and winter was coming. With a last loud cry, she launched herself onto the air and soared back into the forest. She needed water and headed for the pond. Perhaps there’d be another bit of food as well.
Her eyes were gummy but they opened a bit. Her lips were parched and her tongue felt stuck to her mouth. A shape moved and she focused on it. Megan smiled down at her. “Good afternoon, mum.” Her voice was soft and low.
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