Gregson kicked his mount into motion and the rest followed with little prompting.
They rode out of Cobble Kill, a rock promontory that Jayson had not seen in the fading light the night before jutting out of the forest over the town to the north. Trees closed in immediately after they crossed the stone bridge, sunlight dappling the road beneath as the leaves rustled in a faint breeze. Dust danced beneath the foliage above the undergrowth to either side, passing from shadow to light, but Jayson found himself paying more attention to remaining on his horse than the scenery. The pace was swift.
They rode throughout the day, pausing often to rest the horses and once to eat. As they drew closer to Gray’s Kill, Gregson slowed,to Jayson’s relief.After taking the northern fork when the road split, he dropped the pace even further.
As they rode toward the break that would lead toward the barge, Jayson found himself scanning the edge of the road, watching the shadows beneath the forest. His gaze darted from side to side, toward the shivering bush as a squirrel shot away with an annoyed chatter or the flutter of a bird startled from its branch. Sweat broke out across his shoulders and his breath quickened.
He nearly jumped out of his saddle when Ricks sidled closer and said in an undertone, “Relax.”
Jayson turned toward him, caught the confident grin on the younger man’s face. A wave of shame slicked through the apprehension in his gut and he straightened slightly.
“I don’t know what we’re going to find in Gray’s Kill,” he said.
Ricks frowned at the tone of his voice, pulling back slightly, but before Jayson could explain Gregson slowed to a halt and motioned Jayson forward. Corim remained behind, his horse skittish, picking up on the apprentice’s unease. He saw the youth’s eyes flick toward the shadows beneath the trees.
Gregson nodded toward the road ahead.As soon as they left the main road, it had begun winding through the cuts and gorges of the area, stone outcroppings and sharp slopes visible through the trees.“How much farther until we reach the barge?”
“Another hour at most,” Jayson answered. “It’s hard to tell. I’ve never traveled the road on horseback before. I’ve always had a cart laden with sacks slowing me down.”
“I see.” The Legionnaire looked toward the sun, already low on the horizon. “We should have enough time to reach the village before sunset then. But I want to proceed with caution in case whatever attacked is still around.”
“We didn’t see anyone on the road to Cobble Kill when we fled.”
Gregson turned toward him with a raised eyebrow.“Perhaps because they stayed in Gray’s Kill.”
Jayson’s stomach tightened and he felt sick.
Without a word, they moved down the road toward the river, the four soldiers forming up around Jayson and Corim, their swords loosened in their sheaths, their eyes scanning the trees as they moved. The apprehension that had seized Jayson on the road returned and his mouth went dry.
An hour later, they reached the barge. It appeared to be in the same place he and Corim had left it, unused since that night.
Jayson felt his heart shudder, grief welling up inside. But he forced it down.
Gregson and Terson slid from their horses and led them onto the barge. Jayson dropped down to the ground, but then froze. His breath had quickened, a sense of lightheadedness enfolding him, but he swallowed and climbed onto the barge before anyone could comment, Curtis giving him an odd look. Corim followed him, Curtis and Ricks bringing up the rear, and then they were moving across the river, the Legion pulling on the rope to draw them across.
Gregson stepped off of the barge and onto the dock before it had come to a rest,Terson behind,both leading their horses. He contemplated the forest, the sun slanting through the trees at a sharp angle now, then turned to Jayson.
“Show us Gray’s Kill.”
Jayson moved to the front of the group with Gregson, the rest of the Legion drawing their swords. As he struck out down the main road, he glanced to either side, scanning the area where the dwarren had appeared and then vanished. But of course there was no sign of them.
They reached the lane.
“My mill is down there,” he called back.
Gregson nodded and sent Curtis and Ricks down the lane, their horses left behind with Terson, but motioned Jay-son forward.
Swallowing, Jayson continued. He saw nothing in the undergrowth, nothing in the trees, no movement at all, and the silence was unnatural. He’d lived in Gray’s Kill for nearly fifteen years, since moving there to run the new mill. They were close enough now there should have been sounds from the village—someone chopping wood, dogs barking, the clang of hammer and metal from the smithy, perhaps even a few shouts from children. But there were no signs of life, not even the smell of woodsmoke.
Then he rounded the last bend and halted in the middle of the road.Gregson,Terson,and Corim drew up behind him.
Terson swore.
The village was gone.The smithy,the tavern,the mercantile, and church were nothing but husks of blackened wood and stone. Only one wall of the church remained standing, the stone of the other three blocking the road to one side in a low heap. The fire pit of the smithy sat in the middle of a few charred timbers. And among all of the ruin, among all that remained of the village, lay bodies.
Tears burned his eyes and threatened to choke Jayson as the horror of that night returned. He smelled the thick smoke as he half dragged Corim away from the backwash of fire he knew had come from the center of town, felt the heat searing his face and tasted the ash as the smoke blew over the road.
He’d known this was what they would find, but he hadn’t been able to accept it. Not until now.
Gray’s Kill was dead.
Someone shifted past him, brushing his arm, and he started, raised a hand to scrub away the tears fiercely as he watched Gregson move to one of the bodies near what had been the entrance to the tavern.Terson was tying the horses off near the trees at the side of the road.
“Who was this?” the Legionnaire asked, kneeling down to stare at the man’s face.
Jayson could barely bring himself to look.What if it were Lianne? But he knew it wasn’t. He could tell by the shredded and bloodstained clothing it was a man.
“Tobin,” he said, voice rough. “He was the blacksmith.”
All four of them turned as Curtis and Ricks returned, their boots crunching in the gravel of the road. Their eyes were wide with shock as they entered the village.
“Nothing but the mill down the lane,” Curtis reported. “It’s still standing, untouched.”
Gregson stood and the rest of the Legion began moving through the village, looking at the bodies, nudging them with their feet or the tips of their swords or scanning the forest to either side.
“The animals have gotten to them,” Terson said.
“That’s to be expected.They’ve been left out in the open for over three days.” Gregson shaded his eyes from the sun as he looked up. “I’m surprised there aren’t any crows here now, though.”
“It wasn’t animals that got them,” Jayson muttered under his breath, thinking of the creature that had ripped into his arm and clawed his leg.
From his right, Curtis cast him a sidelong look. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken loud enough for anyone close to hear.
“Fan out!” Gregson ordered.
Jayson frowned. “What are you looking for?” he asked Curtis.
The soldier shrugged. “A sign of whoever did this.”
Jayson felt anger spark deep inside him, deeper than the grief. “But I already told you who did this. It was those . . . those things! Those creatures! The demons with the lantern eyes!”
Curtis shifted uncomfortably. “The GreatLord will need proof—”
“The Diermani-cursed things attacked me!” Jayson growled and shoved back the sleeve of his shirt to expose the bandage from the still-healing claw marks on his forearm. He’d drawn breath to argue further, Curtis’ face skeptical, when Terson shouted.
Everyone turned, Gregson and Ricks already moving toward the second, who stood over one of the bodies near the edge of the stone church. Curtis trotted forward as well; Jayson and Corim trailed behind. Jayson didn’t need to see any more bodies.
But when everyone tensed and drew back, hands tightening on their swords, Gregson grunting, he stepped forward.
It wasn’t one of the villagers. It was one of the dwarren, the body lying on its back,the pale face staring upward.The hands were arranged together across the chest, over the braided and bead-woven beard, a small ax clutched in their grip. The legs were laid out straight.
It didn’t look like the dwarren had died in battle. There were no wounds, and the body had obviously been arranged, almost ritualistically.
“So,” Gregson said, voice tight, as the Legion’s faces on all sides turned grim, “the dwarren were here. There hasn’t been a dwarren attack on Province lands in over a hundred years. GreatLord Kobel needs to be informed immediately.”
The angry silence was broken a moment later by Corim. He clutched at Jayson’s arm, his eyes too wide, his face too open. No one should ever see such vulnerability in another person’s soul. “My parents,” he whispered.
Lianne, Jayson thought, but he fought the urge to abandon Corim and the others and race to his cottage. He wasn’t sure he could face what he’d fi nd there yet. He glanced around at all of the bodies scattered around the small village center and swallowed against the stone lodged in his throat. “Let’s look,” he said to Corim.
They began searching, Corim dashing from body to body, his actions growing more and more frantic even as tears gathered and then trailed down his face. His breath caught in his chest, coming in hitching gasps, and he continuously wiped snot from his upper lip. Jayson watched in silence, strangely numbed, as he followed in Corim’s wake. He found Paul, the tavern keeper, and his wife Amy, both with weapons in hand, their bodies charred by the flames as the tavern burned down around them.The stableboyAnder had been torn to pieces in the back, his body left close enough to the fire it had been roasted. Huddled near the church, half-buried beneath the rubble of a collapsed wall, he found the healer Reannon, her body lying protectively across her two children, Tara and Ian. But none of the bodies belonged to Corim’s parents. Or Lianne.
When there were no more bodies to check within the village center, Corim turned to him and said, “Home. They must be at home!”
He tore off down the road.
“No, Corim, wait!” Panic seized Jayson’s chest and he charged after the boy. He heard Gregson curse and shout an order, followed by boots running after him, but he ignored it all. His heart thudded in his chest as he ran, and for the first time he felt the grief he’d shoved down hard before this shuddering up from his gut, hot and choking. His eyes burned with it and he scrubbed at them futilely as he ran. Ahead, he saw Corim dodge down a secondary path, the one that led to his parent’s cottage, heard the crack of a door flung open—
And then a young boy’s hoarse cry shattered the unnatural stillness of the air.
Jayson’s heart wrenched in his chest as he stumbled down the last of the path and caught himself on the casement of the cottage’s door. He leaned there, gasping, and then reeled back from what he saw inside.
The room was covered in blood, the stench of it rolling out of the door in waves. Splashes of it streaked the walls, the table, the stone of the chimney and hearth. Corim knelt in the center of it all, a fallen chair to one side, his mother’s body lying across his knees. He hugged her tight to his chest, sobbing over her, even though she was covered in her own dried blood. Jayson gagged when he saw chunks of her flesh had been ripped free, her left foot entirely missing, most of her fingers gone, gnawed down to nubs of bone.
Behind Corim, in the doorway to the back bedroom, he could see a leg clad in a workboot sitting in a wide pool of blood.
“Corim,” he said, but his voice cracked, barely above a whisper. “Corim, come here. You can’t help them now.”
Corim didn’t respond. From behind, he heard two of the Legionnaires—Curtis and Ricks—pounding up the path, halting beside him. They looked in over his shoulder and Curtis sucked in a breath of horror. Ricks stumbled to one side and vomited into the small herb garden beneath the cottage’s window.
Corim’s wail had died down to a hitching moan. Gathering himself, Jayson stepped into the cottage and to Corim’s side. He reached down to grip Corim’s shoulder, the boy rocking back and forth where he knelt. He didn’t react to Jayson’s touch, so Jayson barked, “Corim!”
The boy flinched and looked up at him, his expression lost. “They’re dead,” he whispered.
“I know.” He squeezed Corim’s shoulder. “We can’t do anything for them now.We need to leave.”And he needed to find Lianne, although he wasn’t certain he wanted to find her now. Grief pressed hard against him, nearly swallowed him.
He sucked in a steadying breath and choked on the stench that permeated the house. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Corim didn’t move, so he reached down and hauled him to his feet, the boy’s mother’s body sliding to the floor. Mercifully, she landed facedown. After seeing what had been done to her hands, Jayson could only imagine what had been done to her face.
As soon as he’d regained his feet, Corim latched onto Jayson, arms encircling his chest and drawing him in close. Curtis appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, caught his gaze and shook his head, although Jayson had already known Corim’s father was dead as well.
He half-carried, half-led Corim outside into the fading sunlight.
“We should head back to the village center,” Curtis said. Ricks had recovered, stepping up to them from one side as he wiped his mouth with one hand. He still shook and his face was pale.
“No,” Jayson said. “Not yet. I need to find Lianne.”
Ricks nodded and Jayson realized that the Legionnaire had been offering him a way out. But he couldn’t leave without knowing for certain.
Pushing Corim away gently but forcefully, he handed the youth off to Curtis and then headed down the path to the road.
His own cottage and lands were not far. He walked to them without speaking, the others trailing behind. He saw the cottage through the last of the trees, then passed through the small gate and garden to the front door. There he hesitated, thinking of the blood and stench in Corim’s home.
But he had to know.
He opened the door.
An invisible hand closed around his throat, choked off his breath, his voice. All of the strength drained from his legs and he slid down into a crouch. He held one hand out before him, as if he could ward off what he saw within, as if he could block it out.
Lianne sat slumped over the small table near the hearth, her head on its side, her blank hazel eyes staring toward the door, as if she’d been watching for him. One hand lay on the table beside her head in a pool of spilled stew, the bowl upside down by her fingertips. The other lay in her lap. The rancid smell of broth and potatoes and onion fi lled the room, the stew pot still hanging over the long-dead fire.
Corim’s hand fell onto his shoulder and Jayson dragged in a wheezing breath, his throat too tight and raw. He brought his hand down, then heaved himself upright and staggered to the table, knocking against it hard enough it scraped across the wooden fl oor, the bowls and utensils jouncing. Lianne’s hand slid through the congealed stew, the weight of her arm dragging it off the table. It swung, gelled chunks dropping from the fingers.
A noise he’d never heard himself make escaped him and he reached forward to brush Lianne’s hair, to touch her cheek. Her skin felt unnaturally cold and soft, as pale and lifeless as that of the dwarren’s body in the village center. Unlike Corim’s parents, there wasn’t a mark on her. No blood had been splattered through the house. It was as if she’d died while sitting down to eat.
He knelt down beside her, rested his head against her side and reached his arm around her shoulder.The constriction in his thro
at shifted down to his chest, so tight it felt as if he’d torn something deep inside his lungs, but he held it in, swallowed it down, his eyes squeezed shut with the effort. His body hitched as he sucked in a deep breath, trying to control himself—
“Lianne,” he murmured.
“She’s—” Corim began, but cut himself off.
Dead, Jayson finished for him. Lianne’s dead.
The constriction that bound his chest tightened, but he found himself getting up, releasing her as he rocked back and stood.
“Let’s go,” he said. His voice was unnaturally hard. “There’s nothing we can do here anymore.”
“WE’LL REACH THE CONFLUENCE today,” Colin said. Both Eraeth and Siobhaen looked up from where they sat around the fire, Eraeth holding a pan over the flames, the scent of frying eggs drifting up to mingle with the smoke and smells of the hundred fires already burning as the dwarren roused themselves from sleep.With a casual gesture, he flipped the eggs.
“And what will happen once we get there?” Siobhaen asked. Exasperation tinged her voice.
Colin shrugged. “There will be a Gathering.”
“And what does that mean?” Siobhaen snarled. “I’m tired of traveling without knowing what’s going on. We came to the dwarren to find out what they know, but they haven’t told us anything. You’ve dragged us along with this war party without any explanation of why, gone wandering off on your own to visit the sarenavriell, and brought us these weapons that you claim are a gift from the heart of the forest, and yet you haven’t told us anything about what you found out or what they’re to be used for!”
Colin stared at her a long moment, at a loss for words. He glanced toward Eraeth, the Protector meeting his gaze with a shrug.
“She’s right,” he agreed. “It’s frustrating.”
“It’s frustrating for me as well,” Colin said, letting anger touch his voice. “I know as much as you.”
“No,” Siobhaen said, cutting him off. “You know more than you’ve told us. You’ve met with the shamans on more than one occasion since we left the Thousand Springs cavern. I refuse to believe that they’ve told you nothing, and I refuse to believe you haven’t kept something from us.”
Leaves of Flame Page 29