Oren cleared his throat.
“We should learn what he found, right?” The others nodded and hemmed in the darkness, then began the careful retreat up the hill toward the houses.
Waylaid was stretching when Piju burst into the room. He’d slept sitting mostly upright on the room’s lone stool and his back was quite sore. He twisted and a low popping noise worked slowly up his spine.
Waylaid wasn’t particularly startled when Piju burst into the room, he found that Piju burst into most rooms. He looked at Piju’s bloody chest and fear-struck eyes.
“Good, you found him.”
Brea was seated by the fireplace, apparently trying to determine if it was worth it to get the water up to a boil.
“Hey, he did make it back!” She stood up and brushed off her tunic. “I’ll get the others, we haven’t much time till dawn.”
“There…” Piju’s chest heaved for air, “… I saw…” time for two quick breaths “…it was…” he stopped, as if even saying this much had made him light-headed. He leaned against the table, stretching a calf muscle. Waylaid watched Piju trying to recover from whatever he had faced in the woods. Piju focused down at the simple wooden table, looking as if he were about to throw up.
Waylaid nodded again, looking wise. It really wasn’t necessary for Piju to tell him what he saw. Waylaid was confident that he knew what to look for, and Piju didn’t. Piju’s job was to find the sorcerer’s grave, not to tell him anything interesting. Waylaid had just needed to know where to go.
Waylaid stepped into the bedroom. Avoiding touching the ring of salt on the floor, he picked up the doll from the child’s chest and stepped back into the living room. He motioned Piju to take over the bench.
“Piju, this is most important,” he said. “No one disturbs the girl’s body tonight. Very important.”
He carefully unbuckled the strap for his turtle shell, and lifted it off of his chest. There was a small hook inside the shell, at the back. Waylaid hooked the doll on it and rebuckled the shell to his chest. He straightened as much as he was able and then hobbled out of the house and down the path toward Keynan, who was heading up the path to meet him.
Waylaid shook his head at the ready questions, raising his palm to stop them. He made a circle in the air with his index finger, and then pointed back down the hill toward the forest. Keynan didn’t need directions, he could find Piju’s path easily enough.
“We are hunting a ghost in the dark, right?” Keynan asked, looking over at Oren for confirmation.
Oren frowned, hidden in the darkness. “Perhaps not as wise a plan as we could have, but we do have Brea and Answerer. I wouldn’t want to be against us.”
Keynan left Grins and Ugly. A wolf wouldn’t stand a chance against the pair of them, but they couldn’t take down a ghost. Wrestling all three in the dark would get someone hurt. Blue could backtrack Piju as well as anything in the world. That was all that mattered tonight.
Seth loosened his sword. He had been sleeping on the pony blankets in full armor and was still fuzzy headed.
“Hang on, I’ve got torches,” he said.
He had spent the late afternoon trimming tree branches and letting them soak in lamp oil. He dabbed on a bit of house tar around the tip and lit them with a lamp.
They blazed up, filling the night with their light. There were four; Seth handed one to Brea and another to Oren. Keynan didn’t want to carry one and work Blue, so that left Waylaid. Waylaid just shook his head and waved away the torch. They left three oil lamps still burning on the front porch. Seth snuffed the fourth torch, tucked it into his baldric, and followed them across the field.
Piju sat alone in the empty house and didn’t even care to step into the bedroom with the body of the little girl. He was deeply exhausted, physically and mentally. He was drowsing on the bench when Ella’s mother walked into the house. Piju started awake and rose to greet her. Not to mention keep her from going into the bedroom.
“What has the monster done to her?” she asked the wall behind him. “I must see her.” The woman had wept all night, but her friends had kept her from the death cries.
Piju stood between her and the door.
“Nothing has been done to your daughter, Goodwife.” Piju had a sudden concern that he hadn’t even looked at the girl, for all he knew they had chopped her up for parts. It didn’t change his job as far as he could see, so he swallowed his concerns and went with his current approach.
“In the morning, you will see that everything is the same, and Waylaid will have killed the headless ghost.”
“A children’s tale?” she focused on Piju for the first time. “My child was killed by a stupid, made-up, fantasy monster? There is no such thing!”
Piju stood quietly, as the woman screamed at him. He knew her pain was great, but nothing he did was going to help her.
“You Bolg are deficient mentally. You can believe in your imaginary spirits, which is why you’re only fit to be slaves. Maybe the Daen believe in imaginary god-friends too, but I doubt it. I’m an educated woman, and I’m not going to pretend to believe in that crap just because an escaped slave and a half-witted Fomor tell me to.”
Piju knew that she was lucky to have him to yell at. He didn’t take much offense at anything these days. Being with Waylaid had pretty much made him thick-skinned for the daily insults. He stared at her, trying to see her as a woman, as a person, under all those tear streaks and shouts. He didn’t hate her; she had lost her daughter. He caught her fist as she swung at him and pulled her into a hug. She fought, and she was strong for a woman her size. A lifetime of hard labor backed her struggles, but Piju was larger and stronger. He didn’t want to win, just not get hit. He won.
Ella’s mother collapsed against him, crying and cursing him, but her anger was broken. Piju held her, wishing that there was anything he could do to take back her pain. He held her and patted her back, as though she was a small child. Her tears slowed, and he hoped she would fall asleep.
The door opened, and two women entered.
“Ellise, did you see Talogren and Galen?”
Piju held Ellise tightly.
“None of you are getting in to see Ella tonight,” he said, “you can go on home. Take her with you, please, before she does something I would have to stop.”
The women stood in shock, and Ellise was pushed back into them. She was crying, again, and had found the sharp edge of her tongue.
“I’m fine, but I’m probably safer at your houses till my husband returns from the city.”
“Ellise, did you see Talogren?” one mother repeated.
“I assume they are off together,” the other added, “they are always running off somewhere.”
Piju remembered the fort on the hill, where a boy could watch all the excitement in these houses without being seen. He rubbed his face with his hands, wishing a little more rest had sunk into his bones. His mind raced to work this out.
“Goodwives, I am sure those boys are in their fort.” This was a lie, but it wasn’t as though he thought these women should go running around the woods at night. “I’d run up there and get them, but I can’t leave here, when this good woman might interfere with Waylaid’s work.”
“No imaginary monster killed Ella,” declared Ellise. “That damned Fomor killed her.”
Piju didn’t want to argue but did anyway.
“I know what Waylaid did and didn’t do. He had nothing to do with your Ella. But if you mess up what he has set me to guard,” Piju had to think for a moment. “You know that Daen woman is their Judge, right?”
They shook their heads.
“She kills people who do her wrong. It isn’t a joke with her. If this gets messed up, I assure you she will…do some harm.” Piju couldn’t bring himself to threaten the woman, even an honest threat.
“Bolg,” a woman addressed him, as close to calling him by a name as they had gotten today. “I will take Ellise to my house and keep her there. This goodwife,” she pointed at
her friend, “will guard this door with her life.” The other woman agreed.
“Will you find our boys?”
Piju had planned this, expected it, but still he wanted to say no. These insulting women deserved…much less than having their children killed by an evil ghost. No one deserved to be killed by that monster. These women might think he was less than a person, but they weren’t less than people because of it.
“I’ll bring them home,” he said.
Ellise was escorted firmly away, and Piju took stock of the front porch. He carried an oil lamp and a touch coal this time, since he didn’t want to go running around the woods in the dark again. He opened the coal box for a moment and blew against the coal. It glowed red, so he shut the box.
“Where are you, boys?” he said quietly. “Should I bother checking the fort?” Whatever he chose, it was a dark night, and he had very little time. He snuffed the oil lamp and tucked it into his bag on top of the coal box. The fear crowded in on him. Death stalked in those woods.
Piju ran.
The trip through the woods took much longer for the four of them than it had for Piju. They tramped through what seemed like endless fields, crossed the stream twice, and then lost the trail in the forest. Blue wasn’t on the wrong trail, but it was hard to imagine that Piju could wrestle through those thorn bushes. When they reached the bog mound, Keynan, who was in the lead, wasn’t sure they had the right place.
Blue wouldn’t pass. She hunkered at the edge of the clearing, growling, with her tail tucked. Keynan whispered, “Ni chose,” but she just lay down, tucking her nose under her paw. Keynan was struck by fear like a gust of wind. It was an unfamiliar sensation to him, and it dried his throat. He swallowed.
“We’re here,” he said.
Brea felt the evil of the cairn from the edge of the wood. She reached out her right hand, and Oren slapped Answerer’s sheath into it.
“Blessed Mother,” Brea prayed, “will you take this evil from the land of Pywer?” The hilt warmed gently in her hand, and the sheath fell to the ground.
“I think I shall go kill this thing,” she said and smiled as only a Daen can smile when facing death.
She marched up the mound, her sword trailing in the rushes at her side. Seth followed her out onto the mound carrying two torches, fully lit. As she reached the top of the mound, he ran past her to a flat spot a couple of paces from one side of the pile of white stones. Seth set the end of the torch into the ground and stepped on the notch he had carved into its side. The torch sank a handspan into the peat, and stood upright.
Brea moved near the torch as Seth circled the burial mound. He drove in a second torch, and Oren drove in his. Seth lit the final torch, and set it into the ground. Keynan drew his sword and moved up against Brea’s back. They stood together before the waist-high pile of stones, waiting. The peat shifted under their feet, soft and uncertain, poor ground for fighting.
“This is clearly a burial, clearly fresh, and it doesn’t appear to be consecrated to any god,” Brea said, then after a thought. “Where in Mother’s name is Waylaid?”
Waylaid had entered the clearing a little behind the others, letting the others pass away from him. Deep in the shadow of the trees, he poured a circle of the white powder on the ground and sat within it. Carefully pulling the doll from beneath the turtle shell he chanted over it in the ancient tongue.
“Your name is Ella, you have a dolly. You are a lovely young Ruad girl.” She seemed to move in his hands, trying to sit up. Hopefully, every detail was ready.
Piju ran in the darkness, cursing the fact that he had no count of the steps. He was traveling as due west as the stars would lead him, but he saw no sign of the stream at which he had turned left. He was easily hundreds of paces too far. He turned, looking in all directions and saw the top of the bog mound, just rising up to the level of the tree tops. It would be invisible but for the four brands circling it, which gave a strange halo to the trees blocking his view.
Piju dove into the woods. He was far off his original trail, but it was a forest at night; if any human could walk it, he could. He skirted one tree and saw the small glimmer of an oil lamp to his left. It was one like Brea used, with the long snout. It burned smoothly when you weren’t walking, and this flame was smooth and tall.
He moved toward it, avoiding the thorn bush that snagged after his kilt. He could see the boys beside the flame, examining something on the trail. Piju couldn’t see what they were doing and was trying not to make any noise. They had been following the Judge and her people. Luckily the boys weren’t making any noise either; it wasn’t safe to sneak up on a Daen.
They had stopped for some reason. Perhaps they had lost sight of the torches ahead of them. Piju looked, but couldn’t see them either. They stood looking at the ground. Perhaps they thought to find the Daen’s footprints in the dirt. Piju got to the trail in front of them and relaxed. At least the boys were safe; he could get them back to their mothers before anything bad happened.
Brea stalked around the circle of light, but there was nothing there.
“Waylaid, where is your cursed headless ghost?” she shouted. Waylaid didn’t answer, and she wondered if something had already happened to him.
Oren walked slowly around the cairn, examining each stone without touching it. The darkness outside the torches seemed to be watching them. The hair on his neck rose and he shivered. It was coming for them. He wouldn’t show fear in front of Mistress Brea, but he palmed a knife and wished its hilt gave him the comfort Answerer gave his mistress.
“There are symbols here, at the end. Any idea what they mean?” he asked.
“The sorcerers can trap spirits with names,” Brea said. She remembered the ice monsters rising out of the snow. “I hope the sorcerer built a golem. Answerer is buring a hole in my palm and I want to dig her blade into something.” The Blessed Mother was strong in her tonight; any reasonable fear was buried under a mountain of righteous anger.
Blue howled and the sound was taken up by Grins and Ugly. Deep mournful howls which could have come from the belly of a wolf echoed across the valley.
Piju watched the boys as they stepped around the bones of the skeleton, and he realized that they had found the same skull he had found, though they didn’t know the cause as he did.
“This is Dommy’s knife,” Tal said.
“Tides, do you think this is Dommy?”
The dogs howled, and the boys realized that they were out in the woods with no protection. They feared an attack from wolves, which did not hunt anywhere near here, but they were toying with far worse danger than that.
Suddenly, it was too late. There was no form between Piju and the lamp, but suddenly the shadow of a man stretched out between the two boys. The shadow showed something invisible, standing with its heels on either side of the skull of the small boy. The shadow wasn’t stretched out from the light, but lay upon the ground as a man no taller than Piju.
“Shadow Man, Shadow Man!” They ran into the night. The shadow stepped across the few feet of lamp-lit ground, and vanished into the dark.
Without thinking, Piju jumped into the clearing, scooped up the oil lamp and flung it in the direction the shadow had walked. It sailed, guttering, across the clearing and struck a tree. The lamp shattered into a dozen pieces, splashing oil across the trunk, and caught fire. Piju stared at the ground, looking for a trace, and saw it. The shadow turned back from its walk and faced him.
“I’m just standing here this time, and I still bet you can’t take me,” he said. The shadow on the ground turned toward him.
Piju, he told himself, that was memorably stupid.
The shadow began walking toward him and he froze. Thoughts scattered before the fear of sudden death, but he feared for the boys as much as for his own life, and he moved. Maybe I can hurt the creature, or at least keep it busy long enough for the boys to get home. His hand slid into his pouch and found the coal carrier and the spare lamp. He snapped the carrier open with h
is thumb and blew the coal alight. He touched it to the lamp’s wick and it lit. He dropped the coal back into his pouch as he backed around the clearing, away from the advancing shadow. Covering it with his palm, he drew his stone knife.
“Spirits who were Men, I call you. I ask for your protection.” The urge to look up at the beautiful stars was nigh overwhelming. It laughed at him.
I was a man once too. No different than you.
Piju poured a dollop of the lamp oil on a thorn bush on the side the clearing and touched the wick to it. It sprang alight, fire crackling in its leaves. Piju quickly stepped around it, keeping the fire between the shadow and himself. He cupped his small black blade in his left hand, pressing till he felt the blood trickling through his fingers.
The shadow passed within the bracken. Piju raised his cut palm and dribbled blood onto the fire, calling on the Burning Man. Got you.
“Spirit of Fire, attend me. Protect me from the Shadows.”
The bush flared up, outlining the Shadow Man in fire. Piju felt the strength drain from his limbs and he fell behind the bush. His skin was on fire and the power of his limbs was burning up. He gasped for breath. The fire went out.
The Shadow Man laughed.
Oren lifted one of the headstones, focusing on study to keep the fear at bay. “This is marked with those Fomor characters. Khe Bat?” he guessed.
“Is there a…” Brea tried to build a word, “...Siqu Khe Bat Nest would be headless.”
“Siqu is the one that looks like an O with a line through it?” he asked, lifting a second stone.
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