Trent shrugged. “Nice and flat, out of the way, not likely to get us into trouble with anyone. And there’s a village not too far up the road where we can buy provisions. We’ve camped worse places.” He paused. “Not much traffic on this part of the road. I saw a single rider earlier today, nothing since then.”
Northeastern Margolan was not as thickly populated as the southern half of the kingdom. The ground was rockier, the grazing lands sparser, and the weather colder. Since they had left the Midlands, towns and villages had been smaller and farther between. Farms looked poorer here, and even the taverns and inns they passed along the road seemed down on their luck.
Maybe Jonmarc shouldn’t have been surprised, given all that, when the caravan found a large flat open space dotted by small hills. There was a clear stream nearby for water, a stand of trees for wood, and good pasture for the horses. They had arrived that morning and the camp was still busy setting up. But something about the place made Jonmarc uncomfortable. He felt on edge, as if they were being watched, yet no one else was around. That bothered him too, the isolation of the place. He kept his thoughts to himself, since his opinion of the caravan’s camping spot was of no importance to anyone.
After a morning in the forge, Jonmarc headed toward the cook wagons to bring back lunch. The caravan sprawled out across the grassy meadow. Without the need to put up the big performance tents and the avenue of food vendors and merchant’s stalls, the group pitched camp quickly, gathering their tents and wagons around the central area where the small team of cooks set out their fires and cauldrons.
Jonmarc could smell roasting meat and vegetables. Lunch was likely stew, since it made the most of whatever meat was cheap and whatever vegetables were at hand. Most of the time, the caravan’s cooks served up food that was edible and warm, which was all Jonmarc cared about.
“We shouldn’t be here!” The raspy voice turned heads and brought frowns. “We’re all in danger! This is a bad place. A very bad place.”
Jonmarc turned as Alyzza, one of the caravan’s hedge witches, stalked past with the zeal of a prophet. Her gray hair fell long and tangled, and she was stoop-shouldered, with a lined face and stained clothing. She leaned on a gnarled walking stick, but her step was quick and sure and her eyes flashed with anger. Many in the caravan thought her crazy, and perhaps she was, but Jonmarc had seen her power and knew it to be real.
“Danger!” Alyzza shouted to any who would listen. “We must leave before nightfall. We are not meant to be here. This is a bad, bad place.”
The others turned away, shaking their heads, but Jonmarc paused. “Why is it bad?” he asked.
Alyzza looked at him for a moment as if trying to place him, and then she smiled in recognition and nodded. “You were there,” she said in a wheezy rasp. “The night the monsters came. You saw the dimonn.”
Jonmarc nodded. “I was there. And I saw what you did.”
Alyzza gave a breathy chuckle. “Crumbs. That’s what left of my power now. Just crumbs. I lost my power when I lost my mind.” She tapped her forehead with two broken-nailed fingers. “But not completely,” she said, her eyes alight. “I’ve got enough left to know we should not be here.”
“Why not?” Jonmarc asked, intrigued enough to fish for the answer from her crowded, cluttered mind. When the caravan had been threatened by a hungry spirit that yearned for blood and pain, Alyzza’s power helped defeat the dimonn. He had an inkling of what she could do, and her warning worried him.
“Do you see those hills?” she asked, pointing at the rolling slopes that bounded the valley.
“Yes,” he answered uncertainly.
“Those aren’t hills!” she snapped. “They’re barrows. Cairns. Ancient burying places. Restless spirits dwell inside, and worse things. Much, much worse things,” she replied, her eyes wide. “Don’t you wonder why no one else lives in this pretty meadow? Because they know better, that’s why. They stay away, because this is a place of the dead. And if we don’t leave before sunset, the dead will have their due!”
Karl and one of the other guards ambled up. “Come on, Alyzza. Stop scaring the folks,” Karl said with a friendly grin. The other guard looked at Alyzza warily.
Alyzza tossed her head and stood, one hand grasping her walking stick, and the other hand on her hip. “If you were doing your job to guard these people, you’d insist Linton move the camp right now!” she said defiantly.
Karl’s grin slipped just a bit. “Look, Alyzza, you’ve made your case to Linton and you’ve already given the rest of the caravan your opinion. We’ll have the usual night watch plus our vayash moru guards. There’s not going to be trouble, way out here.”
Alyzza’s eyes blazed. “Not from the living. But can you protect these people from the barrow wights?”
The second guard guffawed. “Them’s just tales told to keep children in at night,” he countered. “You don’t believe them, do you?”
Alyzza’s glare stopped his laughter. “I don’t have to believe in them,” she said, jabbing her walking stick against his chest for emphasis. “I’ve seen what they can do. And mark my words—someone will die if we don’t leave here by nightfall.”
“That’s enough,” Karl said, all humor gone from his face. “Come along. You’re causing a scene.”
“I meant to cause a scene!” Alyzza shrieked. “We need to leave this place!”
Karl moved toward Alyzza as if he meant to take her by the shoulder. Alyzza raised one gnarled hand, and Karl stumbled backwards as if thrown. She gestured toward the second guard, and he fell flat on his ass in the dirt. Jonmarc saw the anger on the guards’ faces, and stepped up before either man got back on his feet.
“Come on, Alyzza,” he said in the voice that had always won over his mother in an argument. “I’ll walk you back to your tent, and I promise to take your warning to Trent. You know he and Corbin have Maynard’s ear.”
“Thank you, young man,” Alyzza said, accepting his offer to take her arm. With a warning look at Karl and the guard to stay back, Jonmarc escorted Alyzza around the thickest part of the crowd, back to the tattered tent she called home.
A ring of salt circled the tent. Bunches of feathers and the bones of small animals tufted the ridge of the tent. A weathered post with a bleached rabbit skull guarded the entrance, festooned with garlands of dried herbs and seed pods and stone disks etched with runes. He stopped outside the salt circle.
Alyzza turned to look at him, and her eyes were clear of madness. She took hold of his arm with her bony hand. “The barrow wights lie,” she hissed. “They show faces that aren’t their own. Shake off the lie, and free the others.”
Her eyes clouded again and she turned abruptly, making her way carefully over the salt boundary and back into the tent. Jonmarc stared after her for a moment, then turned, remembering that he had not yet retrieved the lunches for which he had been sent.
He walked back to the cook circle, deep in thought. He’d had some experience with old graves and the ghosts that haunted them, and it had cost him everything he loved. He had heard stories of barrow wights, evil spirits that haunted the dead places, showing themselves to lure the unsuspecting to their deaths. Most people believed in the stories enough to steer clear of known barrows, but laughed about the legends in the light of day.
“Jonmarc! You’re late for lunch. Better get there before Dugan eats it all!” Kegan, one of the apprentice healers, called out to Jonmarc as he approached the cook fires. Dugan was a junior rigger, and both young men were close to Jonmarc’s age.
“You look like you’ve been in a fight,” Jonmarc said, taking in Dugan’s appearance. He had a black eye and scratches on one cheek.
Dugan grimaced. “It’s one of those days,” he said. “I swear, just because we aren’t setting up for a show, people are letting their tempers get the best of them. I helped Corbin break up a fight between two men over a bet gone bad, then one of the horses Corbin was shoeing broke loose and damn near trampled one of the handlers. T
ook five of us to get the horse back under control.”
Kegan swallowed his bite of food and nodded. “Aye, it’s the same thing over in the healers’ tents. We’ve patched up the oddest assortment of stupid injuries just since the caravan pitched tent. One fellow smashed his foot with a sledge hammer putting up his tent, and other almost lost a finger chopping wood. One of the other woodcutters brained himself when a tree fell badly, and we’ve treated about a dozen bites—horses, dogs, even the goats.”
“Folks are tired,” Dugan said, grabbing another piece of bread from the hearth before the cook swatted his hand. “We’ve done twenty shows in as many days, with no time off. Makes people testy—animals, too.”
“Tell him about the rider we saw,” Kegan prompted.
Dugan rolled his eyes. “You’ve got too much imagination.”
“Do not!” Kegan replied. Since Dugan wouldn’t oblige him, Kegan took up the tale himself. “I saw a lone rider on a strong horse ride by—the only traveler on the road past us all day, mind you.” He dropped his voice. “I think he was a highwayman. All in dark clothes, with a studded leather cuirass and a baldric, and a wicked-looking sword. He didn’t look like he was from around these parts.”
“Probably a soldier,” Dugan said with a wry expression.
Kegan drew himself up. “I know what King Bricen’s soldiers look like and they don’t look like him.”
“One of the local noble’s men then,” Jonmarc suggested.
Kegan looked unconvinced. “So you say now. But if there’s trouble, mind my words! I tried to warn you.”
Dugan gave him a friendly slug in the shoulder. “Enough of that! Folks are tired and grouchy without talk of brigands. Keep your tales to yourself, and we won’t have any trouble.”
Jonmarc wasn’t so sure about that, but he said nothing. He waited for the cook to ladle stew into the two tin bowls and hand him several of the thin hearth cakes to go with them. “I’d better get back to the forge or Trent will have an earful for me,” he said, and then paused. “Be careful tonight.”
Dugan and Kegan grinned. “You know us. We’re always careful!”
“No, I mean it. Old Alyzza says there are ghosts in those hills.”
Dugan and Kegan had seen Alyzza’s power as well, and they sobered quickly. “You sure?” Dugan asked.
“Does Linton know?” Kegan glanced around, as if he might see spirits rising from the barrows in the light of day.
“Yes to both,” Jonmarc said, dropping his voice. “Maybe there’s nothing to it. Half the time, I think she’s crazy,” he added. “But the other half—”
They nodded. “Aye, we’ll keep an eye out,” Kegan said.
Satisfied that he had done all he could, Jonmarc hiked back to the forge with the lunches. Trent glanced up when he walked in.
“Did they move the cook fires to Principality?” he asked, looking askance at Jonmarc.
“It’s a little crazy out there,” Jonmarc said, holding out the tin bowl of stew as a peace offering.
He and Trent walked away from the forge’s smoke to stand outside, looking out over the camp. “Have you heard about anything unusual going on?” he asked.
Trent frowned. “Unusual, how?”
Jonmarc shrugged. “Just… not right.” He paused and took a few bites of his stew, tearing off some of the chewy hearth cake to go with it.
Trent looked at him oddly, then nodded. “Aye. Corbin stopped by to see if I could spare you for a couple of candlemarks to help with the horse shoeing. Seems all the horses are a mite skittish today,” he said.
“Dugan said as much,” Jonmarc replied. “Had a black eye to show for it, when one of the horses got loose.”
Trent nodded. “Linton wandered in, complaining more than usual. Said it felt like a full moon, with the way people are acting. Didn’t go into details, but I figured tempers were shorter than usual.”
Jonmarc hesitated, then worked up the courage to ask his question. “Do you think it’s true? That those are barrows, not hills?”
Trent glanced at him sharply. “Who said that?”
Jonmarc recounted his run-in with Alyzza and her dire predictions. Trent said nothing as he finished his stew, then set the bowl aside and rocked back and forth on his heels as if debating how to answer.
“Hard to tell, just by looking at them,” Trent said finally. “If they’re barrows and cairns, they’re very old.” He shrugged. “Thing is, down through the ages, lots of people have died and been buried. Probably bodies under our feet no matter where we go. They don’t all get up and walk.”
True enough, Jonmarc thought. Then again, he’d heard the warnings about barrows ever since he was a young boy. No doubt, in part, they warned children not to wander off. But his own experiences made him believe that at least sometimes, there was more to it.
“Do you think they’re real? The ghosts, I mean,” Jonmarc asked, finishing the last of his stew.
Trent shrugged. “What do I know about such things? I’m just a blacksmith.” He poured some water from the bucket to rinse out his empty bowl, and Jonmarc did the same, then he handed the nearly empty bucket to Jonmarc.
“What I do know is that iron won’t bend itself,” he said. “And that we need more water from the creek. Let’s go. Work to be done. Time’s a-wastin’.”
“TURN OUT! TURN out!” The crier ran through the caravan camp, banging on a tin pot with a spoon. The sound of eight bells had just rung from the village down the road, and the supper fires were banked for the night.
In minutes, the entire caravan crew had gathered, leaving their tents, wagons, and campfires. Linton rarely sounded the general alarm, so people came with weapons and buckets, expecting either attack or fire.
“Listen up!” Maynard Linton shouted. He was a stout, sturdily built man in his early thirties, the indefatigable impresario behind the most successful traveling caravan in Margolan. Linton had no qualms about bending the law when it suited him, but he was uncompromising in his protection of his nomadic crew of performers. “We’ve got a missing child.”
Jonmarc, Kegan, and Dugan had been playing cards and drinking ale around one of the large campfires. They shouldered up to the crowd, listening intently.
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find her,” Linton yelled, his voice carrying clearly on the cool night air. “But the meadow’s pretty big. And of course, there’re the trees, we need to look there as well.”
“Who’re we looking for?” one of the men in the back asked. “Kettie, the tinker’s daughter,” Linton replied. “She’s four-years old, dark hair, wearing a pink dress.” He paused. “Everyone grab a torch or a lantern, and let’s get going. It’s chilly out tonight.”
Heading into late summer, the caravan’s crew numbered around seventy-five people, although that changed frequently as performers joined up or went on to other things. One group of men went to search the stand of trees, while two more groups headed down the road in both directions, calling for Kettie. That left a large party to search the meadow, lining up in long rows to make sure no bit of grass or gully was missed.
“Did you see that?” Kegan whispered.
“See what?” Jonmarc asked.
“The bright balls, in the sky,” Kegan said, pointing. Jonmarc was about to make a snide remark about stars when he saw what Kegan was talking about. Scattered around the meadow, pulsing orbs of blue-white light flew and floated, streaking high into the sky and then dropping to just above the tall grass, bobbing and weaving.
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to know,” Jonmarc replied, remembering Alyzza’s warning. “Best to stay out of their way.”
Jonmarc looked out over the meadow. While the group made its way in a fairly orderly fashion across the flat land, searchers were avoiding the hills. Now that it was dark, they seemed to be wreathed in shadows that were darker than elsewhere.
“What’s that noise?” Dugan asked.
Jonmarc frowned. “What?” Then he heard it, a low moan
that seemed to rise from everywhere and nowhere. “Just an owl,” he replied. But the moan came again, too human to be a bird.
“That’s not an owl,” Dugan said, eyes widening. “Maybe Alyzza was right.”
“None of that,” Jonmarc snapped, though his own nerves were on edge. “Keep a watch out for the girl.”
The farther into the meadow they walked, the darker the night seemed, despite their torches. Where the caravan was camped, the barrows formed a line on either side of the clearing, leaving a large flat space in the middle. But as they got deeper into the meadow, the land under their feet rose and fell in shallow hills, making Jonmarc wonder if the entire area had been a burial ground, and the low undulations were old barrows time had worn away.
The meadow was broad, and by the time the search party reached the center, Jonmarc noticed that their lines had broken down, and searchers were wandering freely without any organization. The night seemed too quiet, and when Jonmarc concentrated, he heard none of the usual night noises of owls, crickets, and the distant howl of wolves. The silence was eerie and unnatural, as if someone had lowered a clear dome over the area, cutting it off from the rest of the world while allowing the stars to shine through.
The stars. Jonmarc had looked up at the night sky at the beginning of the search, confirming the time from the bell tower with the position of the constellations. Yet now, looking into the black canopy, the stars were wrong. Jonmarc shook his head and blinked, sure he was just tired, but when he looked once more, the constellations were not as they should be.
“Kegan! Dugan!” Jonmarc shouted to his friends, who were each a stone’s throw away from him, but they did not turn, or even flinch as if they had heard.
The orbs glowed brighter as the stars receded. The moon was bright, and the meadow should have been awash in moonlight as well as the glow of the torches carried by the searchers. And yet, shadows pooled around the barrows, so dark that the torchlight did not dispel them.
A chill ran down Jonmarc’s back. The night had grown unseasonably cold. It had been a cool late summer evening when they had set out for the search. Jonmarc’s breath misted in the air. He shivered, but not from the cold. The longer they stayed in the meadow, the more certain he grew that Alyzza’s warning was correct.
The Shadowed Path Page 24