The Banned And The Banished - Witch Fire Part 10

"Why? Our family has plenty of friends in town."

Joach shoved an arm toward the bridge. "Like the miller and his wife."

Frightened, she tapped Mist's flanks to get her trotting down the deer trail. "Then what are we going to do?"

"Travel the wood. Aunt Fila's place is closer to the north end of town. We'll circle through the trees that way. There will be less of a chance of being spotted."

She remained silent. As much as her heart railed against his words, her mind knew them to be true. For now, only their family could be trusted. Aunt Fila had a level head and a keen mind. She and her threegrown sons would protect them and help straighten all this out.

She kicked Mist to a quicker gait. The sooner they reached Aunt Fila's bakery, the safer they would be.

She watched the smoke trail across the sky from the scorched orchards in the distant foothills. What had happened to her valley, to her people? She remembered her moment of revelation as she stared at the calm meadow by the mill. She had been deluded.

Life was notthe same in her home valley.

It hadtwisted into a cold and foreign place.

Er'ril left his porridge on the bar and nodded his head toward the door. "We'd better strike for the road."

Nee'lahn cowered on a stool beside him. She was obviously still shaken by the rush of men who had crowded around them, trying to force more details of the dreadlord from Er'ril. His a.s.surance that he knew no more than they about the creature, just old stories he had heard on the road, did little to dampen their curiosity. They persisted until finally Er'ril had unsheathed one of his juggling knives and waved away the last of the stragglers from his side.

By now, the talk of the commons had turned to what to do about the demon-sp.a.w.n children. And this was a feeble discussion since most of the men had already left, thumbing their foreheads in superst.i.tion, to protect their own households from the cursed threat.

Only one patron still kept his eyes drilled toward Er'ril. Hunched over a mug of warmed ale, the mountain man did not seem in any rush to leave the inn. His stare made Er'ril edgy.

Er'ril stood up and turned his back on the giant. "We should go," he repeated.

The nyphai did not move. Er'ril reached for Nee'lahn's elbow, but she s.h.i.+ed away.

"Can't you feel it?" he continued. "The air is heavy with threat. The town is like dry tinder, and everyone is scurrying about with lighted torches. We need to leave."

"What about the skal'tum?" she said meekly. "Maybe we'd be safer in town until it's killed."

"It won't be killed."

"Why?"

"The skal'tum are protected by dark magick."

A deep voice grumbled from just behind his shoulder. "What is this dark magick you speak of?" Er'ril jumped at the words, startled that so large a man could move so quietly up on him. Nee'lahn's eyes widened in fright.

He turned to face the mountain man, finding himself craning his neck back. "Excuse me, but our words are private."

"I go to hunt a beast that makes you cower," the big man answered with a coa.r.s.e grumble, his nostrils flared. "If you have honor, you will tell me what I need to know."

Er'ril's cheeks reddened. There was once a time when no one would question his honor. He felt a burn of shame that he had not felt in countless winters.Nee'lahn spoke from her hiding place behind Er'ril's back. "Perhaps he's right. The man deserves to know."

Er'ril clenched his one fist. "It would be best to leave this matter be, mountain man."

The giant drew back to his full height. Er'ril had not appreciated how bowed the man had been when among the townspeople. Behind him, he heard a maid drop a gla.s.s in fright at the sight of his towering bulk. Considered tall himself, Er'ril found himself at eye level with the giant's belly. "I am called Krai a'Darvun, of the Senta flame," he said sternly. "The creature has wounded the fire of my tribe. I cannot return without the head of the beast."

Er'ril knew the fervor in which the mountain folk held honor. Among the treacherous icy pa.s.ses, trust was crucial to survival. Er'ril pressed his fist to his own throat, acknowledging the oath pledge.

Krai mimicked the motion, a slightly startled look to his eyes. "You know of our ways, man of the lowlands."

"I have traveled."

"Then you know my will. Tell me of this dark magick."

Er'ril swallowed, suddenly embarra.s.sed by the lack of information he could extend to this man. "I don't... don't really know. The dark magick's touch came to our land when the Gul'gotha invaded our sh.o.r.es. Scholars of my time believed its pestilence drove Chi away. When Chyric magick faded in the land to isolated whispers, the dark magick grew stronger. I have seen horrors during my travels that would shrivel the bravest man."

Krai's brow crinkled with his words. "You speak of times before my flame ventured from the Northern Waste. How could that be?"

Er'ril balked. He had spoken without thinking. One night of talking freely with Nee'lahn and the years of practiced constraint on his tongue had fallen away.

Nee'lahn spoke behind him. "Before you stands Er'ril of Stand:, called the Wandering Knight by storytellers."

Krai's eyes narrowed in distaste, but an edge of fear crinkled at the corners. "You tell tales when I ask for truth."

"He is not myth," she said. "He is the truth."

Suddenly Krai thrust his hands forward and placed both palms on Er'ril's temples. Er'ril knew what this meant and did not fight the large man. Nee'lahn, though, unacquainted with the custom, gasped.

The innkeeper, who had been sweeping broken gla.s.s across the common room, called to them. "No roughhousing in here! Take your argument to the street!"

Krai kept his hands steady.

Er'ril remained still as he spoke. "I am the one she named. I am Er'ril of the clan Standi."

Krai closed his eyes for a heartbeat. Then his lids whipped open wide. He stumbled a step away, cras.h.i.+ng into a table and overturning it. "You tell the truth!"

The innkeeper, red faced, his jowls shaking, raised his broom. "What did I say? Out before I call thetown guard!"

Krai dropped to a knee. A floorboard cracked to splinters under his impact. "No! It cannot be." His voice boomed across the room. Tears flowed to his beard.

Er'ril was shocked by the man's reaction. He knew the mountain people had the ability to read the truth in another's tongue due to some form of elemental rock magick that throbbed from the roots of their mountain home. But this reaction? Mountain men never shed tears, not even when horribly injured.

"You have come!" Krai's voice was a rumbling moan. He sank to the floor. "Then the Rock speaks the truth. My people must die."

The damp pants were too long, and Elena was forced to roll them up at the ankle. The tail of her green woolen s.h.i.+rt hung to her knees. Joach had stolen the clothes from a shepherd's drying line. As she shoved the locks of her red hair under a hunter's cap, she complained to Joach. "I look ridiculous. Must we really do this?"

They stood hidden under a willow tree, its branches a screen around them. A small brook gurgled past the tree, stirring the branches on one side.

"This'll make it harder to recognize us." She watched Joach scrub his face with his nights.h.i.+rt. Once clean, he pulled into a ragged jacket with yellow patches on the elbows. "They'll be watching for two on horseback. We should leave Mist tied to the willow tree here."

"I don't like leaving her alone," Elena said. "What if some thief comes upon her and steals her?" Elena purposely straightened her purloined s.h.i.+rt and gave Joach an accusing look.

He ignored her glare. "From here, it's only a short walk to Aunt Fila's. We can send Bertol back for her."

Elena pictured Aunt Fila's hulking son. "Bertol could get lost in his own backyard. What if he can't find her?"

"El, the mare will be fine. There's plenty of gra.s.s, and she can reach the water."

"But it's like we're abandoning her."

"We're not. She's safer here than with us."

Her brother was right. Still, she hated breaking up her family. After last night, she found some small security in their closeness. Wearily she patted Mist's flank. "Don't fret; we'll be back soon."

Mist glanced up from where she chewed at the shoots of the scraggly gra.s.s that grew under the willow.

She flicked her tail at Elena for disturbing her.

"See, El; she's fine."

Slightly hurt, Elena tucked her s.h.i.+rt under her belt. "Let's go," she said with a sigh.

Joach pushed through the sweep of willow branches. He held them wide to allow Elena to duck through, then let them brush back into place. Elena glanced over her shoulder. The mare was just a pale shadow in the tree's shade.

She sniffed and followed after Joach, who had stopped by a thin path. The dirt rut ran from the edge of Winterfell to a swimming hole popular among the town children. The pool, its waters now icy cold, layabandoned for the season, so the path was empty of prying eyes.

With the sun close to its highest point, the path was bright after the shadows of the forest. As they approached closer to town, the path widened enough for Elena to walk abreast of her brother. She noted how Joach's eyes darted back and forth and how stiffly his legs moved as he hiked. Her brother's nervousness leaped to her. She found her hands tugging at her s.h.i.+rt and adjusting her cap.

"Look," she said, pointing down the path. "There's the butcher's shack." Ahead, buried under the eaves of the forest's branches, stood the icehouse of the butcher. The limbs of the trees helped keep the sun's warmth from its roof.

Joach only nodded and hurried ahead.

By the time they pa.s.sed the icehouse and reached the end of the path, both were white-faced and sweating thickly. The town of thatched roofs and brick buildings loomed ahead. Chimney smoke drew black lines into the sky, joining with the haze from the orchard fire. The town seemed uncommonly quiet.

Usually bustling with the strident voices of stall merchants and shoppers, the streets ahead were silent except for an occasional shout.

Joach turned to her and offered a sick smile. "Ready? Walk fast, but not too fast."

She nodded. "Hold my hand."

His hand reached for her palm, then froze. "No. We might draw attention. Maybe we should even walk a distance apart."

She found tears coming to her eyes. "Please, Joach. I need you close."

"Okay, El," he said with a relieved rush. It seemed similar emotions warred within him, too. "But we'd still better not hold hands."

She squeezed back her tears and forced her head to nod. Aunt Fila's bakery stood only a handful of blocks from the edge of town. If Elena concentrated, she'd swear she could even smell the baking bread from where she stood. Actually, the whole town of Winterfell greeted her with its familiar smells: the roasting breakfast meats; the hickory wood smoke; the yeasty pungency from the cider mill nearby; even the sweet, loamy smell of horse dung from the unwashed streets and stables. Elena straightened her shoulders. "Okay, I'm ready," she said in a calmer voice.

Joach bit at his lower lip and stepped toward a back street that led into the merchants' quarter. Elena swallowed the hard knot of tears in her throat and followed her brother closely.

The first shop they came to was the butcher's shop. His wares of carved pig, yellow mutton, and headless chickens buzzed with flies. The butcher himself could be seen through the doorway, a b.l.o.o.d.y cleaver in his hand. His coa.r.s.e black hair always reminded Elena of a pig's spiky stubble, especially set against the man's pale skin, s.h.i.+ning with sweat and oil.

Elena found herself cringing. The butcher, loud of voice and smelling of offal, always made her nervous.

He had a way of staring at Elena as if judging the quality of meat on her bones. This being the first shop greeting them upon entering Winterfell, Elena found herself clutching her baggy clothes tighter around her.

A sense of unease crept toward her heart.

She and Joach walked on the far side of the street.

As soon as they pa.s.sed the butcher's shop, a voice spat toward them from a shadowed doorway justahead, startling them. "You there, boys! Hold it right there!"

Both of them froze.

Joach stepped between her and the speaker. A soldier dressed in a red and black uniform, his sword still sheathed, sauntered from the doorway. His dark hair and brown eyes warned that he was not a local conscript but one of the foreigners manning the garrison. His knotted nose spoke of past fights that Elena suspected were not in the line of duty.

"Where you coming from, boys?"

Joach made a subtle motion for Elena to back farther behind him. "We was out checking our traps, sir!"

The soldier's eyes drifted behind them toward the forest. "Didn't happen to see a boy and a girl with a horse, did you?"

"No, sir."

The man's dark eyes settled on Elena. She kept her head pointed to her feet and her stained hand buried deep in her pocket. "How about you, young 'un?"

Elena, afraid her voice would betray her, just shook her head.

"Then be off with you two." He waved them past with a swing of his chin.

Joach slipped past the soldier with Elena on his heels. She risked a glance behind her and saw the soldier, a hand raised to shade his eyes, surveying the forest's edge. He then drifted back to his shaded doorway.

Neither spoke until they had turned a corner. "So they arehunting for us," Joach whispered.

"But why? What did we do?"

"Let's just get to Aunt Fila's."

Though they tried to keep their steps steady, their pace became hurried as they neared the corner beyond which Aunt Fila's bakery stood. Elena nearly had to run to keep up with her brother's frantic steps. Joach swung around the corner first and stopped so short she barreled into his back, pus.h.i.+ng him a step forward. Elena could now see around the corner.

Where Aunt Fila's bakery had once stood, smelling of fruited pastries and sugared cakes, only a smoldering skeleton of scorched posts and blackened beams remained. Elena's first thought was that somehow her magickal fire had leaped from the orchards to strike down her aunt's shop. But the milling crowd that sported torches quickly dismissed this worry.

"She's in league with the demon!" someone yelled from the crowd.

"Mark her forehead with an evil eye!" screamed another.

"Anyone related to those cursed whelps should be banished from town!"

"No! Hung!"

Elena saw her Aunt Fila kneeling before the burned bakery. Her face, covered in smoke, ran black with tears. One of her sons, facedown on the cobblestones, lay in a pool of blood.Elena's vision blurred with tears. Though her fire had not directly burned her aunt's shop, it had still destroyed more of her family. She took a step toward the crowd.

Joach stopped her. "No."