High Druid's Blade

ELEVEN

THEY SLEPT THAT NIGHT ON MATTRESSES FILLED WITH STRAW in an unheated upper–level room in the stables that had likely once been part of the hayloft. They were given blankets, which was a good thing since it was chilly at night in Eusta, even as far south as it was, and the wind blew constantly. The cold didn’t bother Paxon nearly so much as the wind’s constant moan–a sound that sent shivers up his spine and suggested the presence of creatures he would rather not encounter.

When he rose the next morning, Starks was already up along with the sun, wrapped in his black robes and standing at the doors of the loft looking down on the shabby business district below. A few men and women were out on the street–there was only one–making their various ways from door to door, going about their personal business. There was nothing about their behavior to indicate that something was out there waiting to kill them off.

Paxon walked over to stand beside Starks. For a few moments, he didn’t say anything, merely stood with him observing the town. “Did you mean what you said to Struen yesterday?” he asked finally. “Do we really have some idea of what’s going on or who is responsible?”

Starks nodded. “We do. Or at least I do.”

“Do you intend to share this information with me?”

“Of course.”

Paxon waited a beat. “When, exactly?”

Starks looked at him. “Don’t be so impatient.”

“I’m just wondering if we are to spend today like yesterday, asking questions about the villagers and its outliers, rather than using magic. Can’t you just track this thing we’re hunting with your Druid skills?”

“Unless it uses magic, I have no way to track it. Its magic, Paxon, is of a different form. It’s not a talisman, not a substantive thing separate from the user. It is a part of the user. Why, I don’t yet know. Whatever it is, it has infected someone so completely that they change from human to animal in seconds. I don’t think they can control it. I think it just happens, and maybe they aren’t even aware of it.”

“Is that possible?” Paxon felt doubtful. “How could you not be aware of something like that?”

“Mostly, you are in denial because it is too horrible to accept. You just don’t let yourself think about it.”

“So these killings aren’t planned?”

“In the middle of a dinner at someone’s home? As a young man prepares to leave his girl? Why bother to consume half a dinner and then attack? Why not wait until the young man is farther off?”

“But you have some sort of idea of how to go about finding the creature?”

“At the farm yesterday, there were wagon tracks, but no wagon.” Starks was looking directly at him now. “I was able to sniff out traces of ground wheat. I found particles of milled grain.”

“The miller’s place.”

Starks nodded. “A starting point, at least. We’ll go there after we’ve gotten something to eat.”

The breakfast options were not an improvement over the sleeping accommodations. There were no eating establishments in the town, so they were forced to eat what Joffre Struen was able to supply them, which consisted of a thick slice of dense wheat bread and a glass of warm ale with which to wash it down. It was less than satisfying, but it was probably the best that the stableman could manage, so neither Starks nor Paxon even thought about complaining.

When they were finished eating, they borrowed the horses once again, got directions to the mill, and set out. This time they rode east, traveling first on the main road and then turning off onto a rutted trail a quarter mile farther up. The trail ran parallel to a river that meandered its way into foothills that continued on toward distant mountains. There were no other people on the road, and only twice did they see any buildings–once, a shed nearly hidden from sight within a grove of fir, and later on a cabin that showed little upkeep and no indication of life.

Paxon kept searching the landscape they passed through, thinking to spy out a meaningful sign. But all he saw were glimpses of swift birds and squirrels in the trees and stationary cows in the pastures.

At the end of the road, the mill sat flush against the river, its great waterwheel turning slowly with the current, the grindstone groaning like a great beast from inside the building that housed it. They rode to within a dozen yards of the mill before spying the cottage behind it. They dismounted there, leaving their horses and walking up to the mill.

Within the near darkness, a shadow moved and the miller emerged.

“Well met, sirs,” he said cheerfully, coming up to them and shaking their hands. “I thought you might be coming out this way eventually. I’m Crombie Joh.”

He was a big, burly man with a shock of black hair, his shoulders massive, his hands callused and hard. He had lively eyes that shifted back and forth between his visitors, but never left their faces. His grin was open and welcoming.

Starks gave his name and Paxon’s. “Is it true your daughter was here when it happened?”

The man sighed. “Iantha. Yes. The boy was more than a casual friend, I think. She doesn’t like to talk about it. He had come while I was away. He was just leaving, and she had gone back inside. She heard the screams, ran to the door, and saw him pinned to the ground with something ripping at him. She knew right away what it was. She’d heard about the others. So she ran back inside and hid in the cellar until it was done.”

“There was nothing she could do,” Starks offered. Paxon wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question or even how it was intended.

“Nothing. Nothing anyone can do about a thing like that. Have you any ideas about this?”

“One or two.”

“The townspeople don’t trust the Druids. Don’t like them, in fact. If it weren’t for Joffre Struen, you wouldn’t be here at all. I think it’s a good thing you are.”

“Were you out at the Carbenae place the other day?” Starks asked him, smiling.

The miller nodded. “Took them a load of feed. Midafternoon or maybe a little later when I got there. Didn’t stay long. Left to get back in time for dinner. I was worried about Iantha, too. Don’t like leaving her alone anymore since …” He trailed off with a shrug.

From the shadows behind him, a girl suddenly emerged. She was younger than Paxon by a few years, slender and pretty, her hair a soft dark brown, her eyes quick like her father’s. She came forward a few steps and stopped, as if waiting for permission to approach.

“Iantha, come here,” her father urged, holding out his hand.

She crossed the room, her eyes fixed on them, tentative in a way Paxon found endearing, but also troubling. She reached them and stopped.

“These are Druids, Iantha,” her father told her. “Would you please tell them briefly what you saw that day? Just what you can manage, girl.”

In a halting voice, Iantha related the events immediately leading up to the departure of the young man and his subsequent killing. She could not describe the creature or offer much in the way of details about the killing. She had gone into hiding at once, terrified of what might happen to her.

Indeed, she looked appropriately terrified even now, talking about it. She looked at the ground while she told her tale and kept her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

When she was done, Starks asked if she could show them where everything took place. She nodded without speaking and led them outside the mill and up to the yard fronting the cottage. She pointed out where her young man had mounted his horse and started to ride away. She showed them where she was standing on the cottage porch before she turned to go back inside. She walked them over to where the killing had occurred, although she would not go close to the stained, rutted earth.

Starks went over and knelt next to the killing ground, searching it carefully. The miller joined him, offering bits and pieces of information.

Iantha moved over beside Paxon and stood looking at him. “You seem nice,” she said after a minute.

Paxon met her intense gaze. “I should be saying that about you, Iantha.”

“Will you be my friend?”

He hesitated, confused by this. “Of course. But you must have lots of friends.”

“My father doesn’t want me to have friends.”

He glanced over at the miller, who was suddenly looking right at him. “Why would that be?”

“He is afraid for me.” Her voice was small, almost a whisper. “He thinks–”

“Iantha!” her father called out sharply. “Let the man be. He has work he needs to do.”

Iantha moved away, head lowered. Paxon forced himself to smile at the miller. “She was just asking me about the Druids,” he said.

The miller turned away, his attention on Starks once more. The Druid had risen and was looking around. Paxon glanced once more at Iantha, then walked over to join him.

“We should move along,” he said to Starks–a completely inappropriate remark to a superior from a subordinate, but the miller wouldn’t know this, and he wanted to get Starks alone.

The Druid nodded. “We might want to speak with you again later,” he told the miller, extending his hand. “Thank you for your help. And for yours, as well, Iantha,” he added.

They left the miller and his daughter standing in the yard of their cottage, walked back down to where they had left their horses, and mounted them. Starks took a last look around, saying as he did so, “Did you learn something you want to share?”

As they rode back down the trail, Paxon told him of his brief conversation with the girl. “She seems frightened. I don’t know what’s troubling her, but something is.”

“We might infer that it has something to do with her father’s story about visiting the Carbenaes to deliver grain and then leaving just before they were killed. Yet there was a third place setting at the table. It doesn’t feel like we are being told everything, does it?”

“I would like to get Iantha alone for a few minutes,” Paxon said a moment later. “She might say more when her father isn’t around.”

Starks nodded, urging his horse ahead. “Let’s see what we can do.”

They spent the remainder of the day visiting the sites of the other killings and speaking with the few people who had actually seen the creature responsible. All described it as wolfish and walking upright. No one had gotten a close, clear look at its face. All of the sightings had been at night and in shadows. One man said he had witnessed the creature ambush a rider who had passed him on the road while he was walking the other way. He said that when the creature was done with its victim, it had loped back into the trees, changing into something less animal and more human even as it did so.

They went back into the village to continue their search for further information, but everything had pretty much dried up. Even Joffre Struen, though trying to be helpful, could not think of anything to add that would help their efforts.

“What do you think causes the beast to change?” Paxon asked Starks as they sat in one of the two taverns the town had to offer, drinking from tankards of ale and mulling things over. “You said you believed it was spontaneous. But wouldn’t something have to happen to trigger a reaction that severe?”

“You would think so,” Starks agreed. His black robes were rumpled and sweat–stained, and his face was streaked with dust. “But I don’t know what it is yet.”

Paxon knew he was as grimy as the Druid, and he wanted to take a bath before eating anything–assuming they could find food somewhere. But mostly he wanted to know more about the girl, Iantha.

“Do you think we could go back there tonight?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

“The miller’s?” Starks shrugged. “I suppose. It will be dark, though. Are you hoping to catch the creature in mid–change?”

Paxon shook his head no. “I just want to talk to the girl again. I’m worried about her.”

“She does seem a bit frail. She said he is afraid for her? Why would that be?”

“That’s one of my questions.” Paxon leaned back in his chair. “Do you think you can decoy him away for a few minutes when we go back?”

They talked about how to do so, already decided that waiting around until tomorrow was a waste of time and that going tonight made better sense. There was no guarantee the creature killing the villagers would delay doing so again, so the quicker they got to the bottom of this, the better.

“I still don’t understand the nature of the magic involved,” Paxon said a bit later. “If it isn’t a talisman, how are we supposed to recover it? Killing the creature won’t give it to us, will it?”

Starks shrugged. “I don’t know. The Ard Rhys made it plain enough that the killings were to be stopped, no matter what. I have accepted those marching orders and put aside any consideration of recovering magic until afterward. There are all kinds of magic, Paxon. This is a new one, although I would guess that somewhere in the Druid Histories there is a record of one similar. Magic doesn’t live in a vacuum; it always has a traceable source.”

They finished their ale and then thought to ask the tavern owner if they could get dinner. He said that the answer was usually no but his wife was making a roast and for a reasonable price they might share it. Both Starks and Paxon were quick to agree, even though the price asked was considerably more than a meal would normally cost.

So they remained at the tavern through dinner, and then set out for the miller’s place. They rode through the twilight toward the purple–and–gray foothills, turned off on the trail that paralleled the river, and arrived just before nightfall at the mill. The air was cool and windless, and the night birds were still. In the darkness before them, bats flew in sudden bursts from the trees and eaves of the house.

Just before they started to dismount, Paxon turned to Starks. “Do you think there is a possibility Crombie Joh might be this creature?”

Starks gave him a careful look. “I think anyone and everyone might be this creature. Remember that.”

They walked up to the veranda, and Joh appeared in the doorway before they reached it. “Kind of late for a visit, isn’t it?” he asked.

“We’re trying to make the best use of our time,” Starks said vaguely, greeting him with a handshake. “A few more things came to mind. I thought we could walk down to the mill to talk about them. Paxon can stay here with your daughter, just to be sure she’s kept safe and sound while you’re gone.”

The miller frowned. “She could go with us. She should, I think.”

“It might be best if she stays behind. What I have to tell you is not fit for young ears. It will remind her of the very things you’ve already said she needs to forget.”

“Did I say that? Well, I suppose I did.” He looked discomfited. “All right. If this doesn’t take too long.”

“I’ll wait here on the porch,” Paxon announced, already moving over to seat himself. “Unless you think she needs me to come in.”

“No, no, you’re fine where you are.” The big man hesitated, then started walking. “Just for a few minutes, though.”

Paxon sat alone in the darkness, conscious of the weight of his sword where it pressed against his back, a comforting presence. His eyes were sufficiently adjusted to the darkness by now that he could see almost everything clearly in the mix of light from the quarter moon and stars. He could hear the steady rippling of the river as it flowed past the cottage some thirty feet away, its movement casting a silvery sheen in the moonlight.

Not a minute had passed before Iantha came through the door and sat down beside him.

“You came back,” she said. Her eyes were huge in the darkness, her fine dark hair like a veil where it spilled over her face.

“I was worried about you. I didn’t like what you had to say about your father. Why wouldn’t he want you to have friends?”

“He’s just trying to protect me. But I suppose it could be something else.”

He waited, but she didn’t say anything more. “Are you afraid of him?”

She stared at him. “What an odd question. No, I’m not afraid of him. He’s my father. I’m just worried about him.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “He takes too many chances. He’s brave, and he’s strong, so he thinks nothing can hurt him.”

“Like the creature that’s doing these killings?”

She hesitated. “Maybe. Maybe something else.”

She looked over at him and then without warning kissed him on the mouth, her hands gripping his arms to hold him to her. When she released him, there was a smile on her lips. “Did you like it?”

He smiled back. “Of course. But why kiss me?”

“Because. I told you already. You are nice. I like you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“You don’t kiss people because you know them. You kiss them because you want to.”

He wasn’t sure that was so for most people, but maybe it was for her. They sat together in silence for a few moments, and then he said, “Why do you think your friend was killed by the creature?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe he did something to make it angry. Maybe he did something he shouldn’t have.”

“What about the other people? Did they all do something to make it angry?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m only guessing.” She looked at him again. “Do you think it killed them for no reason?”

“I don’t know why it kills. Maybe it was random. Maybe it just kills because it likes killing.”

“That would make it difficult to find, wouldn’t it?” she asked. “How would you ever find it? Unless you happened to be right there when it tried to kill someone, you never could.”

“Oh, we’ll find it,” he replied.

Starks and her father were coming back from the mill, their dark forms emerging from the darkness. “Do you want me to come back tomorrow?” he asked her suddenly.

She leaned into him. “Yes. Father will be gone for several hours in the early afternoon, making deliveries. We could talk more then.” She hesitated. “I have things I need to tell you.”

She stood suddenly, pulling him up with her. “I like you, Paxon. I like you a lot.”

Then she turned and ran back inside the cabin and did not come out again.