Serona used the embers nearby to burn the dead cattle. Better than to let them rot and foul the air while they camped.
Subjected by the Colossus to a less-than-gentle interrogation, it was surmised beyond a reasonable doubt that the nomad ultimately knew nothing of the attack on the hamlet. There was enough confusion in his barked sobs to rule out his association with any of the known elven warbands that had been spotted in the area. Like his fellow Eretol tribesmen, Tuyev was a simpleminded child of the land, picking the bones of the dead like an opportunistic buzzard.
His “questioning”, to put it politely, was carried out while the other three knights assembled their camp in the heart of the ruined village. One final breath of life for a lonely settlement at the edge of Areta, which would ultimately crumble to ash and dust in their wake.
While the horses chewed grain and kept each other company, and the men bathed in firelight, Serona warded himself against disquiet with thoughts of his family back in Marion Bay. It was better than wondering too deeply about what might have happened to the people who once lived in these blackened buildings. And whatever the foolish young King had to do with it.
Serona allowed his lifeless eyes to settle on Kolbe and his writing, finding something meditative about the image. One usually wouldn’t expect a man so scarred to have much to say about anything, much less to put into ink. There was nothing scholarly about him, and so it was surprising whenever he demonstrated that he could still wield a quill as well as a sword.
It was Falkenburg that rattled Serona from his silent trance.
“He’s not valuable to us at all,” the captain replied, turning his ear to the Colossus’ ministrations. “Our friend doesn’t know anything, but leave it to Gerald to be thorough.”
Serona paused when the distant thunder noised again, interrupted his thoughts. He tilted his head, looking up at the darkened sky. Nothing but a field of stars, and not one hazy cloud to be seen. Odd. It wasn’t the season for a storm. Perhaps a bout of dry thunder and lightning was blowing in from the west?
“Of course we’re not going to kill him,” Serona continued, picking up where he left off. “We’re Knights, not murderers.”
Still, perhaps it was wise to remind Gerald of that fact. Amon rose and left to relieve the man of duty, and to ultimately release the nomad. The only thing he was guilty of was looting, and for that, he’d received ample punishment. Tuyev scrambled off, freshly bruised and mumbling curses in his garbled tongue, and the Knights were left to fill their stomachs and share in sparse conversation.
Their time together grew quickly stale without the entertainment they’d enjoyed at previous stops, and while Falkenburg sat on first watch, listening to low, constant thunder, the king’s men found what rest they could under the open sky.
And when the moon was high and bright, the thunder shattered the quiet night.
Mystifying Falkenburg, the thunder had remained relatively quiet but steady for the duration of his watch. But it was
only thunder, without so much as a glimmer of lightning. It was harmless. Almost soothing. But all too suddenly it
roared over them, erupting so sharply that every one of the knights could feel it through their bodies, as if the air itself had cracked a bullwhip in striking distance.
The horses reared and panicked, pulling frantically at their reins and kicking dust into the air. Though the leather pulled and twisted, it did not snap loose or let them free. Whinnied shrieks filled the intervals between new bursts of deafening thunder. Serona was on his feet, having already scrabbled vainly for his sword. His heart tightened into a hard knot in his chest.
Nearby, the charred carcasses of the cattle began to stir and writhe. Their blackened bones shook to life, scraping the earth as, impossibly, they stretched their limbs and wriggled against each other. When the sandy ground beneath them crumbled and began to cave inward, it became clear that they had
not been reanimated. The corpses slipped without resistance into a newly opened crevice.
Another crash of thunder painfully sundered the air, physically shaking the earth. From where the cattle had fallen, a lightning-shaped crack split the ground open faster than the eye could see, cutting the knights’ camp in half, and stopping just short of the horses. A smoky cascade of dust puffed upward from the opening, beginning to cloud the air. For the first time, Serona realized this thunder was, and had always been, coming from
beneath them.
“Get the horses!” The captain had all but screamed his order, but the booming earth swallowed up his voice as it had the cattle. Not waiting for his men to comply, Serona gathered up his helmet and his sword and began to bolt toward the animals.
The crevice then began to rapidly widen. Crumbling inward as if made of ash, the sinkhole expanded until it engulfed the nearby barn and parts of the fence. It grew toward the knights’ camp, threatening to pull everything into its black, hungry maw.
Juna’s movements were noted in the encampment by the disguised king, watching her shadow pass beyond the glowing haze of the fire. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, realizing he had forgotten to listen to what Annara was telling him, though somehow the apologetic sentiment of her message had soaked in. Alan mulled over what she told him, but her bloodied hands and that girl’s blank stare rose in his memory along with it.
“Thank you,” he muttered, transparently insincere. Though he wanted to, he didn’t believe her. All of the Ytharien were well-intentioned but ultimately ruthless.
Aust explained himself in his eloquent, elven fashion, prompting Alan to scratch his forehead vigorously in sudden frustration.
“It’s—it’s just nonsense!” He sighed through gritted teeth. Sitting here in this den of wolves, who were all quite polite in each other’s company, it seemed possible to speak reason into them. It killed him that they were all too willing to resort to bloodshed to send their message. What did their message
matter if the recipients were
dead? “If they won’t leave, then you don’t
have to
kill them! You’re just—just—marauders, at that point.”
“Yes.”
Lothren had materialized just outside the light of the fire, his arquebus slung over his back on a leather strap. Alan bit his tongue as he jumped, then he leaned forward with his mouth covered, humming and then cursing in trivial pain.
“If that is how we must appear to move the humans,” Lothren continued in gentle tones, stepping in to seat himself next to Aust, “then that is the role we must play.”
“So you just—” Alan drew his hand from his mouth, spotting dark color on his fingers. Really? He broke the skin? Damn, it hurt. “So you just kill everyone who stands in your way.”
“Humans find strength in numbers,” Lothren explained. He opened a pouch and produced a few strips of dried meat. One piece was handed to Aust. “If a man stands to defend his home, and we spare him, then others will join his cause and rally the defense of an entire township. If a man stands to defend his home and
falls, then humans will do what they must to survive. Flee.”
Ignoring Alan’s look of horror, Lothren tore off a bite in his teeth.
“We are few,” he added solemnly. “We must be effective.”
“You’re savage,” the disguised king hissed. “You’re underestimating humans. One of these townships will rise up
despite being afraid of us, and then what? They’ll kill all of you.”
“No one joins the Ytharien to live a life of peace.”
***
No one indeed. The Ytharien elves and humans rested, or didn’t, until the first violet streaks of dawn began to rise from the horizon. No longer donning the gay colors and brightly painted masks of mummers and fools, a well-armed warband mounted their horses and stormed toward the same village they had visited the previous afternoon. Where they had sowed delight, now they brought torches and sharpened blades.
Leaving only five behind to guard in their encampment, including Alan and the lonely dwarf (tasked with making sure the lad stayed put), twenty Ytharien brought the promise of destruction with them as they road. Most of them carried burning torches, coated in pitch so that they blazed even in the wind. Though the village slept, the night watch was given plenty of warning before the elves and their cohorts charged into a sleeping village, rousing them with their war cries.
Lothren swung his sword at one of the watchmen, missing widely but startling him off of his feet. His torch was flung into the nearby stable, quickly igniting a bale of hay.
“This land is ours!” he cried in the Aretan tongue, and then again in Viceni. He pulled his horse in a powerful rear, and then charged down the main road. Others joined his charge, lending power to his display. “Leave or be cut down! Ytharien! Burn it all!”
