taint on their swords.'
Beau pulled on his boots and stood and stamped his feet into them. 'All the more reason to hurry.' He slipped into his down jacket and snatched up his medical satchel and turned to his friend. 'I'm ready. Let's go.'
Tipperton took up his bow and said, 'Quash the light and leave it behind. The man said that there were more Rucks and such out there.'
Beau's eyes widened, then he nodded and blew out the lantern. In the darkness Tipperton stepped to the door and peered out. 'All clear,' he hissed, and slipped outside and through the shadows and across the clearing and into the woods, this time with Beau on his heels. And beneath the wheeling stars and the waning quarter moon nearing its zenith, two Warrows moved swift and silent among the trees.
'Wait a moment,' hissed Tipperton. 'Something's not right.'
They crouched in the woods and peered across the clearing at the enshadowed mill as moonlight and starlight faded in the predawn skies.
Beau took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, tried to slow his rapidly beating heart. 'What is it? I don't see anything.'
'I left the door closed. Now it's open.'
'Oh, my.'
Still they crouched in the gloom of the trees, and then Beau asked, 'The man, could he have opened the door? Perhaps he left.'
'Perhaps, though I don't think so. He was cut to a fare-thee-well and quite weak.'
They watched long moments more, but saw no movement of any kind. At last Tipperton said, 'If we delay any longer, then the man will most certainly bleed to death. You wait here, Beau. I'll see what's what. If I whistle, come running. If I yell, flee.'
Before Beau could reply, Tipperton glided away, circling 'round to the left.
Time eked by.
The skies lightened.
At last Beau saw a shadow slip across the porch.
Within heartbeats, lantern light shone, and Tipperton reemerged from the mill and whistled low, then stepped back inside.
Beau snatched up his satchel and trotted across the clearing, past the dead horse and the slain Rucks. As he came through the door and into the mill, Tipperton grimaced and gestured toward the man and said, 'I'm afraid there's nothing you can do, Beau. His throat's been cut.'
The man lay in a pool of blood, his dead eyes staring upward, his neck hacked nearly through. His leathers had been completely stripped from his body and strewn about, and his helm and boots and gorget were missing, and the chamber itself looked to have been ransacked-with an overturned table and ripped-apart bedding and drawers pulled out and their contents scattered on the floor. Beau moved past Tipperton and knelt by the man and then sighed and reached down and closed the man's eyes. 'You're right, Tip. Nothing I or anyone less than Adon can do at this time. What do you think happened?'
Tipperton's jaw clenched. 'The man said there were more Rucks out and about. They came when he was helpless and slew him.' Tip slammed a fist into an open palm. 'Damn Rucks!'
Beau nodded and, as if talking to himself, said, 'Back in the Bosky, my Aunt Rose, bless her memory, claimed that each and every Ruck-in fact, everyone from Neddra-is born with something missing: a heart. She said they only thought of themselves. Called them 'Gyphon's get.' She thinks He deliberately created them that way-flawed, no compassion, empathy, or conscience whatsoever, seeking only to serve their own ends. This cutting of a helpless man's throat wouldn't have surprised her one bit.' As if coming to himself, Beau's eyes widened, and he raised his gaze to Tipperton, then glanced toward the open door. 'Oh, my, Tip, do you think any of them are still about? If so-'
Tip shook his head and raised a hand to stop Beau's words. 'No, Beau'-he gestured outward-'there's a large track beating westward, across the river and toward the Dellins. The weapons of the slain Rucks and such are missing, taken, I think, by the others. The man's sword and helm and gorget and boots are gone as well. And as far as I could tell without actually going out there to see, a haunch has been hacked off the horse; rumor has it that's what Rucks like best: horseflesh. No, I think they're gone for good.'
Beau blew out a breath of pent-up air, and his shoulders slumped as he relaxed. 'You're right about the horse, Tip: a haunch has been hacked from the steed, and the saddle and saddlebags are hacked up as well. I didn't see a bedroll.' Beau stood and peered 'round at the disarray and finally again at the man. 'Why did they ransack your mill? And rip off his clothes? And tear up the saddle and bags? What were they searching for?'
Tipperton shook his head, but suddenly his gemlike eyes flew wide. He reached down into his shirt and pulled on the leather thong until the coin came dully to light. 'Perhaps this.'
'And just who is Agron?'
'I don't know, Beau. The man merely said, 'East, go east, and take this to Agron.' I would have questioned him, but I thought it more pressing to get aid.'
'But east? Hoy, now, there's nothing to the east but Drearwood… and the Grimwall. Awful places. Deadly. Filled with Rucks and such.' Beau's amber eyes widened. 'Say, now, likely where these Spawn came from.'
'Nevertheless, Beau, that's what he said-east. Besides, I hear that there's Elves somewhere 'tween here and the Grimwall. Of course, beyond, there's all sorts of lands.'
Beau cocked an eyebrow and looked at the token again. 'Well, I don't see how this coin could be significant. I mean, huh, it seems to be made of common pewter and of little worth. It's completely lackluster… and without device of any kind-no design, no figure, no motif. It's even got a hole in it.' Beau shook his head and handed the drab disk and thong back to Tipperton.
'Well, it meant something to the man. And it'll probably mean something to this Agron, whoever he or she may be.' Tip peered about at the disorderliness and sighed. 'Perhaps you are right, Beau, and the coin held no significance to the Rucks and such. Perhaps the Spawn were simply searching for loot.'
Beau shrugged, then looked at the corpse. 'We need to put him to rest, Tip. A pyre, I should think, what with the ground being frozen and all.'
Tip sighed and nodded and glanced out at the dawn skies. 'We'll build one in the clearing. Burn the Rucks and the Hlok as well.'
'What about the horse? Cut it up and burn it, too?'
Tipperton pursed his lips and shook his head. 'No… I think we should leave it for the foxes and other such.' Tipperton took up his bow and started for the door. 'I'll get an axe and break up some deadwood; you get some billets from my woodpile and build the base for the pyre.'
Beau uprighted the table and set his satchel on it, then followed after, finding Tipperton stopped just beyond the porch.
'What is it?' breathed Beau, glancing about for sign of foe but finding none.
Tipperton groaned and pointed northwestward through the gap in the trees where the river ran. 'Beacontor. The balefire burns.'
Chapter 3
'Beacontor?' Beau's gaze followed Tip's outstretched arm. In the far distance atop a high tor nearly thirty miles away glinted the red eye of fire. A signal fire. A balefire. A fire calling for the muster of any and all who could see it throughout the entire region.
Now it was Beau who groaned. 'Oh, my. As I said, what with Drearwood just to the east, and beyond that the Grimwall, and these Rucks and such sneaking 'round, I think those of us hereabout are in for some hard times. I mean, look at what happened right here at your mill-the fighting, the dead man, the slain Rucks and the Hlok.'
Tipperton shook his head. 'If Beacontor is lit up, Beau, it means more than just troubles us folk 'round Twoforks've got. Look, you could be right: it might be a skirmish against raiders or such-Rucks and the like. But if the alarm came from elsewhere-downchain from the north, or up from the Dellin Downs, well then-'
'Oh, Tip-regardless of this, that, or the other, it spells woe.'
