ponies and flee.'
'And leave you alone?' protested Tip.
'I will draw the horses behind and ride 'round for Loric and Bekki.'
'You forget, Phais: Bekki won't ride a horse,' said Tip. 'I'll take his pony to him.'
'And I'll ride alongside Tip,' said Beau, 'just in case a sling is needed.'
Phais looked long at the buccen, then nodded.
Moments passed and the only thing Tip heard was the pounding of his own heart. But of a sudden 'Yahh!' came Bekki's bellow, and the sound of splintering wood.
Gasping, Tip drew his arrow to the head, and Beau whirled his sling 'round and 'round.
Screams came from within, and the front door flew open, and Tip aimed 'Hold!' shrieked Phais. ' 'Tis women!'
Down the steps they fled, two women, as behind and backing out came a man with a bung hammer in hand.
Tip relaxed his draw and stepped out before the fleeing women, Beau stepping out as well.
'Rutcha!' shrilled one of the women, veering sharply leftward in spite of her bulk, the other following after, the pair only to run straight at Phais, who had stepped out as well.
'Drokh!' shrieked the woman, turning again and running at the horses, then screaming, 'Helsteeds!' and spinning in her tracks to dart back toward the inn, the second one running on the heels of the first all the time, hardly a handspan between them.
Beau fell down laughing.
'We thought ye the foe,' said the innkeeper, a beefy man, as he poured another ale.
'As did we think of you,' growled Bekki. 'Finding a locked inn is cause for suspicion. It could have been full of Grg.'
The innkeeper nodded. 'The ways were barred, for the times, they are troubled.'
'Aye,' said Bekki as he threw a handful of copper on the table. 'This should pay for your back door.'
In the flickering light of but a single candle the 'keep looked at the coins a moment and then scooped them into his apron pocket, saying, 'It will at that.'
'I'm sorry I laughed at your wife and daughter,' said Beau. 'They must have truly been frightened.'
'Aye,' said the man, 'as were we all. But it's them you should apologize to and not me.'
Just then from the kitchen came the two women, bearing trenchers and bowls and spoons and knives and a cold joint of beef and two loaves of bread and an onion and a tureen of soup. 'I'm sorry, but it's all cold now,' said the wife. 'The fire, you see, we don't burn one at night. It might be seen, even though the drapes are drawn.'
'But it's winter,' said Tip. 'Surely you need a fire.'
'Only in the daytime, sir,' said the daughter.
'And then but a small one to keep the smoke down,' said the innkeeper, 'and we huddle close 'round warming ourselves for the night. 'Tis no way to live.'
'We're thinking of leaving, you know,' said the wife, a large red-faced woman with ginger hair. 'The others neara-bout along this road, they're gone, and winter travel, though usually slow, has completely disappeared. You are the first we've seen in weeks and weeks.'
'Where will you go?' asked Tip, tearing off a hunk of bread.
'We have relatives in Dael who will put us up until all this blows over.'
'Oh my,' said Beau. 'Oh my.'
Phais sighed. 'Then we bear ill news for ye, I'm afraid.'
'Ill news?' said the daughter, a slender image of her mother, glancing at her dam and sire. 'For us?'
'Aye,' said Phais, 'and there's no soft way to tell ye.'
'Then just tell us,' said the innkeeper, reaching out and grasping his wife's hand.
'Dael is destroyed,' said Phais, 'by Dragon and fire and blizzard storm.'
'My sister,' breathed the wife, her eyes pleading.
'There were no survivors,' said Phais.
Bekki growled but said nought…
… as softly fell the tears.
On the twelfth day after leaving Bridgeton they rode up a long slope toward a low set of hills, and late on the following day they crossed over a running ridge connecting the Rimmen Mountains in the north to the Skarpals in the south. It was the fifteenth day of January when they came into Garia and rode down the far slope and onto the broad plains of that land. At last they had gotten past all the mountains that stood between them and their goal. And so due north they turned, smiles on every face, for from here it was but two hundred eighty straight miles over gentle rolling hills to Dendor in Aven, where they hoped to deliver a coin.
Chapter 5
'And you said this was going to be the easy part,' hissed Beau as he lay bellydown in the snow, sling in hand.
'Beau, I only said that the land would be gentle, with rolling hills and such,' replied Tip, peering at the campsite below, arrow ready, 'and nothing about maggot-folk at all.'
On the far side of the Crystal River-the border 'tween Garia and Aven-a small company of Foul Folk stirred. In the still air the smoke from their fire rose straight into the sky. It was this plume which had alerted the comrades as they had ridden northward in the morning, the sixth after coming into Garia.
Tip turned to Bekki. 'Why do you think they're guarding the ford? I mean, it's winter and the river frozen. We can cross anywhere.'
'Who knows the minds of Grg?' replied Bekki, his knuckles white on his war hammer.
'Gyphon,' said Beau. 'Modru.'
Bekki scowled at Beau but said nothing.
'Mayhap they were sent by Modru to wait for the turning of spring,' said Phais, 'for then this will be the singular crossing in the region.'
'They could be deserters,' said Beau, 'like those we saw in Riamon.'
'Deserters or no, warders or no, still we must pass them by,' said Loric, 'for they are too many to engage.'
Bekki hissed in exasperation but said, 'Aye. Still, I do not like running from Grg.'
'We'll not be running,' said Tip.
'Nevertheless,' growled Bekki.
Phais pointed leftward. 'Yon, toward the slopes of the Rimmen Ring, there on the far flank of the second hill west, there where the river curves 'round, we should be able to cross over unseen.'
Carefully they backed away from the crest and fared downslope to the animals.
Steel-shod hooves knelled on the ice.
'Can they hear the river ringing?' hissed Beau. '-The Rupt, I mean.'
'Mayhap,' said Loric, spurring his horse. 'Swift now!'
Across the frozen river they dashed, two horses and three ponies, their riders astride, drawing two pack animals behind. Up the far bank and into the hill country beyond they galloped, and if there was any pursuit, the comrades saw it not, for the Spawn were afoot and could not catch the running steeds even if they ran after.
'Foul Folk in Aven,' said Tipperton as the snow drifted gently down. 'It does not bode well.'
'I think in this war they'll be everywhere,' replied Beau. 'I mean, way back when we first saw the fire on Beacontor, Tip, you said it could signal wide war, and now we find it is true. Indeed, wide war does burn on Mithgar; we can certainly testify to that.'
Bekki reached across the small sheltered fire for the pot of tea. 'Aye. War burns, yet we skulk past the
