stirring, even if he couldn't yet read them. What it was Starwind found, he would not tell Vanyel, but the three adults grew very grim - and Moondance took the bow and its arrows when they left.
They had been riding all day, cutting cross-country at the ground-eating pace only a Companion could maintain; it was nearing sunset when they slowed, on coming to what looked to be a fairly well-traveled road.
Savil and Kellan halted while they were still within the cover of the forest, and Yfandes came up beside them as silently as it was possible for something the size and weight of a Companion to do. The snow-laden branches of an enormous evergreen shielded them from the view of anyone on that road, although the road itself looked deserted. There didn't seem to be any new tracks on it, and all the old ones had been softened with a layer of new, undisturbed snow. The road was lined on both sides by a row of these evergreens, though, and anything could lie in wait undetected behind them.
'The village of Covia lies a few furlongs up that road,' Starwind whispered, as the sun sank in sullen glory ahead of them. 'There is still a shield upon it, and I do not like the feel of the power behind that shield. I do not, however, sense that the power is presently in the village.'
'Nor I,' replied Savil, after a moment.
' 'Fandes says she doesn't feel anything either,' he reported, feeling rather in the way.
'My thought is to enter the village and see how much is amiss - and what the people know. Then - Vanyel, it is in my mind to leave you with the villagers. You have enough mage-training to be some protection to them, and they may be of some physical protection to you.'
'I - yes, Master Starwind,' he replied, not much liking the idea, but not seeing any other choice. 'What about 'Fandes?'
Vanyel reported Yfandes' words with a sinking heart. Starwind nodded. 'I think she has the right of it; we can cover more ground mounted. Well.' He peered up the road through the gathering evening gloom. 'I think it is time to see the handiwork of our enemy.'
Vanyel was doing his best not to be sick. Again. He'd already lost control over his stomach once, just outside of Covia, when they'd found the wizard's - warn-off.
It was well after sundown, and pitchy dark outside of the village square. The entire population of the village, upwards of seventy people, was jammed into the tiny square. Many of them had brought lanterns and torches. They were crowding about the four strangers and two Companions, like baby chicks seeking the shelter of the hen's wings - although they were paying scant attention to Savil and less than that to Vanyel and the Companions. The Herald was a dubious and unknown quantity, and the boy and the 'horses' were being dismissed out of hand.
The party had made a kind of impromptu dais out of the low porch of the Temple, which was barely large enough to hold the four humans; the Companions were serving as living barricades on either side, to keep them from being totally overwhelmed. As it was it was getting a little cramped, behind the two Tayledras. But Vanyel was beginning to be rather glad he was being ignored. Between the tales the villagers were telling Starwind - and the physical evidences they were displaying in the flickering of the torchlight to substantiate those stories-it wasn't easy for Vanyel to control his nausea.
This had been a pleasant little village, as safe as any place inside the Pelagirs. People could feel comfortable about raising children; had time for celebrations now and again.
It was no longer pleasant, nor safe. It was now a place under siege, with no way out.
Two weeks ago a stranger had come to the village, mounted on something that was not a horse, and accompanied by a retinue of some of the Pelagirs' least attractive denizens. He had announced that the town and its inhabitants were now his, and had helped himself to whatever he wanted. After one demonstration of his power had left a heap of ash where the village inn had once stood, these folk had more sense than to resist - but they had attempted to send for help. The remains of their messenger were found the next morning, impaled on a stake in the middle of the outbound road. The frozen corpse was still there; the Companions had passed it on the way in. From the look of the man, simple impalement had come as a relief.
He had come back about every other night, each time taking both goods and victims. The villagers told Starwind that they had been praying for help; they assumed he was the answer to those prayers. He seemed, to Vanyel at least, to be agreeing with that assumption.
Vanyel was just grateful that the fitful torchlight wasn't bright enough for him to see much of the details of what had been done to some of the wizard's victims. He was equally grateful that he was in the dark at the back of the porch, behind Savil.
' - this's the last, Master Starwind,' the swarthy, unshaven headman said, wearily, his red-rimmed eyes those of one who had seen far too much of horror in the past few days. 'This girl.'
He pushed a mousy blonde female right up onto the porch, where Vanyel couldn't avoid looking at her. The young woman would still have been attractive - if she hadn't been vacant-eyed and drooling. She was filthy, her hair matted and hanging in lank snarls. Starwind flinched at the sight of her, but Moondance fearlessly took her face in both his slender hands and gazed into her blank brown eyes for a long time.
When he finally released her, his face and voice were tight with anger. 'I think that Brightwind may be able to bring her mind back,' he said, slowly and carefully, as if he was trying to keep from saying something he had rather not speak aloud. 'It will require many months - and she will never be able to bear the touch of a man; she has been too far hurt within. Even so, all those channels meant for pleasure have been warped, and now can only carry pain. I do not know if even I can Heal that. I do not think that anything will be able to Heal her heart and soul of what was done to her; not entirely. It may be it is better not to try; it may be that it is better to wipe all away and begin with her as with a small child.'
The balding headman nodded as if that was what he had expected to hear. 'She was one of the first he took,' he said heavily, 'Her and her mother. Her father was the messenger we sent - we never found anything of her mother.''
'And he grows stronger, this Krebain, with every person he takes?' Starwind asked.
The torches wavered in the wind, casting weird shadows across the man's hollow-cheeked face as he nodded. Vanyel could scent the coming of more snow in that wind. 'He seems to. Seems to me he's doing blood- magic, wouldn't you say, Master Starwind?'
