Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

eyes to Elyn’s and pretty much repeated what the ale-seller had said.

“We mun know these parts, Lady,” he added. “We mun know every beast an’ bird in forest. Nothin’ never made no noise like that. Nor cast Shadows like the ones at night, neither. Nor man, nor beast we ever seen cast shadows like that. Half again as tall an’ broad as me, an’ I be no scrawny ’prentice. On’y hunched over, like.” He rounded his shoulders and tucked his head down between them by way of illustration. “An’ we never saw the Things, on’y Shadows, an’ fer all their bigness, left no tracks we could find. So we left Stony Rill alone, an’ that seemed t’satisfy it. Reckoned we leave them alone, they leaves us alone.” He shrugged, shamefaced. “We bain’t fighters, Lady, and this be edge of Pelagir Hills. Uncanny things come out of there, but bain’t mean no harm, so —”

She nodded. “A sensible way to deal with things,” she said soothingly. “I take it there was nothing much any of you needed up at this Stony Rill?”

He shook his head. “Kids liked t’play there i’ summer, but didn’ take but hearin’ that laugh once for ’em t’find ’nother spot of cool water t’paddle in. We’re not lackin’ i’ water.”

Well that was the truth. They must have crossed thirty streams of varying width, depth, and strength to get here.

“But obviously something else happened?” she prompted.

The man nodded, and the others shuddered. “They’re comin’ into village, of nights.”

“You’ve seen them with your own eyes?” Somehow Elyn doubted they had. And sure enough, one and all, they shook their heads emphatically.

“But we hear them!” The words came out in a whisper. “Between th’ houses, howlin’ and gibberin’, and in the mornin’, not a sign of ’em. Not a footprint, nor hoofprint or pawprint. Th’ dogs an’ cats, they all hide when they hears it. An’ afore we started lockin’ ’em up at night, we lost some beasts to ’em. Heard ’em cry out, and in mornin’, was gone, an’ no trace of what took ’em.”

There wasn’t much else that Elyn could get that was useful out of them. “You’ll hear ’em fer y’self” seemed to be the only answer.

Despite the fact that the youngsters were burning even more to question the villagers, Elyn let the villagers go back to their homes. For one thing, the closer it got to sunset, the more nervous the villagers became, and she didn’t want to have to cope with a load of hysterical people wanting only to get behind their locked and barricaded doors. For another, she was curious to see if “they,” whatever “they” were, actually did turn up tonight. Their absence might well tell as much or more than their presence. There was no reason why something supernatural would hesitate to manifest with the Heralds here. But if “they” were not supernatural, then whatever or whoever it was that was doing this might well be cautious about showing itself—or themselves—right now.

Once everyone was cleared away, Elyn set about making sure that the wagon, the horses, and the Companions were all set up for a stay of some duration. The villagers had kindly moved in bedding straw and fodder; horses were not exactly housebroken, so before they could all get themselves involved in a long discussion of what might be going on, Elyn got the Trainees to work arranging things inside the threshing barn. She put Rod to maneuvering the wagon against one wall and assigned Arville to making a stabling area for the horses against the opposite wall. Once the wagon was in place, Rod tied up the horses in their corner.

“We may be here a while,” Elyn pointed out. “And there’s enough room in here that anyone who would rather sleep outside the wagon certainly can. It might be a bit colder, but it won’t be as stuffy, and we can always set up the stove to keep a limited area warm at night.”

But Alma clearly wanted to talk about “haunting,” and she had already made up her mind about it; Elyn could see it in the set of her jaw and the furrowed brows. “We need to work out some way to trap these people,” she said.

“The villagers?” Elyn said, raising an eyebrow.

“No, of course not! Whoever is running this deception on them!” Alma said crossly.

“And you’re so certain it’s a deception?” Elyn countered. “I’m not convinced one way or another. If it’s a deception, what’s the motive? And if it’s not, then what are these things? Their behavior matches some of the descriptions of the creatures controlled by the Karsite priesthood.”

“The d-d-demons?” Arville stammered.

Ryu’s ears went straight up and his eyes widened. “R-r-remons?” he echoed.

“But only some of those descriptions, Herald Elyn,” Rod said deferentially. “Not all of them. And we are an awfully long way from the Karsite border. I can’t see any good reason for them being here, if that is what they are. And it could just be some new creature from the Pelagirs. Some things from there are friendly.”

Ryu thumped his tail, tongue lolling.

Elyn shrugged. “I am not convinced either way. What I am convinced of is that we need to proceed with great caution. The last thing we want to do is make things worse.”

Alma opened her mouth to protest, but she never got so far as uttering a word. As if something had been listening outside, there came one of the strangest and most hair-raising noises that Elyn had ever heard in her life.

Not loud enough to be called a howl but far too loud for a moan, it seemed to reach to some instinct deep inside Elyn and evoke a chill terror. It had a similar effect on the others, too. Arville yelped and dove under the wagon, joined there by Ryu; Laurel screamed. Rod and Alma both went white to match their uniforms, but they headed for the door of the barn with looks of determination on their faces.

“No! Leave the door alone!” Elyn ordered. Arville and the kyree hugged each other and shuddered. The noises multiplied, and Laurel looked around for a weapon, then clutched at her little dagger as if it were going to be adequate to defend herself with. Her sword and war gear were still in storage in the wagon, along with everyone else’s, and only Elyn wore a sword at the moment, since during the interview it’d been a sign of rank.

Alma and Rod had their hands on the door already and prepared to fling it open, only to find it had been shut tight, barred from the outside.

The noises were joined by maniacal laughter as Alma and Rod hammered on the door and tried to break it down, then tried the door opposite with the same results. There were no windows or hatches in the upper part of the building, or they probably would have tried to go out that way. The two draft horses were thoroughly unnerved by now, straining at their tethers, tossing their heads, and rolling their eyes. Arville finally climbed out from under the wagon, shaking, to go and try to calm them down. Elyn joined him; eventually they had to resort to pulling bags over their heads; the horses stopped trying to bolt, but they stood transfixed, shaking as hard as Arville.

The Companions were as unnerved as their Chosen.

:We can’t tell what it is,: Mayar said to Elyn, as the other four Companions arrayed themselves facing the two doors, preparing to fight anything that burst through. :We’ve never heard anything that sounded like that before.:

“Let’s break the door down!” Rod shouted over the noise. “Let’s make a ram!”

But it was Alma who stopped him before he could wrench the wagon-tongue off the front or try to pull down one of the interior supports. “I don’t think we can,” she said. “And it’s not our building to break down.”

“It’s just noises,” Elyn pointed out, fighting her own instincts to run, or fight, or both. “No one is calling for help, and nothing is trying to break in here. Alma’s correct, we haven’t the right to wreck this place just to confront what’s out there. Besides, breaking the door down will be noisy, and by the time we got out, whatever is making those sounds will probably be gone.”

“It’s j-j-just trying to scare us,” Laurel said, though her teeth were chattering.

“It’s doing a g-g-good job!” Arville replied.

And then, just as suddenly as the noise had begun, it stopped.

They waited a moment, and then another, before Rod and Alma rushed for the door.

It was still barred.

Alma kicked it in frustration, bruising her toe. She looked as if she would have liked to swear, but a glance at Elyn seemed to quell that idea.

They waited, but the noises didn’t resume, although the door remained barred from the outside. The moments crept by, then a candlemark; it felt like more, but they had a marked candle out and burning when the meeting started, and that was all it was. Finally Elyn spoke, making them all jump. “It’s