Balistan Pargaid had sat at Milord Algert’s table, and to arrest him … Here that would require more substantial evidence than just our word. And in addition, after the Judgment of Sagra, the count was entitled to leave, and no one had any right to stop him.”
I nodded, and in my heart I cursed the damned warriors of the Border Kingdom and their stupid laws.
“What was she talking to you about?” Kli-Kli asked curiously.
“Nothing important.”
The jester cast a wary glance at the gloomy sky and asked:
“Did you know that we’ll be in Zagraba today?”
“Today? But I thought that—”
“Try using your head when you think, Harold. It’ll be a lot better that way, believe me,” the jester remarked. “Time is passing, so we’ll go straight from the castle to Zagraba, and it’s much safer to go there at night.”
The forest thinned out, the gloomy fir trees shrank away to the sides, the road took a turn to the left, and a large village appeared ahead of us.
“Noble warriors, what is the name of that village?” Kli-Kli asked the soldiers with a pompous expression on his face.
“Crossroads,” Servin answered again. “From there it’s only an hour on foot to the castle.”
“A-a-ah,” the jester drawled, gazing hard at the houses in the distance.
Fer raised his clenched fist and the column halted.
“What’s happening?” asked Marmot, breaking off from playing with Invincible.
“A strange kind of village,” Eel hissed through his teeth, pulling his “brother” and “sister” closer to him.
“That’s right,” Lamplighter agreed, hurriedly tying the ribbon round his forehead. “I’d say very strange.”
“What’s strange about it?” I asked, puzzled.
“Can you see any people?”
“It’s still a bit far away,” I replied uncertainly, peering hard at the distant little houses.
“Not too far to see the people,” Marmot countered. “Look—there’s no one by the houses, no one in the street, and the watch towers are empty, too. I don’t know any village in this country that doesn’t have archers on its towers.”
The Wild Heart was right—there was no one on the towers.
“Harold, have you got your chain mail on?” the goblin asked in concern.
“Under my jacket.”
After conferring with the sergeants and Milord Alistan, Fer waved his hand, and the column slowly moved toward the village.
“Keep your crossbow close,” Deler advised me, putting on his helmet.
The soldiers’ sense of alarm infected me, too, and I took out my little weapon, set the string, and loaded the bolts. One ordinary bolt, and one with the spirit of ice. Deler pressed his poleax against his horse’s flank with his foot and also armed a crossbow, which was three times the size of mine. Several soldiers in the detachment did the same.
“Make haste slowly, lads, Fer says to keep your eyes peeled,” said the sergeant, Grunt, when the column entered the village.
The straight street was as empty and quiet as if everybody had died.
“Why isn’t there any stockade here?” I asked.
“No point, the village is too big,” Servin answered, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword. “It would be too big a job to fence it in, and Cuckoo’s just down the road—”
“Servin, Kassani, Urch, One-Eye!” Fer called, interrupting the soldier’s reply. “Check the houses. In pairs.”
The warriors jumped down off their horses: Two of them ran to the houses on the left side of the street, and two to the houses on the right. The first soldier in each pair carried a crossbow and the second a sword. The swordsman ran to the door of the nearest house, kicked it open, and jumped aside to let the other man in. The warriors of the Borderland worked as precisely as one of the dwarves’ mechanical clocks.
The seconds dragged on, and I was beginning to think the lads must have fallen into the cellar, they were gone so long. The same thing was happening on the other side of the street. Eventually the men came out of the houses and walked back.
“Nobody!” said a soldier from the first pair.
“The same on our side, commander, the houses are empty. No damage, nothing broken, food on the table, but the soup’s cold.”
“I’m sure it will be the same in the other houses, too, Milord Alistan,” Honeycomb shouted to the count.
“Maybe there’s a festival of some kind, or a wedding?”
“We don’t have any festivals,” said a warrior with a lance. “And weddings aren’t held early in the morning.”
“Orcs?” Lamplighter asked.
“It can’t be. Cuckoo’s just down the road. The Firstborn would never dare attack a village so close to a garrison.”
“Urch, Kassani, check the tower!” Fer ordered.
The tower was close by, only ten yards from the road, at the edge of a field. While the lads were checking the houses, three of the mounted soldiers had kept their eyes on it, holding their crossbows ready. An archer could easily be hiding up there.
One of the soldiers started climbing up the shaky ladder, with a knife clutched in his teeth, while another held his crossbow pointed straight up in case an enemy head should suddenly appear in the square hole in the floor. The soldier with the knife clambered up and disappeared from view for a second. Then he reappeared and shouted:
“No one!”
“Is there anything up there, Urch?” asked Fer, raising his visor.
“A bow, a quiver of arrows, a jug of milk, commander!” Urch replied after a brief pause. “Blood! There’s blood here on the boards!”
“Fresh?” shouted one of the sergeants, drawing his sword.
“No, it’s dry! And there’s only a little bit, right beside the bow!”
“Kassani, what is there on the ground?”
“I can’t see anything,” said the soldier below the tower. “Just ordinary earth, and we’ve trampled it.”
Ell rode across to the tower, jumped off his horse, handed the reins to the soldier, then squatted down on his haunches and started studying the ground.
“Harold,” the jester called anxiously, “can you smell anything?”
“No.”
“I think there’s a smell of burning.”
“I can’t smell it,” I said after sniffing at the air. “You must have imagined it.”
“I swear by the great shaman Tre-Tre, there’s a smell of something burning.”
“Blood!” shouted Ell. “There’s blood on the ground!”
The elf jumped onto his horse and galloped across to Fer, Alistan, and Miralissa.
“He was killed on the tower, probably by an arrow, and he fell.”
“I see,” said Milord Alistan, tensing his jaw muscles. He pulled his chain-mail hood up over his head and put on a closed helmet with slits for his eyes. As if on command, Ell and Egrassa put on half-helmets that covered the top part of their faces.
“There’s something bad here, oh, very bad!” said Lamplighter, looking round nervously for any possible enemy.
But the street was as empty as the houses around us. Not just empty, but dead. There were no birds singing, no cows mooing in the barn, no dogs barking.
“The dogs!” I blurted out.
“What do you mean, Harold?” asked Egrassa, turning toward me.
“The dogs, Egrassa! Have you seen one? Have you heard them bark?”
“Orcs,” one of the soldiers said, and spat. “Those brutes hate dogs and they kill them first.”
“Then where are the bodies? Did they take them with them?” asked Marmot.
