There was some more scattered laughter at that, and people began to move forward, taking the ale, hesitantly at first, but then more, and it was as if a dam had broken, a dam of fear and terror, and they began to whisper again, to talk in hushed tones. And that was good. Netty thought maybe it was the best thing she’d ever done as she continued to pour the ales.
True, they may still die, but then miracles had happened before, hadn’t they? Besides, there was always the outside chance that Feledias, once he had his brother—and hadn’t that been a shock, seeing the man return as he had?—qould leave them all in peace. And if he didn’t, well, there’d be worse things than getting drunk. All in all, she was feeling pretty good, feeling like she had made a difference, not in the way Berden would have, maybe, but in her own way.
That was when she smelled the smoke.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It’s not an easy thing, killing a man, watching him bleed out, all his hopes and dreams taken from him until he’s nothing but a husk. Not the sort of thing a man gets over, not the dead or the living.
No, it ain’t easy, taking a man’s life.
But, then, I figure it’s a damn sight easier than dying.
—Veteran soldier of the Fey wars
Maeve wasn’t as quick as she used to be, not as fast or as attractive either, but the two soldiers were distracted—as any right-thinking person might be—by the appearance of what appeared to be the Skaalden. They were too busy staring at the looming forms in the mist to notice the considerably squatter, considerably less-terrifying one that approached from behind them, her knives in her hands. The second didn’t even so much as look around as her knife slid into the throat of the first and a moment later the two were lying dead at her feet, two down as easy as breathing. Or not breathing.
Maybe she should have felt good about that, but it was hard to feel good about killing terrified men, even if those same terrified men were getting ready to burn an entire village worth of people. She turned, meaning to continue the bloody business, when a man appeared in front of her, a soldier with a sword in his hands, and anger mixed with the fear on his face.
Perhaps, she thought, as she watched the sword raise, not so easy after all. But just then, an arrow flew out of the thick mist, catching the soldier unerringly in the throat. He staggered, dropping his sword as he pawed uselessly at his throat. Maeve spun to look in the direction the arrow had come from but saw no sign of Priest through the thick fog. Of course, she didn’t really need to. The man was out there somewhere, and there was more killing to be done yet. It seemed to her, sometimes, that there always was.
So she took a moment, gathering her breath—didn’t remember get winded so easily back then, but then she’d been a lot younger and killing was the type of thing, sadly, that a person did get better at with practice. Then, when the worst of the stitch in her side was gone, she crept forward into the mist. She couldn’t be sure, for the fog covered everything more than a few inches in front of her face, but she thought that she must be close to the inn now, not least of which because she thought she could smell smoke. And the last thing she needed was to sprint forward with the intention of saving the villagers only to knock herself unconscious on the building’s outside wall and burn to death right along with them.
She eased forward, a knife in one hand, the other held out in front of her. She was moving for a few minutes, struggling to ignore the great forms of the imaginary Skaalden sharing the fog with her. It was not easy. The sight of them was bad enough, but the worst was the sound, the terrible, screeching, keening sound which always accompanied them, a sound which brought her mind back to many years ago, when she’d lost her husband and her child. Still, she gritted her teeth, forcing her reluctant feet forward, telling herself that the sound which filled her ears, the one threatening to make her run in terror, was not that of the creatures which had driven her and her people from their homeland, only their facsimile, one created by the closest thing she had to a friend. But telling herself that as some of those figures loomed out of the mist, walking past her, was not an easy thing, not when she could feel the chill touch of the fog against her skin.
In time, the hand she held in front of her struck something, and she sighed with relief. But it was a sigh that cut off abruptly as what she’d taken to be the wall did something very unwall-like—it moved. “Hey,” a voice growled, “who the fu—”
Not a lot to go on, just a voice and a chest with her hand on it, no face, at least none that wasn’t obscured by the mist. Not much, but Maeve figured enough. She lashed out with her knife, and the man’s words turned into a soft, breathless groan, as her questing blade found its mark. She pulled the knife free, and he collapsed to the ground at her feet.
“Maeve, help!”
She froze, a sudden, irrational spike of terror lancing through her. “Matt?” she whispered in a harsh voice, sure that, somehow, she had gotten turned around, that she had worked her way back to where the boy and the mage hid behind the house and had, even worse, wounded him.
“Maeve!”
But the voice, when it came again, did not come from below her where the man lay, and a quick
