When they arrived on the outskirts of the village, a terrible sight greeted their eyes. Holwey had been completely razed, leaving little more than a black stain. It had snowed since the attack, somewhat covering the ruins, but charred beams and blackened stones were still strewn about. There were no bodies to be seen, but a few optimistic crows were poking around hopefully. Khollo shot three of them out of disgust before the rest flew off in search of easier prey.
The four riders made their way to the center of the village, where the tavern and markets had once stood. There was nothing left of the tavern or the adjoining stable. Both would have burned fiercely, the stable due to its store of hay, the tavern due to its store of alcohol. But still no bodies to be found.
“I don’t understand,” Khollo muttered. “Why go to the trouble of carrying the bodies off?”
“The vertaga are flesh eaters,” Janis replied. “They rarely leave anything behind but bones.
Khollo’s stomach heaved unexpectedly and he exchanged horrified looks with Sermas and Hern. The two cadets also looked likely to be sick. “You mean . . . the vertaga ate them all?” Sermas asked, just to clarify.
Janis shrugged. “In all likelihood, yes. That’s how we knew it was them and not bandits in the first war. Bandits don’t eat the enemy.”
Sermas dismounted and ran behind a small mound of blackened stones, the remains of the well where Khollo had talked to the old Reonus. There followed a splattering sound, along with a terrible retching noise.
“Sounds as though Sermas has lost something,” Janis remarked.
Khollo made no reply, scared that if he opened his mouth he might follow Sermas’ example. Hern appeared similarly occupied with his stomach.
“We need to search quickly,” Janis said, dismounting. “Somewhere, there will be a mound of bones. We need to find it. The vertaga would have feasted here after their victory and piled the bones according to their traditions. Or at least, according to how they celebrated during the last war.”
“Would that have been somewhere outside the village?” Khollo asked. “Since the village was burning?”
Janis shook his head. “They would not have burned the village until later, after their celebration. The bones will be somewhere around here I would imagine.”
Sermas reappeared from behind the well, leaning on the edge. Half of the wall appeared reasonably intact, though the side nearest Khollo and the others had collapsed. “Find anything?” Sermas asked casually.
“No, we could use some help,” Janis replied tartly. “We need to find bones.”
Sermas groaned and put his head in his hands. Then he yelped and leapt back from the well, landing on his back.
“Sermas! Stop fooling around,” Janis snarled. “We need to get this done.”
“Oh, it’s done,” Sermas said weakly. “When you said bones, did you mean a filthy great pile of skulls and legs and arms and such?”
Janis ran over to the half collapsed well and peered downwards. Khollo and Hern dismounted and followed more cautiously. After a moment’s hesitation, they stepped up beside Janis at the well’s edge and looked down.
Khollo found himself staring a skull directly in its empty eye sockets, blackened by soot and flame. Around it was a solid layer of other bones, some cracked open, and other skulls leering up at the observers.
“That must go all the way to the bottom of the well,” Hern observed.
Janis nodded gravely. “Probably,” he agreed. “Well, that answers that question. At least it will be easier to bury the poor souls.” He stepped back from the well. “Find as many rocks as you can. We’ll finish burying them, then look for any tracks or weapons that got left behind.”
For the next hour, the four travelers labored to gather fire-blackened stones to mark the mass grave of the villagers. By the time they had finished, a circular cairn two meters across and a meter high had been raised over the site. Janis had spent the time carving a simple grave marker from three short boards, their ends charred and splintered. Once, they had been part of the wall of the tavern.
“We’ll need to split up to finish this before dark,” Janis said when the task was done, mounting Gray Wind. “Everybody take a quarter of the village. Look for tracks, anything that says the vertaga were here.”
Khollo nodded wordlessly and rode off into the northeast section of the village, eyes fixed on the scorched earth. There was not much to speak of, dirty snow, bits of metal that had survived the flames, charred boards here and there. He was nearing the edge of the village when Arle’s hoof struck something with a metallic clang. Immediately, the sturdy little horse stepped back, snorting and pawing.
“Easy,” Khollo murmured. “What did you find?”
He dismounted and moved forward slowly, shuffling his feet in the snow. It was not long before his feet found a hard, round shape. Stooping eagerly, Khollo dug through the snow until he found a flat metal disk, roughly half a meter across. It was fitted with two leather straps and slightly concave.
A shield, Khollo realized, brushing snow out of it. But whose? He turned the shield over and saw a peculiar design. A thick horizontal line. Three above, all slanted. Two slanting downwards at either end, and a shorter line pointing downwards in the center.
The same as the one the vertaga Janis and Ondus fought bore, Khollo thought. As he was returning to Arle, a shout went up from the center of the village. Looking up, Khollo saw Janis circling one arm above his head, the signal for them to join him. Khollo tucked the
