Blood in Snow (13 page)

“Tol Helen?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Abby sobbed. “But they were all dead.”

One of the guards stepped forward. “We found three of Bain’s men slain, and four horses slaughtered.”

“They killed the horses?” Edmund repeated, not sure he truly understood them. “What about Bain? Did you find his body? What happened to him? How were they all killed?”

“Bain wasn’t among the bodies,” another guard said. “We suspect he’s been taken prisoner. Their packs were still at the campsite.”

“Everybody had been hacked to pieces,” the first guard added. “Butchered.”

“Ed”—Abby’s brown eyes shone with fear—“the King’s men are all over these hills. They’re swarming northward toward the smoke. They must have captured him!”

Edmund thought for a moment. Something didn’t seem right. Why would the King’s men kill the horses? And why wouldn’t they take Bain’s pack? By now they were probably in desperate need of supplies. None of it made sense.

“If you’re worried that Bain will tell the King where Rood is—” one of the guards began.

“He’d never do it,” another interrupted. “He’s a tough bastard. Him and Captain Hendrick. Neither would turn on us.”

Edmund nodded. He wasn’t worried that Bain would reveal Rood’s location. He was more shaken over the fact that Bain was missing and his men were killed.

“Are you sure he was taken prisoner?” He couldn’t imagine Bain would ever be captured alive. He was the type who’d keep fighting, even if surrounded and outnumbered. In fact, he’d likely take great personal pride in cutting down as many enemies as he could before meeting his own end.

“We’ve scouted the area and found nothing.”

“He wouldn’t just leave camp without his pack, not in this country. I mean, he could hunt for food, but why would he? There was enough in those bags to last a week or more.”

“I’m sorry, Ed.” Abby touched his arm tenderly. “I know you two were—”

Everybody froze.

Maybe a half mile away, hundreds of hooves thundered through the forest, headed north.

“All right,” Edmund said once the riders had passed. “We need to get out of here. Are your horses fit to ride?”

Chapter Fifteen

“So just try to be kinder to him, okay?” Edmund said to Abby as they rode along. “Pond and I have been through a lot.”

They were traveling on a little-used path, heading southward toward Rood. Over the past few days, the weather had still stayed too warm for snow, enough to feel like early spring. But the wind was now blowing from the northwest, the skies were clouding over again, and temperatures were dropping rapidly. A storm was approaching.

“I know,” Abby said weakly. “It’s just … it’s just that I’m not interested. I see him as a friend, you know?”

Edmund grimaced. Molly had once said that to him.

“That bad, eh?”

“Abby, that’s the last thing any man wants to hear. You might as well kick him in the groin.”

“Really? Then what should I tell him?”

“That you like Merek and you see yourself marrying him someday. Pond’ll understand that perfectly. It’s not about him; it’s about you and Merek.”

“Merek?” Abby said, puzzled. “What makes you think I’d want to be around him for the rest of my life?”

A watcher stood up on a hill near Rood and waved a dark flag, signaling to the town that friends approached. Then shouts of “It’s Mr. Edmund!” and “He’s back!” cascaded from the hilltops.

“Look,” Edmund said quickly, knowing he’d soon be bombarded with ceaseless questions for the rest of the night, “just keep in mind that men are more fragile than we appear—even men of adventure like me and Pond!”

He winked at her and Abby laughed.

Watchers from the neighboring hills ran down the slopes.

“Don’t leave your posts!” Edmund called to them.

But they didn’t turn back. They kept coming.

Abby watched them race closer. “Something’s wrong.”

Edmund thought so, too. He could see it in their faces. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

One of them nodded toward Rood, gasping for breath.

“Mr. Pond!” another managed to say.

That was all Edmund needed. He drove his heels into his horse’s side and bolted toward Rood with Becky, Abby, and the guards close behind.

People crowded around the west gate, talking and yelling at Edmund as he neared. Pond wasn’t among them.

“Where’s Pond?” Edmund scanned the crowd. “Where is he?”

Everybody was shouting, terror in their faces. When somebody pointed to The Buxom Barmaid, Edmund urged his horse through the crowd, knocking several people aside in the process.

“Pond!”

He leapt down before his mount fully stopped—

“Pond!”

—and sprinted up the stairs to the front door, threw it open, Becky sped to catch up.

Pond sat at a table in the corner, crying.

“Pond?”

The common room was empty. Edmund stood in the doorway.

“I’m sorry, Ed,” Pond whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

People ran up to Edmund, all talking at once. Somebody mentioned Vin. Everybody was agitated, many were yelling.

“Give me a minute!” Edmund slammed the tavern door in their faces.

“Pond?” He had the urge to draw his sword but didn’t know why.

“I’m sorry,” Pond repeated, old and new tears on his cheeks.

Edmund smelled the alcohol from across the common room. Pond was drunk. He could barely hold his head up.

Outside the commotion continued.

“Where’s Vin?” Edmund asked.

“I’m so, so—”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry! Where is he? What’s going on? What’s this all about?”

Pond trembled, heaving breaths worsening. He couldn’t speak.

“Where is he?” Edmund demanded.

“I … asked … about … Vin’s beer,” Pond said, bawling. “I asked, I asked the others how, how much … how much he had been giving everybody and how much he’d come with …”

“And?”

“They checked.” Pond reached for the bottle in front of him, but it was empty. “Some of the men checked his barrels. They were all full—all of them.”

“Where is he?” Edmund shouted.

“I didn’t … I didn’t realize he was a, a magic user,” Pond said, nearly convulsing with sobs.

Edmund’s skin turned cold.

“Where is he, Pond? Where’s Vin?”

“In the cellar.”

Edmund looked at the stairs behind the bar, where Becky was descending as if stalking an animal. Reluctantly, Edmund followed. And then he saw it. On the floor in the corner lay a body covered by a blanket stained bright red at one end. The shape of its head told Edmund the skull had been bashed in. Blood had splattered across the nearby casks and was still dripping from the low ceiling.

Oh no …

“They killed him, Ed,” Pond said from up in the common room. “The, the town—they killed him. Word had spread and, and they rushed in at him. Somebody … somebody …”

“Who?” Edmund stormed toward Pond. “Who did it?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows—”

Edmund charged to the tavern’s front door and threw it open.

“Who killed him?” he hollered to the crowd gathered outside. “Who did it?”

They all started talking en masse.

“He was a magic user!” someone yelled.

“He helped the town!” Edmund shouted back. “He helped all of you! He was good, and kind, and funny! What had he ever done wrong?”

“He was a magic user!”

“I’m a magic user!” Edmund screamed.

Everything stopped.

Two hundred thirty-two people stared.

Abby gasped. “Oh, Ed!”

Edmund yanked his short sword from its sheath and threw it, clattering, at the mob’s feet.

“So kill me!” he cried, unable to stop the tears. “Kill me, too! I’m tired of hiding, I’m tired of running. Kill me, too!”

They blinked at the black-bladed sword and then looked up at Edmund.

“He … he doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Roland the baker muttered. “It’s … it’s the shock. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

Edmund drew out a knife he kept in his boot and slashed the palm of his left hand.

A woman cried out.

Sobbing, he made a fist, blood flowing between his clenched fingers. “
Smerte av reise.
”

When he opened his hand, the crowd gasped as the wound slowly closed. They all stepped back a pace.

“He’s a magic user!”

“Kill me!” Edmund fell to his knees, wailing. “Come on, kill me! Why kill Vin and let me live? Why? Aren’t we all monsters to you? Aren’t we all evil?”

Nobody moved.

“What are you waiting for?” Edmund shouted, throat raw and burning. “Don’t I deserve to die like Vin? Bash my skull in, too! Get it over with.”

He looked up at all of them gaping and recoiling as if he might touch them and suck out their souls.

Ingrates! Let them all die here when the King’s army comes. Let them all die.

Edmund snatched his sword from the ground.

A lane formed as he stomped to his waiting horse.

“Come on, Becky.” He mounted and wiped his bloody sleeve under his nose. “Let’s see them survive without any magic users.”

PART THREE

Chapter Sixteen

Edmund sat on the outcropping where Vin had wanted to build his house. Temperatures were dropping fast, and a few fat snowflakes were beginning to fall.

He sobbed, though the wind froze his tears before they could trickle far from his eye. He pulled his cloak tighter and wished he’d brought more provisions. He’d left Rood with nothing more than what he’d still had on his horse: a thin woolen blanket, a couple days’ worth of food, a coil of rope. Becky lay next to him, head across her front paws as if just as heartbroken.

“I wish they had killed me and gotten it over with,” he said to her, wiping his tears away. “Then all of this pain would finally be gone.”

He blew into his hands, which were reddened by the cold.

“What now?”

Go somewhere else.

I’m tired of running and hiding. Tired to my very soul.

More big snowflakes fell, flung about by the slashing wind.

Becky bumped him with her nose.

He stroked her head.

“Where to now, Beck?”

She didn’t answer.

He thought about Abby and Pond. He knew he should feel guilty about leaving them. But he didn’t. He didn’t feel anything. He couldn’t feel anything at all.

They’ll be fine.

He gazed into the valley through the millions of snowflakes tumbling from the dark grey sky. Snow now covered the hard ground, and the lake on the northern side was finally frozen over with a thin layer of ice. Even the evergreen branches were lined with white. He should have thought it beautiful, but he didn’t.

“What now?” he said again.

He hadn’t a clue.

At the valley’s eastern end, three figures trudged into view. Though Edmund couldn’t see them clearly through the swirling snow, they appeared to be some men-at-arms, maybe scouts, with blankets wrapped about their shoulders and heads as they led their horses to a grove of trees alongside the lake.

Edmund half wished they would stray out onto the ice and fall in. They probably wouldn’t drown—they didn’t appear to be clad in heavy armor—but they would undoubtedly get frostbite with nowhere to dry off and the night growing beyond frigid. Already the cold crept into Edmund’s aching bones.

The men entered the grove and strung blankets between trees to create a makeshift shelter.

Snow continued to fall.

“They look miserable,” Edmund said to Becky, feeling neither guilt nor pleasure. The surrounding evergreens shielded him somewhat, but pretty soon he’d need a fire as well. “I wonder how many supplies they have left. It can’t be much; a couple of days at most.”

The men appeared to have some difficulty lighting a fire.

“You need kindling, you idiots. And the wood is too green to burn.”

I should just go down there and kill them.

That wouldn’t stop other scouts from finding Rood. If they keep heading westward, they’ll run right into it.

Edmund peered through the trees and the swirling snow toward the east. Off in the distance, faint trails of black smoke rose up—dozens of them, scattered throughout the hills in a crude line. The King’s army would undoubtedly head west come morning.

Then he peered toward Rood. To his disgust, smoke spiraled up into the late afternoon sky.

Fools. You’re leading the King’s men right to you.

They’re cold.

They should drink Vin’s cider.

They probably won’t touch it, now that they know how he made it. Idiots. All of them can just freeze to death.

He thought about Toby, which made him think of Abby and Pond again. Some of his anger receded, replaced by a nagging guilt. He wondered how they were faring. He remembered Pond crying and begging for forgiveness.

More guilt seeped into Edmund’s heart.

“Damn it!”

You’re going to have to go back, you know that, right?

But he didn’t want to go back. He couldn’t just sit around Rood, waiting for the King’s army to arrive, while the townsfolk all stared at him and nervously kept their distance like he was a vampire.

He shivered.

Do you want Rood to survive or not?

He knew the answer immediately: yes, of course he did. But he didn’t want to be their governor, not if they were going to kill magic users. Yet neither did he want to see the Highlands under the thumb of nobility. King Lionel would probably fell all of the trees and ship them south for some stupid building project. He’d probably start mining the hills for gold, polluting the rivers, and certainly he’d make Rood’s men fight in his senseless wars.

If you want to save Rood …

“I’m not going back.”

More snow fell, now in great swirling sheets.

He stared into the valley. Evening shadows had begun to obscure his view somewhat, but it seemed the men in the grove still struggled to light their fire.

“I’ll bet you wish you had a magic user with you,” Edmund muttered. He wanted to laugh, but cold had numbed his face. “Idiots. This is all King Lionel’s fault. Him and his stupid nobility. If he didn’t spread such fears about magic users …”