“There’s—shouldn’t there be more people on the street? At this hour of day? It feels like—there’s fear or something here. In the houses. In the alleys.”
“Fear of soldiers? Fear of retribution?” Senneth asked. “Are there Rappengrass guards here enforcing some kind of order?”
He shook his head. “I can’t—I don’t think so. It’s just—it’s strange.”
“He’s right. The streets are a little too empty,” Tayse said. His hand had dropped automatically to his sword hilt. Justin’s tiniest dagger was in his palm. “Trouble of some kind has visited this place.”
“Should we ride on?” Kirra asked.
Senneth glanced around. Two women were hurrying between buildings, their arms wrapped around each other as if for warmth or support. A cluster of men stood outside a tavern, so close to the door they could dart back inside instantly if need be. Here and there, in shop windows and the upper stories of houses, faces were watching through the curtains. A man rode by on horseback, faster than it seemed he should. Even the dust behind him seemed in a hurry to float away.
“Or stay,” Senneth said slowly, “and see what the trouble is.”
THEY rode warily down the main street to the stables, all of them alert for any kind of attack. The big wooden door was closed, so Tayse swung down to push it open, and the rest of them rode in. Instantly they were enveloped in the warm, sharp smells of horse and manure and oiled leather. Two middle-aged men jogged over from a stall near the back.
“Room to stable six horses for a night or two?” Tayse asked.
One of the men glanced around at the new arrivals; the other turned and went back to his chores. “Room if you really want to stay,” the ostler said.
“Something we should know about?” Tayse asked. His voice was gentle, but he managed to make the words sound menacing.
The man glanced around again, this time at the interior of the barn. He was heavyset but thick with muscle; his clothes were rough and dirty, as an ostler’s would be, but he looked like a reasonably decent man, Senneth thought.
“There’ve been attacks the past two weeks or so,” the man said in a low voice. “At first we thought it was a wolf, even a cougar. You know. Wild creature come too close to civilization and learning to like the easy life. But none of our hunters can catch it. We put out the usual poisons, and it won’t take them. Now and then someone swears they’ve seen it, but it’s so fast they can’t make out its face or even the color of its fur. But then, the next morning, there’s a body in the street.”
“Human body?” Tayse asked, not sounding particularly shocked.
The ostler shrugged. “Twice. Little girl, only five years old, shouldn’t have been out wandering the streets anyway, but her mama said she would get up and walk in her sleep, and what should she do, shackle her to the bed? But now she’s wishing she had. And then an old man, always drunk on bad wine, you could find him sleeping in any alley come morning. Only one morning, he wasn’t sleeping, he was dead. And then there have been dogs— five or six of those. A cat. No one knows what will be attacked next.”
Tayse looked straight up at Senneth, as if he thought she might understand this mystery. She didn’t say anything.
“And no one knows what it might be?” Tayse asked.
The other man shook his head and lowered his voice. “Folks are saying,” he said, “it might be mystic work.”
“Really,” Kirra said in a sharp voice. “How would that be possible?”
The ostler gave her one quick look and returned his attention to Tayse. “Some mystics can take animal shape, you know. And they can move faster and strike harder than a real animal. Or maybe it takes the form of a different animal every time it goes out to kill, and that’s why no one can say for sure what it looks like.”
“Are you having trouble in these parts with mystics?” Tayse asked.
The ostler shrugged. “Not really. I mean—my mother-in-law was always a little gifted, you know—she could do small spells and was a wonder with the garden. And folks in this town never got too stirred up about mystics the way they have in the big cities. But that was before this creature came. Now—well, people are talking. And the Daughters of the Pale Mother have been by, now and then, warning us all not to let magic drift into our lives. If this animal turns out to be some kind of witch creature—well, I think you’ll be seeing some angry people. I’m a little worried for my mother-in-law, to tell you the truth. I see people casting looks at her, as if she knows something she’s not telling.”
“Everybody knows something he doesn’t tell,” Tayse said with a slight smile. “But I have to say, your creature sounds real enough to me. I wouldn’t be so quick to blame magic for what might be nature.”
“No,” the ostler said. “And the old man who got killed—he was wearing a moonstone amulet. I wouldn’t think a mystical creature would be able to touch him if he was wearing a moonstone, would you?”
“I wouldn’t,” Tayse said.
“In any case,” the ostler said, “watch yourselves while you’re here.”
“We will,” Tayse said. “I imagine we’ll be safe enough if we stay together. Any place you’d recommend we spend the night?”
“My brother runs the Golden Cup, just up the street. Pretty sure he’s got a few rooms open.”
“We’ll try it, thanks.”
In a few moments they’d paid the man in advance, unstrapped their bags, and were jostling each other as they moved in fairly close formation down the street. They only passed two others during their short walk, and both of them were moving at a near run.
“So what do you think it is?” Kirra asked Senneth.
“That was going to be my very first question,” Tayse said.
She couldn’t decide if she should be amused or annoyed. “Why would you think I would know?”
“You know everything,” Kirra said. “Or most everything, particularly the things no one else knows.”
“Well, he didn’t really tell us very much,” she said. “It could be anything. We’d need to know more about—” She shrugged. “How it kills, what state it leaves the bodies in, what kind of tracks it leaves behind. How often it strikes.”
“I don’t think it’s magical,” Cammon said. “I think we’re the only ones in town who’ve brought in any abilities.”
“That would be my guess,” Senneth said. “I’m sure we’ll find out more over dinner.”
TWO hours later they had settled into their rooms, washed up, and gone down to the taproom to arrange themselves around a couple of tables. Tayse and Justin sat closer to the bar, where they might hear or be included in the conversation of the local men. The mystics sat nearer the back, where travelers were more likely to congregate, so they could pick up stories of the road.
Not that there were many other customers in the taproom at all, Senneth noted. People were afraid to walk the streets alone at night, especially after they’d tipped back a few glasses of home-brewed, if there was a creature lurking in the shadows waiting to strike. And travelers were disinclined to linger anyplace that seemed marked for trouble. If this predator wasn’t disposed of quickly—or if tales of its supernatural qualities became commonly believed—this little crossroads town might lose all its commerce and livelihood within a few weeks.
When the very pretty, very young waitress brought their food, Senneth tossed her a coin in payment. “Slow tonight,” she commented.
The girl nodded glumly. She had a riot of brown curls and a full red mouth, and she probably did quite well in tips and favors. “Been that way for two weeks or more,” she said. “Ever since—whatever that creature is—came to town.”
“Ostler told us a bit about it,” Donnal said. “Kills something every night, does it?”
She glanced around the table once, showed no interest in the women, and clearly decided Donnal was the best of the male prospects, for she gave him a little smile. “Not every night. Every second or third night, I guess it’s been. My sister said she saw it once, running down the street with a bloody hand in its mouth.”
“Did she say what color it was?” Donnal asked. “How big it was?”
She looked surprised at his interest. “Why do you want to know?”
He gave her a smile, but his face still looked serious. He was incapable of ever looking other than serious, Senneth thought. “Done some hunting in my time,” he said. “I thought—maybe it was something I’ve come up against before—”
“Well, we’ve had hunters
and
hunters here,” she said pessimistically. “This one used to shoot game with Ariane Rappengrass herself. This one used to track wolves for King Baryn.” She shook her head. “You know how men talk. But none of them could kill the thing.”
“They think it’s a wolf? Is that what your sister said it looked like?”
She shrugged. “She said it was the color of a fox, but bigger. And fast as a deer. Faster. She said she’s never seen anything run so fast.”
“Northern harewolf, it runs fast,” said a man sitting one table over. He was dressed in well-worn travel clothes, and it appeared as if it had been weeks since he washed his tangled gray hair or beard. “I’ve killed a few in my time, though.”
The pretty girl looked over at him with even less interest than she’d showed Cammon and the women. “Have you?” she said politely.
The traveler nodded. “Any reward being offered, if this creature would be killed or captured?” he said. “It might be worth my time to try it, if the money was good enough.”
“A few gold pieces,” she said. “The innkeepers and tavern masters have each put up some coins. They’re losing business.”
The traveler looked interested. “Gold pieces,” he said. “I’ll have to find out how many.”
The girl rolled her eyes at Donnal. “Were you wanting anything else to eat? You or your friends?”
“Thank you, no,” he said, and she left.
“What do you think?” Cammon asked.
Senneth smiled. “I think no one has any idea what it looks like or how fast it is.”
“You do,” Cammon said.
“Not sure yet,” she replied.
They sat in the bar another hour or so but didn’t glean much helpful information. The four of them paid their shot and went back upstairs to their rooms. Cammon and Donnal were sharing a room across the hall with Tayse and Justin, but they came directly into the women’s quarters. A few minutes later, the Riders arrived.
“Learn anything?” Tayse said, leaning against the rickety chest of drawers that was the only furniture in the room besides the bed. Senneth thought for a moment that he was so big and so heavy the chest would splinter under his weight, but it held firm.
“Fast as a deer, red as a fox, doesn’t kill every night,” she recited. “You?”
“It prefers to eat only sweetbreads,” Tayse said. “Leaves a lot of the body to go to waste. That’s why it kills so often.”
“Aahhh,” she said, and sank onto the bed next to Kirra. They all looked at her.
“So you do know,” Kirra said.
She arched her eyebrows. “It just seems so unlikely. This far out. But it sounds like a raelynx.”
Justin and Tayse looked startled; the others seemed mystified. “What’s that?” Cammon asked.
“A sort of wild cat that lives to the east of us in the Lirrenlands,” Senneth said. “But there are mountains between us and the Lirrens, and I’ve almost never heard of a raelynx crossing out of those mountains.”
“I’ve never heard of the Lirrenlands!” Cammon exclaimed.
The others laughed. “Nobody knows much about them,” Kirra assured him. “The king considers the Lirrenlands to be under his dominion, and I think they pay tithes, and they fought beside Gillengaria in the last war, but it’s a strange country filled with strange people.”
“And strange animals, apparently,” Justin said. He was still looking at Senneth. “How is it you know so much about the creatures that can only be found there?”
She smiled a little. “I lived in the Lirrens for a few years.”
Tayse shifted, and the chest of drawers protested. “Of course you did,” he said in a polite voice.
“So—what—these raelynxes go prowling around the Lirrenlands, killing people off every few days? I would imagine there aren’t very many people left living there, then,” Justin said with some of his usual sarcasm.
Senneth spread her hands. “The Lirren people—I’ve often thought the whole lot of them must be rife with magic,” she said. She glanced at Cammon with a smile. “I should take you with me sometime to visit there, and maybe you could tell me. Myself, I couldn’t feel the magic on them, but there was no other way to explain some of their abilities. Some of them are healers with gifts that are astounding. Some of them can grow crops on land that shouldn’t support a weed. And many of them seemed to have a bond with animals—particularly predators. Hunters. In any case, I never saw a raelynx attack a native-born Lirren while I lived there. They had this skill of controlling the creatures—of turning them away. At any rate, they never attacked the human communities where I lived.”
“And I suppose while you lived in the Lirrens, you learned this skill of controlling wild animals as well,” Tayse said in a silky voice.