Quintessential Tales: A Magic of Solendrea Anthology (14 page)

Slipping off Nightwind’s back, Tiadaria took him by the reigns and led him outside the disturbance. As soon as she had passed its perimeter, she felt much better. As if all the joy and happiness she was capable of came rushing back to her. The apprehension and sense of impending doom was gone, as if someone had blown out a candle. A short distance off the path, there was a languid stream amongst the tall grass. Tiadaria looped his reins over a knob in a small tree, assured that Nightwind would have plenty of grazing fodder and water should he need it, until she could return for him.

The Quintessentialist followed her lead, providing for his mount in a similar fashion. After the horses had been tended to, they slipped past the almost invisible barrier and back onto the path toward Havenhedge. Travel on foot was much slower than it had been on horseback. What would have taken them less than an hour mounted ended up taking them almost twice that on foot. They were encumbered also by the fact that whenever either of them heard a strange noise, they’d stop and investigate before moving on. The last thing they wanted was to be on the receiving end of an ambush.

It was fortunate, then, that most of the noises they stopped to look into were just field beasts set free of their tethers and roaming the countryside nearest to the town. Tiadaria and Adamon remarked on the oddity of the beasts being unattended, then continued their approach. The nearer they got to the town, the more disturbing things they began to see.

The last turn toward the town lead them through a notch dugout of a tall hill that towered over them on either side. It reminded Tiadaria far too much of the blind pass where she’d been ambushed with Wynn and Faxon. Faxon had almost died after ignoring her advice, and she almost wanted to tell Adamon to go back and find another way, but this wasn’t as long as the pass. They’d be through it soon enough to warrant the risk.

“Mother of Light,” Adamon swore as they moved out of the shadow of the hill and into the town proper.

Tiadaria respected no deity enough to call on them for aid, but she understood Adamon’s sudden exclamation. There were patches of congealed crimson on the grass and in the dust of the road. It was easy to see why the runner had almost killed herself in her urgency to reach Dragonfell. Whatever had happened here had been a massacre. There was so much blood.

“Not the Xarundi.” Tiadaria sounded much more certain than she felt. She’d only seen a few places where there was this much blood and, almost always, it was the handiwork of the massive wolf-like beasts who had once ruled most of Solendrea.

Adamon shook his head. He went to one knee, looking at the dust around one of the blackening pools of blood. He indicated the area with spread fingers.

“No claw marks, no paw pads. It wasn’t the Xarundi. Whatever it was, though, was big.

Look at this.”

The Grand Inquisitor turned on his knee, painting a line with his spread fingers from the blood into the tall grass at the verge of the path. Blood streaked the grass that had been beaten down by the assailant’s passage. The trail was at least as wide as a man was tall. Adamon was right. Big was an understatement.

“I almost wish it were the Xarundi,” Tiadaria said, a certain amount of wistfulness in her voice. Her lips twisted in a little half-smile when Adamon shot a startled glance in her direction.

“The demon you know…”

“Ah.” He nodded, and then glanced back toward the battered grass. “In this case, you might be right. We should see if there are survivors.”

“Survivors?” Tiadaria was aghast. “You don’t think that everyone is dead, do you?”

“Have you seen anyone? Heard anyone?”

“No, but—”

“We won’t know for certain until we know for certain.”

Tiadaria ground her teeth. Of all the odd habits and annoying turns of phrase that Adamon was prone to throwing at her, that one bothered her the most. If the inquisitor didn’t hear it with his own ears or see it with his own eyes, it wasn’t fact. It was a guess. No matter how many times Tiadaria had tried to argue that sometimes, guesses were right, her words had fallen on deaf ears.

“Very well,” she said, her voice tight and controlled. She pointed the tip of her scimitar to the left side the main street leading into the town. “I’ll take this side. You take the other. We’ll make certain.”

If Adamon heard the snide tone that twisted the last word she spoke to him, he didn’t give any indication of it. Instead, he slipped his weapon from its holster and stepped up onto the wide porch that surrounded the first building they encountered. The sound of his boots on the planks was louder than Tiadaria would have imagined. She watched him make his careful approach to the guardhouse door and then followed his lead.

The building on her side of the street seemed to be a general store. There were large windows that faced the main street, with different wares propped up on crates just inside the glass. That made it difficult to see very far into the building. She’d have to go in and do a more thorough inspection. Tiadaria hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if she should just kick the door in. If there were people inside, she was likely to scare them even more if she were to just barge in. She opted to go the civilized route. She knocked on the door, feeling both stupid and apprehensive.

Her knock was answered by silence. The handle was a crosspiece of wood attached to a rope that ran through a hole in the door. It would lift a bar on the other side when she pulled down on it. Unless it was locked. She almost wished it would be. If people were barricaded inside their homes or places of business, that was better than the alternative. Her thoughts turned, unbidden, back to the bloody trail through the tall grass.

Tiadaria grabbed the handle and pulled. There was a jerk as the bar came up on the other side of the door and it swung inward. The hinges creaked in protest and she jumped at the sound. Tiadaria didn’t dare take her eyes off the darkened portal leading into the store, and she hoped that Adamon hadn’t seen her fright.

“Great Gatzbin’s Gonads,” she
swore, stepping into the store. The light was dim and smoky, the faint flickering of a lamp drawing the last drops of its oil into the wick. Even in that meager light, Tiadaria could see the chaos that surrounded her. Barrels and crates were toppled over, their contents strewn across the floor. Tools and simple weapons were pulled off their pegs on the walls, but left abandoned almost in place.

Whatever happened here had been quick and in a blind panic. It looked as if people grabbed whatever they could get their hands on and abandoned the rest. They didn’t even stop to turn down the lamps. If just one of those had broken free, it could mean the building burning to the ground. It was obvious that the building catching on fire wasn’t the primary concern.

Stepping over the worst of the clutter on the floor, Tiadaria made a quick circuit of the building. She found a small office and storeroom in the back. Above, by means of a rickety staircase, she found two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. A family had lived here. A girl, a boy, and two adults, Tiadaria guessed. Whoever had lived here, they weren’t here anymore. The question remained, where were they? She stepped out onto the porch and looked across at the guardhouse. Adamon was standing on the porch, leaning up against one of the posts. Catching his eye, she spread her hands and shrugged. He nodded and motioned to the next building on his side of the street. She indicated that she understood and carried on to her next stop.

They went on that way until the sun slipped low on the western horizon. Tiadaria didn’t want to be alone in this town after the sun went down
, and she was relieved when Adamon expressed the same feeling as they met up in the town square. The only sound was the trickle of a stone fountain in the center of the square.

“Well,” Adamon said, sinking to the rim of the fountain and rubbing the back of his neck
, “if there are survivors, they’re hidden very well. I haven’t found anyone or any bodies.”

“Me either. Just a lot of buildings that look like everyone left in a hurry.” The
Quintessentialist nodded.

“Maybe we got lucky. Maybe they all managed to get away.”

“I’m not sure that makes us lucky,” Tiadaria said with a snort. “We’re still here!”

“True enough.”

They lapsed into silence. Tiadaria standing and Adamon seated on the edge of the fountain. She closed her eyes, rubbing her palms against her thighs. They were sore from contact with the scimitars for so long. There was a noise and she stood still as a statue. There it was again. Her eyes snapped open and she looked at Adamon.

“Did you—”

“Hear that? Yes.”

His curt gesture plunged them back into silence. The gentle trickle of the fountain now seemed to be the deafening thunder of a waterfall. They walked away from it with slow, methodical steps. Tiadaria called on the power of the Quintessential Sphere to augment her hearing. With the aid of magic, the noise was clear as day. She glanced at Adamon and he jerked his head in the direction of the sound. He’d come to the same conclusion she had. Somewhere nearby, a child was crying.

~

Tiadaria swung the door closed behind her, pausing when it met the frame to ensure that it shut in silence. She’d left two lanterns burning on the table beside Selma’s bed. The girl was terrified of the dark. After hearing the story Selma had told her and Adamon, Tiadaria couldn’t blame her. If she’d lived through what the girl had been subjected to over the last few days, Tiadaria doubted that she’d be fond of the dark either. Adamon took it all in his stride, as he did everything. He hadn’t farmed out his questioning, though, getting directly to the point then making sure that the child had something to eat, clean linens to sleep in, and then turning her over to Tiadaria.

Adamon was much better with children than he was adults. In fact, Tiadaria was surprised with how he’d taken to the girl. He’d become her sworn protector from the moment they’d found her wandering the main street in that last hour before sunset. Tiadaria shuddered. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened to the girl if they hadn’t found her.

The monsters, Selma said, came after the sun went down. They’d started at the edge of
Havenhedge, where her family’s farm had been. From what the child had seen, Tiadaria knew that the attack had started with a single creature attacking the farm. The next night, more of the monsters had descended on the town. The night after that, most of the townsfolk had fled or barricaded themselves in their homes. It seemed that most of those who had decided to stay had made the wrong choice. Selma had survived by hiding in attics, sneaking to the well, and stealing what food she could find in the houses and shops that were left unattended. That bit of innocent pillaging had left as much of an emotional scar on Selma as the attacks had. It was clear what Selma’s mother thought of those who couldn’t provide for themselves. “Is she sleeping?”

Adamon was standing sentry at the large window that overlooked the main street. They’d claimed a small cottage that Selma had told them belonged to ‘the old man
.’ No amount of gentle prodding would get the girl to reveal the man’s name. They’d concluded after a while that she just didn’t know. Not that it probably mattered. From what they’d seen, Tiadaria suspected that if the old man hadn’t fled the town, he was probably monster fodder.

“More or less. I had to leave two lanterns burning on the table. She wouldn’t even think of getting in bed without them. I pulled the shades tight. There should
n’t be much light to be seen from outside, if any.”

“Good thinking. I’ll put some additional protections on the room. No sense in taking undue chances.”

He lapsed into silence, his hand stroking his chin as he stared out the window. After a few months of working together, Tiadaria was beginning to get a read on his behavior and mannerisms. His curiosity was piqued, but she wouldn’t know what was on his mind until he was ready to share. The man was infuriating in his ability to keep his own counsel.

She slipped her scimitars out of their scabbards, welcoming the familiar faint ring of the blades as they came ready for battle. The pain that lanced up her arms, across her shoulders, and down into her chest reminded her that her unique gift expected repayment for its service. She crossed to the window, staring out into the blank dark of the town alongside her erstwhile partner.

“Why don’t you check on her and add whatever protections you feel prudent. I’ll keep watch.”

The Grand Inquisitor shot a sidelong glance in her direction, as if he were assessing her suitability for such a duty. He must have decided she was equal to the task, because he turned from the window and started toward the stairs.

“This shouldn’t take long. Give a shout if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

“I will,” she answered, rejecting the urge to add a flippant ‘mother’ at the end. As much as his antics annoyed her, she recognized that they were still in a very fluid situation. Though she was pleased to have found Selma, the addition of such a small child to their care made their jobs far more complicated. They had to keep her safe as well as figure out what was going on. Those two tasks seemed to be as far apart as Blackbeach and the Great Western Desert.

Tiadaria listened as Adamon’s footsteps retreated up the stairs. She didn’t turn her attention away from the darkened window. She slipped into sphere sight, pressing out into the street. Tiadaria knew Adamon would have done the same. If he’d seen anything, he’d have mentioned it before going up to check on Selma. A cursory investigation of the buildings and alleys around the cottage revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing more out of the ordinary than the fact that the town was abandoned when it should be thriving.