Theft Of Swords: The Riyria Revelations (53 page)

“If you don’t believe me, you can ask him tonight.”

Looking over the little girl’s head, he spotted Thrace. She was sitting alone on the ground down the trail past the Caswells’ graves. He noticed her hands wiping her cheeks. He set his empty plate on the table, smiled at Pearl, and walked over. Thrace did not look up, so he crouched down beside her. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head, hiding her face with her hair.

Hadrian glanced around the trail and then back up at the villagers. The women were putting away the uneaten food as the men gathered tools, all of them chattering quickly.

“Where’s your father? I saw him earlier.”

“He went back home,” she said, sniffling.

“What did he say to you?”

“I told you, it’s all right.” She stood up, brushed off her dress, and wiped her eyes. “I should help with the cleaning. Excuse me.”

Hadrian entered the clearing and once more faced the remains of the Woods’ farmhouse. The roofing poles listed to one side; the framing was splintered; the thatch was scattered.
This is what shattered dreams look like.
The farm seemed cursed, haunted by ghosts, only one of the ghosts was not at home. There was no sign of the old farmer, and the scythe rested, abandoned, up against the ruined wall. Hadrian took the opportunity to peer inside at the shattered furniture, broken cupboards, torn clothes, and bloodstains. A single chair stood in the center of the debris, beside a wooden cradle.

Theron Wood came up from the river a few moments later, carrying a shoulder yoke with two buckets full of water hanging from the ends. He did not hesitate when he spotted Hadrian standing before the ruins of his house. He walked right by. He set the buckets down and began pouring the water into three large jugs.

“You back again?” he asked without looking up. “She told me she paid you silver to come here. Is that what you do? Take advantage of simple girls? Steal their hard-earned money, then eat their village’s food? If you came here to see if you can squeeze more coins out of me, you’re gonna be disappointed.”

“I didn’t come here for money.”

“No? Then why did you?” he asked, tipping the second bucket. “If you really are here to get that club or sword or
whatever that crazy cripple thinks is in the tower, shouldn’t you be trying to swim the river right now?”

“My partner is working on that as we speak.”

“Uh-huh, he’s the swimmer, is he? And what are you, the guy that squeezes the money out of poor miserable farmers? I’ve seen your kind before, highwaymen and cheats—you scare people into paying you just to live. Well, that’s not gonna work this time, my friend.”

“I told you I didn’t come here for money.”

Theron dropped the bucket at his feet and turned. “So why did you come here?”

“You left the wake early and I was concerned you might not have heard the news that everyone in the village is going to spend the night inside the castle walls.”

“Thanks for the notice.” He turned back and corked the jugs. When he finished, he looked up, annoyed. “Why are you still here?”

“What exactly do you know about combat?” Hadrian asked.

The farmer glared at him. “What business is it of yours?”

“As you pointed out, your daughter paid my partner and me good money to help you kill this monster. He’s working on providing you with a proper weapon. I am here to ensure you know how to use it when it gets here.”

Theron Wood ran his tongue along his teeth. “You’re fixin’ to educate me, are you?”

“Something like that.”

“I don’t need any training.” He picked up his buckets and yoke and began walking away.

“You don’t know the first thing about combat. Have you ever even held a sword?”

Theron whirled on him. “No, but I plowed five acres in one
day. I bucked half a cord of wood before noon. I survived being caught eight miles from shelter in a blizzard and I lost my whole damn family in a single night! Have
you
done any of that?”

“Not your
whole
family,” Hadrian reminded him.

“The ones that mattered.”

Hadrian drew his sword and advanced on Theron. The old farmer watched his approach with indifference.

“This is a bastard sword,” Hadrian told him, and dropped it at the farmer’s feet and walked half a dozen steps away. “I think it suits you rather well. Pick it up and swing at me.”

“I have more important things to do than play games with you,” Theron said.

“Just like you had more important things to do than take care of your family that night?”

“Watch yer mouth, boy.”

“Like you were watching that poor defenseless grandson of yours? What was it really, Theron? Why were you really working so late that night? And don’t give me this bull about benefitting your son. You were trying to get some extra money this year for something
you
wanted. Something you felt you needed so badly you let your family die.”

The farmer picked up the sword, puffing his cheeks and rocking his shoulders back, his breath hissing through his teeth. “I didn’t let them die. It wasn’t me!”

“What did you trade them for, Theron? Some fool’s dream? You didn’t give a damn about your son; it was all about you. You wanted to be the grandfather of a magistrate. You wanted to be the big man, didn’t you? And you’d do anything to make that dream come true. You worked late. You weren’t there. You were out in the field when it came, because of your dream, your desires. Is that why you let your son die? You never cared about them at all. Did you? All you care about is yourself.”

The farmer charged Hadrian with the sword in both hands and swung at him. Hadrian stepped aside and the wild swing missed, but the momentum carried the farmer around and he fell to the dirt.

“You let them die, Theron. You weren’t there like a man is supposed to be. A man is supposed to protect his family, but what were you doing? You were out in the fields working on what
you
wanted. What
you
had to have.”

Theron got up and charged again. Once more Hadrian stepped aside. This time Theron managed to remain standing and delivered more wild swings. Hadrian drew his short sword and deflected the blows. The old farmer was in a rage now and struck out maniacally, swinging the sword like an axe with single, hacking strokes that stole his balance. Soon Hadrian did not need to parry anymore and merely sidestepped out of the way. Theron’s face grew redder with each miss. Tears filled his eyes. At last, the old man collapsed to the dirt, frustrated and exhausted.

“It wasn’t me that killed them,” he yelled. “It was
her
! She left the light on. She left the door open.”

“No, Theron.” Hadrian took the sword from the farmer’s limp hands. “Thrace didn’t kill your family and neither did you—the beast did.” He slipped his sword back in its sheath. “You can’t blame her for leaving a door open. She didn’t know what was coming. None of you did. Had you known, you would have been there. Had your family known, they would have put out the light. The sooner you stop blaming innocent people and start trying to fix the problem, the better off everyone will be.

“Theron, that weapon of yours may be mighty sharp, but what good is a sharp weapon when you can’t hit anything or, worse, hit the wrong target? You don’t win battles with hate. Anger and hate can make you brave, make you strong, but
they also make you stupid. You end up tripping over your own two feet.” Hadrian stared down at the old man. “I think that’s enough for today’s lesson.”

Royce and Esrahaddon returned less than an hour before sunset and found a parade of animals driving up the road. It looked like every animal in the village was on the move and most of the people were out along the edges with sticks and bells, pots and spoons, banging away, herding the animals up the hill toward the manor house. Sheep and cows followed each other fine enough, but the pigs were a problem, and Royce spotted Pearl with her stick, masterfully bringing up the rear.

Rose McDern, the smithy’s wife, was the first to spot them and suddenly Royce heard “He’s back!” excitedly repeated among the villagers.

“What’s going on?” Royce asked Pearl, purposely avoiding the adults.

“Movin’ the critters to the castle. We all stay’n there tonight, they says.”

“Do you know where Hadrian is? You remember, the man I arrived with? Thrace was riding with him?”

“The castle,” Pearl told him, and narrowed her eyes at the thief. “You really catch a pig in the dark?”

Royce looked at her, puzzled. Just then, a pig darted up the road and the girl was off after it, waving her long switch in the air.

The castle of the Lord of Westbank was a typical motte-and-bailey fortress, with the great manor house built on a steep man-made hill, surrounded by a wall of sharp-tipped wooden logs that enclosed the outbuildings. A heavy gate
barred the entrance. A halfhearted attempt at a moat ringed it but amounted to nothing more than a shallow ditch. Cut trees left about forty yards of sharpened stumps in all directions.

A group of men worked at the tree line, cutting pines. Royce was still a bit vague on names but he recognized Vince Griffin and Russell Bothwick working a dual-handled saw. Tad Bothwick and a few other boys raced around, trimming branches with axes and hatches. Three girls tied the branches into bundles and stacked them on a wagon. Dillon McDern and his sons used his oxen to haul the logs up the hill to the castle, where more men labored to cut and split the wood.

Royce found Hadrian splitting logs near the stockade gate. He was naked to the waist except for the small silver medallion that dangled from his neck as he bent forward to place another wedge. He had a solid sweat worked up along with a sizable pile of wood.

“Been meddling, have you?” Royce asked, looking around at the hive of activity.

“You must admit they didn’t have much in the way of a defense plan,” Hadrian said, pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Royce smiled at him. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

“And you? Did you find the doorknob?”

Hadrian picked up a jug and downed several swallows, drinking so quickly some of the water dripped down his chin. He poured some in his palm and rinsed his face, running his fingers through his hair.

“I didn’t even get close enough to see a door.”

“Well, look on the bright side”—Hadrian smiled—“at least you weren’t captured and condemned to death this time.”

“That’s the bright side?”

“What can I say? I’m a glass-half-full kinda guy.”

“There he is,” Russell Bothwick shouted, pointing. “That’s Royce over there.”

“What’s going on?” Royce asked as throngs of people suddenly moved toward him from the field and the castle interior.

“I mentioned that you saw the thing and now they want to know what it looks like,” Hadrian explained. “What did you think? They were coming to lynch you?”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a glass-half-empty kinda guy.”

“Half empty?” Hadrian chuckled. “Was there ever any drink in that glass?”

Royce was still scowling at Hadrian when the villagers crowded around them. The women wore kerchiefs over their hair, dark and damp where they crossed their foreheads. Their sleeves were rolled up, their faces smudged with dirt. Most of the men, like Hadrian, were topless, wood shavings and pine needles sticking to their skin.