Panic spread through the wagons when Colin returned to tell his father of the meeting with Aeren at the stream. Everyone gathered closer to the center of the wagons, where the grass was stained red with deer blood. Tensions escalated, and arguments broke out. Arten and Tom sent more men to the edges of the camp, many men volunteering to help out, Walter hovering at the edges of the group, scowling, as the orders were issued. More wood was thrown on the central fire-wood they couldn’t afford to spare, not when the plains had so few trees-but one woman demanded it in a shrill voice, and Tom finally conceded. Many sought the solace of Diermani’s Hand, Domonic.
But nothing happened. When the night remained silent, the initial panic faded, reduced to a general murmur, a tightening of shoulders and furtive glances out into the night. As they relaxed, the people began to disperse back to their wagons and tents.
“They wouldn’t have warned us if they intended to attack,” Arten said. He surveyed those still gathered around the fire. “The additional sentries are useless.”
Tom nodded. “I know. But they’re also harmless. And they make the rest of the group feel more relaxed, more protected. Besides, how many of the men on duty would be able to sleep now?”
Arten snorted. “Given what we’ve seen so far and what Colin reported,” he said, looking toward him as he spoke, “they can take out any number of us from the darkness with their bows, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Our fire makes us easy targets.”
Colin shifted uncomfortably at that, his gaze darting toward the darkness beyond the nearest wagons. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred and he shivered, then shrugged the sensation of being watched aside.
The rest of the night passed slowly. Colin tried to sleep, but he woke constantly with sudden starts until it was close enough to dawn that he finally rose.
He found his father, mother, and Arten seated around the fire. As he approached, he heard his mother ask, “Are you certain Colin should be included?”
Colin slowed as his father sighed.
“No, but they made contact with him. I think he should be there in case there was a reason they chose to speak to him and not any of the others.”
“I don’t like it,” his mother said, and rubbed her upper arms with her hands, as if she were suddenly cold. “I don’t like it here on the upper plains. Maybe we shouldn’t be here. Maybe this is their land, whoever they are, and we’re trespassing.”
“We haven’t seen any roads anywhere,” Arten said, “and no signs of a city or even a village.”
“That doesn’t mean we aren’t intruding somehow.”
Arten didn’t have an answer, so Colin stepped into the fringe of the firelight, his feet making noise in the grass. All three of them turned, Arten’s hand dropping to his sword, then relaxing as Colin settled down before the fire next to Arten, opposite his mother and father.
“You’re going to include me in the group?” Colin asked.
His mother frowned, but it was his father who answered. “Yes. We’ve decided it will be you, me, Arten, and Walter.”
Colin grimaced. “Why Walter?”
“Because his name’s on the town’s charter.” He met Colin’s gaze. “He may not make the decisions, but he’s still the Proprietor.”
Colin thought about that a moment, then shifted back to Aeren and the meeting. “I don’t think they intend to hurt us,” he said. “He could have killed me at the stream. I didn’t even notice him when I approached, he was just there.” He ignored his mother’s shudder.
“So what do you think they want?” Arten asked.
Colin frowned. “I don’t know. He asked where we were headed and seemed upset when I showed him.”
“You told them where we were headed?” a bitter, derisive voice asked sharply.
Colin leaped up and turned to where Walter and Jackson stood at the fringe of the firelight. One hand dove into his pocket for a stone, but his sling was still bundled up in his satchel. He clenched his jaw and fought the urge to chuck the stone at Walter regardless. If his mother hadn’t been there, along with Arten and his father…
“That’s enough, Walter,” Arten said, with a note of warning.
“He gave away our only advantage,” Walter spat, taking one step closer to the fire.
“Yes, he did,” Colin’s father agreed, and Colin felt a harsh pain in his chest, his hand closing hard on the stone. He dropped his gaze to the grass, his eyes stinging, a bitter taste flooding his mouth as his father continued. “But it wasn’t much of an advantage. They may have been watching us for days, may already know where we’re headed.”
Walter glared at Tom, his jaw working. Around them the rest of the wagon party had begun to stir, to wake and gather. He cast a contemptuous glance at Colin, scowled, and turned away.
Arten stood, followed by Tom. “Shall we head to the bank, see if they’re there?” the commander of the Armory asked.
In answer, Walter stalked away from the fire.
Arten and Tom traded a look.
They followed him to the top of the embankment near the gap, coming up on the sentries on duty, one of them turning.
“Report,” Walter said, his face flushing red when the sentry looked toward Tom and received a nod before answering.
“Still too dark to see anything. We thought we heard some movement a little while ago, but we haven’t heard anything since.”
Tom looked toward the horizon to the east, where the sky was just beginning to lighten above the jagged peaks of distant mountains. He scanned the growing number of people behind them. Most of the men had gathered, and a significant number of the women, their faces tight and grim. All of the children had been separated and hidden in the backs of the wagons. Colin noticed Karen weaving her way through the people toward him and took her hand when she reached his side.
And then they waited. People shifted nervously, whispered among themselves, a few coughing quietly. Gazes drifted toward the horizon, toward the hollow behind them where the wagons had halted, toward the plains hidden by darkness.
Colin saw the mist on the plains first, a thin layer that had settled in the hollows, only the highest banks and hillocks visible above it. He’d never seen the mist in the morning; it had always burned off before the wagons began moving, before the majority of the people had even risen for the day. But in the gray light-the mist white, the hillocks and banks dark, almost black, the hills and mountains in the distance more pronounced as the sky turned a soft yellow, the few clouds on the horizon now a muted gold-the plains were beautiful.
Someone gasped, and all along the embankment the men with swords shifted, clothes rustling, hands falling to weapons. Arten straightened to Colin’s left, but the only reaction from Walter on seeing those waiting below was to narrow his eyes. Karen’s hand tightened on Colin’s, and he gave a reassuring nod.
Below, beneath the bank but on the far side of the stream, the group of men they’d seen from afar the day before stood silently, staring up at those gathered. Aeren stood in the front, his bow still unstrung, planted in the ground before him more like a staff or spear. Five others stood behind him. They were dressed like Aeren, in shirts with curved patterns on them, hide breeches and boots. As the sunlight strengthened, Colin could see that they all bore the same features-pale skin, dark eyes and dark hair, all in varying shades. Three of those behind Aeren had markings on their faces, three slashes on one side like claw marks, as if they’d painted their cheeks with mud. All of them carried bows, shorter in length than Aeren’s, and short swords. And all of them were taller than Aeren by at least a hand.
Only when he saw the other men’s faces did Colin realize that Aeren was the youngest of the group. And he was the only one with a band of gold around his wrist and markings on his bow.
The two groups took stock of one another in silence. Two of Aeren’s men eyed those in Walter’s group with swords, their faces intent. One of those with the claw marks on his face leaned forward slightly to whisper something in Aeren’s ear. Aeren listened, frowned slightly, then shook his head.
The man with the claw markings leaned back, unhappy.
None of Aeren’s men seemed concerned that they were outnumbered. Those who weren’t starkly serious were curious instead, their gazes flickering over all of those from the wagons that they could see.
When the men on the bank began to fidget nervously, Arten stepped to Colin’s father’s side and said softly, “We should approach them.”
Tom nodded.
Colin released Karen’s hand and moved forward, following in his father’s tracks as he, Walter, and Arten moved down the slope to the edge of the stream, to almost exactly the same spot where Colin had encountered Aeren the night before. Aeren lifted his head as they approached, his eyes following Colin at first, then shifting to his father, who was in the lead. The rest of Aeren’s men shifted position, the motions subtle, their stances no longer quite so casual, and Colin felt the tension between the two groups climb.
They halted at the edge of the gurgling water.
For a long moment, no one moved, the silence awkward. Aeren’s head lowered, his eyes narrowed. Colin felt the mood shifting, from open curiosity to something more dangerous, more hostile.
Colin’s father caught his gaze, motioned him forward with a frown and a tilt of his head. Colin stepped forward, to his father’s side. Sweat broke out on his back, even in the cool morning air, and his stomach twisted sickeningly, but he nodded toward Aeren and the other strange men.
“The one in front is Aeren,” he murmured.
His father nodded. “Introduce us.”
Colin drew in a steadying breath, all of the strange men’s attention fixing on him as he did so. “Aeren, this is my father, Tom.”
“Tom,” Aeren said, pronouncing the name as carefully as he had Colin’s the night before. Colin’s father nodded, but Aeren had already turned toward Arten and Walter. He looked at Colin expectantly.
“This is Arten-”
“Ar-ten.”
“-and Walter.” He said the name curtly, his anger tingeing his voice.
Aeren frowned. “Walter.”
Then he turned back toward Colin’s father and gave him a deep bow from the waist, the gesture strangely formal. When he rose, he motioned them across the stream. “Come,” he said, indicating a section of ground where the grass had been trampled down in a circular pattern, the edges of the circle clearly defined. “Sit.”
Tom hesitated, then stepped across the stream using the stones that weren’t submerged beneath the water, settling to the ground on the far side, near the center of the circle, opposite where Aeren sat, legs crossed. As Colin knelt in the grass, he noticed that it hadn’t been trampled down but laid in a distinctive pattern, almost as if the stalks had been woven together.
When everyone had settled, only two of Aeren’s followers still standing at the edge of the circle of grass, Aeren motioned for a pouch from the man who’d leaned forward to murmur in his ear. Opening it, he withdrew two bowls, one wide and shallow, the other small and deep, and two packages that appeared to be wrapped in long, wide leaves, the outermost leaves charred. He unwrapped one of the packages, sniffed at the haunch of meat inside, nose wrinkling, then proceeded to draw a wicked- looking knife from a sheath at the small of his back.
Arten instantly tensed, hand falling to his sword, over an inch of the blade appearing in the strengthening sunlight. On the opposite side of the circle, Aeren’s guards barked a warning, drew their short swords in a flash of motion that stunned Colin, so fast that he saw only a flare of light as sunlight struck against metal. Aeren stilled, his expression annoyed.
No one moved.
Aeren murmured something under his breath.
Neither of his guards looked pleased, but they resheathed their swords. Slowly. They didn’t take their hands from the hilts, however.
Aeren set the meat down into the shallow bowl. His knife never wavered. Without taking his eyes off of Arten, he lowered the long knife to the meat and began to cut it into thin slices.
Arten released the hilt of his sword, letting it slide back into its sheath.
Only then did Aeren look down at what he was doing. All of the meat sliced, including the second package, he sheathed his knife, reached back into the pouch, and produced a drinking skin. Pulling out the stopper, he drained it into the deeper bowl, then set the skin and the leaves used to wrap and cook the meat aside.
Standing, he picked up the bowl of meat and moved to the center of the circle of grass. He motioned Tom to do the same, and when he stood opposite him, he said something in his own language, the words formal, and then presented Tom with the bowl of meat.
He took the bowl uncertainly, and at Aeren’s insistence he picked up a thin slice and passed the bowl around to the others. Colin took a slice last, then returned the bowl to Aeren, who smiled and passed the bowl among his own group until everyone had his own piece.
Then he said something more in his own language and bit into his slice.
Colin waited until his father took a bite before he tried his own. It smelled spicy, with some type of chopped green herb he didn’t recognize coating the outside edges. It tasted even spicier, salty and peppery, with something hotter kicking in at the back of his throat after he started chewing. There was a citrus taste to it as well, like lemon. The meat itself was wild and gamy in flavor, and he guessed it was one of the deer, like those they’d killed yesterday.
He heard someone choking and glanced up to see Walter coughing into his hand, looking as if he wanted to spit the food out. Arten glared at him, and he grimaced, forced himself to continue chewing, and swallowed with effort.
Aeren’s followers glanced at each other, troubled, but no one said anything.
Aeren stepped back to retrieve the other bowl. As with the meat, he said something over it, like a benediction or prayer, and then presented it to Tom. This time, his father took it without hesitation and sipped, his face carefully neutral. He passed the bowl to Arten next, and Aeren nodded, watching as it was passed around.
Colin was last again, the dark red liquid some kind of wine, drier and more tart than he was used to. It made the inside of his mouth pucker.
The wine made the rounds of Aeren’s group, and then Aeren motioned everyone to sit back down, taking his own place on the other side of the circle.
The formalities over, Aeren’s expression grew stern. He considered Colin and the rest seated before him, glanced at all of those up on the bank, Karen and Colin’s mother at the front, behind the line of sentries, then looked hard at Colin’s father. “Where go?”
His father shifted, then pointed. “South and east.”
Aeren shook his head. “No.” He motioned toward the group on the bank, mimed all of them turning around and heading back the way they’d come. “Go.”
Tom frowned and leaned back, shaking his head. “We can’t go back. There’s nothing for us back there. We want to go to the south and east.”
“No!” Aeren said more emphatically. He said something sharp in his own language. “No go southandeast!”
“We can’t go back,” his father repeated, patiently. “Why do you want us to go back? And how do you know Andovan?”
Frustrated, Aeren waved toward the northwest. “Go! Go!”
When Tom only continued to shake his head, Aeren snorted in disgust. Behind him, one of the other men said something, and he stilled, listening.
As they spoke, Arten leaned forward. “I think they’re trying to warn us of something.”
“They aren’t doing a very good job of it,” Tom responded. “And even if they are, we can’t afford to go back at this point. We’ve come too far.”
“It’s obvious they don’t know our language well,” Arten said. “We’ll have to be patient. They’re trying to tell us something. And as Colin says, I don’t think they intend to harm us.”
Opposite them, Aeren finished the argument with his guard and turned back to Tom, who’d straightened. Seeing the stiffened back, Aeren sighed.
Carefully, he folded the leaves that had been used to wrap the meat and placed them, the bowls, and the wineskin into the pouch, handing it off to one of the guards. He motioned to Colin and the rest, to those on the embankment behind them, and then said, “Come.” When no one moved, his expression darkened. “Come,” he said more forcefully, indicating a direction almost directly south of them. Part of his group had already stood and headed off ahead of him, spreading out in a wide line. Most of them didn’t seem all that concerned with making certain the people from Portstown were following them, their attention turned outward, as if they’d already forgotten they’d met the group. Only Aeren and one other stayed behind, inside the circle.
Tom hesitated a long moment, frowning, eyes locked on Aeren, then stood, brushing off his breeches before heading back toward the camp.
“What are you doing?” Walter demanded. He’d remained quiet for the entire exchange.
Without turning, Tom said, “I’m going to order the rest of the wagons loaded. He obviously wants to show all of us something, and I intend to see what it is.”
“Why are you helping them? They obviously don’t want to listen, like the last group.”
Aeren didn’t turn to his Protector but kept his eyes on the strange group of brown-skinned people as they made their way back to their wagons and cook fires. The one called Walter was already speaking to the group’s leader, Tom, arguing with him. He found their language harsh, their names strange… but intriguing. Their beasts called horses-so large, so powerful-frightened him, their clothes coarsely woven and cut, and their customs savage, without proper form and structure, but still…
“I’m helping them because they do not understand.”
“You are helping them because you are curious. They are primitives, wandering into a land they know nothing about. We should leave them to the dwarren.”
Aeren turned to his Protector then, frowning at Eraeth’s scowl. “This is not your Trial,” he said defensively, even though he knew the Protector was partially correct: He was curious. He’d approached Colin because they’d appeared to be the same age. And because Colin did not carry a weapon.
“No, it is not. But I am your Protector. I-and the Phalanx-are here to protect you. From the dangers of the plains, from the risks of the Trial… from yourself.”
Aeren stiffened, his shoulders straightening in indignation. “I am not the child my father assigned you to protect twenty years ago!” The words came out harsher than he intended, petulant and not fitting for the son of a House Lord, even a second son. He saw the instant disapproval in Eraeth’s eyes, in the lips pressed tightly together.
He turned away from that look, caught his breath and held it to calm himself, then said, “This is my Trial, Eraeth. Are you now an acolyte, part of the mystical Order? Who are you to say that they,” he nodded toward where the strangers were preparing their wagons for travel, “are not part of the Trial? Do you know Aielan’s will?”
Eraeth stepped forward, so that Aeren could see him out of the corner of his eye. “No, I do not know Aielan’s will, but I fail to see how they could be part of your Trial. You have already passed. You’ve faced the dangers of the plains and the dwarren. You have seen the Confluence, have drunk its rose-tinged waters, have gathered those waters-the Blood of Aielan-as your proof.”
“But I have not yet returned home.”
“All the more reason to leave these strangers to the dwarren. This is not our land. This has nothing to do with the Alvritshai.”
“Not now,” Aeren agreed, “but they continue to appear on the plains. Eventually, they will head northward. We should learn as much about them as we can.”
Eraeth merely grunted, although it was tainted with grudging agreement.
They remained silent for a long moment, the air between them tense, shouts from the strange group rising from the hollow where they’d taken refuge for the night. Eraeth had been his Protector for twenty years, had taught him the nuances of being a member of a House, had trained him in the art of the sword, the bow-all the arts of the Phalanx guard.
But everything would change now, with his passage through the Trial. He would no longer be Eraeth’s student; he would be a full member of the House, the Protector’s master.
And neither of them had figured out exactly what that meant yet.
“What is it?” Karen asked, falling in beside Colin as soon as Walter, his father, and Arten reached the top of the bank. Tom barked out some orders a moment before Walter would have done the same. Everyone on the bank hesitated, uncertain, glancing back down at the circle where Aeren and his guard waited, the pattern woven into the grass clear now that the sun had risen completely, a swirl of lines like the patterns on their shirts. But when Tom clapped his hands and repeated the orders, prodding the nearest sentry into motion, the rest of the group began to move toward the wagons.
Colin led Karen toward the campfire from the night before and began scrambling to load up the pots and kettles, dismantling the spit. Karen stooped to help.
“I don’t know,” Colin said. “They tried to get us to turn back. Now I think they want to show us something. They want us to follow them.”
“Where?”
Colin shrugged. “Somewhere south of here.”
Trying to handle too many pots at once, Karen dropped a few with a rattle and cursed. On all sides, men and women were running to and fro, tossing supplies into the backs of the wagons, where the older children were shoving them into place. The younger ones were trying to see what everyone was doing and to catch sight of the strange men, their attention focused on the embankment. Some of the men were hitching the horses.
Someone rushed forward and doused the coals of the fire with a bucket of water, steam rising with a harsh hiss. Colin and Karen handed off the last of the supplies from their wagon, and then Colin searched for his father. He wanted to be at the front of the wagon train, near Aeren.
“Come on,” he said, catching sight of his father near the lead wagon. He was talking to Arten and Walter, surveying the mad rush to pack and head out.
“-were heading southeast anyway,” his father was saying as they approached. “Why shouldn’t we see what they want to show us?”
“Because we don’t know what their intentions are!” Walter answered. “What if they’re leading us to the rest of their people? We have the advantage of numbers now. We might not if they take us to one of their villages or towns.”
Colin’s father glanced toward Walter and said grudgingly, “You have a point. But then why would they try to get us to turn back?”
“So they wouldn’t have to deal with us at all! But since we refused to turn back-”
“I don’t think they live on the plains,” Arten cut in, and all of them turned toward him.
Walter snorted. “Why not?”
Arten shrugged. “Their clothes, their swords. Their breeches make sense, but their shirts aren’t made for the plains, and their boots are too high. Half of us don’t even wear shoes anymore, they’re too painful. It’s easier to go barefoot. And their swords make no sense at all. We haven’t killed anything with the swords since we headed out.”
“But they have bows,” Colin’s father said.
Arten nodded. “Which makes sense if they intend to be here for a short time. They’d need them to hunt with. But if they lived here permanently, they wouldn’t need the swords at all.”
Sam appeared out of nowhere, breath short. “We’re ready to leave. Paul’s stowing the last few things into Tobin’s wagon, with Ana’s help, but they’ll be done by the time their wagon has to start moving.”
Tom nodded and turned to Walter. “We’ll follow them, but we’ll be cautious. I don’t see any reason not to trust them at this point. They know the plains better than we do.”
Walter didn’t argue any further, storming away to where Jackson waited with their horses.
Tom put two fingers in the corners of his mouth and whistled, the sound piercing the commotion of the rest of the wagon train. “Let’s move out!” he shouted, motioning with one hand over his head. Men climbed up into their seats and snapped the reins, and the lead wagon creaked forward, heading toward the gap between the two banks.
“I think we should stick close to Aeren,” Tom said to them all, then turned to Colin. “He seems to have bonded with you, possibly because he’s younger than the rest of his group. Hell, you two may even be the same age, I can’t tell. But see what you can find out about him and his people.”
Colin nodded.
They passed through the gap and found Aeren and his guard waiting on the far side. The rest of Aeren’s group had vanished into the plains.
“We’re ready,” Tom said as they approached the two strange men.
Aeren nodded, watching the first wagon as it began to ford the stream, wheels splashing through the water. He eyed the horses intently, not without a little fear, and Colin realized he hadn’t seen anything like horses here in New Andover. The closest animal had been the deer.
But then Aeren motioned toward the south. “Suren,” he said, in his own language.
“Suren,” Colin’s father repeated as they began walking in that direction.
Aeren grinned and nodded, then pointed north, east, west, and south, as he said, “Nuren, est, ost, ai suren.”
Tom followed suit. “Nuren, est, ust-”
“Ost.”
“-ost, and suren?”
When Aeren smiled, Tom repeated the directions in Andovan, Aeren frowning seriously as he listened, repeating the words as they both pointed, the directions getting more complicated as they started doing southeast, northwest, southwest, and northeast. Aeren’s guardian scowled until Aeren threw him a dark look. Everyone else smiled or chuckled.
“Eraeth,” Aeren said, pointing to his guardian, who scowled again, pointedly ignoring Aeren. Colin saw Aeren’s mouth twitch. Then Aeren motioned to Karen, his eyebrow raised.
“Karen,” Colin said. “Her name is Karen.”
Aeren paused and gave Karen another of the formal bows, almost the same he’d given Tom but slightly different. He said something in his own language, and even though no one except Eraeth could understand him, Karen lifted her head higher and blushed.
They traveled through the morning, pausing to rest on occasion, Aeren pointing out animals and plants and flowers as they went, speaking mostly to Colin and Karen, trading the names of each object in the two languages. At one point, Aeren began quizzing them all, and Colin discovered that Karen was more adept at remembering the new language. The strange deer were called gaezels by the Alvritshai, the name of Aeren’s people. Colin couldn’t determine exactly where the Alvritshai were from, but after numerous attempts he thought they came from a range of mountains to the north. At least, Aeren kept pointing to the mountains to the east, making jagged up and down motions with his hands, then shaking his head when Colin or Karen pointed east and saying nuren instead.
Eraeth listened to all of this disapprovingly, keeping his eyes on Arten and Tom. Sam had drifted away to help one of the wagons when it got stuck in a low spot.
Toward midafternoon, both Aeren and Eraeth grew quieter, Eraeth speaking to Aeren in a low voice, as if trying to convince him of something. Aeren kept shaking his head but otherwise didn’t argue with him. Until at one point he grew exasperated and said something short and curt, raising his arm across his chest, his hand in a fist near his shoulder. The band of gold around his wrist gleamed in the steady sunlight.
After that, Eraeth kept silent, his face studiously blank.
It was after this altercation that Walter and Jackson approached the group, drawing their horses up sharply. Both of the Alvritshai stepped back, distancing themselves from the animals, their eyes slightly wider than usual, although they showed no other signs of fear.
Walter ignored the two of them completely. “Jackson says that, according to his map and calculations, we should be nearing the river that leads to Portstown, assuming it kept the same general course. He estimates the Bluff and Falls are about two, maybe three, days travel to the west.”
Colin’s father raised a hand to his eyes to shade them from the sun and scanned the horizon. “I don’t see anything.”
“What about that?” Arten pointed toward the southeast, where a darker line appeared on the plains, blending into the heat waves on the horizon.
At Aeren’s quizzical expression, Colin tried to explain the river. Eraeth snorted and said something in Alvritshai, and Aeren motioned them forward, but not toward the darker spot Arten had seen. They continued south, the dark line spreading, until they were close enough to see that it was a low ridge where the plains were interrupted by a line of trees and brush cutting its way almost directly east. As they drew closer, Colin heard a strange rustling, then realized it was the leaves of the trees brushing against each other in the breeze. He hadn’t heard the sound in so long, he barely recognized it.
“I don’t see the river,” Walter said, standing up in his stirrups.
“Do you feel that?” Arten said.
Everyone stopped at the edge of where the grass grew thicker and greener, the verge of the thin line of trees.
“What?” Karen asked.
“In your feet. The ground feels like it’s trembling.”
Colin focused on his feet and thought he could feel a faint trembling in the earth. He stepped forward, moving in among the trees themselves, and the sensation increased. When he stood in the middle of the copse, he knelt, then lay flat against the earth and pressed his ear to the ground, closing his eyes.
Through the shuddering earth, he could hear a dull roar. He frowned, pressing harder into the earth, heard a few of the others approaching as he strained to figure out what the sound was And then he jerked his head away from the ground.
“What is it?” his father asked.
Colin looked up at them in wonder. “It’s the river. It’s underground, beneath the trees. You can hear it, like the sound of the Falls, only muted by the earth.”
Tom and Karen both dropped to the ground and copied Colin, listening to the grumbling sound of an unfathomable amount of water roaring through an underground chamber, more water moving faster than Colin could imagine. Walter looked as if he wanted to hear it as well, but he refused to dismount from his horse, sitting up straight in the saddle, towering over all of them. Both his and Jackson’s horse were fidgeting, feet dancing as they tried to shy away from the trembling ground.
“Do you think it travels underground from here to the Falls?” Arten asked.
Tom had climbed back to his feet. “Remember how it shot out of the Bluff? And we haven’t seen any significant water sources on the upper plains at all, mostly streams and small creeks and runoff from the storms.” He stared down at the ground, hands on his hips, then turned to Arten. “If all the major water sources are underground, we’re going to have one hell of a time finding a place to settle Haven.”
Aeren stepped into the grim silence that followed and motioned toward the east. His expression was grim as well, although he couldn’t have understood what Tom had said. Eraeth kept close to Aeren’s side as they followed him through the thicket of trees, wider than Colin had expected, the river rumbling beneath them, the trees marking its edges. As they moved, a few more of Aeren’s guard appeared, startling Karen and Walter both as they emerged from the thicket as if from thin air, their steps silent, their forms fading into the background when they stood still. Colin listened to Walter cursing as the branches of the trees dragged at him, but he still refused to dismount, choosing to duck beneath them, leaning forward, almost hugging his mount’s neck.
The trees thinned. Colin pushed through the last of the branches, into scrub brush, and found himself staring out across another expanse of plains, almost exactly like those on the other side of the trees.
He sighed in disappointment. He’d hoped for something different.
Aeren pointed toward something just to the east, a small group of dark objects sitting in the grass near the verge of trees.
Everyone shifted forward, a few with eyes shaded. Colin squinted, felt Karen moving up beside him. He could see five distinct shapes in the grass, rectangular, blackened, low to the ground. He frowned, not recognizing them And then Karen gasped under her breath, “They’re wagons!” And suddenly the shapes came into focus, harsh and visceral. A cold fear seeped into his chest, spreading out to his arms, down into his gut.
“What is it?” Walter asked.
“It’s one of the previous expeditions,” Tom said, his voice strangely flat and remote. “It’s what’s left of their wagons.”
Shock settled over everyone as they stared out at the abandoned wagons, the words sinking in slowly.
And then Walter spun his horse toward Aeren, who was suddenly surrounded by Eraeth and the other Alvritshai who had emerged from the forest as they approached. Their bows were strung and pulled, arrows steady, although Colin didn’t know when they’d strung them. They were pointed toward his father, toward Arten and Walter, the commander’s hand already on his sword. But when he saw the arrows trained on him, he froze, eyes blazing.
“Who did this?” Walter spat, not in a roar but in a hiss. He kicked his horse forward a menacing step, completely ignoring Aeren’s guards. “Who did this?” he demanded again. “Did you do this? Did you?”
“Don’t be stupid, Walter.”
Colin felt a hot surge of satisfaction pierce the coldness of the fear in his chest at his father’s voice, flat and even.
Walter spun on Tom. “What did you say to me?”
“I said, don’t be stupid. They wouldn’t have led us here to see this if they’d done it themselves. They would have killed us back where we met. So sit down and keep quiet, before you get us all killed.”
“Yes, Walter,” Jackson added, looking pointedly toward Aeren’s guards. “Sit down and shut up.”
Walter stiffened, his glare never leaving Tom’s face, but he sat back in the saddle. The muscles in his jaw flexed. “I’m the Proprietor here,” he insisted, his tone sullen.
Tom’s eyes darkened. “Then act like it.” Without waiting for a response, he turned to Arten. “We need to check out those wagons, see if we can determine what happened.”
“What about them?” Arten asked, nodding toward the Alvritshai. Aeren stood in their midst, his bow the only one not strung. He watched everyone in the group carefully, all trace of the smiling man they’d spent the day traveling and trading languages with gone. His guardsmen had not relaxed, not even when Walter backed down, and Arten’s hand had not shifted from his sword hilt.
“I don’t think we have to worry about them.” Tom turned his attention on Aeren. “We’re going down there,” he said, motioning toward the wagons.
Aeren nodded, said something in his own language. His guards relaxed, their bows dropping, some of the tension in their strings easing. But they did not remove the arrows; they kept them pointed toward the ground, ready for use.
Arten waited until everyone else had headed toward the wagons, Walter making a point of riding out in front first, before easing away from the Alvritshai and following.
The first thing Colin noticed as he and Karen approached the wagons was that they were nothing but burned out husks. Charred wood stood out against the green and yellow of the grasses, pieces torn from the sides of the wagon completely overgrown by the grass itself. Karen’s hand found his as they came up on the first wagon, the rest of the group spreading out, Arten and Tom heading toward the center of the grouping, Walter and Jackson circling around to the other side. The wagons were spaced as if they’d been hit while traveling.
“What do you think happened?” Karen said, as she reached out a tentative hand toward the side of the wagon, brushed her fingers against the charred wood. Her hand came away black with soot, cinders crumbling off and falling to the ground, flakes catching in the breeze and drifting away.
“They were hit while moving,” Colin said. “It looks like they were trying to run away. Look at the wheel. It’s shattered, like when the horses bolted on the lower plains and Paul’s wagon hit the stone and flipped.” He pointed toward the broken wheel, the wagon canted in that direction. The smell of char and soot was strong, even though the wagons had been sitting out exposed for what must have been months.
Colin stood, glanced into the back of the wagon as Karen drifted away, noticed that most of the supplies were still inside, although charred almost beyond recognition. Something might be salvageable though. The hide cover was gone, although a few of the supports that had held it still remained, also blackened by fire.
“Oh, Diermani help us,” Karen gasped, her breath choked.
He circled around toward the front of the wagon, toward Karen. “What is it?” he asked as he approached and saw Karen looking at the ground. Her hand covered her mouth as she took shallow breaths.
And then the breeze shifted and he caught the rancid smell of rotten meat. He gagged, even though it wasn’t that strong, one hand covering his own mouth.
“The horses,” Karen said, voice thin.
The team of horses that had pulled the wagon lay in the grass, hidden by its stalks. They were still tied to the tongue, their bodies half cooked by the fire. The blackened skin had pulled away, exposing their yellowed teeth, and holes gaped in their sides where animals had gnawed at their hides, chunks of flesh torn free. But they’d been on the plains for a while, the rancid smell more a lingering memory, the bodies themselves more gruesome than anything else.
Colin sucked in a breath to steady himself, then crouched down close to the dead horse to look it over closely. “Get me a stick,” he said.
“From where?” Karen said, moving away.
“The line of trees over the river if you have to.”
Karen snorted. He heard her rooting through the back of the wagon, then return.
“What about this?”
She held out the end of a hoe, the metal and part of the handle still intact. The top of the handle had been burned to ash.
He grunted, grabbed the end of the handle, greasy soot coating his hand, then used the metal part of the hoe to prod something from the flaking hide of the horse. It took a moment to work it free, but once it fell out, he pulled it toward him, then reached down to pick it up.
Karen leaned forward as he brought it up into the sunlight.
“It’s the head of a spear,” Colin said.
Karen stood up. “So they were attacked, and they tried to run, but-”
“They didn’t make it.”
They considered this in silence, broken a moment later by Karen. “So who attacked them?”
They both turned toward Aeren and the Alvritshai. Uneasiness settled into Colin’s stomach, roiled there.
“Let’s show this to my father,” he said, standing.
They moved toward where his father and Arten were inspecting one of the other wagons. Within twenty steps, he felt something soft give beneath his foot and glanced down.
Karen shrieked and leaped back, but Colin only stared, withdrawing his foot hastily.
He’d stepped on an arm, the impression of his shoe clear in what remained of the man’s flesh. The man’s body was mercifully facedown, a ragged hole in his back where a spear had killed him, then been jerked free. The body was shrunken, the flesh collapsed in upon itself, and like the bodies of the horses, the predators of the plains had been at it. One of the man’s legs was completely missing, torn free and dragged off somewhere to be eaten.
The man had clearly been running from the wagon-abandoned after it had caught fire or when it had hit the stone and the wheel had shattered-and had been killed as he fled.
Colin shuddered, then grabbed Karen’s arm and led her away, although she’d already recovered from the initial shock. They jogged up to where his father and Arten were kneeling down at the back of a second wagon.
“We found a body,” Colin said.
His father looked up. “So have we.” Then he reached down and turned the body on the ground beneath the wagon over.
It wasn’t one of the people from the wagon train. It wasn’t even Andovan. The body was short, perhaps a hand or two shorter than Colin. It would have been stocky-broad of shoulder and chest, with short legs and arms-except that it was as mauled and decomposed as the body Colin and Karen had found. The fact that the face was caved in on one side, crushed by a heavy, blunt object, didn’t help matters. But even so they could see that the man’s skin had been a dusky brown shade, like dirt, and that he’d worn a closely shaven beard, trimmed on the edges, the length bound and twisted into small braids and tied off with beads. His hair was a tawny brown, a few locks braided and tied with beads and small feathers. He wore a shirt of woven cloth, soft where it wasn’t stiff with caked dirt and blood and soot, but his breeches were made of a different material, something tougher than the shirt. He didn’t wear shoes.
In one hand, he held the end of a spear, the haft splintered where it had been broken. Numerous pouches were belted to his waist, along with a sheathed knife, the blade small, in proportion with the rest of his body. His nose was pierced, as well as one ear, a thin silver chain running from one to the other so that it draped down across his cheek.
“I think he tried to climb up into the back of the wagon and got clubbed by someone inside,” Tom said.
Arten nodded. “These must be the people that Beth saw looking down from the upper plains. They’re shorter than the Alvritshai.”
“And they look more vicious,” Karen said, frowning down at the man’s face. “Look at the scars on his face.”
“Definitely a fighter,” Arten agreed. “A warrior.”
“Did you find one of them as well?” Colin’s father asked.
Colin shook his head. “No. We found one of the people from Andover. He’d taken a spear in the back.” He handed over the burned spear point. “They killed the horses with spears as well. I got this from the horse’s body.”
“They ambushed them,” Arten said, glancing up, looking out over the rest of the wagons they could see. One of the blackened hulks was flipped onto its side, its contents strewn about and hidden by the grass. “They forced them to run, but there were others waiting.”
Walter’s horse came charging around the end of the wagon, and he pulled it up short, turning back. “We found the rest of the group,” he growled, “the rest of the wagon train. They’ve been slaughtered.”
The bodies-men, women, and children-were all lying in a heap in front of the lead wagon, along with the bodies of a few horses, two cows, and three dogs. Arten stared down at them, his expression blank. Walter and Jackson were pacing their horses behind him.
“It was a massacre,” Tom said, and for the first time since they’d come down to the wagons, Colin heard anger in his voice.
Arten nodded, then reached down and retrieved an arrow from one of the corpses, working the arrowhead free from the body with care. He held it up to the sunlight, inspected the fletching, the point. “They rounded them up and then killed them with arrows. But it wasn’t the Alvritshai. The arrows are too short for their bows, and the fletching and arrowheads are different.” He lowered the arrow and turned to Tom. “I think Aeren is trying to warn us about these other people. He’s trying to warn us away from them.”
Walter scowled. “Then where are they, these other people? Who are they?”
“Dwarren.”
Everyone turned from the bodies back toward the wagons, where Aeren and the other Alvritshai were standing beside the lead wagon, watching them. Their arrows had been put away, although Colin noticed their bows were still strung.
None of them had heard the group of Alvritshai approach.
“They call themselves the dwarren?” Walter demanded. “They did this? Why? Why would they attack our people?”
Aeren’s brow creased in confusion. He motioned toward the wagons, toward the bodies at their feet, toward the arrow that Arten still held, and said again, “Dwarren.”
“And where are these dwarren?” Arten asked, voice tight. “Where do they live? How come we haven’t seen any of them yet?”
Aeren stared at him solemnly for a long moment, and Colin noticed that his men weren’t watching Walter or Arten or anyone else in the group. They were watching the plains.
Then Aeren motioned toward the surrounding grassland, his arm circling, fingers pointing in all directions. “Dwarren.”
“I don’t understand,” Walter said sharply, frustrated.
Arten’s gaze had shot toward the plains, his eyes squinted, face intent.
“I think he means,” Tom said softly, also turning toward the plains, “that the dwarren are everywhere. ”
And before anyone could react, they heard screams coming from the direction of their own wagons.