The High Druid's Blade (The Defenders of Shannara, #1)(38)

“There was nothing she could do,” Starks offered. Paxon wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question or even how it was intended.

“Nothing. Nothing anyone can do about a thing like that. Have you any ideas about this?”

“One or two.”

“The townspeople don’t trust the Druids. Don’t like them, in fact. If it weren’t for Joffre Struen, you wouldn’t be here at all. I think it’s a good thing you are.”

“Were you out at the Carbenae place the other day?” Starks asked him, smiling.

The miller nodded. “Took them a load of feed. Midafternoon or maybe a little later when I got there. Didn’t stay long. Left to get back in time for dinner. I was worried about Iantha, too. Don’t like leaving her alone anymore since …” He trailed off with a shrug.

From the shadows behind him, a girl suddenly emerged. She was younger than Paxon by a few years, slender and pretty, her hair a soft dark brown, her eyes quick like her father’s. She came forward a few steps and stopped, as if waiting for permission to approach.

“Iantha, come here,” her father urged, holding out his hand.

She crossed the room, her eyes fixed on them, tentative in a way Paxon found endearing, but also troubling. She reached them and stopped.

“These are Druids, Iantha,” her father told her. “Would you please tell them briefly what you saw that day? Just what you can manage, girl.”

In a halting voice, Iantha related the events immediately leading up to the departure of the young man and his subsequent killing. She could not describe the creature or offer much in the way of details about the killing. She had gone into hiding at once, terrified of what might happen to her.

Indeed, she looked appropriately terrified even now, talking about it. She looked at the ground while she told her tale and kept her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

When she was done, Starks asked if she could show them where everything took place. She nodded without speaking and led them outside the mill and up to the yard fronting the cottage. She pointed out where her young man had mounted his horse and started to ride away. She showed them where she was standing on the cottage porch before she turned to go back inside. She walked them over to where the killing had occurred, although she would not go close to the stained, rutted earth.

Starks went over and knelt next to the killing ground, searching it carefully. The miller joined him, offering bits and pieces of information.

Iantha moved over beside Paxon and stood looking at him. “You seem nice,” she said after a minute.

Paxon met her intense gaze. “I should be saying that about you, Iantha.”

“Will you be my friend?”

He hesitated, confused by this. “Of course. But you must have lots of friends.”

“My father doesn’t want me to have friends.”

He glanced over at the miller, who was suddenly looking right at him. “Why would that be?”

“He is afraid for me.” Her voice was small, almost a whisper. “He thinks—”

“Iantha!” her father called out sharply. “Let the man be. He has work he needs to do.”

Iantha moved away, head lowered. Paxon forced himself to smile at the miller. “She was just asking me about the Druids,” he said.

The miller turned away, his attention on Starks once more. The Druid had risen and was looking around. Paxon glanced once more at Iantha, then walked over to join him.

“We should move along,” he said to Starks—a completely inappropriate remark to a superior from a subordinate, but the miller wouldn’t know this, and he wanted to get Starks alone.

The Druid nodded. “We might want to speak with you again later,” he told the miller, extending his hand. “Thank you for your help. And for yours, as well, Iantha,” he added.

They left the miller and his daughter standing in the yard of their cottage, walked back down to where they had left their horses, and mounted them. Starks took a last look around, saying as he did so, “Did you learn something you want to share?”

As they rode back down the trail, Paxon told him of his brief conversation with the girl. “She seems frightened. I don’t know what’s troubling her, but something is.”

“We might infer that it has something to do with her father’s story about visiting the Carbenaes to deliver grain and then leaving just before they were killed. Yet there was a third place setting at the table. It doesn’t feel like we are being told everything, does it?”

“I would like to get Iantha alone for a few minutes,” Paxon said a moment later. “She might say more when her father isn’t around.”

Starks nodded, urging his horse ahead. “Let’s see what we can do.”

They spent the remainder of the day visiting the sites of the other killings and speaking with the few people who had actually seen the creature responsible. All described it as wolfish and walking upright. No one had gotten a close, clear look at its face. All of the sightings had been at night and in shadows. One man said he had witnessed the creature ambush a rider who had passed him on the road while he was walking the other way. He said that when the creature was done with its victim, it had loped back into the trees, changing into something less animal and more human even as it did so.

They went back into the village to continue their search for further information, but everything had pretty much dried up. Even Joffre Struen, though trying to be helpful, could not think of anything to add that would help their efforts.