The Hob's Bargain(33)

He waited until the others had left the barn before he said anything. "Touched Banar was killed last night."

"I know," I said. The smith's brother had been a gentle soul, if simple. I hadn't spoken to him much, but he'd been a fixture at the smithy.

"The official story is that the raiders caught him. Kith found him. He and Merewich brought the body back to the smith. Then Kith came to me and asked me to tell you to stay out of town as much as possible."

"Me?" I asked, surprised.

"You haven't been around town much anyway," Koret said, scuffing a bit of loose straw with the side of his boot. "You might not have heard... There's a group, the last priest's staunchest followers for the most part, who are becoming rabid about anything smelling of magic. They claim it's the village's wickedness that caused the One God's anger and shook the world."

I smiled without amusement, then stopped when it hurt my jaw. I'd forgotten Manta'd hit me. "I know about them. My brother by marriage is one of them. Kith thinks they're responsible for Banar's death? Because of the old tales about changelings?"

Koret met my eyes, not speaking a word.

"I'll stay out of town."

The summer night was rich with the sounds of the creatures who haunted the dark. Crickets sang from the fields, answered by the frogs in the nearby creek.

I stood in the sheltering shadow of my barn and watched the raiders poke around the empty cottage. I had stopped here deliberately, though the route Koret had assigned me actually passed a mile or so below this.

It had been several months since it had been safe to live here - not since we got back from the Hob, as a matter of fact. I'd come back and found traces of the raiders all over. So I lived in a camp just outside of town.

It wasn't the visions that kept me from moving into town. I no longer had to worry about going into visionary fits every time someone asked me a question, not since the trip to Auberg. The visions weren't gone, but the force of them had eased, much as the earth tremors that followed the big one had subsided.

I thought the cause of both was the gradual decreasing of magic to the level it must have been at before the bloodmages locked it away. The magic, it seemed to me, was like the steam trapped under the lid of a pot of boiling water. When the lid was removed, steam billowed out, then subsided to a steady mist.

What kept me out of town was the looks I received whenever I walked down the street. Melry, Wandel, and Kith were the only ones who treated me as they always had. Crusty old Cantier treated me like a long-lost daughter while his wife hung protective charms around her neck and glared when he wasn't looking. Merewich and Koret wanted me to find out what the raiders were doing, but I couldn't see the bandit's camp, no matter how hard I tried. I didn't know why that was. Kith suggested they might have a bloodmage's spell blocking my sight.

Some people just avoided me, sending nervous glances my way when they thought I might not be looking. It was the others I minded most: the ones who crossed the street to get away, then watched me with fear or hatred. People like Poul, my brother by marriage, and Albrin, Kith's father.

I'd thought it was getting worse lately, but I hadn't thought it would go so far as murder. Deliberately, I turned my attention to my former home.

The croft was already showing the lack of care. The first earthquake had pulled a shutter loose from a window; it had fallen to the ground since the last time I'd been here a few weeks ago. The garden fence had developed a decided lean, and I could smell the polecat who'd taken possession of the barn. The farm had kept me sane after my family had died; it hurt to reward it with such neglect. The raiders' presence tonight was a further indignity.

In the months since I'd come back from Auberg, I'd gathered quite a bit of experience watching raiders from the shadows, but it wasn't the same as seeing them here, in my home. I leaned into the roughness of the barn wood. Having something solid against my back helped me stay still. Daisy the cow no longer smelled bad - something had come up here a couple of weeks ago and eaten most of her.

The group of raiders I'd come upon was small - only three that I could see - though I suspected there was another one hidden near the thicket just east of the house. Something had frightened a sleeping bird out of the gorse bush anyway. If I'd seen them before they were so close, I would have avoided them. But they'd come just as I was leaving. There was no sense risking their seeing me by moving about, so I settled down to wait.

There weren't enough men to make a real raiding party - this bunch was probably out scavenging. Since they were doing it at night, they were probably scrounging without permission. Two of the men entered the cottage with a torch, leaving the third on guard just outside the door. I don't know what the one by the gorse bush was doing.

The men were on foot, so their camp might not be too far away - something that would interest Koret. Although we'd found the remains of a number of overnight camping places, no one had been able to pinpoint their main camp. If they had a camp outside the range of our usual patrols, it would explain why we hadn't been able to find them. Kith felt their camp would be some distance from where they attacked, so we'd concentrated our searches in the western slopes. Maybe they weren't as smart as Kith thought they were.

As I sat musing over possible nearby camping sights, I noticed movement in the darkness. It wasn't in the gorse bush, but I thought it might be the same man. I resisted the urge to move to a better location, knowing any movement might give my position away as easily as it had let me see the fourth raider.