Pagan Night by Akers Tim

Author:Akers, Tim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books

26

THE RUINS OF the village were silent.

“Go slowly, building to building,” Gwen ordered. “Expect an ambush.”

There was no ambush. The dead lay in bed or gathered around a cold campfire. A pot of stew congealed over the charred logs of the fire. Some of the bodies showed signs of rapidly donned armor, or held swords or the remains of torches in their lifeless fingers. Their wounds were horrendous, the edges blistered or crushed, as though the flesh had crumbled like ceramic.

Of the enemy there was no sign.

“Demons,” Wellem insisted.

“Gheist,” Brennan said. “Sir Hogue would never have fallen so completely to a mortal enemy.”

“What difference?” the younger knight whined. “We need to get out of here.”

“Patience, Wellem,” Gwen said. She knelt beside one of the bodies that had been next to a fire. The man’s arm had been severed, the edges so clean that even the rings of his mail were cut. Usually such a wound would drive the chain into the flesh, tearing through the skin like a saw, but the sleeve of the dead man’s armor just lay over the wound. No blade was that sharp. “Strange that a gheist would strike here, of all places.”

“It’s a place of the old gods,” Wellem said. He made the sign of sun and moon, carving their horns and crescents in the air with his thumb. “All know that! We should never have camped in such a cursed place.”

“Aye, well…” Gwen stood and did a quick count. She turned to Sir Brennan. “I have eight in the village and surrounds. What do you want to bet that if we took the time to dredge the ford we would find twelve good men?”

“Sir Hogue among them,” Brennan agreed. “Whatever attacked them, they tried to cross the Tallow to escape.”

“And died in its waters,” Wellem said sharply. “A gheist of the river, then, one of the drowned gods! My lady, we must…”

“Be silent,” she said sharply. “Sir Brennan, gather the men. There will be no rest tonight, not until this place is well behind us. I don’t think the likes of Wellem here could sleep near these bodies anyway.”

“What of the dead? We should shrive the bodies, and send them on to the quiet house.”

“The dead will remain dead. Once this madness is over we will send a priest and build a pyre, or whatever the church requires of us.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said. “We can have word to the Redoubt in a few days, if we ride hard. Sir Merret and Houndhallow need to know that this flank is lost.”

“It is not lost yet. Not while we remain.” Gwen circled the ruined village, scouring the woods, looking for signs of passage. She paused to the north and dismounted. “Here. Branches dragged across the trail, and this copse has been rebuilt. A force of some number has passed this way.”

She plunged into the forest, pulling down branches and trudging through undergrowth until she reached a small hill. Many of the trees had been cut and moved, and were beginning to brown.

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