‘By travellin’, learnin’. I’m by meself most of the time, but I make friends in every village I pass through. Feels less lonely that way. Havin’ Cenif helps, too …’ He trailed off, and Annev understood why.
‘So you haven’t always been a pedlar?’
‘No. I was a farmer once – and a scholar, and a soldier. I’ve tried near every trade, and I expect I’ll try a few more afore Fate calls me home.’
Annev felt a pang of guilt at this last comment. ‘You were a soldier,’ he said, pulling at a thread he’d been picking at. ‘Have you ever killed anyone?’
Crag slowed his pace. ‘Have you?’ Annev shook his head. ‘Then you best stay behind me when we get to the end of this trail. Trainin’ ain’t the same as doin’.’
Not long after that, the tracks led them to the top of a ridge. The shrubs grew closer together on the other side, making the mule’s wild trail easier to see.
‘She was in a lot of pain, I think,’ Annev said, speaking softly. ‘I doubt she even saw where she was going.’ He pointed at the ravaged shrubbery. ‘She tore right through the scrub, snapping twigs, tearing up the ground.’
Crag gazed down into the small valley below. ‘Poor beastie. She deserved better. She was a cursed stubborn mule, but she was steady-hearted.’ He tightened his grip on his staff. ‘I think we’re close. You see that tree?’ He pointed at a fallen pine. ‘There’s a pit on the other side and the trail leads that way. I wager that’s where the monsters found her.’
‘I thought we agreed men killed your mule.’
Crag grunted. ‘Men can be monsters. And a man that hurts a frightened animal is ten times a monster.’ He spat, eyes hot with anger. ‘Whoever did this will pay. Blood for blood, and I make good on my promises.’ Crag led the way down the slope, steadying himself with the quarterstaff. Annev was close behind, wishing he had a staff of his own.
The scene below was strikingly like the forest clearing: blood spattered the length of the mule’s trail, and Annev could see the dried pink and crimson streaks of spattered gore across the bark of every third or fourth tree.
Crag stepped right up to one tree and eyed it more closely.
‘This ain’t mule’s blood,’ he whispered, then pointed his staff at the red droplets on the ground. ‘That is.’
‘What’s the difference?’ Annev asked. ‘She might have stumbled into the trees.’
‘Aye, and from a distance that’s just what it seems – but look closer. This blood weren’t just smeared across the trees. ’Twas flung there. Sprayed across the bark with some measure of violence.’
Annev stared at the tree closest to him. Crag was right. Something – more likely several things – had been killed here, and not kindly. Goosebumps prickled Annev’s neck, and he found himself wishing he had a weapon.
‘Look here.’ Crag pointed at another tree a few feet to his left. ‘Metal embedded in the tree. Looks like copper.’ Annev stepped forward and examined the same trunk.
‘Copper … and iron?’
‘And gold!’ Crag exclaimed. He tugged at a slim ribbon of metal impaled into the roots of the tree, eventually prising the shard free. He turned it over in his hand then passed it to Annev.
‘I don’t understand,’ Annev said, examining the strip of metal. It was easily worth a gold sun and possibly a few beams. It was also sharp – sharp enough for him to use as a knife if need required it.
‘Nor do I,’ Crag said. He ran his finger over a piece of flesh clinging to the tree trunk. ‘A strange and grisly puzzle.’ He took a step towards the pit then paused, clearing his throat. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said, seeming less confident than he’d been moments before. ‘I’ll have the answers that lie at the end of this trail.’
Annev pocketed the shard of gold. Ahead, a portion of the path was blocked by the fallen pine. As Annev drew closer he saw it had lain there for some time: most of the bark had peeled from the grey trunk, and dry needles covered the forest floor.
They moved beyond the tree and approached the pit Crag had seen from atop the ridge. It was not big, less than six feet in each direction, criss-crossed by a half-dozen dry branches, some broken. Peering down into the hole, Annev saw two large boulders lying at the bottom of the pit. The top of each was covered with dried blood.
‘A trap,’ Annev said.
‘Aye,’ Crag agreed. He poked at the branches with his staff. ‘Crude thing. Poorly built. Poorly hid. No stakes or snares at the bottom. Shallow, too. If you stood atop one of them boulders, you could hop right out.’ He knelt down and examined the side of the pit. ‘Almost looks like it was dug by hand.’
Annev crouched down beside him and pointed to a severed root poking through the pit wall. ‘No. Look there. That root’s been cut clean through. You’d need something sharp for that kind of cut.’
Crag nodded. ‘I can’t think it’d be a shovel on account of the walls bein’ so poorly sloped. An axe, though? Maybe. Might be they used an axe to dig the pit, too.’
‘A man with no shovel … who digs a pit with his axe?’
‘Odd, ain’t it?’ Crag stood up, dusting the dirt from his knees.
Annev studied the pit, working it out. ‘I think the trap caught your mule. And the boulders … they must have been rolled in after she was caught. So they could get her out again.’ He pulled back two pine boughs from the mouth of the pit, enlarging its opening. He continued to clear until he could see the bottom properly, then he hopped down onto the nearest boulder. Crag peered at him, curious.
‘What’re you doin’?’
Annev didn’t answer. Instead, he bent down until his nose was almost touching the dry blood caking the rock’s surface, then he moved around the stone, examining the soil and dust beneath it. ‘There are white lines scribbled all over the tops of these boulders. Like something sharp was raked across their surface, over and over.’
Crag pulled on his chin, frowning. ‘Keos, but that’s a riddle I don’t know the answer to.’
Annev nodded, climbing back out of the pit. ‘Whoever set the trap meant to catch something, not kill it. Then they climbed in to get the mule out.’
‘But then why the blood?’ Crag asked. ‘And the scratches on the rocks? If the monsters didn’t want to hurt the poor beastie, why did they bleed her like that?’
‘Because …’ said a reedy voice from atop the ridge, ‘sometimes the monsters don’t do what they’re told.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The woman was so bent with age that if she’d been standing next to them, she’d have had to crane her neck to look up. She was dressed entirely in black, a terrible hump twisted her shoulders, and she peered down at them with round white eyes.
Crag held his staff in front of him and took a step forward.
‘I speak of the monsters that tortured your mule.’ The crone’s voice was thin and creaking, and she took slow steps down the ridge holding both hands close to her chest. Her fingers were twisted, gnarled things, more bone than flesh and traced all over with dark blue veins.