Theft of Swords (The Riyria Revelations #1-2)

“We found another over here!” Dillon McDern shouted as he hauled the foppish scholar Tobis Rentinual out of the remains of the smokehouse. The skinny courtier, covered from head to foot in dirt, collapsed on the grass, coughing and sputtering.

“The soil was soft in the cellar …” Tobis managed, then sputtered and coughed. “We—dug into it with our—with our hands.”

“How many?” Dillon asked.

“Five,” Tobis replied, “a woodsman, a castle guard, I think, Sir Erlic, and two others. The guard—” Tobis entered into a coughing fit for a minute, then sat up, doubled over, and spat on the grass.

“Arvid, fetch water from the well!” Dillon ordered his son.

“The guard was badly burned,” Tobis continued. “Two young men dragged him to the smokehouse, saying it had a cellar. Everything around us was on fire except the smokehouse, so the woodsman, Sir Erlic, and I all ran there too. The dirt floor was loose, so we started burrowing. Then something hit the shed and the whole thing came down on us. A beam caught my leg. I think it’s broken.”

The villagers excavated the collapsed shed. They pulled off a wall and dug into the wreckage, peeling back the fragments. They reached the bottom, where they found the others buried alive.

They dragged them out into the light. Sir Erlic and the woodsman looked near dead as they coughed and spat. The burned guard was worse. He was unconscious, but still alive. The last two pulled from the smokehouse ruins were Mauvin and Fanen Pickering, who, like Tobis, were unable to speak for a time but, other than numerous cuts and bruises, were all right.

“Is Hilfred alive?” Fanen asked after having a chance to breathe fresh air and drink a cup of water.

“Who’s Hilfred?” Lena Bothwick asked, holding the cup of water Verna had brought. Fanen pointed to the burned guard across from him and Lena nodded. “He’s not awake, but he’s alive.”

Search parties spread out and combed the rest of the area, finding many more bodies, mostly those of would-be contestants. They also discovered the remains of Archbishop Galien. The old man appeared to have died not from fire, but from being trampled to death. His servant, Carlton, lay inside the manor, apparently not content to die by his master’s side. Arista’s handmaid, Bernice, was also found inside the manor, crushed when the house collapsed. They found no one else alive.

The villagers created stretchers to carry Tobis and Hilfred out of the smoky ruins to the well, where the women tended their wounds. The old common green was a charred patch of black. The great bell, having fallen, lay on its side in the ash.

“What happened?” Hadrian asked, sitting down next to Mauvin. The two brothers huddled where Pearl had once grazed pigs. Both sat hunched, sipping from cups of water, their faces stained with soot.

“We were outside the walls when the attack came,” he said, his voice soft, not much louder than a strained whisper. He hooked his thumb at his brother. “I told him we were going home, but Fanen, the genius that he is, decided he wanted his shot at the beast, his chance at glory.”

Fanen drooped his head lower.

“He tried to sneak out, thought he’d give me the slip. I caught him outside the gate and a little way down the hill. I told him it was suicide; he insisted; we got into a fight. It ended when we saw the hill catch on fire. We ran back. Before we reached the front gate, a couple of carriages and a bunch of horses went by at full gallop. I spotted Saldur’s face peeking out from one of the windows. They didn’t even slow down.

“We went looking for Arista and found Hilfred on the ground just out front of the burning manor house. His hair was gone, skin coming off in sheets, but he was still breathing, so we grabbed him and just ran for the smokehouse. It was the last building still standing that wasn’t burning. The dirt floor was soft and loose, like it had recently been dug up, so we just started burrowing with our hands like moles, you know. That Tobis guy, Erlic, and Danthen followed us in. We only managed to dig a few feet when the whole thing came down on us.”

“Did you find Arista?” Fanen asked. “Is she …”

“We don’t know,” Hadrian replied. “The deacon says it took her and Theron’s daughter. She might still be alive.”

The women of the village tended the wounds of those found at the castle while the men began gathering what supplies, tools, and food stores they could find into a pile at the well. They were a motley bunch, haggard and dirty, like a band of shipwrecked travelers left on a desert island. Few of them spoke, and when they did, it was always in whispered tones. From time to time, villagers would weep softly, kick a scorched board, or merely wander off a ways only to drop to their knees and shake.

When, at last, the men were bandaged and the supplies stacked, Tomas, who had cleaned himself up, stood and said a few words over the dead, and they all observed a moment of silence. Then Vince Griffin stood up and addressed them.

“I was the first to settle here,” he said with a sad voice. “My house stood right there, the closest to this here well. I remember when most of you were considered newcomers, strangers even. I had great hopes for this place. I donated eight bushels of barley every year to the village church, though all I seen come of it was this here bell. I stayed here through the hard frost five years ago and I stayed here when people started to go missing. Like the rest a’ you, I thought I could live with it. People die tragically everywhere, be it from the pox, the plague, starvation, the cold, or a blade. Sure, Dahlgren seemed cursed, and maybe it is, but it was still the best place I’d ever lived. Maybe the best place I ever will live, mostly because of you all and the fact that the nobles hardly ever bothered us, but all that’s over now. There’s nothing here no more, not even the trees that was here before we came, and I don’t fancy spending another night in the well.” He wiped his eyes clear. “I’m leaving Dahlgren. I s’pose many a’ you will be too, and I just wanted to say that when you all came here, I saw you as strangers, but as I am leaving, I feel I’m gonna be saying goodbye to family, a family that has gone through a lot together. I … I just wanted you all to know that.”

They all nodded in agreement and exchanged muttered conversations with the people nearest them. It was decided by all that Dahlgren was dead and that they would leave. There was talk about trying to stay together, but it was only talk. They would travel as a group, including Sir Erlic and the woodsman Danthen, south at least as far as Alburn, where some would turn west, hoping to find relatives, while others would continue south, hoping to find a new start.

“So much for the church’s help,” Dillon McDern said to Hadrian. “They were here two nights and look.”

Dillon and Russell Bothwick walked over to where Theron sat against a blackened stump.

“ ’Spect you’ll be staying to find Thrace?” Dillon asked.

Theron nodded. The big man had not bothered to wash and he was coated in dirt and soot. He had the broken blade on his lap and stared at it.