Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

The men’s bodies were gone. Persephone scanned the rocks with apprehensive eyes. Raithe created a mental list of who or what might have taken the men: spirits, more wolves, Grin the Brown, Wogan, or perhaps the inhabitants of the dahl. That last one troubled him, but his empty stomach concerned him more. He wanted to ask Persephone if she intended to make good on the promise of a meal, but he refrained. They hadn’t spoken much that morning. The quiet of the wood demanded silence.

When at long last they cleared the tree line and returned to the open field, all of them except Suri gained a spring in their step. Once more the blue of a peerless sky stretched above, and the unhindered face of the sun shone down. The great wooden wall of Dahl Rhen crowned the hill of spring flowers. Wet grass soaked their legs as they climbed the slope where already Raithe could smell food. As they neared the top, a horn announced their approach.

“That’s an all clear, right?” Raithe asked Persephone.

She nodded, holding the hem of her dress up and exposing sodden sandals speckled with bits of grass. “It would be two blasts for an alert and three for a call-to-arms threat.”

“Same as in Dureya,” he said.

Persephone nodded, smiling.

“I’m just so glad to be back. I don’t think I’ve ever missed this place so much. It feels like I’ve been away for a year rather than only a day. A long and incredibly frightening year. I’m going to sleep well tonight.”

Suri stopped. “I expect you can find your way from here, ma’am?”

“Yes, Suri.” Persephone rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I can get lost within sight of my home. But won’t you please come in with us? The least I can do is get you a meal. You saved my life. You have to let me do that much.”

The girl hesitated, then glanced at Minna. “What do you think? Their food was pretty good.”

“Come. Eat. Spend the night,” Persephone told her. “You can leave fresh in the morning.”

The girl whispered to the wolf, “One more night won’t make us touched, Minna. But if you see me wearing shoes, bite me.”

Raithe discovered that Dahl Rhen was nothing like Dahl Dureya. Inside, the village was huge and packed with roundhouses built with the luxury of logs sealed with daub. The thickly thatched roofs formed tall, cone-shaped peaks. Torches lined gravel paths that snaked between the homes, and a broad gravel avenue ran up the center of the village to the lodge and the common well. Filling gaps between dark-soil gardens were fire pits and woodpiles.

Woodpiles!

In Dureya, wood was more precious than metal. Here, the villagers burned it even though it wasn’t night or winter. The series of vertical logs surrounding the village were crucial for protection, and even inside, wooden fences bordered gardens. Probably the only way to keep the goats and pigs out. Along with chickens, the animals wandered freely underfoot. Raithe checked Minna, but the wolf paid no attention to any of the livestock and stayed at the mystic’s side.

Dominating everything was the lodge. The huge building sat in the middle of the dahl at the opposite end of the gravel pathway. Perched on a foundation of stone, the big wooden house was four times the size of Dureya’s lodge. Squared beams braced the peaks and framed great doors. Pillars formed by binding together the trunks of six giant pine trees stood on either side of the porch.

On the left side of the path leading to the lodge, two braziers flanked a stone statue of a god. The sculpture stood only three feet tall and had vaguely human features dominated by large breasts and wide hips. Dureyans had their own gods, the Mynogan, who were actually three gods—the gods of war. Dahl Rhen’s god looked friendlier.

There were more people there than Raithe had ever seen gathered in one place. As many as a hundred walked the pathways, worked the well, or tended gardens. Most were women and children. One of the few men he saw was a potter, a cripple who sat huddled over an odd spinning table, shaping wet clay.

A cripple? Raithe pondered this. How wealthy is this place that it can afford to feed a cripple?

His answer was visible in the healthy faces of those around him. In Dureya, those who survived the winter looked like skeletons. These men and women were downright pudgy. Well dressed, too. Done up in neatly tailored tunics, thick woolen leigh mors, and breckon mors large enough for double folds. Most of the clothes were dyed or patterned in one fashion or another, and Raithe felt embarrassed for his crude leather and thin checkered cloth. His shame was compounded by all the stares greeting them.

Raithe had expected looks. Everywhere he and Malcolm went there had been stares, but these were more pronounced. The people of Dahl Rhen dropped gourds filled with water and bundles of wood. One stared so hard that he walked into a fence post and nearly fell. Those working on roofs climbed down, and those swinging mattocks in the garden stopped. Everyone watched in shock as if the members of his group each had three heads and a tail. What surprised Raithe was that they weren’t restricting their attention to Malcolm and himself. As Persephone led them up the gravel path toward the lodge, people stared at her most of all. And there were whispers, lots of whispers, her name muttered more than once.

They were nearly to the lodge’s steps when a woman called from a roundhouse’s doorway. “Seph!” She frantically motioned them closer. “Where have you been?”

Persephone gestured toward the woman. “Raithe, Malcolm, Suri, this is Sarah. The one I told you about. She’s one of Rhen’s best weavers. Her husband, Delwin, is—”

Sarah grabbed hold of Persephone’s wrist and pulled her inside. The men and Suri followed. The roundhouse’s wall was covered in paintings, and the room was filled with rich wool. A spinning wheel and a large loom dominated the space. Inside were two more people: a young woman working a spinning wheel and a girl beside her, carding wool. Both stopped their work the moment the group entered.

“What really happened? I don’t believe it, any of it, not for a second.” Sarah wrung her hands as if strangling an invisible chicken.

“What are you talking about?” Persephone asked. “Sarah, what’s wrong?”

Sarah, whose braided hair framed a kind but troubled face, glanced nervously at Raithe and Malcolm. She took hold of Persephone’s hands. “Hegner has accused you of murdering Sackett and Adler.”

“What?” Persephone’s voice registered somewhere between a yell and a scream. “Hegner? Hegner is here! I thought he had run off.”

“He said you tried to kill him, too,” Sarah said. With another glance at Raithe and Malcolm she added, “And that you had help.”

Persephone seemed too dumbfounded to speak. She stared at each of them in shock.

“Why in the name of the Grand Mother of All couldn’t you have killed The Stump, too?” the woman working the spinning wheel asked.

Long, black hair wreathed a face of high cheeks, a sensual mouth, and a delicate nose, all of which paled in comparison with her eyes—big, dark, deep, and intense. To look into them was to peer over the edge of a sheer drop. The woman wore a simple, thin dress, but draped over her curves, it came alive. Dureyan women were valued for strong backs rather than their looks, and even the most beautiful of them never looked this way. In legends, women like her would either lure men into disaster or raise them to fame. The dilemma for the would-be hero was determining which.

“Konniger is making me marry that cretin,” she announced, and scowled.

“Moya, please!” Sarah snapped.

Outside the open doorway, people gathered. They spoke quietly to one another and pointed to the group inside Sarah’s roundhouse.

Persephone finally regained her composure. “I didn’t kill anyone. Hegner attacked me! All three of them did.”

“That’s not the story he’s telling.”

“What possible reason would I have to—? I need to get this cleared up.” Persephone turned and walked out.