“What’s going on?” Royce asked.
“The Archbishop of Ghent has arrived and moved into the manor house. He and his clergy, as well as a few dozen nobles, have taken over the castle and driven everyone else out. Well, except for Russell, Dillon, and Kline, whom he ordered to fill in the shelter and the tunnel we were digging, saying they could repair the damages or hang for destruction of property. Good old Deacon Tomas, he stands there nodding and saying, ‘I told them not to do it, but they wouldn’t listen.’ They kept most of the livestock too, saying it was in the castle, so it belonged to the manor. Now everyone blames me for losing their animals.”
“What about the bonfires?” Royce asked. “We could still build one here in the commons.”
“No good,” Hadrian told him. “His Lordship declared it unlawful to cut trees in the area and confiscated the oxen with the rest of the animals.”
“Did you tell him what will happen when the sun goes down?”
“I can’t tell him anything.” Hadrian threw up his hands, running his fingers through his hair as if he might start pulling it out. “I can’t get past the twenty-odd soldiers he has at the castle gate. Which is a good thing too or I might kill the guy.”
“Why is the church here at all?”
“That’s the kicker,” Hadrian told him. “You know that competition the church has been announcing? Turns out that contest is to slay the Gilarabrywn.”
“What?”
“They intend to send contestants out to fight the thing at nightfall, and if they die, they’ll send the next one. They’ve got a damn list nailed to the castle gate.”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Deacon Tomas shouted.
Everyone turned to see the cleric coming down the trail from the castle, approaching the crowd at the well. He walked with his hands raised as if in blessing. On his face he had a great smile, which turned his eyes into half-moons. “Everything is going to be fine,” he told them in a loud confident voice. “The archbishop has come to help us. They are going to kill the beast and save us from this nightmare.”
“What about our livestock?” Vince Griffin asked.
“They will need most of them to feed the troops, but what isn’t used will be returned after the beast has been slain.”
The crowd grumbled.
“Now, now, what price do you put on safety? What price do you put on the lives of your children? Are a pig and a cow worth the lives of your children? Your wife? Consider it a tithe and be thankful the church has come to Dahlgren to save us. No one else has. The King of Dunmore ignored us, but your church has responded by sending not just some knight or margrave, but the Archbishop of Ghent himself. Soon the beast will be dead and Dahlgren will be a place of happiness once more. If that means one year of no meat, and plowing without an ox, surely that’s not too high a price to pay. Now, everyone, please, back to your homes. Stay out of their way and let them do their work.”
“What about my daughter?” Theron growled, and pushed forward, looking like he might kill the deacon.
“It’s all right, I’ve spoken with the archbishop and Bishop Saldur; they have agreed to let her stay. They have moved her to a smaller room, but—”
“They won’t let me in to see her!” the old farmer snapped.
“I know, I know,” Tomas said in a soothing voice. “But I can. I just came down to explain things. I am heading right back, and I promise you, I’ll stay by her side and watch over her until she is well.”
Hadrian slipped out of the crowd that now shifted around the deacon. He turned to Royce with a bitter look. “Tell me you found a way into the tower.”
Royce shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll need to check it out tonight.”
“Tonight?” Hadrian asked. “Shouldn’t such things be done in the daylight? When we can both see and things with complicated names aren’t flying around?”
“Not if I’m right.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“If I’m wrong, we’ll both certainly die—most likely by being eaten.”
“The thing is, I know you’re not kidding. Did I mention I lost my weapons?”
“With any luck we won’t need them. What we will need, however, is a good length of rope, sixty feet at least,” Royce told him. “Lanterns, wax, a tinderbox—”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Hadrian asked miserably.
“Not at all,” Royce replied.
CHAPTER 9
TRIALS BY MOONLIGHT