“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.
“You think it’ll be back tonight, do ya?” Russell asked.
“I think so. It wants this. Maybe if I give it back, it will give Thrace to me.”
The two men nodded.
“You want us to stay behind and give you a hand?” Russell asked.
“A hand with what?” the old farmer asked. “Nothing you can do, either of ya. Go on, you both have families of your own. Get out while you can. Enough good people have died here.”
The two men nodded again.
“Good luck to you, Theron,” Dillon said.