Chapter Five

Sometimes there was a horrendously shitty day on the wind, and Jewel could smell it from the moment she awoke. Something about the pounding on the manor's front door told her that this would be one for the annals. She would have gone back to bed if she could, but instead she washed her face in the nightstand and pulled on her heavy wool shift.

It was a little after dawn, but the floor was still freezing cold as she tip toed across the hall to Little Bear's room. She knocked softly, then pushed her way inside.

She made her way to the curtains and threw them open, then softly trod over to the sleeping giant. "Father, wake up. There are people at the door." He came awake more slowly than he had when she was young, but he was still up and moving within moments.

"I'll deal with them, child. Go back to bed." She said nothing, because nobody contradicted him. Not even her.

Not that he would be bothered by it, but it simply felt unnatural. However she couldn't go back to bed either, so she padded into the kitchen and filled the tea kettle. Then she slipped into the greatroom through the pantry door, where she was much less likely to disturb her father.

She need not have worried; although there were four people visiting him, Little Bear's attention was utterly consumed by one of their number. Jewel could see why. Someone or something had completely stripped the man's skull of flesh, yet somehow he was walking around like there was nothing wrong. She kept waiting for Little Bear to reach for a fireplace iron, or tell her to fetch her blade.

She busied herself at the hearth preparing tea and bisquits for the men as Kenly Bent and Beigh Shabley related a drunken tale full of the most unlikely horseshit she had ever heard.

The three men had gone to the old Grubbley farm to clear their names over the matter of a missing goat, when the Parandellan couple that now lived there had unleashed some kind of a hellspawn beast upon them. It had attacked Lazarus Guller, and somehow done this to him while keeping him alive.

So this was Guller, was it? She should have known; there were a large number of millwrights and cartwrights in Cartwheel, but they tended to stick to their own little groups, depending on which master wright they worked for.

It was a shame, really. Nallia Guller was a sweet girl, and she had certainly put up with a lot of bullshit in the three short years since the two had been married. Now she would have to wake up to this every morning? Fuck that!

"Well you can't go home, that's for sure." Apparently her father had reached the exact same conclusion. "Cabot Grant is correct. You need to go see Murk, but not until Jewel takes a trip out to speak to Nobindigo and his wife. Find out what really happened."

Shabley protested that it was not safe, and that they had it straight from his and Kenly's accounts. Kenly nodded but remained silent, with his eyes downcast. It was difficult to tell who he was agreeing with.

Without discussion, she left the manor in her shift and bare feet, heading straight across the front yard to the women's barracks. Almappa was standing in the doorway, the wisp of a girl watching her approach.

"Ready Nightblossom. And bring out Stag and Billows as well." The lass ran towards the stables, leaving the barracks door open for her entry. Nobody inside would protest, because nobody inside would still be abed.

Lainey was waiting for her, holding her cured leather breastplate in both hands. She dressed quickly, with Lainey's help. She received a crooked eyebrow from her friend when she hung a small quiver opposite her sword, but the squat, muscular woman did the same without hesitation. With their horned short bows hanging right inside the door, they were heading out in no time.

Jervis was already standing beside Billows, holding his reins. He looked chagrined when he saw their bows. "Should I fetch mine?"

He didn't look mollified when she told him not to. But her father would keep those fools right there under his eye until she returned. She did not intend to make him wait very long.

They rode the horses hard until they were out of the village, then they dismounted and jogged beside them for half a mile. Jewel felt her body loosen up as she ran in the sharp morning air, Nightblossom breathing wetly in her ear. Her collar was going to be damp, but like her morning exercise Nightblossom's breath on her neck was one of her favorite things in the world.

After a half mile they walked, and she briefly told her companions what they were about. She began with the story the two men had told her father, but did not spend much time relating it because so much of it was clearly untrue.

Instead she told them what she had seen with her own eyes, and that too seemed like a fabrication. In the calm morning air things like people walking and talking with no skin on their face at all simply seemed unreasonable.

She really had no idea what to expect at the farm, and she told them that, too.

"So we don't even know if Nobindigo and his wife are alive. But there is definitely something or someone tapping the beyond. So keep your shitters puckered and get on your mounts. It's time to see what awaits."

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She turned and leapt aboard Night, who was off like a shot. The others thundered along behind her, and they raced single file through the forest. By the time they reached the farm's lane way, their horses were well lathered and prancing.

When they pulled up and dismounted, Jervis tapped her shoulder. "Smell that?"

It took a few moments before a wayward breeze brought her what he had already detected. "Smoke."

They continued on at a brisk trot. "Not just smoke," Jervis replied. "Burning hair as well." Although she couldn't smell it herself, she took him at his word; she had learned her tracking from his father just as he, but she knew how far he outstripped her. A few short minutes later he pointed out what he said was a plume of smoke, but it was so faint against the rapidly brightening sky that she could barely find it again once her eyes were off it.

She nodded, and handed him her reins. Lainey climbed back onto Stag and nocked an arrow, sitting up tall so she could see farther ahead.

Jewel was relieved when the farmhouse came into view, because it was still standing. The barn was another matter; the wall facing the farmhouse was the only one still standing, oddly untouched amid the collapsed timbers and charred boards. With a wag of her chin, she sent

Lainey over to start the investigation while she and Jervis approached the farmhouse.

There was no hitch, so the three simply dropped their reins near the center of the front yard. The horses would not stray at all, unless strangers appeared or they were whistled for. Jewel was more nervous for Nightblossom than herself, if there really was a beyonder involved. There was simply no way to train a mount in how to deal with a Scounder.

But in this they needed no training. She would never try to fight the beyonder from horseback, and trained or not, any animal who detected such would flee mindlessly. She was not sure that she would not as well.

With her off hand casually resting on her dirk, she rapped loudly on the front window. "Nobindigo. It's Jewel. I am the Legate of Little Bear and I've come to see if you and your wife are okay. Please open the door."

They waited a couple of long moments, frozen in place and listening for any signs of stirring inside. Nothing. She nodded Jervis in the direction of the front door, while she knocked again on the window. She didn't wait nearly as long this time before she motioned her companion to try the door. He gently squeezed the latch, then shook his head. She drew her dagger, and their eyes met. She tensed, raising the thin, heavy steel blade and bending her knees deeply. She would be through the window well before Jervis could force the door, so whatever was inside was hers. Her heart pounded so loudly that she almost nodded out of sheer fear that it would give her away, but she managed to suppress the impulse.

Just as she was raising her dagger, a soft voice came from inside. "Go away."

She was so close to jumping that she almost went through the window involuntarily. But she did pull back, and after she straightened up she knocked again. Softer, but more insistently. "Nobindigo we've met before. Open the door so we can talk to you."

She waited, and after it became clear to Nobindigo that she was going nowhere the soft voice came again. "Please, go away."

"I am not going anywhere. But in five seconds, Jervis is going to shank your hinges and kick your front door in."

Jervis placed his dagger against the door's frame right where the top hinge would be. With the heel of his other hand he drove the blade into the soft wood. Chunks flew, and the dagger went into the crack of the door right to the hilt. With a jerk, the blade came out.

The bottom hinge received the same treatment, and within moments the door was in Jervis' hands, and he was tossing it onto the grass.

It was a flaw in the design of these older farmhouses, the soft woods were easier to do fine carving on. A hundred years ago, there simply had been no reason to build for strength and defense. Well there were plenty of reasons now.

She let him go through the door first, even though she was not entirely convinced that they were clear of the boundless. But once they were into the darkened interior, it could really come from anywhere.

They found Nobindigo and his wife stuffed into a tiny closet in the bedroom, and when they were finally coaxed out it was difficult to tell them apart in the gloom.

Once they were outside in the sunlight, it became easier to tell them apart; Parlindi was the one waving her arms and wailing dramatically at the state of her barn, and her crops. In all fairness, Lainey's report on the fate of her animals was quite tragic. It didn't sound exactly right, though, so she left Jervis to keep an eye on the farmers while Lainey showed her the remains of the livestock.

Upon closer inspection, things still did not seem right. Despite the five-foot corral fences, some of the lambs and more than a few of the goats should have escaped. This, even more than the other multitude of signs, told her that the slaughter and mutilation had occurred before the fire. Which made even less sense. You simply couldn't kill an animal in it's pen, unless your goal was to be trampled to death.

"It's too fast." Lainey did not reply. She had already reached the same conclusion, of course. "And the crops?"

Lainey shrugged. "All I know is, Bent and his lot didn't do it. Not in one night, that's for sure. And the produce that was there is... tainted. It's not even spoiling, it's just mutated. And it moves."

"Show me." She turned to follow her friend from the remains of the barn, and almost walked right into her. She hadn't moved.

"Are you sure? They strike me as dangerous, and I don't think we can spare the time. We should get these folk back to your father so he can be warned. Whatever this creature is we are dealing with, we have never seen it before. And we have no knowledge of how it behaves."

Jewel thought hard. She hated the fact that Little Bear would ask her about the crop and this taint. He would say that it was important, and it was. But she already knew her decision. And so did Lainey.

"Just get on your fuckin' horse, smartass." Lainey lowered her head, and gave her a quick grin even as she pivoted. She was away and whistling for Stag within a heartbeat.