“He’s probably still trying to figure out how to get down from the pony without hurting himself,” Reeve said, as she, Dusk, and Leaf walked down the hall toward the door onto the square. “Or he may’ve gotten caught in his stirrup again. You wouldn’t believe what happened to him down by the river.”
“I think it likely I would find it very easy to believe,” Dusk said.
Reeve frowned and nodded, then angled away from the other two and into the alcove that held her naginata. She pulled the weapon from its resting spot and turned just as Dusk pushed open one of the two doors and froze where she stood. Leaf stood rooted at Dusk’s elbow.
Reeve swallowed drily. “Bad?” She said, hesitant to join them.
“Clearly, Wurmslayer has returned to our world,” Dusk said.
Jaw tight, Reeve walked to stand next to them. She gazed out upon the market square. “What happened?” She said slowly.
Carts, both upright and upended, were scattered about the square. Fires burned unchecked in a few places, though smoking piles of unidentifiable charred materials suggested that the current number of fires was less than it had been at some earlier point. Her father was gone. His pony was gone, although its saddle lay unoccupied and its bridle was attached to the hitching post next to her horse, which pawed at the ground and rolled its eyes wildly. All the people were gone, and an eerie hum filled the air.
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Reeve’s eyes came to rest on a cart that appeared hazy in the half-light. “Are those—?”
“Your Apiculturist father has been busy,” Leaf said.
“Come, we must rescue the poor man,” Dusk said. She strode down the steps, and Reeve and Leaf followed.
Although disappointed that Dusk had spotted a detail more quickly than she had, Reeve gave herself a pass. The man was nearly impossible to see, curled up under the low cart, and the huge cloud of bees circling the cart largely obscured anything within.
When she was as close to the bees as she felt comfortable, Dusk squatted and addressed the man. “Pray tell me, did you speak with one known as Walter?”
Eyes wide, the man’s voice was gruff but he spoke tentatively, as if to avoid drawing the attention of the bees. “I know not his name, Your Grace, but he was a honey-tongued traveler of the smallest proportions.”
“And do you know which way he went?”
“No way, Your Grace.” The man stiffened further than he’d already been. “My pardon, Your Grace. I only means, not a way at all. He was ‘ere one moment, then gone the next. Between, he said something about ‘needing to get help.’”
Dusk turned and looked up at Reeve. “What make you of this?”
“I think he logged out to get help.” Reeve did a quick check of her Party Log. “Yup. Whose help, I dunno. But this means I probably have limited time left before he yanks me out—”
“—and we would be left again to our own devices,” Dusk said. She stood and looked around the square, squinting as a shift in the wind carried acrid smoke into their faces. With a faint clip-clop, a bareback pony emerged from one narrow street into the market square, passed between overturned tables that had until recently been seating for patrons outside a tavern, and then continued into a different street. “Perhaps that would not be without its benefits,” Dusk said.