The soldiers, to her surprise, moved aside to let her through. She trotted out through the front line and found that Noah had dismounted. His horse stood, riderless, cool and placid, unbothered by the swirling, dripping mist.
Swallowing, Senga slid down from her saddle too.
“Stay,” she instructed Bluebell. Bluebell stared back at her with faint amusement. Senga took a tentative step forward, and then she saw him.
Noah stood where the village gates had been. It seemed that the village had built a high fence around their homes, no doubt to protect them from passing raiders and attacks like these. The tops of the fences were sharp, wickedly so. Perhaps the fence had kept them safe before. It hadn’t saved them this time, though.
The wooden gates were smashed in, lying broken on the ground. The village had been burned in most places. The outline of blackened shells loomed through the mist, the remains of what were once happy, cheerful houses. She could see lumps and black shapes scattered here and there and realized with a jolt that they were bodies. Some were burned, some weren’t. Smoke still curled up from some ruined houses, but the blaze had long been quenched by the rain and mist. However, the memory of fire still clung to the place.
The wail rang out again, and Senga finally saw where it was coming from.
A woman, wrapped in a filthy, stinking cloak, sat against the inside of the fence. She was covered in soot and water, and there was blood streaking her face and clothes. The rain must have washed a good deal of it away, which made Senga wonder just how covered in the stuff she had been before.
The woman clutched a small, blackened body to her chest, a child of perhaps eight or nine, rocking backwards and forwards. Every now and then she let out that thin, ragged wail, an animalistic cry of misery. Her dazed eyes landed on Senga, but there was nothing behind them. She stared, unseeing, and Senga knew in that moment that the woman really did see nothing; nothing mattered to her, nothing would ever matter again.
She turned away.
“Noah?” Senga ventured.
He flinched at the sound of her voice but did not turn around. She took a few steps forward, frowning. At that moment, a coldwind brushed away some mist, and Senga saw it. Shivers went up and down her spine, shocking her to the core.
Countless lengths of wood had been set up, propped across what had once been the village square. They loomed at varying heights, some twenty feet from the ground, some only five or six feet from the ground. Dozens of bodies hung from each beam. Hanged, all of them. There were perhaps a hundred or so in total. Men, women, children. The fire had gotten to some of them, leaving only blackened, sooty corpses, but the bodies closer to the gate were untouched by the flame. The first beam was barely five feet from the ground, and short women and children had been hung from it, their toes a half inch or so from the ground.
Senga gave a strangled cry, pressing her hand over her mouth to keep the bile from rising.
So much death.
“Don’t look!” Noah burst out, striding over to her.
He was at her within two strides, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tightly against him. Senga buried her face in his chest, her body trembling all over, but she knew that it would never undo the memory of all those dead faces, all twisted in agony.
“They put the smallest ones closest to the gate so we’d see them first,” Senga whispered. “They knew what they were doing.”
“Aye,” he responded grimly, his hand cupping the back of her head. “I know.”
He shouted something over her head, but her ears were ringing, and she could not decipher it. Senga heard the rest of the soldiers and healers begin to shuffle through the gates. She heard muffled gasps and cries as they took in the scene.
Abruptly, Senga pushed herself away, wiping her eyes.
I can’t let them see me in such a state.
She dragged her gaze up to Noah’s and found him watching her, face twisted.
“I’m sorry ye had to see that,” he murmured.
She shrugged faintly, her senses now clear. “These people need help. They need peace. We are the ones who must give it to them.”
He nodded, his dark gaze still fixed on her. “We’ll cut down the bodies and bury them. We will not reach home tonight.”
“Aye, I guessed as much.”
Senga glanced around and saw that the old healer had gone over to the wailing woman and was crouching down in front of her, talking in a soft voice. It seemed that she was trying to convince the woman to release the child’s body.
“Are ye here to help?” came a cracked, frightened voice, and Senga turned around to see a pair of filthy, hollow-eyed children, two boys, crawling out from behind a stack of unburned barrels. They clutched at each other’s hands as if they would never let go. The sight stole her voice once more.
They must have hidden there as the hanged people were dying. What an awful thing for a child to endure, listening to yer friends and family die like that, knowing that if ye made a sound ye would be next.
“Aye,” Senga answered firmly as she approached slowly. “We’re here to help ye. We have food and medicine, and we’ll set up shelters.”
