By the time Slate’s turn came around—Caliban offered her hisplace, out of chivalry, and Slate shot him down out of irritation—it was near midnight. Learned Edmund and Brenner had already gone to sleep, and she could hear Caliban removing his armor in the next room.
She would have preferred a soak, but a savage scrubbing with pumice and hot water seemed to remove the stink of death from her skin, even if it left her raw afterward.
A body in the well, they said. Some kind of animal.And an entire village rotting away in hours, or killing themselves to save themselves the trouble.
“Learned Edmund,” she said, the next morning. “Will you write a message to the Captain of the Guard and tell him what has happened to the village? I assume that he will have received reports already, but I want to be sure. We’ll leave it for the innkeeper to give to the next courier that comes through.”
Learned Edmund nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, that’s a very good idea.”
“They’ll have been dead for days before anyone gets that message,” said Brenner, when the dedicate was out of earshot.
“I know,” said Slate. “I know.”
On the seventh day, they joined up to the trade road and traffic began to stream past them. It was all going the other way.
“Refugees,” said Caliban. He watched a cart go by, dragged by a single elderly ox, piled high with all a family’s worldly goods, followed by more and more carts. Those who did not have oxcarts walked. A strapping young woman, taller than Caliban, walked past with an ancient woman clinging to her back.
Caliban dismounted and handed his reins to Learned Edmund. He caught up to the tall woman and her…
“Great-grandmother,” the tall woman informed him. “The rest of the family’s gone.”
“Fools,” growled the ancient woman. “I told them. I told them to run. We ran before, you know, when I was a girl, and the ones who didn’t died. Stubborn fools. No one ever learns. But I’m not dead yet.”
“I learned,” said the tall woman. “As soon as we heard the Clockwork Boys were coming, we ran. We got off the main road only just in time.”
“They’ll chase you if they see you,” said the ancient woman. “Like terriers with a rat. But if you hide in the woods, sometimes they miss you. Not in houses, though. They’ll get you in a house every time.”
“Where is your village, may I ask?”
She gave him the name of a village six days away on a horse. She had been walking a long time, it seemed.
“Thank you,” said Caliban. He held out a coin, and the young woman hitched her shoulder down a little. The old woman’s hand shot out like a bird’s claw and snatched the coin away.
“Paladin, eh?” she said. She grinned, revealing a distinct lack of teeth. “Must be. They don’t make many farmers that pretty. Hope the god appreciates it.”
“Please forgive Gran,” said the tall woman, in almost exactly the same tone that Slate said,Shut up, Brenner.
“There is nothing to forgive,” said Caliban, and bowed to the old woman with exaggerated deference.
“Ha! Come find me sometime, pretty paladin. I’m not dead yet.”
“I fear that you would be too much for me, madam,” he said, and took himself back to the others. When he related the conversation, he left that part out. Brenner would have enjoyed it entirely too much.
“South of here,” said Learned Edmund, looking up the village on the map. “Well south and east, it seems. But I thought the army was holding on the far side of that village.”
“We’ll find out when we get there,” said Caliban. “Correct, Mistress Slate?”
“Hmm?”
“The army outpost.”
“Oh, them. Yeah. Let’s get moving.”
The inns were full with people streaming west. There was no traffic going their way. Refugees looked at them with bafflement and tried to warn them off.
Well…they tried to warn Caliban off, anyway, and occasionally Learned Edmund. Brenner, they gave a wide berth to. They didn’t seem to notice Slate at all. She found this amusing.
When they stopped at a farmhouse for the night, it was empty. The livestock were gone. Learned Edmund got a bedroom. Slate and the other two men threw bedrolls on the floor in the main room, though they deeded her the place closest to the fire.
