There wasn’t much food, but Caliban insisted on leaving coins to pay for what they took. Slate glanced at Brenner, gave a quarter of a nod, and he pocketed the coins when the paladin wasn’t looking.
They aren’t coming back for a long, long time. If they’re smart, they’ll run and keep running, to listen to the refugees tell it.
Two days after that, they found a village destroyed by the Clockwork Boys.
It was decimated. The houses had been smashed as if a tornado had gone through. Doorframes hung like kindling. Walls had been ripped open to get at the occupants. Even wooden floors had great holes torn in them.
At first, she thought perhaps ithadbeen a tornado, but the trees around the village were untouched. And tornados did not generally leave human bodies looking so…trampled.
A fire had broken out in one building, and half the village was burned in addition to being smashed. The ashes were still faintly warm.
The bodies were not.
“My god,” said Learned Edmund, almost to himself. “My god, my god, my god. These poor people.” He signed a benediction, over and over, his fingers flickering so quickly it was hard to follow.The prayer is quicker than the eye. Nothing up my sleeve…
Slate had a hysterical urge to giggle. She knew all about reactions to shock, and she also knew that Learned Edmund would never understand.
She nudged her horse forward and rode slowly down the middle of the ruined town, bent over so far that her horse’s mane washed over her face like tears.
“We should look for survivors,” said Caliban.
“Do it,” she said.
There weren’t any. She hadn’t expected there to be. The carnage was probably at least a day old—fires could burn for a long time—andany survivors had either stopped surviving or gotten the hell out of there.
Caliban checked every building anyway. He came out of each doorway with his face grown grimmer and grimmer, his eyes more deeply shadowed, until she had to look away.
Brenner vanished for a while, and then reappeared, climbing back into the saddle with no grace at all. It was not in Brenner to look sad, but he looked tired and older than Slate had ever seen him look.
The center of the town had a market square. There were oxcarts arranged around it, as if people had been packing up to leave when the Clockwork Boys came.
Both people and oxen were still there, but you could no longer tell one from the other.
She heard the sound behind her of Learned Edmund being sick. A few moments later, she could hear Caliban talking to him in his gentlest voice, low and kind. She could not make out the words, but the tone said:This will pass. Trust me.
Slate grimaced.I wish someone would say that to me, in a voice I couldn’t help but believe.
Her horse was restless at the stench, shying away. It was a relief to concentrate on that, to go to a world where the only thing that mattered was the reins and the bit and the space between the horse’s ears.
By unspoken agreement, she and Brenner rode to the far side of the town, upwind, and stopped just outside of the shadow of the houses. Slate took a deep breath, and then another. Brenner spat in the dirt, his jaw working like a disgusted cat’s.
Knight and dedicate caught up to them. Learned Edmund’sskin was ashen. Caliban was on foot, leading both horses and the mules.
“Well,” said Learned Edmund, looking directly at Slate for the first time in a week. “What are your orders?”
She would have suspected him of some malice—who wouldn’t be at a total loss in the face of this?—but then she met his eyes and saw that they were full of tears.
It struck her suddenly, how young he was.Nineteen. Chosen for his compassion.He looked much younger.
She’d killed a man at nineteen. She hadn’t been able to sleep or keep food down for days afterward, and that had been one man, who had richly deserved it, not a whole village mowed down like wheat.
What are my orders?
Slate folded her hands neatly over her saddlebow. Perhaps if she arranged them just right, perfectly symmetrically, she wouldn’t have to look up and see the destruction around her.
Perhaps she would not have to decide.
Caliban appeared at her stirrup, and set a hand on her leg. She looked down and met his eyes for a long moment.
