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Several of them scratched their beards, considering these questions.
The one called Atto was young, with but a scrap of a beard and an anxious way of glancing from one side to the other. “That’s right, Hanso. We just found the one dead man, and him stark naked and so thin he more likely starved to death.”
“He’d been gnawed on.”
Atto shrugged. “Anything might gnaw on a dead carcass. A bear. Wolves. Wild dogs. Rats and crows and vultures.”
“What about the missing sheep and cows, then?” asked the leader belligerently. “How do you account for those? We must protect ourselves.”
“And get killed in the bargain?” Atto shook his head. “This is a fool’s errand. I’m not going any farther.”
“Then you won’t be marrying my daughter.”
That arrow hit home. That the two men disliked each other was apparent in their stiff posture and jutting chins, in the way the other seven men hung back as if fearing that a fistfight was about to erupt.
“Try and stop us!” said Atto with a smirk. “We’ll walk to Autun. The lady is taking in men for soldiers. They say she’ll feed any man willing to carry arms in her service. We’ll manage, and you’ll not be able to run after us and drag her back like you did last time. She’s two years older now, old enough to choose for herself.”
“And pregnant with your bastard!”
Feet shifted, scuffing the dirt as each changed position. Hanso drew a fist back.
Rage trotted forward and sat down showily between the two. Her growl drew such a hush down over the assembly that Alain clearly heard the tick of one of last autumn’s dead leaves fluttering down through branches as it fell at long last to earth.
“It’s settled between us,” finished Atto, flicking an uneasy glance at the hound.
“It will never be settled,” muttered Hanso. But he lowered his fist and turned his scowling glare on Alain. “What did you see?”
Alain described the encounter, and the men listened respectfully. “Have any of you seen the creature?” he asked.
Nay, they had not, but rumor grew like a weed. The corpse of an unknown man discovered by a holy spring. Missing ewes and cows since the autumn tempest that had blown down the trees and torn the roofs off a dozen sheds and houses in the hamlets hereabouts. Both strong ploughing oxen, owned in common by the villagers, gone and never recovered. The roof of their tiny church had cracked and fallen in, and the deacon had been killed. Then noises echoed out of the forest, dreadful cries and frightful coughs. The carcasses of deer, such as this one, had been found along animal trails disturbed by the passage of a huge beast: more than twenty such dead animals and all of them crawling with maggots and worms spat from the monster’s mouth. Two months ago a party of refugees had staggered out of the forest along the path and told of four of their number turned to stone and lost.
“Yes, but later that night we found them counting the sceattas they’d stolen from their dead companions,” noted Atto sarcastically, “so I’m wondering if they didn’t just kill them and blame it on something else.”
“You think there’s no beast out there?” Hanso demanded.
“There’s a beast,” said Atto with that same cutting smirk, “but it’s as likely found in men’s hearts as stalking in the forest.”
“You’re a fool!” Hanso spat, but he kept an eye on Rage and did not attempt to brawl.
Some of the other men clearly agreed with this assessment of Atto’s character, but Atto had the good spear and a sarcastic tongue, enough to keep even the furious Hanso at bay. He had the pride of youth and the reckless heart of a young man who is sure of himself, whether or not he is wrong. He had gotten a woman pregnant, and sometimes that is enough to make a man feel that nothing can defeat him.
“It’s a guivre,” said Alain, noting how their gazes all leaped to him as though they had forgotten he was there. “A guivre will do you no harm as long as you do not injure it. Leave it be, and it will hunt only in the forest. Attack it, and you’ll find yourselves turned to stone.”
“You’re as crazy as he is!” Hanso spat again, his anger turned easily from the one he could not control to a new object. “Come!” he ordered his fellows. They were staring at Alain as though at the beast itself, and with grumbling and muttering they shouldered their tools and set off back the way they had come, kicking at debris, cursing the rain.
Atto lingered, studying the hounds. “Those things bite?”
“They do, if they’re provoked. They’ll defend themselves, that’s all. Otherwise they’re as mild as sheep.”
He snorted. “A good tale! Who are you?”
“I’m called Alain. I’m a traveler.”
“So you said. Where are you from?”
“Osna. That’s west, at the coast. It’s five or ten days’ walk from Osna to Lavas Holding. I’ve been on the road ten or fifteen days since I left Lavas Holding.”
“Never heard of it. What are you going to Autun for? To join the militia, like me? If you’ll wait until morning, me and Mara will walk with you. We know part of the way. Not that we’ve ever been there, you understand. Have you?”
