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When we heard the calls of the lumbering shaggy, long-horned oxen, we left the griffons upwind. The others spread around me, those in the front carrying long spears at the ready while the rear gripped riding bone-bows. Like me, each had three short spears strapped to their backs. All lightweight weapons adapted for flying.
Hunched over we barely rose above the grass as Koshka led us to the waiting scouts—a man and woman, short and willowy like most other long-distance riders due to their lower weight. Tempest would make an excellent scout if she learned to fly.
The leader signaled it was safe when she saw me, and I spun my short spear, ordering them to surround the pastures and work their way inward. No point in taking any risks.
Yahontov and Koshka stayed at my side while the others disappeared. At the count of one hundred, we crept forward, Koshka leading and Yahontov taking the rear, as suited a bodyguard. I tried to ignore the itch between my shoulder blades. The only man I truly trusted to have my back was dead.
Only the lack of bustle marked this farmstead as different. I had visited several during the winters I spent with the griffon riders when younger, and even then, when there was less work and the howling winds made you reluctant to leave the fires, there was always something happening. The blue paint on the three thatched dwellings was worn away to show the reeds and mud beneath, and the herd seemed smaller up close—only six oxen with gray in their wool, but even struggling, the farmstead should have housed at least fifteen adults and as many children.
We rounded the first house and tested the door. It opened without resistance. No one had locks out here, only a bar on the inside that would block intruders. The builders had not anticipated the need to ever lock from the outside.
A quick sweep of the house confirmed what I had surmised—no one had left in a hurry or taken much with them. The thick brown carpets woven from the undyed wool of the cattle outside, the aged hearth, and lack of finery proved that this had been a functioning if not prosperous place. Abandoned rather than attacked.
Two quick whistles followed by two long cut through the air. The others had found something.
I hesitated in the first room on the upper floor. Eight child-sized beds stood made as if waiting for their owners to return. A knitted ox lay on the floor.Dropped?Or did the owner not survive what happened here? Were they taken? Slavers sold children to workhouses and even less savory places on the coast. But why would someone come to this remote place?
“Nothing here,” Yahontov said as the whistles sounded again.
I nodded.
A whole lot of nothing. Maybe the others had found an answer.
The sun stung my eyes as I exited, the itch between my shoulders growing. The wind sang of open places and my riders disturbing the peace in the largest barn, made to house the herd during winter storms. It had two lean-tos, presumably the smithy and butcher. Most work would happen outdoors, the sheds only meant to house tools.
As I entered the barn, the reason for the whistles stood out starkly against the pale hard-packed soil—the red brown of old blood had soaked into the earth and the air tasted of copper.
The wind, capricious in what tales it carried, now whispered of death.
“There couldn’t have been enough people living here to cause this,” I said, my heart heavy with the image of the empty beds.
Ivo, the rider who presumably had called out, nodded. “Based on the amount of blood, the culled herd outside and no other signs of battle, it’s probably cattle. Damned the place.” He spat on the ground. “No way the others will ever step inside willingly again. They can smell death. I’d guess at least thirty heads.”
“Why slaughter them early?”
“Could have been illness,” Koshka said, sniffing the air. “But they should still have arrived in Tal to sell.”
One farm was proof of nothing. Maybe they had come to Tal, and I had not even learned of it.
“This isn’t why I called, though.” Ivo pointed to the blue-painted hide curtain covering the smithy’s entryway.
As if there could still be hidden threats, Yahontov entered first. His suppressed grunt clenched my gut in a way Ivo’s curses had not.
Death, the air breathed.
Instead of tools, a stick figure in blood, its dripping eyes meeting mine, decorated the wall. The bony limbs pointed accusatory at the sky, as if summoning the Goddess herself. The Spirit of Lowtown—again—but we were far from Tal and its politics. Or so I had thought.
Yahontov dug in the ashes with the butt of his spear, uncovering two charred skulls. The heat had cracked them open, the eye sockets splintered, but the human remains—thankfully adult—were unmistakable.
Images of the dead moving last night, barely seen in the dark, returned. A shiver ran down my neck. Would they have stopped if burned? Had there been other reasons for the fire in Lowtown?
“Sacrifices to ancient gods or burned to stop their Spirits from rising. Goddess protect me,” Koshka said and Ivo spat on the ground again.
“Sacrificing humans has been outlawed for centuries,” I said. “Even the Temple condemns it.” My eyes drifted back to the bloody drawing on the wall. Not a stick figure, such as children drew.A skeleton.The warm dayturned cold.
The others only nodded. What had happened here was far beyond the laws of Tal. Even in the city, I no longer knew how much they mattered.
The wind whispered of change. It was time for me to listen.
