“Barbarian! Ignorant barbarian! You’re all barbarians, fit only for this stinking farmyard. Wickedness and ignorance have brought us low!”
Shay Tal marched up and down the lane in the mud, screaming. The prize barbarian was the uncouth rapist whose name she refused to speak. They lived only in a farmyard, a pool of mud, and they had forgotten the grandeur that once was Embruddock. All the ruins lying outside their miserable barricades had once been fine towers, clad in gold, all that was now mud and filth had once been paved with fine marble. The town had been four times its present size, and everything had been beautiful—clean and beautiful. The sanctity of women had been respected. She clutched her wet furs to herself and sobbed.
She would no longer live in such a filthy place. She was going to live at a distance, beyond the barricades. If the phagors came by night, or the wily Borlienians, and caught her, why should she care? What had she to live for? They were disaster’s children, all of them.
“Peace, peace, woman,” said Laintal Ay, splashing along beside her.
She rejected him contemptuously. She was only an ageing woman whom nobody loved. She alone saw truth. They would regret it when she was gone.
Thereupon, Shay Tal suited deeds to words, and commenced moving her few goods to one of the ruinous towers standing among the rajabarals, outside the fortifications to the northeast. Vry and others assisted her, splashing back and forth through the rain with her poor possessions.
The rain stopped next day. Two remarkable events occurred. A flock of small birds of a kind unknown flew over Oldorando and wheeled about its towers. The air was full of their twittering. The flock would not settle in the village proper. It alighted on the isolated towers beyond, especially on the ruin to which Shay Tal had exiled herself. Here the birds set up a remarkable noise. They had small beaks and red heads, with feathers of red and white on their wings, and a darting flight. Some hunters ran forth with nets and tried to catch the birds, without success.
The event was considered an omen.
The second event was even more alarming.
The Voral flooded.
Rain had caused the river to rise. As the Hour-Whistler sounded noon, a great swell approached from upstream and the direction of distant Dorzin Lake. An old woman, Molas Ferd, was down by the riverbank collecting geese scumble when she sighted the swell. She straightened as much as she was able and stared in amazement as a wall of water bore down on her. Geese and ducks took fright, clattering up to perch on the barricades. But old Molas Ferd stood where she was, shovel in hand, staring openmouthed at the waters. They rushed upon her and hurled her against the side of the women’s house.
The flood filled the village before subsiding, washing away grain, invading people’s homes, drowning sows. Molas Ferd was battered to death.
The hamlet was turned into a swamp. Only the tower where Shay Tal had taken up residence was spared the onslaught of muddy waters.
This period marked the true beginning of Shay Tal’s reputation as a sorceress. All who had heard her cry out against Aoz Roon sit inside and muttered.
That evening, as first Batalix, then Freyr set in the west, turning the flood waters to blood, the temperature dropped dramatically. The village was filled with thin crackling ice.
Next Freyr-dawn, the town was aroused by Aoz Roon’s angry shouting. The women, scuffling into their boots to go to work, listened in dismay, and woke their menfolk. Aoz Roon was taking a leaf from Shay Tal’s book.
“Out you come, damn you all! You’re going to fight the phagors today, every one of you! I set my resolve against your idleness. Rise, rise, all of you, get up and fight. If phagors are to be found, then phagors you will fight. I fought them single-handed, you scum can fight them together. This will be a great day in history, you hear me, a great day, even if you all die!”
As the dawn clouds scudded bleakly overhead, his great figure in its black furs stood on top of the tower, fist waving. With his other hand, Aoz Roon clutched a struggling Dol Sakil, who fought and yelled to get out of the cold. Eline Tal loomed behind them, grinning feebly.