“No people, Flat Nose?”
“One,” Rap said softly. “Ran for the woods. He’s still there. ”
Little Chicken nodded, little mollified. He pointed at the charred ruins. ”Anything in there?”
Rap scanned casually—and then more closely. “Gods! Bones?”
“No boats. Marks of many. How many people lived here?” A factor’s clerk should be able to estimate that. “Forty? No, nearer sixty, counting kids.”
Little Chicken nodded agreement and grinned again. “Now count the bodies.” He chuckled at Rap’s shudder and walked off, apparently following some sort of trail, despite the deepening shadows.
Rap sat down in the dust to ease his feet and began the gruesome task he had been given. Bone was hard to distinguish from charred timber, but two of the ruins seemed to contain none and he realized with relief that many of the remains were those of dogs. In the end he was sure of only three human skeletons. Even so . . .
He rose and went to report. Little Chicken was standing inside one of the undamaged huts, peering up at the rafters. Here the storage nets had been cut down and thrown in a corner. “Three,” Rap said, and was tempted to add, “sir.” The goblin was back in his element, evidently. Now his grin showed real happiness.
“See here?” He pointed at the flooring. “Blood!”
Rap knelt. The stains were barely visible in the dust, and quite dry. ”Maybe.”
“Is blood! Spattered. See on walls?” In his excitement, Little Chicken had reverted to goblin dialect. “And up here? Marks on wood? Rope! ”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Flogged. People hung up here and flogged. Only whips would splash walls like that.”
Rap heaved himself to his feet, feeling sick. “You have a gruesome imagination!” he snarled, and stalked out into the brighter light of the compound.
Maybe. But Little Chicken was an expert on torture.
3
Fire snapped and cracked, working on green wood, throwing nervous shadows around the tiny settlement and wafting pale coils of smoke lazily upward. It was certainly not needed for warmth. Little Chicken had said it would drive away insects; he had been wrong, and likely he just found fire reassuring. Overhead, the stars were hidden by cloud. Rain threatened.
An imp, a faun, and a goblin—all far from home, Rap thought wryly, and far from happy. In the gathering dark they sat on stools around the fire, too weary for the effort of making conversation. Now and again the others would start, glancing warily at the encircling jungle. Rap did not need to look at it; he was keeping it under surveillance constantly, but nothing was moving out there.
The imp had never been robust; now he looked wasted. Blotchy stubble made his narrow face seem dirty, yet did nothing to hide the pustules and blackheads. All his bones showed as he gazed despondently into the flames.
Firelight had given the goblin’s skin the greenish tinge that Rap remembered from the winter nights. He was leaning his elbows on his knees, staring at the coals; worried and resentful at being out of his element. His sunken cheeks emphasized the breadth of his face and his long nose, but he was certainly in better shape than either Rap or Thinal.
And the faun? He at least had a purpose, and somehow that purpose had made him leader of this itinerant disaster. He felt woefully unqualified to lead anything, having achieved nothing with his life so far except a string of disasters. He had betrayed his king in a futile attempt to warn the king’s daughter; he had failed Inos herself when he should have accepted two more words of power to become a mage. She had called out to him, and he had failed her again.
He needed help.
Rap coughed. Little Chicken looked up and Rap nodded: now!
The goblin rose, swatting bugs. “I will bring more firewood,” he announced loudly. He was a lousy actor, but Thinal was engrossed in watching the embers and did not notice. The goblin faded away into the shadows.
Compared to Little Chicken, a butterfly was a noisy blunderer. Quieter than starlight, he circled around behind Thinal and took up position as Rap had requested earlier, raising a woodsman’s ax high, as if poised to split the imp’s skull. Rap rose stiffly, clutching a slender fishing spear. He limped closer to Thinal, who looked up with understandable alarm.
“Don’t worry,” Rap said. “It’s not you I’m after. I want a favor.”
Thinal flashed a nervous toothy smile. “What’s that, Rap?”
“I’d like to talk to Sagorn.”
Thinal grinned in relief. “Sure.” He tugged at the thong around his waist, loosening the knot.
“About time!” Sagorn said.
Rap had been expecting the transformation. He had seen it done before, yet he was just as shaken by the instantaneous substitution as he had been the first time. He still felt there ought to be some sense of change, of one person melting into the other, but there was none of that. The swarthy little imp was gone and in his place sat a tall, gangling old man, calmly adjusting the loincloth to fit him.
His thin white hair was unruffled, as it had been when he vanished from Inisso’s chamber. He was clean and freshly shaved. Somehow he could still project a sense of superiority, even wearing nothing but a rag. His skin was pallid and limp, hanging wearily on his bones, and he smiled an old man’s thinlipped smile. Firelight deepened the clefts framing his mouth to gashes.
Rap took a deep breath. “I want your advice, sir.”
“You need it, you mean. You are a very determined young man, Master Rap. However, I give you my oath that I shall recall Thinal. I assume that your henchman is standing behind me with another spear?”
“A stone ax.”
Sagorn raised spikey white eyebrows. “Hitting Darad on the head would not be a gainful procedure. You could only make him madder. But I give you my word.”
Rap had been very careful not to look toward Little Chicken. Sagorn had guessed he would be there. He was demonstrating his superiority, seeking dominance.
“But you will not mind if Little Chicken stays there? After all, I have no reason to trust you.”
Sagorn’s wrinkles deepened in the smile that always reminded Rap of an iron trap. “As you wish. But I bear you no grudge. Darad will not be called by me. I give you my word on that.”
“Thank you,” Rap said awkwardly.
“So you want my opinion of this village?” Sagorn’s gaze wandered around briefly. “As Andor told you, I never met a fairy. Vicious headhunters, it is said. The city is well fortified.”
“The doorways here are low, the beds short.”
“So I saw—Thinal saw. Obviously this is a fairy settlement.” Rap had already come to that conclusion. “But what happened? Why is it deserted? Or is it?”
“Probably one band of fairyfolk attacked another . . .” Sagorn frowned, peering up at Rap’s face, which could not be very visible to him against the fire. “You have reason to think otherwise?”
“Bedding, cooking pots, nets, food?”
The old man tugged his lip. “You are right. Those would be looted. ”
“There are bones in those ruins.”
“Three skeletons. Three skulls.”
“Mmmph! You may be ignorant, but you are not stupid, my young friend. So if not headhunting, then perhaps it was a reprisal by Imperial troops?”
“Do legionaries flog captives to death?”
“Yes.”
“But for what?” Rap said. “I thought headhunters used their victims’ skulls as trophies? There is nothing like that here—no heads on posts, no posts to stick ‘em on, even. Those things over there are for fishing nets. All the weapons we found look like hunting equipment. No swords. The arrows are small, bird size, not barbed. This is a fishing spear. Ask Little Chicken.”
The pale jotun eyes glinted at him in the firelight. “You are more astute than I thought, Master Rap. When I first met you, in the king’s study . . . I underestimated you. You have grown a lot since Jalon met you in the hills last year.”
Rap had grown enough to resent the patronizing. “The fields are still being tended, in places. Ashes in one hearth had not been rained on. Little Chicken saw. Weeds are sprouting in doorways, but one hencoop still has occupants. Someone has been feeding them.”
Sagorn twisted around carefully to look up at the goblin, who still held the ax over him without a tremor. “Things grow here faster than in your northern forest, young man.”
Little Chicken said nothing, his angular eyes shining gold in the fire’s glow. Sagorn turned to face Rap again, obviously disconcerted by this looming threat.
“If you allow for the tropics, whatever happened here was quite recent, a few weeks at the most.” So far the famous sage had not said anything very profound, Rap thought, but now he flashed his grim smile again. “And if you detected survivors with your farsight, you did not dare tell Thinal.”