Druss swung away from the scene.
What was it for? Slaves and gold. The raiders cared nothing for the dreams of other men. ‘I will make you pay,’ said Druss. He glanced at the body of the smith. ‘I will avenge you. And your sons. I will avenge you all,’ he promised.
And he thought of Rowena and his throat went dry, his heartbeat increasing. Forcing back his fears, he gazed around at the settlement.
In the moonlight the village still seemed strangely alive, its buildings untouched. Druss wondered at this. Why did the raiders not put the settlement to the torch? In all the stories he had heard of such attacks, the plunderers usually fired the buildings. Then he remembered the troop of Drenai cavalry patrolling the wilderness. A column of smoke would alert them, were they close.
Druss knew then what he had to do. Moving to the body of Tetrin he hauled it across the street to the meeting hall, kicking open the door and dragging the corpse inside, laying it at the centre of the hall. Then he returned to the street and began to gather one by one, all the dead of the community. He was tired when he began, and bone-weary by the finish. Forty-four bodies he placed in the long hall, making sure that husbands were beside wives and their children close. He did not know why he did this, but it seemed right.
Lastly he carried the body of Bress into the building, and laid it beside Patica. Then he knelt by the woman and, taking the dead hand in his own, he bowed his head. ‘I thank you,’ he said quietly, ‘for your years of care, and for the love you gave my father. You deserved better than this, Patica.’ With all the bodies accounted for, he began to fetch wood from the winter store, piling it against the walls and across the bodies. At last he carried a large barrel of lantern oil from the main storehouse and poured it over the wood, splashing it to the dry walls.
As dawn streaked the eastern sky, he struck a flame to the pyre and blew it into life. The morning breeze licked at the flames in the doorway, caught at the tinder beyond, then hungrily roared up the first wall.
Druss stepped back into the street. At first the blaze made little smoke, but as the fire grew into an inferno a black column of oily smoke billowed into the morning sky, hanging in the light wind, flattening and spreading like an earth-born storm cloud. ‘You have been working hard,’ said Shadak, moving silently alongside the young axeman.
Druss nodded. ‘There was no time to bury them,’ he said. ‘Now maybe the smoke will be seen.’
‘Perhaps,’ agreed the hunter, ‘but you should have rested. Tonight you will need your strength.’ As Shadak moved away, Druss watched him; the man’s movements were sure and smooth, confident and strong.
Druss admired that – as he admired the way that Shadak had comforted Tailia in the doorway. Like a father or a brother might. Druss had known that she needed such consolation, but had been unable to provide it. He had never possessed the easy touch of a Pilan or a Yorath, and had always been uncomfortable in the company of women or girls.
But not Rowena. He remembered the day when she and her father had come to the village, a spring day three seasons ago. They had arrived with several other families, and he had seen Rowena standing beside a wagon helping to unload furniture. She seemed so frail. Druss had approached the wagon.
‘I’ll help if you want,’ offered the fifteen-year-old Druss, more gruffly than he had intended. She turned and smiled. Such a smile, radiant and friendly. Reaching up, he took hold of the chair her father was lowering and carried it into the half-built dwelling. He helped them unload and arrange the furniture, then made to leave. But Rowena brought him a goblet of water.
‘It was kind of you to help us,’ she said. ‘You are very strong.’
He had mumbled some inanity, listened as she told him her name, and left without telling her his own. That evening she had seen him sitting by the southern stream and had sat beside him. So close that he had felt remarkably uncomfortable.