John Flanagan - The Burning Bridge

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked. "Look at that!"

Will and Horace looked. For the life of him, Will couldn't see what might be bothering the young Ranger.

"I don't see anything," he admitted. Gilan turned to him.

"Exactly!" he agreed. "Nothing! No smoke from the chimneys. No people in the streets. It looks as empty as the border post!"

He nudged Blaze with his knees and the bay horse broke into a canter on the stony road. Will followed, with Horace's horse a little slower to respond. Strung out in a line, they clattered into the village, finally drawing rein in the small market square.

There wasn't much to Pordellath. Just the short main street by which they'd entered, lined with houses and shops on either side, and widening into the small square at the end. It was dominated by the largest structure, which was, in Celtic fashion, the Riadhah's dwelling. The Riadhah was the hereditary village headman-a combined clan chief, mayor and sheriff. His authority was absolute and he ruled unchallenged over the villagers.

That is, when there were any villagers for him to rule. Today there was no Riadhah. There were no villagers. Only the faint, dying echoes of the horses' hooves on the cobbled surface of the square.

"Hello!" Gilan shouted, and his voice echoed down the narrow main street, bouncing off the stone buildings, then reaching out to the surrounding hills.

"Oh-oh-oh:" it went, gradually tailing away into silence. The horses shifted nervously again. Will was reluctant to seem to correct the Ranger, but he was uneasy at the way he was advertising their presence here.

"Maybe you shouldn't do that?" he suggested. Gilan glanced at him, a trace of his normal good humor returning as he sensed the reason for Will's discomfort.

"Why's that?" he asked.

"Well," Will said, glancing nervously around the deserted market square, "if somebody has taken away the people here, maybe we don't want them to know that we've arrived."

Gilan shrugged. "I think it's a little late for that," he said. "We came galloping in here like the King's cavalry, and we've been traveling the road completely in the open. If anybody was looking out for us, they would have already seen us."

"I suppose so," said Will doubtfully.

Horace, meanwhile, had edged his horse up close to one of the houses and was leaning down from the saddle to peer in under the low windows, trying to see inside. Gilan noticed the movement.

"Let's take a look around," he said, and dismounted.

Horace wasn't terribly eager to follow his example.

"What if this is some kind of plague or something?" he said.

"A plague?" asked Gilan.

Horace swallowed nervously. "Yes. I mean, I've heard of this sort of thing happening years and years ago; whole towns would be wiped out by a plague that would sweep in and just:sort of:kill people where they stood." As he said it, he was edging his horse away from the building, and out to the center of the square. Will inadvertently began to follow suit. The moment Horace had raised the idea, he'd had pictures of the three of them lying dead in the square, faces blackened, tongues protruding, eyes bulging from their final agonies.

"So this plague could just come out of thin air?" Gilan asked calmly. Horace nodded several times.

"Nobody really knows how they spread," he said. "I've heard that it's the night air that carries plague. Or the west wind, sometimes. But however it travels, it strikes so fast, there's no escape. It simply kills you where you stand."

"Every man, woman and child in its path?" Gilan prompted. Again, Horace's head nodded frantically.

"Everyone. Kills 'em stone dead!"

Will was beginning to feel a lumpy dryness in the back of his throat, even as the other two were speaking. He tried to swallow and his throat felt raspy. He had a moment of panic as he wondered if this wasn't the first sign of the onset of the plague. His breath was coming faster and he almost missed Gilan's next question.

"And then it just:dissolves the dead bodies away into thin air?" he asked mildly.

"That's right!" Horace began, then realized what the Ranger had said. He hesitated, looked around the deserted village and saw no signs of people struck dead where they stood. Will's throat, coincidentally, suddenly lost that lumpy, raspy feeling.

"Oh," said Horace, as he realized the flaw in his theory. "Well, maybe it's a new strain of plague. Maybe it does sort of dissolve the bodies."

Gilan looked at him skeptically, his head to one side.

"Or maybe there were one or two people who were immune, and they buried all the bodies?" Horace suggested.

"And where are those people now?" Gilan asked. Horace shrugged.

"Maybe they were so sad that they couldn't bear to live here anymore," he said, trying to keep the theory alive a little longer. Gilan shook his head.

"Horace, whatever it was that drove the people away from here, it wasn't the plague." He glanced at the rapidly darkening sky. "It's getting late. We'll take a look around, then find a place to stay the night."

"Here?" said Will, his voice cracking with nerves. "In the village?"

Gilan nodded. "Unless you want to camp out in the hills," he suggested. "There's precious little shelter and it usually rains at night in these parts. Personally, I'd rather spend the night under a roof-even a deserted one."

"But:" Will began and then could find no rational way to continue.

"I'm sure your horse would rather spend the evening under cover than out in the rain too," Gilan added gently, and that tipped the balance with Will. His basic instinct was to look after Tug, and it was hardly fair to condemn the pony to a wet, uncomfortable night in the hills just because his owner was afraid of a few empty houses. He nodded and swung down from the saddle.

He paused to think about the fact. Lady Pauline noticed that he didn't seem overly shocked by Halt's action. If anything, there was a look of grim satisfaction on his face. The Baron frowned at Rodney's tacit approval.

"I know the man deserved it," he said, "but we can't have people going around throwing knights into the moat. It's not:diplomatic."

Lady Pauline raised one elegant eyebrow. "Indeed not, sir," she said.

"And Halt has been altogether too high-handed about it all," he continued. "I'm going to have to speak to him about it. Most severely."

"Someone certainly should," Pauline agreed, and Rodney grunted a reluctant assent.

"He definitely needs taking in hand."

"You wanted to see me, my lord?" said a familiar voice, and they all turned guiltily toward the door, which Rodney had left open when he barged in.

Halt stood there, clad in his gray-and-green mottled cloak, his face half hidden in the shadows of the deep cowl. It was uncanny, the Baron thought, how the man could appear almost without a sound. Now Arald, like his two department heads, was conscious that he had been caught talking about Halt behind his back. He flushed in embarrassment, while Sir Rodney cleared his throat noisily. Only Lady Pauline appeared unconcerned-and she had a lifetime of practice at appearing unconcerned.

"Aaahhhh:yes:Halt. Of course. Of course. Come in, won't you? Shut the door behind you, there's a good fellow." As he said these last words, Baron Arald shot a baleful glance at Sir Rodney, who shrugged guiltily.

Halt nodded greetings to Lady Pauline and Sir Rodney, then moved to stand before the Baron's massive desk.

There was a long and increasingly awkward silence as the Ranger stood waiting. Arald cleared his throat several times, not sure where to begin. Inevitably, it was Lady Pauline who broke the impasse.

"I imagine you're wondering why the Baron asked to see you, Halt," she said, relieving the tension in the room and forcing Halt to say something-anything-at the same time.