Dennis McKiernan: Into the fire

"What about Wolves or such," asked Tip, "won't they be likely to, um-?"

"Nay, Tipperton," said Loric. "He is frozen solid and bears little scent, and though the storm was four days past, nought has yet defiled his remains. I deem he will stay untouched until the militia comes, unless there is a warming."

"I'll see if there's anything on him to say just who he was," said Beau, squatting down and prying open frozen pockets.

Tip frowned at this necessary yet rather grim business, but said nought.

Beau moved to the other side and in moments stood and shook his head.

Another mile down the road they found a frozen horse, one leg broken.

"Hmm," mused Loric. "A mystery this."

"How so?" asked Tip.

"If this is the frozen man's horse, then he went onward instead of turning back toward Dael."

"He might have been confused," said Beau. "Lost in the storm. Or so chill that he had no wits."

"Mayhap," growled Bekki, "yet I think instead he was fleeing."

Tip's eyes widened. "Fleeing? Fleeing what?"

Bekki gestured at the animal. "See the frozen hair? Lather turned to ice, I think. The horse mayhap was running when he broke a leg. And who would run a horse on ice but a fleeing man? Too, its throat is not cut, and so I ask, who would leave behind a broken-legged horse alive and in pain? Someone fleeing, that's who. Someone running in panic."

"Yes, but still you haven't answered Tip's question," said Beau. "What was the man fleeing from?"

Bekki shrugged and looked southeasterly along the road and then muttered, "Mayhap he was fleeing the city of Dael."

The next day they came upon another frozen man, and then another, and then three together, all of them covered with snow and ice and frost. And as the five rode onward, more and more frozen corpses were encountered, the road littered with the cold dead-men, "women, children-some clearly had been travelling afoot while others had been rid ing, and still more were found frozen in carts and wains horses lying blizzard-slain and rock-hard as well. And al were heading northwesterly along the road, a road which led to Mineholt North and nowhere else.

As the five now rode onward, Loric turned to Phais "Refugees?"

She nodded grimly. "Bekki I deem grasped the truth o it when he saw the very first man; he was fleeing the cit; of Dael, as I ween were these others."

'"But what's in Dael?" asked Beau, looking about in trepidation. "I mean, why would they run?"

Loric turned up his gloved hands. "We cannot answer that question until we arrive, Beau."

"Perhaps we ought to skirt the city altogether," said Tip "I mean, if something perilous is there-a Gargon or such-"

"Oh my," gasped Phais, looking at Loric, "mayhap in deed it is a Draedan."

"Gargon, Draedan, Ghath," growled Bekki, "we shouk draw near enough to know." He gestured southward "Somewhere my sire and the rest of the Allies hie after Squam, and we need to warn all if a Ghath strides Dael."

Reluctantly Loric nodded. "Bekki is right. We need toe see for ourselves what may lie therein. And if needs be warn Coron and DelfLord and Chieftain and Prince alike.

Tip pulled his bow from its saddle scabbard and took an arrow in hand. "Fetch out your sling and bullets, Beauf we're riding into Dael."

They sat atop the hill and looked eastward down the fall of land toward where the city of Dael should have been Yet they saw nought of what they expected-a riverport town surrounded by high stone walls-but a mass of snow covered rubble instead. Not a whole structure stood, though here and there a damaged wall or stark chimney reared up where a building had been. Broken battlements surrounded the wrack, the high stone bulwark breached, ruptured, smashed in a hundred places, cleft with great wide gaps. And a chill wind swirled through the gapes and among the ruins beyond.

"Lor'," breathed Beau, surveying the destruction, "what could have caused this? The Horde?"

Phais shook her head. "Nay. They were in flight, our allies after. They had not the time to do such."

"A Gargon?" asked Tip, his heart thudding.

Again Phais shook her head. "They are a terrible foe, but not even they could cause such ruin."

"Too," said Loric, "I feel not the dread of one."

Tip's mind flashed back to the time at Gunarring Gap when his heart had hammered with twisting apprehension from even a distant Gargon. No such anxiety writhed through his veins here.

"I see no movement," growled Bekki, looking at the others.

"Nor I," said Phais.

"What'll we do?" asked Beau. "Pass it by?"

Loric shook his head. "Nay. We must see what has befallen; others will want to know." Loric kicked his heels to the flanks of his mount, drawing his sword as he moved downslope.

And so did they all follow: Bekki with his hammer in hand, Phais with her blade, Beau with his bullet-laden sling, and Tip with an arrow strung.

They rode across the remains of crashed-down gates and into the rubble beyond, and hard-frozen bodies lay everywhere, yet some were burned as well. Too, not only were buildings smashed, but charred timbers and ash attested to raging fire.

And Phais and Loric looked at one another and nodded in unspoken agreement.

"What?" asked Beau.

"Drake," replied Phais.

The swirling air muttered among the wrack like whisper-ing wraiths on the wind, as through the devastation and toward the palace they rode, now following Bekki, thread ing their way among snow and ice and burned wreckag and the dead. But when they reached the site of the man sion they found nought but blackened corpses amid shal tered, charred ruins.

Beau looked about, shaking his head in disbelief, his eye wide and filled with distress.

"I wonder-" began Tip -but Phais threw up a hand. "Hist!"

While the chill wind spun through splinter and burn am stone, Phais cocked her head this way and that, and thei she looked at Loric and gestured toward the river.

He nodded, and softly said, "I agree."

Bekki frowned. "I do not hear-"

"But they do," said Beau, canting his head toward the Elves.

"What is it?" breathed Tip.

"Laughter. Weeping," murmured Loric.

"Mounted or afoot?" asked Phais, gripping her sword.

"Mounted, I think," replied Loric, easing his hora ahead.

Now Beau frowned in puzzlement. "The weeping, the laughing, is mounted?"

"No," whispered Tip. "It's we who will go mounted rather than on foot down to the river's edge."

"Oh," breathed Beau in understanding.

"Spread wide," said Phais, "a street or so. 'Twould no do for us all to ride into the same ambush."

Beau looked at Tip and silently mouthed [Ambush?]

Tip shrugged and chrked his pony rightward to stai away.

Taking a deep breath, Beau went leftward.

Widely spread, down through the snow- and ice-laden wrack they rode in a ragged line abreast, down toward thi frozen Ironwater, Bekki in the center, with Phais a cobblei street to the right and Loric a street to the left. Beyon Phais rode Tip, with Beau to Loric's left.

And now Tip could hear an intermittent hissing and babbling, spates of unrecognizable words interspersed by gig gling and weeping… and silence. Onward he rode, now able to see the frozen surface of the waterway ahead, bone white under the grey overcast above. At last he came to a long stone wharf bordering the Ironwater River itself, with a great number of boat slips and barge landings along its considerable length, all empty in the winter cold. His bow at the ready, Tip waited for the others to reach the long, long pier, and as he held position, again he heard distant hissed words, as if someone were revealing secrets to a confidant, though what was said Tip did not know, for it was in a tongue he spoke not.

To the left, bucco, and near. But wait for the others. Now Beau appeared on the stone pier a distance away, and in quick succession Bekki and Phais and Loric rode onto the windswept stone.