Mercedes Lackey - Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

She ran for the doors, but they were both bolted again. She and Alma and Laurel pounded on them fruitlessly for a while, while outside she could hear not only Rod shouting, but the sounds of fighting, of other men shouting, of Arville and Ryu howling, of angry whinnies and hoofbeats.

:Get back!: Mayar “shouted” in her mind.

She cleared Laurel and Alma away from the doors; there was a furious kick and a crash and the door burst open.

Through the now-open doors poured a tangled heap of people and nets, some free and fighting and some not, followed by all five Companions, relentlessly driving them all inside. Arville and Ryu were the most tangled up, but there were some strangers in there too, all of them masked and draped in tattered rags that smelled like mold and rotting wood.

Masked they might have been, but they were fighters; Elyn slashed Ryu and Arville free with her sword while Alma and Laurel joined in the fight. By now all the noise had brought the villagers out of their homes and up to the barn; several of the bravest grabbed pieces of firewood and waded into the affray while the Companions circled the outside of the mob and kept anyone from escaping—

—including one masked miscreant, who, alone among all of them, was not armed and not fighting. Mayar was the one who caught him by the scruff of the neck in his teeth as he tried to get away, and kept him dangling off the ground while the rest of the gang was subdued and trussed up.

With them was an assortment of noisemakers that had produced all the unearthly howls. There were bull-roarers, a set of several predator-calls strapped together so they could all be sounded at the same time, and a contraption with a rough piece of twine that could be pulled through something like a drum-head of rawhide, producing a truly uncanny moan.

“I told you it was just people!” Rod shouted in triumph, when the last of them—the fellow dangling from Mayar’s teeth—was firmly bound and set with the rest.

By now all of the village—most tellingly, all of the youngsters, including the ones that Rod had suspected—had crowded into the barn. “Well it might not have been spirits,” Laurel sniffed, examining first her improvised club, which she then cast aside, and then her nails. “But it wasn’t who you thought it was.”

And hanging in the air was the unspoken so there!

“Let’s find out who it is, then,” Elyn said evenly, before they could start fighting again. She pulled the mask off the one nearest her, revealing a fellow with a lot of bruises, a black eye, and a surly expression. She looked at the villagers. “Anyone you know?”

Baffled, they all shook their heads. She continued to pull off masks, to similar bafflement, until she came to the last. Then came the gasps.

“Old man Hardaker!” shouted someone. The old man snarled, but said nothing. “Why would you do this to us?”

“I think I know,” Alma said in a hard voice, and came forward with that bit of cloth. “Look.”

She opened it up, and a small piece of something yellow and shining glimmered in the lamplight.

They all stared. “Great Havens,” Elyn finally said. “Is that gold?”

The villagers gasped as Alma nodded. “You know how Herald Bevins always says ‘Find the motive and you find the criminal?’ I went looking for a motive. When we were up at Stony Rill I thought I saw a little bit of gold-sand, so I started gathering up what I thought were likely bits of sand and rock. I panned this out of what I crushed up.” She grinned in triumph. “When Rod told me the story the boys had told him, I was pretty sure I was right, anyway. The old man here was digging for treasure, all right, but it wasn’t in a burial mound. And when Stony Rill turned red, it was just because he’d been washing the gold-rock. Right, old man?”

Hardaker spat in her direction.

“I made sure it was real gold by pounding it into a flake and testing it against a touchstone. It’s real, all right.” Alma beamed at the villagers. “You folks have a nice little gold mine here. And before we leave, we’ll draw you up a charter so you can all share alike in the work and the profits.”

Oh, well done! Elyn thought with pride. Get them to agree to a charter now, so that there are no quarrels about it after we’re long gone. Good thinking, Alma!

“It’s on my land!” Hardaker spat. “Ye’ve got no rights! And it weren’t me! ’Twas them! ’Twas all their ideer!”

“Oh, really?” Rod drawled.

And that was when one of the strangers finally caved in. “You demmed old bastard!” he snarled. “Sell us out, ye think?” He struggled a bit with his bonds, then gave up. “We heerd about ye Heralds. Ye’re hard but fair. Lemme tell ye what this old coot had up ’is sleeve. ’E found the gold, aye, an’ mined out ‘nuff t’ pay us with, but wouldn’ tell us where it was. Just told us to scare these turnip-heads out. An’ if’n he couldn’t scare ’em out, we was t’get rid of ’em—however.” There was a flicker of uncertainty in the man’s face then. “We nivver really reckon’d on hurtin’ no one, we figgered these clodhoppers would scare out right easy. But ... well, he was gettin’ impatient, an’ talkin’ ’bout gettin’ some’un else in here t’get rougher ...”

Now Hardaker looked both furious and alarmed. “Was just talk! Meant t’give ye layabouts reason t’do what I paid ye fer!”

“That will be enough, old man,” Elyn said impassively. “What we’ve heard is enough for us.” She looked about at the villagers. “Do you consent to giving us the same rights of judgment as we would have in Valdemar?”

They looked at one another and then back at Elyn. “Put it in that there charter,” said Benderk, finally. “I’ fact ...” He scratched his head. “Reckon it’d be better all around if—c’n ye make us part of Valdemar?”

Elyn blinked. “Well,” she said cautiously, “yes. You folk aren’t actually part of any other kingdom. But the Crown would take a percentage from the gold from your mine—five percent, if I recall correctly—in exchange for things like a Guard detachment to keep it and you safe, and for twice yearly visits from Heralds, and—”

“And we mostly trade with Valdemar an’ the Crown’d take more than that fer trade taxes,” Benderk said shrewdly. “Aye, that’ll work.” He looked at Alma. “Draw up yer charter, missy. We’ll all sign it. What’s t’be done with this lot?”

He toed Hardaker.

“As subjects of Valdemar, I can declare his land and goods confiscated and turned over to you. He and these men will be taken to the nearest Guardpost—”

:I have already passed the news up the line. Guards will be on the way in the morning. We need only stay here long enough to keep this lot locked up until they arrive.:

“—and men are on the way,” she continued smoothly, thanking the Havens for the swift mental communication between Companions. “Meanwhile, we will see to everything, including guarding these men for you.” She looked sternly down at Hardaker. “You, I am afraid, are going to be subjected to the Truth Spell to find out exactly how far your intentions toward these people were going to go. And we will find out exactly how many wrongs were originally on both sides.”

Some of the villagers had the grace to look embarrassed and a little guilty. But not so much so that Elyn feared anything terribly ugly was going to come out of the investigation.

“Nevertheless, I do not think it excuses the intent to drive people out of their homes,” she concluded. “That was an entirely immoral plan. Clever but immoral.”

“And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling Heralds!” the old man spat.