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Hackett stopped talking when he saw Orielle with the Kyrgy knight. The gravid woman who talked with him turned in her seat.
“Lady Wizard.”
“Hackett. I grieve for Tobit.”
His face altered, hollowed and shadowed although the first daylight struck it. “You bring the Kyrgy knight here?”
“We battled the sorceress as Tobit must have battled her representative. We heard an eldritch knife dealt the fatal blow.”
“Tobit had no chance to fight. The coward struck him from behind. He knocked him on the head then turned him over and struck with the knife.”
“When?”
“I set the sentries to their second watch. When I returned, there he was, still warm.”
“Like Zairantze? Hands crossed over his breast?”
The woman inhaled sharply. Orielle didn’t look at her.
The shadowed hollows gave way to Hackett’s twisted anger. He stood. “Just like that, Lady Wizard. You know something.”
Whispers started behind her. Sangrior surveyed the press of people around them.
“No, Hackett, I do not know. I think, that’s all. A man said Grim and Surrect are in your gaol.”
“Aye, that’s—Shut your traps. I can’t hear myself talk.”
“She’s the wizard. She knows about Tobit’s death.”
Orielle looked then, for the man who accused with those words.
“She ain’t involved,” Hackett snarled.
“Sorcery.” Orielle tried to make eye contact with several people. Some looked away, some stared back belligerently, some waited judgment. “Sorcery. Eldritch and twisted, as sorcery is. The knife came from the sorceress in this valley. A sorceress who travels with a lair of wyre.” She didn’t actually know that the sorceress and the wyre were in the Haven’s valley, but Frost Clime had definitely come closer than these Rho realized. “You need to act before you’re over-run. That’s two eldritch knives. Were you attacked by wraiths, Hackett?”
“He were still warm when I found him. And the lady’s right. It’s sorcery, not wizard-work.”
“Lillias said—.”
“Stop repeating what Lillias said and think, you fools. Zairantze was murdered with a sorcered knife. Tobit was. Zairantze died before Grim and this wizard got close to our Haven. They don’t have nothing to do with these murders.”
“Where was the wizard then? Lillias said—.”
Hackett growled, and the speaker didn’t finish. “Time we found out who actually wielded those knives and is allied with sorcery, don’t you think?” Hackett crossed his arms and glared at the crowd.
“I rode with the Kyrgy.” Orielle didn’t think it wise to leave questions. “This is the Kyrgy knight Sangrior, who rides with Lady Bone. We fought the sorceress and her wyre. They ambushed us, and we barely escaped.”
Then someone said, “You aren’t Rho, Hackett.”
“I live here, don’t I?” he retorted. “I’ve lived here for five years, going on six. I’ll live here until I die—or until you run me out. `Course, you run me out, you’ll need to run out anyone else who ain’t Rho. You married the mundane, and you brought `em here. You going to say they ain’t got a bone in this fight? I lost Tobit. I want whoever killed him to pay. It ain’t Grim. Sure as blood it ain’t Surrect. He’s a healer. He ain’t no murderer allied with a sorceress. You can track sorcery, can you, Lady Wizard?”
She dared not lie on this point. “Only if it’s active. With the knife gone—.”
“We’ll track it.” He turned to the gravid woman, still seated, the rising sun turning her silver hair to gold. “You’ll help us, Trebetha.”
She stood. Her body showed short and sturdy, made rounder by the scarf doubled around her neck and the colorful shawl draped over the shoulders of her knitted sweater. Yet her face was clear, unlined, unworried. Nor did she have Hackett’s anger, just his shadowed hollows of weariness, not the age revealed by her silvered hair. “I am with you, Hackett. And with you, Lady Wizard, and you, Sir Knight. We all are. All Earth.” She raised her voice. “All Earth.”
And the gathered people lifted their voices to echo “All Earth.”
The room began to clear. The people held purpose, some angry determination, others with sturdy resolve.
Orielle watched them leave then turned to Hackett. “We should free Grim and Surrect first.”
“Lillias accused them—.”
Hackett turned on the man, one of the few who remained, stubbornly refusing to leave and still ready to argue. “Ain’t you learned yet not to listen to what Lillias claims? Or do you think Surrect wielded that knife? Your chief healer?”
“You will soon know.” Sangrior’s deep boom surprised those who hadn’t left. The words were his first since entering the house. He looked around then returned to Hackett, flicking a glance at the woman then at Orielle. “Sorcery will stain the hand that wielded the eldritch blade.”
They poured out of the dwelling into the now-packed byway. The crowd channeled through the side lanes before reaching a main street and then turning to the square. More people had gathered, not attempting to work, and the noise of talk increased as the Earth Rho explained to whoever would listen about their plans.
Hackett and the woman with Orielle and Sangrior crossed the square to the street that led to the lock-up, and the number of those following swelled as other Haveners joined in.
“Will they try to stop us from reaching the lock-up?”
“I wish,” Hackett gritted. “Doubt it, though. Just Lillias and Fortis stood for that. He sided with her.”
“Against Grim? I thought Fortis was Grim’s friend.”
“He said he had to stay objective,” the woman said, and Hackett spit his view of that comment. “He and Lillias are to decide at tonight’s hearing. However, whatever is decided will be now and in the street.”
“Tobit’s way,” the veteran soldier said. Then grief dragged down his face.
Seeing his fellow villagers’ approach, the sentry on the lock-up opened the outer door. As he unlocked the iron gate, Grim and Surrect appeared. The mentor looked startled by the crowd, growing in number every minute as word spread through the village.
Grim ignored the people. As the gate opened, he thrust past the sentry and crossed the yard to reach Orielle. He grabbed her upper arms, held her away for a few seconds, then hauled her close.
As his arms wrapped around her, she buried her face in his neck. A tug on her arm brought her head up. He kissed her, drinking from her like a man who had crossed the desert. She sank all her hopes and attractions into that kiss. At her intense response, he growled. His arms tightened.
When the kiss ended, Orielle tugged at his shoulders. “I should have stayed.”
“No. You could not deny the Kyrgy. Besides, you would have been only one voice in the clamor to lock up someone for Tobit’s death.”
“Why was Surrect locked up?”
“He’s Water. The knife turned to water. On that little, they decided.”
Surrect was speaking with the gravid woman. Staff leaning on his shoulder, he described something with wide sweeps of his hands. Sangrior stood to one side, no expression on his marble face. He’d returned a hand to his swordhilt. Orielle recalled last night’s shoreline, swords flashing as he countered claws and blades. Did he expect the Haveners to attack?
Hackett scowled as he listened to the sentry. “She’s duly elected,” he retorted, “just not before the Council.”
“The wizard?”
“Trebetha, you arse. And we’ve two mentors now, her and Surrect. What more do you need?”
The sentry stammered.
Trebetha, the gravid woman, planted her stocky frame before the sentry. “Albit, you had no authority to put anyone in lock-up. With Tobit’s death, the Council can make no decisions. No one can be locked up on the order of one or two mentors.”
“Fortis was right there beside Lillias. He agreed.”
“You’re not casting off the burden for not thinking, Albit. Lillias and Fortis are still only two votes. Lock-up requires three votes from the Council of the Four Elements.”
“Lillias will have my job.”
“Lillias may not be a mentor herself for much longer.”
Surrect touched the woman’s shoulder. “We need to move.”
The crowd worked back to the square.
“Will Lillias stand against us?” she whispered to Grim.
“We’re having a battle in the Haven!” a boy shouted.
“Surely not?” someone countered.
“We ain’t barbarians,” a man’s voice declared. “We got a rule of law.”
“Maybe we should first consult Fortis?”
The argument worked through the crowd, echoing Orielle’s thoughts. Grim kept their hands clasped. He didn’t have his short sword or a knife or any weapon, just his element. Sangrior paced beside her.
Orielle guiltily realized that she had involved a Kyrgy knight in Rhoghieri matters. Lady Bone would not be pleased. “You need not stay with us, Sangrior.”
“The Haven has yet to deal with the wraiths. I stay until then. Lady Bone would require it.”
She remembering the Kyrgy lady, so cold, so mysterious, covering Volk’s wounded body. My Volk! You may not leave me. My Volk, you must stay with me. Would the lady have reacted that way if Sangrior had been severely wounded? Or did she only care for Volk?
That opened a maze of questions that might never be answered.
The other riders must have died, falling to the ambush.
How many of the sorceress’ group survive?
That blinding transition interrupted Orielle’s battle with the sorceress. Even with the surprise of ambush, the wyre couldn’t have killed the riders without losing their own.
“How many wyre did we kill, before Lady Bone took us away?”
“I took one. Volk took one. The three mundane swordsmen are dead.”
“What will Lady Bone do with Saircuista?”
He met her eyes. Those full-black eyes briefly flickered to Grim, then Sangrior looked away. His gaze fastened on Surrect and the woman Trebetha, leading the way to Fortis’ dwelling. “Your concerns are here, with the Haven. Kyrgy do not concern you.”
“But Saircuista—.”
“What Lady Bone does with the traitor does not concern you.”
That flat tone chilled her, as emotionless as when she’d first encountered him. No, less, for he’d had a banked fire when he’d raised his sword to the velvet dark sky and named her Aiwaz Solsken. Did her obvious relationship with Grim kill whatever alliance he’d had with her?
Orielle didn’t understand the riders’ devotion to Skuld. What benefit did they receive from riding with the Lady? She had healed Volk; she cried that he would not leave her. Did she lengthen their lives?
Was that the mantle she would remove from Saircuista on the first night of Lady’s Moon?
Lady’s Moon.
Mere designations of that moon, that’s what the tutors had claimed. None ever explored how people counted time. The three-night Lady’s Moon was Crone, Lady, then Maiden. Knight’s Moon. Knave’s moon. Dragon Moon, with its three unlit nights of Wyvern, Dragon, and Lindworm. Worm Moon. Womb Moon.
Was it mere coincidence that the Kyrgy rode their Hunt on the moons for the three-part Lady and for the three-part Dragon? They’d fought the sorceress and her minions in the night before the first of Lady Moon.
And they’d lost.
Did the Kyrgy and their riders have increased power on the Lady-Moon nights? Was it called Lady’s Moon and Knight’s Moon and Knave for these riders? Lady Bone and her knights Volk and Sangrior, and the other knights and dames.
An abyss of new knowledge gaped before her.
And Dragon Moon? The alliance fought Frost Clime, who claimed to prepare for the dragons. The Fae vowed Dragon Rising would return them to the decades of Dragon Dark, so long ago. Was Dragon Moon named during Dragon Dark?
Surrect and Trebetha stopped. She stepped forward and knocked on the door of a dwelling.
“Whose?” Orielle whispered.
“Fortis,” Grim said, equally soft.
Trebetha knocked again. Then again and a third time before the door opened.
And an orb of fire shot through the door. Flames exploded over the woman. She screamed then crumbled ... and writhed on the ground as the fire consumed her. People screamed. The crowd behind them thinned.
Then water doused the flames.
Head bowed, Surrect knelt. He touched the steaming char that had been Trebetha. Then he straightened and walked into the dwelling.
Orielle rushed after him, Grim and Sangrior with her.
