The embers of the temple were still glowing when Tira finished going over her gear. Her bow had survived, but four arrows had broken. She snapped the shafts off close to the head, put the arrowheads in her saddle bags, and climbed into the saddle.
Tam approached. He had tied a bandanna around his head to keep sweat out of his eyes. His face was haggard and streaked with soot, but he gave her a grim smile. "Going somewhere?"
She nodded. "Remember that cart full of bodies? I think I'll go see where it was headed."
"You'll get yourself killed," he said.
Tira shrugged. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sari projected on the inside of her eyelids. She owed a debt to a little girl who had trusted her. Someone was going to pay that debt, and pay in blood.
"I have to stay," Tam said.
She nodded.
"They need me here," he said. There was a note of pleading in his voice, as if he thought she didn't understand. "Half the town is gone."
"Don't be an idiot, Tam. Of course you have to stay." They looked at each other for a long moment. "Thank you," she said. "You can ride with me any time." Then she booted the horse and headed out of the village on the east road.
She camped that night by a small stream in the grasslands. She wanted to keep going, goaded by rage and afraid of the nightmares that awaited her if she slept. But the horse needed rest, and riding a bad road in the dark was a good way to break a horse's leg.
For dinner she had nothing but some leftover jerky some trooper had left in the bottom of one saddle bag. That gave her no reason for a fire, so she gnawed on the strip of meat and swatted mosquitoes while the sky grew dark and the first few stars appeared.
Hoofbeats drummed on the road. She strung her bow, took up her quiver, and crouched behind some low shrubs on a rise that gave her a good view of the road. It was a lone rider coming from the west, and she nocked an arrow just in case. Then she put the arrow away, stood, and waved.
Tam reined in his horse and waved back. He rode over to her and dismounted.
"I thought they needed you at the village."
"It's a town," he said, and shrugged. "They know what they're doing there." His teeth were a pale flash in the darkness as he smiled. "You, on the other hand... I bet you rode away without packing any food." He reached over to pat his bulging saddlebags. "Hungry?"
Her stomach growled in reply, and she chuckled. "I'll make a fire."
"Did you raid your mother's larder again?" she asked as he fried cubes of pork some time later.
His face was bleak as he answered. "This belonged to the Carpenters." The grim note to his voice told her all she needed to know about what had happened to them. "I brought everything that was going to spoil. There aren't enough people in the village to eat everything."
It was midday before they reached the palisade where Carmody and his men had died. Tira murmured a prayer to Neris for their souls, along with an apology for burning her temple to the ground. She supposed Neris would understand.
"We're, what? Three days behind the cart now?" Tira scratched her fingers through her hair. It was greasy to the touch. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a proper bath. "We're moving a lot faster than the cart is. If we're going twice as fast, we'll catch up in, let me see... Three days? That's if the cart keeps going straight."
"Maybe it won't be that hard," Tam said, his voice grim. "Maybe we'll catch up sooner than that."
He was staring down the road, and Tira followed his gaze. Several black specks moved against the sky in the distance ahead of them. Birds, big ones, and she only knew of one thing that would attract them in large numbers.
Carrion.
It took most of an hour to reach the remains of the cart. Someone had cut the bodies of Carmody and his men into pieces, then piled firewood under the cart and burned everything. It wasn't nearly enough wood to reduce that many men to ash. There was more than enough left to attract the vultures and ravens.
"Hey, look at this," Tam called. He was kneeling beside a blackened skull a few feet from the rest of the fire. "I think this is an arrow wound."
Tira frowned. No one had used a bow in the battle at the palisade.
"Look at this," Tam repeated. When Tira didn't move, he made an impatient gesture. "Yes, I know it's disgusting, but come here and look."
She walked over and squatted beside him, ready to give him the sharp edge of her tongue for his insistence. Then she peered at the skull, and her anger evaporated.
There was a hole in the right temple, just beside the eye socket. A matching hole decorated the left temple. Someone had put an arrow through the side of this person's head.
"He blinded him," Tam said. "I think this was the cart driver. Someone took out both his eyes with one arrow."
Tira shook her head. That was preposterous. No one was that good with a bow. It had to be chance. A lucky shot.
"Remember the arrow that landed in the fire?" Tam asked. That had been an awfully good shot, as well. She nodded.
"I would really like to know who's out there helping us," he said. He put the skull down. "Well, what now?"
Tira had a sneaking suspicion about the identity of their mysterious ally. She was opening her mouth to tell Tam her idea when she saw movement in the corner of her eye. She whirled, sliding the bow from her back, then relaxed. It was Daisy, with the other mule trailing behind her, ambling across the grass toward them.
"Well, old girl, have you enjoyed your vacation? I'm going to put you back to work, you know."
Daisy nuzzled her, and she scratched the mule behind the ears. Tam dug an apple out of his saddlebags and gave half to each mule, then set about transferring their saddlebags to the mules. The horses had been working hard, and every bit of weight removed would help.
"So, what happened here, old girl? I suppose you saw everything?"
Daisy ignored her, of course, laying her ears back to show her displeasure as Tam tied the saddle bags in place.
"It looks like we're ready to go," Tam said. "Do we know where we're going?"
Tira shrugged. "Let's keep following the road. We know the bodies were headed east."
"Yes, but where were they going?"
"How should I know?" she snapped.
"Well," said Tam, "I've been thinking about that. I think the necromancer is wherever the children were being taken. That means somewhere on the other side of the river."
Tira thought about it. "Maybe," she said. She gestured at the burned remains of the cart. "Bodies are best when they're fresh, though." She thought of the town on the edge of the forest, with smoke rising above the walls. "And they seem to be generating a lot of dead bodies all of a sudden. I wonder if the necromancer has come to this side of the river to start the second phase of his plan."
Tam scratched his head. "If you're right, then we have the same problem as before. We have no idea where we're going."
"Sure we do," said Tira. She gestured down the road. "We're going east."
"Yes, but then what?"
She shrugged. "Maybe we'll find some more bodies we can follow."
They rode east. In late afternoon the grasslands gave way to forest. Soon after, they saw a column of smoke rising to the south. When a broad path appeared leading south through the trees, they followed it. They came to a valley with a small lake and a collection of dilapidated stone buildings. Someone had built a bonfire on open ground in the middle of the little settlement, and smoke still rose from the embers.
"What is this place?" said Tam.
Tira peered around. There was no sign of life, or of recent occupation. Trees as tall as a man sprouted close against the walls of the buildings, and doors hung open or were missing completely. The place was long abandoned. Some of the buildings might have been cottages or small storehouses. One building, though, dominated the rest. Built of dark red stone, it stood a story and a half tall and could have held a hundred or more people with ease. On either side of the main entrance was a stylized carving of a man's face, one face laughing, the other face frowning. It was the symbol of the god Zef.
"I think this was some sort of monastery," she said. "A place for the monks to get away from worldly distractions."
Tam swung down from the saddle and approached the remains of the fire. "I see bones," he said. "They look human."
Tira thought of the trail they had taken from the road, which had been well-traveled and free of obstruction. The monastery looked abandoned, but someone had been coming here pretty regularly. "Is this our necromancer's secret lair?" she wondered aloud.
Tam put a hand to the hilt of his sword, looking around nervously. Tira wasn't too concerned, though. Judging by the size of the fire, the blaze would have been visible for miles, hardly the action of a secretive sorcerer. She was pretty sure the necromancer was no longer in residence. Still, she kept a hand on the hilt of her sword as she walked up the steps and into the main building with Tam on her heels.
One door was jammed shut. The other swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges. Inside, everything at first glance seemed undisturbed and long abandoned. There was a dais close to the door, festooned with cobwebs, and rows of benches facing it. The benches were covered with dust, but there was no dust on a path between the rows of benches. The building was not quite as abandoned as it seemed.
Pale light filtered in through eight window set high on the walls. Half of them were almost opaque with dirt. The other half were broken. Tira paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She could smell dust and mouse droppings, and behind her, Tam sneezed.
Most of the interior space was taken up by the one big, high-ceilinged room. As her eyes became used to the gloom, though, Tira was able to make out a door at the back. She headed that way, stepping softly, fighting the urge to draw her sword.
These hinges were in much better condition. The door swung open almost silently, revealing a narrow corridor lit by tiny windows. She followed the corridor to a 'T' intersection and turned left, opening doors as she came to them. There was a storeroom, the shelves bare except for rats' nests, and a kitchen, similarly bare. Tam sneezed again, and she realized that their feet were stirring up quite a lot of dust. They had made a wrong turn, then.
On the other side of the intersection, the corridor was dust-free. There was another storage room, this one full of splintered barrels. The room beyond that was a tiny alcove, empty, with a staircase descending into darkness.
The remains of a wall hanging plus a couple of barrel staves provided them with torches that they lit from the embers outside. Tira led the way down the steps and into darkness.
She knew in an instant that they had found what they were looking for. The basement of the monastery had stone walls and a dirt floor, and it looked as if it had been used for cold storage. Rotten shelves lined to walls, and it was distinctly colder than the rooms upstairs. It was not the temperature, however, that made Tira shiver.
Occult drawings covered one wall. There were lines of rune-like shapes, done sloppily in red paint, and a larger image, curves and sharp angles in a pattern that was abstract but somehow offensive and wrong.
A set of shackles hung from another wall, rust-free, looking newer than the rest of the room by at least a decade.
The room's central feature was a wooden table, solidly built, about seven feet long by four feet wide. She could see four sets of broad leather straps with heavy buckles mounted to the sides of the table, and dark stains across the table top that might have been blood.
And unlit brazier stood beside the table, and several heavy candle stands complete with melted tapers. It looked like everything a dark wizard would need for casting unspeakable spells.
"Look at the table," Tam said, his voice full of horrified fascination. "It slopes inward, and there's holes drilled at the low points." He made a face. "For drainage, I guess."
The brazier was cold and empty, and there was no sign of coal for it, or spare candles, or buckets to catch the blood as it drained. The necromancer was gone, and it didn't look as if he was coming back. Tira's torch was nearly out, and she dropped it. "Let's get out of here. I could use some sunlight and fresh air."
They stayed at the monastery that night, deciding that a roof to keep rain off and a door to keep mosquitoes out outweighed the horror of the bloody altar and the danger of discovery by the undead. Tam cooked up the last of the fresh meat, grumbling that it had to be Tira's turn to cook soon. She brushed down the animals and picketed them in the tall grass between buildings.
"What next?" Tam asked as they ate. "Do you want to wait here and see if the necromancer comes back?"
Tira shook her head. "No, I think we need help. This is much too big for the two of us." She wiped her plate with a crust of bread and popped it in her mouth, trying to remember what she'd seen when she rode through this area a week before. "There's a real town, just a day's ride east of here." Tam shot her a hurt look, and he amended, "A bigger town, I mean. Almost a city." It seemed strange that she knew the local geography better than he did, but they were as far east as he'd ever been in his life.
"I'd like to see a city," Tam said.
She thought about trying to tell him about the stink and the crowds and the guardsmen and the pickpockets, but she didn't bother. She could still remember being his age, knowing nothing of the world, and being absolutely certain that there was a wider, brighter world out there, somewhere just over the horizon. He could keep his illusions a little bit longer.
"We'll find the local lord," Tira told him. "Whoever sent Carmody and his men must be wondering where they've gone. We can tell them what happened. We can warn them what to expect. This is a job for an army to solve, not a pair of hired swords like us."
He beamed and sat up a bit straighter, delighted to be called a hired sword. Tira smothered a grin as she finished a cup of weak tea. His simple enthusiasm was exactly what she needed to keep her melancholy at bay.