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  “I doubt so in this case, sir.”

  “As do I,” Berengar said. “It can also mean sacrifice. A payment for sin. The bodies outside and the blood over the door …”

  Nisero waited and then said, “Yes, sir? What?”

  “I think the bandits used the blood of the children, then made the adults watch the houses burn, and then burned them after.”

  “By the gods,” Nisero breathed. “This was repeated dozens of time through the village. If that is so, how many men? How much time?”

  “Too much,” Berengar pulled himself up onto the horse. “Solag and his minions will pay for their sin, if I have to ride the rest of my life.”

  Nisero stayed on the ground holding his horse. “Are we going now?”

  “I need to bury my wife and son.”

  “I will help you.”

  Berengar looked up at the sky. The smoke was clearing. “My daughter was not in the house. We need to search the woods while there is still light.”

  ***

  They circled the village through the rough terrain away from the roads. They called Arianne over and over to no answer. After a while, Nisero saw Berengar looking at him. Nisero called for the girl again, but he thought he saw in the captain’s eyes that his friend knew Nisero did not believe they would find her out there.

  Berengar said, “She’s not out here. Let’s return to the carnage.”

  They rode in silence and dismounted near the bodies of his family.

  “Tell me, Nisero, where do you think she is?”

  “She did not take the road we traveled,” he said. “She was not hiding in the woods. She was not in the house. With apologies, Captain, she could have left the family and perished in one of the other houses, or in the fight to defend the village. I find that unlikely. Not that your daughter was not brave enough to fight, but your son would not have let her go on her own, and she would have been unlikely to leave her family alone in this. If she is not here, she must have left by the road leading to the mountains. It is unlikely she would have preceded or followed the bandits in either case. That does not leave many possibilities, sir.”

  “She was taken,” Berengar said flatly. “We must pursue.”

  “Do you wish to bury your wife and son first, sir?”

  “I do,” Berengar said. “As much as it pains me, night approaches. Any pursuit now would be ill advised. If we fall and die from our horses stumbling in the dark, that will not help us find her.”

  “Yes, sir. That is wise.”

  “Wisdom that may cost her life.”

  Nisero did not answer. Berengar picked up the cloth Nisero had tried to use to clean the captain’s face. It blew in the wind as he held it up. Nisero looked down and saw their tracks fading from the wind clearing the soot. He thought about the trail ahead of them growing cold with each passing moment. He looked up at the hearth where the half message continued to fade.

  “Tell me what you are thinking, lieutenant.”

  “We need to go to the well.”

  Chapter 3: The Price for Life

  Berengar slid off his horse in the village square, and staggered to the sword embedded in the stone on the edge of the well. He pulled the scarf free where it was tied to the hilt and held it aloft in the wind. Nisero saw the blood stains on it.

  “By the gods,” Berengar said. “This is Arianne’s. I’m sure of it.”

  “And the one pinned under the point of the blade, sir?”

  Berengar wretched the blade free and it clattered to the cobbles. He lifted the material that appeared to be a small blanket or wrap. “This is hers as well. I will bleed this Solag, son of no one, until he is dried bones.”

  Nisero lifted the sword and turned it over in his hands. There were no inscriptions, but the designs in the hilt were intricate. It was too nice of a blade to now be blunted from driving into the stone. “Do you know this blade or its make?”

  Berengar glanced up from the cloth he held balled in his fists. “I do not.”

  Nisero did not feel the captain had taken a sufficient look, but the matter would wait. He wrapped the sword in the section of material still stained with the muck from Berengar’s face and hands. Nisero slid it carefully under the flaps of his saddle bags.

  He brought his attention back on the captain and saw the reddening around the rims of his eyes returning fresh and raw. He took in a breath to give a word of comfort. Then, he changed mental course and said, “What do you see, sir?”

  Berengar licked his teeth and crossed his arms at the forearms, flipping the material around to show the lieutenant the side he had been looking at. It billowed in the relentless wind. Nisero saw the rip from where the mystery sword had pierced. It opened and closed like a mouth, either speaking emphatically or maybe screaming.

  Nisero blinked on a speck of ash that found the corner of his eye. He wondered briefly if the village suffered these winds all the time or just in this season. Nisero realized that the buildings that no longer stood had probably served to shield from the wind in the past.

  The wind shifted and the cloth flattened, and Nisero could now see the letters drawn in not quite dried blood. Some of them had smeared and run where the cloth had been folded and pierced, but this message was still legible all the way through: She is my reward and your punishment.

  Nisero could not tell in that smeared blood and carved soot whether the two messages were scripted by the same hand, but he suspected so.

  “Do you believe our enemy refers to Arianne, Captain?”

  “I do.” Berengar stuffed the scarf and blanket into his belt. They hung down in a way that reminded Nisero of the street performers back in the capital. Even with all the pain and death around him, Nisero could not help but to wonder what sort of dancer the captain would have made in some other life.

  “Sir, excuse my persistence, but do you believe the message was intended for you to find?”

  “It was on my house, and written in blood on my missing daughter’s clothing.” Berengar’s voice took on an edge and his eyes had an intensity that Nisero read as danger. It had taken all he had in him to keep his arms at his sides when the shocked captain had first discovered his house. Nisero had thought the entire time about poor Forseth, and that had been done in jest, not in rage. “I imagine he is writing to me, yes.”

  “Do you believe he knew you were coming to find it personally, or do you think he expected it would be taken to you in time?”

  Berengar took a step toward the lieutenant and spread his arms. Nisero winced, but held his ground. The captain said, “What difference does that make?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “You do know,” Berengar showed his teeth and shook his head. “You asked for a reason, and I’m asking for your reason to be explained. I’m filled with rage, but not at you. Stop being delicate with me and answer, please.”

  Nisero wasn’t certain the captain was in his usual control of his actions just yet, but he responded anyway. “They took their time here and dealt out death to the extreme. They watched the burning and waited to leave their messages. If they knew we were coming, they waited until the last possible moment.”

  “So they would be close.” Berengar looked toward the mountains. “Are you saying we should risk the ride at night and try to take them?”

  “I am not, sir. If their desire was for us to be close and pursue in the dark, then they will be waiting. They must be many in number to achieve this. I don’t see any of them fallen among the villagers. We would not want to play into their game, by their rules.”

  “Do you not want to join me for pursuit any longer?”

  “I do.”

  “I release you from your obligation to me in this, Nisero, if you desire.”

  Nisero swallowed and looked away. “I believe you know me well enough that I could never accept that release, even if you ordered it.”

  “I do know. So, you believe they lay in wait? Perhaps close?”

  “I believe this Solag
expects you to pursue, but I’m not sure he is close. If they laid in wait, this would be the place to do so. If not here, then I doubt it would be a random point up the road. If they leave, I imagine they leave for their familiar territory. Perhaps the mountains in the tribal regions beyond the kingdom’s borders, like most barbarians and bandits? Maybe in one of the hostile border towns that offers them shelter?”

  “So why does it matter if he knew I was coming now or later?”

  “If he knew you were retiring and returning now, then you are his target and Arianne is the bait. He knows you are separated from the Elite Guard and this may have been in the planning for some time. Did many people know your home village?”

  “Of course not. I know I have enemies. Did you know my home village before this journey?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That should tell you the extent of the secret.”

  “Then this bandit has been searching you out for some time, and he is obsessed with your suffering. If he did not know of your retirement, then he is ready to go to war with the entire kingdom to get at you. And I’m not sure what that might mean.”

  The wind whistling through the skeletons of burnt homes punctuated the silence between them.

  Berengar walked toward his horse. “I need to bury my wife and son. Then we leave early to set about delivering justice.”

  Nisero stared at the well and swallowed. He took a deep breath to steel his courage. “How deep is that well, sir?”

  He heard Berengar’s boots scrape to a stop and turn. “Deep enough to draw water from the foothills. Why? Are you thirsty, lieutenant?”

  “We need to plum its depth.” Nisero turned enough to see the captain at the edge of his vision, but not to look at him directly. “We need to search it while we still have some light. Or we will need to do so in the morning.”

  Berengar looked down and walked up beside the lieutenant. “You think she may be down there?”

  “It is a possibility. The message as it is written—here and in unidentified blood—it could mean that this is where he left her. I don’t know it, but we’ll need to be sure before we set out.”

  Berengar nodded, but did not lift his face. “You will make a great captain, Nisero. You are seeing things that I would normally see for myself, and I am blessed to have you by my side in this.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nisero said, “you are as sharp as you have ever been. Even in these moments of grief, you are still seeing wisdom. Solag is outmatched.”

  “I’ll set the rope and you can lower me down,” Berengar said.

  “I’ll be the one to go in, sir.”

  “It is my business to complete, lieutenant.”

  “Perhaps, but I am lighter and it makes more sense for me to descend. I trust your strength better than my own.”

  Berengar shrugged. “You will plum the underworld today, then.”

  “There may be other bodies or… parts of bodies. We will need to extract each one to identify or eliminate the possibility.”

  “I understand, Nisero.”

  ***

  His hands and boots echoed sharp off each wall in the rough cylinder as he descended into the darkness. The walls grew slimy and he could no longer make out the colors of stone on either side in the growing blackness. This task would be horrid.

  Nisero felt the temperature shift cooler around him. The water hit the heel of his boot and poured in over the top with icy shock. He sucked in air, hearing his own voice bounce around him. He thought again that maybe he should have left the boots above, but the possibility of cast aside weapons in the water made it a must. The last thing he wanted was his foot to turn green during their mad ride into the mountains after an unknown bandit.

  He tugged the secondary rope once, and his descent halted at thigh level. His legs were already growing heavy and his feet were numb. He slid out of the broad loop of the main rope and sunk to his neck. Nisero started to tread water, but then his feet came to rest on uneven stone below him. He felt current flow past his pants legs. Apparently a spring fed the well from underneath, and kept its water level even.

  He took deep breaths trying to let his body acclimate to the cold, but it didn’t happen. Instead, he took a breath and held it before plunging under. Sharp, icy pain immediately took hold of the center of his skull. He pumped his arms to bring his body down to where his hands could feel the rocks. He found the wall of the well and worked his way along, trying to feel over every portion of the floor.

  He marked his spot with his foot and brought his head up to gasp in air that felt hot in comparison. He plunged back under and resumed his search. He felt openings that led into small tunnels under the bottom edge of the well’s wall. He hoped that her body hadn’t been washed under and away by the light currents. He thought it was highly unlikely, but it was possible.

  He surfaced for air and dove again. His hand found something spongy and unpleasant. His mind made out the shape of another hand in his. He imagined the arm attached, the dead body cast aside as punishment for some act the captain did not remember, and he imagined the realization as the captain pulled up the double weight.

  Nisero surfaced, but the hand thing came with no weight. It was severed. He might have to risk exploring the tunnels. The lieutenant held the wet thing close to his face in the faint light from high above. He smelled the raw, rotten death on it. As his eyes focused, he saw blank, black eyes staring back at him. He recognized it as a dead frog and tossed it away.

  “I’m not thirsty anymore.”

  He dove again and resumed his search. He found the frog one more time, but no bodies or traces that might be evidence of a body.

  With great exhaustion, Nisero hauled himself up into the loop of the rope with the added weight of his soaked clothes. He tugged the secondary rope and waited. The haul upward went slower than when the captain lowered him, but at least he would have good news for his friend, and dry clothes when he reached the top.

  ***

  They gathered the bodies in canvas that they scavenged from two different structures. Berengar felt the crisp scorch marks on the material as they wrapped the remains together. Without Nisero’s help, they would have come apart. Even with their greatest care, the captain felt the fragile corpses give easily under the slightest pressure applied to the burial shrouds.

  He imagined their bodies being made of smoke that they trapped inside the clothes, but could not hope to hold for long. He supposed that wasn’t too far from the truth. Fire forged weapons used for slaying man and beast. The resulting blade would slice right through the throat of evil bandits or innocent children as if one were no different from the other. The flame that formed the blade or destroyed the house behaved the same way. All Captain Berengar could think to do, as he knelt over the shape that was no longer truly his wife, was to promise her spirit that he would find their daughter and save her.

  His lip quivered and he could not seem to bring the words forth—not that her ears would hear them anyway. He bit his lip until he tasted blood and it stilled.

  “Captain?”

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  They started digging in the light and they finished spreading the dirt back over in full darkness. The captain hammered in the markers, but realized he would have to wait until morning to add the words. He made a mental note, which grave was his son’s and which was his wife’s. A low growl rumbled in the back of his throat.

  “This is why we die one at a time.”

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind. We need to sleep.”

  Nisero walked away behind him and spread out their bedding on the ground, still in sight of the destroyed home and the fresh graves. Berengar tried to think of some words to send out to the gods, but again nothing came to mind or tongue.

  He finally turned and laid down in the bedding the lieutenant had set out for him. His prayers remained as blank as the markers.

  He thought he would not sleep, but exhaustion overtook him in moments, and he slept li
ke the dead.

  ***

  Nisero’s eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright. His dream was already disappearing from his mind. He could not remember all the unpleasant details, but it had to do with something in the water with him, chasing him and trying to pull him under.

  He heard scratching in the darkness of predawn. He turned to see the captain carving into the wood of the shabby markers they had planted last night. He thought they should be stone, but they had a living girl to track and no time to be hiring a stonecutter. Nisero was surprised the captain had so readily agreed to sleep at all.

  Berengar turned and made eye contact with the lieutenant. “Are you ready to ride, Nisero?”

  “I am, sir, or can be shortly. Do you want me to cook up provisions quickly before?”

  “We can eat cold stores as we ride this morning. I want to get moving before the sunrise.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They set about packing the horses. Nisero stole a glance at the markers before they mounted. They bore the names and nothing more. Nisero thought about birth, death, mother, wife, son, beloved, and more. He supposed little of it mattered in a village devoid of life.

  Berengar wrapped his reins in his fist. “Have we forgotten something?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  They followed the road out from the ruins. Before the first hints of sunrise, they left behind a life Captain Berengar would no longer be allowed to live. His reward had been taken from him. Nisero decided in that moment that vengeance on Solag, and all who helped in his reign of evil, would not be denied the captain. If he could find the blessing of the gods or the grace of the spirits, he would see the captain’s daughter returned to him safely, too.

  Nisero felt a sting in his chest, and a growing cold, that reminded him of being in the water at the dark bottom of the well. He realized the feelings were some hybrid of fear and doubt. He pushed the dark feelings down and fought to keep pace with the captain’s hard pressed ride.

  They did stop midmorning to water the horses. There was a stream that cut through the path like the beginning of a canyon. The air grew colder and Nisero laid out his wet clothes from the well, with little hope that they might dry in the brief rest. The horses’ sides were lathered from the ride and heaving against the saddles. They could do for a day’s rest, but Nisero doubted the captain would even consider it.