* * *
Viv dragged all four of the corpses side by side and examined them. “Something’s wrong,” she said.
“They stink, that’s what’s wrong,” replied Gallina, making a face.
“No. They’re starving. Look at them.”
Spinebacks weren’t beautiful creatures by any stretch of the imagination, but these four were pitiful specimens indeed, their ribs stark, their hides patchy. Gaunt.
“The bones here are many days old,” observed Satchel, toying with an osseous shard.
“Then what’s eatin’ the sheep?” asked Gallina.
“Eating. Or taking,” said Viv. “And I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing. But it’s like they were scared back into their hole. Not much scares a spineback. They’re too stupid to be scared. Maybe there’s something else out here?”
“The bounty’s just for spinebacks,” observed Gallina. She busied herself gathering trophies from each of the dead beasts as proof of their success.
Viv sighed. “Doesn’t sit right with me, leaving the job undone.”
“Well, that driver ain’t gonna wait around forever,” observed Gallina, straightening from her grisly task.
Strapping her saber onto her waist, Viv gathered up Satchel’s bag. “Hard to argue with that. I sure as hells don’t want to walk all the way home.”
* * *
Satchel poured himself back into the bag before they broke from the last stand of trees near the farmstead.
As she straightened and slung the strap over her shoulder, Viv stopped and sniffed.
A scent on the air.
Winter blood.
The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and gooseflesh rippled down her arms.
“Wait here,” she said, and started moving.
“What?” said Gallina. “What the hells are you doin’？”
“Just wait!” she called back.
She followed the odor, and deeper into the wood, in a dark clearing, she found the missing sheep. Or what remained of them.
It was the other things she found that made her blood frost over.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked quietly, folding back the flap of the satchel.
The homunculus’s skull emerged to peer at what she indicated.
“Oh, no,” moaned Satchel, his voice filled with dread.
When Meg came to the door of her cottage, Viv surprised her by seizing her hand and hurrying her to a stretch of bare dirt.
“Have you ever seen this before?” she asked, and with the end of a stick she sketched a symbol in the earth.
A diamond with two branches like horns.
The look of surprise on the farmer’s face was all she needed.
“How long ago?” Viv demanded.
38
The mules clopped north with agonizing slowness, and the driver couldn’t be persuaded to move them any faster. “I don’t keep ’em for their speed,” he grumbled. “They’re doin’ what they can.”
Viv gritted her teeth, wondering if the threat of the shambling undead might encourage him to hurry them up. Odds were, though, that the driver would head in the opposite direction if he knew what might await them.
She could’ve jogged faster than the plodding beasts, but even with her leg mostly mended, testing it at such extremes of distance would be foolish.
In the end, she could only fume and drum her hand on the sideboard and glare at the slow passage of the peaceful countryside.
It didn’t help that she could still smell the wights in brief whiffs. Or at least, she thought she could. Her mind filled with images of Maylee fending off the undead with her old mace, and Fern’s bookshop aflame.
Gallina shot her pensive glances throughout the ride, but she knew better than to talk about Viv’s fears in front of the driver.
The cart rumbled onward as the sun plunged into the sea like hot iron into the quench, and blue night stole down the hills after it.
* * *
They heard the bells even before Murk came into view—distant, sonorous clangs. Only a rise or two remained between the cart and the outskirts, and Viv could wait no longer. Certainly not with that clamorous ringing giving shape to her worst fears. She vaulted over the side of the wagon with Satchel over her arm, hitting the sand hard.
Gallina started to follow, but Viv seized her halfway down and slung the squawking gnome onto her back like a cloak, so that she straddled Blackblood. Only when Gallina’s arms wrapped tight around her throat did Viv let go.
“You’re kiddin’，” hissed the gnome.
“Hang on.”
“What the hells do you think you’re doin’？” cried the driver as he reined in his mule team.
“Something stupid,” said Viv, and set off at a dead sprint, with Gallina’s knees digging into her back with every stride.
* * *
The city, the clapboard buildings skirting it, and the dunes piled around them all appeared serene. Only the sound of the bells bespoke anything amiss.
Viv pounded over the crest of the last hill, sand spitting behind every footfall, sweat already darkening her shirt. Gallina’s breath was hot against her neck, and the gnome grunted when her body slapped hard against the flat of the greatsword.
Viv had expected flames, screams, an army of the undead—but there was nothing she could see.
After a few weeks of desultory workouts and physical recovery, her lungs burned after a run that she would have easily managed a few months past. She didn’t let her pace slacken, though, as she charged down the last stretch of road before it branched off toward The Perch.
“Don’t see nothin’，” said Gallina.
“You ever hear those bells before, though?” panted Viv.
The gnome’s arms tightened a little, and Viv could tell she was shaking her head.
“Must be inside the walls.” Distantly, she thought she heard shouts. She spied lantern-glow winking in the window of Thistleburr.
Viv paused in front of the building, heaving huge breaths. Gallina released her grip and landed nimbly behind her. “Like ridin’ a horse made out of rocks,” she grumbled.
Fern, or Maylee? Viv was paralyzed by a sudden indecision. Thinking about it though, only one option made sense: she had to get into the city, had to find Iridia. “Check on Fern,” she said, stabbing a finger at the red door. “Lock up behind you.”
“What’re you doin’？ I’m not sittin’ with a bunch of books while somethin’ good is goin’ on.”
“I’m making sure Maylee is fine. You don’t have to stay. Just check that Fern is all right and that she’s keeping safe.”
Without waiting for Gallina to object again, Viv got moving.
* * *
Sea-Song was locked—which was good—but Viv felt every second creep by as she hammered on the door. She wanted nothing more than to take a few steps back and bash the thing off its hinges, and if she hadn’t needed it locked again after she left, she might have done so.
The bells were louder here, and she couldn’t imagine Maylee had slept through them. Bakers turned in early, and she was probably tossing and turning upstairs.
In practical terms, it wasn’t long before she spied the glow of Maylee’s lantern gleaming through the window, but it felt like forever. When she appeared in the doorway, Viv was surprised by the magnitude of her relief.