made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It evoked memories of a dark time more than a year past when Skeltai raiders used to cross our borders and snatch woods folk away never to be seen again.
Curls of black smoke rose, not from the house but from behind it. Cautiously, I circled to the back of the yard, sticking close to the shelter of the trees. The smell grew sharper, stronger, and fouler than the innocent scent that would have been created by smoldering kindling or even by the farmer burning refuse.
I saw it now. A blackened pile of charred corpses, maybe as many as a dozen of them.
Some part of me must have expected it, as I was unsurprised. Gripping my bow in readiness and casting another wary glance around the perimeter, I crossed the yard to approach the bodies.
The flames were mostly spent now, but they had been burning long enough to render the corpses unrecognizable. It was only remaining fragments of their rough garments and, here and there, the broken shaft of a spear or the head of an axe that identified them. These were no woods folk but Skeltai raiders. I had faced them enough times in the last skirmishes to know.
I backed away from the smoldering heap. There was something wrong with this scene. Skeltai raids were often deadly for woods folk but this time the attackers had been the victims. It couldn’t have been a farmer and his family that fended them off.
But who else in these parts was capable of such defense? I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet them. Not alone, anyway.
I had a sudden impatience to be away from here. It was growing more important by the moment that I find my outlaw companions and learn what had been happening during my absence from the province. Clearly, we had bigger troubles to worry about than the unknown enemy bent on my personal destruction.
Chapter Two
If returning to Dimmingwood felt like coming home, revisiting Red Rock camp was like stepping into my own yard. This was where I had spent half my childhood, both in the clearing near the pool and in the red cave with the roaring waterfall tumbling down its side. The place looked abandoned now. But if I had been drawn back to it, others might be as well. If they ventured here occasionally, they would have left some sign of fresh activity.
Failing to find anything in the clearing, I entered the cave itself. The dim, red-walled interior brought back a rush of memories as I was enveloped in the shadows. Here it was that Brig had brought me for safety during that long ago day when I had first encountered the outlaws. Out in the sunlit clearing behind me, I had caught my first sight of the infamous brigand captain, Rideon, the Red Hand.
Once, Rideon had seemed a hero to me. He had even given me my name when I could not remember the one I had been born with. More recently, he had become an enemy and threatened my life. Yet my feelings toward him would always be dominated by my childhood view, when he had been all that I dreamed of becoming myself one day. Remembering that he had been dangling from the end of a rope when last I saw him gave me a sense that a shadow had fallen over the old life.
Shaking away the disturbing thought, I ducked into the small area where I used to sleep. The ceiling was lower than I remembered. Here I used to stretch a hand through the opening in the rock and feel the cool splash of the falls on hot summer nights. Here I had once hid the brooch my mother gave me inside a hidden niche in the wall.
I slipped a hand into the stone niche now. Of course it was empty. I wore the brooch pinned to my cloak and had long since emptied the hiding place of any other valuables.
I continued my inspection of the caverns, but nowhere did I find any indication of recent disturbance. If outlaws had been here, they had left no evidence of their visit.
Exiting the cave, I decided to put Red Rock behind me and try Boulder’s Cradle next. It would be another abandoned place, but I had to start somewhere.
I had
Curls of black smoke rose, not from the house but from behind it. Cautiously, I circled to the back of the yard, sticking close to the shelter of the trees. The smell grew sharper, stronger, and fouler than the innocent scent that would have been created by smoldering kindling or even by the farmer burning refuse.
I saw it now. A blackened pile of charred corpses, maybe as many as a dozen of them.
Some part of me must have expected it, as I was unsurprised. Gripping my bow in readiness and casting another wary glance around the perimeter, I crossed the yard to approach the bodies.
The flames were mostly spent now, but they had been burning long enough to render the corpses unrecognizable. It was only remaining fragments of their rough garments and, here and there, the broken shaft of a spear or the head of an axe that identified them. These were no woods folk but Skeltai raiders. I had faced them enough times in the last skirmishes to know.
I backed away from the smoldering heap. There was something wrong with this scene. Skeltai raids were often deadly for woods folk but this time the attackers had been the victims. It couldn’t have been a farmer and his family that fended them off.
But who else in these parts was capable of such defense? I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet them. Not alone, anyway.
I had a sudden impatience to be away from here. It was growing more important by the moment that I find my outlaw companions and learn what had been happening during my absence from the province. Clearly, we had bigger troubles to worry about than the unknown enemy bent on my personal destruction.
Chapter Two
If returning to Dimmingwood felt like coming home, revisiting Red Rock camp was like stepping into my own yard. This was where I had spent half my childhood, both in the clearing near the pool and in the red cave with the roaring waterfall tumbling down its side. The place looked abandoned now. But if I had been drawn back to it, others might be as well. If they ventured here occasionally, they would have left some sign of fresh activity.
Failing to find anything in the clearing, I entered the cave itself. The dim, red-walled interior brought back a rush of memories as I was enveloped in the shadows. Here it was that Brig had brought me for safety during that long ago day when I had first encountered the outlaws. Out in the sunlit clearing behind me, I had caught my first sight of the infamous brigand captain, Rideon, the Red Hand.
Once, Rideon had seemed a hero to me. He had even given me my name when I could not remember the one I had been born with. More recently, he had become an enemy and threatened my life. Yet my feelings toward him would always be dominated by my childhood view, when he had been all that I dreamed of becoming myself one day. Remembering that he had been dangling from the end of a rope when last I saw him gave me a sense that a shadow had fallen over the old life.
Shaking away the disturbing thought, I ducked into the small area where I used to sleep. The ceiling was lower than I remembered. Here I used to stretch a hand through the opening in the rock and feel the cool splash of the falls on hot summer nights. Here I had once hid the brooch my mother gave me inside a hidden niche in the wall.
I slipped a hand into the stone niche now. Of course it was empty. I wore the brooch pinned to my cloak and had long since emptied the hiding place of any other valuables.
I continued my inspection of the caverns, but nowhere did I find any indication of recent disturbance. If outlaws had been here, they had left no evidence of their visit.
Exiting the cave, I decided to put Red Rock behind me and try Boulder’s Cradle next. It would be another abandoned place, but I had to start somewhere.
I had
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