3 Weaver of Shadow Read Free

against the man-flesh eaters. You here about the Blight? It’s growing, I know. I figured sooner or later someone would show up to investigate…or take advantage of it.”
    Kormak looked around the sheriff’s bare cabin. “I thought you were coming back to marry the girl from the next steading.”
    “I did. She died. The babies too. Breakbone fever took them all.” There was a world of pain in Grogan’s flat tone.
    “Sorry to hear that.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.” He wanted to change the subject as much as Kormak. “You ever going to or are you just going to sit there with that slow-witted look on your face.”
    “A month ago I was in Westergate,” said Kormak. “I met a man selling Shadow-corrupted bloodroot. He told me about another man, who, after some persuasion, told me it had come from here.”
    “I can imagine the kind of persuasion,” Grogan said. He did not sound approving.
    “Bloodroot is bad enough but the stuff that grows only in Shadowblights is worse, far worse. I came west into the Settlements. Sure enough, I find a Blight.”
    “I sent a message to Master Graydon at your Order’s house in Westergate months ago. No one came…till now. I thought they had forgotten all about the matter. Seems I was wrong.”
    “No one told me that,” said Kormak. Sudden silence filled the room.
    “Maybe the message went astray. Runners are not always reliable.” Kormak nodded slowly. Grogan tilted his head to one side.
    “You thinking something else?”
    Kormak shook his head. Even if he was wondering if someone had been bribed to look the other way, he was not going to say so. That was Order business and not to be discussed with outsiders.
    “What are you going to do about it?”
    “The Shadowblight?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m going to see for myself how bad it is and decide what needs to be done.”
    “On your own?”
    Kormak shrugged.
    “You picked a bad time for it. The woods are crawling with elves, and they are not friendly. Never seen anything like it in my lifetime. Folks are saying there will be war along the border before this business is done, and they are most likely right.”
    “Is that why you have a naked elf hanging outside the gate?”
    Grogan looked embarrassed. “Not my idea but the Council wanted it done and it did not seem worth fighting them about. The elf was dead anyway so he raised no objections.”
    “They won’t like it, will they, the elves? I always heard they wanted their bodies returned to the Earth.”
    “They do, Kormak. But maybe not these ones, these days. There’s something different about the Mayasha now, has been since the Weaver came.”
    “Weaver?”
    “A priestess, a shaman, a prophet, whatever. Since she showed up the elves have taken to getting themselves spider tattooed and taking pot shots at the locals. They make off with local kids, sometimes adults as well. It’s a bad business, slaving. They’ve got themselves some nasty pets as well.”
    “Pets?”
    “Spiders, big ones, use them like hunting dogs. I’ve heard tales they use the venom for rituals. Low dosage is hallucinogenic. Some of the local boys have tried it.” Kormak just looked at him.
    “They get bored and they’ll try anything once. They are wild lads. You remember what we were like when we were young.”
    “I did not go trying spider venom just on the off-chance it might get me high.”
    “Maybe not. But they knew the elves were doing it though so they tried it.”
    “How did they know?”
    “Don’t know for sure but I can guess. Men meet elves in the woods or they did until recently. It does not always end with bows drawn.”
    “This change that came over the elves, did it happen at the same time as the Shadowblight started to spread?”
    “That thought has struck me as well but I can’t make it fit. The elves started going strange a ways before the woods started to rot, on this side of the river at least. Of course, you never saw too many on this side of the