Текст книги "The Banshee's walk"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Chapter Ten

I rummaged around upstairs while waiting for my army to assemble. Toadsticker I’d take, of course, but I secreted a few less obvious instruments about my person as well. I’ve got a pair of Army flash papers left over from the War, and they went in my pocket. I have no idea what they’d do if I tore them now, so many years after the company sorcerer put his spell on them, but if I ever needed a quick distraction maybe I’ll find out.

While I was sorting through brass knuckles and short daggers, I found something else.

Darla had somehow snuck a letter into my bag. To this day, I have no idea how or when she did it. I’ve got to stop surrounding myself with women who continually outwit me.

I sat and unfolded the letter and read.

Darling, it began, and I smiled at the word. If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re arming yourself. This is not a happy thought for me.

That said, though, if you’ll look in the right toe of the nice new socks I gave you, you’ll find something that I hope you’ll never need to use. Yes, I know it’s illegal. Yes, I was very careful about buying it. You’ll know what it is when you find it.

There was more, but it was largely concerned with herb-gardening and would be of very little interest to anyone but Darla and me.

I burrowed through socks until I found one with a lump in the toe. I turned it inside out, and there was Darla’s charm.

I whistled. She’d paid dear for it. Your run-of-the-mill alley wand-waver hangs their charms on sticks or scribbles them on paper or weaves them into cheap jewelry-anything that can be easily torn or broken to release the hex.

There was nothing cheap about the charm Darla had sought out.

Take a hex. Work it inside a globe of blown glass. Enhance the hex further by covering the tiny globe in silver letters that crawled and spun when looked at. Throw in the odd bolt of miniscule lightning from deep within the roiling hex trapped by the glass and the silver.

I’ve always known Darla is good with money, but I’d never dreamed she could afford a rich man’s charm like the one I held.

Someone knocked at my door. I wrapped Darla’s charm in a clean handkerchief and put it safe in my right front pocket.

“Finder? It’s Lady Werewilk. She wants to have a word.”

“Coming right down.”

I made a few final adjustments to my gear and then tramped downstairs to get my little expedition on the trail.

The entire house was assembled at the foot of the stairs. I could hear Serris sobbing from the couch, flanked by a mob of cooing females.

Lady Werewilk met me at the foot of the stairs.

“I gave instructions that Serris was not to be told,” she said.

“She’d have found out sooner or later.”

“Once we were sure, yes. But I would have preferred you verified the story first.”

I shrugged. Scatter and Lank may not be finders or even shaving regularly yet, but I had no doubt they knew a corpse when they saw one.

Lady Werewilk let out a long sigh. “So you believe this encampment to be the one used by the surveyors?”

“They found a few bundles of fresh stakes there. Makes sense. They’d need somewhere to make up maps, plan their next survey.”

“And exactly what, Mr. Markhat, were they looking for?”

I had an audience.

“Best we talk about it later.” It sounded better than I have no idea. “Right now we need to get going. Is Marlo ready with the horses?”

“Ready and waiting,” replied Lady Werewilk. “I am of course going as well.”

“You are of course not doing any such thing.”

“Marlo has already tried and failed to dissuade me, Mr. Markhat. I will remind you as I reminded him-I am the Mistress of this House. I control not only its direction but its payroll. Is that clear?”

“I’m telling you it’s a bad idea.”

“I acknowledge that. But I’ve stood back and allowed assaults on my House for long enough. I will not hide in my dressing room if one of my own has been murdered.”

Serris let loose a fresh howl.

“Gertriss?”

“Yes, Mr. Markhat?”

“Was there another leather shirt up there, one that would fit Lady Werewilk?”

Gertriss had the good sense not to grin. “I believe there was.”

“Would you go and fetch it for her while we get saddled up?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lady Werewilk rewarded me with a single curt nod.

“Singh,” she said. Her voice carried above the rising din of the artists. “You’re in charge until I return. Keep the doors locked. And keep the staff inside their homes.”

Singh nodded and toddled off, Milton shambling at his side.

My mount was named Lumpy. Lumpy was a mule, as were all our mounts, and after we found the barely visible game trail that led to the encampment I realized why mules were the order of the day.

Mules, unlike horses, can see all four of their feet at the same time. That makes them ideal for any trail that involves negotiating steep hills or winding around narrow high passes, and we did both, one right after another, the whole trip.

The forest was ancient. I ducked under boughs and reflected that the trees around me were older than anything I’d seen outside the East. Hell, Elves might once have sneaked about on various murderous errands beneath these very behemoths.

Marlo led the way. Scatter and Lank were right behind him. Then there was a husky carpenter named Burris who was said to be an expert bowman and then Lady Werewilk, Gertriss and finally myself atop my majestic steed Lumpy.

The forest floor was wet loam. None of us spoke. Aside from the faint stretching of leather or the occasional soft snuffling of a mule, we made our way like a bevy of spooks.

Marlo stopped and dismounted, as did Scatter, Lank and Burris. They’d crouched down in a circle around a featureless patch of loam to exchange whispers and nods. I was about to dismount myself when Scatter came tip-toeing back to explain that they’d found sign of a man on foot, a day or two old.

The spot they indicated looked like every other bit of ground in sight to me, but I didn’t argue the point.

It took us a little over an hour to get near the camp. Finally, Marlo raised his hand, listened for a long minute, and signaled for us to dismount.

We tied the mules, and crept up the last ridge on foot.

Marlo was the first to pop his head over. He looked, and we listened.

Squirrels chattered and leaped. Birds sang. Crickets and cicadas chirped and sounded.

“Let’s go,” said Marlo, rising. “Camp’s empty. They’re gone.”

And they were. Even my city-bred eyes could see where the camp had been, could tell there had been tents and a corral and half a dozen campfires. I wanted to try and get a rough count of the camp’s population, but there was time enough for that after we found Weexil.

Scatter and Lank pointed out Weexil’s resting place, but refused to return to it. The spot they indicated was right behind a thick copse of chokeweed, at the base of a lightning-struck blood oak. It wasn’t in the camp proper, but it was right where I’d put a latrine, if I was the one arranging secret camps.

Not exactly a dignified way to die.

There was blood on the ground, right behind the chokeweed bush. The blood was pooled in a flat, smooth depression in the loam. And there were still fat blue-green flies haunting the air.

But there wasn’t any Weexil.

I dropped to my knees and tried to see drag marks or footprints.

If they were there, I couldn’t see them.

Marlo and Burris joined me. Marlo sniffed the air and made a face.

“Stinks like a dead one.”

It did, though I’d not noticed the stench immediately. I’d learned to not smell that during the War.

I pointed at the blood. Blue-green flies took flight at the movement.

“There was a body here. Someone moved it, which means someone has been here since Scatter and Lank found Weexil this morning.”

Marlo squinted at the ground. “Don’t see no drag marks.”

“One got his arms, one got his legs.”

“Don’t see no fresh footprints neither. Look.” Marlo poked a finger into the ground. “The loam takes a while to spring back up. Aint’ nobody been here.”

I shook my head. Weexil had died at the latrine all right. There was a clear, oft-used trail, and a freshly filled trench. They’d even left a shovel behind, stuck upright in the dirt. The amount of blood drying on leaves left no doubt. He’d died there, but he sure as Hell hadn’t strolled away alone afterwards.

I stood. “Let’s get back to the women. I don’t like the idea that someone came back to tidy up.”

Burris wordlessly nocked a long, lethal arrow. He favored an old-fashioned longbow made of wood so old it was black. His steel-tipped hunting arrows looked meaner than any crossbow bolt.

“I reckon I ought to shoot any body what didn’t come here with us.”

“I reckon you ought,” I replied. “I just hope you don’t have to.”

We moved quietly back to the mules and the rest of our party. Lady Werewilk was holding a fancy black-lacquered crossbow that must have been concealed in a saddlebag. Gertriss was trying to feed her sleepy-eyed mule a carrot.

“Was it Weexil?” asked Lady Werewilk.

“I believe it was,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “But the body has been removed.”

Scatter and Lank went ashen. Gertriss dropped her carrot in favor of her short plain sword. Scatter and Lank found their voices and began to protest that they hadn’t been lying.

They forgot to keep their voices down. “Hush,” I said. When that didn’t work Gertriss grabbed Scatter, who had the misfortune to be the nearest to her, and twisted his arm around to the small of his back.

“The man said be quiet. Remember where we are.”

Amazingly, that worked. Gertriss even got a nod from Lady Werewilk.

“What now?”

“We have a quick look around. Everyone in pairs or better. No one gets out of sight of everyone else. No shouting unless you see a stranger. If you find something you want me to see just stay there and wave. Got it?”

A chorus of yeses was my reply. We struck out. Scatter and Lank stuck close by Burris and his famous deer-slaying longbow. Marlo and Lady Werewilk took off in a different direction. Gertriss joined me, her borrowed sword at ready.

It had been a fair-sized camp. I’m thinking twenty men. There’d been six three-man tents, four of the much larger tents we’d called officer’s halls in the army, and then a single massive tent that had been filled with rows of long tables.

There had been numerous cook-fires. They’d set up a temporary corral for the horses. They’d had six wagons.

And they’d been very careful to leave absolutely nothing behind. What they hadn’t carried out they’d burned.

I found a stick and poked through the ashes. They’d burned papers. Lots of papers. And tools-I found hammer handles, I found shovel handles, I even found a handful of half-burned pencils, the fancy kind, with gum erasers stuck to the blunt ends.

“Who the Hell burns perfectly good pencils?”

“What?”

Gertriss had crouched down beside me. I hadn’t noticed. I chided myself for letting my attention lapse while pilfering the enemy camp.

“Look what I found.” I waved the pencil stubs. “They left in a hurry and burned what they didn’t feel like packing.”

Gertriss frowned. “You know those fancy figuring machines, the ones with the wires and the beads?”

“An abacus?”

“I found one of those in yonder fire. Aren’t they expensive?”

“They are. Odd.” I used my stick to move aside ashes, put my hand down on the ground beneath them. It was dry, and still faintly warm.

Gertriss put her hand down beside mine.

“They left late yesterday, didn’t they?”

“Pretty close, I’d say. Right after they killed Weexil.”

Gertriss shivered. “And he’s gone now?”

“Afraid so. Maybe somebody up the chain of command didn’t approve of them leaving corpses behind.”

“Marlo is waving, Mr. Markhat.”

I looked up. He was. Lady Werewilk was on her knees beside him, poking at something on the ground with a long thin dagger.

Crossbows and daggers. “I’m surprised she doesn’t clank when she walks,” I muttered.

Gertriss giggled. “I was just thinking the same thing,” she said. “But she has some of the most interesting items, Mr. Markhat. Look what she gave me.”

From the top of her boot Gertriss revealed a good five inches of slim steel. The blade had been blackened to prevent it from flashing even in firelight, but the razor-sharp edge glinted and shone.

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that what the ladies are wearing to Court this year?”

Gertriss pushed her black dagger back down. “We’d better go.”

Marlo was dancing an angry little jig by the time we arrived.

“Nice of ye to drop by. Thought you might need to see this.”

We knelt by Lady Werewilk, watched her stir the ashes with her blade.

“There,” she said. Her knife coaxed something solid out of the ashes.

It was a finger. A skeletal finger, attached to a skeletal hand, a hand which had been stuck upright in the ground, buried, and then burned.

The burned bones jerked. The dead fingers flexed. It made a fist, and then relaxed, and then it start turning on its wrist, fingers grasping at ash and empty air.

I threw Gertriss back with one arm, shoved Lady Werewilk down on her side with the other. Marlo bellowed, eyes full of murder, his axe turning and preparing to swing my way.

I leaped to my feet and whacked him hard and straight in the gut with Toadsticker’s hilt. He didn’t go down, but he did back up.

“Get back.” I kicked at the skeletal hand and missed.

It extended a bony forefinger, pointing it right at me.

And then the banshee sang.

She howled. She keened. Buttercup rent the air with that penetrating howl of hers, and she was somehow at my side and she gave me a pitiful little yank, as if trying to pull me away.

Marlo bellowed and brought up his axe, slashing at Buttercup.

Buttercup screamed, and was gone.

I brought Toadsticker down on the hand with all the strength I could muster. Ashes flew. The bony finger pointed.

And that’s when I felt the fingers close around my neck.

Close, and begin to squeeze.

Marlo caught on. He swung his axe down, brought sparks when he struck Toadsticker, but failed to damage the bones.

I tried to tell him not to bother, that the spell had been sprung, but I couldn’t speak.

Gertriss spun me around, and I felt her hands on my throat, but she couldn’t feel the hex choking me, much less grapple with it.

I let go of Toadsticker and stepped away. The spells our sorcerer corps had cast in the Army always had limited ranges. I took a useless pair of steps back, but could feel no lessening of the grip around my throat.

The traps left by our sorcerers were always designed so that by the time the victim realized what was happening, flight was simply too late.

I couldn’t speak. My lungs were burning. My vision was beginning to blur.

Gertriss was screaming at me, as was Marlo. Their voices were growing fainter.

Run into the forest and hope I got beyond the choking spell’s range before I died. Or…

I rummaged in my pocket. Darla’s charm was there.

My world was getting dark. I tried to draw in air, couldn’t. I resisted the urge to flail at the invisible hands closing around my neck.

Instead, I took out the charm, threw it at the skeletal hand.

The charm lay next to the bones, unbroken.

I remember dropping to my knees.

I remember Gertriss holding me up.

And I remember a bright flash. But that’s all. Just a flash, and the echoes of Buttercup’s final cry echoing in my mind.

And then the tightness at my throat circled all around it, and I fell a long time through the dark.

Chapter Eleven

It turns out Marlo saved my life.

He’d taken his axe and smashed the glass charm I’d tossed at the skeletal hand. And as soon as he smashed it, the bones simply fell apart, and after Gertriss slapped me hard across the face a few times I’d started coughing and wheezing.

I don’t remember leaving the abandoned encampment. I came to my senses nearly halfway home, draped across Lumpy’s broad back.

We were moving at a good clip. I’m told Burris loosed a pair of arrows at something he thought he saw in the forest. Gertriss tells me Buttercup followed us until I awoke, though she alone could see her.

Scatter and Lank were at Lumpy’s sides, making sure I didn’t fall off and break my fool neck and finish whatever some nameless sorcerer and his choking spell had begun.

“He’s awake.” Scatter had spoken. He moved in close and helped me right myself in Lumpy’s worn saddle. “Mister, can you breathe?”

I coughed and hacked but finally managed a few words. My throat-well, I’ve never been hanged before, but that must be how the morning after feels.

“You ought to see the bruises, mister.”

I tried to grin.

Gertriss turned in her saddle. “Was that aimed at you, boss?”

Had it been? It seemed that way. Otherwise why didn’t it go after Lady Werewilk?

“Could be,” I croaked. “No way to know.”

And there wasn’t. If it was just a foul-natured parting shot at anyone rummaging through the camp, it might have been designed to go after someone at random as easily as the first one to see it. Sorcerers are tricky that way.

But while they might be tricky, they aren’t cheap. Neither are their magical snares. Someone had paid dearly for the privilege of choking me half to death, and they couldn’t have known for sure I or anyone else would ever uncover their bony little surprise.

I shifted uneasily in my saddle. I don’t like seeing money spent so casually. It’s a sign of either desperation or access to wealth so vast such paltry concerns as paying sorcerers simply isn’t a factor.

Desperate people, like cornered beasts, are always dangerous.

And so are the kinds of people who can literally throw money away. Because they can always buy more trouble than the likes of me can afford.

Lady Werewilk wanted to say something, but I shook my head and urged Lumpy on to a slightly less leisurely amble.

We made it back to House Werewilk without encountering any more cursed skeletal remains or agitated banshees. Lady Werewilk insisted on helping get the mules squared away, much to Marlo’s dismay. Gertriss and I exchanged a secret smile. The way Lady Werewilk and Marlo sniped at each other, you’d think they were married already.

I hoofed it back inside. My throat was raw, and I was coughing often and hard enough to make me wonder if my injuries went deeper than mere bruises.

Once indoors, I shooed dogs off the couch and sent a painter to fetch a bucket of beer. Gertriss seated herself beside me and fixed me in a harsh Hog glare.

“The last thing you need right now is beer.”

“The last thing I need is a discussion about my beer.” A sudden fit of coughing didn’t help my case.

Gertriss’ glare intensified.

“So let’s talk about the banshee instead. She just appeared right by you, Mr. Markhat.”

“I think I prefer boss, Miss.”

“Boss, then. She wasn’t there and then she was. Howling. And it looked like she touched you too. Grabbed your hand.”

I nodded. Had Buttercup been trying to pull me away from the trap? I wanted to think so.

“Did you see her at all before that? Even a glimpse with that famous Hog Sight?”

“No. She wasn’t there. Then she was. Then she was gone, right after Marlo swung that axe at her. Next time I saw her we had you laid across the saddle. I reckon she was maybe fifty feet ahead of us, looking down from an oak.”

I tried to speak but coughed instead.

My bucket of beer arrived. Gertriss rolled her eyes but poured me a glass and even handed it to me.

“You do know banshees only show up when somebody dies, don’t you, boss?”

I let the beer work its golden magic. It did feel good going down.

“Nobody died,” I said. “See? I’m as good as new.”

“Somebody had just died, boss. Weexil. Who knows who else?”

“Weexil had been dead long enough to draw flies. You’re thinking ghouls, Miss. Banshees vacate the scene right after Death performs his handiwork.”

“This ain’t…this isn’t a joke, boss. You can’t go around making pets out of banshees.”

“Pet? What pet? I didn’t call her, didn’t even know she was around. She just appeared.”

Gertriss made a derisive snorting sound.

“Think she was looking for corn bread, boss?”

“How-?”

Gertriss sighed and rose.

“My sight. It isn’t like Mama’s. Isn’t like any Hog I know.” She crossed her arms and began to pace, stepping carefully over dog’s tails now and then. “They can call it up, send it back. Mine-well, I see things all the time. Even things I don’t want to see.” She balled her hands into fists. “Especially things I don’t want to see.”

“Mama know about that?”

Gertriss shook her head no.

I put down my empty glass. “That must be an awful burden.”

She just shrugged. Her jaw was trembling.

“I knew a man during the War who had the Sight. Sort of like yours. Couldn’t make himself see things that might have helped, might have been useful. Saw all kinds of horror instead.”

I poured up a glass of beer, offered it to her. She refused.

“Got worse and worse. He quit sleeping at night. We had to gag him in case he started screaming, when we were in Troll country. You really ought to have a taste. This is really good beer.”

She halted, let out a long ragged sigh, and plopped back down beside me.

Much to my surprise, she took the glass from my hand and sniffed at the contents.

“So what happened to this man?”

“He withdrew. Stopped talking. Went further and further inside himself. One day, six of us were out on patrol. We knew there was a Troll force nearby. We weren’t to engage them, just to watch. Hillard-that was his name, Hillard-saw a pair of trolls fishing in a creek. Before we could stop him, he just walked right up to them, empty-handed. Go ahead. You’ll wish you had.”

She did. I watched her drink it, wondered if it was her first taste of beer.

It was. Her eyes widened. She smiled a ghostly little half-smile.

“This is good.”

“Told you so. Go ahead, that’s yours. One glass won’t make you drunk.”

She took another sip.

“And Hillard? What happened to him?”

“He walked up to the bank. The Trolls came striding out of the water. We were too far away to hear, but I think they talked, for a moment.”

“And?”

“And then a Troll knocked Hillard’s head off. One swipe. Dead and gone.”

Gertriss shivered. “Is there a point to this, boss?”

“The point is that I’ll always believe Hillard asked that Troll to kill him. It wasn’t murder, or even an act of war. It was a mercy. And that’s sad, Miss, because if Hillard had made himself talk about his Sight, about what was eating him alive, he might be sitting on a couch somewhere telling war stories to pretty young women instead of …”

“Instead of being dead. I get it.” She raised the glass, emptied the beer. “Well. I should tell you the real reason I left Pot Lockney.”

“You should.”

But she didn’t. The great doors opened, and Lady Werewilk and Marlo came stomping in, still arguing.

Marlo marched right up to me. It was clear he didn’t approve of my beer.

“I say we ought to go get the Watch,” he said. “I say we’ve got murder being done, and it’s time we got some law in here before there’s more blood spilt.”

I nodded amiably. “You’re exactly right.”

Silence. Lady Werewilk walked up behind Marlo.

Marlo frowned.

“I said I’m going to send for the Watch.”

I shrugged. “Go right ahead.”

“Figured you’d object to that. Seeing as how it might take you off the payroll.”

Gertriss started to speak, but bless her, she looked to me first, and I silenced her with a quick shake of my head.

“Wouldn’t be any point in paying me if you’ve got the Watch on the case.”

Lady Werewilk joined the fray. “As the Mistress of this House, I and I alone will decide when and if the Watch is called, and who works for me afterward. That is final.”

Marlo’s expression made it clear what he thought of the finality of Lady Werewilk’s pronouncement.

“You going to go yourself, Marlo?”

“If I have to.”

I filled my glass with Lady Werewilk’s beer. “Have you had extensive dealings with the Watch, Marlo?”

“No more than anybody hereabouts.”

I sipped beer. “Then you might not know how the Watch is likely to respond when you start telling tales of banshees in the trees and bodies that get up and go for hikes right before they can be produced as evidence.”

Marlo puffed up. “Now look here, Mr. Markhat. I know I ain’t a city man, but we pays our taxes, same as anybody inside them walls.”

I had to stifle an outright laugh. “Mr. Marlo. You could produce a century of tax receipts and throw them in the Watch’s face, and the most they’ll probably do is cite you for littering. You don’t have a body. You’ll be telling tales about banshees and stakes left in the yard. Look. If I thought I could get a pair of Watchmen down here, I’d have sent for them already. But I’m telling you plain, Mr. Marlo. You’ll be wasting your time.”

“Which is precisely what I said,” added Lady Werewilk.

“Your family has been in the House for four hundred years,” growled Marlo. “First they fought Elves. Then they fought Trolls. Now they’re fightin’ something new, and by damn them what’s in the City are going to send help this time. I’m going. I’m taking Burris. With or without your blessing.”

“It will be without. And if you go, don’t bother to return.” Marlo’s face went the red of day-old meat.

“You keep an eye on her for me, Finder. Lady or not, sometimes she ain’t got much sense.”

And with that, he turned, walked out and let the big old doors slam behind him.

Lady Werewilk glared. The ragged circle of artists that had gathered to watch the show withered and dispersed. Even the dogs got up, tucked tails and slinked away, their nails tap-tapping on the tiles.

Gertriss rose, found another glass, filled it and handed it to Lady Werewilk, who drained it without a breath or a word.

Gertriss filled the silence.

“So you don’t think the Watch will come, boss?”

“Not a chance. We’re on our own.” I stood. My head still hurt, and my sideways ride on Lumpy had done bad things to my lower back, but the last thing an angry client wants to see is the finder she’s paying lounging on her couch and drinking her beer.

“The camp,” Lady Werewilk spoke. “Who occupied it? Why?”

When I opened my mouth, I fully intended to speak the words ‘I don’t know.’ I knew Lady Werewilk wasn’t going to like hearing them, but I’d been nearly strangled by a pile of bones and a banshee had tried to hold my hand and neither activity had done much to improve my mood.

But in that instant before I spoke, some tiny fragment of memory was dislodged.

The camp.

The big tent. The big tables under it. The abacus. The pencils. The stakes.

If we’d kept looking, there’d have been metal screens set in shallow wooden boxes too.

“Damn me,” I muttered. “Of course.”

“Boss?”

“Of course what, Mr. Markhat?”

“Lady Werewilk. I assume your House contains a library?”

Lady Werewilk frowned. “Of course. It’s in my suite of rooms.”

“And does this library contain a great number of old books which detail the early years of the House and the grounds?”

“Naturally.”

“I need to be in that library, Lady. Right now.”

“First you’ll tell me why.”

“It’s not your House they’re after. It never was. But there’s something on your land. Buried, probably. That’s what they’ve been looking for. And they’ve been using a map so old the land itself has changed.”

“All that, from looking at the empty camp?”

“I saw a camp just like it, once. Right after the War. Royal archeologists. They were excavating an old Elvish burial site the Trolls had found. They were using stakes to mark out the crypts and the catacombs. An abacus to help with the math. A big tent to bring in loads of dirt and sift through every shovel-full by pouring it through wire grates. Sorcerers all over the place to find old spells and handle the items they dug up.”

“An Elvish burial complex? Here? On my lands? Nonsense.”

“I didn’t say it was Elvish. But I need to have a look at your library. If there are old maps there, maybe I can take the sketches we made of the stakes you found and figure out where they were looking.”

“But they’ve gone now. The camp is deserted. Surely that means they found what they were looking for.”

I thought about the bony hand they left behind, about Weexil’s’ missing corpse, about the banshee in the trees.

“Maybe. And maybe it means they just found out where to dig. Which means somebody will be back. Maybe somebody worse. We need to figure out what they were looking for, Lady. And where. I’ll sleep a lot better if we can find a big empty hole.”

Lady Werewilk sighed. “Very well. Please come this way. You too, young lady. I assume you can read?”

Gertriss nodded, and off we marched.