The tree-lined main street had taken the worst of whatever had happened here. Ki guided the team between the wreckage of Festival booths, past burned-out buildings and scorched ones, between trees whose leaves hung blackened and lifeless from the fire's heat. Perhaps it had started here; no buildings along this strip were actively burning still. Mud brick walls, cracked and crazed by the heat, gaped emptily, their thatched or wooden roofs burned away. Ki saw a few street children salvaging bits of food from the wrecked booths. They were competing with crows, and both groups stopped their pecking to watch Ki suspiciously.
At first she didn't recognize the two figures coming toward her. The boy walked at the man's side, the man's hand on his shoulder. As she came abreast of them, Dellin lifted a hand in greeting. She halted the team. Goat immediately scrabbled into the side door of the cuddy. Dellin shrugged, and awkwardly clambered up to share the seat.
'Do you know what happened?' Ki asked.
Dellin shook his head. 'The Brurjans ran wild, looting and wrecking. They took everything they wanted, and wrecked the rest. Then they rode off toward Algona.' He shook his head again, as if trying to clear it. 'Such emotions as those creatures harbor! And no restraints on any of it last night. I tried to shield the boy, but...' Again he shook his head.
'What happened to your mule? The Brurjans?'
'No. Someone set fire to the shed where we were resting. No place was safe anymore, so I decided to come and find you. But once we were on the road, we met a wave of folk fleeing the town's destruction. A merchant with two heavy bags and a knife demanded our mule. He was so full of greed and fear that he would have killed us for it. The mule wasn't worth it, so I let him take it. I was too busy trying toprotect the boy's mind to physically shield him as well.'
'Isn't it wonderful,' Ki observed bitterly, 'how adversity brings out the best in all of us? The Brurjans turn on the merchants, and the merchants turn on you. But what triggered it all?'
Dellin shrugged. A Brurjan went amok and killed the Duke, I think. At least, the Brurjans were shouting his name through the streets and saying he had given the town to them. Keklokito, it was.'
So even that plot had gone awry. She wondered where Vandien had fallen, and how. The team stood still in the street. Ki's eyes wandered over the wreckage. 'Where do I go?' she asked the empty street.
Gotheris poked his head out of the cuddy door. 'You didn't find Vandien?' he asked. She heard anxiety in his voice.
'No,' she replied, and the word came out harder than she meant it. Dellin looked at her curiously, and she felt the probing she was powerless to stop.
'The bond is gone.'
She shrugged. 'He's dead.'
'The bond is gone. While it was there, I could tell he was alive. But now it's gone. He's let go. Or you have.'
'He's dead,' Ki repeated dully. Simple sorrow would have been a relief. Why did she have to deal with anger and betrayal and probing questions from a nosy Jore? Was he reading her irritation with him? Then let him, and be damned. She glared at him.
Dellin only looked at her.
Goat's face was worse. The look of sleepy bafflement hadn't left his eyes. A deep furrow divided his brows as he looked from her to Dellin and back. 'Something ... is wrong,' he said. He struggled with words. 'It isn't like ... you feel it is.'
She shook the reins. Useless to explain to the boy that she could not put her feelings into simple words. She didn't understand them herself. This was what all her hoping and searching came to. She felt cheated and betrayed. Worse, she felt foolish. Because she had known all along, not just for a day, but for years, that it would come to this. That she would someday reach for him, in need, and he would not be there. Anger shook her like the storm that had battered her wagon days ago, and self-disgust filled her at the way she had let herself be beguiled into depending on him. She turned her back on them and covered her eyes, trying to find a way to be alone. Dellin had spoiled her numbness.
'I can't help you without letting you hurt the boy.' Dellin's voice came dimly to her. 'I'm sorry. You'll have to face this on your own.'
On my own, thought Ki, and the words echoed stupidly through her mind, repeated endlessly. On my own. She felt herself reach out, and suddenly knew the truth of Dellin's words. There had been a bond, but now she reached and felt only a wall. No one reached back. He'd let go of her. Sometime yesterday, he'd chosen to follow the rebellion. And died for it. Her loneliness stretched endlessly and achingly into a void that held no answers, no return of warmth. It was a bleeding that could not be staunched. On her own. 'I cannot allow it, not so close to Gotheris!'
The halting of the wagon jarred her. She had not realized that Dellin had been driving the team. She opened her eyes but could see nothing at first. Then nothing turned into the fingers of her hands. She lifted her face slowly, uncoiled. Dellin had risen on the seat. 'Stop that!' he cried commandingly. 'Let her go!' Ki turned her head.
From one of the remaining trees, a noose dangled. A young boy had hold of it, holding it open. Perhaps fifteen or twenty people, more than Ki had yet seen today, clustered in the streets. They muttered angrily, like stirred bees, and their faces were avaricious with hate. Three young men were dragging a woman toward the tree. 'She's one of those damned rebels,' someone shouted to Dellin. 'One of those what killed the Duke and turned the Brurjans loose on us all. Friends with the very one that done it!' Others in the crowd muttered an angry assent.
'Let her go!' Dellin roared. The men halted, looked up at him. Their eyes flamed with hate. The woman bucked against their grip, threw her whole body backward trying to break free of their relentless hold. Her hood flew back.
Willow had aged in the night. Her spikily shorn head made her look like the victim of some devastating illness. Her skin was grey, and black soot smudged the side of her nose. With her mismatched eyes wide and rolling, she looked like a battered doll, victim of some wicked child.
'Let them kill her,' Ki said quietly.
Dellin looked down at her. 'I thought I should stop them, for Gotheris's sake. Now I know I must stop them. For yours.'
In the brief interval of his speaking, the crowd had lost interest in him. One of the men gripped Willow's short hair, lifted her nearly clear of the ground as they pushed and dragged her forward. The boy, his mouth ajar, held the noose open and waiting for her.
Dellin's eyes wandered gravely over the crowd. But if he had hoped to see any sign of them relenting, he was disappointed. 'Stop.' Dellin said the word this time, and a plea was in his voice. He did not speak loudly, nor did his voice carry. It was almost as if he mouthed it under his breath. It did no good. The men who gripped Willow were strong in their purpose. Ki could find no pity in her heart for the girl. She had cursed Ki too well and too truly. A few folk at the edge of the crowd, suddenly sickened by what was to come, turned and hastened away. She saw a woman put a pleading hand on her husband's arm, lean close to speak earnestly to him. Reluctantly he accompanied her as she turned away. No one paid any attention to their leaving.
'Don't do it!' Dellin breathed again. The boy holding the noose jerked as if stuck with a pin. His eyes focused suddenly on the struggling girl, on the savage faces of the men forcing her near. His eyes widened as if he had just glimpsed demons walking by daylight. He yelped like a kicked pup, and fled.
'Damn!' One of the men cursed, and had to take one hand from Willow to snatch after the swinging rope. She took full advantage of his distraction, ripping a hand free to batter frantically at the man who gripped her hair. Ki sat quietly, watching her. Behind her she heard a muffled whimper, turned to see Goat framed in the cuddy door. He clutched the seat as if he were drowning and it was the only bit of driftwood in the sea. On his face was the panicky look of a child who cannot breathe. In his eyes was horror such as Ki had never seen. 'It's wrong,' sighed Dellin.