At the very least, she wouldn’t be leaving her companions without an alarm. She only hoped that she would be back before they awoke.
The rain had lessened by the time Ladonna spotted the old man’s cabin; it was out of the way and at least twenty minutes from the ruins of the small village. With any luck, Ladonna thought, she could be done and back at the camp within another hour. Ladonna dismounted from her Abanasinian and patted the tall horse on the neck, grateful for its calm temperament. She tied its reins to a nearby tree stump and walked slowly to the cabin. Its ragged curtains were closed, but the frayed edges betrayed flickering candlelight. The walls were rubble stone, cobbled together to form a low-ceilinged house. The roof was thatched and in bad need of repair. Ladonna crinkled her nose at the building; it barely managed as a barricade against the elements, much less a home.
Carefully, she nudged a corner of the wet cloth from the window, enough to afford her a peek inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and another moment to suppress the shudder that ran through her body.
The one-room cabin held little furniture-a rickety chair to lend company to the rickety table, a molding mat on the floor for a bed, and a cooking pit dug into the earth. A sewing bench rested against one side, where two dozen more dolls hung from hooks in the wall, waiting to be finished. The floor was cleared of grass and covered in a layer of packed dirt. Piled on the floor and table, however, were dozens of small artifacts and trinkets. Jewelry, coins, children’s toys, gourds, bottles, a decomposing chunk of ham already white with maggots, fabric rolls-everything stolen from town, Ladonna realized.
What held Ladonna’s attention, however, was the old man himself. He sat on the bed mat, his back to the wall, attended by a half dozen dolls. Silk cloth torn roughly from a bolt was arrayed over his shoulder; an exquisite quilt covered his lower body. Two dolls fitted him with rings and necklaces, riches for their king. Another doll served him morsels of dried fish and meat from gelatin-filled pots, but the food tumbled from his lifeless mouth.
The old man had been dead for days, by the stink of his corpse. His eyes were white, his body drying. His head lolled to one side, and food covered in maggots filled his mouth. And yet the dolls continued to cater to him as though he lived. They were his friends in life, and his death had somehow tainted them. Did they blame the villagers for his death? Ladonna wondered. Or perhaps he imparted into the dolls some loathing of his neighbors.
Ladonna didn’t know. All she knew was that the companions the old man had created were killing people. Perhaps, even, they might have killed him, though despite their hellish appearance, the dolls administered to the old man gently, even lovingly.
She didn’t know or care.
Ladonna quietly stepped away from the cabin, grateful that the rain had covered her footfalls, and retreated to her horse. When she was comfortable with the distance, she turned and pointed her finger at the home.
“Be undone,” she whispered.
The ruby-colored stone set into the ring on her finger sparkled and turned into a pea-sized ball of flame. It shot straight at the cabin, growing in size until it was larger than a horse’s head. The ball struck a stone wall and exploded it inward. Almost instantly, the cabin collapsed in upon itself, the fire quick to devour the roof and everything inside that was flammable. Curls of flame licked upward.
In seconds the cabin and everything inside it were gone, destroyed. Ladonna abandoned hope of ever feeling satisfied at her actions, and simply mounted the Abanasinian. She cast a final look at the bonfire and directed her steed back to the camp.
The three riders were similar in appearance, from their dark cloaks and hoods to their three black Blödegeld horses, a stock so stout and thick they were said to have ogre blood in them. But of all horse breeds, there were few that were as tireless and strong as the Blödegeld. It was the perfect animal for the three renegade hunters.
Dumas had been quiet the entire trip, though the trio rarely spoke. It was the quiet in each other that they preferred, and hunting renegades for the past few years had given them a comfortable familiarity with each other. Still, Dumas knew both the slender Thoma and the bearlike Hort were troubled by her seemingly distant manner. In fact, Dumas herself was troubled by her own thoughts.
She did feel detached from everything around her, as though the roots of her feet had broken free of the soil. As though there was nothing left to anchor her in the seas of the sky. She’d been feeling that way since leaving the chambers of Highmage Astathan, Reginald Diremore, Yasmine of the Delving, and … Belize? Was Belize there, she wondered? No, she couldn’t remember him attending when the three masters of the orders instructed her to find and kill the three renegades.
Perhaps that’s what bothered her. For Highmage Astathan to condone the deaths of three wizards, regardless of their actions, was highly unusual. She quickly chastised herself. Who was she to question the highmage himself? Had anything been too untoward regarding his request, surely Yasmine and Reginald and Belize would have spoken up.
No wait, Dumas reminded herself again, Belize was not there.
Dumas shook her head against the rain and the gauze that seemed to fill her mind. She kept seeing Belize there, sometimes standing with the others in the chamber of Highmage Astathan, sometimes alone in a strange garden. She was tired; that’s what it was, or perhaps she was ill. She distracted herself as fair-haired Thoma leaned over in his saddle, low to the ground, and studied the path closely. He pulled himself back up again.
“There’s no way to track them,” he said. “Too much rain … way too much rain. We don’t know if they’re sticking to the roads or the fields. Dumas, I tell you we’re better off racing ahead and intercepting them.”
Dumas nodded. “I thought as much. All right. There’s a small village ahead. We check there first, then head to the High Clerist’s Tower. It’s the only way to reach Palanthas. At the very least, we’re bound to catch them there.”
Hort nodded in agreement and spurred his horse forward. In seconds, the three renegade hunters were galloping along the mud-splattered path, deeper into the thick rainstorm.
Ladonna dismounted and walked her horse to the invisible arcane boundary separating her from the camp. As she approached, she was pleased to note that it lay undisturbed, a shimmer of yellow light against the green that only she saw. With a whisper of her password, “Daya,” she and her steed crossed over the ward without triggering it. She walked her horse over to the others and glanced to where her companions rested.
Par-Salian was asleep, but Tythonnia was seated and awake. Her gaze locked firmly on Ladonna, her brow knitted in angry furrows. Ladonna said nothing, though she was mildly surprised. She studied Tythonnia, measuring her. Neither of them spoke, even as Ladonna looped the reins of her Abanasinian to the low branch of a pine tree.
So Tythonnia knew, or had guessed.
Ladonna didn’t bother offering explanation or justification for being caught missing. She could have said the old man was already dead when she arrived, but it would be a weak excuse. She went there to kill him, and she would have killed him had she found him alive. Pretending otherwise was a lie, and they both knew it.
She stepped under the canopy of the tree and pressed the water from her long, black hair. She settled into her bedroll that rested on a dry bed of leaves.
“Your turn at watch,” Ladonna said as she settled down to sleep.