“Please,” Wilhelm said, raising his thumb in apology. “I meant no disrespect. But surely there must be some explanation.”
“They must have been attacked,” Paer Jorgen said, and since he was the only village elder in the party, the rest of the men fell silent. “Something tore into that tent back there, and that first man, clearly he was mauled by an animal.”
Bartlett the tailor, who had examined the tent at length, nodded, wearing an odd expression. “About that,” he said. “I don’t think something did tear into that tent. I think something tore out of it.”
Tom shivered at the notion.
Wilhelm Parstle furrowed his brow. “You’re certain?”
“It looks that way.”
“Are you saying,” Tom asked, his voice cracking, “that these men, they clawed their way out of that tent?”
“Yes.” Bartlett nodded. “I think that’s exactly what they did.”
Paer Jorgen shook his head, fear evident in his eyes. “No. No, something is not right here. There is something we are not seeing. It must have been an animal—attacked while they were sleeping.”
“The tent was torn from the inside,” Bartlett insisted. “As if they were trying to escape something.”
The men stared at one another as they considered this, all momentarily speechless.
“What was it they sought up here?” Jude asked, his voice cutting through the silence. The men turned to look at him—Jude seldom spoke, and when he did, he could be counted on to say something controversial. “Does anyone know? If we knew why they were here, perhaps we could figure out what happened to them.”
Paer Jorgen shook his head. “They are royal soldiers. Their business is not our own. When it comes to the king’s city, it is always best not to question. And I see no reason why we should. It was a wolf, plain and simple. Granted, we haven’t had a wolf in these parts for years, but only this morning Mama Lune told me of a recent spate of moose killings up north in the old territories. With the mild winters we’ve had, it’s possible that the population is expanding and venturing out of range.”
“I’ll give you the first man, but what about these others?” Jude argued. “They have nary a scratch on them.”
“Mind your place, Jude,” his father chastised before the boy could embarrass him further.
Jude balked. “I’m supposed to accept that a wolf did this?”
“You dare to argue with me?” Paer Jorgen’s face was growing red as he spoke.
Jude raised a thumb. “Our purpose is the same, Paer Jorgen. I want to know what killed these men just as you do. Our people live at the base of this mountain. Don’t you think it best that we explore every possibility before we cease our questioning?”
The old man took a step toward the boy, and instinctively the others took a step away. “And what experience have you with wolves? You were barely alive when the wolves took the Flywit children.”
“I thought the Flywit children disappeared,” Jude challenged.
“You will stop contradicting me. A wolf mauled that man.”
Jude clenched his jaw. “And I suppose a wolf simply encouraged these men here to remove their clothes and lie down nice and still in the snow like that. You’re right,” he said, slinging his gun over his shoulder and walking into the woods. “That must have been it.”
Tom moved to follow his brother, but then thought better of it. His gaze fell to the bodies, so pristine, blanched the same color as the snow. There was something wrong about the tableau before him, something he could not quite place. He leaned in to take a closer look but was pulled from his reverie when his father grabbed his arm.
“Tom, Paer Jorgen is speaking.”
Tom looked to the elder, who was mid-argument. Something would need to be done with the bodies, and the men were already engaged in a dispute over what that thing was to be.
“… they may be the king’s men, but it is our mountain,” said Paer Jorgen, his lips pursing with anger.
“Yes,” whispered Natty Whitt. “The Goddess would want them to rest.”
“What does our mountain goddess care for the king’s soldiers?” Goi Tate spat. “These same soldiers enslaved her people and drove her underground. I say send word to the palace city. Let them deal with the corpses. Theirs is a sea god. Let them have their ocean burial to sate him. They’re not our responsibility.”
“But we can’t leave them out in the air like this,” Bartlett said. “We can’t leave them for the elements. Think of their bodies, what the scavengers will do to them.”
“Think of their bodies?” said Paer Jorgen, eyes wide. “Think of their souls. No, these men must be put to rest, and waiting for the king to send more soldiers is a folly.” He scratched his chin and looked over the bodies. “Of course, if it has been more than twenty-three hours, then they are unclean, and no rites can be said.”
The old man looked to Dr. Temper, who winced. “It’s difficult to tell with precision, but I would say they have been here a while. More than twenty-three hours. There’s no way rites can be said.”
“Then”—Paer Jorgen cleared his throat—“then we must burn them.”
The other men nodded their assent.
“What will we do with the ashes?” Tom asked. “We can’t offer them at the Mouth of the Goddess.”
“You are right. That we cannot do,” said the old man. He ran a hand across his forehead, and then nodded. “Yes, yes, that will have to do. The cimetière. We will bury the ashes out in there in the old necropolis.”
The cimetière was a primordial place. To the east of Nag’s End, beyond the confines of the village and through the forest a way, it was the ancient walled burial grounds of the old ones who’d lived and died long before man walked the earth. The thought of the place made Tom uneasy. He’d played there once or twice as a child, careful to skirt the wall that circumscribed the fetid place, never touching the ancient stones. The idea of burying anyone out there, ashes or no, gave him a bad feeling.
“Is that sacrosanct?” Wilhelm Parstle asked.
Paer Jorgen sighed. “If their bodies have turned, our hands are tied. Without the rites we cannot cleanse them, and unclean, they cannot rest at the Mouth of the Goddess.”
“Their kin won’t take kindly to a funeral pyre,” said Goi Tate.
“It’s the best we can do under the circumstances,” said Paer Jorgen. “We must burn them, and then we must lay them beneath the stones. We cannot risk their spirits becoming restless. We cannot risk them rising again.” The old man shuffled through the snow, stroking his beard, lost in thought.
“That wood,” Tom said, remembering the confounding mass they’d seen upon arrival. “Perhaps we could use it for a pyre.”
His father turned his gaze back toward the camp and squinted. “Yes, the wood. What in the name of the Goddess can it be?”
Paer Jorgen shook his head and turned to walk away. “Midday is upon us. We must get to work.”
As Tom gathered the wood from the great mound at the center of camp, he tried to quiet the growing fear in his chest. Beggar’s Drift was part of the Black Forest, a dense, wild place that surrounded Nag’s End on all sides. As such, Tom knew it would be prudent to return to the village before nightfall. Although no one had seen a goblin or fairy for generations, the villagers were inclined to believe they were still out there, and while forest things might silently stalk a man by day, they were said to hunt them as prey only at night. Tom didn’t know whether he believed the forest lore, but people who wandered into the woods at night did tend to disappear, and even skeptics like Henry Rose kept within the village bounds once darkness fell. Jude was the only person Tom knew who was reckless enough to brave the night woods with any frequency, but then his hunting skills were second to none. Tom liked to believe that if something was hunting his brother, the hunter would quickly turn prey.