A man in the crowd shouted, “Do it, Father!”
A few of the women gasped, and Jozan turned on the man, his face a cold mask. Regdar had never seen Jozan look like that before. The priest was more than angry, he was mortified-struck momentarily dumb with rage.
“Um…” the burgher said.
“There is a justice in the world,” Jozan said, his voice clear and steady, “that is greater than the rule of the mob. If this woman is guilty of a crime, let her be judged in the proper venue. Let her meet her accusers, and let her have a chance to defend herself before her neck is snapped.”
“See,” Lidda said to the burgher’s back. “I told you you can’t just string me up you fat f—”
“Hold your tongue!” Jozan commanded. Regdar was impressed by the fact that the accused did indeed silence herself. “You may still swing, child, if you’re as guilty as they—”
“Help me!” a wild, panicked voice screamed from the other side of the crowd. The mob of villagers turned, and this time Regdar drew his sword.
The crowd reacted as one, bowing in on one side as if something had struck its edge and bent it back. Regdar, from astride his horse, could see a boy, no older than fifteen, rushing into the crowd and being held on his feet by a pocket of concerned villagers. The boy was a mess, drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. His clothes were torn, and he held the broken half of a shepherd’s staff.
“Spiders!” the shepherd cried.
Regdar slipped off his horse, scanning all around for any sign of whatever it was the boy was afraid of—spiders or otherwise. He saw nothing threatening, and for safety’s sake he sheathed his sword before he got to the boy’s side. Regdar reached out and helped a few of the villagers lower the shepherd to sit on the hard-packed dirt of the village square.
“Get him some water,” Regdar said to one of the villagers, a young woman who appeared to have her wits about her while the others were still caught up in the tensions of the moment.
The woman rushed off for water, and Regdar crouched next to the shepherd. There was a disturbance in the crowd, and Jozan pushed through the parting farmers to join Regdar at the boy’s side.
“Is he injured?” the priest asked.
Regdar examined the boy quickly and saw no blood or any sign of injury beyond a few scrapes. Jozan was looking at the boy even more closely, so Regdar didn’t bother to answer.
“Spiders,” the boy gasped, not looking at anyone in particular. “Big, huge, brown spiders… I’ve never even heard of spiders that big.”
“Are you injured, son?” Jozan asked. “Were you bitten by any of these spiders?”
The boy blinked and met Jozan’s steady gaze. He was shaking. “Am I dead? Are you Pelor?”
“Hey!” the halfling called. “Can I go now?”
The crowd responded by screaming “No!” at the top of their lungs. Regdar’s attention was torn between the mob and the shepherd.
“No, son,” Jozan told the boy, “I’m not Pelor. Just a humble priest anxious to hear your tale.”
“Spiders,” the boy repeated without pause. “They attacked the sheep. They bit one apart and dragged it away in pieces, then more came and attacked another one… and I got the hell ou—sorry, Father. I ran away. I don’t think they were chasing me. I can’t… I can’t…”
The boy began panting, hyperventilating.
The fat burgher came through the crowd, a pungent stench following him, and he rushed to the boy’s side. “Gurn,” he said. “Gurn, my son, is the flock safe?”
“Poppa?” the boy replied, though he could hardly breathe.
Burgher Tomma put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and asked, “Is the flock safe, son? Are the sheep safe?”
“Big… giant… spiders… attacked them,” Gurn answered. “I don’t know how many were… taken.”
“You let them—” Tomma gasped, his pudgy face draining of color so that Regdar thought they’d need to send someone for water for the burgher.
The woman appeared with a cup of water and handed it to the shaking boy. Burgher Tomma took it from his son and drank it down greedily, the fat man gasping for air along with his son.
“Not the sheep,” he said. He looked up at Jozan, his eyes pleading. “The sheep are our whole lives. Without them, we have nothing. The whole village depends on them.”
Gasps and whispers pulsed through the mob in waves, and Regdar watched all their faces go as pale as the burgher’s. Regdar had been to villages like this one—villages that depended on one herd of livestock or one field of crops for their entire existence.
“Regdar,” Jozan said, “have you heard of spiders big enough to carry off a sheep?”
Regdar nodded and said, “I’ve heard tales, but I’ve never seen one.”
Jozan stood and turned all the way around, scanning the crowd. “Are you expected in New Koratia?” he asked Regdar.
Regdar shrugged. “I had intended to see my mother,” he said, “but she wouldn’t know when to expect me. Why?”
“Burgher Tomma,” Jozan said, “we’ll see to these spiders for you.”
The fat man sagged with relief, and his eyes puffed and filled with tears. “Oh… oh, Father. How can we ever thank you… you and your man…?”
Regdar wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing, but it sounded suspiciously like he had just volunteered to ride off after giant spiders to save someone else’s sheep. The crowd appeared horrified and relieved at the same time, and none of them looked like any use in a fight.
“We’ll take the halfling with us as well,” Jozan told the burgher.
The fat man looked at him as if the priest had suddenly sprouted green fur and a bug’s antennae.
“It will afford me an opportunity to question her thoroughly,” Jozan said. “Otherwise I will have to question her here and deal with your spider problem in a few days’ time.”
“Take her,” Burgher Tomma gasped, forcing a smile. “For Pelor’s sake, take her.”
“Yeah,” Lidda called from the gallows, “let’s go get those spiders, darn it. I love sheep.”
2
Naull ran a hand through her short, straight hair and sighed. She had prepared the spell that morning, along with four others, and it was a simple matter of tracing a pattern in the air in front of her with one finger while whispering a series of arcane syllables to make the magic real. She sat at a rough oak table in the dining room of her mentor’s tower and let the magical energies flow through her fingers, through the words that slipped off her tongue, and onto the leather pouch on the table in front of her.
There was no flash of lightning or explosion of fire, but Naull could see the air over the table sparkle for the space of maybe the blink of an eye. There was a wide tear in the bottom of the old pouch, and as the sparkles faded, the tear closed. In the time it took for Naull to draw in a single breath, the pouch, which her mentor had assured her was older than Naull herself, looked as if it had been newly made.
She clicked her teeth together and looked over at the little room’s only window. It wasn’t really so much a window as an arrow loop—a thin, vertical sliver of light no wider than one of Naull’s slender hands. It was sunny outside, still a few hours before dark. She heard wind blowing through leaves beyond but couldn’t see the trees. The dining room was a good hundred feet up the tall, slender tower that was the secluded home of her mentor, the wizard Larktiss Dathient.
Naull stood and crossed to the window. She peered through the thin opening and out into the warm air. Below were the well-manicured gardens that kept her busy in the spring and fall. Beyond was a small forest, rolling hills, and the world she had seen so little of in her eighteen years.