"Where are our people, though?"
"Dining with the locals? It's been known to happen."
The mare's reply was a snort.
At the village stable Zaranda rubbed the mare down, brushed her, and left her with her face happily stuck in a trough of grain. She still saw no sign of human pres-ence. Preoccupied with turning the day's events over in her mind, she paid no especial heed.
When she entered the hut she shared with Chenowyn, it was full dark inside. But she immediately noticed the smell of indifferently washed bodies. Keep-ing her hand studiously away from Crackletongue's hilt, she shut the door behind her.
Lantern-glow expanded, pressing gloom back into the corners. Osbard and two village elders sat in chairs with blankets covering their laps, looking grim, which told her little; that was their accustomed expression. Ernico and his friend and fellow trainee Rudigar were there as well. Their faces were flushed. They would not meet her eyes.
"Good evening," she told them gravely. "Should I have knocked?"
"Where have you passed this day, Zaranda Star?" Osbard asked gravely.
"At the village of Pansemil, upriver."
The elders exchanged baleful looks. The youths shuf-fled feet. "And what errand took you there?" asked Storric, a stout, bearded man. Owner and operator of Tweyar's water-powered mill, he was father to Bord.
"I was discussing with them the possibility of train-ing them in the use of arms, as I'm training you."
A hiss of intaken breath. Osbard glanced right and left at his fellows, then back at her.
"So you stand convicted of your treachery," he said, "by your own mouth."
From under the blanket, he produced a cocked and loaded crossbow and aimed it at Zaranda's heart.
19
A stout stake had been pounded into the packed earth of the village common. Around its base had been piled logs, with plentiful dried brushwood for kindling. Atop this heap stood Zaranda, tied. Before her stood Osbard, holding a lit torch of bound-together reeds.
"Would you mind," Zaranda asked mildly, "telling me what this is all about?"
Stillhawk, hands tied behind him, stood on a three-legged stool with a noose about his neck and the rope's far end tied to a thick limb of an oak. Farlorn was perched on a nail keg, similarly bound and attached to the tree. The mercenaries, also tied, sat in a clump across the common from the hetman's house, guarded by village volunteers armed with spears taken from vanquished bandits. Most heavily watched of all, and garlanded with sufficient rope to rig a Waterdhavian caravel, stood Shield of Innocence, glaring at his cap-tors with eyes that glowed coal-red in the torchlight.
"Whatever you do, Zaranda," the half-elf said cheer-fully, "think twice about accepting an invitation to dine with these folk. Such terrific bores: we go to eat with them, and here they've tied us up all evening."
Osbard opened his mouth but couldn't seem to quite find words.
"It's about your treason," offered Moofar, an elder who stood at his side. He was a wizened old bird with a wen on his beaklike nose. "Specifically and to wit, your treating with our enemies, the people of Pansemil."
"By your own admission," Osbard said, emboldened, "you were negotiating to teach them how to attack and overrun us."
"I admitted no such thing," Zaranda replied, "be-cause I did no such thing. I offered to teach them to de-fend themselves, even as we're teaching you."
"And they mean to use those skills to assail us," said Storric, exploring a broad nostril with his forefinger. "They envy how cultured we are."
"They don't want to attack you. And what if they do? You're strong enough to send them packing, with the knowledge and weapons we've provided."
"It's true, Father!" exclaimed Fiora, who had taken to passing time with Farlorn when she wasn't training. "They'd stand no chance against us."
The hetman blushed and scowled furiously. "Hush, Daughter. Don't speak of matters you know nothing
of."
Zaranda laughed. The villagers gaped at her. "I see. Osbard, you sly old kobold, you—you were planning to use our teachings to invade them, weren't you?"
He sputtered and dropped his eyes. "We did, and what of it?" demanded Storric.
"Why should you attack Pansemil?"
"Because," the miller began. He stopped, frowned. "Because—"
"Because they're different!" someone sang out.
"Because they're deviants!" Moofar brayed in a spray of spittle. "Sister marries brother, and they frequently enjoy carnal knowledge of their barnyard animals!"
"Odd," Zaranda said. "They hold much the same be-liefs about you."
The Tweyarites squalled with communal outrage: "See! The wretches! Such insolence is not to be borne!"
"I must point out," Zaranda added, "that I've seen fully as much—or as little—evidence of such activities in both places."
Moofar turned white as bleached linen. "Intolerable insult!" he screeched. "Burn her!"
Osbard started forward with the torch, then turned and thrust it into Storric's hands. "You do it."
"Why me?" the miller asked, and promptly handed the torch to Moofar.
In his eagerness to pass the torch back to Osbard, Moofar lost control and had to juggle it briefly to keep it from falling to the ground. "You! You take it. You're the hetman!"
Bellowing elephantine rage, Shield of Innocence began to strain against his bonds. Veins stood out on forehead and stump-thick neck. Ropes parted with a twang. He lunged and with clawed hands caught scrawny Moofar around the neck and hoisted the elder so high that sandaled feet kicked a foot off the ground.
Village volunteers raised the crossbows they had confiscated from Balmeric's mercenaries. Turning purple, Moofar gestured frantically at them to hold their fire.
"Hold!" Zaranda shouted.
Everybody froze and stared at her. "Shield, it's all right. Put him down."
The great orc looked puzzled but obeyed. Stepping back he folded his arms across his chest. Moofar teetered about, feeling his neck.
"Shoot him," he croaked. "Shoot him, shoot him, shoothimshoothimshoothim—"
"No, no, no," Zaranda said firmly. "Nobody's shooting anybody. Now behave yourselves, and listen to me, be-fore I start turning people into newts."
"Um," Osbard said, eyes starting from his head. "You said—newts?"
"Newts," she repeated firmly.
"She's a sorceress!" gasped Storric. "How could you forget such a thing, Osbard? And you call yourself a hetman?"
" I forgot? I? I didn't hear you reminding anyone!"
"If you don't all pipe down and let me have my say," Zaranda said sweetly, "you'll find out why newts so sel-dom interrupt conversations."
Zaranda could no more turn anyone into a newt than she could turn the hetman's house to solid gold. Under the circumstances, she didn't feel constrained to point that out.
Still fingering his neck, Moofar glared accusingly at her. "You allowed yourself to be taken."
"Of course I did," Zaranda said. "You were starting to get notions. I saw you needed a little talking to, and I wanted to be sure I had your undivided attention."
She raised her head and looked around the common. The mob drew back as if her gaze were hot to the touch.
"You should be ashamed of yourselves," she told them. "We come to your village to teach you to protect yourselves, to throw off the yoke the bandits and the tax collectors of the self-proclaimed nobles have laid upon you all. Yes, we did so for pay; but what we've had from you so far is little more than what spoils you re-covered from the bandits—which you would never have gotten without our help. Thanks to us, you need never again cower in your houses at first sight of riders ap-proaching. And this is how you treat us."
The villagers looked suitably contrite. Zaranda was just warming up.