Fess screamed again, rearing and scattering peasants, then thudding down and reaching for a woman with his teeth.
"No!" Rod called. "Don't hurt them! They've been through enough!"
Fess turned to start on the group holding Rod down, but a woman's shrill cry froze everyone. She was pointing at the sack by Rod's hand; it had fallen open, and the odds and ends were strewn about. "Look!" she cried. "That's my oaken candlestick, I know it is!"
"So he robbed our houses and came after us!" an old man snarled.
"No! I know I packed it with the others I could not bear to leave! He's brought us the things we dropped in our flight!"
The people holding Rod looked down at him, suddenly uncertain.
'True enough," he said. "I thought you might want them back."
"He's not come to hurt us!" the woman insisted. "He came to bring back our belongings!"
Suddenly the hands holding him down were helping him up. Rod felt an impulse toward honesty. "Actually, I was coming to tell you that you can go back to your homes now. The wicked woman who set you against one another has left."
"Left?' an older woman said incredulously. "But we could do nothing against her, even those of us who could see how her lies were turning husband against wife and child against mother. That Raven-woman only invented new slanders about us and accused her accusers of horrible deeds!"
"So pretty soon, nobody was willing to stand up to her? But you had to know what she was doing, or you wouldn't all have fled!"
Silence fell; neighbors looked uneasily at one another. "It was not her lies that chased us, squire," one of the old men said. "It was the word that ran through the town, that the queen had sent soldiers to the south and they would ride through our village—and everybody knows what soldiers do."
"But you never dreamed it was Raven who started the rumors." Rod looked about him, frowning. "Where are your able-bodied men?"
"Some of us are able-bodied yet," a graybeard growled, and the other grandfathers chorused agreement.
"That you may be, but you're not of an age to join the queen's army," Rod explained. "Did your sons hide in the deep woods to be sure the soldiers wouldn't try to put them in livery?"
The silence became distinctly uneasy. Villagers glanced at one another; none met Rod's gaze.
"Worse than that?" Rod frowned. "Wherever they've gone, they've been chased by lies! Tell me!"
"She told us how badly our knight was treating us, that Raven," one of the women said, "and railed at our menfolk that they couldn't be worth their salt if they let Sir Aethelred bully them about and live in his big house while we had only cottages."
"Before that, none ever thought it bullying for Sir Aethelred to tell us what to plant in which field," an old man said sourly.
"But when Raven said it again and again and again, some of them must have believed her," a white-haired woman said.
"It was her telling them they had to prove their worth to their wives and sweethearts by marching on Sir Aethelred," another woman said, "and they wouldn't believe us when we denied it."
"They began to talk of it among themselves," the older woman said, "and when they were sure we were well-settled in the woods here, they went off to brace Sir Aethelred and demand that he share our burdens and we share his wealth!"
"Even though they knew Raven lied about everything else." Rod shook his head. "Thanks for letting me know, good people." He mounted again.
"And thank you for bringing back our bits and pieces, squire," an old man said, "but where do you mean to go now?"
'To finish what I began," Rod said. "I'm going to find your men and tell them Raven's gone and they can go home!"
In spite of the chorus of protests, he rode off into the trees.
DIRU STUMBLED; HIS mattock nearly fell off his shoulder. The boy behind him laughed. "Wake up, Diru! Are you still dreaming?"
Diru shuddered at the reminder. He had slept very little the night before, for whenever he had, he had dreamed of the horrors the minstrel had described—a giant cat with tufted ears and very long, sharp teeth; a shapeless, quivering mound of white jelly that absorbed anything it touched; a giant beaver with teeth like cleavers and maddened burning eyes; and many others, all wheedling, all telling him that no one liked him, but they would be his friends if only they could come to visit. He might have believed them if the minstrel hadn't told the villagers in song what had happened to the ones who had invited the monsters in when last they had been importuning people for an invitation. Every time he had fallen asleep, those dreams had come, until he paced the floor to stay awake, starting at every creak of the old hut and shuddering at the thought of what prowled outside in the night.
"That minstrel gave us a good time, at least," one young man said.
"Yes," said an older, "once he was done trying to scare us with his tales of the Mist Monsters."
Another father nodded sagely. "I've dreamed of such horrors myself, telling me that they're really good neighbors and cajoling me to invite them in."
"Fat chance, after that minstrel's warning."
"It's boring," a young woman complained, "always the same warnings over and over. 'Don't invite the monsters in, don't invite the monsters in!'"
"And don't believe they're nice and friendly, even though they look so horrid," another young woman agreed.
An older woman frowned. "It's good advice, younglings! If they do come back, we'll be their meat!"
"Oh, everyone knows that, Auntie," the first girl said impatiently.
"Yes." Diru shuddered again. "Nobody would be foolish enough to invite horrors like that, in their dreams or awake."
"Oh, so you know everything, do you, Diru?" the first young woman snapped.
"Aye, tell us something we don't know, Diru!" the second young man jibed.
"Sure, Diru knows all about monsters." The first young man grinned. 'Takes one to know one, after all."
Diru's face burned.
"Oh look, he's gone all red again," the first young woman said with a giggle.
Thankfully, the huts rose just ahead. "Good night," Diru mumbled, and went into his.
His mother looked up from the pot she was stirring by the hearth. "How was the reaping today, dear?"
"Good enough for everyone else," Diru snapped as he put down his rake.
"Oh, dear," his mother sighed. "I do wish you could get along with the others your age."
"I wish they'd try to get along with me! Maybe I'll be better if I can get some sleep." Dim bulled through the curtain that separated his pallet from the rest of the hut and threw himself down, hoping he wouldn't dream.
He didn't, for he didn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was the taunting faces of the other young men and women. All he could feel was anger and shame— and hatred for his tormentors. It was almost enough to make a fellow wish the monsters would come back and gobble them all up!
THE NEXT DAY, Rod came to the top of a ridge, as the sun was nearing the horizon, and looked down to see a channel between the forest trees that marked a stream. Rivers made for easier travel in forest lands, so he wasn't terribly surprised to see men walking there, or at least the tops of their heads. What did surprise him was their number. This wasn't just the hundred men from one village—it was a thousand at least. Rod frowned. "How many villages did it take to send this many men?"