Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [87]
“What could have done this?” asked Daryth, after a long minute of silence. Beside him, Robyn choked and turned away from the scene.
“I don’t think this is the work of Firbolgs,” Tristan muttered. “It’s too thorough.”
“Northmen?” Pawldo asked the question through clenched lips.
“Something far more sinister, I fear.” The bard spoke very seriously. “The earth itself has suffered a desecration.”
Robyn, moaning quietly, took the reins of her mount for support. Tristan stepped to her side and took her arm. He shook violently.
“Let’s spread out and look around,” suggested the prince. “Look for clues as to who did this – I’d hate to think that the Firbolgs are numerous enough to garrison a stronghold like that and still have enough to ravage the countryside!”
Robyn stayed outside the village, while Tristan, Daryth, Pawldo, and Keren spread out and moved among the ashes of the town. Here and there, a smoke-blackened shape that could have been a corpse lay like so much grotesque wreckage.
Sickened, the prince walked numbly. He felt as if a deep wound had been struck into his own vitals. His stomach knotted with pain, he forced himself on.
Tristan finally found Gavin, kneeling among the splintered ruins of a small cottage. The building had not burned, but instead had been flattened by some powerful force. Looking carefully at the ground, Tristan saw many horses’ hoofprints among the shattered boards.
Gavin did not look up from the pitifully small, wrinkled form he held in his massive arms. The smith moaned softly, and Tristan’s throat choked. Tears stung his eyes as he turned away.
Daryth ran over to join him, his smooth leather boots carrying him soundlessly through the mass of rubble. He slowed as he approached, and Tristan pulled him beyond Gavin’s hearing.
“Northmen!” the Calishite announced, pointing toward the far side of the village. “They’re about a mile from the village and they’re coming this way.”
“How many?” asked the prince, suddenly aroused. Perhaps this village could be avenged!
“About a score,” answered Daryth.
Tristan looked at Gavin, who tenderly deposited the body next to another tiny form on a smooth patch of ground.
“Gavin, the enemy approaches your village. Join us in vengeance!”
The big man stared dumbly at the ground, making no sign to indicate he had heard. Instead, he poked again into the rubble. They watched as he gently cleared the wreckage from the last body – this one full grown – crushed beneath a wall.
“Leave me,” grunted the smith, turning to look Tristan in the eyes. Although tears streaked the smith’s broad visage, he looked rational and firm. “I will die here, where I should have been yesterday. Let the enemy come to me alone.”
“Would you have them burned, with the rest of this town?” Tristan snapped, pointing to the bodies. “Would you kneel here and have your head struck from your shoulders?
“Or will you stand here and fight beside companions who would offer their lives in a battle to avenge your village? Answer me, man!” Daryth and Gavin both looked at the prince in shock. The prince stared coldly into the eyes of the smith.
“Yes, of course, you are right,” mumbled Gavin. Kneeling in the wreckage again, the smith pulled great sheets of wood from the pile, tossing them casually aside. Reaching the remains of a trampled bed, he threw that away as well, finally revealing a long, flat box.
He slipped the latch and opened the lid. Reaching into the box, he pulled out the largest hammer that Tristan had ever seen. Its haft was fully six feet long, and the massive head of cold, black iron could not have weighed less than fifty pounds. Yet the smith twirled the massive weapon through