Darkwell - Douglas Niles [98]
And then Tavish stood before him, and he realized that the water was indeed quite shallow. He put his feet down, easily reaching the rocky bottom, and as he stood, the water level fell even farther. In seconds, it washed around his waist, then his knees, and then his ankles.
"The spell!" Robyn gasped. "It must have run its course." Soon the stream was no more than a memory, reflected in the rapidly freezing sheets of ice that coated the wet rocks. The companions, bedraggled and wet, huddled in the bottom of the gorge with the wreckage of Tavish's boat around them. An icy wind raced down the riverbed, driving a deadly chill into their soaking bodies as it grew to a mournful, howling gale. There was still no sign of the moorhound.
* * * * *
"I sell a catch along the north coast now and then," explained the grizzled fisherman. He looked down, avoiding Randolph's eyes. "They pay good, and we got enough down here, anyway. It's not like I'm disloyal!"
"Go ahead, man. Get to this news you say is so urgent!" The captain of the guard waved impatiently to get the man to continue.
"Well, you see, I was takin' a batch of salmon – nice catch, for this season – up to Codsbay, only I sailed into the cove, and the town was gone! I tell you, it was burned, or trampled, or somethin' even worse!"
Randolph leaned back in his large chair and stared at the man. He could think of no reason why the fisherman would make up such a story, especially since he confessed in the telling to selling food to the enemies of the Ffolk.
"What exactly did you see?"
"Well, there was some ashes. And other buildings, with the walls just caved in, it looked like. I don't mind telling you that I didn't land when I saw that. I took off outta there faster than you can say 'firbolg'!" The fisherman looked around anxiously, as if searching for evidence to corroborate his story.
The pair sat in the Great Hall of Corwell, before the grand fireplace that had burned so brightly on the night of Tristan's homecoming feast. Above the blaze, on the broad oaken mantle, rested the Crown of the Isles, right where the king had left it. The symbolic icon of his authority was well guarded by Randolph, and now the young captain looked at it, as if hoping for guidance. He didn't know what to make of this strange news.
"Could the damage possibly have been done by firbolgs?" he asked.
"I don't think so. They don't like fire much, from what I hear. It'd not be like them to burn the place."
"Well, what then? You can't suspect that the northmen have raided a village of their own people!"
"No, I don't, nor do I know what did it. If you want my guess, it was something that come from the sea, it was! Something more terrible than firbolgs or northmen, though the goddess knows what that could be! I just come to tell you what I seen."
"Thank you. You have done well." Randolph dismissed the man with a wave, then stood up, thoroughly alarmed. If it were true that some ravaging scourge had attacked the north coast of the island from the sea, was it not possible that Corwell was also on the enemy's agenda?
He heard a footstep and looked up to see a familiarly handsome face, surrounded by a frame of brown curls. Pontswain collapsed easily into the chair the captain had just vacated, looking at him curiously.
"What did the beggar want?"
Briefly Randolph recapitulated the fisherman's story. "I'm worried," he admitted after he finished. "I think we should take steps