Dragons of the Valley - Donita K. Paul [101]
“I don’t think so, but I know only what I’ve been told. It seems Wulder is the god and the paladin is His worker of some sort.”
“Then Paladin is real. You’ve seen him?”
“No, not me,” answered the singer. “But I hear he was in the castle, and he travels with a foreign wizard and Verrin Schope, who carved the three statues.”
“I’m more interested in those statues.” Ephen struck a limb he was using as a poker against a burning log. A shower of sparks went up in the air. “Did that really happen? That army came pouring out of a hole in nothing and straight into the king’s ballroom, right? That must have been something.”
“Only those who were there that night know for sure,” answered Thur. “There are lots of stories about many people being hurt in a brawl right in the ballroom of the Amber Palace. But if the evil men were there, they and their army disappeared as quick as they showed up.”
“So these statues are in the Amber Palace?” asked Avid.
“No, they disappeared.”
Avid slapped his hands on his knees. “Well then, that’s simple. The evil men took the statues.”
“No, first the wicked wizard and his henchmen disappeared, then later the statues were taken.”
“So they came back for the statues.” Avid’s face, aglow from the firelight, looked stubborn.
Beccaroon thought the man too sure of himself when he had so few facts. The minstrel shook his head, but before he could say no to that idea, Avid jumped to his feet.
Ephen sprang up to stand between the minstrel and his brother. “Now you’re making my brother angry. He likes to have things all figured out. Who’s who. What’s what. And where’s a thing supposed to be. It bothers him some not to have a thing in its proper place.” The sturdy man turned to his brother. “We’ll not talk of this anymore tonight, Avid. You just think of this as a fairy tale, no truer than donkeys building houses or people being born inside a rosebud and never growing bigger than your big toe.”
Avid remained tense, glaring at the man on the other side of his brother. Finally he relaxed, lazily picked up a couple of sticks, and laid them on the fire. Then he strolled off into the woods.
“Where’s he going?” asked Thur in a voice so quiet Beccaroon had to strain to hear it.
“Nowhere in particular. Probably one last trip to answer the call of nature before we bed down. Don’t worry about him. He gets riled quick, but then it’s over.”
Avid didn’t return for some time. Thur unfolded a blanket given to him by the calmer brother, used his wadded-up coat for a pillow, and went to sleep. Ephen turned in next, and after a long while, Avid came back to lie on the third side of a triangle with the fire in the middle.
The night guard crouched behind a bush and watched. A drummerbug beat a rhythm in the dark. At the signal, the guard tiptoed to the nearest man. He touched the sleeping figure and repeated the drummerbug sound.
Soft words were exchanged, but Beccaroon could not hear. The first man settled down to sleep, and the second took over the watch. Beccaroon nodded. Nothing more was likely to happen that night. He allowed the calm sounds of real insects to lull him to sleep.
An oath, loud and foul but not of his language, rudely awoke him the next morning. He shook his feathers and peered through an early fog still clinging to the ground and bushes. Six men stood where the fire had warmed three the night before. One man, the minstrel, still lay in his blanket.
“Who did this?” barked Ephen. He glared at Avid. His gaze swept over the four other men. “Who slept through their watch and let this happen?”
No one answered.
“Let me see your knife, Avid.”
The brother took his weapon from its sheath and handed it over. Ephen examined it briefly and handed it back.
“Why, brother? You didn’t have to slice his throat. We could have just let him go on his way this morning.”
The four men shuffled back a few steps.
Bile rose in Beccaroon’s throat, but it was quickly doused with a healthy dose of anger. Why murder the man in his sleep? He waited to hear what Avid would say. When he didn’t answer, the four men stepped