The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [151]
“Maybe they did,” Stephen said, “and the praifec kept it to himself.”
“Yah, but rivermen who saw this would talk it all up and down the river. Someone would have come to have a look.”
“You’re thinking the Church left it garrisoned?” Stephen asked.
“I don’t see sign of that, either. Plenty of ale and stores left in the tavern—you’d think a garrison would have tucked into that. Besides, I didn’t see any smoke coming in, and I don’t smell it now. But if it isn’t garrisoned, why hasn’t some passing boatman robbed the tavern?”
“Because no one who’s come here has left,” Winna said.
“Werlic,” Aspar agreed, scanning the buildings.
“Maybe there’s a greffyn here,” Stephen said.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “There was one with the monks back at Grim’s Gallows.” He didn’t mention that it had avoided him.
“I’m going down the waterfront,” he decided. “You two follow and keep me in sight, but not too close. If a greffyn’s been killing boatmen, we ought to find their boats and bodies.”
His boots echoed hollowly as he made his way down the little street that sloped toward the river. Soon enough he made out the wooden docks. Still there. He didn’t see any boats at all. Crouching in the shadow of the last house, he peered intently at the far bank of the river. The trees came right up to the water, and nothing obviously worrisome caught his eye. He glanced back and saw Winna and Stephen, watching him nervously.
He motioned that he was going closer.
A tattered yellow wind-banner fluttered in the breeze, producing nearly the only noise as he approached the planking of the docks. The only birds he heard were quite distant.
Which was odd. Even in an empty town, there ought to be pigeons and housecrows. On the river there should be kingfishers, whirr-plungers, and egrets, even this time of year.
Instead, nothing.
Something caught his eye, then, and he dropped back into a crouch, bow ready, but he couldn’t identify what he’d seen. Something subtle, a weird play of light.
And the scent of autumn in his nostrils that always meant death was near.
Slowly, he began to back up, because he could feel something now, something hiding just beneath the skin of the world.
He saw it again, and understood. Not the world, but the water. Something huge was moving just under the surface.
He kept backing up, but he remembered that being far from the water hadn’t helped the people of Whitraff.
The water mounded up suddenly, and something rose above it with the sluggishness of a monster in a dream that knows its victim can’t outrun it. He had only an impression of it at first, of sinewy form and sleek fur or possibly scales, and of immensity.
And then it called in a voice so beautiful that he knew he’d been wrong, that this creature was no destroyer of life, but was the very essence of it. He’d come to the place where life and death changed, where hunter and hunted were one, and all was peace.
Relieved beyond words, Aspar lay down his bow, stood straight, and walked to meet it.
CHAPTER FOUR
BORDERLANDS
SOMEONE BEGAN SHOUTING JUST as Anne and Austra reentered the ruined city of the dead. Anne whipped her head around and saw two fully armored men on horseback charging down the hill.
“They’ve seen us!” she shouted unnecessarily.
She ducked behind the first building, practically dragging Austra with her, looking wildly around for somewhere to hide.
Death or capture lay in every direction—the orderly rows of grapes on either side of the valley offered no real protection; they might elude their pursuers for a little longer, but in the end they would be run down.
Hiding posed the same problem, of course, and there really wasn’t anyplace to hide.
Except the horz. If it was as thickly grown as it looked, they might be able to squeeze into places