The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [60]
"Some of us are very poor at heeding-walk with us, girl!" Vordra snapped. And so it was that four pilgrims walked or limped arm-in-arm into the small village that must hold the Stone Embra had felt.
Tarlarnastar was a small, pretty village. A few war dogs barked, straining at their neckchains, but only chickens ran underfoot in the mud of the lane. As Rendree had said, there were no towers, but only a few small cottages set close together along the road, their gardens running back into trees. Flat, displeased bleatings told of sheep somewhere nearby behind those shuttered houses; the ringing of a smith's hammer met their ears as they came down between the houses, and saw a wider space ahead, where the road widened to circle a stone wellhouse.
The smith was working outside, in the shade of his own shoeing cradle. No oxen were in it, and what he was hammering looked soon to become an axehead, or perhaps the blade of a frow or a big man's handhoe. He was a swearing, rough-bearded man who'd known battle, if the scar across his shoulder could be trusted, and as was the way of smiths and villages everywhere, he was working in the midst of an audience of lounging older men.
Curious looks and narrowed eyes measured the four travelers as they approached. If the smith heard or saw them, he gave no sign, but went on shaping his work with hard, ringing strokes.
Rendree started forward, but Vordra pulled her firmly back. It was Lassa who went to one of the seated men.
"Peace be with you, man, and with the Vale," she said, looking down into his guarded squint. "We are four Faithful of the Oak, and the man among us is hurt. Is there a healer, or a herbalist-or even a wizard-anywhere about, to see to him?"
The question earned them more curious looks, but the men staring at them kept silent for a long time, as the smith swung his hammer and then turned back to his forge, before a reply came. The man Lassa had spoken to worked his jaw as though chewing, looked at her and thoughtfully at the anvil, and told it, "Best go into the wellhouse, yon. The lord's there; he'll say."
"Forgive me," Lassa said, "but who is lord in Tarlarnastar?"
The man spat thoughtfully into the dust between his feet and told her, "Turnhelm, he calls himself. A great warrior, or was."
A few folk glanced out of windows or looked up from picking and weeding as the four pilgrims passed, and favored the four with more curious glances.
"Have these folk not seen pilgrims before?" Vordra rumbled in what was intended to be the faintest of whispers.
"Are you sure we haven't grown bat-wings and tails?" Rendree muttered in reply. "It can't be that they get no visitors-woodcutters are always going up into the Loaurimm, and floating down what they can't cut and pile on their carts."
Olim shrugged and held up his hand. They could just see the head of his dagger hilt in the curl of his closed fingers; the rest of the weapon was hidden in his grasp and up his sleeve. "Trust in the Forefather, as I do," he said pointedly, "and be ready."
Tarlarnastar did have a tower, after all. The wellhouse was a large, round cylinder built of huge stones, though its walls barely overtopped Vordra's head; the space inside had to be as large as three cottages, or more. Its one door was wide enough for a cart, and stood ajar, with a single lantern or torch glimmering fitfully somewhere within. Lassa pushed the heavy wood until it gaped wide, and stepped inside-only to be jostled aside by an excitedly skipping Rendree.
The young girl saw a round, open well with its bucket-hoist lost somewhere in the darkness of the rafters, hard-packed dirt and straw underfoot, an untidy pile of rotting buckets to one side-and a dozen men or more in the room: armaragors, in armor and with drawn swords in their hands. Their smiles, as they started