Well of Sorrows (22 page)

“Eraeth,” Aeren said, pointing to his guardian, who scowled again, pointedly ignoring Aeren. Colin saw Aeren’s mouth twitch. Then Aeren motioned to Karen, his eyebrow raised.

“Karen,” Colin said. “Her name is Karen.”

Aeren paused and gave Karen another of the formal bows, almost the same he’d given Tom but slightly different. He said something in his own language, and even though no one except Eraeth could understand him, Karen lifted her head higher and blushed.

They traveled through the morning, pausing to rest on occasion, Aeren pointing out animals and plants and flowers as they went, speaking mostly to Colin and Karen, trading the names of each object in the two languages. At one point, Aeren began quizzing them all, and Colin discovered that Karen was more adept at remembering the new language. The strange deer were called gaezels by the Alvritshai, the name of Aeren’s people. Colin couldn’t determine exactly where the Alvritshai were from, but after numerous attempts he thought they came from a range of mountains to the north. At least, Aeren kept pointing to the mountains to the east, making jagged up and down motions with his hands, then shaking his head when Colin or Karen pointed east and saying nuren instead.

Eraeth listened to all of this disapprovingly, keeping his eyes on Arten and Tom. Sam had drifted away to help one of the wagons when it got stuck in a low spot.

Toward midafternoon, both Aeren and Eraeth grew quieter, Eraeth speaking to Aeren in a low voice, as if trying to convince him of something. Aeren kept shaking his head but otherwise didn’t argue with him. Until at one point he grew exasperated and said something short and curt, raising his arm across his chest, his hand in a fist near his shoulder. The band of gold around his wrist gleamed in the steady sunlight.

After that, Eraeth kept silent, his face studiously blank.

It was after this altercation that Walter and Jackson approached the group, drawing their horses up sharply. Both of the Alvritshai stepped back, distancing themselves from the animals, their eyes slightly wider than usual, although they showed no other signs of fear.

Walter ignored the two of them completely. “Jackson says that, according to his map and calculations, we should be nearing the river that leads to Portstown, assuming it kept the same general course. He estimates the Bluff and Falls are about two, maybe three, days travel to the west.”

Colin’s father raised a hand to his eyes to shade them from the sun and scanned the horizon. “I don’t see anything.”

“What about that?” Arten pointed toward the southeast, where a darker line appeared on the plains, blending into the heat waves on the horizon.

At Aeren’s quizzical expression, Colin tried to explain the river. Eraeth snorted and said something in Alvritshai, and Aeren motioned them forward, but not toward the darker spot Arten had seen. They continued south, the dark line spreading, until they were close enough to see that it was a low ridge where the plains were interrupted by a line of trees and brush cutting its way almost directly east. As they drew closer, Colin heard a strange rustling, then realized it was the leaves of the trees brushing against each other in the breeze. He hadn’t heard the sound in so long, he barely recognized it.

“I don’t see the river,” Walter said, standing up in his stirrups. “Do you feel that?” Arten said.

Everyone stopped at the edge of where the grass grew thicker and greener, the verge of the thin line of trees.

“What?” Karen asked.

“In your feet. The ground feels like it’s trembling.”

Colin focused on his feet and thought he could feel a faint trembling in the earth. He stepped forward, moving in among the trees themselves, and the sensation increased. When he stood in the middle of the copse, he knelt, then lay flat against the earth and pressed his ear to the ground, closing his eyes.

Through the shuddering earth, he could hear a dull roar. He frowned, pressing harder into the earth, heard a few of the others approaching as he strained to figure out what the sound was—

And then he jerked his head away from the ground. “What is it?” his father asked.

Colin looked up at them in wonder. “It’s the river. It’s underground, beneath the trees. You can hear it, like the sound of the Falls, only muted by the earth.”

Tom and Karen both dropped to the ground and copied Colin, listening to the grumbling sound of an unfathomable amount of water roaring through an underground chamber, more water moving faster than Colin could imagine. Walter looked as if he wanted to hear it as well, but he refused to dismount from his horse, sitting up straight in the saddle, towering over all of them. Both his and Jackson’s horse were fidgeting, feet dancing as they tried to shy away from the trembling ground.

“Do you think it travels underground from here to the Falls?” Arten asked.

Tom had climbed back to his feet. “Remember how it shot out of the Bluff? And we haven’t seen any significant water sources on the upper plains at all, mostly streams and small creeks and runoff from the storms.” He stared down at the ground, hands on his hips, then turned to Arten. “If all the major water sources are underground, we’re going to have one hell of a time finding a place to settle Haven.”

Aeren stepped into the grim silence that followed and motioned toward the east. His expression was grim as well, although he couldn’t have understood what Tom had said. Eraeth kept close to Aeren’s side as they followed him through the thicket of trees, wider than Colin had expected, the river rumbling beneath them, the trees marking its edges. As they moved, a few more of Aeren’s guard appeared, startling Karen and Walter both as they emerged from the thicket as if from thin air, their steps silent, their forms fading into the background when they stood still. Colin listened to Walter cursing as the branches of the trees dragged at him, but he still refused to dismount, choosing to duck beneath them, leaning forward, almost hugging his mount’s neck.

The trees thinned. Colin pushed through the last of the branches, into scrub brush, and found himself staring out across another expanse of plains, almost exactly like those on the other side of the trees.

He sighed in disappointment. He’d hoped for something different.

Aeren pointed toward something just to the east, a small group of dark objects sitting in the grass near the verge of trees.

Everyone shifted forward, a few with eyes shaded. Colin squinted, felt Karen moving up beside him. He could see five distinct shapes in the grass, rectangular, blackened, low to the ground. He frowned, not recognizing them—

And then Karen gasped under her breath, “They’re wagons!” And suddenly the shapes came into focus, harsh and visceral. A cold fear seeped into his chest, spreading out to his arms, down into his gut.

“What is it?” Walter asked.

“It’s one of the previous expeditions,” Tom said, his voice strangely flat and remote. “It’s what’s left of their wagons.”

Shock settled over everyone as they stared out at the abandoned wagons, the words sinking in slowly.

And then Walter spun his horse toward Aeren, who was suddenly surrounded by Eraeth and the other Alvritshai who had emerged from the forest as they approached. Their bows were strung and pulled, arrows steady, although Colin didn’t know when they’d strung them. They were pointed toward his father, toward Arten and Walter, the commander’s hand already on his sword. But when he saw the arrows trained on him, he froze, eyes blazing.

“Who did this?” Walter spat, not in a roar but in a hiss. He kicked his horse forward a menacing step, completely ignoring Aeren’s guards. “Who did this?” he demanded again. “Did you do this? Did you?”

“Don’t be stupid, Walter.”

Colin felt a hot surge of satisfaction pierce the coldness of the fear in his chest at his father’s voice, flat and even.

Walter spun on Tom. “What did you say to me?”

“I said, don’t be stupid. They wouldn’t have led us here to see this if they’d done it themselves. They would have killed us back where we met. So sit down and keep quiet, before you get us all killed.”

“Yes, Walter,” Jackson added, looking pointedly toward Aeren’s guards. “Sit down and shut up.”

Walter stiffened, his glare never leaving Tom’s face, but he sat back in the saddle. The muscles in his jaw flexed. “I’m the Proprietor here,” he insisted, his tone sullen.

Tom’s eyes darkened. “Then act like it.” Without waiting for a response, he turned to Arten. “We need to check out those wagons, see if we can determine what happened.”

“What about them?” Arten asked, nodding toward the Alvritshai. Aeren stood in their midst, his bow the only one not strung. He watched everyone in the group carefully, all trace of the smiling man they’d spent the day traveling and trading languages with gone. His guardsmen had not relaxed, not even when Walter backed down, and Arten’s hand had not shifted from his sword hilt.

“I don’t think we have to worry about them.” Tom turned his attention on Aeren. “We’re going down there,” he said, motioning toward the wagons.

Aeren nodded, said something in his own language. His guards relaxed, their bows dropping, some of the tension in their strings easing. But they did not remove the arrows; they kept them pointed toward the ground, ready for use.

Arten waited until everyone else had headed toward the wagons, Walter making a point of riding out in front first, before easing away from the Alvritshai and following.

The first thing Colin noticed as he and Karen approached the wagons was that they were nothing but burned out husks. Charred wood stood out against the green and yellow of the grasses, pieces torn from the sides of the wagon completely overgrown by the grass itself. Karen’s hand found his as they came up on the first wagon, the rest of the group spreading out, Arten and Tom heading toward the center of the grouping, Walter and Jackson circling around to the other side. The wagons were spaced as if they’d been hit while traveling.

“What do you think happened?” Karen said, as she reached out a tentative hand toward the side of the wagon, brushed her fingers against the charred wood. Her hand came away black with soot, cinders crumbling off and falling to the ground, flakes catching in the breeze and drifting away.

“They were hit while moving,” Colin said. “It looks like they were trying to run away. Look at the wheel. It’s shattered, like when the horses bolted on the lower plains and Paul’s wagon hit the stone and flipped.” He pointed toward the broken wheel, the wagon canted in that direction. The smell of char and soot was strong, even though the wagons had been sitting out exposed for what must have been months.

Colin stood, glanced into the back of the wagon as Karen drifted away, noticed that most of the supplies were still inside, although charred almost beyond recognition. Something might be salvageable though. The hide cover was gone, although a few of the supports that had held it still remained, also blackened by fire.

“Oh, Diermani help us,” Karen gasped, her breath choked.

He circled around toward the front of the wagon, toward Karen. “What is it?” he asked as he approached and saw Karen looking at the ground. Her hand covered her mouth as she took shallow breaths.

And then the breeze shifted and he caught the rancid smell of rotten meat. He gagged, even though it wasn’t that strong, one hand covering his own mouth.

“The horses,” Karen said, voice thin.

The team of horses that had pulled the wagon lay in the grass, hidden by its stalks. They were still tied to the tongue, their bodies half cooked by the fire. The blackened skin had pulled away, exposing their yellowed teeth, and holes gaped in their sides where animals had gnawed at their hides, chunks of flesh torn free. But they’d been on the plains for a while, the rancid smell more a lingering memory, the bodies themselves more gruesome than anything else.

Colin sucked in a breath to steady himself, then crouched down close to the dead horse to look it over closely. “Get me a stick,” he said.

“From where?” Karen said, moving away.

“The line of trees over the river if you have to.”

Karen snorted. He heard her rooting through the back of the wagon, then return.

“What about this?”

She held out the end of a hoe, the metal and part of the handle still intact. The top of the handle had been burned to ash.

He grunted, grabbed the end of the handle, greasy soot coating his hand, then used the metal part of the hoe to prod something from the flaking hide of the horse. It took a moment to work it free, but once it fell out, he pulled it toward him, then reached down to pick it up.

Karen leaned forward as he brought it up into the sunlight. “It’s the head of a spear,” Colin said.

Karen stood up. “So they were attacked, and they tried to run, but—”

“They didn’t make it.”

They considered this in silence, broken a moment later by Karen. “So who attacked them?”

They both turned toward Aeren and the Alvritshai. Uneasiness settled into Colin’s stomach, roiled there.

“Let’s show this to my father,” he said, standing.

They moved toward where his father and Arten were inspecting one of the other wagons. Within twenty steps, he felt something soft give beneath his foot and glanced down.

Karen shrieked and leaped back, but Colin only stared, withdrawing his foot hastily.

He’d stepped on an arm, the impression of his shoe clear in what remained of the man’s flesh. The man’s body was mercifully facedown, a ragged hole in his back where a spear had killed him, then been jerked free. The body was shrunken, the flesh collapsed in upon itself, and like the bodies of the horses, the predators of the plains had been at it. One of the man’s legs was completely missing, torn free and dragged off somewhere to be eaten.

The man had clearly been running from the wagon—abandoned after it had caught fire or when it had hit the stone and the wheel had shattered—and had been killed as he fled.

Colin shuddered, then grabbed Karen’s arm and led her away, although she’d already recovered from the initial shock. They jogged up to where his father and Arten were kneeling down at the back of a second wagon.