Page 51 of The Threadbare Queen

From his cloak, to his tunic, to the crumpled kerchief tucked into his belt, to the skin on his forearm and his chest.

Ava kept telling him her workings may fade, that they wouldn’t last forever, but they did not seem weaker to him, no matter how many weeks had gone by.

In the deep inside pocket of his cloak, each one held safe in its own little cloth pouch, were the workings Ava had given him before he’d left. She told him the one in the red pouch would foster cooperation, which he took to mean they would do whatever he suggested. The one in the white would make the recipient turn and leave, abandoning everything to go home, no matter what they were doing.

He would save the spells as much as possible, use them only when necessary, but with them in hand, along with the protections he had around him, he couldn’t let anyone go into danger before he’d gone in himself.

It had been just over a week since they’d left Fernwell, and they’d made good time up through the plains and then into the northern forests, but if a Jatan attack was responsible for the fire up ahead, he was worried.

They’d come down much further than Kym had seen before she left to warn him of their movements. The mountains were visible in the distance, but they were a good week’s ride away still.

This was bold.

Rev and Kikir thundered up to ride beside him, and he caught a glimpse of Massi through the trees, taking the higher ground with a few others who, like her, were experts with their bows.

They weren’t following a path through the forest, but as they got closer to the column of smoke Luc saw one through the trees, a rough track that looked like it was maintained.

He urged his horse onto it and by the time he burst out of the woods into the fields that surrounded the small village, most of his soldiers were on the road behind him.

A woman was wailing.

That was the noise that stood out to Luc as he rode at a slower pace down the village’s single street.

Her voice rose and fell with her breath, but she sounded as if she would go on until her throat closed up.

Luc kept on his mount, using the height it gave him to look into windows and check down the alleys between houses.

The fire was coming from a large building at the far end of the road. The flames had reached as high as the thatch roof, and the pall of smoke burned his nostrils as he breathed it in.

“Where is everyone?” Revek asked.

“There’s one.” Kikir pointed to the side, and Luc saw a man lying on his back near a door, a sword wound in his chest.

“Maybe most of them were able to hide before they were attacked?” Kym, the scout leading them to the border, had joined them as they’d entered the village.

Luc hoped she was right.

“Did you pass this way on your journey to Fernwell?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I took the eastern edge of the forest.”

The woman’s wailing suddenly cut off, the silence so abrupt, it raised the hairs on the back of Luc’s neck.

He’d drawn his sword as they’d ridden into the village, and now he gripped it carefully, looking for any sign of who had attacked this small community.

The attack looked like it had been carried out by someone who’d changed their minds halfway through.

Luc could see where doors had been smashed in, the blackened walls where fires had been lit but then quickly dowsed before the flames touched the thatch.

Aside from the one man lying dead behind them, there were no other bodies, although the way the woman had been crying, he could only assume she had done so over the body of a dead loved-one.

He moved in the direction the cries had come from, the flames still crackling overhead as they consumed the roof.

There was a sharp turn in the narrow lane, and suddenly he was back out among the fields.

A small group of people huddled on the far side of the open space against a fence, where the forest met the rich, ploughed soil.

Between where he stood and the villagers, a woman crouched beside a young man who lay on his side, eyes closed.

---