Page 49 of The Shadow of Breninsol
Eleanor stared unseeing at the wool in her hands as Haesel was quietly knitting. It made no sense. Sheep were hardy animals, they could withstand the cold, but this season had been bad enough it threatened the entire flock’s survival and the livelihood of those dependent on it, like Han and Rin who relied on the wool. Eleanor tried to recall the past winter, but she’d been in Breninsol for…a while. She only remembered it had been cold. If it was cold in the city, then it was freezing in the towns, and the mountains were glacial. There was a reason those from the highlands called the lowlanderssoft.It could be a hard life in the mountains. The weather made sure of that. According to Han, the harsh winter had really affected those living in the mountains. She knew of only one reason for this: the weatherwas turning against them. She shoved away the insidious voice dripping into her ear that it was her fault.
“I understand. I’m in no rush,” Becker replied.
“Just means you’ll be seeing more of us,” Ryland grinned. No matter how harmless she knew Ryland to be, with his helmet, it still unsettled her.
Eleanor gritted her teeth at the thought of Han and Rin’s merchant not trading to them and she welcomed that familiar simmering. Few conducted business with women, and those who did had their husbands, fathers, or brothers as intermediaries. Women in business were considered bad luck, though Eleanor’s experience with Madam Grace refuted this claim. That woman wore different clothes each time she saw her, and her guards were always accepting mysteriously pristine packages for her.
“With the amount of wool you’ve been buying,” suspicion laced Han’s tone. “You wouldn’t be making a jumper, would you?”
Becker chuckled. “No, not yet. Wouldn’t want to curse myself.”
Ryland’s armour clanked as he shifted his weight, but Eleanor’s hands tightened over the polished needles.
While she was willing herself not to outwardly react, Eleanor thought she was hearing something that wasn’t there.
Screams tore through the air, and a chill ran along her spine as she held Haesel between her legs. Han knocked back her stool as she stood in alarm, and Ryland and Becker turned towards the cries, which told her what she was hearing was real.
“Stay here.” Ryland ordered, and they ran towards the wails.
Eleanor put her hand on Haesel’s shoulder, lest the little girl ran off, and steered her into Han’s arms. They came to the stall’s edge and watched a host of city guards rushing from their different patrol points and sprinting towards the screams coming from the other side of the market.
Eleanor nearly told Han to pack up and took a step as if to approach the screams. When, as suddenly as it’d started, an eerie stillness descended over the market. No one knew what to do, nor what was happening. The stallholder across the row poked her head out of her stall tent in confusion.
And then she felt it. An unnatural shift in the air. The wind that’d been fluttering through the Cloth all afternoon had changed.
Impossible.
Eleanor once thought certain things would have been impossible. Lately, she was being proved wrong more times than she would have liked. She absentmindedly rubbed at the centre of her chest.
A gust ripped down the stalls. Stall tents and table covers pulled and flapped violently in a rippling wave down the row. It hurtled towards Eleanor, faster and faster, unnaturally gaining speed as it moved. Eleanor knew this type of wind; it was a determined force that’d tear down what it could in its wake.
Eleanor pulled Han back into the stall to hide from the surge of air. Both women held Haesel between them while Haesel buried her face into Han’s chest. Gripping each other, they could do nothing but wait for the unnatural wind to cease.
The air whistled and the violent gust picked up dirt, sand, and small stones, and blew them around them. Eleanor bowed her head, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth against the onslaught. She felt her skirt whip at her legs, her cloak pulling on her neck, wanting to free itself and get caught up in the maelstrom.
The force of the wind rang in her ears, then she felt a tug on her sleeve that wasn’t from the wind. Eleanor blinked her eyes open to see Han yanking on her sleeve to let her know the windstorm had passed. Eleanor opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, the screams began again.
This time, the screams were closer, and from a larger group of people. Eleanor poked her head out of the tent to check the row and a handful of people were running towards her. They didn’t stop as they ran past the stall. A man stumbled and fell, his eyes were wide and face pale.
“What’s happening?” cried the stallholder opposite them.
The man was shaking as he stumbled to his feet. “W-witches…they’re back,” he said, then ran down the row.
Someone from afar shouted, “Night Hags!”
“What’s going on?” Han asked in a quiet voice, as she joined Eleanor at the stall entrance with Haesel on her hip.
“I don’t know.” Eleanor said, “but I’m not sticking around to find out.”
“Eleanor,” Han said, gripping her arm. “The guards said to stay.”
Eleanor realised in horror that Han was going to do exactly as Sergent Ryland had ordered. She intended to remain and wait in this exposed stall until it…blew over?
“We have to go,” Eleanor said.
Han looked at her fallen spinning wheel and stools. The woollen items were strewn over the row and the baskets ofskeins were rolling away, adding to the clutter of other things caught in the wind.
Eleanor gripped Han’s arm, willing her to grasp the severity of the situation. “Your lives or your livelihood?”
