When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (books under 200 pages txt) 📗

across the space ahead of him. Danya looked at Evalal, noticed her own worry reflected in the girl's face, and a new thought struck her.

What if they mean to kill us?

Her mouth filled with sour saliva, and she swallowed hard around a lump grown out of nowhere in her throat. She glanced back toward the wagon where her sword belt lay hidden from her on the floorboards. She curled her hands into fists, touched sweat on her palm.

"Please, princess," he urged.

Danya pressed her lips together. What choice did she have but follow instructions and hope for the best?

What would Trenan do?

A simple answer: he wouldn't have allowed himself to end up in this situation. She chastised herself under her breath for allowing the weapons merchants the upper hand and started out toward the tilting barn. Evalal fell into step beside her in silence, but the princess sensed apprehension radiating from her—perhaps she'd formed the same suspicion about their captors' intent.

The yellowed grass crunched beneath their feet as they strode across the yard. Ive slowed to keep his two guests half a pace ahead of him. Partway to the barn, they encountered what had given the stocky man pause.

The dog's death hadn't been an easy one. What remained of its tongue not picked apart by carrion eaters lolled out of the side of its mouth. The animal's bottom half lay twisted at an unnatural angle; wounds peppered its body, but Danya assumed they'd likely occurred after it died. When Evalal saw the poor beast, she gasped and turned her head away. The princess put her arm around the girl's shoulder and guided her past the carcass. Ive didn't react.

They strode past the partially completed hole, dirt mounded beside it, the tip of a spade buried in the heap of soil. An uncompleted grave? If so, for whom? Not the dog; it was far too large even for that sizable beast. For her? She shivered and forced her gaze away from the pit, toward the listing outbuilding.

They finished the short journey across the sad yard and stopped at the entrance to the barn. Ive stood so close behind them, Danya imagined his breath caressing the back of her neck. She stared into the barn's darkness, seeing nothing but black shapes and bits of straw where thin streams of light found their way in through cracks between the boards.

"What did you find, Mr. Fellick?"

"Not Birk." His voice swam out of the blackness, identifying him as a dark shape to their right.

"I guessed it the case. He's been here, though, yes?"

"Yeah. And five or six with him."

"Now why would that be?"

Ive ushered them forward, out of the sunlight and into the dim barn. Danya's eyes began to adjust, and the shapes rectified themselves into Fellick, and a series of barrels, shelves packed full, and the sad cow which had gone silent. The interior proved as much a mess as the exterior's disrepair might suggest it to be. She watched the silhouette of the big man's shoulders rise and fall in a shrug.

"He kept prisoners in here. Two of them." He raised his arm, pointed to one spot on the floor then another.

Danya squinted, trying to see what he saw. The straw seemed as though it had been disturbed, but she'd say the same about every piece of the tinder-dry material covering the ground. At the far end of the barn—the first place he'd indicated—she spied what appeared to be an iron ring protruding from the floor. But what did that prove?

"Do tell," Ive prompted.

"They were all over the inside," he moved his arm side to side, gesturing toward the dishevelment of the straw, "but it don't appear a struggle. No blood. A man and a woman."

At the mention of the captives, Evalal reached out and grasped Danya's wrist, fingers digging in deep enough to hurt. She stifled a surprised gasp lest she gain their captors' attention.

"Eight or nine people here at once, now none."

"Plus the Juddah fella. Looks like he's in rough shape." Fellick paused and rubbed his chin. "Not as bad as his dog though. Poor love is lying dead in the field, his back broke. The carrion eaters have been at him."

Ive nodded. "We saw the beast. And the blood." He prompted the girls deeper into the barn, guiding them more than halfway so they stood a few a paces from his partner and the array of barrels and shelves. When they stopped, he laid his hands on their shoulders, left them there. Danya clenched her teeth, hoping he'd move away. "And what's this?"

"The Juddah fella collected some odd things." Fellick lowered his arm and moved the two steps to the nearest shelf. He reached out and picked up a clay pot. "Broken weapons, tools, jars, sundries. Nothing of concern to us. I daresay the law might have interest in the contents of a few of his barrels, though."

"And what do these casks contain?"

Instead of answering, the stocky man put the sole of his boot to the closest barrel and toppled it over. It struck the floor and threw up a puff of dust, the particles seeming to sparkle in the line of sunlight squeezing its way between the gaps in the wall boards. The cask's dry wood split and splintered as it hit, revealing the contents. Ive pushed on their shoulders and they moved forward, within a pace of Juddah's spilled collection. Whatever it contained gleamed a dull white, but Danya remained unsure what she looked at until Fellick stirred his toe amongst them, flicked some aside, clattering.

Bones.

Despite her best effort to control herself, a shiver rattled up Danya's spine. Evalal gripped her wrist tighter.

"What...?" Danya started but stopped, swallowed the overabundance of saliva filling her mouth. "What kind of bones?"

"Animal mostly," Fellick replied. He toed the collection again, the