He blinked. “Does that happen often?” He held up a hand, trying to buy a moment’s time. “I mean, dead people coming out of the forest. Not you looting corpses.”
“Never,” said Aderyn. “Not until last week. Some dead bloke stumbled out of the forest and into the miller’s yard. I was walking back to the village after picking berries, heard the shouting, and helped bring the bone house down.” She gave a little shrug. “The dead have the forest. I don’t know why they’re coming out of it, not now that magic has waned.”
She spoke matter-of-factly. As if the risen dead were an infestation of plague rats she were trying to keep from her home.
“And what are you doing out here?” She nodded at his camp—at the overturned belongings, the maps scattered across the dirt, and the remnants of the fire he’d tried to make. “What brings a city lad into the wilds?”
He crossed his arms. “How do you know I’m from the city?”
“Because you tried to make a fire with green wood,” she replied. “Because you have more parchment than food. Because you can afford enough oil to leave a lantern burning all night. Am I wrong?”
He gave her a shallow nod. “You’re not wrong. And as for what I’m doing out here…” He reached down, picked up one of the scrolls. “I’m a mapmaker.”
She frowned at him. “Why aren’t you spending the night in the village?”
He looked around, groping for an explanation. “I—I meant to.”
“You’re lost,” she said.
“I am not.”
“You’re a mapmaker who cannot find a village.”
“I was using someone else’s map,” he said. “If I’d drawn it, this never would have happened.” He rubbed at his forehead. “Can you bring me to the village? I have coin, if that’s what it takes.”
He saw the flicker of eagerness in her eyes. It was quickly quashed, and her neutral expression slid back into place. “All right. But I’m waiting to return until morning—just in case any more of these creatures decide to venture out of the woods. You all right with that?”
“I survived an attack of the risen dead,” he replied. “I think I can spend a night without a tent.”
Her eyes drifted toward the dark smudge of the trees only a few strides away. “We’ll see, I suppose.”
CHAPTER 3
THE ROAD TO Colbren was little more than packed earth. Sunlight reflected off the golden dead grasses that would revive with the autumn rainfall. Evidence of the village could be seen from here: Trees had been cut for firewood and the earthy scent of horse manure wafted from nearby fields.
Ryn carried one and a half of the bone houses. She considered it one and a half since she hauled the man—the heavier one—in her right hand, and she helped Ellis drag the woman with her left. For all that Ellis was taller than her and seemed like he should be able to carry a sack of flour with ease, he had winced when he first tried to pick up the bone house. Perhaps he’d been badly bruised in his tussle with the dead man.
Even this early, there was smoke in the air. Smoke from stoves, from the tavern, from bakers lighting their ovens. It was always a welcoming smell to her—home.
Colbren’s iron fence encircled the village. It was simple, rungs of old metal set wide enough that a child or slender adult could slip through. The fence was rusted a bloody red, and several lines of drying clothes were strung from it. Ryn caught Ellis’s look of surprise when he saw the barrier. “Do you get many thieves?” he asked.
She shook her head. “The cities took down their iron protections after the otherfolk left. But you’ll find us countryfolk a little more wary.”
Ellis made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh. “You still worry about the tylwyth teg?”
She did not smile. “Not them. Their leavings.” She nodded down at the sacks.
“You mean magic.”
“What’s left of it.”
“And what are we to do with these?” His voice had a pleasant rasp to it, low and a little hoarse. As if he’d need to lean in to say something important.
“Burn them,” she replied. “I know the blacksmith—she’ll help.”
The smithy was on the southern edge of the village, where the winds could carry off the scents of burning metal. Ryn did not bother to knock, but rather headed around back to the forge.
Morwenna could have been anywhere from thirty to forty. With her darker skin and wiry hair, she clearly was not from Colbren—which was usually an unforgivable offense. But Morwenna had simply shown up five years ago, taken over the abandoned smithy, and after only a few weeks it had seemed as if she’d always been there.
At this moment, she wore a heavy leather apron and work gloves. She went still when Ryn and Ellis walked into view, dragging the sacks beside them. Morwenna nodded at the bundle. “Ryn.” She said the name with a bit of exasperation. “Please tell me wolves got a few of Hywel’s sheep.”
“No,” said Ryn. “Another bone house—well, two of them.”
Morwenna slipped her leather gloves off, then knelt beside the sacks. She rested one work-worn hand on them, as if trying to feel for life. “I’m not sure whether to believe you or not. You sure this wasn’t some dead vagrant you found on the road?”
Of course she wouldn’t believe Ryn—Morwenna was not of Colbren. She hadn’t grown up listening to the old tales, standing at half-cracked doors as the candles burned to nubs while the elders murmured stories of the old days. But then again, even most of the younger villagers would have agreed with Morwenna. The Otherking had left the isles in the days of Ryn’s great-grandfather, and the memories had faded into myth. Ryn’s generation had little belief in magic. Which should have been a reassurance to her—even with these strange sightings of bone houses, they might have gone on using her burial services instead of burning the dead.
But the elders remembered. And they were the ones who, more often than not, needed the services of a gravedigger.
Her empty coin purse rested against her hip; Ryn ran her fingers over one leather edge before saying, “Believe me or don’t. The bodies are real enough, and I need to burn them before nightfall. If you want proof, keep a hand for yourself and see what comes when the sun goes down.”
Morwenna flashed her a smile. “Mayhap I’ll do that—and perhaps slip it through Eynon’s window the next time he comes to collect the rent.”
Ryn tried not to smile, but she didn’t try very hard.
“Who’s this?” said Morwenna, with a look at Ellis.
“Traveler,” replied Ryn. “Looking for a place to stay.”
Morwenna’s eyes raked over Ellis. “It’ll be the Red Mare for him. Unless one of these houses pinched his coin.” She gave the words a mocking little twist, a smile on her lips.
Ryn let out a sharp breath. “Just burn them, please?”
For all her amusement, Morwenna inclined her head. With a snap of her fingers, she summoned her apprentice—a lad who looked to be about ten or eleven. Ryn turned to leave, but Morwenna called after.
“Wait.”