Hell, they probably thought she was going to turn on them in a blaze of misguided fury.
She held up her hands to signal her compliance. Eamon removed his hand and stepped back, giving her a chin tilt of approval.
“So are we going to do this or just stand around outside all day,” Shea said, looking between the two of them. “I’m good either way.”
Eamon raised an eyebrow and looked at Buck. “The lad says he’s good.”
Buck smirked back. “Guess I’ll lead on then.”
Shea didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t to see Buck turn to the door and give it a solid kick, sending it flying inwards.
“A little dramatic, but points for flair,” Shea muttered following after him.
The interior of the one room hut was dim. There were no windows to provide extra light. No doubt as a deterrent to beast attack. A window would have only provided another avenue for entry into the small home. They probably also lacked the skill to create openings in the walls without also creating severe weakness in the structure.
It was so stuffy and dark in the building. Shea didn’t know how they could bear to spend much time in it. She’d go crazy inside of a week. The walls already felt like they were closing in on her,
“It stinks. How do they live like this?” Buck asked, covering his nose.
It did stink. The pungent smell of the morning’s meal still lingered in the air. It also smelled of unwashed bodies, mold, and earth.
The floor was dirt and covered in dead grass.
“No windows means no ventilation,” Shea commented as she passed a small wooden table. “Smells get trapped.”
Two bowls rested on it. One was half filled with empty bean shells, the other with the unshelled beans. The woman was probably preparing for that night’s meal. Shea hoped she got the chance to make it.
Buck shook his head in disgust and started opening and shutting what few cupboards there were. Eamon looked under the only bed. There were no other places to search.
Shea was drawn to a baby’s crib in the corner. What would the Trateri do with the children? Would they face the same fate as their parents?
She ran her hands along the smooth, hand carved edge. It was simple but finely made. The feel against her fingers wasn’t right. She rubbed them together, noticing the slight grainy texture that lingered.
There wasn’t enough light to tell what she’d touched so she stepped closer to the door. The grayish film on her fingers was easily identifiable as dust.
Her forehead wrinkled. That couldn’t be right. Even a Lowlander wouldn’t lay their child down without dusting the crib.
Could their child already be grown? There was no other bed.
“Shane, you ready? I don’t think there’s anybody in here,” Eamon said.
She rubbed her fingers together slowly as she pondered this riddle.
“Just a minute,” she said in a distracted tone of voice.
“What’s he doing?” Buck asked Eamon as she strode to the crib and lifted the small baby’s blanket from it. “There’s nothing here.”
She examined the material carefully and held it up to her nose, inhaling deeply. She promptly sneezed. And then sneezed again.
She walked back to the door way. Stepping into the light, she gave the blanket a vigorous shake. Dust flew. Enough to illuminate the small rays of sunlight.
“Okay, what’s the deal with the blanket?” Buck asked, folding his arms over his chest. Eamon leaned against the door, watching Shea as she thought.
“Did either of you see any children?” she asked.
Buck shook his head. “I don’t think so, no. What about you, Eamon?”
Eamon looked deep in thought before he shook his head. “You think they might be hiding them?”
Hiding them? Possibly.
“How many people were supposed to live in this village?”
Both shook their heads. “The party who first came through here probably got a head count. It’s necessary to determine how big a tithe they can afford to give, but we don’t know what that number is. We’re scouts. We don’t need to know.”
“Right.”
So she’d have to do this the hard way.
“Either of you got a guess as to how many people were gathered when we arrived?”
Shea paced in a circle counting the huts. It didn’t take her long. The village wasn’t that big.
Buck shrugged. “Twenty maybe twenty-five.”
Eamon nodded. “I agree.”
“I doubt your men recovered more than five people hiding.”
“You’d be correct.”
“There’s, what, thirty huts I’d say. Unless every person in this village has their own home, there are a lot of people missing,” Shea said.
Eamon’s eyes shot to the huts, counting as she had. He straightened as realization dawned.
“Buck, head back to the village center and get them to do a headcount.”
Buck’s face was grim as he moved, without another word, to follow Eamon’s orders.
“What’re you thinking? That they’ve got their people stashed somewhere?” he asked, following her as she moved through the village.
It didn’t take long for her to find what she was looking for, a building with a rowan branch pinned to the door and two revenant skulls with blue flowers threaded through the eyes mounted on pikes on either side.
“If only that were the case,” Shea said softly.
“Are those skulls? Revenant skulls? Shane? Where are you going?”
Shea spun and took off, nearly running, as she headed back to the villagers. Eamon, with one last look at the skulls, trailed behind her.
“Shane, stop. Stop, right now,” Eamon ordered when he saw where she was heading.
Shea didn’t listen, intent on her prey. She didn’t know who it was yet, but she’d know him when she saw him.
Pushing past the Trateri still mounted, she paused to survey the crowd, barely noticing as Eamon stopped beside her.
“Shane, you cannot do this. Whatever this is. Tell me what’s going on.”
“In a minute,” she said in a distracted tone of voice.
“What’s going on?” a Trateri asked from behind them.
Shea tuned them out, not caring what was said. She’d found her target. As she’d thought, she’d known him at a glance. He stood out from the rest of the villagers. They were simple folk. Not him though. His hair was bedraggled and untamed, but the clothes he wore were high quality, if dirty. Most damning of all, he wore a necklace made of the same blue flower as was threaded through the eye sockets of the skulls. It was a pretty flower by itself and harmless if not for what it symbolized.
In nature, the flower’s scent repelled most predators as it deadened the sense of smell and lured its victim by causing hallucinations. So naturally its likeness was adopted by a religious sect who vilified and deified beasts, making them into both monsters that needed to be feared and gods that could be appeased through worship and sacrifice.
Their presence was more common in the Lowlands than the Highlands. Shea’s guild would not deal with any village that hosted one of the sect’s priests. They fed on superstition and fear, building it until it reached hysterical extremes and turning once decent people into a terror maddened and crazed imitation of themselves.