of varying ages and three scrawny children - watched them approach without abandoning their daily activities. A few long-legged dogs ran out and began to bark, but a word of command from one of the women was enough to bring them back to the open gate.
‘We’re looking for the witch,’ Jachen called, but he received only blank looks for his troubles. ‘No? Don’t speak Farlan eh?’
He reined in his horse and tried to recall what little of the language he’d learned. King Emin’s peace had limited the amount of work a mercenary could find within Narkang lands, but Jachen hadn’t always been exacting about the jobs he took and a man who could read and write rarely starved. He said, ‘The woman not like you?’ - the best he could manage in the Narkang tongue - but it did at least get a reaction.
One of the younger women pointed southwest, saying something he couldn’t understand and shaking her head as she spoke.
Before he could thank her, a man called out from the woods behind them, ‘She’s warning you, says you don’t want to go past the village.’
Jachen turned, his hand instinctively going to his sword, but he froze, his mouth dropping open in surprise. It took him a moment to get the name, then he had it: Morghien, the man of many spirits. His weatherbeaten face was dirtier than the last time they’d met, in Tirah Palace, but he was certainly looking at the ageing wanderer who, with Mihn, had brought Lady Xeliath to the Farlan capital.
‘You’ll catch flies if you keep that up, Major,’ Morghien added, bowing mockingly before starting towards them. ‘I see you’re still whole, Ralen; there really is no justice in this life.’
Ralen chuckled and gave the man a careless salute. ‘Morghien, you ole cheat, still sneakin’ up on folk then? I thought Marshal Carelfolden ’ad warned you about that.’
Morghien smiled, but his response was drowned out by an explosion of noise as the dogs caught sight of him and raced out again, barking with a far greater ferocity than they had at the riders. Morghien stopped dead while the woman Jachen had spoken to yelled at the animals. The three long-haired guard-dogs ignored the horses and stopped only when they were just past the Farlan, as though ready to protect them from the eccentric wanderer.
Jachen had met Morghien often enough for him to be wary at the wanderer’s unexpected appearance. What he hadn’t expected was Morghien’s reaction to the dogs - only the woman’s repeated shouts were holding them in check at all, and none were showing any sign of backing down, but Morghien had sunk to his knees, as if to make himself an easier target.
Without taking his eyes off the dogs Morghien untied a dead rabbit from his pack and tossed it to the dogs, closing his eyes and mouthing something, looking to Jachen for all the world as if he was praying.
To Jachen’s complete astonishment, the dogs shut up. The largest of the three picked up the rabbit and fixed Morghien with a baleful look before carrying his prize back inside the hamlet fence.
‘What in the name o’ Larat’s twisty cock did yer do there?’ Ralen asked, clearly mirroring Jachen’s own surprise.
‘Just said hello,’ Morghien replied, getting to his feet with the groan of a man far older than he looked. Morghien, a man who counted King Emin among his friends, had looked exactly the same when he met the king almost twenty years previously, and twenty years before that too.
‘The hamlet’s got a guardian spirit, one they’ve linked to the dogs somehow - that’d be your witch, I’d expect.’
‘And it took exception to you?’
Morghien laughed. ‘Took fright, just as likely, but it acts like a dog and they don’t need much excuse to bark.’
‘Were you waiting for us here?’ Jachen interrupted. ‘Did the king tell you to meet us?’
‘Pah, he’s got a war to think about now, and he don’t know any more than you do anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
Morghien cocked his head at Jachen. ‘Curious, he didn’t tell you any more than he had to. You ain’t here at his order; you’re here at the witch’s.’
‘Lord Isak’s last orders said we were to follow King Emin’s orders, not those of some village witch,’ said Jachen, looking puzzled.
Morghien nodded. ‘Maybe so, but the witch sent Emin a message a few weeks back. She asked for you by name.’
‘Me?’ Jachen said in surprise. ‘I barely met the woman.’