and women like that,’ Morghien laughed with a wink at Ralen. ‘Might be something else, of course, but we won’t know until we find her.’
He called his thanks to the woman by the cottages and disappeared into the trees, coming back almost immediately. ‘Come on, Major, let’s see if love awaits you,’ he said as he started off down the path she had indicated.
Morghien was silent as they continued on their journey, passing though a second charm-enclosed hamlet before the trees opened out and they found a village straddling what was now a small river. Compared to the rest of Llehden it looked bustling, and was apparently large enough to have no more of a protective fence than a boundary ring of charm-inscribed stones. They could see smoke from more than a dozen homes rising into the air, and hear the clash of a blacksmith at work, and there were figures visible working on half a dozen smallholdings in between the cottages.
‘No lord of the manor here,’ Morghien commented as they crossed the boundary stones, ‘and they eat all they grow; you Farlan wouldn’t approve.’
‘Ain’t they lucky,’ Marad drawled, ‘the king’s law rules all round their border, so’s they gets the best o’ both.’
‘Don’t fool yourself; it’s not so simple - or safe - in these parts. Start thinking that way, you might not last the night.’
‘Bloody peasants an’ their bloody superstitions,’ Marad replied, spitting on the ground, ‘if it can hurt you, you can hurt it. I’ll put my glaive against anythin’ Llehden’s got.’
‘I’d be interested to see that,’ Morghien said with grin, ‘from a safe distance.’ He broke off to speak to a man with greying whiskers and a hoe resting across his broad shoulders, who had come over from the nearest smallholding. They talked briefly, and Jachen noticed a look of relief crossing the man’s face when Morghien shook his head in answer to a question. After a while he pointed to a house on the far side of the village.
‘The witch is here in the village today; one of the women is in labour,’ Morghien reported back to them, and led them across the small bridge and into the centre of the village, scattering the hissing black-winged geese grazing on a patch of common ground.
As they headed to the house, Jachen asked, ‘What about the first bit?’
‘First?’
‘What the man said.’ Jachen said, jabbing a thumb behind them.
‘Ah, nothing. He asked if we were hunting the Ragged Man.’
‘Who?’
Morghien shrugged. ‘Some local spirit, by the sound of it; he said it’d eat our souls if we went after it.’
‘Let’s not, then,’ Jachen said with a shiver. War he could handle, but the supernatural terrified him. The sight of the Reapers slaughtering Scree’s population still haunted his dreams . . . he had none of Marad’s optimism.
At the house Morghien spoke to a stern-looking woman with greying hair and returned to the Farlan soldiers looking grave. ‘She sounds worried; it’s her sister givin’ birth. If you’re brave enough, go fetch the witch out - me, I’ll wait.’
Ralen and Marad shook their heads violently and followed Morghien over to what proved to be a tavern. Finding himself alone and the sole object of the woman’s scrutiny, Jachen beat a hasty retreat. The three soldiers busied themselves attending to their horses before they stretched out beside Morghien on the grass with pots of the potent local brew.
It was two hours before the witch appeared, arms bloody and a small bundle carried reverentially in her hands. She handed the dead infant to the sister, who bowed her head as she accepted her tiny charge. That done she crossed the green, not paying the new arrivals a moment’s notice, but before Jachen could call out to her to attract her attention, Morghien stopped him.
‘She’ll not speak to you, not yet,’ he said, gesturing for Jachen to rise and follow him.
The two men trailed the witch at a respectful distance and watched her wash her arms and apron in the river. Only when she rose from her knees and began to wring the sodden cloth out did Morghien allow Jachen to approach.
‘You come on a bad day,’ Ehla, the witch of Llehden, said in stilted Farlan.
‘At your order,’ Jachen pointed out brusquely.
She turned to face them and he found himself taking a step back at the look she gave him.
‘Not my order. Isak’s.’
Jachen stiffened. ‘Lord Isak is dead.’
‘He died,’ Ehla agreed. ‘Your loyalty died too?’
‘Of course not!’ Jachen growled. ‘What in the name of