screaming the same word, over and over, and it sounded like she was tearing her own throat raw as she did.
"Heddy!" Bernard rumbled, eyes half-squinted against the wind-driven debris. "Heddy! It's all right. You're safe!"
She went on screaming, struggling, kicking, and bit the hand of one legionare who knelt along with Harger and Bernard in an attempt to restrain her. She struggled with a strength born of a fear so severe that it was its own kind of madness.
Crows take it!" Harger snarled. "We'll have to sedate her." Wait," Amara snapped. She knelt beside the struggling holder. "Heddy," she said in the softest voice she could to be heard over the screams. "Heddy, its all right. Heddy, the children are all right. The Count is here with the guard from Garrison. They're safe. The children are safe."
Heddy's panicked eyes flicked over to Amara, and her eyes focused on someone for the first time since she'd awoken. Her screams slowed a little, and her expression was tortured, desperate. It raked at Amara to see a woman in so much pain. But she kept her voice gentle, repeating quiet reassurances to the terrified holder. When Heddy had quieted even more, Amara put her hand on the young woman's head, stroking her cobweb-fine hair back from her forehead, never stopping.
It took nearly half an hour, but Heddy's screams died out into cries, then into groans, and finally into a series of piteous whimpering sounds. Her eyes stayed locked on Amara's face, as if desperate to find some kind of reference point. With a final shudder, Heddy fell silent, and her eyes closed, tears welling.
Amara glanced up at Bernard and Harger. "I think she'll be all right. Perhaps you gentlemen should leave me here with her for a little while. Let me take care of her."
Harger nodded at once and rose. Bernard looked less certain, but he nodded to Amara as well and walked over to Captain Janus and Centurion Giraldi, speaking in low tones.
"Can you hear me, Heddy?" Amara asked quietly.
The girl nodded.
"Can you look at me, please?"
Heddy whimpered and started trembling.
"All right," Amara soothed. "It's all right. You don't have to. You can talk to me with your eyes closed."
Heddy's head twitched into a nod, and she kept on shaking with silent sobs. Tears bled down over her cheekbones to fall upon the courtyard's stones. "Anna," she said after a moment. She twitched her head up off the ground, looking toward the sounds of crying children. "Anna's crying."
"Shhh, be still," Amara said. "The children are fine. We're taking care of them."
Heddy sank down again, trembling from the effort it had taken to partially sit up. "All right."
"Heddy," Amara said, keeping her voice smooth and quiet. "I need to know what happened to you. Can you tell me?"
"B-bardos," Heddy said. "Our new smith. Large man. Red beard."
"I do not know him," Amara said.
"Good man. Aric's closest friend. He sent us down into that chamber. Said that he was going to make sure that we weren't..." Heddy's face twisted in a hideous grimace of agony. "Weren't taken. Like the others."
"Taken?" Amara said quietly. "What do you mean?"
The young woman's voice became agony grinding in her throat. "Taken. Changed. Them and not them. Not Aric. Not Aric." She curled into a tight ball. "Oh, my Aric. Help us, help us, help us."
A huge, gentle hand settled on her shoulder, and Amara glanced back up at Doroga's quiet frown.
"Let her be," he said.
"We've got to know what happened."
Doroga nodded. "I will tell you. Let her rest."
Amara frowned up at the big Marat. "How do you know?"
He rose and squinted around the steadholt. "Tracks outside," he said. "Leading away. Shoes, no-shoes, male and female. Cattle, sheep, horses, gargants." He gestured around the steadholt. "Vord came in here two, maybe three days ago. Took the first. Not everyone at once. First they take a few."
Amara shook her head, her hand still resting on the curled form of the weeping holder. "Took. What do you mean?"
"The vord," Doroga said. "They get inside you. Go in through the mouth, nose, ear. Burrow in. Then you die. But they have your body. Look like you. Can act like you."
Amara stared at Doroga, sickened. "What?"
"Don't know what they look like exactly," Doroga said. "The vord have many forms. Some like the Keepers of Silence. Like spiders. But they can be little. Mouthful." He shook his head. "The Takers are small, so they can get inside you."
"Like... some sort of worm? A parasite."
Doroga