Adena snapped. “I’ve laid out the dead plenty of times in my life.”
Nic gave an unhappy growl. “What about Rhela? Surely she hasn’t had to deal with something like this.”
“Who do you think took care of her parents when it was their time?” Adena said quietly as her mate lifted her to the ground. “We may not be warriors, but don’t think we’re weak.”
Gavin dismounted the air sled and reached back to help Esme, but she vaulted over the side and strode off through the ruins of camp, head swiveling quickly from side to side as she took in the disaster.
Rhela’s hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide at the scene. Jormoi wrapped an arm around her shoulders and for a moment she leaned into him. “I’m alright,” she whispered, then straightened and ran after Esme and Adena.
“I guess they know what they need to do,” Jormoi said grimly. “And we’ve got our own mission. Find the trail of those children.”
Nic looked around at the carnage, face twisted in disgust. “These people didn’t have a chance to fight back. It doesn’t even look like they had weapons, other than cooking knives.”
He stomped back to his sled. “I’ll see what I can spot from above.”
“We’ll catch the scent down here,” Jormoi added. “One way or the other, we’ll find where they went.”
“Matching spirals for the initial search pattern?” Gavin asked, then spotted Esme and the two other women picking their way through the wreckage back to them.
Esme’s face was pale, and drawn, but her determination was clear in the set of her chin.
“Can one of you help us…” she faltered and Rhela took her hand. “Help us with the bodies,” Esme finished. “Some are still caught underneath wrecked caravans. We won’t be able to dig them all out.”
Jormoi looked at Gavin and nodded. “I’ve got it; you go help them.”
In a cloud of blue lightning he shifted.
Jormoi’s sand cat form twisted once around Rhela, head butting her stomach, then bounding away to circle the camp.
Rhela and Adena exchanged panicked glances, but Esme said nothing.
She closed her eyes, opened them again, looking nowhere but directly at Gavin.
“Later I’m going to have questions about that. But right now, I don’t care. I need your help.”
He wondered how much it had cost her to ask for assistance. To admit she couldn’t do it all alone.
“And you’ll have it.” he answered, jaw set.
4
Life was made of rhythm and routine. The long ambling stride she used to keep up with the caravans. The slow, steady search for the plants and herbs needed for medicines, candles and dyes.
The gentle, easy routine of setting up camp, caring for the horses, breaking it all down again.
This should have been no different.
But it was. Terribly so.
Each family in her clan had their own caravan.
Each had been destroyed, burned and hacked at.
“It’s like someone hated the very existence of this camp,” Rhela said shuddering in the dusk.
Adena frowned, eyes calculating. “It seems clear it was meant to look like a Haleru attack.”
Surprise pulled Esme’s attention away from the flame-scorched green and yellow panel embedded in the ground before her.
The door to Beatrice and Yanni’s home.
They’d been madly in love for as long as she could remember. Beatrice had just finished repainting their caravan while they were at the market in Malterresy.
They’d found Beatrice’s body already. Yanni’s was sure to be somewhere near.
“The beast men?” Esme answered. “I don’t think anyone has seen them on these plains for years.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Adena said. “Those darts Gavin brought back weren’t poisoned, weren’t even the right shape. And if Nic and the others haven’t picked up the scent of the Haleru, they weren’t here.”
“But who would want to frame them for this?” Rhela asked.
Gavin returned, another body cradled gently in his arms.
“Looks like he fought back,” he said grimly as he lay Yanni down next to Beatrice’s still form. “Not that it did much good.”
Esme took another length of the fabric that she and the women had scavenged from the wreckage, began the job of winding it around the body.
“No one in the clan was much for fighting. Hunting, building things, telling stories.” She paused, trapped in memories. “Yanni carved toys, beautiful intricate things that always made the children laugh.”
Her throat tightened and the words caught.
Nothing really left to say, anyway.
Gavin rested one large hand against her shoulder, then went back to bring another body.
The three women worked in near silence, straightening the clothes as best as they could, washing faces, still