Read Online Stalking Darkness by Lynn Flewelling - Free Book Online

threw on his clothes and ran for the council house with the others.
    Faint, predawn light painted the snow blue, the towers black against it. Snowshoeing through the icy powder, Seregil found the village almost unrecognizable. The storm had buried the towers up to their doorsills, leaving the exposed upper story looking like an ordinary cottage drifted up with snow.
    Shouldering his way through the crowd at the council house, he hurried downstairs to the meeting chamber.
    The central fire had been lit and beside it crouched a woman he hadn’t seen before. Surrounded by a silent, wide-eyed crowd, she clutched a small bundle against her breast, wailing hoarsely.
    Retak’s wife knelt beside her and gently folded back the blanket. Inside lay a dead infant. The stranger clutched the baby fiercely, her hands mottled with frostbite.
    “What happened?” Seregil asked, slipping in beside Retak.
    He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. She staggered into the village a little while ago and no one has been able to get any sense out of her.”
    “That is Vara, my husband’s cousin from Torgud’s village,” a woman cried, pushing her way through the crowd. “Vara, Vara! What’s happened to you?”
    The woman looked up, then threw herself into her kinswoman’s arms. “Strangers!” she cried.
    “They came out of the storm. They refused the feast, killed the headman and his family. Others, many others, my husband, my children—My children!”
    Throwing back her head, she let out a scream of anguish. People gasped and muttered, looking to Retak. “But why?” Retak asked gently, bending over her. “Who were they? What did they want?” Vara covered her eyes and cowered lower. Seregil knelt and placed a hand on her trembling shoulder. “Were they looking for the spirit home?”
    The woman nodded mutely. “But they refused the feast,” he went on softly, feeling a coldness growing in the pit of his stomach. “They affronted the village, and you would not deal with them.” “Yes,” Vara whispered. “And when the killing started, then did you tell them?”
    Tears welled in Vara’s eyes, rolling swiftly down her cheeks. “Partis told them, after they killed his wife,” she sobbed weakly. “He told them of Timan and his clan. He thought the killing would stop. But it didn’t. They laughed, some of them, as they killed us. I could see their teeth through their beards. They laughed, they laughed—“
    Still clutching her dead child, she slumped over in a faint and several women carried her to a pallet by the wall.
    “Who could do such things?” Retak asked in bewilderment.
    “Plenimaran marines,” Seregil growled, and every eye turned to him. “These men are enemies, both to me and to you. They seek the evil that lurks in your spirit home. When they find it, they’ll worship it and sacrifice living people to it.”
    “What can we do?” a woman cried out. “They’ll come here,” a man yelled angrily. “Partis as good as set them upon us!” “Do you have any weapons?” Seregil asked over the rising din. “Nothing but wolf spears and skinning knives. How can we fight such men with those?” “You’re a magician!” shouted Ekrid. “Can’t you kill them with your magic?”
    Caught in a circle of expectant faces, Seregil drew a deep breath. “You’ve all seen the nature of my magic. I have no spells for killing men.”
    He let disappointment ripple through the crowd for an instant, then added, “But I may have something just as effective.”
    “What is that?” the man demanded skeptically. Seregil smiled slightly. “A plan.”
    Retak called a halt at the base of the pass as the first lip of sun showed over the eastern peaks.
    Shradin went ahead to assess the danger. The others—every man, woman, and child of Retak’s village—waited quietly for word to move on.
    Mothers whispered again to their younger children why they must keep silent in the pass. The infants had been given llaki to make them