Free Valley of the Dead by Kim Paffenroth

think, and less suspicious than they would be of a woman.”
    They had reached the point where the road ended by the lake. As Dante waved to the two figures, he felt a sick dread at the thought they might be dead like the people on the ferry. But they weren’t moving about in frenzied hunger, the way the dead always seemed to. They just stood there. One finally waved back. “The plague is abroad,” he shouted to Dante. “Are any of you bitten?”
    “No,” Dante replied. “We can come across one at a time and you can inspect us, if you like.”
    “We shall. But what do you want here? We are hermits and we don’t usually accept visitors, except in extreme situations, and they are never allowed to stay long.”
    “We are traveling west. The army is coming this way and we fear they will kill us. The undead are in the woods. We need shelter for the night. We will move on in the morning.”
    The two figures conferred, then they turned the wheel to lower the drawbridge across the water. When it was in the down position, the one who had spoken before did so again. “Dismount, all of you. You, the one we spoke to, lead your horse across. You other two, stay on the shore.”
    Dante did as he was told. When he was on the other side of the drawbridge with the two figures, he was shocked to see that the one who had not spoken was in fact a woman. A young one at that, about Bogdana’s age, though her hair was cut short, nearly bald, as was the hair of the young man with her. She noticed his surprise. “I will turn around if you like,” she said. “And my brother monk will do the same when your woman comes across.”
    “He can turn around for her if she likes, but no, you needn’t do anything special for me. I just didn’t expect to see women here,” Dante said.
    The man had been looking Dante over and poking him with a staff. “Lift up your frock,” he said, “all the way to your armpits.” Dante reconsidered having the woman turn around, but everything was so weird and outside of normal decency here, he just went ahead and lifted his frock. “Roll your pants up past the knees.”
    He followed the directions, then he was waved on to cross the narrow bridge to the island and wait there. Bogdana was the second across, and although he didn’t see her ask the male monk to turn around, Dante did look away when she was inspected. She joined him on the island, and a few moments later the man and the woman in robes came over with Radovan, after they had raised the drawbridge.
    “Please, follow the trail,” the man said. “Our monastery is on the other side of the island.”
    They did so, leading their tired horses. It was twilight, but nothing here seemed as threatening and unnatural as everything else they had encountered. In a short while, they heard clacking sounds and shouts. Even these, though unexpected, did not have the sound of panic and alarm, but seemed orderly and normal. The three travelers and their escorts emerged from among the trees into an open area in front of the monastery building. Here there were a couple dozen people in grey robes, practicing at fighting each other with wooden staves. They were all ages, from teens to the elderly, and like the pair who had met them at the bridge, there were both men and women among them. They stopped their practicing when they saw the newcomers, and one of the older men approached them.
    The young man who had accompanied them from the bridge explained who they were to the older man, who was bald, with a closely-trimmed beard, and an exceptionally short and wiry build. “Thank you, Brother Jonas and Sister Genya. Please return to the bridge and keep watch there and do not let anyone else across. But you were right to let these in, I think.” He turned to Dante, Bogdana, and Radovan. “Welcome. I am Brother Adam. We are just finishing our evening’s exercises, before dinner and our final prayers. You may make our home your sanctuary for tonight, if you wish