Free Willow by Wayland Drew Page B

mounded graves, the scattered bones—all evidence of what Daikinis had done to each other at this place. One glance told Willow why his ancestors had fled south, away from the hosts of large men, to find peace in the glens of Nelwyn Valley.
    He shut his eyes and turned away, hugging the child close. “I don’t want to go there, Vohnkar,” he whispered. “I can’t. I can’t.”
    The warrior laid a firm hand on his shoulder. “You must,” he said. “You have a duty.”
    Down they went together. With Burglekutt keeping to the rear, they descended the last slope and approached the Daikini crossroads.
    The sun had just set. Reflecting off low clouds, the afterglow drenched the place in red. Close up, it was even more horrible than it had been from the hilltop. The contorted remains of horses and men lay everywhere, some mere skeletons, some dried black, some fresh and putrefying. Corpses on gibbet ropes swayed as if still caught in the currents of violence that had swept that place. Carrion birds circled, stretching scrawny necks.
    “I don’t like it,” Burglekutt said. “I want to go home.”
    “Quiet!” Vohnkar muttered, his narrow eyes sweeping the crossroads and the hills. “We all want to go home. We’re staying until we’ve done what we came to do.”
    “Well, can we at least get away from them !” Burglekutt pointed toward a high wooden scaffolding directly across the road. Two iron cages hung there from stout chains. A grinning skeleton sat in the closer, draped in rotted rags. One hand gripped the bars and the other dangled through, a finger pointing at them. As the cage swung, the finger swept over them, and back.
    One of the warriors cursed softly.
    “Poor devil!” Vohnkar said. “I wonder what his crime was.”
    “M-maybe just being here?” Willow suggested.
    Vohnkar shook his head. “Not even Daikinis do that to ordinary folk,” he said. “Only to the really bad ones.”
    Willow squinted at the other cage, but it hung farther back in the gloom, and he could see nothing but a pile of rags in the bottom.
    “Let’s move away from them,” Meegosh said in a small voice. “For once I agree with Burglekutt. Those things make me shiver!”
    Vohnkar beckoned. They moved across the road to a little thicket that had somehow escaped ravaging. Here, in the last of the light, they stood in a huddle, looking up and down the highway. The baby began to whimper, and Willow took her out of the basket. “She’s cold,” he said. “We should have a fire.”
    “Fool! Idiot!” Burglekutt hissed. “You want to bring all Nockmaar down on us?”
    Vohnkar shrugged. “Not much danger. Fires are common along here. People stop for the night, camp. Look, there’s one now, down to the east, at the base of that hill. There’s another. Besides, it’s a quiet night and a flat road. We can hear anyone coming from miles away. Willow’s right. The child needs warmth and rest.” He looked around. “Willow, Meegosh, Burglekutt, gather up some firewood before it gets too dark. We’ll keep watch.” He took the child from Willow.
    While the three warriors took up positions, the others spread out and began to gather sticks.
    “Not too far,” Vohnkar called after them. “Keep close enough so we can hear you call. Hurry!”
    “No wood. No wood,” Burglekutt complained, trotting behind Willow.
    “Of course there’s no wood! I’ve picked it all up! Go over there. See? There’s lots there.”
    “It’s dark over there!”
    “No darker than here, Burglekutt! Go on!”
    So exasperated was Willow, so preoccupied with hurrying to gather enough fuel, that he did not notice he was going under the low-sweeping arms of the scaffolding where the iron cages hung. He saw only a sudden richness of good hardwood—wood that would burn down to warm embers. He did not realize when he passed beneath the first of the cages, the one with the leering skeleton. He did not know that he was under the second cage until a puff of