Free Chaos Rises by Melinda Brasher Page B

who ran for the healer.
He was the one who later charmed the ruffled traveler into not
calling on the baron's soldiers to settle the matter. And he was
the one who spent all the next afternoon helping her father fix the
door.
    When out alone with her sheep, she couldn't
help hating the beasties a little, since they took her away from
Kreg. Nevertheless, if they stayed too long in her little field
near the village, they'd graze it to stubble, so she often took
them far beyond, spending a few nights in the rocky hills where
others rarely grazed. She'd strap a bedroll to her back and sleep
beneath the milky light of the stars, a knife close at hand in case
her sleep thoughts summoned a badger or a rock rat or—worst of
all—another hill tiger. Most nights nothing worse interrupted her
sleep than a few biting insects or curious winged things she never
saw.
    One clear evening, however, just as she was
drifting off to sleep, she heard a whuffle near her head and felt
hot breath against her ear. She tried to get up, but the bedroll
tangled around her legs and she found herself on hands and knees
facing down a wild boar. Its evil eyes glinted behind the curving
foot-long tusks. She grabbed for her knife and slashed at it, but
it simply tilted its head sharply, slicing one tusk against her
knife arm. She pulled her arm back, bloody, and kicked away the
blankets that trapped her, jumping over to the fire ring, where
she'd left a few long sticks. The boar didn't charge. Like so many
other summoned animals, it looked rather dazed, inclined to stay
where it was until it assessed the situation. She waved her arms
and her firewood stick and stomped her feet and yelled at it to
leave, but instead of bolting, it began nosing around her
campsite.
    It found her bag of provisions, gulped down
the ham with one snort, gnawed on some carrots, found them not to
its liking, and left slivered bits of bright orange in a three foot
radius around the now-slobbery bag. Finally, Hala charged, stick
brandished. It turned, flipping its runty little tail, and charged
into her flock of dozing sheep.
    "No! Stop!" The first bleating sheep tempted
the boar into hideous mischief, as it ran back and forth like a
madman, scattering every last one of her sheep.
    When finally the boar disappeared, so had her
entire flock.
    She wrapped the cut on her arm and wandered
the rocky hillside for hours, ardently thinking of her flock,
trying to summon them. Three popped up nearly immediately, feet
muddy and eyes blank. Most of the rest trickled slowly in, along
with a white owl and a chubby rodent that kept just at the edge of
her sight. She slept for a while, uneasy, waiting until morning to
look for the last few wayward sheep. It was nearly noon by the time
she found them all.
    That's why she was late that day. Why
darkness fell before she even came within sight of home. Why she
wasn't there with everyone else when it happened.
    She'd just about decided to spend another
night on the road and make her way home in the light. Then she saw
the glow. A red sunset where the sun had long gone to sleep.
    "What's that?" she asked Patchy, the
followingest of her followers. Patchy baaaed conversationally. The
village hadn't planned any bonfire celebrations.
    "Hurry up," she called to the sheep behind
her, and picked up her pace.
    The muted glow grew murkier as she walked,
clouded now with plumes of black smoke she was starting to smell.
Stinky and Stumble refused to go any closer. She left them behind.
At the crest of the last hill, she looked down at what should have
been her village. All she saw were flames leaping skyward. She
could hear the screams now, screams for help and mercy.
    She dropped everything and ran, the tinkle of
her flock's bells fading behind her. Even Patchy hung back. The
village disappeared in the trees again, but the glow didn't. Nor
did the screams. Or the smoke that burned her eyes.
    She broke free of the trees into one of
Farmer Torik's fields, one that