Free The Elements of Sorcery by Christopher Kellen

help?"
    "Why?" she asked. "Why do you want to help us?"
    I clenched my jaw tightly closed for a moment before speaking. "I don't know."
    It was the truth.
    "Can you think of anyone who might be able to help me?" I asked again.
    "Maybe Palis," she said, her voice quiet and raw. "He was bitten; the night… that night, but they didn't take him."
    "I'll go talk to him," I said. "Where can I find him?"
    "He's the smith," she answered, waving one hand in the direction of the front door to her home.
    With a nod, I rose smoothly to my feet. Almost every instinct I had screamed at me to run; the second time that I'd noticed that particular feeling since I'd met the Arbiter. Beneath all of that, though, there was something within me; a stern voice that said, very clearly: you will help these people .
    When I reached the door that led outside, I looked back. Alina still knelt on the floor, with her back turned to me.
    "I can't save your children," I whispered to her, "But if there's anything that I can do to avenge them, you have my word that I will do it."
    Never before in my life had I made a vow of vengeance. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as I said those words.
    I realized that I meant them.

V
     
    As I stepped out into the chill morning air and closed the door to Alina's home behind me, a vision appeared in my head: an image of the Deadmoon from the night before, looming in the sky, casting everything around it in black and grey.
    It was very nearly full.
    My brain did some quick mental calculations, and I muttered a curse under my breath.
    Tonight was the first night of the full moon; which meant that I had only a short winter's day before the Deadmoon rose, and this Reaper – whatever it was – brought its hounds and descended upon Warsil once again.
    Unless I stopped it, some of these villagers were going to die tonight.
    The sky overhead was iron grey, and the brisk wind that blew through the village bore the promise of snow before the day was out. A small part of me hoped that perhaps if the full moon was invisible, the 'Reaper' might delay his visit in order to have a more dramatic appearance. Nonsense, of course, but it helped to ease the rising panic for a moment.
    It didn't take long to find the smithy, located just across the snow-coated square from Alina's humble cottage. The forge was dark as I approached, but smoke curled from the chimney attached to the main part of the house.
    Drawing up my courage and adopting an expression that I hoped was a stern one, I knocked on the door. I had admitted my ruse to Alina, but until it became necessary, I did not intend to allow the belief in my Arbiter-hood to dissipate from this small community.
    The door cracked open, and an eye peered out. "What?"
    My jaw tightened as I prepared a scathing reply, but it seemed the expression was all that was necessary. "Master Arbiter!" the voice cried in shock, and the door opened the rest of the way.
    The man who stood just inside was stout, seeming as broad at the shoulders as he was tall. He peered up at me from beneath bushy brown eyebrows, a startled look on his face. It was impossible to miss the pronounced limp that he walked with as he shuffled back away from the door, holding it open for me.
    With as much confidence as I could muster, I strode through the doorway, and the burly man closed it behind me. "Palis?" I asked.
    "That's me," he grunted. As he spoke, I recognized the voice – it was the man who'd indirectly threatened to hang me the previous night. My mind immediately doubled down on the promise to maintain the Arbiter façade.
    "I need information," I said, hoping that I sounded imperious enough. "Alina has explained the situation. She said you had a close encounter with this 'Reaper'."
    "True enough," he answered. "Damn hound grabbed me and tried to haul me off, when we tried to kill the thing four months ago." He reached down and pulled the leg of his trouser up over his right knee, which was badly scarred.