Chapter 10
"So, who wants to read next?" Will asked, hoping to diffuse the awkward tension between him and Halt.
"I would actually." Called Horace from the opposite end of the room. Will tossed the book over and relaxed back in his chair. Everyone was in a fever of anticipation at what was going to happen next in the book. Cassandra more than ever was wishing to see when she would be introduced and what the other characters thought of her. Horace took a deep breath and everyone in the room looked apprehensively at him. Seeing them he blushed slightly.
"Oh come on don't worry I'm not going to kill you with my voice." The others breathed easier.
"WHERE THE DEVIL IS EVERYONE?" GILAN BROUGHTBLAZEto a halt and looked around the deserted border post. There was a small guardhouse by the side of the road, barely large enough to keep two or three men sheltered from the wind. Further back was a slightly larger garrison house. Normally, at a small, remote border post like this, there would be a garrison of half a dozen men, who would live in the larger building and take shifts at the guardhouse by the road.
"That's odd what happened to all of them?" Arald was extremely curious which surprised Will as that was usually his personality trait.
"Well whatever it was, an important fief like Celtica can't afford not to have guards in the guardhouse." Duncan said worriedly. Horace continued reading to ease them of their tension.
Like the majority of buildings in Celtica, both structures were built in the gray sintered stone of the region, flat river stones that had been split lengthwise, with roof tiles of the same material. Wood was scarce in Celtica. Even fires for heating used coal or peat whenever possible. Whatever timber was available was needed for shoring up the tunnels and galleries of Celtica's iron and coal mines.
Will looked around him uneasily, peering into the scrubby heather that covered the windswept hills as if expecting a sudden horde of Celts to rise up from it. There was something unnerving about the near silence of the spot—there was no sound but the quiet sighing of the wind through the hills and heather.
"Perhaps they're between shifts?" he suggested, his voice seeming unnaturally loud.
"Will's voice is always unnaturally loud honestly I don't know how he does it." Jenny said in wonder. Will frowned in mock anger and contemplated whether to throw a cushion at Jenny or not. Gilan however caught his eye and as if seeing the thought processing in Will's brain, shook his head warningly. Everyone at the table laughed.
"During his apprenticeship he never shut up." Halt added with a severe expression as though the fact caused him pain. Everyone burst out laughing harder save for Will. Alyss and Pauline were the only two who managed to keep a straight face, though Alyss had a tiny smirk at the corners of her lips.
Gilan shook his head. "It's a border post. It should be garrisoned at all times."
He swung down from the saddle, making a motion for Will and Horace to stay mounted. Tug, sensing Will's uneasiness, sidestepped nervously in the road. Will calmed him with a gentle pat on the neck. The little horse's ears went up at his master's touch and he shook his head, as if to deny that he was in any way edgy.
"He always was in denial when it came to admitting his fright." Halt said. He knew only too well of the disagreements he and the little horse had when it came to the amount of apples a horse deserved.
"So are all our horses." Gilan said while laughing. "They all have an extreme sense of pride it's almost human like it's uncanny."
"Well Aberlard doesn't but I guess that comes from being the most mature horse." Halt said a little smugly. Pauline eyed him wearily, already noticing the flush in both the younger ranger's cheeks. Discreetly she hinted Horace to read on so they could avoid a full fledged war.
"Could they have been attacked and driven off?" Horace asked. His mindset always worked toward fighting, which Will supposed was only natural in a Battleschool apprentice.
"Of course it is. Well that and food." Cassandra said seriously. All of Horace's close friends started laughing, knowing from first hand experience his love of food. Horace blushed a little in embarrassment and was about to come to his defence when Jenny did it for him.
"Yes well it's people like Horace that give chefs like me a good business." She said earnestly.
"Don't sell yourself short Jenny even people who aren't like Horace love your cooking, everyone loves your cooking." Gilan said enthusiastically. Jenny blushed while Cassandra smiled at the byplay between the couple. Nearly everyone in the room were already wondering why those two hadn't gotten married yet.
Gilan shrugged as he pushed open the door of the guardhouse and peered inside.
"Maybe," he said, looking around the interior. "But there doesn't seem to be any sign of fighting."
He leaned against the doorway, frowning. The guardhouse was a single-roomed building, with minimal furnishing of a few benches and a table. There was nothing here to give him any clue as to where the occupants had gone.
"It's only a minor post," he said thoughtfully. "Perhaps the Celts have simply stopped manning it. After all, there's been a truce between Araluen and Celtica for over thirty years now." He pushed himself away from the doorway and jerked a thumb toward the garrison house. "Maybe we'll find something down there," he said.
The two boys dismounted. Horace tethered his horse and the pack pony to the counterweighted bar that could swing down to close the road. Will simply let Tug's reins fall to the ground. The Ranger horse was trained not to stray. He took his bow from the leather bow scabbard behind the saddle and slung it across his shoulders. Naturally, it was already strung. Rangers always travelled with their bows ready for use. Horace, noticing the gesture, loosened his sword slightly in its scabbard and they set off after Gilan for the garrison house.
Horace reflected how much he had learned from Will and the fellow rangers in the past decade and how much he owed them. Hastily he continued reading as everyone in the room looked at him weirdly while he had paused.
The small stone building was neat, clean and deserted. But here at least there were signs that the occupants had left in a hurry. There were a few plates on a table, bearing the dried-out remains of food, and several closet doors hung open. Items of clothing were scattered on the floor in the dormitory, as if their owners had hurriedly crammed a few belongings into packs before leaving. Several of the bunks were missing blankets.
Gilan ran a forefinger along the edge of the dining room table, leaving a wavy line in the layer of dust that had gathered there. He inspected the tip of his finger and pursed his lips.
"They didn't leave recently," he said.
Horace, who had been peering into the small supply room under the stairs, started at the sound of the Ranger's voice, bumping his head on the low doorsill.
"How can you tell?" he asked, more to cover his own embarrassment than out of real curiosity.
"Oh dear Horace, really you are an embarrassing fellow aren't you?" Will asked happily.
"Shut up." Horace replied. Though that got Alyss to thinking.
"Why is it that boys are always ashamed to admit they're wrong or that they did something embarrassing or weak?" She mused. All the other men around her shook their heads at the obliviousness of the girls before them.
"Well obviously it is to retain our dignity and manliness." Gilan said, as if the answer were obvious.
"Says the man who found the head of department's relationship 'sweet'." Alyss said while Gilan blushed.
"Well no one ever said Gilan was actually manly." Halt added, supporting Alyss. Everyone laughed including Jenny while Gilan continued to frown.
"Well the rest of us are manly." Said Horace evenly. Cassandra was about to retort to that when Duncan stopped the intense fight that could have broken out and ushered Horace to continue reading.
Gilan swept an arm around the room.
"Celts are neat people. This dust must have settled since they left. At a guess, I'd say the place has been empty for at least a month."
"Maybe it's like you said," Will suggested, coming down the steps from the command room. "Maybe they decided they didn't need to keep this post manned anymore."
Gilan nodded several times. But his expression showed he wasn't convinced.
"That wouldn't explain why they left in a hurry," he said. He swept his arm around the room. "Look at all of this—the food on the table, the open closets, the clothes scattered on the floor. When people close down a post like this, they clean up and take their belongings with them. Particularly Celts. As I said, they're very orderly."
He led the way outside again and swept his gaze around the deserted landscape, as if hoping to find some clue to the puzzle there. But there was nothing visible except their own horses, idly cropping the short grass that grew by the guardhouse.
"The map shows the nearest village is Pordellath," he said. "It's a little out of our way, but perhaps we can find out what's been going on here."
Pordellath was only five kilometres away. Because of the steep nature of the land, the path wound and zigzagged up the hillsides. Consequently, they had almost reached the little village before it came in sight. It was late in the day and both Will and Horace were feeling the pangs of hunger. They hadn't stopped for their normal noon meal, initially because they'd been in a hurry to reach the border post, then because they had pressed on to Pordellath. There would be an inn in the village and both boys were thinking fondly of a hot meal and cool drinks. As a result of this preoccupation, they were surprised when Gilan reined in as the village came into sight around the shoulder of a hill, barely two hundred meters away.
"What the hell is going on here?" he asked. "Look at that!"
Will and Horace looked. For the life of him, Will couldn't see what might be bothering the young Ranger.
"Of course there are many instances when Will is oblivious." Cassandra added jokingly.
"You don't have to tell me." Alyss grunted in knowledge. Will turned to both ladies surprised by this accusation.
"What are you talking about? I am observant otherwise I wouldn't be a ranger." He had no idea what they were talking about, though Halt and Pauline had a faint idea.
"Oh you're observant but you're also oblivious." Alyss replied. Will was about to speak when she interrupted him. "Oh come on! It took you years to admit that you loved me even though all the while I was sending you hints and then it took you another couple of years for you to propose to me and that was only because Horace had the courage to do so first." Will opened his mouth several times, like a suffocating fish while the others in the room nodded agreement. Horace was the most smug, smiling to himself at the memory of his proposal. Cassandra noticed.
"I don't know what you're smiling about, at least Will got the words out you were babbling like a monkey for ages until you had the guts to blurt it out to me, and even then your words sounded choked." Cassandra commented. Everyone laughed especially Will. He was glad to know he wasn't alone in the embarrassment of proposing. Gilan on the other hand was secretly and studiously taking mental notes of what not to do when proposing.
"I don't see anything," he admitted. Gilan turned to him.
"Exactly!" he agreed. "Nothing! No smoke from the chimneys. No people in the streets. It looks as empty as the border post!"
He nudged Blaze with his knees and the bay horse broke into a canter on the stony road. Will followed, with Horace's horse a little slower to respond. Strung out in a line, they clattered into the village, finally drawing rein in the small market square.
There wasn't much to Pordellath. Just the short main street by which they'd entered, lined with houses and shops on either side, and widening into the small square at the end. It was dominated by the largest structure, which was, in Celtic fashion, the Riadhah's dwelling. The Riadhah was the hereditary village headman—a combined clan chief, mayor and sheriff. His authority was absolute and he ruled unchallenged over the villagers.
That is, when there were any villagers for him to rule. Today there was no Riadhah. There were no villagers. Only the faint, dying echoes of the horses' hooves on the cobbled surface of the square.
"Hello!" Gilan shouted, and his voice echoed down the narrow main street, bouncing off the stone buildings, then reaching out to the surrounding hills.
"Oh—oh—oh…" it went, gradually tailing away into silence. The horses shifted nervously again. Will was reluctant to seem to correct the Ranger, but he was uneasy at the way he was advertising their presence here.
"Maybe you shouldn't do that?" he suggested. Gilan glanced at him, a trace of his normal good humor returning as he sensed the reason for Will's discomfort.
"Why's that?" he asked.
"Well," Will said, glancing nervously around the deserted market square, "if somebody has taken away the people here, maybe we don't want them to know that we've arrived."
Gilan shrugged. "I think it's a little late for that," he said. "We came galloping in here like the King's cavalry, and we've been travelling the road completely in the open. If anybody was looking out for us, they would have already seen us."
"I suppose so," said Will doubtfully.
Horace, meanwhile, had edged his horse up close to one of the houses and was leaning down from the saddle to peer in under the low windows, trying to see inside. Gilan noticed the movement.
"Let's take a look around," he said, and dismounted.
Horace wasn't terribly eager to follow his example.
"What if this is some kind of plague or something?" he said.
"A plague? How on earth did you get to that conclusion?" Cassandra asked genuinely bewildered.
"Well I was young at the time and that was the first thing I thought of I mean Will thought the same thing." Horace blustered to his laughing wife. Will turned around slowly to face his friend.
"You know one of these days I'm going to take offense to all the times you reference to me whenever you make a stupid decision in this book." Will said trying to get the anger out of his voice. "Why is it you guys always reference to me whenever you do something stupid?" He asked with curiosity. The others in the room shrugged nonchalantly.
"Probably because you are always associated with doing something stupid so now whenever anyone does something silly we reference them to you." Cassandra said in all seriousness. Halt nodded vigorously in agreement.
"Hear hear." He said. Will knew they were joking from the muffled laughter and the joking tone and relished the chance to get them back.
"A plague?" asked Gilan.
Horace swallowed nervously. "Yes. I mean, I've heard of this sort of thing happening years and years ago; whole towns would be wiped out by a plague that would sweep in and just…sort of…kill people where they stood." As he said it, he was edging his horse away from the building, and out to the centre of the square. Will inadvertently began to follow suit. The moment Horace had raised the idea, he'd had pictures of the three of them lying dead in the square, faces blackened, tongues protruding, eyes bulging from their final agonies.
"So this plague could just come out of thin air?" Gilan asked calmly. Horace nodded several times.
"Well Horace I don't know what tales you have been listening to but I, personally have never heard of a plague that comes out of thin air." Arald said heartily. Horace blushed again in embarrassment and wished embarrassing moments like this were not mentioned in the book.
"Neither have I actually" said Will. Now thinking about his reaction to Horace's statement he fought the urge to burst out laughing. He really did forget how gullible he was during his childhood.
"No one has because such tales are nonsense." Said Halt grumpily. Horace, who felt he had been bullied enough decided to defend himself.
"Hey you never know such things could exist." He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat as Halt eyed him, eyebrow raised.
"Really?" He asked, in a sarcastic tone.
"Yes, I mean once I heard a woman who went out to buy vegetables from the market die because she went too close to the salesman and he had the plague." Horace said triumphantly. He wasn't entirely sure that was the true story but it was worth it to see Halt rise both eyebrows in astonishment. However it was short lived.
"Wait hang on a second." Will said frowning. The story wasn't right he knew. Looking down at the table in concentration he missed Horace's warning signal to drop the matter. "Horace you got it wrong the woman fainted she didn't die and it was only because the salesman farted so horrendously that the entire market was forced to close down, it was because of her proximity to him that she fainted not because of the plague." Will concluded, now nodding at his own facts. The entire room burst out laughing and Halt looked at Horace with an annoyingly superior expression. Horace continued to read to stop them laughing.
"Nobody really knows how they spread," he said. "I've heard that it's the night air that carries plague. Or the west wind, sometimes. But however it travels, it strikes so fast, there's no escape. It simply kills you where you stand."
"Every man, woman and child in its path?" Gilan prompted. Again, Horace's head nodded frantically.
"Everyone. Kills 'em stone dead!"
Will was beginning to feel a lumpy dryness in the back of his throat, even as the other two were speaking. He tried to swallow and his throat felt raspy. He had a moment of panic as he wondered if this wasn't the first sign of the onset of the plague. His breath was coming faster and he almost missed Gilan's next question.
"Oh dear honestly Will you really are quickly influenced by words aren't you?" Asked Pauline gently.
"Well I was young at the time I didn't know what to believe." He said to his defence. Pauline reflected that everyone in the room had blamed their previous mistakes to their age and smiled at their antics.
"And then it just…dissolves the dead bodies away into thin air?" he asked mildly.
Halt nodded appreciatively at Gilan. It took a good teacher to point out the flaws in an idea without being hurtful and he thought once again how good a tutor he would be to an apprentice. Alyss also nodded as she was a woman of great intellect and she hardly believed in anything illogical. She nodded in appreciation to Gilan's tactful use of logic to override Horace and Will's fear.
"That's right!" Horace began, then realized what the Ranger had said. He hesitated, looked around the deserted village and saw no signs of people struck dead where they stood. Will's throat, coincidentally, suddenly lost that lumpy, raspy feeling.
"Of course it lost that raspy feeling it was never there in the first place." Jenny said, smacking Will on the head.
"Oh," said Horace, as he realized the flaw in his theory. "Well, maybe it's a new strain of plague. Maybe it does sort of dissolve the bodies."
Gilan looked at him sceptically, his head to one side.
"Or maybe there were one or two people who were immune, and they buried all the bodies?" Horace suggested.
"And where are those people now?" Gilan asked. Horace shrugged.
"Maybe they were so sad that they couldn't bear to live here anymore," he said, trying to keep the theory alive a little longer. Gilan shook his head.
"Horace, whatever it was that drove the people away from here, it wasn't the plague." He glanced at the rapidly darkening sky. "It's getting late. We'll take a look around, then find a place to stay the night."
"Here?" said Will, his voice cracking with nerves. "In the village?"
Gilan nodded. "Unless you want to camp out in the hills," he suggested. "There's precious little shelter and it usually rains at night in these parts. Personally, I'd rather spend the night under a roof—even a deserted one."
"But…" Will began and then could find no rational way to continue.
"I'm sure your horse would rather spend the evening under cover than out in the rain too," Gilan added gently, and that tipped the balance with Will. His basic instinct was to look after Tug, and it was hardly fair to condemn the pony to a wet, uncomfortable night in the hills just because his owner was afraid of a few empty houses. He nodded and swung down from the saddle.
"Well that is it, the end of the chapter." Concluded Horace. Everyone else yawned tiredly and Duncan as prone to taking hints than ever suggested everyone go to bed and that they read the next chapter in the morning. No one argued with him as they all wandered off to their assigned quarters.
Hey guys sorry for the very late update I've been incredibly busy at the moment and as I said at the beginning I won't be making very regular updates so you're gonna have to sit tight and be patient. I do plan on finishing this book though and hopefully I'll manage it. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and please review!