Renica returned a while later, staring with disgust at the soldier sobbing weakly on the ground. The man’s knee was huge and purplish, blackening bruises covered his stomach, and one ear was gone entirely from when he’d decided to clam up during our conversation. I’d had to nearly drown him three more times, as well, and the last, I’d pulled him free just before he passed out and sucked in a lungful of water involuntarily. That broke his spirit completely, and he sang like a canary for me. Once I’d finished, I knew what I needed to – and gained a new skill getting the info.

Skill Gained: Interrogation

Rank: Adept 4

Benefits: +1.5% per rank to all attempts to persuade or force another to answer your questions, any creature you successfully interrogate is left either charmed by or frightened of you for one day per skill rank, depending on the method you use.

To be honest, the skill was kind of a mixed blessing. I’d never really been a fan of interrogations, either giving or receiving them. Killing a person was one thing, but torturing them was totally different. That was another reason I preferred to use the fear of dying as a motivator: while I wouldn’t shy away from hurting someone to get what I needed, it wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed. I knew plenty of people who did – you meet people like that in my former line of work fairly often – but torture always left me feeling a bit dirty.

“Did he talk?” Renica asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’ll tell you about it on our way. Did they take the road?”

“They did. I counted another fifteen soldiers, two of them mounted on cerbaks. It looks like they’re heading for Nadmeva to the north, and probably to Panja from there.” She looked down at the man. “Can I kill him now?”

“P-please,” the man sobbed, his words broken and his voice harsh from screaming and crying, “you said you would let me go!”

“No, I said I would cut you free.” I knelt beside him and drew my knife, using a touch of solar raju to easily part the ropes I’d bound around his wrists and ankles. “There. You’re free.” I stood and looked at Renica. “He’s all yours.”

“No!” he screamed, lifting his numbed hands and trying to scramble away from the woman. “Don’t! I promise…!”

Renica’s crossbow rose and cut off whatever it was he planned to promise her. The bolt plunged into the center of his forehead, and his eyes rolled back. He collapsed limply to the ground, his legs kicking and spasming for a few moments before falling still. Renica’s wore an expression harder than stone as she stared at him, and I recalled her thoughts about killing another human before we met the lomoraji. She’d faced that moment, and she’d made her choice. It couldn’t be unmade, and she’d be changed for it, but then, the change might be for the better. I supposed only time would tell.

“Will they travel through the night?” I asked her, jarring her from her contemplation of the fallen man. She turned to look at me, her eyes hard as agates, then shook her head.

“No. Even with the Vanator, they’d lose too many people to the hungering. They’ll stop and make camp…” She looked up at the sun hanging low on the horizon. “In fact, they probably already have.”

“Good.” I looked out at the bodies. “Let’s collect all the crossbows and bolts we can find and carry. Once they’re down for the night, we’re going to do some hunting.”

We gathered eight crossbows from the fallen soldiers and several quivers of bolts, binding them together into a pair of bundles. I also collected as many knives as I could comfortably wear, while Renica took a long spear from one of the dead soldiers. The silver moon hung low in the sky as we finally left the village, walking through the forest to the side of the road, out of easy sight of any scouts they might have left behind.

Renica stopped at the edge of the village and looked back, staring at the carnage for long moments. “I’ll never come back, will I?” she said softly.

“You could,” I told her. “Viora could rebuild the Altar of the Sun, and you could recruit people from the nearby villages to join you. You could even be elder if you wanted.”

She shook her head. “The hungering will feast here tonight, and that’ll leave the ground tainted. No one will want to live here for at least a generation.” She sighed. “This was my home, Ionat. It’s hard to say goodbye.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. I’d said goodbye to my home long ago, and it hadn’t been all that difficult for me, but Renica wasn’t me. She loved this place and these people, and they’d loved her in return. I could imagine that letting all that go was difficult. She looked at the village for long moments before turning resolutely away.

“We should go before the hungering arrive,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to see it when they get here and find…” Her voice fell silent, but I understood. The hungering would feast on the villagers’ bodies, and their corpses – and the blood pooled throughout the place – would draw the creatures from miles distant. I wouldn’t want to watch my friends getting eaten, either.

“Lead on,” I told her, holding a hand out along the road.

We marched in silence, moving swiftly but not hurriedly beneath the silvery moon. I concentrated on my steps, being careful to place my feet only where there were no twigs or broad leaves to crackle, bringing each foot down smoothly without tiptoeing. I wasn’t quite as quiet as Renica, but I was close. The screams of the hungering rose around us, and I felt the first of them press against the barrier of my turning, pushing at it only briefly before turning aside. They could doubtless smell the blood from the village, and I was sure that they would rather pursue that than find out what was behind the wall blocking their passage.

Renica moved purposefully, and I watched her carefully as we passed through the forest. She kept reaching out to touch Vikarik, her hand stroking the dog’s collar lightly, and every time she did, her expression turned faintly regretful. When she wasn’t touching the dog, her eyes shifted between anger, determination, and uncertainty. I had a feeling I knew what was going through her head. I’d seen it before in people seeking vengeance, and while I understood what she was thinking, I needed her to act the way I wanted, not the way she probably intended.

I hurried to walk beside the hunter and spoke without looking at her. “You understand that we’re going to hunt these people, right?” I murmured just loud enough for her to hear me.

“I do,” she nodded tersely.

“That means that we have to be careful,” I went on. “We can’t let our emotions get the best of us. This isn’t about making those soldiers pay or performing any silly heroics; it’s about killing them and rescuing Viora.”

“It’s also about making them pay,” she said through gritted teeth. “You saw what they did to the village…”

“And for that, they need to die,” I cut her off, then looked at her closely. “No one else needs to die with them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with almost overblown casualness.

I opened my mouth to reply, then paused. She was reacting emotionally; I wouldn’t be able to reason with her. I needed to approach this in a way she’d understand at a deeper level.

“Think of the soldiers as a pack of cairniks that attacked the village and killed everyone,” I finally said. “They’re a danger that has to be eliminated, and it needs to be done as quickly and effectively as possible before they can hurt anyone else.”

“Anyone else?” she repeated, glancing quizzically at me.

I shrugged. “I can’t imagine that these soldiers think they’ll be able to drag Viora through the next village without creating all sorts of problems. They’ll either have to avoid the village entirely, or…” I left my words hanging, but I saw that she understood their import. Her expression grew stricken, and she took a deep breath.

“I – I understand,” she said after a moment, then hesitated. “Ionat, they have a Vanator with them. I don’t think we’ll be able to stop them, no matter what.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I replied. “But to have a chance, we’ll need to hunt them, carefully and quietly, striking from the darkness.” I stopped walking, and she took a couple more steps before turning to face me.

“Listen to me, Renica. I know what you’re feeling right now. You’re angry, but you’re also in a lot of pain. It’s tempting to try and end that hurt, but you won’t help anyone by getting yourself killed.” I stepped closer to her. “It’s easy to die. Strength is living with something you shouldn’t have to and carrying that burden even when you want to set it down.”

She stared at me, and her eyes grew bright and glassy in the moonlight. She dashed at them with her hand, then nodded. “I get it. We have to do this, to protect everyone.”

“Exactly.” I started walking. “Besides, once you hear what I learned, you’ll want to stick around, anyway.”

“That’s right, you haven’t told me what you found out,” she said, falling into step beside me. “What did that cursed soldier say?”

“The soldiers came from Panja,” I said. “Apparently, the Vanator appeared in the city a couple days ago and commandeered this unit. He told them that they were coming to purge a renegade Sorvaraji who’d become a Lomoraji.”

“That’s absurd!” Renica protested. “the Sorvaraji would never use lunar magic!”

“I know that, and you know that, but the soldiers didn’t. They’d been told that Viora corrupted the entire village, and the only way to stop it was to purge the entire thing. Their orders were to kill everyone and burn it all to the ground.”

“But – why? Why would they think that?”

“I don’t know, but I can guess,” I hedged. “I think that someone wanted the village of Borava to disappear.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense! Borava is a small village; we aren’t important, and we don’t have anything of value. Why would anyone care about us – or want to destroy us?”

“I’ve got an idea about that,” I nodded. “The Vanator arrived two days ago, mounted. I’m guessing that he left wherever he came from two days before that.” I looked at her seriously. “The day of the augury.”

“The augury?”

“Yeah. Remember how Viora said that the man in the augury saw her? I’ll bet he also learned where she was – and sent this Vanator and these soldiers here to silence her.”

“Then why not just seize the Sorvaraji? Why kill everyone?”

I shrugged. “He couldn’t know who might have heard the augury, or who she might have told. Plus, do you think the village would have stood by and watched Viora be taken?”

She frowned and shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t.”

“Exactly. It’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense.”

Her face looked even paler than normal in the moonlight as she spoke. “Who – who would do that?” she asked.

“Better question: who could? Who could command a Vanator to come wipe out a village like this? Who could cover up the fact that it happened and make sure no word leaked out?”

“I – I have no idea.”

“Neither do I, but I intend to find out.” I looked at her. “I’d love some help with that. I could use a guide – and someone handy with a crossbow. Know anyone like that?”

She snorted. “Let’s get through this, first, then we’ll talk.”

We continued on through the darkness, lapsing back into silence. I still felt the hungering testing my shield as we moved, never in great numbers and never very seriously. After an hour or so, though, I felt a larger number of them pressing on the barrier. At first it was a handful, but soon, I felt at least twenty of the creatures at the edge of the turning shield, and to my surprise, none of them attempted to batter past it. Instead, they seemed focused elsewhere – and I had a feeling I knew where that was.

“Renica,” I said softly, grabbing her arm to stop her. “I think we’re near the camp – and I think they’re being attacked by hungering.”

She stopped and looked around, seeming to get her bearings, then pointed ahead and to my right. “That way?” she asked, and I nodded in reply. She grunted. “They’ve taken Blacktop, then. Good place for a camp.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a hill, but the top of it looks like it was burned off, and it ends in a sheer drop of twenty feet or so. Legends say that the First Emperor took the hill with his magic a thousand years ago, and his spells obliterated half the hill.”

“Can we approach it unseen?” I asked.

She shrugged. “If we cross the road, we could come up behind it without being seen – but we’ll be facing a rough twenty-foot climb to get to the top.”

I frowned. “What about a nearby elevation? One we could hit them from?”

She crouched down and cleared the needles from a patch of soil, then drew a half circle. “This is Blacktop.” She poked two dots in the ground down and to the left of the semicircle, then traced a line that led past the circle, between it and the dots.

“We’re here,” she added, tapping the small spots. “This is the road. Theoretically, we could get right up to the edge of the road on this side and see them, but that’s the only path up to the top, so I’m sure they’ve built a barricade or trench there.”

She tapped the flat side of the circle. “Over here, the trees end thirty feet from the cliff. It’s easy to see anyone on top of the hill from there, but it’s a tough climb even without people sending bolts and arrows your way.”

“And the sides?” I prompted.

“Difficult but passable. The ground is rocky and steep, but someone could make their way up it and stay mostly in the trees until they were ten feet from the top.”

I sighed. “Which means they’ll have barricaded it, as well.” I looked at the image, frowning. The Vanator chose a good spot for his camp. It would be hard to assault it with just the two of us; if we stayed on the sheer back of the hill, we could probably kill a few of the soldiers, but we wouldn’t be able to take the camp. If we tried to go up the front or sides, we’d run into a defended barrier. If I’d had another dozen people, we probably could have hit them from all sides, but…

I stopped. “Sara, my turning shield…”

“It should work,” the AI replied to my unspoken question. “I can’t be certain, though. Twilight magic isn’t commonly known in this world, so I don’t have the best grasp of it.”

“Then we’ll have to hope for the best, won’t we?” I turned my thoughts away from the AI and grinned at Renica. “I think we can do this, but we’re going to need some extra help,” I told her.

“Help?” She looked around. “Ionat, the next village is a night’s travel. They’ll be long gone by the time we get there, get anyone, and come back – and they won’t have to camp tomorrow night, since this is the last night of the close moon.”

“We’ve got all the help we need,” I chuckled. “Here’s what I need you to do…”