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He grunted but made no other answer, and after a bit picked up their pace so that they fell in with the others Since the others feared speaking to her, and would not look at her, shealone

The sun had risen halfway to noon by the time they reached Four Houses, a scatter of a dozen sheds, huts, pit houses, and four respectable co a round house at each corner with a thatched roof and a rock wall built into storage sheds between A half-dozen adults labored at a ditch, digging with antlers and hauling away the dirt in bark buckets

The war captain of Four Houses was a stout woa and ore the string skirt that e partner By the evidence of the pale birth threads that decorated Ulfrega’s belly above the band of her low-slung skirt, she had survived several pregnancies

Ulfrega led thes, and along a deer trail that led to the Red Deer settlee pits lay quiet under the suely, one of the round houses was entirely burned down to the stone half hile the other stood as fresh and whole as if it had been built a o and lived in only yesterday There was also a stone corral and a hayrick and a very neatly laid out vegetable garden, lush with ripening vegetables Flies buzzed A crow flapped lazily away as they approached Even the village dogs had fled the carnage The village lay ele abandoned corpse

The Red Deer settlers had begun digging a ditch, too, and had gotten a rampart and ditch halfway around the settleesturing toward the half-dug ditch and the fallen and partially burned raht lay everywhere: arrowheads; a shattered spear shaft; and one of the Cursed Ones’ swords, a flat length of wood edged with obsidian, although a picked up an arrow shaft and fingered the obsidian point quickly before tucking it away into the leather satchel she wore slung over one shoulder

"You’re late to build a ditch as well," said Beor

She shrugged, looking irritated "The other raids always ca Water"

"It’s not so far to travel between them, not for the Cursed Ones"

"Hei!" She spat in the direction of the corpse "In open country theytheir horses into the woodland There’s a lot of dense growth between Three Oaks and here"

"That didn’t save these people"

The rest of Beor’s people fanned out to scavenge for obsidian points and whatever was ripening in the garden They avoided the corpse

"I’ll chase the spirit away," said Adica No doubt the Four Houses people had been waiting for her to settle the esture to avert evil spirits and delicately stepped away froot out the precious copper bowl, just large enough to fit in her cupped hands, that she used for such workings At the outdoor hearth she struck sparks with flint and touched it to a dried scrap ofwater from her waterskin into the bowl and set it on a makeshift tripod over the flames to heat The others vanished into the woodland to seek out the trail of their eneic

While the water heated, she stared in silence at the corpse

His fall had torn his wooden lynx’s mask from his face He had proud features and a complexion the color of copper His black hair had been coiled into a topknot, as was custoical symbols had been painted with blue woad and red ocher, one twined into the next Yet truly his sex erous, because it could breed and it could fight

No aniers had touched the body The Cursed Ones protected their spirits with powerful spells, so she would have to be cautious Luckily, none of the Four Houses people had tried to strip the corpse, although he wore riches A sheet of molded bronze protected his chest, so beautifully incised with figures of animals that she could not help but admire the artistry Across the breastplate a vulture-headed woons faced each other, dueling with fire It was hard to reconcile the creatures who stalked and terrorized hus His bronze helhtly off his head, lying askew in the dirt Soht, the crease still staround