The Burning Bridge

7

"W HERE THE DEVIL IS EVERYONE?" G ILAN BROUGHT B LAZE to 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.

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.

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.

"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.

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 traveled 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.

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. 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 kilometers 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.

"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 traveling 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?" 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 center 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.

"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.

"And then it just:dissolves the dead bodies away into thin air?" he asked mildly.

"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.

"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 skeptically, 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.