DAIN RUTTERKIN

Chapter 5

I step out into the open courtyard of the decrepit fortress and the bright star of the morning momentarily blinds me. Two black shades are running toward me. They have emerged from beyond the broad plank gates that open out into the market square. I cast about for a weapon. The courtyard is bare. Save for a broken-hafted shovel, forgotten amidst other detritus in the recessed shadows along the foundation wall.

I grab up my makeshift weapon and turn toward my adversaries. The shades have resolved into the forms of Geld and Bore, two of the more noisome local toughs. Of course they would be the first to come. My eyes have now fully adjusted to the bright daylight and I see several more villagers approaching the gates. Somewhere behind them I hear the luminar's screeching call. Emlyn has retreated into the market square, where he now stands in front of the Bull Craw exhorting the men to his aid. I can just make out his pale purple robes.

Then Geld is upon me, fire in his eyes. He raises his hatchet high to strike. I swing the shovel in a wide arc. It takes him behind the ear. Iron crunches into bone and he sprawls in the dirt. Bore's eyes widen as he emerges from behind Geld's crumpling form. He howls and swings his own axe. I raise my shovel to block the attack and the axe blade bites into the haft and lodges there. Bore shudders at the force of impact, still gripping the haft and struggling to wrench the axe free. He finally yanks his weapon loose and raises it high to strike. But I swing first. The broad side of the shovel strikes Bore full in the face and he drops. Blood runs along the rusted iron.

By now a dozen more men have crowded into the courtyard, their weapons raised high but their eyes uncertain as they glimpse their fallen comrades. Many women and children have gathered outside the gates now to watch the confrontation. Luminar Emlyn pushes through them all to survey my handiwork.

"Look what he has done! He is taken by the Beast! He must not escape!"

The villagers look at one another. They will not meet my burning gaze. The heads of spades and pitchforks waver in the air. Some drop their weapons outright.

"Take him!" Emlyn nearly screeches.

But the blood I have drawn seems to have broken the luminar's hold. The men back away, muttering. They give me a wide berth as I limp past them toward the gate, still brandishing my bloody shovel. At the tail end of the mob I see Bowen. The innkeeper is the only man aside from the luminar who does not carry a weapon. Bowen looks into my eyes, seeking some measure of forgiveness. But I will give none. I limp past him to the stockade gates, where the luminar blocks my path. If I was not blood-certain the mob would rouse again at the act and tear me to pieces, I would kill Emlyn where he stands. The luminar, for his part, seems to acknowledge the stalemate, painful though it is for him. He steps aside and I pass through.

As the women and children flee before me, Emlyn raises his voice behind: "Do not ever return here, Dain Rutterkin. Take the evil growing inside you from our sight forever."

I drop the bloodstained shovel into the dirt and limp home. To gather what little remains of my life.

By early afternoon, Doxy and I and a dozen hogs are on the dusty wagon road leading northwest from Haven.

I returned home from the stockade to find the house ransacked. What valuables the mob could have sought in the cottage of a pig farmer, I cannot know. More distressing was the charnel heap in the front yard whereon lay the remains of Mother and Father, bones blackened and split to the marrow by the heat of the funerary pyre. Luminar Emlyn had evidently feared the corpses would rise again animate if not purified by flame. Doxy had vanished from her stall in the barn and I had feared the worst. But I was relieved to find her wandering at the edge of the wood abutting our land, munching on the high grass there. The odor of burning flesh must have panicked her. Finally, several pigs had gone missing, and I guessed them stolen. But the remainder, a fair dozen, were still heartily squealing in their pen. I loaded them all into the wagon and hitched up Doxy's harness. Then we departed Haven forever.