Winterfinding by Daniel Casey Page B

trees disappeared and the road dissolved into a pasture. The
change was welcomed but quickly replaced in Jena’s mind with the
exhausting of having to tread through unfamiliar fields. She could
smell salt in the air and knew she wasn’t too far from the Novostos
Sea. She’d be somewhere along the Stony Shore, maybe not too far
away from where she had had to swim to shore after corsairs had
destroyed her boat.
    It felt like it had been ages since then.
Being beached, she had dragged the paladin the Cruor to reunite him
with his precious alm. Thank the Light, Roth had been there, that
he made it through. Then the fight with the Silvincian soldiers,
riding hard fleeing north, riding hard back down to clean up the
mess, and now back to where she had made landfall. No wonder she
was so fed up. She wasn’t making any progress, wasn’t going
anywhere.
    She snapped herself back from her reverie.
She’d been letting her attention wander off too often lately; she
needed to focus. Stopping she dropped her rucksack and sat down on
it as she shook her head. Pressing the palms of her hands into her
eyes, she leaned forward in her squat and let the weight of her
backpack press down on her. When she raised her head, she saw it
was nearly dusk.
    “ I should just camp here.”
She said to herself. Still for a moment, she let out a long sigh
and forced herself up, grabbing her rucksack as she did so. “Nope.
Gotta keep going. Can’t be too far away from it now, can’t quit
just before the finish. Can’t.”
    As she spoke, she caught movement off to her
side. Jena slowed her pace and turned towards the commotion, her
eyes scanning the dimming field. Just then coming over a gentle
rise were the syncopated bleats of sheep. Three sheep came trotting
towards her; all of them looked to be in need of sheering.
    “ Well, what are you all
doing out? Is there somewhere you should be?” The sheep nudged her
as they circled. Jena continued but got the distinct impression
that she was the one being shepherded.
    Over another gentle hill she saw it—a burnt
out house with a few bodies rotting in the garden between it and a
barn. This must be Reg and Colm’s home. Jena emerged from the
pasture through a break in the fence. She stood staring at the
front of the house. The foundation was there, the porch awning
somehow still intact, but the rest of the small building was
charred black. The walls were mostly gone or like the roof
collapsed in, Jena walked into the center of the husk and glanced
around herself. It would do.
    She set her rucksack down and unlatched the
straps of her backpack sliding it off and onto the floor. She
rolled her head in slow circles trying to loosen her neck, and then
she arched her back hearing and feeling her spine crack and pop.
Rubbing her shoulders, she made her way back out of the ruin and
onto the lawn between the house and barn.
    The barn was untouched. Apparently, the
Silvincians couldn’t be bothered to torch the entire homestead.
Jena tried to guess whether this was out of spite or laziness.
    She shrugged whispering, “Why not both?” She
knelt next to one of the bodies, its face eaten away.
    “ Dogs, birds, whatever,”
she muttered as she looked over the body, “This isn’t a
soldier.”
    Jena let out a sigh, rested her chin on her
knee as she looked over the other two bodies. “Those aren’t
soldiers either but those are not common folk. Not like this one
here.” She looked closer; the man’s throat was cut. Jena lifted him
slightly and saw a stab wound in the back.
    “ Reg, most likely. So that
makes those two…” She looked out passed the barn to where the land
ended and fell into the sea, “…probably the corsairs that started
this whole shitty drama.”
    Jena stood. She wasn’t going to bury anyone
today. She was going to make a fire in the husk of the house and
sleep. When morning came, then she’d put Reg to rest properly. Back
amid the ruin, she walked through the few tiny rooms not