Bastion

they did. They needed to be as prepared for a hard season as everyone else put together.
    In the treasury cave, he had filled all of one side of the first big room—the one that supposedly had held all the loot—with wood stacked as high as he could reach. He’d brought in plenty of the frozen meatpies, and, since Jakyr was using actual kitchen stuff to cook in, not pots you put on a fire, he and Bear had lugged over the box of pots that was usually slung under the caravan. Several armloads of hay and some of the extra blankets that the Guard had left completed the preparations. When he was done here, he would move it all to the cave where the prisoners had been held. He didn’t actually expect to find anything there. The bandits would have stripped everything from them that even looked as if it might have some value.
    But still, he wanted to go through the cave anyway. If nothing else, it was where his parents were buried. It didn’t seem right to be here and not put some kind of marker there. Pay his respects. He didn’t remember them . . . but that didn’t change the fact that they had probably died to save him.
    Anyway, Amily was right. It was better to be prepared. What was the worst that could happen? He’d have a fire to keep him warm, food right at hand, and—well, a place to retreat to if Lita and Jakyr escalated their quarrel.
    “If that weather-witch is right, and we do get more storms, I want to know you aren’t going to be in any trouble, or get in any trouble trying to get back to us,” Amily had said, earnestly. It had been a sensible precaution, and one that cost him only a little effort with Dallen’s help, so he’d given in.
    The nearer cave was the one where the bandits had kept their loot, fortunately. Obviously everything of real value had long since been taken away, but as he sifted through the dirt and trash on the floor, he was finding little bits of things, brass and glass and semiprecious stone. Which was promising; it suggested that he might find some bits of things that had belonged to his parents, things that had escaped because they were worthless. It looked as if small animals, mice or rats or something, had been in here. But there were better, less open places for them to go, and they hadn’t found anything to eat or bed down in, so they had mostly left the area alone. What was here was mostly the remains of the few leaves that had been blown in over the years and the churned-over dirt from people digging, trying to find one last bit of treasure that had somehow missed being discovered.
    The work was tedious, but he didn’t mind it. In a way, it was soothing. He had a fire going behind him for heat as well as light and a lantern above him so he could catch the gleam of metal or polished stone as he patiently sieved through the sandy soil. It was like the better parts of sluicing through the gravel looking for sparklie chips, back at the mine—with no one hectoring him or threatening to thrash him, no one growling at him to work faster. He could rest when he wanted, warm himself when he wanted, and there was peace in doing something so repetitive and simple.
    Already, he had an interesting collection of bits. Lita might want them; she was a bit like a magpie herself, for collecting odd and shiny things. If nothing else, perhaps they could give the collection to some child along the way.
    He was getting the strangest feeling of being . . . watched . . . as he worked, though. He couldn’t shake it. He began to wonder if maybe the place was haunted. A lot of people had died here, after all.
    Finally his back and shoulders got weary, and he took his collection up in the scrap of cloth he was using to hold things, put out the fire, and headed back toward the living cave.
    He handed over the pile to Lita, who was glowering over her work, hoping it would put her in a better mood. It did at least distract her, which was positive. Anything to prevent her from starting another argument.
    She and Jakyr had finally come to open quarreling. Last night they’d actually started shouting at each other. Lita had taken exception to Jakyr harnessing up the vanner and cutting the path to the cleft with him. Lita seemed to think that only she had enough experience with the vanners to do such a thing, even though Jakyr had clearly known exactly what he was doing, and the vanner had returned to the stabling frisky and in fine fettle.
    It seemed that Lita was angrier than ever. He