Bastion

dealt with, contained, or quarantined, and right now. You tell Amily when we’re there, so she can tell Lita. At least under circumstances like this I can count on Lita to have some good ideas about what to do.:
    Hmm . . . that sounded interesting. He suspected that Jakyr had been having the same thoughts he’d been. Well, of course, he must have been; he was a Senior Herald. He must have seen exactly this sort of situation at least once in his life.
    Even if he had seemed as blindsided by it as Mags had been. But you could be blindsided by something and still have plenty of ideas about how to fix it. Jakyr was one of the smartest people he knew, and among Heralds, that was saying something. Concentrate on solutions.
    “I’m goin’ to meet Jakyr,” he told Amily. “I’ll tell you when we’re ’bout to get into the village, you tell Lita, an’ follow her lead. We’ll figger out what’s goin’ on, and we’ll figger a way to fix it afore it all gets outa hand.”
    Amily squeezed his hand, kissed him again, and ran off, stopping long enough at the stable door to make sure no one saw her leave. He took the time while he was waiting for Jakyr to arrive to devour every crumb of the food she had brought him, then slipped back out the way he had come. People were starting to head for the inn, which made getting across the street a little dodgy, but they also weren’t looking for someone skulking about, so he was able to flit from shadow to shadow and get to the hedgerow without being spotted. Handy thing, Mindspeech; he had an infallible means of knowing whether or not someone had seen him; the jolt of the unfamiliar and possibly dangerous would jar a thought out where he would pick it up.
    He got down to the trees without incident. Dallen was waiting impatiently for him in the shadows, and after some interminable time later, they heard Jermayan’s hoofbeats approaching, thudding softly into the leaf-covered track rather than chiming as they would on a hard surface. Jakyr had removed the bridle bells from Jermayan’s bridle, as Mags had removed Dallen’s when he headed for the village.
    The miscreant had been slung and tied face down over Jermayan’s rump. It was not a comfortable position. Mags and Dallen joined Jakyr and Jermayan, and the four of them made their way into the village.
    Someone going to the inn spotted them before they were halfway across the fields. Mags suspected Lita’s hand in that. Whoever it was shouted for the rest, and by the time they reached the inn, half the village was out there waiting for them.
    The villagers couldn’t see the captive until Jermayan turned. Jakyr cut the ropes holding the man on, and between them they unceremoniously dumped the miscreant onto the road in front of the villagers. Jermayan pivoted on his heels, and Jakyr stared at them all with a face of stone.
    “Does anyone know this criminal?” he thundered, as the villagers recognized one of their own with gasps and mutters.
    Several reached for the man, pulled off the gag, and untied him. He, of course, at once began to shout that these outsiders had broken into his home, thrashed him, and—well, the tale built from there. Jakyr remained stone-faced, and he and Jermayan could have been a statue. No matter what the man said, no matter how he cursed them, no matter that he looked about himself as if for a weapon, they remained unmoved.
    Most of the villagers, at least, seemed uncertain about all of this; the man they had captured was the only one making a great deal of noise. Many began frantic talking among themselves. One old lady cackled, “I told you so, Loran! I told you so! Now you and yer pa are for it!”
    But others clearly backed the man; about a dozen surrounded him, and with clenched fists and threatening looks, they pulled him back among themselves. They were the only ones with torches, which didn’t make Mags any easier. Of course, you couldn’t spook Dallen and Jermayan by waving a torch at them they way you could a horse, but he didn’t fancy having them, or himself, burned either.
    Finally the Headman appeared, shoving his way through the crowd in front of the inn door. He was a burly fellow, clad in leather and furs, with a bald head, broad shoulders, and almost no neck, and his face was red with anger. “What the hell is going on here?” he bellowed, seizing his son’s shoulder, and stepping in front of the young man in a threatening manner. “What have you done to my