Sianim 02 - Wolfsbane

trying to keep quiet so as not to arouse the ryefox crossbreeds. “Look who’s talking, old gloom and doom.”
    Wolf wagged his tail to acknowledge the justice of her comment, but only said, “I wonder that he found a cow or bull willing to go near enough to a ryefox to breed.”
    “This must be the livestock experiment that Correy was talking about last night. The one my uncle was helping my father with.”
    She kept a wary eye on the herd as they walked, but the ryefox appeared to be satisfied that their territory wasn’t being threatened and stayed where they were.
    A chest-high rock wall marked the boundary where the grazing ended and the northern croplands began. Aralorn caught the top of the wooden gate barring the path and swung over without bothering to open it. Wolf bounded lightly over the fence a few feet away and landed chest deep in a drift of snow. He eyed her narrowly as he climbed back onto the path. Aralorn kept her face scrupulously blank.
    She cleared her throat. “Yes, uhm, I was just going to advise you that this area gets windy from time to time—the mountains, you see. And . . . uh, you might want to watch out for drifts.”
    “Thank you.” replied Wolf gravely, then he shook, taking great care to get as much of the snow on Aralorn as he could.
    As they continued their journey, the path began to branch off, and the one that they followed got narrower and less well-defined with each division.
    “Why farm this?” asked Wolf, eyeing the rough terrain. “The land we just traveled through is better farmland.”
    “Father doesn’t do anything with this land. His farms are along the southern border, several thousand feet lower in altitude, where the climate is milder. But there is good fertile soil here in the small valleys between the ridges—the largest maybe twenty acres or so. The crofters farm it and pay Father a tithe of their produce for the use of the land and protection from bandits. He could get more gold by running animals here instead—but this makes good defensive sense. The lower fields are easily burned and trampled by armies, but up here it’s too much trouble.”
    “Speaking of burning,” said Wolf, “something has burned here recently. Can you smell it?”
    She tried, but her nose caught nothing more than the dry-sweet smell of winter. “No, but Correy said that one of the crofts had been burned. Can you tell where the smell is coming from?”
    “Somewhere a mile or so in that direction.” He motioned vaguely south of the trail they were following.
    “Let’s head that way then,” she said. “I’d like to take a look.”
    They broke with the main path to follow a trail that twisted here and there, up and down, through the stone ridges. It had been well traveled lately, more so than the other such trails they had passed, although a thin layer of snow covered even the most recent tracks. As they neared the farm, Aralorn could smell the sourness of old char, but it didn’t prepare her for the sight that met her eyes.
    Scorched earth followed the shape of the fields exactly, stopping just inside the fence line. The wooden fence itself was unmarked by the blaze, which had burned the house so thoroughly that only the base stones allowed Aralorn to see where the house had been. All around the croft, the fields lay pristine under the snow.
    Wolf slipped through the fence and examined the narrow line that marked the end of the burn.
    “Magic,” he said. He hesitated briefly, his nostrils flaring as he tested the air. “Black magic with the same odd flavor of the spells holding the Lyon. Look here, on the stone by the corner of the fence.”
    She stepped over the fence and knelt on the blackened ground. Just inside the corner post, there was a fist-sized gray rock smudged with a rust-colored substance.
    “Is it human blood?” she asked.
    Wolf shook his head. “I can’t tell. Someone used this fire and the deaths here to gather power.”
    “Enough power to set a spell on my father?”
    Before he could answer, the wind shifted a little, and he stiffened and twisted until he could look back down their path.
    Aralorn followed his gaze to see a man coming up the trail they had taken here. By his gray beard, she judged him to be an older man, though his steps were quick and firm. In ten years a child might become a man, but a man only grayed a bit more: She matched his features with a memory and smiled a welcome.
    “Whatcha be doing there, missy?” he asked as