The Desert Spear

stabbed, they was…mutilated. Both of them. Stam Tailor says he saw your sister there just before it happened.”
    Ilain gasped, covering her mouth.
    “Horrible,” Harral agreed, “and that’s why it’s best we see Renna right away.”
    “So clear the door!” Raddock ordered, pushing forward.
    “I am Speaker in Tibbet’s Brook, Raddock Lawry, not you!” Selia barked, silencing everyone. Jeph reached out to help her down from the cart. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she gripped her skirts to keep them from the dirt and strode over. The younger men, outweighing her several times over, shrank back at the force of her presence.
    One did not get to be Selia’s age easily in Tibbet’s Brook. Life in the Brook was hard; only the sharpest, most cunning and capable folk survived to see full gray, and the rest treated them accordingly. When she was younger, Selia had been forceful. Now she was a Power unto herself.
    Only Raddock stood his ground. He had ousted Selia as Town Speaker more than once over the years, and if age was power in Tibbet’s Brook, he was stronger, if not by much.
    “Coline, Harral, Rusco, Raddock, and I will need to go in and see her,” Selia told Jeph. It wasn’t a request. The five of them were half the town council, and he could only nod and stand aside, allowing them entrance.
    “I’m going, too!” Garric growled. The crowd of Fishers, his kith and kin, gathered angrily around him, nodding.
    “No, you’re not,” Selia said, fixing them all with a steely glare. “Your blood is up and none can blame you, but we ’re here to learn what happened, not stake the girl without a trial.”
    Raddock put a hand on Garric’s shoulder. “She ent getting away, Gar, I promise you that,” he said. Garric gritted his teeth, but he nodded and stepped back as they went inside.
    Renna was still lying in the same position they had placed her in the night before, staring at the ceiling. She blinked occasionally. Coline went right to her.
    “Oh, dear,” Selia said, spotting the bloody knife on the night table. Jeph cursed silently. Why had he left it there? He should have thrown it down the well the moment he saw it.
    “Creator,” Harral breathed, and drew a ward in the air.
    “And here,” Raddock grunted, kicking a basin by the door. Renna’s dress was soaking within, the water pink with blood. “Still think we’re just here to ask a few questions, Tender?”
    Coline looked over the bruises on Renna’s face with a concerned eye and a firm hand, then turned to the others and cleared her throat loudly. The men stared dully for a moment, then gave a start and turned their backs as she drew back the covers.

    “Nothing’s broken,” Coline said, coming over to Selia when her inspection was complete, “but she’s taken quite a beating, and there are bruises around her throat like she was choked.”
    Selia went and sat down on the bed beside Renna. She reached out gently, brushing the hair from Renna’s sweating face. “Renna, dear, can you hear me?” The girl didn’t react at all.
    “Been like this all night?” Selia asked, frowning.
    “Ay,” Jeph said.
    Selia sighed and put her hands on her knees, pushing to her feet. She took the knife, and then turned and ushered everyone out of the room, closing the door.
    “Seen this before, after demon attacks, mostly,” she said, with Coline nodding along. “Survivors get more of a fright than they can handle, and are left staring off into the air.”
    “Will she get better?” Ilain asked.
    “Sometimes they snap out of it in a few days,” Selia said. “Sometimes…” She shrugged. “Won’t lie to you, Ilain Bales. This is the worst thing ever happened in Tibbet’s Brook as far back as I can recall. I’ve been Speaker on and off for thirty years, and seen a great many folk die before their time, but there ent never been one killed in anger. That kind of thing may happen in the Free Cities, but not here.”
    “Renna couldn’t have…!” Ilain choked, and Selia took her shoulders, gentling her.
    “That’s why I was hoping to talk to her first, dear, and get the story from her lips.” She glanced at Raddock. “The Fishers have come looking for blood, and they won’t be satisfied without it, or a good explanation.”
    “We got reason,” Raddock growled. “It’s our kin dead.”
    “Case you ent noticed, my kin’s dead, too,” Ilain said, glaring at him.
    “All the more reason to want justice,” Raddock