Squire by Tamora Pierce Read Free Book Online Page B

her breakfast twice.
    People labored in the ruins. Bodies were set along the streets, pieces of cloth over their faces. Kel could only glance at those who’d burned; the sight of their swollen black flesh was too much. Worse, in a way, were those who looked as if they only slept: they had suffocated. Some charred animal bodies, mostly dogs and cats, lay with their masters. Every animal of monetary value - horses, cows, goats, poultry - had been stolen.
    Raoul crouched beside a dead man who clutched a long-handled war-axe. He hadn’t died in a fire: five arrows peppered his corpse. Turning him slightly, Raoul showed that the arrows had gone clean through him.
    “That’s a longbow,” Flyndan judged, fleshy face set. “One of those six-foot-long monsters the king wants archers to train on. Just as bad as crossbows for punching through armor.”
    Raoul checked the arrows’ fletching. “Centaur work,” he said. “They like feathers from griffins and other winged immortals. They say the arrow flies truer. Kel, feel this, so you’ll know griffin fletching the next time you see it.”
    As Kel obeyed, touching a feather like ridged silk, Flyndan commented, “Not that they can’t do plenty of damage with human-made weapons. I’ve never seen a centaur miss what he shot at. Or she,” he added. “Festering things are born archers.”
    “This isn’t centaur,” Raoul said, rising to yank a crossbow quarrel from a shutter. He showed it to the locals, Flyndan, and Kel. “A human shot this. Centaurs are snobs - they hate crossbows.”
    “I don’t understand,” the headman complained. He was an innkeeper, a short man with a barrel chest and straggly beard. “We’re on good terms with Graystreak and his herd - they wouldn’t attack us.”
    “They had help,” said the priestess.
    “You don’t know for certain,” the blacksmith snapped.
    “I know the evidence of my eyes,” retorted the priestess, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your nephew Macorm and his friend Gavan had gate duty last night. There’s no trace of them, and the gate wasn’t forced. It was wide open.”
    “Macorm’s a good boy,” argued the blacksmith. “Wild, a bit - “
    The priestess interrupted. “You always defend him!”
    “I know he’s family,” said the headman, “but it looks bad - “
    Raoul cleared his throat. The villagers looked at him. “Arguing without facts is pointless,” he said, kind but firm. “Flyn, have Volorin’s squad bring this Graystreak in. If it wasn’t his herd, he may know whose it is. Send a squad to the palace for aid: healers, clothes, food, and so on. And I want someone to go to the Riders.”
    Flyndan opened his mouth. “No jealousies, Flyn,” Raoul told him. “We can use one - no, two, Rider Groups here. Get the rest of the boys to help these people recover what they can.”
    “Two squads to start digging?” Flyndan inquired.
    Raoul looked down the main village street.
    Bodies lined it on either side, more than the twenty-three reported earlier. “Two’s fine,” Raoul said, his face bleak.
    As Flyndan, Balim, the smith, and the priestess went about their business, Raoul continued to view the damage with Kel. The headman left to oversee the inn’s kitchen so those who worked in the ruins might be fed.
    When Raoul and Kel had seen the entire village, they returned to the gate. “Well, squire?” Raoul asked. “What do you make of this?” He indicated the ground at the stockade gate.
    Kel looked at the churned mud. “I’d guess twenty-five, maybe thirty centaurs,” she replied, not sure if she had read the signs correctly. Lindhall Reed, one of her teachers in immortal studies, had shown the pages centaur hoofmarks in plaster so the pages would recognize their tracks. “Twenty or so humans. The humans left their horses outside the gates - there’s marks of horseshoes and picket stakes beside the wall. Centaurs aren’t shoed.”
    “Very good,” Raoul said. “I wasn’t sure