“The Anihazi must have caught them coming out of the bunkhouse,” Syl reasoned as the group continued down the road towards the main house. The inside of the bunkhouse was undisturbed. And empty.

  “How many people work out here Milia?” When Syl didn’t get a reply, she turned to find Milia still lying pale-faced, her eyes as wide as any Syl had ever seen. The shock was too much for the woman.

  “It varies,” Edar finally said when it was obvious Milia wouldn’t be able to answer. “Teb’s family is… sixteen I think. Maybe seventeen. I know Lalimen was pregnant last time I was out here. And I’ve seen up to thirty workers here at once. Depends on the season.”

  “And with the rainy season any day now…?” Reylo prodded.

  “It’s the busiest time of year here,” Edar admitted. “There could be a lot more bodies…”

  “Or a lot more survivors,” Syl said, trying to stay positive and gesturing towards Milia.

  “Don’t see anything out of the ordinary by the house,” Rogar said from the front of the group. “Door even looks to be closed.”

  “That’s a good sign, right?” Leeze asked.

  Nobody had a good answer, so they all kept walking. Teb’s home was one of the few two-story buildings in the valley and it would have lots of places for somebody to hide.

  “Right?” Leeze asked again, more quietly. Both hands were on her bow, but she obviously wanted nothing more than to put one on her pendant.

  “Rogar and I will give the house a quick check. If it’s free of… if it’s empty,” Syl changed what she was going to say. “We’ll bring Milia in to rest.”

  “And if it’s not?” Leeze asked.

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” Syl said, and went ahead to gently push on the door.

  It opened eerily silently and Syl looked into the still room beyond. The living room was large and spacious, and small toys littered the floor. Beyond, Syl could see the end of a large dining table through a wide doorway. On her left, stairs led up to the second floor.

  “Hello?” Syl called, not nearly loud enough for anybody not right beside her to hear.

  “Do you feel the Anihazi?” Rogar asked nervously.

  Syl closed her eyes and reached out with her other sense. Nothing.

  “No,” she said. “Whatever that arrow did to it, it must have chased it off.”

  “Do you really think that?” Rogar asked suspiciously.

  Syl ignored the question and stepped into the living room. “Hello?” she called out again, more loudly.

  No answer.

  “Guess we have to look around ourselves,” Syl told Rogar.

  “You sure you don’t sense it?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then I’ll check upstairs while you check down here. If we keep them waiting outside too long…”

  Syl hesitated. “Okay,” she finally said. “Shout if you find anything.”

  “Same goes for you,” he said. “Be careful.”

  Syl nodded and headed for the dining table. The stairs to the second floor creaked as Rogar went up, but the house otherwise remained silent.

  Dishes were set out on the table and a large pot hung in the fireplace. A ladle protruded from the top and Syl used it to gently stir the cold, thick stew inside.

  “You were just getting ready to eat when… something happened,” she said quietly. “But what was that something?”

  A closed door sat just to the side of the fireplace, and Syl left the ladle before going over to it.

  “Hello?” she asked quietly, and gently knocked on the door. No response, again. Maybe the house actually was empty.

  Still, something about the stillness and silence of the home had a cold sweat running down her back. She couldn’t sense the Anihazi, but she was on edge. What if the Anihazi really figured out how to hide from her? What if it was just beyond the closed door in front of her?

  She couldn’t have her bow drawn and open the door at the same time.

  “No, that’s silly,” she told herself. But her hand didn’t move to the doorknob. “Silly!” she repeated more strongly to herself. Sure, the Anihazi had tried to lead them into traps in the past, but nothing so mundane as hiding in a pantry.

  “Just going to be some potatoes. Maybe some spices. At worst, pickles,” she told herself, and glared at the imagined gherkins.

  Still, even though she slung her bow into its clasp on her back, she kept one of the blue-tipped arrows in hand.

  Syl took a calming breath and purposefully put her free hand on the door handle. “Just open it,” she told herself. Her other hand was above her head, ready to drive the arrow down on any waiting Anihazi in the pantry.

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  Muscles tensed as she gripped the handle more tightly. She was ready.

  “SYL!” Rogar shouted from the other room. Syl nearly jumped out of her skin at how loud it sounded after the silence of the house.

  Her heart hammered in her chest and nothing came out of her mouth when she opened it to respond. It took concentrated effort to release her white-knuckle death grip on the door handle. No way she could open it after that fright.

  “Syl!” Rogar called again, worry in his voice, as he stormed into the kitchen, Sho-Val in hand. “Are you okay?” he asked when he saw the look on her face, and his eyes scanned the otherwise empty room for danger.

  Syl patted the air while she struggled to find her voice. “Fine,” she finally said quietly. “Your shout startled me.”

  “You look more than startled,” he said, eying the pantry door suspiciously.

  “I feel more than startled too, but I have an image to keep up,” she answered with a weak smile. “Did you find something?” she asked more seriously.

  Rogar nodded. Grimly. “Blood,” he said. “Upstairs.”

  “Bodies?”

  “I didn’t find any.”

  “Show me,” she instructed. “After we bring the others in.”

  “Sure,” Rogar answered, but didn’t move. He gestured his Sho-Val towards the pantry door. “Did you check it?”

  Syl’s head woodenly swiveled back towards the door. “No,” she said finally.

  “I’ll cover you,” Rogar said, putting away his Sho-Val and drawing his bow.

  “You don’t want to open it for me?” Syl asked. “Be a gentleman and all that?”

  “You have an image to keep up,” he answered back, and nodded towards the door again.

  Syl scowled at him but put her hand back on the handle. “Ready?” she asked, the arrow held above, ready to strike, again. He answered with an affirmative grunt.

  She took a deep, steadying breath, then turned the handle and flung the door open. Reflexively, she hopped back and got ready to stab anything that jumped out at her.

  Nothing did. The pantry, while full of foodstuffs, was empty of Anihazi or people.

  “Pickles,” Syl practically spat as she looked at the numerous large jars. She stepped forward and slammed the door closed, the sound of it echoing through the quiet house.

  “Got a problem with pickles?” Rogar asked, but eased the tension on his bow.

  “Yes,” she said simply, but didn’t elaborate. “Let’s get the others, then you can show me that blood you found.”

  “Right,” he said, and they left the kitchen together.

  Syl did her best to keep a straight face. What had her so on edge? Just the fear of finding her father like those people in front of the bunkhouse? The fear of not finding him, and going on wondering what had happened here?

  “Find anything?” Kule asked, interrupting her thoughts, as she and Rogar exited the house.

  “Just pickles,” Rogar said.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” Dena said somberly, and looked at Syl with genuine concern.

  “I’m fine,” Syl told her friend.

  “What is it with pickles?” Rogar asked.

  “I’ll tell you another time,” Syl told him. To the others, she said, “Rogar says he found some blood upstairs. We’re going to take a look at it, but why don’t you bring Milia in and get her comfortable. Maybe scrounge up something to eat while we have the chance.”

  “You know I support that decision,” Kule said.

  “I found some tracks behind the house,” Reylo said before the group went inside.

  Syl raised an eyebrow in Dena’s direction and her friend looked away guiltily. “You went off on your own?” Syl asked Reylo, her voice dangerously even.

  “Uh…” Reylo hesitated. “Yes… ?”

  “You shouldn’t wander off. And your friends shouldn’t let you go,” Syl said, then sighed. She hadn’t meant to scold Reylo. “What kind of tracks?” she asked to take the bite out of her words.

  “People-tracks. They seem to be heading north towards the mountains,” Reylo answered.

  “How many? How long ago?”

  Reylo shrugged.

  Syl’s eyes drifted to the north. Should they follow the tracks? Or finish searching the farmstead first?

  “House first,” she said. “If we don’t find anybody, then we go north. Whoever made those tracks may already be back.”

  The others nodded their agreement, and the group hustled into the house, where Kule and Edar proceeded to help Milia get settled on the grass-woven floor.

  “Comfortable?” Edar asked. Milia barely seemed to hear him and gave only the smallest nod of acknowledgement.

  “She’s not taking this very well,” Rogar said quietly to Syl as he led her up the stairs.

  “She’s taking it like any normal person would,” Syl said. “It’s you guys who are handling everything so well.”

  Did Rogar just blush at the compliment? Syl didn’t have a chance to comment on it as he turned into the first room at the top of the stairs.

  “In here,” he said.

  Syl followed him to the room but stopped at the threshold. Not what I expected.

  “Just the towels and the cot?” Syl asked, then walked into the room and picked up one of the bloody towels. No blood dripping from the ceiling or pooling on the floor like a man-made lake.

  Rogar nodded.

  “Looks like they treated an injury here,” Syl said, crossing the small bedroom. Nothing about it suggested the Anihazi had been up there killing. “No, not an injury,” Syl corrected herself as she inspected the cot and remembered what Edar had said. “Somebody delivered a baby.”

  “Somebody,” Rogar said slowly. “Like your father?”

  “That could explain why we didn’t find him on the road,” Syl said, hope causing her thoughts to race. “If he knew… what did Edar say her name was? Lalimen? If Dad knew she was due, he might have stayed to make sure it went smoothly.”

  “Would they need him to?” Rogar asked.

  “No. I’m sure they have a midwife on the farm, but Dad would want to be part of it. To make sure,” Syl said.

  “So that just leaves one question,” Rogar said, nudging one of the towels on the floor with his toe. “Where’s the baby now?”

  “I don’t know,” Syl said. “We should get back down to the others though.”

  “Well?” Dena asked as Syl and Rogar went back downstairs.

  “I think Lalimen gave birth. That’s the blood Rogar found,” Syl said.

  “There’s blood in childbirth?” Leeze asked innocently.

  “Among other… things…” Syl said, then waved her hand. Now wasn’t the time for that discussion. “No sign of anybody in the house at all.”

  “And I didn’t see anything in front of the other bunkhouses,” Reylo told her.

  “In front of the… did you go look?” Syl asked accusingly.

  “While you were upstairs, I just went to…” Reylo started.

  “What happened to sticking together and not wandering off?” she asked more angrily than she intended. “How could you let him go?” she directed the question at the others. They’d literally just had this conversation.

  “I was following your instructions to get something to eat,” Kule said, coming out of the kitchen, a pickle in each hand and one in his mouth. Syl’s eyes narrowed dangerously and he quickly thrust his hands behind his back and spit the pickle onto the floor. “Don’t know how that got there…” he said lamely.

  “I didn’t go far,” Reylo explained. “Didn’t even leave the back porch. You can see the other bunkhouse from the kitchen door.

  “He’s telling the truth, Syl,” Dena said. “I kept an eye on him. Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m… not mad,” she said, but she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “Sure look mad to me,” Kule said and unconsciously took a bite from the pickle in his hand. He almost choked on how fast he tried to swallow it.

  “I’m not,” Syl went on. “I’m worried. I don’t want anything else to happen to any of you.”

  “You said it yourself, Syl,” Dena said. “Nothing will happen to us if we stick together.”

  But Syl didn’t hear what her best friend was saying. The Anihazi’s hate filled her mind with such suddenness it overwhelmed her senses. It was so close!

  Syl opened her mouth to warn the others. To say anything. But it was too late.

  With the crash of shredding timbers and flying splinters, the Anihazi came through the wall.

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