Read Trouble in the Forest Book One: A Cold Summer Night for Free Online

“If you can find the place.”
    With most of the people of the hamlet in the field, Chefford looked deserted, though two spotted dogs roamed the center of the hamlet and barked as deSteny and his men passed by. In response to this alarm, a woman put her head out of the windows of one of the larger houses and watched them attentively, saying nothing. From behind her, within the house, a baby began to cry loudly.
    “Is this the gate?” deSteny asked as Chilton pulled his mule up in front of the double doors in the hamlet’s stockade.
    “It is,” said Chilton, clearly reluctant to pass through it. “They should be on the other side, laid out next to the wall.”
    “Then let’s go through,” deSteny said, and signaled Wroughton to dismount and open the gate.
    As they passed through the opening, the Red Friar said, “On a river like this, they could moat the hamlet easily.”
    “Yes,” said deSteny. “It would mean more protection, and from more dangers than outlaws.”
    Chilton pointed along the base of the wall to rolled reed mats. “There they are,” he said, sounding relieved.
    DeSteny halted the party. “Best to get to work, then,” he said with a trace of reluctance, and dismounted again, securing the reins to one of a group of rings set in the wall. He approached the reed mats carefully, not wanting to disturb any animal that might have come to feed on the flesh of the dead, or something worse. Nearing the first of them, he heard the distinct scuttle of rats, and averted his eyes as a dozen dark, furry shapes scurried away from the more distant rolls. Carefully he leaned down and flipped back the end of the mat. He stared at what he found. “Empty,” he said quietly, then directed his attention to Chilton. “Who lay here? Do you remember?”
    The warden was pale and he stammered when he answered. “Th-the man. That was the crofter.”
    “Ah,” said deSteny. He motioned to the Red Friar. “Do something, will you?”
    “I will put Holy Water on the mat,” he said, though there was little conviction in his voice that suggested he thought this would accomplish anything.
    “Good.” DeSteny continued along to the next mat—it, too, was empty.
    “The mother, the old woman,” said Chilton, his hands shaking visibly on the reins.
    “And this one?” asked deSteny, finding the third roll untenanted. “Who was put here?”
    “His woman. The oldest child is next, and then the younger two.” Fear had taken a strong grip on the warden and he squirmed in the saddle, communicating his unrest to the mule he rode.
    “Empty. Not even bones. They are gone,” said deSteny when he reached the next roll. “What were the rats feeding on, if these are empty?” He found the answer in the last two mats. The younger children lay there, the voracity of the rats and the first signs of decay already changing them into alien creatures. “Friar, tend to them.”
    The Red Friar complied with alacrity, hurrying to anoint them and pray for their souls. When he was done, he got to his feet. “They’ll have to be buried in water, I fear, in order to ensure protection for them, and us.”
    “I suppose you’re right,” said deSteny, who had been thinking the same thing. “We will have to carry them to a faster, deeper river.”
    The men-at-arms were not pleased to hear this. “We can bury them here, facing down, with hawthorn in their graves,” one of them said.
    “It might not be enough,” said deSteny, with unhappy memories mastering his careful thoughts.
    “What about their heads?” asked the Red Friar reluctantly. “We should cut them off, and then they will be still in their graves.”
    DeSteny sighed heavily. “Yes. We could do that.”
    “Then we ought to,” said Wroughton. “The horses will not tolerate carrying rotten bodies.”
    The Red Friar crossed himself. “I will use the sword, if you like.” He had a firm jaw that just now was clamped to granite determination.
    “I would not want to do