The Gathering Storm

"You don't know?" Mat demanded. "I can bloody tell you what happens at night. You—"

"We don't know what happens," the mayor interrupted, looking up sharply. "And have no care to know."

"But—"

"We have no need to know, outlander," the mayor said harshly. "We want to live our lives as best we can. Many of us turn in early, lying down before sunset. There are no holes in our memories that way. We go to bed, we wake up in that same bed. There are nightmares, perhaps some damage to the house, but nothing that can't be fixed. Others prefer to visit a tavern and drink to the setting of the sun. There's a blessing in that, I suppose. Drink all you want, and you never have to worry about getting home. You always wake safe and sound in bed."

"You can't avoid this entirely," Thom said softly. "You can't pretend nothing is different."

"We don't." Barlden took a drink of tea. "We have the rules. Rules that you ignored. No fires lit after sunset—we can't have a blaze starting in the night, without anyone to fight it. And we forbid outsiders inside the town after sunset. We learned that lesson quickly. The first people trapped here after nightfall were relatives of Sammrie the cooper. We found blood on the walls of his home the next morning. But his sister and her family were safely asleep in the beds he'd given them." The mayor paused. "Now they have the same nightmares we do."

"So just leave," Mat said. "Leave this bloody place and go somewhere else!"

"We've tried," the mayor said. "We always wake up back here, no matter how far we go. Some have tried ending their lives. We buried the bodies. They woke up the next morning in their beds."

The room fell silent.

"Blood and bloody ashes," Mat whispered. He felt chilled.

"You survived the night," the mayor said, stirring his tea again. "I assumed that you hadn't, after seeing that bloodstain. We were curious to see where you'd wake up. Most of the rooms in the inns are permanently taken by travelers who are now, for better or worse, part of our village. We aren't able to choose where someone awakens. It just happens. An empty bed gets a new occupant, and from then on they wake up there each morning.

"Anyway, when I heard you talking to one another about what you'd seen, I realized that you must have escaped. You remember the night too vividly. Anyone who . . . joins us simply has the nightmares. Count yourselves lucky. I suggest you move on and forget Hinderstap."

;Fen wouldn't have done such a thing," Joline said, sitting up in her bedroll, her voice calm. She still wore only that dressing robe.

"Lad," Thom said, "we both saw those girls here barely a minute ago."

Talmanes cursed and woke the two Redarms. Delarn was looking a great deal better, his weakness from the Healing barely seeming to bother him as he climbed to his feet. The Warders called for a search, but Mat just turned back to the village below. "The answers are there," Mat said. "Thom, you're with me. Talmanes, watch the women."

"We have little need of being 'watched,' Matrim," Joline said grumpily.

"Fine," he snapped. "Thom, you're with me. Joline, you watch the soldiers. Either way, you all stay here. I can't worry about a whole group right now."

He didn't give them a chance to argue. Within minutes, Mat and Thom were on their horses, riding down the path back toward Hinder-stap.

"Lad," Thom said, "what is it you expect to find?"

"I don't know," Mat replied. "If I did, I wouldn't be so keen to look."

"Fair enough," Thom said softly.

Mat spotted the oddities almost immediately. Those goats out on the western pasture. He couldn't tell for certain in the dawn light, but it looked like someone was herding them. And were those lights winking on in the village? There hadn't been a single one of those all night long! He hastened Pips' pace, Thom following silently.

It took the better part of an hour to arrive—Mat hadn't wanted to risk camping too close, though he'd also been disinclined to hunt a way around and back to the army in the dark. It was fully light, if still very early, by the time they rode back into the inn's yard. A couple of men in dun coats were working on the back door, which had apparently been broken off its hinges sometime after Mat and the others left. The men looked up as Mat and Thorn rode into the yard, and one of them pulled off his cap, looking anxious. Neither one made a threatening move.

Mat slowed Pips to a halt. One of the men whispered to the other, who ran inside. A moment later, a balding man with a white apron stepped out through the doorway. Mat felt himself go pale.

"The innkeeper," Mat said. "Burn me, I saw you dead!"

"Best go get the mayor, son," the innkeeper said to one of the working men. He glanced back at Mat. "Quickly."

"What in the bloody name of Hawkwing's left hand is going on here?" Mat demanded. "Was it all some kind of twisted show? You—"

A head stuck out of the inn door, peeking around the innkeeper toward Mat. The pudgy face had curly blond hair. Last time he'd seen this man, the cook, Mat had been forced to gut the man and slit his throat.

"You!" he said, pointing. "I killedyou!"

"Calm down, now, son," the innkeeper said. "Come in, we'll get you some tea, and—"