Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

With a stifled sigh, Elyn motioned onward, and the five of them, with their Companions and the kyree threading through the underbrush on either side of the stream, made their way along the banks of Stony Rill. A few times more, Alma paused as something seemed to catch her eye, stooped, and picked up what looked like some gravel from the streambed. But still she said nothing.

Meanwhile there still didn’t seem to be anything that could have been mistaken for these “Shadows,” and no wildlife making odd noises that could have been taken for maniacal laughter.

Elyn was busy trying to keep an eye out for plants and fungi she knew were poisonous and gave hallucinations, when Rod suddenly said, “Is that a boundary marker? No one said anything about anyone living up here—”

“That’d be because that worthless lot down at the Stone’d like to fergit I be still alive,” said a harsh voice.

It startled all of them. Ryu and Arville yelped in an almost identical pitch. The Companions all threw up their heads and snorted. Laurel squeaked, and Elyn jumped back just a little. Rod’s back stiffened, and Alma clutched the bag of rocks and sand she was holding as if she were prepared to use it as a weapon.

From between two trees, out of a shadow Elyn certainly had not suspected was holding a person, stepped a man. Balding, gray haired, but powerfully built and clearly still fit, he had a bow with an arrow nocked to it, and although he was not yet aiming it at them, it was very obvious that he had no compunction about shooting them.

“Did that pack of scum send ye up here?” he spat. “I got no use fer them. I don’ need their help, and I don’ want their company. Did they send ye here because I run off their brats? I got my rights! They was tramplin’ all over my property! Thievin’ brats, stealin’ fruit, honey, an’ ’shrooms, poachin’ my game, aye, I ran ’em off! I’ll do it again too, at th’ end of a pitchfork!”

“No one sent us here to disturb you, sir,” Elyn said soothingly. “We’re investigating some rather strange goings-on, and although the villagers did send for us, they don’t know we intended to come up here.”

“Ye want strange goings-on, ye look no futher than them brats o’ theirs!” he spat. “I don’ put no mischief past ’em!”

Rod and Elyn exchanged a look. :We didn’t consider that it might have been the children,: Mayar said thoughtfully. :That sort of thing is known among younglings first coming into a Gift.:

:Yes,: she thought back. :And in those with no Gift at all.: It would not be the first time that bored youngsters terrorized a community by manufacturing “supernatural” goings-on.

“Well, we won’t bother you any further sir,” Elyn said.

“An’ ye won’t be settin’ foot on my land neither!” he snapped. “Gerroff wi’ ye! An’ tell that lot down at th’ Stone that they kin keep their devilment t’thesselves!”

There didn’t seem to be anything much more to say, so Elyn turned around and began picking her way back down the stream. Ryu and Arville were only too happy to do the same, quickly overtaking and passing her. Laurel shivered as she glanced back at the old man, still standing guard at his boundary marker. Rod just shook his head.

But Alma looked very thoughtful.

“I don’t know why we didn’t consider the youngsters,” Rod said, as soon as they were out of earshot of the old man. “That should have been the first place we looked.”

“But don’t you think that if it was the younglings, that nasty old grump would have been the first target they went after?” Alma countered. “Instead, it was the youngsters themselves that were scared out of their favorite swimming place. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe it’s just one or two loners who were getting even for being left out of things,” Elyn suggested, as Alma stooped again, scooping something out of the stream bed.

“I dunno about you, but that stuff last night didn’t sound like a couple of kids!” Arville protested.

“Remons!” Ryu seconded. “Rosses!”

“Roses?” Rod exclaimed, looking askance.

“He means g-g-ghosts,” Arville stammered. “It s-s-sure sounded like that to me!”

Elyn pulled thoughtfully at her earlobe. “Still ... I think we should concentrate on the villagers next. Especially the youngsters. Getting the entire village in an uproar—we’ve studied and heard of that sort of thing before.”

Rod nodded, with a satisfied look on his face. “Even if we can’t find out something directly, I bet I can find a way to catch the troublemakers,” he said.

“I don’t think it was kids,” Arville retorted weakly, scratching his head. “How could kids be making those ... howls?”

“I wouldn’t be so sure it was youngsters either,” Alma said, with an enigmatic look. “I don’t think it was demons—but I don’t think it was youngsters.”