Lyall stared into the hole. A few more soldiers added bones to the pile, each one as bizarre as the others. Lyall stood up abruptly. "There's no point looking for more. I think these bones confirm Brianna's words. The trolls are real, and they are a dangerous threat. Until we know more, no one is to go outside the wall near the ridge. Urster, make sure everyone knows."
Urster nodded immediately. Brianna suspected he was just glad to get out of the hole. "Should we set a guard, sir?"
"We've found that increasing the numbers at the pass just leads to more trolls coming through," Brianna said quietly. "Put extra men in the village if you want, but keep them back from the ridge."
Lyall nodded. "Do as she said," he ordered and Urster didn't even object. He just headed quietly back to the wall.
It was almost enough to unsettle Brianna. But she was used to the threat of the trolls. No point in being afraid now.
Lyall ordered his men to fill in the hole and clean up the bones and bring them to him. Then he walked back to the house with Brianna. "Why do they attack?" he asked on the way.
Brianna shrugged. "They steal stuff. Food, tools, I guess they can't make enough of their own. They don't talk, just sort of grunt, so I haven't been able to ask them."
Lyall gave a short laugh. "Right. But is that all? They just take food and leave? They don't try to get past you to the rest of the countryside?"
She frowned, considering. Then the image came to her, the one from her dream.
"They always just stole stuff, then left. Until the last attack," she said softly. "That day, they headed straight to the graveyard. They took something from one of the graves, but I don't know what it was."
Lyall stared at her. "They took something from a grave? That seems a bit … random."
Brianna nodded. "It's an old one, a crypt more than a grave. It must have been someone important I guess, maybe the town leader at the time. The inscriptions were worn away a long time ago."
"Show me," Lyall commanded.
Brianna bristled at his tone. But now that he had brought the topic up, she wanted to see as much as he did, so she let it slide.
"Come on," she said, and hurried through the village to the graveyard on the other side.
Lyall paused when he saw the size of it, and Brianna could imagine what he was thinking. But she wove her way quietly through the headstones, careful not to tread on any, to the one she was after in the middle.
The white stone structure stood out amongst all the smaller monuments. With its peaked roof, it looked almost like a house, with white columns all around. Once there had been pictures on each panel, but only flecks of paint remained, enough to know there had been colour, but not to tell what they had depicted. One panel had been replaced with ordinary stone after it had been broken by the trolls.
Lyall walked around the structure, staring at each side intently. Already having done this herself two years ago, Brianna didn't bother to follow him. Instead, she took the chance to watch him unnoticed.
He moved differently. He was more aware of every step, more sure, yet holding himself rigid, as though afraid to let down his guard. He had cut his hair short, in a more severe style, and there were lines on his face she didn't remember being there.
"So whose grave is this?" Lyall's question interrupted her thoughts.
Brianna winced at how loud his voice was in the silence, but the custom of not speaking applied only to funerals. "Keep your voice down." Then she shrugged. "I have no idea, it doesn't say."
Lyall glanced around, and when he spoke, his voice was as low as hers. "Yet this is where the trolls headed? And they took something from inside? Did you see them?"
Brianna hesitated. "I wasn't here."
"So did someone else see them?"
Could she trust the visions she had seen in her dream? Well, the smashed panel should be proof of that. "No one here saw it, they were too busy defending the village and those who were still living. But the smashed panel on the grave was proof enough."
Lyall frowned. "Then how do you know they took something? Was something missing specifically? And if so, what?"
For some reason, Brianna was strangely reluctant to mention her dream. Was it because she didn't think he'd believe her, or that she didn't want to bring up that time, when they'd been so close together?
Lyall looked at her impatiently, waiting for an answer, so she sighed, and told him. "No, we have no idea what is inside. I saw it … in a dream. The one I had right before I left."
Understanding dawned on his face. "That was why you ran. So it was real."
"How else could I have known what was happening here?" Brianna said defensively. "Everything else was right, my mother's death, Mianna killing a troll, the crypt being broken into. Why not that something was taken?"
Lyall heaved a sigh. "And since you didn't know what was in there, there is no other way to confirm it. Was there anything left that might give us a clue?"
"I don't know, we didn't go inside," Brianna said. "We don't desecrate graves."
"You didn't even look? After the trolls had been inside, I hardly think your presence could have been worse."
"Look, we had other things to worry about. There were wounded to tend to, buildings to rebuild, newly dead to bury and orphaned children to find homes for. Excuse me for not carefully checking a grave for mysterious objects." She glared at him.
Lyall's expression softened. "I'm sorry, Brianna. It must have been awful for you."
"For everyone here," Brianna corrected. "Yes, it was."
Lyall respected her silence for a few moments, as she remembered that day, and the weeks after. To feel guilty, again, that she hadn't been here.
She was almost glad when his words interrupted her thoughts. "We need to check inside now. Maybe there is a clue as to what they were looking for her. Obviously they know something about this grave that we don't."
"You can't break into the crypt!" In her agitation, Brianna forgot to speak quietly
"Brianna, many of your own people died here, defending this grave. Don't you think you owe it to them to find out why? Don't you want to know? Maybe there is a way to stop these troll attacks and for your village to be safe. Isn't that what you want?"
Brianna stared at him. "Stop the troll attacks?" she repeated stupidly. The thought seemed impossible. But if he was right, and they weren't just random attacks, but they were instead working with some purpose … "Do you really think they're intelligent enough to be after something specific?"
"I don't know, I've never seen one. What do you think?"
Brianna considered his words. Were the trolls just mindless killing machines, or could they have some greater purpose? They had never seemed interested in anything except killing and stealing, except … She remembered the troll she'd seen the day before she'd left. Going over Ethean's body, taking his book. "Maybe," she admitted.
She looked at the crypt. Something in there could hold the key to why the trolls were attacking, and maybe why they hadn't attacked since that night. She owed it to her family and friends to find out. "We can look inside. But let's keep it quiet. I don't need everyone to know."
Lyall nodded and walked to the edge of the graveyard and called to some of his men who were patrolling the edge of the village. "Bring some tools and come and help me. We need to break some stone."
They didn't ask questions, just disappeared to do his bidding. What was it like, to have people who just obeyed you without question? Even though Brianna and her twin were accepted as the leaders of their village, there was still no way anyone would listen to them without voicing suggestions, adding ideas and even outright arguing with them. And she wouldn't change that, even if she could. The older villagers had information and wisdom she and Mianna sometimes lacked.
In a few minutes, the men were back with pickaxes. As soon as they began to swing them at the replacement panel, Brianna realised how impossible it would be to keep this a secret. In minutes, the sound of steel on stone echoing through the village had brought quite a crowd. And they were all incensed.
"What does he think he's doing, destroying our crypt? He's no better than the trolls," Rasell called out.
"You should stop him, Brianna," his wife added.
More voices added to the first two, until Brianna could barely distinguish the words, especially over the sound of the picks.
She turned to walk across to explain to them, but Lyall beat her to it. "No one is going to stop me from investigating this crypt. Return to your homes. There is nothing to see here."
Brianna hid a grin at the outraged expressions on the villager's faces, and hurried across to where they stood, before they yelled at Lyall. "Please, I know this isn't pleasant, but L … Prince Balen has a reason for his actions. The trolls broke into this grave, and we need to know why."