Chasing Evil Read Online Free PDF Page B

Tanner off balance. As she rose higher, she circled and went after the wolf, her feathers shimmering.
    When Gulkien howled, Firepos sent out a returning cry, and they flew together into a patch of low clouds hanging over the town.
    â€œLooks like they spotted the best place to hide.” Gwen smiled.
    Tanner grinned back. “Now let’s find out why they brought us here.”
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    Tanner jumped from boulder to boulder as they approached Colton, leaping over deep fissures in the ground. They scrambled over a cluster of rocks and found themselves on a dirt road leading to the village. It was churned with hoofprints and wheel tracks. Tanner knelt to examine them.
    â€œThese tracks are too narrow to be from farm carts,” he said solemnly. “They’ve been made by army chariots.” Tanner ran his fingers through the beaten dirt and grass. Dark streaks flecked the grass: dried blood.
    â€œI don’t understand,” said Gwen. “Gor’s troops can’t have come this far already. Most of the soldiers were on foot.”
    â€œPerhaps Derthsin has more than one army,” said Tanner grimly.
    The mountain leveled as they picked their way along the road. When they reached the edge of the town, they stopped, and stared about them in shock. The roofs of houses had been burned away, leaving deep rings scorched onto the half-ruined walls. Splintered boards and bricks cluttered the blackened streets, and Tanner could see gashes and deep holes in the sides of the crumbling walls, made by swords and arrows.
    They passed through the ruined town gate. It was clear that there’d been an attempt to repair it, but the posts still leaned dangerously. Ahead, a group of ragged townspeople were using lengths of rope to hoist a long wooden beam onto a broken rooftop. As the adults worked, children chased one another between piles of broken street debris. This town had been attacked. It was trying to put itself right, but Tanner could see that the devastation had been massive.
    â€œHigher!” a woman on the roof called. She reached for the beam as the others pulled a rope to raise it. “Steady!” The woman caught the beam in both hands, and as she guided it onto the roof, she saw Tanner and Gwen — and froze.
    The other townspeople turned. The children stopped working.
    Tanner raised his hand in greeting, but the townspeople only stared back. Their faces were tired, their eyes empty. Tanner glanced from one woman’s torn skirt to a girl’s ragged pigtail, then looked back at the woman struggling with the beam. They’re …
    â€œWomen and children,” Gwen murmured.
    The people whispered and continued to stare suspiciously as Tanner and Gwen kept walking. Some of the women clutched the children tightly as they passed. At the next corner, a stooped old man was nailing a new board onto a shattered doorframe. The hammer shook in his arthritic hands. More children collected smashed slivers of pottery and twisted nails from the dirt.
    â€œThis is horrible,” Gwen said. “Everything in this village — the houses, the streets …”
    They stopped when they saw a fragile, elderly woman crawling through a patch of black dirt, picking vegetables. Her garden had been flattened and crushed by horses’ hooves and soldiers’ boots and was cluttered with burned wood and brick shards. The woman found a shriveled carrot in the mess, and as Tanner watched her pick through the rubble for bruised, half-smashed potatoes, hot anger welled in his chest.
    Gwen ran over to the old woman and knelt beside her. “Please,” she said, “can I help you fill your vegetable basket?”
    But the woman scrambled away, startled. “Who are you?” she said, glancing between Gwen and Tanner. “What do you want? I don’t have anything! They burned my home, everything that was mine!”
    â€œWe’re here to help you,” Tanner said as gently