By the time Hyacinth spotted Karl, Ginsook, and Gabby emerging from thinning dust clouds drifting from the canyon, she had already aired out the front room, dusted the leather couch, and swept out the house. She and Jeanna were using brooms made of bundled sticks—a rarity in Hylan—to clean inches of dust and dirt from the front porch as the three disheveled figures slowly made their way to the Mayor’s House. Karl—nearly unrecognizable under a coating of dirt—was leading a filthy, exhausted horse. Two similarly grubby women were mounted on its back: a dark-skinned woman, whose beauty was muted by dust, and a Hahnin woman, who looked as if she’d been running for a week. As the horse turned, Hyacinth noticed that she’d been wrong about the count: there were fourof them. The Hahnin woman had a sleeping baby strapped to her back.

  How does anyone sleep through all of that? Hyacinth wondered. “Daevy?” she asked, looking directly at Karl, her voice hopeful. The Dashman nodded, his smile a red crack through the mask of dirt on his face.

  “He’s fine,” Karl said. “The landslide didn’t go toward the mines. Although, I’m sure they got plenty of dust inside the entrance.”

  Hyacinth stifled a sob. Only now, as relief flooded over her, did she realize how worried she had been.

  “How did the village fare?” Karl asked, genuine concern on his face.

  “We were pelted with small rocks and drenched in dust, but no boulders or large stones.” Hyacinth glanced over at the young woman clearing the porch with quick, determined sweeps. “We were standing in front of our house, right in the path of the slide, and we almost certainly would have been injured if it hadn’t been for Jeanna.”

  The muscular woman looked up suddenly from her work, shocked at the mention of her name. Her face turned bright red, and she returned her gaze to the porch, doubling her efforts at sweeping. “I didn’t do nothin’, really,” she mumbled.

  “Nothin’?” Hyacinth echoed, using Jeanna’s Lolan accent while raising an eyebrow in her direction. Looking back at Karl, she continued, “This young lady picked up both Wyll and me, carried us into the house, made us safe, then bolted and guarded the door, never once thinking of herself.” Hyacinth looked back at the blushing teenage girl. “Nothin’ indeed.”

  “How is Wyll?” Karl asked, concerned.

  “Asleep,” Hyacinth sighed, followed with a short burst of laughter. “Jeanna carried him down the mountainside and he’s the one who’s exhausted.”

  “Ahgiga uyurul piryohapnida.”

  Everyone turned at once to look at the Hahnin woman.

  “Uyuga jip ahneh issnundeh, tuhro kasipsio,” replied Hyacinth, pointing at the open door of her house with a broom in one hand and waving the woman inside with the other.

  Everyone turned at once to look at Hyacinth.

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  “Her baby needs milk,” the healer explained. “There’s some in the springbox behind the house. I assume that her body isn’t producing its own supply for some reason.”

  “You speak Hahntongue?” Karl asked, incredulously shaking his head. “You think you know a person …”

  Hyacinth laughed. “Where do you think I learned healing?”

  “How did you end up in Hylan married to the mayor?” Karl asked, bewildered.

  “A long story,” the healer told him. “For another time.” She pointed at the women still mounted on the horse. “You need to introduce me, Karl. And this poor woman needs to get her baby some milk.”

  “Oh!” Karl looked startled, like he’d forgotten the women—and the horse—were there. “Of course! This is Gabriella and the Hahnin Trader is Jihnsuck.”

  “Ginsook,” the Hahnin woman corrected.

  “That’s what I said,” Karl replied with a frown.

  “No, you didn’t!” Hyacinth and Gabby said at the same time, which made them both laugh.

  “In any case,” Karl continued, looking slightly frustrated, “I found them coming through the North Pass last night, just as the landslide was starting. Luckily, I know a hidden path that avoided the brunt of it, or we’d all be dead.” Hyacinth watched the woman he called Gabriella give the Dashman a strange look, one eyebrow raised. She wondered what that was all about. She was about to ask what the three of them were doing in the pass in the middle of the night, then shook her head—there was no time to pursue it.

  With the healer’s guidance, Gabriella hopped off the horse and helped Ginsook and her baby down. The poor woman could barely walk and there were sores on her hands and arms. Her left arm looked like it had blisters on it, as if she’d held it too near a flame.

  “Jeanna,” she called as she helped Ginsook into the house. “Could you fetch some milk from the springbox?” The young lady nodded and took off like an arrow, glad to have something to do, Hyacinth supposed. She knew Jeanna had a teenage crush on her and would do anything she asked, but the mayor’s wife had decided not to take advantage of that fact. Her kind nature combined with her natural beauty had made the healer the focus of many crushes from men and women, boys and girls over the years. She supposed she was used to it.

  Hyacinth led Ginsook carefully over the threshold and into the living room, where she sat the Hahnin woman on the leather couch and helped her to hold her baby. “Karl,” she whispered to the Dashman who—along with the dark woman—had followed them inside, “this woman is emaciated. She’s starving. That’s why she has no milk for her baby. In fact, the baby looks much healthier; she’s dirty, but not at all malnourished or injured. Karl, what the hell is going on?”

  Karl looked at her for a long time, then slowly opened his mouth to speak. He hadn’t even told the mayor everything. Now, he had to decide: should he tell her all of it? If not, which parts could he leave out? He decided that he trusted Hyacinth—perhaps more than her husband-and that he should tell her all of it. But he never got the chance.

  “Her village was destroyed nearly a week ago,” Gabriella said, impatiently. “She’s been running from the demonspawn who did it for three days. I’m not sure why Karl won’t tell you, but I will. The goblin horde is only about one day from descending upon this village. If that.”

  At first, Hyacinth had the thought the terms “demonspawn” and “goblin horde” were euphemisms for marauders. She wondered if a rival Hahn fiefdom or maybe the army of the Hahn Kingdom itself had descended upon the poor woman’s village for some unknown reason. Then she saw the large bag Gabriella had slung over one shoulder. Like everything else on the new arrivals, it was covered with a layer of fine powdery dust. But the dust had clung to something wet that had dripped from the empty bag. Whatever it was, it left a long, damp path of some greenish-black liquid down one side of it.

  “Goblin blood,” Gabriella told her, having seen her gaze. “From the head of a gnal.”

  Hyacinth did a doubletake. So, those were not euphemisms, she thought. The healer sighed, uncertain what to do with this new information, then turned her attention to the woman and child in her care.