(Continued from The Case of the Three Torches- Part 4)
After some discussion, the three decided that their next course of action should be to investigate the farmhouse- Phineon’s notes on the six missing “assets” had mentioned that there was blood and broken glass left behind at the scene of one of the disappearances, and he had also drawn a map on the back of that page which marked the location of the farmhouse on a ridge near the Horsefields.
Barliman glared at the trio as they walked down the steps, his disapproving gaze focused mainly on the hooded “minstrel”; and he jutted his chin toward the door to direct their attention to Nob. The hobbit was seated next to his new friend, Bartholomew, and he was telling the plant all about his narrow escape from a "crazed musician".
“I knew there was something off about that one…” Kraddock mused as he raised an eyebrow at the sight.
Addie elbowed the Captain and then offered Barliman an apologetic smile. “Sorry, we were just leaving… I shall make it up to you later by helping with the cooking or cleaning.” Those words seemed to pacify the tavern owner, or at least they made him think long enough for the three to make their way out of the building.
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The sun was already beginning to set by the time they arrived at the marked location. Kraddock stroked his chin as he looked around. "So... this is a farm in these lands, hm? Interesting…” The humble plot was no more than a few acres and the house that watched over the animals and crops could only be described as “rustic” at best. Several chickens pecked at the ground as they wandered about aimlessly, and there were two cows that had broken through the fence to graze on the crops- one of the cows appeared to be very angry and was mooing in a highly aggressive way while the other cow seemed to be trying to calm it down by offering it a mouthful of flowers.
With the exception of those animals, the farm looked to be abandoned; and there was even a notice on the fencepost which stated that a firm in Bree would be auctioning off this parcel in about a week and a half due to “non-payment of fees and rents.” Addie plucked the notice from the post and showed it to both Kraddock and Elsa. “Do you suppose that this was placed here by Phineon to keep others away?”
Kraddock swung himself down from his horse and shrugged. “I’m not sure what passes for ‘successful’ farming around these parts, but the crops seem to be doing well enough… or they were before those cows got to them…”
“Appearances aren’t everything,” Elsa interjected. “It might look good on the outside, but this farmer could have been drowning in debt.”
“Either way, we’re in the right place…” Kraddock pointed to the weathervane on top of the farmhouse to show them that the image of a falcon in flight adorned the top of the device instead of the usual rooster. “That is a kestrel.”
Addie’s brow furrowed in confusion. “He was supposed to be a spy, was he not? Why would he not be more… secretive… with that symbol?”
Kraddock shrugged."It does seem a bit foolish considering the circumstance, but they probably never imagined that anyone would spot it in a backwater place such as this... And who knows, maybe they didn’t; maybe this was a simple robbery… Are any of the chickens missing?”
“Aye, the one from the weathervane...” the blonde woman quipped back, which caused the Captain to chuckle, or at least it looked as though he were chuckling by the expression on his face- what proceeded from his mouth sounded more like a bear huffing. She smirked at him and then looked around again. “The ground appears to be pretty trampled, and not just by cows or chickens… I find that odd considering the size of this place… It would only need one farmer to run it.”
Elsa nodded in agreement and then slid down from her horse, Artemis, to get a closer look. “I don’t think that we’re going to be able to find any individual footprints in all of this.”
“It wouldn’t do you much good even if you were able to pick out a footprint.” Kraddock stated. “It could belong to anyone… that Phineon fellow, the farmer, the broker that posted the notice… You’d have to try every shoe in these parts.”
“We might not be able to use those footprints to determine who was here, but there were witnesses…” Addie’s gaze turned to one of the nearby chickens and she motioned her hand toward it. “She might be able to tell us if a certain fell spirit was here.”
Kraddock looked down at the brown-speckled hen and raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting that we ask a chicken?”
Addie smiled at him and nodded. "Aye, in a way… Animals can sense things that most humans cannot, and much can be learned by just observing their reactions and behavior.” She knelt down and held out her arm out to the bird, much like a falconer would, and then let out a low whistle to call it over. The hen stopped scratching at the dirt when it heard the sound and jerked its head around as it tried to locate the source with its right eye. Addie whistled one more time and it strutted over.
Kraddock watched the scene with some curiosity. "So… How does a Rohan lass know so much about Eriador poultry?”
Addie shrugged as she carefully pulled the locket from her pocket. "I make it a point to learn about many things. Knowledge is power, is it not?" She kept a tight hold on the necklace as she moved it closer to the hen to see if it would have any reaction to the scent or aura. The bird looked at the locket and even tried to peck at it, but there didn’t seem to be any sign that it had encountered the one that owned it.
As the test was being conducted, thoughts of confusion and fear filled Addie’s mind. She could hear loud noises and it sounded as though there was a fight of some kind. Her heart twinged with those sensations and she gritted her teeth; she knew all too well what had just happened- she had just experienced the hen’s memories from the night of the disappearance.
While Addie was busy with the chicken, Elsa walked over to the area that was most trampled to look for anything that might seem strange or out of place. She knelt down and drew her knife to dig around in the dirt to see if anything had been covered over. Kraddock kept an eye on her, still not fully trusting this person that had shared a womb with Gerda; when Elsa noticed his gaze, she smiled at him and blew him a kiss.
"More alike then not it seems...” he snorted.
Elsa stood and replaced the knife in the sheath on her belt. "I can't seem to find anything over here that might give us any clues."
Kraddock nodded and looked back to Addie. "Get anything from the chicken… a confession perhaps?”
Addie was still recovering from the pain in her chest, but managed a forced smile as she nodded to Kraddock. “Aye, I am almost certain that Mans was not here.” She thanked the bird with a quiet coo in its ear and waited until it had stepped down from her arm before she stood to re-pocket the locket. “I also believe that there was some kind of loud disturbance which scared the chicken that night, a fight perhaps… likely the work of some hired henchman or ruffians. But that is just a guess until we have inspected the place."
Kraddock opened his mouth to inquire further…
“Oh!” Addie continued, “And her name is ‘Fajita’… though, why anyone would name their chicken that is beyond me.”
Kraddock’s mouth just hung open for a moment and he decided that it was probably best not to explain that one to Addie. “Right… so… the house then…” He turned and motioned for them to follow him. When they reached the door, they could see that the padlock on it was new, but the door itself didn’t appear to have any other signs of a break-in. Kraddock pulled at the lock."Either the Squad leader put this on or the local guard or the auction house did… Do either of you have a fine hand? Or do we snap it off?”
Addie cringed at the suggestion. "Perhaps we... could try a window instead of breaking a lock?"
The Captain slowly released the padlock from his iron grip. “Fine… we’ll try it that way first.”
The window closest to them had a few small cracks in it, but it was still locked from the inside- as were the others that they tried. However, when they got to the window on the southwest side of the house, the glass was completely missing.
“Lock on the door, but missing a window. That seems strange.” Elsa stated.
Kraddock nodded and stepped forward to examine the frame. "Hm... it doesn’t look like there was ever any glass in it… just an empty space.”
Addie cast a squinting, suspicious gaze at the empty space. "That is very odd indeed..." She then bent down to pick up a rock and threw it at the opening.
Kraddock snorted at the sound of the rock breaking some of the crockery inside."Vandal...”
“What?” Addie questioned sheepishly. “It could have been a trap.”
Elsa chuckled and got down on all fours beneath the window. "Step up, Addie, and look in the window. See if you can see anything."
Addie hesitated for a moment, but then walked over to do as asked. She apologized profusely while stepping up on Elsa’s back and then held herself perfectly still once in place. As she looked around, her crystal blue eyes carefully scanned the window frame and floor for any trip wires or other dangerous devices. “I see some marks in the floor near this window,” she called down to the other two. “There are three of them and they look to be about an inch deep... Oh! This window has shutters! …Wait… They’re on the inside?”
Kraddock shook his head and an amused smile curled on his lips. “Are you just going to describe everything to us or are we going in?”
“Oh!... Right!... Apologies again, Miss Elsa.” With those words, she pushed off of the other woman and hoisted herself through the opening. Relieved of Addie’s weight, Elsa stood again and dusted herself off.
“Alright… In ya go...then me.”
Elsa shook her head. “No thank you, I’d rather stay out here and keep watch while she investigates.” Kraddock crossed his arms, but before he could respond, Elsa had already turned and was calling up to the other woman. "What do you see, Addie? Anything of importance?"
Addie’s voice called back, “Uh… I stepped on some glass… It is not the window glass though, it’s much thicker and it looks… polished? Rounded?... Actually, there are several pieces on the floor here… Oh wait! They’re not all the same… I think some of these are the pieces of a mirror?... I also see some pieces of wood on the floor, but they appear to have been broken or smashed… And … What are these? Oh, these are some kind of metal tubes…”
“By the Pier…” Kraddock huffed out. He stepped forward and grabbed Elsa by the waist. “In ya go before she starts telling us about the nails in the floorboards.” The brunette didn’t even have time to resist the action; with one swift motion of his arms, she was sailing through the window.
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Addie gasped at the sight of Elsa hurtling toward her and closed her eyes to brace for impact; but instead of being bowled over, the other woman narrowly managed to avoid her by performing a complete front flip midair and landed gracefully on her feet just to Addie’s left.
"Well... that’s one way to make an entrance," Elsa muttered to herself as she looked around the room. She chuckled at seeing that Addie was standing as stiff as a board with her eyes closed. Reaching her hand over, she tapped the blonde on the shoulder and beamed a smile at her when she opened her eyes.
“By the stars!” Addie panted out. “Why did you leap through the window like that? You nearly sent me to an early grave!”
"I didn’t exactly jump…” Elsa explained as she jabbed her thumb back at the window, “Captain Strongarm out there picked me up and threw me.”
Addie blinked a few times. “He did what?... Why?”
"Why not?!” Kraddock laughingly questioned as he hoisted himself through the window; his booming voice and laughter resonated throughout the room.
Addie just shook her head and gestured to the items on the floor that she had been describing to the two before she was interrupted by a flying Elsa. Kraddock looked around and picked up a few pieces of the thick glass. “You were right about these,” he stated. “This is not the kind of glass that would be used for a window.”
Addie nodded and sat down on the floor so that she could work on piecing the glass together. “From the edges and slight concave curve, it seems that these fragments form a disc… or rather two of them to be precise- one smaller and one larger… These mirror pieces also look to be in the shape of a circle. I would say that these appear to be some type of looking glasses, but I do not think that is quite it.”
While Addie worked on solving the mystery of the glass, Elsa knelt down beside the broken pieces of wood to take a closer look at them. She picked up three pieces that had metal spikes on the ends and glanced toward the deep indentations in the floor. “I think… that maybe these are responsible for those those marks.” Her suspicions were confirmed when the metal ends fit down perfectly into the holes. "I have no idea what I am making here but it’s...something."
Kraddock studied the other pieces of wood still on the floor; upon seeing the metal screws and other fittings that could be used to adjust the structure, he nodded to himself. “It’s a stand with three legs… I’d say that our farmer friend had a mounted crossbow here.”
Elsa thought about that for a moment as she peered at the three legs that were now sticking up from the floor. "Well...I know a little bit about crossbows and I suppose that it could be possible, but the stand seems rather small and the wood a bit too thin to support the weight of a mounted crossbow."
Kraddock rubbed his chin. "True…”
Addie’s face lit up in realization. “I know what this is now! I have seen something like it once before when stargazing with Calidis; she called it a palantilla.” Addie pointed to the metal tubes and began to pick them up. “The larger glass lens fits on the end on these metal tubes and you look through the smaller one; the mirror goes inside the tube. I am not quite sure how it works, but it allows you to see things that are far away as though they were right in front of you.”
Kraddock raised an eyebrow and walked over to the window to inspect the shutters, when he closed them, the three could see that they blended in perfectly to match the wood- from a distance it would be hard to notice that there was even a window there. “I would say that you are correct… This looks like a spy window to me.”
Addie smiled brightly. “If we can piece this palantilla back together, perhaps we can see what he was spying on…“Miss Elsa, would you fit the tubes together while we repair the glass?”
The brunette nodded and walked toward the far wall to pick up the last metal tube- this one had been crushed as though it had been stomped on. When she bent down to pick it up, she noticed that there was a small leatherbound book hidden underneath it. Elsa hummed to herself and picked the book up by the spine to give it a little shake to see if anything would fall out; when nothing did, she held it correctly and dusted it off so that she could inspect it further.
Meanwhile, Addie and Kraddock carefully “glued” the lenses back together using a honey salve that Addie always carried with her. The woman smiled as she saw how delicately he was trying to handle such a fragile item. "How often have you had to build things?"
The captain roared out a chuckle. "I can’t recall ever...I’m better at breaking things.” Seeing that Elsa was now occupied with a book, he left Addie to hold the glass while the salve hardened and walked over to take the crushed tube from the other woman. “Did you find something useful?”
Elsa continued to read for another moment before responding. "I am not sure… This book has a bunch of numbers and letters that don't mean anything to me." She held out the book to show it to him and occasionally turned the page so that he could see the various numbers and letters written on the different pages. Each page had a date written at the top and for most, the date was the only thing on that page. The ones that did contain other information seemed to be written in code with two times- the second time seeming to be completely random, but usually hours that would be dark, and the first time would never be before 9 or after 12, and was always in quarter hours.
She turned to a page that had a star at the top and showed it to Kraddock before walking over to Addie so that she could see as well. It contained the following information:
9:30 at 10:35, 1M 2F
10:00 at 1:15, 6F
9:45 at 12:05, 1F 6C
While Addie scanned over the information, Kraddock began shaping the crushed tube back into its original form, needing nothing more that just the strength in his hands to make the metal conform to his will.
Addie’s eyes widened as the realization of what the letters stood for hit her. "This is a slave log…” She pointed to the letters as she explained, “1M, 2F… One male and two females... then the next one, six females... and the last one, one female and six children... My guess is that this asset was recording the trafficking."
Elsa looked at the times on the page and hummed as she thought about them. "Do you think these are the times when the Breewatch changes shifts? It would be easier to move slaves around if the Watch is busy changing guard rotations”
Kraddock shook his head toward Elsa as he passed the reformed tube down to Addie. "Breewatch barely leave the inn at the best of times, they do not venture out here… a goblin may bite them.”
Elsa looked to Addie to see if she had any ideas. "These first numbers seem to have some kind of pattern to them,” the blonde mused as she stared at the numbers, “but the second ones..."
"Coordinates on a map?" Elsa questioningly blurted out as the random idea popped into her head.
Kraddock rubbed his chin and turned his gaze toward the three wooden pieces sticking up from the floor. "This stand might not be for a crossbow, but if it WERE for a crossbow, those would be directions called out by the spotter.”
"Oh! The enemy’s at ten o'clock or set the position to nine o’clock, right?"
The captain nodded at Addie. “Exactly....If the window were the horizon, then...” he walked over to the window and opened the shutters to look out, “these locations would be to the southwest of us.”
“Drop off spots…” Addie concluded.
Elsa nodded in agreement, “With what we know so far, that would seem to be the most logical conclusion to the pieces and clues that we have.” She walked over to the window as well and looked out. “There’s only one problem though… the only thing in that direction is that new homestead being built; or if you travel further, Hobbit Adso has his Caravan that way.”
“There’s one way to find out,” Kraddock replied as he turned his head toward Addie. “Do you have that pal… whatever you called it ready?”
Addie placed the mirror down into the tube and then gently secured the lenses in their places. “Aye, but it’s not going to be perfect with all the cracks.”
Kraddock peered through the crude telescope and after sweeping it around a few times, he motioned for them to come forward and look. Standing around in the Old Greenway Fort, just down the hill from the farmhouse, several armed men were guarding a wagon that had people inside of it, and they appeared to be waiting on someone. Arranged along one of the walls next to them were three blazing torches in a straight line.
Addie gasped and looked back to the other two. "We have to do something... We can't let them take those people to Angmar... or wherever they're headed!"
Elsa’s hand moved down to the hilt of her sword and Kraddock nodded. "Looks like my minstrel career is over...”
(Continued in Part 6)
