The old woman knew them.
That was the first thing they learned the next morning. Hessa sat in the great hall with her hand over her eyes and described what she saw coming south through the grass. The old woman sat beside her and listened. After a while, she named them.
"That one's a Wearer," she said. "He told me about those. They lie by water. You get tired."
Hessa described another. It was round and low, and the grass went gray around it.
"A Blight," said the old woman. "He was proud of the Blights."
"We've killed a Blight," said Ainen.
The old woman looked at him with her pale blue eyes.
"Have you?" she said. "He never told me anyone had."
They went on like that all morning. Hessa looked, and the old woman named. Big D wrote each one down in the back of the book, in a new list, with what it ended.
Kael stood over his shoulder and matched each name against the parts on the long table and the orbs in people's pockets.
