At first, Anton feared he’d found another corpse. He knelt down and touched the child’s hand and, to his astonishment, found it warm, with a weak but steady pulse. Hope and elation burned away his weariness. Experience cautioned him not to immediately try to free the victim, much as he longed to pull her out from under the mound of rock. He first took a careful look at the debris pile. Shifting the wrong stone might cause the rocks to slide and bury the child deeper.

“Damn, this is odd,” he muttered to himself, eyeing the strange way the stones and beams had settled. But then, he’d noted a lot about this disaster that was very odd.

He thought at first of calling for help. He thought then that he wouldn’t. He could manage by himself. Considering the oddity of the situation, that might be best. And it would save precious time. He dug the child out of the debris using his bare hands and, within moments, had freed her.

She was unconscious. She had a head wound. Blood gummed her hair and covered her face and her clothes so that it was hard for him tell where else she might be hurt. Her breathing was easy, not labored or shallow. He felt her limbs to see if they were broken. Arms and legs appeared to be intact. He could not see the wound on her head for all the blood and did not want to start probing, fearing his clumsy touch might make her injuries worse. The girl was about twelve years old. She was dressed in a woolen shift and that was all—no stockings, no shoes.

The building was empty. No furniture, no sign that people lived here. The girl was alone in an abandoned dwelling. Odder and odder still.

Anton took no more time to speculate. Questions would be answered if and when the girl survived. He lifted her gently in his arms and carried her from the building. On his way out, he spotted Grald, the man who ruled Dragonkeep in the name of the dragon, talking with one of the holy sisters. Anton ducked his head, so as to escape their notice, and hurried past them as swiftly as possible. He was glad, now, he had not called for help.

He considered what to do with the child. He could take her to the healers in the Abbey, but the Abbey was a long way off and he was too tired to walk such a distance. Besides, the Houses of the Healers would be filled to overflowing. His own home was nearby. He would take the child there first, make her comfortable, and let his wife examine her injuries. Then together, he and Rosa could decide what to do with her.