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Shadows of Myth
Rachel Lee


No memory, no future, and only a white rose to identify her… The Ilduin Bane are myth and legend: assassin mages whose blades drip poison and whose minds share a common purpose–one of death or control. All who have gone against them lost, unable to penetrate their powerful protections. So Archer Blackcloak gathers a small band to destroy the Bane.From Archer comes strength of purpose and an indomitable will. Ratha and Giri give the group a fighter's skill and temper. They are joined by Young Tom, whose unwavering loyalty is matched by an insatiable curiosity, and by Sara Deepwell, who has a surprising talent for magic.From their last member, Tess Birdsong, the only survivor of a brutal attack that left her with no memory, comes the power of one who has nothing left to lose. But the road to freedom is long and twisted, and before they are finished old sorrows may destroy them. Yet once started, they cannot turn back–no matter how high the price….









Praise for

RACHEL LEE


“A suspenseful, edge-of-the-seat read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Before I Sleep

“Rachel Lee deserves much acclaim for her exciting tales of romantic suspense.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Lee crafts a heartrending saga….”

—Publishers Weekly on Snow in September




RACHEL LEE

SHADOWS OF MYTH








To Aaron, for whom the first seeds of this tale

were planted. Thank you, son, for waiting so long

for the tree to mature.










Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue




1


She awoke to the smell of blood, the sound of running water and the icy bite of the wind on her back. For a long moment, that was all she could be certain of, as if her brain had to learn all over again what it meant to be conscious. Then, in the instant when disorientation gave way to awareness, terror slammed into her gut like a falling tree. She fought to breathe, even to open her eyes and see.

She wished she hadn’t.

The scent of blood spilled from the cooling, inert form upon which she lay. His throat had been slashed from ear to ear, the flesh parted in an obscene smile, still glistening in the brilliant moonlight. His eyes were fixed forever in a terror-filled gaze.

Bile rose in her throat, and she rolled off the body, pushing at it, pushing at the air around it, as if she might somehow banish the event, erase it from her mind, never to have happened. But it was not to be, for as she rolled backward, she tumbled upon another body.

The boy was small, not yet seven to judge by his features. Deep brown eyes seemed focused vaguely beyond her head. His abdomen had been laid open in an ugly, razor-smooth diagonal gash from just beneath his left nipple nearly to his right hip. Tiny, dirty hands clutched a small walking stick over his belly, a terrified, confused, tormented child’s futile attempt to both hold his innards within him and protect himself from further blows. To judge by the savagery that must have followed—for surely that sort of mutilation could not have been done until he stopped fighting—he had succeeded in neither aim.

Her eyes rose to take in the rest of the scene around her. A river gurgled black with blood, stinking of it, over rocks worn smooth by the water’s patient, insistent, inexorable caress. She looked upstream for the source of the blood in the water. She didn’t have to look far. For at least a hundred paces, the bodies of men, women and horses sprawled along the bank like so much litter, as if haphazardly thrown over the side by a passing ship, their last agonies visible in every vivid, stomach-wrenching detail.

She fought the dizzying wave of nausea and lost. As she spat the last of it into the river, she realized she was naked and covered in blood. A new panic tore through her as her hands roamed over her body, feeling for wounds. There were none immediately apparent, so she made her way upstream, methodically checking each body in a manner and for reasons she could not fathom, until she reached the head of the column and clear water.

The water stole her breath away, so cold it nearly burned her skin. Gritting her teeth, she steeled herself to the pain and washed the gore from her body, then checked again for wounds in the pale light of the moon. Nothing so much as a scratch. She stepped out of the river, and the wind bit anew, sending her into an uncontrollable shiver.

At this temperature, I’ll freeze to death in less than an hour, she thought, then wondered why she would know such a thing with such utter certainty. With that wonderment came the most terrifying shock of all. She had no idea who she was, or where, or how she’d gotten to this place.

Nor was there time to find out.

The whimpered moan sent a chill down her spine. She looked around, wondering if it might have been the wind, but then it came again, the sound full of pain and fear. Every rational thought told her to hide, and yet she was drawn to the moan like a moth to a flame, working her way back down the column, pausing every few steps to listen until the sound repeated.

It was a girl, perhaps the same age as the boy she’d seen earlier, perhaps even his twin. The girl’s lips, thin and almost white, quivered as she gasped for breath. She knelt beside the girl, feeling for a pulse in the bloody mess that was a throat, and finding it fluttery and weak. The girl’s eyes seemed to search the darkness before finding her.

“Oon-tie,” the girl moaned. “Oon-tie.”

She had no idea what the word meant, but the message was clear enough: help me. Her fingertips probed the wound at the girl’s throat. Somehow the killers had missed the artery, although the slash had opened several smaller blood vessels. It was a superficial wound. Fear, cold and shock had done the rest. The girl must have lain still, clinging to her dying mother, feigning death until the attackers had grown bored with their blood sport and melted away into the darkness.

“Shhhh,” she whispered, trying to find a reassuring calm that would quiet the girl. “Don’t talk. Let me try to help you.”

It was then that she noticed her fingertips were burning. She decided it was the cold.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, rising to look for something to wrap around herself and the girl.

“Ooooon-tieeee,” the girl moaned as she moved away.

The sound tore at her heart, but discipline and a training she did not remember took control. If she didn’t find a way to keep them both warm, nothing else would matter. They would simply die here, in the dark, in the cold, vainly clinging to each other for a warmth neither could give.

She picked through the slashed bundles that lay on the ground, finding nothing but sacks of wheat and rice. Surely one of the bundles ought to hold a blanket or spare clothes. But there were none to be found. Shuddering at the thought, she combed through the column again, finding the body of a woman roughly her own size. She closed her eyes as she undressed the woman, whispering a nearly silent I’m sorry, fighting back revulsion as she pulled the damp wool garment around her, knowing that the dampness was blood.

Still, wool dried from the inside out—yet another fact she wondered how she would know—and she knew she would warm up soon. She ran back to the girl.

“Hah-gee,” the girl whispered. “Oon-tie.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “Oon-tie. I’ll help you. Oon-tie.”

She pulled the girl inside the cloak with her and tied the sash, sharing her body heat with the pale, cold girl. Tucking the girl’s legs around her hips, she rose and once again searched the column for anything she could use for a bandage. Finally realizing that a torn strip of sackcloth was the best she would find, she did her best to wrap it around the girl’s throat while keeping the girl inside her cloak. It wasn’t a proper field dressing—where had that phrase come from?—but it would have to do.

“Oon-tie,” she whispered in the girl’s ear as she bound the wound. “Oon-tie.”

It was then that she realized her fingers were still burning, even though she’d grown warmer. This wasn’t the burn of cold-numbed nerves. It was as if she had dipped her hands into a bag of ants, and the burning itch was spreading up to her palms.

“Oon-tie,” she whispered again, carrying the girl with her to the river, where she knelt and plunged her hands into the icy water, then scrubbed them against each other.

The water soothed the burning enough that she could focus on what to do next: move away from this place. She had no idea if the killers would return, but the bodies themselves would soon draw natural scavengers. She didn’t want to be there when the vultures arrived, didn’t want this girl to watch them peck at the flesh of people she had known and loved.

In the darkness, she picked out a hard, stony road that ran alongside the river. She went upstream, for the simple reason that at least this way they would have access to clean water. After a few minutes, the river widened again, and the sound of water over rocks faded into the darkness. The road bent closer to the river, and a neat stack of thick, smooth logs seemed to materialize out of the night.

A portage, she thought. Perfect place for an ambush. And why do I know this?Who am I?

She let her mind wander over that question for a few minutes but could find no answer. Her back ached with the weight of carrying the girl, and she needed to rest. In the distance, a tree line beckoned. At least she would have cover. She could make it that far. Then they could rest.

But the tree line hovered just out of reach. Her depth perception had been skewed by the flat light of the moon, the crystalline nighttime air and the fact that she was climbing a slow, steady slope. Her breathing grew labored, but she pressed on, the girl shivering in her arms.

The girl ought to be warming up, too, she thought. Yet the girl’s breaths came in ragged rasps. The girl’s legs slid off her waist again and again, as if they were increasingly weighted with stones. Each time, the girl seemed to struggle harder to pull her thin legs back up. She was losing the battle for life.

The woman didn’t let herself think about that. The tree line. The tree line. It became a mantra, the whispered words keeping a rhythm to her stride as she forced herself on into the night.

Finally she could make out distinct trees, some kind of pine, tall and straight, wreathed in bunches of needles that looked as fluffy as a squirrel’s tail.

Just a few more steps, she told herself. You can do this. You’ve done it before. She had no idea where, or when. But she had done it—and more.

The girl went into spasms just as they reached the trees. The woman lowered herself to the ground, pulling the heavy wool even tighter around them, but the warmth did nothing to stem the spasms.

“Ooh-ooh-oon-tie,” the girl gasped.

“I’m trying” the woman answered. “I’m trying to help you, honey. Oon-tie. Oon-tie.”

She felt for a pulse again. It was weaker than before, tiny flutters fighting a rising black wave. The girl’s skin was clammy, her breath shallow. She laid the girl on the ground, in a pile of needles, and turned the girl’s face to her.

“Keep fighting,” she said, hoping her tone of voice would convey what the words could not. “Don’t give up. Don’t you quit on me.”

But the girl’s eyes grew cloudy, her breath more ragged, until finally she let out a tiny gasp.

“Teh-sah.”

Then she was still.

The woman lifted the girl and clutched her inside her cloak, sobbing in the darkness, vainly crying out to any god who might listen in this strange place, “Noooooooooo.”



Sara Deepwell hefted a barrel of ale from the stack and lowered it into a V-shaped cart, then rolled it out of the alehouse and in through the back door of the Deepwell Inn. Despite the cold of the morning, with mist still drifting in off the Adasen River and across the Commons, she wiped a sheen of perspiration from her forehead with a sleeve.

“That’s four barrels,” she said.

Her father, Bandylegs, looked up at the icy-blue sky and nodded. “I’m sure that will be plenty. Let’s get the stew going.”

“Yes, sir,” Sara said, suppressing a small sigh.

She could remember when four barrels of ale wouldn’t have lasted through half an evening at harvest festival. This year, it would probably be more than enough.

She went into the kitchen, dipped her fingertips in a basin and flicked the water onto the skillet atop the stove. The water danced and popped. Satisfied, she speared a huge mutton roast on a metal fork and pressed it onto the skillet, taking in the scent of searing meat, turning it every few minutes until it was nicely browned. The roast went into the boiling water in a cast-iron cauldron, along with the onion, garlic and herbs she had minced before dawn. Later she would add the potatoes, carrots and other vegetables. For now, though, she had other chores.

Always other chores, she thought sadly. The inn was too much work for her father alone, and she had been helping him for what seemed like forever. In truth, it had been six years. Six years to the day since she’d heard her mother’s laugh, since she’d heard her mother’s songs in the public room, since she’d seen her mother’s smile, since she’d tasted her mother’s fish chowder, since she’d felt her mother’s hand pushing at her shoulder to wake her in the morning. Six years, and it could have been yesterday.

It had been a morning just like this one, clear and cold, misty, with a north wind. Sara had been fourteen then, more worried about meeting her friends at the market and giggling as they watched the young men work the dock, pushing carts laden with sacks of wheat off the river barges, or carts laden with wool and furs onto them to be taken downriver. They would watch the men’s muscles ripple as they labored and try to guess which of them would be best at quelling the urges that fluttered in fourteen-year-old girls’ bellies. Not that Sara or any of her friends would have considered actually doing anything about those urges. The watching and the whispering, the giggling and the dreaming, were enough.

Sara had been planning exactly such an adventure that morning as she’d spread feed in the trough for the goat, drawn water from the well that gave the family and the inn its name, and picked an apron full of fresh tomatoes from their small garden. She’d gone into the pantry to put up the tomatoes and come out just in time to see her mother at the door, waving.

“I’m off to the market for flour,” her mother had said, the distinctive musical lilt in her voice as clear to Sara today as it had been six years ago this morning.

And then she was gone.

By midmorning, her father had grown anxious, and together they’d walked across the commons to the waterfront, first to the miller, then to the fish market, then to every other shop along the row, from the wool and fur drying sheds to the ice house. No one had seen her.

Together with a growing band of friends, they’d searched the commons, shooing sheep from their paths as they walked, then fanned out into the town as word spread before them. Townsfolk had checked back gardens, sheds, the stables, the waterfront again, the commons again. They’d expanded the search outside the wall, as farmers walked their fields and trappers looked for tracks in the dense pine forest that swaddled the rugged hills around town like a green blanket.

It was as if she had vanished into thin air.

A pall of gloom had hung over the harvest festival that year, as it did again this year. Winter had come too soon, with bitter nighttime cold borne on the wind that whistled through the Desa Pass and down on Whitewater like an angry avalanche, turning leaves black and crops to mush. The farmers had taken to their fields early, and the townsfolk to their gardens. With autumn only just begun, they’d done what they could, but it was not enough. Not nearly enough. Just last night, in the public room, she’d heard a man say he’d lost nearly half his crop. The other men had nodded agreement. It would be a lean winter.

Sara pulled her cloak tighter around herself and went upstairs to clean the few unoccupied rooms. The cold had forced the trappers down from the mountains early, for not even the hardiest soul dared risk being stranded in these mountains, where temperatures could plunge from mild to deadly in the space of an hour. There would be few white wolf pelts to sell downriver.

At least there would be ale. Her father had put up extra barrels over the past three years, when the fields had been lush with hops, barley and malt. He would trade more this year, he’d told the men in the public room last night. Deepwell ale was a prized commodity downriver. It would make up for the lost pelts and bring in enough grain from the valley for the town to make it through the winter. They would get by, he’d reassured them. Whitewater folk always got by.

But the barge caravans had grown sparse as the summer wore on, and the big harvest barges were three weeks late. There would be no fish chowder and fry bread at this year’s festival. Only mutton stew. And four barrels of ale.

Sara tried to shake off the sense of doom that seemed to stalk her like a hungry mountain lion. Her father had spoken reassuring words in the public room, but in their private quarters, his face was dark. Sara could almost read the troubled thoughts as they flickered across his face. And last night, again, she’d heard his quiet sobs through the wall.

He had, no doubt, once again taken out the white wool cloak and white lambskin boots he’d bought that same day six years ago, intending to give them to his wife six years ago this morning. She’d thought of suggesting he should sell them but could never bring herself to do it. For they were more than mere memorabilia. They were the tangible hope that someday, by some miracle, the light would walk back into his life.

There should be children, Sara thought. Children bouncing in the courtyard, helping her mother to hang the dried stalks of barley and string the seeds and pinecones that would dangle from the trees. Children scurrying around the commons, chasing sheep and splitting the morning air with high-pitched peals of laughter. Children in the public room, sitting on their heels, eyes wide, breathless, hands clasped tight, as the old men’s voices rose and fell in the cadence of old poems, their words rich with the tension of the hunt or the din of battle.

There should be children underfoot, Sara thought, returning to the kitchen where her father sat, looking out the window at the women crossing the commons on their way to market, their bodies hunched and leaning into the north wind. There should be joy instead of this grim, quiet determination that folk in Whitewater adopted to steel themselves for hard times and winter storms. There should be hearty laughter, and hearty fish chowder with just a splash of mead added to make it sparkle on the tongue and glow in the belly.

Instead, there was only the unceasing moan of the wind. And mutton stew.

“There’s evil coming,” her father almost whispered, his gaze still focused out the window. “Evil and blood.”

Yes, Sara thought. Evil and blood.

And more loss.




2


The woman slid deeper into the bushes as the blue-black forms padded silently through the morning mist. Strange men, tall and slender, with long, sinewy muscles that rippled like the flanks of a horse. Their nostrils flared as they sniffed the breeze, dark eyes seeming to search every shadow, their broad, curved swords at the ready. The two men stopped. The one on the right flicked his tongue over his lips as if tasting the forest. An almost inaudible series of grunts emerged from deep in his throat. Then silence again, save for the breathy whisper of the breeze moving through pine branches.

She silently cursed herself. She had heard the rhythmic clip clop of horses’ hooves on the road long before she had seen anyone and slipped off into the underbrush. But she had gone to the river side of the road, leaving herself upwind. It was a stupid mistake, born of exhaustion and sorrow and thoughts of the dead girl she still held to her breast. But the reasons didn’t matter. If they scented her, she would still be just as dead.

She scooted backward a few more feet, into the deep shade of a low-spreading pine, almost burrowing into the pillow of dry needles that lay beneath it, feeling the sap stick to her skin. Her eyes remained focused on the two men, their skin so dark it glimmered an iridescent blue in the shadows, as she gingerly reached around for anything she could use as a weapon. The man on the right sniffed again, then lowered his sword. She realized she’d been holding her breath, and tried to let it out slowly and silently.

It was then that she felt the sharp prickle against the back of her neck.

“Ee-esh mah lah-rain.”

Like the girl’s words last night, these words flowed like water. But the man’s tone of voice left no doubt. This was no plea. It was a command. Hoping she guessed the meaning correctly, she extended her arms beside her, spreading her fingers to show that her hands were empty, all the while kicking herself mentally for being so intent on the two men on the road that she’d missed the one who had apparently circled behind her through the woods. A beginner’s mistake. The kind that got people killed.

“I mean no harm,” she said. Then, remembering, she added, Oon-tie.”

“Rah-so-fah-meh lay-esh?” the man asked.

Or so she thought, assuming that the rising tone at the end of the sentence indicated a question.

“Oon-tie,” she repeated. “Oon-tie.”

“Foe-doo-key,” he said, and she saw two pairs of unshod, blue-black feet approach through the underbrush, stopping just beyond her reach.

She drew a breath, rich with the scent of pine, and let it out slowly. “Oon. Tie.”

The pressure of a boot in her side told her the man wanted her to roll over. She did so, slowly, wrapping her arms protectively around the girl, even knowing the act was futile. “Oon-tie.”

The man was tall, over six feet, with piercing gray eyes that almost glowed beneath the black-green cowl that nearly hid his face. Unlike his companions, his skin held the darkening of weather, the tan of many suns, but nothing of the deepness of night.

The prickle had traced around her neck as she rolled, and now she saw the sword, as long as her leg and broad as her hand, curving upward to a menacing point that rested against the pulse in her neck. The rest of his cloak was as black as the cowl, the barest hint of deep green in its folds, making him almost invisible in the darkness of the forest. Even if she’d been looking for him, she might well have missed him. The boot on her shoulder was soft leather, snug to the foot and muscled calf. One gloved hand held the sword, while the other rested by his side, the barest twitch in the last two fingers the only indication that the man sensed danger.

“Ay-oon-tie?”

She started to nod, then remembered the sword and held her head still. “Oon-tie.”

The man casually used his sword to nudge her arm from her chest, then open her cloak. His eyes seemed to bore into the girl’s body.

“I found her last night,” the woman explained, hearing the plea and pain in her voice. “She shouldn’t have died. I treated for her shock, and the wound was superficial. She shouldn’t have died. I didn’t kill her.”

The two blue-black men seemed confused by her words, and they exchanged almost inaudible grunts with the black-cloaked man whose sword rested on her collarbone. The men’s body language said the cloaked man was the leader. Finally the cloaked man lowered his sword and extended a gloved hand. Inviting her to get up, or so she hoped.

She reached for the hand, and he grasped her wrist. His grip could have snapped the bones in her hand like so many dried twigs, but he hefted her to her feet, then sheathed his sword, as if neither she nor the sword weighed an ounce. He reached for the child.

“No!” she said, half turning away.

He paused for a moment, then lifted the cowl from his head to reveal hard, care-worn features beneath raven-black hair. The faintest hint of a smile creased his cold eyes.

“Leh-oon rah-tie,” he said softly, in a voice that seemed to echo within him before making its way out into the world. He reached for the child again. “Leh-oon.”

Conflicting emotions warred within her. His tone, his face and his gesture seemed to convey “Please,” as if he were offering to help the girl. But she knew the girl was beyond help. And this was a man who, mere moments before, had held a sword to her throat. And the girl was…hers.

Apparently seeing her hesitation, he repeated the word, more softly this time. “Leh-oon.”

Reluctantly she let him lift the girl from her arms. He took her gently, supporting her head with one hand, and seemed to study her for a moment. His eyes flicked up to her, cold and hard.

“Trey-sah.”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Trey-sah,” he said again, motioning toward the girl with his head. “Tah-ill loh trey-sah.”

She compressed her lips, studying his eyes. Then it clicked, and she slowly nodded. “Yes. She’s dead. Trey-sah. Last night.”

The man nodded, and for an instant sorrow softened his icy-gray eyes. He handed the girl back to her, then pointed back down the road. “Yah-see. Roh-eem trey-sah.”

“Yes. They’re all dead. I…” It struck her that even if she had known his language, she could not have explained what had happened last night. She stopped and simply angled her head toward the road. “Yes. Trey-sah. This girl wasn’t. She no trey-sah. I tried to help her, but I couldn’t. She died last night, in my arms.”

The taller of the two black men, behind her to her left, muttered quietly. The cloaked man looked at him, then at her, and nodded. “Pah-roh. Ee-esh.”

Slender black fingers closed around her upper arms, gently but insistently. Whoever these men were, they were taking her with them. There was little point and less hope in fighting. Helpless to argue, she let them take her, her heart full of dread.



Young Tom Downey should have been asleep. He’d been up most of the night, opening the gate for the trappers who straggled in by ones and twos, not wanting to spend another night out on the ground in a fur sleep sack when they could walk a few more miles and have a pint of ale, a hot meal and a comfortable bed at the Deepwell Inn. By all rights he should have been exhausted and snug in his bed, catching up on his rest so he could enjoy the festival tonight.

But then there was Sara. He’d promised to help her set up tables and torches in the inn’s courtyard, not so much because she wanted or needed his help—she came from big-boned, Whitewater stock and was strong as most men—but because it was a good excuse to spend a day with her. The opportunity to look into her deep blue eyes, to see the broad smile break out on her oval face, to hear the flowing music in her idle humming. Faced with that, well, sleep came in at a far-distant second place.

The sun was well past high, and they had almost finished hanging the lanterns and decorations that crisscrossed the courtyard. Next they would build the firepit and, while the flames burned down, begin to carry out the long serving tables and stack the pewter flagons, bowls and spoons. By the time they had finished those tasks, the coals should be ready for them to heft the soup cauldron and bring it out from the kitchen. Another two or three hours.

Another two or three hours of Sara’s almost sole attention, a rare treat indeed. She was usually too busy taking care of patrons at the inn for him to get more than a few words in edgewise, and that only when he wasn’t busy with his mother’s garden, or minding the gate for his father. In truth, he lived for a day like this.

“A bit tighter,” Sara said, as he pulled the last line of lanterns over a tree limb. “There. Perfect.”

He tied off the line and looked up at their work. Gaily painted pinecones and lanterns formed a canopy over the courtyard. Tonight, with the fires lit and the stars winking overhead, the place would seem almost magical.

“Looks great,” Young Tom said. “It will be beautiful tonight.” Then, after a momentary pause, he added, “And I can’t wait for your mutton stew.”

She nodded, her features darkened by a passing thought. “I just hope people will come.”

Yes, they’d lost some crops this year to the cold. Yes, the trap lines were lean, and the river trout had moved downstream to warmer waters earlier than usual. But this was still the harvest festival, a last chance to celebrate the warmth of summer and growing things before ice crusted the river, and the fields and trees and gardens and roofs donned a white blanket of snow. And Young Tom was determined to enjoy it, if for no other reason than that it was one of the few times of the year when he felt any sense of wonder, of adventure.

After dinner, while the children scattered across the commons and around the town in search of the harvest lamb, while mothers clucked and tsked at their charges and gossiped about their husbands, the men would gather in the public room and swap stories. For the townsfolk, the tales were largely embellishments of mundane activities. For in Whitewater, and especially at harvest festival, it was unmannerly to simply state that one’s tomatoes had grown well this summer.

Instead the tilling and seeding, the watering, weeding, nurturing and, finally, picking, became an epic, often comic, battle of man against nature, where the storyteller was both conquering hero and court jester. He would be spurred on by the interjections and objections of those listening, until the tale dissolved in gales of laughter. Sometimes the stories would loop back to others told in past years—Young Tom’s first attempt to milk a goat was by now the stuff of legend, first told by his father and repeated countless times since, to his endless embarrassment—and the whole became the living history of Whitewater, high points and low, to be carried on in the years to come.

But as amusing as those tales could be, for Young Tom the highlight of the evening would come when a trapper or, better yet, a trader would take his place by the roaring fire. Eyes alight with excitement and tongue loosened by Bandylegs’ ale, he would talk of strange lands and faraway cities. There were stories of noblemen and guild masters, of fortunes won and lost on a hand of tiles, of street thieves skulking in alleys, of merchant sailors and pirates. And always, always, of the shimmering white streets of Bozandar, where anything that one could want—and much that one ought not to have—could be bought and sold in the markets and streets and on the docks.

It was these stories that held Young Tom rapt. Stories of places that didn’t smell like sheep and drying pelts, places where a man could make his mark on the larger world. Places Young Tom would never see.

He would never see them, quite simply, because he could never imagine taking himself away from Sara. Sure, he dreamed of carving his life on the stone of the world, preserved forever for all to see. But the truth was that he was a simple Whitewater lad, madly in love with a simple Whitewater lass. Someday, if the gods could instill courage in him, he would find the words to tell her that. He would ask her to marry him. She would say yes. And he would spend the rest of his days here, with her. With not a single regret for the places he did not see and the things he did not do.

“You are dreaming again, Young Tom Downey,” Sara said, looking over at him with that playful smile that almost dared him to disagree or, worse, tell her of his dreams.

He stammered for the right words and instead resigned himself to a clumsy nod. After a moment, he added, “I’ll just get another stack of bowls,” as if by focusing on the task at hand he could slow the beat of his heart or will the quiver from his hands.

She laughed. Oh, her laugh!

“You just do that,” she said with a wink. “And I’ll just be for setting out what you’ve already brought.”

She doubtless knew, of course. His mother said a blind man could see the way he looked at her. His friends had long since given up on teasing him about it. She knew, and that made it all the harder. In his mind, she loved him, too, and had imagined a thousand ways he might finally speak his heart, imagined words that soared like an eagle to its mountain eyrie or sparkled like the morning dew. There was simply no way he could ever match the words she had imagined, and thus whatever he said would surely be a disappointment.

That daunting prospect held him back, knotted his tongue and kept the dream of holding her at bay, forever just one act of courage away.



Archer had heard that a mother can identify her own baby’s cry in a room full of crying babies. He was sure he could tell his horse from Ratha’s or Giri’s simply by the roll of its gait and the way its flanks felt between his legs. All of that seemed very ordinary and believable. And none of it explained what he felt as he held the woman against him.

They’d spent the day riding higher into the hills and deeper into the forest, farther from the butchered remains of the caravan they’d come upon that morning. He’d chosen this course not because he sought to avoid the band that had ambushed the traders, but simply because he didn’t want to confront them while saddled with this strange woman and the dead child she refused to relinquish. She needed shelter. And he would need all his limbs and attention free when that confrontation happened. The nearest shelter was the town of Whitewater, another few hours’ ride upstream. So there they would go, and there he would leave her, before coming back to deal with the bandits.

The woman had slept for most of the day. Whatever had happened last night, however she had escaped unharmed from the carnage, she was exhausted. Somehow, even in sleep, she kept her arms around the girl. What she could not do while sleeping was keep herself in the saddle.

So he kept an arm around her, steadying her, as he and his companions rode along in a silence broken only rarely and briefly. The occasional whispered warning was all that passed between them. And that left Archer alone with his thoughts, which was becoming a distinctly uncomfortable state of affairs.

If he were not so certain they were being followed and likely overheard, and if he were not concerned about keeping their purpose from their followers, they might have engaged in the kind of traveling banter that usually passed among them. Ratha in particular had a biting sense of humor that, coupled with his Anari gift of observation, might have had them alternately groaning and guffawing all day. But today there was no such relief. Today there was only the sound of their horses’ hooves, the occasional rustle of underbrush despite their pursuers’ stealth, and the woman’s slow, even breathing.

And the feel of her in his arms.

There was no reason this woman should feel familiar. Her language was certainly not one he’d ever heard before, though at least they’d been able to work out a minimal shared vocabulary by which to exchange the most basic information: stop, hungry, thirsty, cold and the like. She was attractive enough that he was sure he would have remembered meeting her. And he was sure he hadn’t.

Still, from the moment he’d looped an arm around her and pulled her against him in the saddle, he’d felt it. And that feeling grew stronger when he saw the mark of a white rose on her ankle, etched into the skin. As if his body remembered something his mind would not. It was not the sort of thought he enjoyed. He’d spent year upon year layering on a sense of who and what he was, as an Esegi hunter might use sticks and dried leaves to cover the void of a tiger pit. In fact, there was a sleeping tiger in his mental pit, and he had no desire to rouse it. His sense of self was probably no more authentic than the cover of that trap, but at least it had grown to be a bit more stable. He could walk on it. He could live on it. As long as none of the connecting tendrils was disturbed.

The mere act of holding this woman against him was disturbing those tendrils, and the specter of the tiger beneath hovered in the back of his mind like the sound of his pursuers, not yet ready to expose itself, waiting for the most opportune moment to spring free of the trap. He had no desire to face that again. For that reason, if for no other, he had to get this woman to shelter, to be rid of her and the disturbing, half-formed memories her presence evoked.

In truth, there wasn’t much that frightened him. He had stared down an angry bear protecting her cubs and walked away without so much as a scratch. He had hunted sawtooth boar in the dense underbrush of the Aktakna hills, where a moment’s inattention could leave a flowing gash in an arm or leg or belly. He had faced down petty thieves in the alleys of Sedestano, young men with more courage than sense who thought quick reflexes and a sharp dagger were an adequate substitute for actual fighting experience. He had slain the slaver who had intended to auction off Ratha and Giri, and parted a swath through the mob of angry men who saw no evil in buying and selling human beings.

He’d faced whatever dangers the world had thrown his way with an almost eerie calm that unsettled friend and foe alike. But this woman—and that tiger—scared him.

The sun was sinking behind the distant mountains as they finally emerged from the forest into the now barren fields that surrounded Whitewater. As they crested a knoll, he could see a faint glow over the wall, in the heart of the town, and the sound of clapping and singing made its way on the wind.

“Their harvest festival,” Giri said, his voice barely audible. “I’d forgotten.”

“Not much to celebrate,” Ratha answered, looking at the freeze-blackened fields.

Archer pondered that for a moment. “We celebrate what we can. That’s all life offers us.”

And we try to forget the rest, he thought.

He debated whether to rouse the woman and decided against it. There would be plenty of time to rouse her after they passed through the gate, when he could offer her a hot meal at Bandylegs’ inn. In the meantime, he would let her sleep.

And try not to think of the fog-shrouded memories.




3


The gatekeeper, Jem Downey, was not at the harvest festival. Oh, no. Not for him the revelry, food and storytelling, not that there would be much to miss this year. But as the gatekeeper, one whose son was stapled to the innkeeper’s daughter’s petticoats, Jem had no choice but to stay at his post.

At least until the sun had been set a while longer. With these cold days and nights, there might be other trappers and travelers seeking shelter, and Jem wasn’t one to let them freeze outside the city walls, much as he might grumble about missing all the fun.

Nor could he leave the gate open, as had been the custom during festivals in years past, to welcome any who might care to join the carousing. Not this year. Not with the rumors of fell things in the woods, of terrible events in the cities to the south.

This year a man couldn’t feel safe except behind the sealed stone walls of the town.

Not that Jem was unduly worried. He’d seen too many years not to have learned that rumors were usually far worse than fact.

So he sat in the kitchen with his wife, Bridey, sipping the lentil soup she had flavored with a piece of hamhock from a neighbor’s smokehouse. Everyone in town gave something to the gatekeeper from time to time. It was his pay. And this winter it might make him either the most fortunate man in town or the least. There was no way to predict how people’s hearts would face a rugged winter that boded to be the worst in memory.

But even that Jem didn’t truly fear, because he knew that come the worst, there would always be a meal for him at the Whitewater Inn. Bandylegs always managed to pull something out of his hat and was always ready to feed the Downeys.

The lentil soup was good and filling, though Bridey had made little enough of it, trying to save both hamhock and lentils for another supper.

Satisfied, Jem took out his pipe and indulged the pleasure of filling it just so with what little leaf he still had from the south. He couldn’t often indulge, but tonight, being a festival and all, he decided he could afford just this one bowlful.

He lit it with a taper from the fire—wood at least was plentiful—and told Bridey to leave the washing up and go join the festival. “You’ve worked hard enough today, my dear,” he told her fondly. “I’ll do the cleaning up.”

She smiled almost like the girl she had once been and gave him a kiss that brought a blush to his cheeks.

“You be coming along soon,” she told him.

“Aye. Soon as I’m sure there are no other poor souls out this night.”

As his wife departed the tower, Jem heard the keening of the wind. Aye, it was going to be a bad night. The outdoor festivities were probably already moving into the warmth of the inn’s public rooms. Not everyone could fit there, of course, but most of those with wee ones would be looking for their own beds soon, anyway.

Puffing on his pipe, he poured hot water from the kettle that always hung near the fire into the wooden pan, and washed the dinner bowls and spoons. There was still soup left in the big pot that hung to one side of the fire, and he decided to leave it where it was. ’Twas a cold night, and he might be wanting that bit of victual before he crawled into his bed.

He was just puffing the last of his pipe when the gate bell rang, a tinny but loud clang that was supposed to wake him even when he was soundly asleep.

Muttering just because he felt like muttering, he stomped across the room and pulled his thickest cloak off the peg. Wrapping it tightly around himself, he went down the circular stone stairway until he reached the tower’s exterior door. There he picked up a lantern that was never allowed to go out and stepped out into the night’s bitter cold.

The bell clanged insistently once again. Jem shook his head. Could he help it that he was no longer a boy who could run up and down the stairs? He was lucky he could still swing the gates open.

He opened the port in the gate and peered out.

Three mounted men, faces invisible beneath hoods pulled low. One of the men held what appeared to be a dead woman in front of him.

“What business?” he demanded gruffly, already thinking he might let these strangers freeze out there. He didn’t like the look of this at all.

“Open the gate, Jem Downey,” said a familiar voice. “This woman is hurt and needs attention.”

Jem peered out again, and as the nearest horse sidled, he recognized the cloaked figure. “Why, Master Archer!” he exclaimed. “’Tis a long time since you darkened this gate.”

“Too long, Jem. Are you going to let us in?”

Of course he was going to let Master Archer in. There was always a gold or silver coin in it for Jem, and the man had caused nary a whisker of trouble any of the times he had passed through town.

He quickly closed the porthole, then threw his back into lifting the heavy wood beam that barred the gate. He might have arthritis in every joint, did Jem, but he still had the strength in his back and arms.

The bar moved backward, out of the way, and Jem pushed open one side of the gate.

As the three riders started to enter single file, Master Archer, still concealed within his cloak, tossed Jem a gold piece.

“Mark me, Jem Downey,” Archer said. “There are fell things abroad. Do not open this gate again tonight. Not for anyone.”

“No, sir.” Jem bobbed his head. “Not for anyone.”

Then he stood, gold piece in hand, watching the three ride down the cobbled street toward the inn and the harvest celebration.

“Fell things, hmm?” he murmured to himself. When Master Archer said it, Jem believed it. All of a sudden he realized he was still standing outside the wall with one side of the gate open.

Unexpected fear speared him, and he looked quickly around. Snow was falling lightly, but the barren fields were empty as far as he could see.

Still…He hurried to close and bar the gate. As he locked it, an eddy of wind washed around him, chilling him to the bone.

Maybe he wouldn’t go to the harvest festival at all. Someone ought to keep a weather eye out.



The public room at the inn was crowded to the point that no person could stand or sit without being pressed tight against another. Good fellowship prevailed, however, so none minded the continual jostling.

Nanue Manoison, the most recent and probably last of the traders to come up the Whitewater River this year, held the attention of everyone in the room. One of the butter-colored people of the west, Nanue came every year to buy Bill Bent-back’s scrimshaw, and wheat from the harvest for the more crowded western climes. This year he would get scrimshaw, but no wheat.

He held the entire room rapt as he spoke of his trip east and the strangenesses he had beheld. Strangeness that ensured he would not be back this year, even if the weather took a turn for the better.

“It was like nothing I had ever seen,” he was telling the crowd. “My captain wanted to turn us around, he became so afraid. But I reminded him that we were five stout men and had little to fear on the river.”

Heads nodded around the room. Leaf smoke hung in the air.

“But,” Nanue said. “But. I tell you, my friends, it is not just the early winter. The farther we came down the pass, the eerier became the riverbank. First the deer disappeared. Never have I sailed a day on that river without seeing at least one or two deer come to drink or watch us from the shore. Then I realized that we barely heard any birdsong. None. All of you know that even in deepest winter there are birds.

“I know not where they have flown or why. But if the birds have gone, some evil is afoot, you mark my words. Some true evil. The last three days of our journey, I saw nothing living at all. And every league of the way, I felt we were being watched.”

The room became hushed. Then there was a mumbling, and finally a voice called out, “I felt it, too, Nanue Manoison. In my fields these past two weeks, trying to save what I could. It was as if I was being watched from the woods.”

“Aye,” others said, nodding.

“And the fish are gone,” someone else said. “We can fish even through the ice in winter, but there are no fish. It’s as if the river is poisoned.”

Someone else harrumphed. “Now don’t you be saying such things, Tyne. We drink the water safe enough. If ’twere poisoned, we’d be as gone as the fish.”

“It’s just an early winter,” said a grizzled voice from the farthest side of the room. “Early winter. Me granddad spoke of such in his time. It happened, he said, the year that Earth’s Root blew smoke to the sky for months, and ash rained from the heaven for many days. Maybe ’tis Earth’s Root again.”

Tom, who was standing as near Sara as he could, listened with wide-open ears. Just then, the front door of the inn flew open.

Startled, Tom turned and saw a cloaked man entering with a bundled woman in his arms. Behind him came two even taller men, faces invisible within their hoods.

“Why, Master Archer,” said Bandylegs, hurrying to greet the newcomers. “Oh my, what trouble have we here?”

“The woman is ill,” said Master Archer. “The child with her is dead. We need your best rooms, Master Deepwell. One for the woman, and one for my friends and myself.”

“Well, don’t you know, it’s as if I’ve been saving them for you,” Bandylegs said, heading for the stairway. “Two rooms with a parlor between. It’s dear, though, Master Archer.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Fine then, fine,” said Bandylegs hurrying up the stairs with the men behind him. “Sara?”

“Aye, Dad?”

“Hot water and towels. This poor ill woman will be needing some warmth.”

“Aye, Dad.”

“I’ll help you,” Tom said quickly, his heart thundering. Master Archer, the mysterious visitor of years past. Perhaps he would get a chance this time to ply him with questions about his travels. This was clearly an adventure of some kind, too, and Tom had no intention of being cut out of it.

Sara nodded her permission, and Tom followed her to the kitchen.

Nanue Manoison tried vainly to recapture the attention of his audience, but he failed. It was as if, with the arrival of the strangers, worry had crept in, as well. People exchanged uneasy glances, and a pall seemed to settle over the room.

Little by little, the local residents drifted away, leaving the public room occupied only by trappers and traders.

Outside, the cheerful decorations blew dismally in the breath of the icy wind, and the last of the party lanterns flickered out.



Sara Deepwell had some knowledge of tending the sick. Over her short years, she’d been called upon many times to help when someone was injured or ill, most likely because her mother had been a healer and Sara had learned at her side. Many of the skills remained, and there was little in a sickroom that could shock her or cause her fear.

But as she entered the room of the mysterious woman, what she saw did shock her. Her dad had lit the fire, and by its light she could see that the woman’s ragged wrap was stained with blood. And she could see the pallor of the child clutched in her arms, a child who was plainly dead, who had a bandage around her throat.

“Great Theriel,” she murmured. Behind her, she heard Tom stumble slightly beneath his burden of a cauldron of hot water.

“Just set it over here by the fire, Tom,” she said briskly, as if there were nothing of note occurring.

Tom complied, then at her gesture left the room.

Slowly, Sara approached the bed. The child was already frozen, as cold as the ice upon the winter river. But the woman, who still breathed shallowly, was hardly much warmer.

Bending, Sara tried to take the dead child from the woman’s arms. At once her eyes flew open, eyes the color of a midsummer’s morn, and a sound of protest escaped her.

“Let me,” Sara said gently, almost crooning. “Let me. I’ll take care of her. I promise I’ll take care of her.”

Some kind of understanding seemed to creep into those blue eyes, and the woman’s hold on the child relaxed.

Gently Sara picked up the corpse, and just as gently carried it from the room. A small, thin child, no older that seven. Gods have mercy on them all, when someone would kill a child of this age.

Outside, she passed the body to a nervous Tom. “She will need a coffin, Tom. See to it.”

He looked as if he might be ill, but he stiffened and nodded.

“And treat the child as gently as if she were your own. Her mother would want it that way. Get one of the women to clean her up and dress her.”

Again Tom nodded, then headed for the stairs.

Back in the strange woman’s room, Sara found her patient had lapsed into some kind of fevered dream, muttering words and sounds that made no sense. She threw a few more logs on the fire, knowing her patient would need every bit of heat she could get.

Then, tenderly, with care and concern, Sara undressed the woman and washed her with towels dipped in hot water, chafing her skin as she did so to bring back the blood.

When she was done, her patient looked rosier and healthier. All the dried blood was gone, and the rags had been tossed upon the fire.

Gently Sara drew the blankets up to the woman’s chin and took her hand. “You’re going to be all right,” she crooned. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

But she wasn’t sure she believed her own words. With dread in her heart, Sara Deepwell went downstairs to make sure the child was being properly tended.



In the public room, all attention had fixed on Archer—or Master Blackcloak, as some called him. His two companions had disappeared into their room, unknown and unknowable, but Archer had joined the small group of men still remaining around the fire. He ordered a tankard of Bandylegs’ finest and put his booted feet up on a bench.

“A caravan was attacked,” he said in answer to the questions. “Slaughtered, every man, woman and child. The only survivor I found is the woman I brought in.”

“Who would do such a thing?” Nanue marveled. Traders and caravans were rarely attacked, for while they carried much wealth, they also traveled heavily guarded by stout men. It had been a very long time, a time almost out of memory, since anyone could recall such a thing.

“And to kill everyone,” muttered Tyne, who was seated across the room. “Thieves need only to steal a packhorse or wagon. They don’t need to kill everyone.”

“These weren’t thieves,” said Archer.

A collective gasp rose. “How can you know that?” Nanue demanded.

“Because all their goods still lay there. Bags of rice and wheat and dried meats. All of it lying there, cast about thither and yon, much ruined by blood and gore.”

The silence that filled the room was now profound, broken only by the pop and crackle from the fireplace. The chill night wind seemed to creep into the room, even as it moaned around the corners of the inn. It was as if the fire had ceased to cast light and warmth.

“Tomorrow,” Archer said, his voice heavy with something that sent chills along the spines of the perceptive, “I will return to the caravan. I will seek for some sign of the attackers, and for some sign of where they went after. I welcome any who care to join me.”

“Join you?” asked Red Boatman, stiffening on his bench. “Why should we want to tangle with such things?”

“Because you might be able to recover some wheat, meat and rice. Unless I mistake what I saw in your fields, you’ll have some use for it before this winter is done.”

A few ayes rippled around the room.

“But to steal from the dead…” Tyne sounded troubled.

“They have no more use for it,” Archer replied. “’Twere better if it saved the children of Whitewater.”

A stirring in the room, then silence. A log in the fire popped loudly.

Archer put his feet to the floor and leaned forward, scanning every face in the room. “Mark me, there is evil afoot. Evil beyond any seen in your memory. Look to your larders and look to your weapons. For none will remain untouched.”

Then he rose and strode from the room, his cloak swirling about him, opening just enough to reveal an intricately worked leather scabbard and the pommel of a sword. It seemed a ruby winked in the firelight.

No one moved until his footsteps died away.

“Who is he?” Nanue asked. “Should you trust him?”

“Aye,” said Bandylegs, who’d been listening from behind the bar. “I’d trust him with my life, I would. None know anything about him, but he’s been passing through these many years, and never a bit of trouble come with him.”

“Trouble has come with him this time,” Tyne responded darkly. “Much trouble indeed.”

Bandylegs shook his head. “Next you’ll be telling me he brought the winter. Enough, Tyne. The man is right. If there’s food up there we can use, we need to get it for our families. Beyond that, I plan to stay safe behind these walls until spring.”

A murmur of agreement answered him. It seemed the matter was settled. Once again tankards needed filling, and life settled back into it comfortable course.

If Evil were afoot, it wasn’t afoot in Whitewater.

Yet.




4


Firelight flickered over the dark wooden walls of the room. Sara lay on the settle, curled into a ball beneath a blanket, watching her charge sleep. The woman’s color had become more natural now, and her breathing had finally settled into an easy, regular rhythm.

She thought she ought to sleep herself, now that it appeared the woman was going to be fine. But it was already approaching dawn, almost time to get up and rekindle the cook fires for baking bread. Almost time to go roll, knead and punch the dough, and set it to rise for breakfast.

But not yet. For now she could lie on this settle and watch the light of the flames dance on the walls like creatures out of myth. The cold wind keened noisily, and the curtains over the windows stirred a little but kept the draft out. Those curtains had been made and mended by generations of Deepwell women, including her mother. She imagined that if she closed her eyes and touched the fabric she might be able to sense all the hands that had touched them and tended them.

She sighed lightly and closed her eyes. She was so weary, far too weary for someone of her years. She was only twenty, but already life had become an endless grind of sameness. She loved her father, yes, and loved the inn, but the sameness of it all was not suited to someone so young. Then there was Tom. Sometimes he made her heart smile. Sometimes she looked at him and saw her future laid out in an endless progression of days all the same.

She shook her head sternly, trying to brush away the thought. Such as she were not made for great adventures. She was made to run the inn in her father’s stead, and provide ale and food and shelter to all who needed it, to someday bear children of her own and raise them to the same solid life.

The faint, sparkling dreams that sometimes tried to take hold of her were just that: dreams. She was blessed with a good life, and she knew she should be grateful for it.

There was a light knock at the door. Rising, she cast aside the blanket and crept to the door to answer it.

Her father stood outside, and in his arms he held a familiar white bundle topped by boots of the finest, softest white leather.

“She’ll be needing something to wear,” he said gruffly.

Sara looked at her father’s burden, her eyes suddenly stinging. “But, Dad…”

“She’ll not be coming back, lass,” he said. “Six years…Nay, she’ll not be coming back. Better this should be worn by someone who has nothing than waste away in a chest.”

She accepted the bundle from him reluctantly. It felt as if she were giving up her last hope. Her heart squeezed, and her eyes burnt.

“It’s all right, Sara,” he said gruffly, his eyes reddened. “It came to me in the night. That woman…she should have these. I love you, girl.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

“Sleep late,” he said. “I can manage the bread, and Mistress Lawd is going to help me. You worked hard yesterday. Get some rest.”

Mistress Lawd? Sara watched her father walk toward the stairway and wondered if the Widow Lawd had done something no other woman had done in six years: catch her father’s eye.

It would do him good, she thought as she reentered the room and closed the heavy plank door behind her. He needed someone besides his daughter in his life.

But inside her, something was cracking wide-open with a new kind of grief, as she recognized the final farewell to her missing mother.

The woman on the bed was sitting up, awake, blanket pulled to her chin. Her eyes were wide and fearful.

Sara at once hurried to her, smiling, setting the clothes down on the bed.

“Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “’Tis good to see you awake. I reckon you must be hungry.”

The woman managed an uncertain smile and said, “Water?”

“Of course.” Sara hurried to the ewer and poured water into a cup, bringing it to her.

The woman accepted it with a murmur that Sara couldn’t understand. A different language, perhaps?

She touched her chest as the woman looked at her. “Sara,” she said.

The woman nodded, then hesitated. Suddenly her eyes widened with astonishment, and she touched her own breast. “Tess,” she replied, her tone hushed.

“Hello, Tess.” Sara kept her voice bright and her smile cheerful.

“Hello, Sara,” the woman replied, her syllables a tad uncertain.

“Now don’t you worry about a thing,” Sara said, patting Tess’s shoulder. “I’ll bring you some broth, and while I get it, you get dressed.”

There was only more confusion on the woman’s face, so Sara carefully unfolded the bundle, displaying the fine leather pants and the finest wool over-tunic, which would reach the floor and was slit for riding up front and back. The belt, hand-embroidered with gold thread. The boots soft as butter.

She pointed to the clothes and then to Tess. “For you. Clothes.”

Comprehension dawned on Tess’s face.

Miming, Sara said, “I’ll get you something to eat.”

“Food?”

“Aye, food.”

Tess nodded and smiled.

Sara hurried out, wondering what in the world they were to do with the woman if she didn’t speak their language. It might be months before they learned anything about her.

The kitchen fires were already roaring, and Mistress Lawd and her father were up to their elbows in flour. Tess scooped some of the stew from yesterday’s pot and found a slice of day-old bread.

“She’s awake and hungry,” she told her dad. “And her name is Tess.”

“Good news,” he agreed. “Take the food up to her, then get yourself into your own bed, child. You haven’t slept a wink, I wager.”

Tess was dressed when Sara returned, and the girl caught her breath as she saw the woman standing by the window, the curtains drawn back. Beautiful, she thought. So beautiful. It was as if the clothes had been made for her. They certainly had not been made for Sara, who had inherited her father’s sturdy build rather than her mother’s willowy slenderness.

But on Tess the clothes seemed to become something more, and Sara felt an urge to call the woman my lady.

But it was a sorrowful face Tess turned toward her, blue eyes haunted by loss, by sights better not seen. She moved her arms as if cradling a child and made a questioning sound.

She wanted the dead child. Perhaps her own child. Probably her own child.

Sara carried the stew and bread to the small table in the corner and set them down. “Eat first,” she said, once again miming. “Then I’ll take you to your child.”

As if she understood, Tess obediently sat and began to eat.

Sara sat with her, chattering as if to stem the pain to come. “You don’t understand me at all, do you?” she said. “I don’t understand you, either. Pity of it is, it’ll probably take you weeks or months to say the simplest things.”

Tess astonished her by answering. “I learn.”

Then Tess herself looked amazed, as if surprised that she had spoken the words.

“Maybe,” Sara said, “you just forgot how to speak, because of the terrible things that happened.”

“Terrible,” Tess agreed, nodding, her blue eyes shadowing. “Terrible.”

She bowed her head for a few moments, then resumed eating as if she understood that she must fuel herself regardless.

After breakfast, Sara took Tess downstairs to the room where the child was laid out. Tess approached slowly, noting that someone had garbed the girl in a green dress that covered the wound at her throat, and had washed her and brushed her hair to a golden sheen. She lay within a rough-hewn coffin of planks set upon two sawhorses.

“I’m sorry, Tess,” Sara said behind her. “It must be so hard to lose your child.”

It was as if the skill of language was returning to her with each passing moment, for Tess realized she could understand Sara. But the words were barely filling in the black void that was her memory, a memory that began when she woke among the slaughtered caravan.

She looked at the girl lying so still, feeling a sense of pity, and a deeper sense of failure that she had been unable to save her. She felt loss and sorrow for a life snuffed out too soon, but one thing she knew for certain.

“Not my child,” she said quietly. “I found her.”

“Oh,” said Sara, stepping up beside her. “How sad.”

“Yes.”

Tess reached out and touched the cold little body, and felt again the wrenching sense that she had failed this child.

“She’ll be buried this morning,” Sara said. “It can’t wait any longer.”

“No. Thank you.”

After a few more moments, Tess turned from the little coffin.

“Come,” said Sara. “I’ll take you to your parlor. It’s right next to your room. Then I’ll bring you some tea and cakes. And then,” she added, with a smile. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Thank you for caring for me.”

“I was glad to do it.”



Alone in the parlor with tea and cakes and absolutely no idea who she was, where she was going or what she would do next, Tess sat by the window and watched the darkness slowly fade from the sky.

The mind was a singularly empty thing when one had no memory. The only images that would come to her were of the horror she had found upon awakening amidst the carnage of the caravan, of her struggle to save the little girl and herself, of the riders who had rescued her. And of them she had only snatches of memory, because exhaustion had taken her so deeply.

Exhaustion or shock.

At least language seemed to be coming back to her, albeit slowly, words that belonged to this time and place, to judge by her brief talk with Sara, and words that came from elsewhere.

Those other words were doubtless a clue to her origins, but so far no one had seemed to recognize them except herself.

And even now they seemed to be growing dimmer in her mind, fading bit by bit as they were replaced by new words, words that were growing increasingly familiar.

She must have suffered a severe blow to her head. Somehow she had jangled her brains, and perhaps for the last few days she had been babbling nonsense that only seemed to make sense.

She counseled herself to patience, for if her memory of words was returning, surely her memory of other things would return, as well?

But before the instant when she’d awoken amidst the caravan, there was only a huge darkness in her mind, as if everything had been erased.

As if nothing had ever been there. As if she had been born only three days before.

Panic rose within her, and she had to force herself with steady calm to regain her self-control. What was she going to do? Run out into the frigid night until she collapsed and froze to death in the snow?

No, she could only wait.

Turning from the window to survey the lantern-lit room around her, she spied a mirror. It wasn’t a very good mirror, although how she knew that she couldn’t be certain. Hesitantly she rose and walked over to it, wondering what she would do if she didn’t recognize herself.

Closing her eyes at the last moment, she took the last step and faced the mirror. Then, by exerting every bit of her will, she opened her eyes and looked.

A surge of relief passed through her. She recognized the face as her own. Blue eyes, small nose, delicate mouth and oval chin. Yes, that was her, although she couldn’t have said why she thought her hair was longer. Much longer. But at least she hadn’t forgotten her own face.

And the clothes…Taking a few steps back, she looked at the beautiful white garments that had been given to her and felt somehow that she was used to different attire. Perhaps something plainer and more simple? Something less expensive and beautiful?

Finally she could look no more. The only answer the mirror gave her was that she hadn’t forgotten her own face.

She didn’t know what she would have done if a stranger had looked back at her from the glass.

Spreading her hands before her, she recognized them, as well. Including a small scar between her thumb and forefinger, though she had no idea how she had come by it.

But at least not everything had been stolen from her.

Feeling a little better, telling herself that soon all her memory would come back, she returned to the table by the window and poured a cup of tea.

Everything would work out somehow. She had to believe that.

There was a creak from behind her, and she turned quickly to see the stranger who had rescued her, the tall man with the gray eyes.

“My lady,” he said, his eyes sweeping over her.

She wanted to argue with him that she was nobody’s lady, but the words stayed frozen in her throat.

This morning his cloak was gone, revealing garments of leather and wool. His black hair fell to his shoulders, thick and shiny. He was not armed, so his leathern tunic fell straight around his hips. His boots, unlike hers, were heavy and thickly soled.

Finally it dawned on her that he was staying on the threshold because he didn’t want to frighten her. With effort, she found the words.

“Please. Come have tea and cakes.”

A faint smile softened his austere features. “You have remembered how to speak.”

“A little.”

He nodded, apparently finding this to be a good thing, and joined her at the table, pouring himself a cup of tea, then reached for one of the thick sweet cakes.

“I’m sorry about your child.”

She shook her head slightly. “Not mine. I found her.”

He nodded. “I’m still very sorry. I could tell how much you wanted to save her. Can you remember anything of the attack?”

Her throat tightened up as she thought of the child, of finding her in all that gore and blood, of the unimaginable carnage that was her first memory of life. “I remember nothing before I woke up afterward,” she said finally, her voice thick with unshed tears. She turned her face toward the window, seeking signs of a brightening day, hoping for anything that might alleviate the darkness that surrounded her and filled her.

Right now she didn’t even have a foundation on which to stand. Nothing but emptiness behind her. She wasn’t even sure how old she was.

“Nothing?” he said finally. “You don’t remember anything?”

“Nothing,” she repeated. Let him think she spoke of the savage attack. She wasn’t ready to admit to anyone at all just how vulnerable she felt, how vulnerable she was, knowing nothing at all of her past.

He drained his tea, swallowed the last of the cake and said, “I’m going below. Today we’ll ride back there and see what we can learn. If you remember anything to tell us before we go….”

She compressed her lips and nodded. He strode from the room as if he were master of all the world. If that man had ever known a moment’s fear, she couldn’t imagine it.

Which made him that much less approachable to a woman who right now could feel nothing else.




5


The funeral was a sad little affair at midmorning. Several men had dug the grave in the cemetery outside the town walls, then volunteered to carry the pitifully small coffin. Tess walked right behind it, Sara holding her arm. Behind them came Archer and his two companions, their hoods drawn low over their features.

Bandylegs Deepwell said a few words about the gods welcoming such an innocent in the hereafter; then the clods of earth began to fall on the wood with a hollow sound.

The bitter wind cut through all clothing, even through the heavy green cloak Sara had given Tess to wear over her new garments. Then the few turned back into the town, heading toward the inn. Tess was hardly aware of the tears that trailed down her cheeks until Sara reached out to wipe them away, murmuring, “They’ll freeze on your face, they will.”

At the inn, however, when Tess saw Archer and his companions bringing forth their horses, something steeled within her.

“Take me with you,” she said to Archer.

“’Tis cold, milady,” he replied, scratching behind one of his black horse’s ears. “You’ll slow us down.”

“I might. But I might also remember something if I see it again.”

He hesitated, gray eyes meeting blue. “Very well,” he said finally.

Other men were joining them now with packhorses, to save what they might of the meal, rice and dried meats of the caravan. Among them was Tom, looking at once bold and frightened as he bade farewell to Sara. Sara for her part looked torn between a longing to go and fear for Tom. It was so plain to everyone that more than one villager drew near Sara to promise they would keep an eye on young Tom.

To Tess’s vast relief, mounting the gray gelding that was offered to her came easily, and the saddle, while feeling somewhat strange in its shape, still felt familiar. At least she knew how to ride.

The horse’s movements beneath her gave her a sense of near victory. Yes, I have a past! I have done this before.

At that moment she realized she how desperate she was for the familiar. Any little thing would do.

Drawing up the hood of the green cloak, her hands fitted into fur-lined gloves Sara found for her, Tess struck out with the party, filled with both dread and hope.



Giri, one of Archer’s two Anari companions, rode at his side. “The woman,” he said.

“What about her?”

“Are you sure she should be trusted?”

Archer looked into his friend’s dark face. “Why should she not be? Have you forgotten how we found her?”

“Have you forgotten that she was the only one to survive the attack?”

“No, I haven’t. But I also remember how we found her hiding and terrified. Calm your suspicious Anari mind. Besides, I’m offering her no trust. But perhaps we can learn something from her.”

Giri fell silent and resumed his restless watching of the riverbank along which they rode. The group was making as much noise as the caravan most likely had. He was not comfortable.

Archer spoke. “Take Ratha and scout, will you? If anyone is observing our progress, I would prefer to know.”

Giri nodded. Moments later he and Ratha melted away into the trees.

The farther they rode from Whitewater, the more uncomfortable the townspeople felt. They weren’t used to being so far from familiar places, and Archer began to wonder if they would bolt at the cry of a crow. Their voices grew quieter, until they were nearly silenced, until the only sound echoing around them was the tramp of their horses’ feet on pine needles, dirt and pebbles. The almost partylike enjoyment of their start had given way to dread-filled quiet.

Pulling his steed to one side, Archer watched the single-file group pass, murmuring reassurances to the men. Tess was in the middle of the group, and he pulled in beside her.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she answered. “The woods smell so wonderful right now, in the cold air.”

Indeed, the aroma of pine was strong, mixed with that particular, indescribable scent of nearby snow and ice.

“At least the trees are sheltering us from the worst of the wind.” He was glad of that, for if the wind had chosen to follow the river gorge directly, he doubted that most of them would have come this far. “I don’t ever remember it being this cold at this time of year,” he said.

“What time of year is it?”

He looked at her, astonished by the idea that she might have forgotten such a simple thing. And that caused him to wonder what else she might have forgotten. “It’s harvest time. But winter has come so early the frost has blackened the fields.”

“That’s not good.”

“Most assuredly not good. Many will starve this winter.” He scanned the column again, feeling the edginess of his companions as if it were a prickle in his own skin. “Tell me something of yourself,” he said.

He saw her head bow, saw her hands tighten on the reins. For a few moments he thought she would refuse to answer him. Then, as if gathering her courage, she straightened and looked him dead in the eye. Her own eyes were as clear as a midsummer sky.

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything before I woke up and saw the…the slaughter.”

He was astonished to realize just what she had meant when she said she might remember something. He had known men who had forgotten large parts of battles they had fought, or who had forgotten how they had come to be severely wounded, but never before had he met anyone without any memory at all.

“Nothing?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her lips quivered, then tightened, as if she were fighting down an overwhelming tide of emotion. When at last she spoke again, her voice was steady. “Speech is coming back to me rapidly,” she said. “I trust the rest will come, as well.”

“I’m sure it will, Lady.” He studied her profile for a moment or two, wondering why it was he kept feeling the itch of recognition. He did not know this woman, of that he was sure. She must, therefore, remind him of someone, but the elusiveness of that knowledge was maddening, dancing just beyond his ken.

But some things always danced beyond his ken, it seemed. Distant things, sorrows that had burned a permanent ache of loss into his being. Faded, almost vanished memories of other times and a different way of life. A sense that what should have been had never come to pass. The memory, from the distant mists of time, of the loss of his beloved wife. A time he had long since forbidden himself to recall.

And this woman deepened that ache, as if she were somehow a part of it. But that was impossible. His years outstretched many lifetimes of men, and the ache was so far in the past, it preceded all that had come to be.

He thought he had learned to live with the ache, with being homeless, nameless, a wanderer who could never be one of those he wandered among. A man set apart for reasons he barely recalled, a man who was not man, apparently, given his agelessness.

But this woman reminded him of the ache and the yearning. Unsettled him.

�Twould be best to heed Giri’s warning and put distrust before trust with this woman, then. He needed a clear eye and a clear head in the worrisome days to come.

For worrisome they would be. As they rode east along the river, the silence grew deeper, as if the very trees themselves held their breath. There was more behind this early winter than a foible of nature. Beneath it a sense of huge power thrummed, a power that had more than once raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

He could not yet say that it would endure, nor even guess what it might do. But ancient magicks were stirring, and his every sense was on alert to detect anything out of the ordinary. Somehow he recognized that thrum of power, that echo of immeasurable forces at work, though he could not say he knew it.

But he recognized it anyway, in the way the tips of his fingers would tingle and the hairs at his nape stand on end. He knew it in the way the pit of his stomach responded to it. He had met this force before.

The attack on the caravan had been abnormal. Of that there was no doubt. He’d seen such things before, but rarely did more than a few die, and never were the riches left behind. As near as he could tell, nothing had been stolen.

Which meant the attack was directed at a person or group of people. That it was born of vengeance, or something even darker. But it was not a robbery.

He wondered if anyone coming with him even guessed at the kind of darkness that was approaching, or if he and his two Anari friends were the only ones.

Somehow the woman Tess had escaped the massacre. And Giri was right. That alone, given the savagery of the attack, was cause for wonder and doubt.

“Is something wrong?” she asked him now.

He realized his silence had endured too long. “Nothing,” he answered, though it was far from true. “I’m going to drop back and check on the rest of the column.”

She nodded and returned her attention forward.

Column? Ragtag bunch of merchants, farmers and youths from Whitewater. He daren’t let them become at all separated, for he doubted any of them knew how to fight. Defense would be all on him and the Anari.

He knew his skills and those of his two companions, and never doubted they could do the job, but ’twere still far better if they encountered no one at all.



Because they had to follow the trade road along the river, and because they were so many, most unaccustomed to riding over difficult ground, they neared their destination too late to hope for a return before dark. They would have to spend the night.

Archer looked up at the still-blue sky as the shadows deepened around them, knowing the sun had already fallen behind the mountains. Noting, with a sense of uneasiness approaching alarm, that no vultures circled in the sky overhead.

That could mean only one thing: someone was already searching among the remains of the caravan.

He halted the column and gave a whistle that sounded like a birdcall. Once such a sound would have seemed normal in these woods. Now, with no wildlife left to be found, it sounded both eerie and obvious.

Moments later, Giri, then Ratha, emerged seamlessly from the shadows, joining him.

“No vultures,” said Archer. “Is someone at the caravan?”

Ratha shook his head. “Not a soul for leagues around us.”

“So even the vultures have fled.”

“Everything has fled,” Giri said. “Nothing stirs in these woods any longer, not bird, not squirrel, not deer nor boar.”

“It wasn’t like that just yesterday,” Archer remarked. Though there had been a paucity of life, they had still caught sight of the occasional squirrel and bird.

“No, ’tis far worse today,” Ratha replied. “There is something foul afoot.”

With that Archer agreed. “Did you make it as far as the caravan?”

“Aye,” Giri answered. “Naught has changed. All is frozen as if in ice.”

“Best we camp here,” Archer decided. “We’ll rescue what we can in the morning.”

There was some grumbling in response to his decision, though he couldn’t blame anyone for it. None had really expected to have to spend the night in the abandoned woods, though he had warned them they probably would.

Or perhaps they grumbled because the woods and the riverbank felt so…strange. As if they had left everything familiar behind and stepped into a different world where the threats were unknown.

As Archer guided the establishment of the camp, he mulled that over. He could only conclude that somehow, someway, they had indeed stepped out of the familiar.

And he had a terrible feeling that it would be a long time before they could go back.




6


Tom was at last enjoying the adventure he’d always longed for, and he wasn’t about to let anything ruin it. In fact, he was quite delighted that everyone seemed so uneasy because the forest was empty of its normal inhabitants.

Actually he was quite glad to know they wouldn’t run into any boar or bears, and if that meant doing without deer and birds, he was content. He’d never slept outdoors in his life, and cold though this night was, the big fire they’d built cast both light and warmth, and provided yet another opportunity for the men of Whitewater to swap tall tales.

But he first had a mission. Carrying a carriage blanket made of fleece, he approached the Lady Tess. “Lady,” he said awkwardly, “Sara sent this blanket and asked me to give it to you for the night.”

The woman, who looked so alone and uncertain amidst the crowd of strangers, gave him a smile that made him feel at least six feet tall. “Thank you,” she said, allowing him to spread it over her. “How kind of you and Sara.”

“Thank Sara,” he said, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “’Twas she who thought of it.”

“And you who carried it and gave it to me. I thank you, too. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

“Tom. Tom Downey, the gatekeeper’s son. Most call me Young Tom.”

“Well, Young Tom Downey, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m Tess.” A flicker of memory flashed into her mind; the memory of a mockingbird in the morning. “Tess Birdsong.”

He smiled bashfully. “Would you like something warm to drink? There’s tea, and some mulled cider.”

“Cider sounds wonderful.”

Many of the men had brought skins of hard cider with them, a remedy against the cold, and Tom, thanks to Sara, had brought spices and a pot in which to heat it. Sara, in fact, was responsible for the fact that the party had eaten a hot meal this night. Tom’s packhorse had been loaded, unlike the others, with viands and some cooking pots, with the result that he had been something of a hero a little while ago, as he’d cooked and served a meal they otherwise would have done without, relying instead on the strips of dried fish and jerky most had packed.

And now he could give the lady a tin cup full of piping hot mulled cider. She accepted it gratefully and held it close, as if savoring the warmth. She patted the ground beside her. “Tell me about yourself, Young Tom.”

He sat, but felt nearly tongue-tied. “There’s naught to tell,” he said, when he could find his voice again. The woman was so beautiful and otherworldly, and he wasn’t accustomed to conversing with strangers, especially beautiful ones.

“Ah, you must have done something during your years,” she replied.

“Nothing of interest. My dad is the town gatekeeper. Mostly I help him.”

“That’s a very important job.”

“I suppose.”

She smiled gently. “But you long for greater adventures?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“At your age, I suppose so. Right now I seem to be having the biggest adventure of my life, and I’d rather not be having it at all.”

Tom considered the matter from her viewpoint, or at least what he could know of it from what he had seen since Archer brought her to the inn, and decided that perhaps, after all, some adventures were not worth having.

But this one was different, a trek down the river to places he had never before visited to recover food for his town, to assuage the hunger of his friends and neighbors over the winter. This was a good adventure.

“I’m sorry,” he said presently. “You must be very unhappy.”

“But that shouldn’t make you unhappy,” she said kindly. “You are here to help your entire town and should be proud.”

“I am,” he admitted. “This will probably be the most important thing I do in my entire life.”

He looked shyly her way and saw her blue eyes grow distant, as if she were seeing beyond him, beyond the woods and the night.

“Somehow,” she said after a moment, “I think you have far more important things to do, Young Tom.”

“What do you mean?”

The vagueness vanished from her gaze and she looked at him as if startled. “Oh! Well, just that most people have far more important things to do in their life than they realize. So many of the things we do seem small, yet they’re very important in the larger scheme.”

“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what she meant but was reluctant to question her further. The word small made him uncertain that he wanted to know her meaning.

“Aye,” said a deep voice from nearby. Archer approached them, and with a swirl that wrapped his cloak around him, he settled on the ground with them. “The small things, Lady. They matter beyond estimation.”

The men closest to the fire, quite happy now that they were full of food and hard cider, were arguing about who had caught the biggest fish last summer. Archer ignored them. Ratha and Giri seemed to be nowhere about.

“Simply being true to one’s word, Young Tom,” Archer said. “That is of great importance. The raising of a child…” His voice hushed a bit; then he shook his head, as if trying to dislodge an annoying insect. “The love and care of one’s wife. These things matter, Young Tom, for they are the essence of goodness.”

Tom nodded, but even he could feel the disappointment that must be showing on his face.

Suddenly Archer laughed and clapped a hand to Tom’s shoulder. “If you’re lucky, lad, you’ll never have to use a sword.”

Tom nodded. While he wanted adventure, he was in no hurry to kill anyone.

“Unfortunately,” Archer continued, “luck may not hold and that day may come. Something stirs. Something dark and evil.”

Tom’s eagerness grew. “What do you mean, Master Archer?”

“Would that I could say for certain. All I know is…there is a strangeness to the air. Something awakens that were better left slumbering.”

He looked at them both. “Stay close to the fire.”

Then he rose and disappeared into the darkness, his cape swirling about him.

Some seconds passed while the men at the fire continued to happily argue. Then Tess spoke.

“What do you know of Master Archer?”

Tom shook his head. “No one knows much. He comes from time to time to town. He’s never made any trouble, and sometimes he tells the old tales to us. But what he does otherwise, none knows.”

Tess nodded and peered into the darkness. Tom knew she couldn’t see Archer any longer. No one could.



Fog crept into the woods from the bank of the river. Low, hugging the ground, dense enough to make men disappear beneath its blanket. The night’s chill grew deeper, and the moon disappeared behind a cloud. The only light came from the fire, well stocked and burning brightly.

Well beyond its glow, Archer paused to speak with Giri. “Do you feel it?”

“Aye.”

“Keep sharp.”

Giri nodded, his back toward the fire, his nostrils flared as if he were on the scent of something foul. Archer slipped away into the darkness, his movements barely stirring the fog, and came upon Ratha, who was guarding the other side of the camp.

“It’s staying away,” Ratha told him quietly. “Whatever it is, it’s too cautious to approach.”

“Can you hear it?”

Ratha shook his head. “I can smell it.”

“It wants something we have.”

“Nothing ordinary, I warrant.” Ratha shook his head and drew another deep breath.

“It knows we wait and watch.”

“That would trouble me less if there were more of us.”

Archer touched his shoulder. “We three are enough. It fears us.”

“So far. I wish I knew what it is.”

“Mayhap we’ll never need to know. I’ll keep on the move.”

Ratha nodded, keeping his attention on the night and the fog that hovered just above the ground. The night itself might betray nothing, but movement in the fog could tell much of a story.

Archer was gone again. A caw, like that of the crow, carried on the night air. Giri, saying all was still well at his post. Ratha answered in kind.

So far, it was well enough.



Tess’s sleep was disturbed. A nightmare kept returning to her, a dream of dark oily fingers slipping into her mind. Finally, able to bear it no longer, she shook herself awake and sat bolt upright. The fire still burned, lower now, and she was surrounded by sleeping bodies.

Shivering as the night air hit her back, she drew the carriage blanket around herself and tried to shake off the ill-effects of the nightmare.

Though she had no memory older than three days, she was still able to judge the scene around her as safe and normal. The fire burned, the people slept, people that she was coming to know. Even Young Tom was lost in the sleep of innocence.

But the dream would not quite go away, and uneasiness danced along her spine. Shuddering, she scooted closer to the fire, then wondered why she thought the light would make her any safer.

Or any warmer, for the chill she was feeling now came from within her. From some place so deep inside her she didn’t know how to name it. Didn’t know what it was.

“Is something wrong?”

The whisper startled her, and she jumped with a small cry, twisting to discover that Archer had come to squat beside her.

“My apologies,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you all right?”

“I had a nightmare. I can’t seem to shake it off.”

He nodded, his gaze darting around as if he were trying to watch the entire world at once. “Ratha, Giri and I are standing guard. You need not fear.”

She shuddered again.

Hesitantly he reached out and touched her hand, where it clutched the blanket around her. “Tell me,” he suggested quietly.

“It was as if something evil were trying to get inside me. Something evil and cold. And the feeling is still here.”

He nodded but said nothing. On the other hand, he didn’t tell her that she was being foolish.

Finally he looked at her again. “You’re feeling it, too. There’s something out there, but it dares not approach. You can rest safely.”

“I don’t think I’ll sleep again tonight.”

“Perhaps not. How quietly can you walk?”

She didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m not sure.”

He cocked his head. “Then it’s best you stay here. Trust me, we’re watching over the campsite.”

“How can I help?” It was a stupid question, she thought, even as she asked it. She had no idea whether she knew how to use a weapon of any kind. No idea whether she had ever fought anyone or anything.

“Keep your back to the fire and watch,” he said. “We need eyes.”

She nodded, then watched him rise and melt away once again.

It was only then that she noticed the fog that surrounded the campsite, as if held at bay only by the fire. It clung low to the ground and was so thick that nothing could be seen through it. But while it surrounded the campers, it approached none of them.

Another shiver passed through her, and she wondered how long it would be before the sun rose.



Dawn came without further incident, much to everyone’s relief. The party struggled through a quick breakfast, then set out on the last brief leg of the journey to the caravan.

The scene, when they came upon it in the clear morning light, was almost exactly as Tess recalled. The bodies were strewn about, untouched by carrion eaters. The river ran clear now, free of blood. The men of Whitewater at once began to burden their packhorses with as much undamaged food as they could carry. Then they began the bitter task of burying the dead.

Tess sat astride her horse, disappointed that there was nothing here that might wake her memory.

Archer drew his mount up beside her. “Do you remember anything?” he asked quietly, so that no one else would overhear.

She shook her head, feeling her heart squeeze with both disappointment and the horror of her earliest memory: the carnage she had seen here.

“Give it time, Lady,” he said. “For now, come with me. I want to find some sign of who wrought this destruction.”

Nodding, having nothing else to do with herself, having no personhood or even personality to guide her, she followed him.

“We’ll ride downstream,” he told her. “That would be the best place for the attackers to start from—the rear of the caravan.”

“That makes sense.”

“If anything about this makes sense.”

“This doesn’t happen often?”

“This never happens,” he said flatly. “Few caravans are attacked, and those that are rarely suffer more than a few casualties and the loss of their goods. This is surpassing strange.”

She gave a little laugh of unhappy amusement. “Like me, the woman from nowhere.”

“Be at ease, Lady. You remembered how to speak. The rest will come.”

“I’d be at ease if anything seemed familiar.”

He raised a brow at her. “Are you saying riding that horse doesn’t feel familiar?”

At that she gaped, and finally a trill of laughter escaped her. “You’ll cheer me up in spite of myself.”

“It’s the small things that matter,” he reminded her.

Then his attention began to focus more on their surroundings. They crossed the portage bridge, and he drew rein, staring up at something.

“What?” she asked.

“See those rocks?” He pointed at a bunch of high crags.

“Yes.”

“The caravan would have passed beneath them. If one could gather his group up there, he’d be in the best possible position to know when to attack.”

Tess looked around them. “I don’t see any way to get up there.”

“Not from the road. That would be too obvious. I’m going into the woods. If you’d like to stay here, that’s fine.”

“No, I want to come.” She had to start carving something out of her new life, and staying behind every time someone did something would only make her exceptionally useless in the long run.

The old forest was deep and dark, with only little shards of sunlight dappling the ground here and there. It was easy enough to pass through, but still not the sort of place one would choose to ride.

“It would be easy to get lost in here,” Tess said.

“Aye. But don’t fear. My sense of direction is excellent.”

Indeed it was, because in only a short time he had brought them round the tor and found a narrow, rocky path up its side, sufficient for them to ride single file.

But instead of leading them up it, he dismounted. “Wait here. I want to see the tracks.”

She took the reins of his horse from him, although she suspected that was totally unnecessary. There was something about Archer and his horse that felt like a single entity.

She watched as he climbed the rock alongside the trail with booted feet as naturally as if he were a fly climbing a wall. Every so often he paused to look down on the dirt of the trail, to lean toward it as if studying something. Then he disappeared into the treetrops

She waited, growing increasingly aware of the silence of the woods around her. She might have no memory, but she knew woods were never this quiet. There was always the rustle of something moving about, and occasionally the sound of birdsong or the screech of some small animal protecting its territory. From time to time trees cracked and groaned like old men who had been still for too long.

But these woods were as silent as death. Not even a breeze seemed to stir the distant tops of the trees. She looked straight up, longing for even a small glimpse of the sky.

But it was as if the branches crowded in over her, jailing her.

Enough was enough, she decided abruptly. Sitting here like someone’s handmaiden, holding the reins of a horse, was not the way she intended to continue this new life of hers.

Dismounting with ease—something else she knew!—she tethered both horses to a nearby pine trunk. Then, tucking the front of her slit skirt out of the way by threading it through her belt, she began to climb the tor, following the path Archer had used.

A thrill filled her when she realized that her hands felt comfortable grasping small crannies, when her toes seemed to know on their own how to wedge against the smallest protuberance. She had done this before. Often. Of that she was now certain.

Glancing at the narrow path beside her, she could see the imprint of many horses’ hooves, most chewed up, but one or two clear as a bell. These horses had been shod. For some reason that surprised her.

The climb was strenuous but exhilarating. For the first time since her fateful awakening, she felt truly confident and alive, as if somehow she had made a connection with a deep part of herself. The brooding silence of the forest was forgotten as she mounted the tor.

Something clattered, and she realized it was a pebble falling down from above. She hoped it was Archer returning and not the thing that had terrified these woods into silence.

She was warm and breathing hard by the time she mounted the sun-drenched top of the tor. There she found a wide circle, surrounded by higher tongues of stone. Archer was squatting in the middle, looking at the black remains of a campfire. From it he picked up something small and white, and tucked it in his tunic.

He turned when he heard her.

“I thought I told you to remain below.”

She clambered over the last rock. “I don’t take orders well. I tethered the horses. What have you found?”

He put his hands on his hips, throwing back his cloak and revealing the long sword at his side. She could tell, somehow, that he was at once displeased and amused by her. In response, she tossed her head back and met him stare for stare. “Well?”

“The coals at the bottom of the firepit are still warm. Nothing unusual in that. They buried the fire before leaving.”

“Or to hide themselves.”

“Aye, or to hide themselves.”

She looked around the dirt and the few hummocks of grass that dotted the area. “There were quite a few horses here, were there not?”

“So it appears. And quite a few men, as well.” He walked over to her and guided her a few feet to the left. “However,” he said, squatting down and pointing, “they left quite a bit of information.”

“That the horses were shod?”

“That they were all shod by the same smith in Derden. See this crescent? I know who made these horseshoes.”

“That will aid in finding them.”

“Most certainly.” He straightened. “Now come over here.”

She followed him to the opposite side of the tor and at his direction peered between two tongues of rock.

“Lean just a little farther,” he said, “and look down.”

“I can see the road quite clearly.”

“Exactly.” He drew her back and pointed to the ground. “Archers lay here. As I see it, before they even went below to attack, they lined up here and began to shoot at the caravan from above.”

She nodded, picturing it.

“It would have caused a great deal of confusion in the caravan. They would have rushed for the portage bridge, which is a bottleneck.”

“Yes.” Leaning forward to look through the rocks again, she picked out the bridge a short way upstream.

“Great disarray,” Archer continued thoughtfully. “Perhaps before they had even crossed the portage, the archers had taken out most of the caravan’s guards. By then everyone would have been screaming and struggling to get as far away as possible.”

She straightened. “And other thieves were already waiting for them on the other side.”

“Perhaps.” He eyed her sharply. “Do you remember this?”

She shook her head. “It just makes sense. Terrify them with the archers, cause disarray in the caravan, and drive them headlong into the ambush.”

His gaze was now definitely hard. “You think like a general.”

She stood before him, arms hanging helplessly at her sides, no memories to guide her. When she spoke, the words sounded choked. “Maybe I was.”

His face tightened with suspicion. “Maybe you were part of this.”

“I don’t know. Oh, God, I don’t know.”




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