“What about Cimejen?”
“If he follows us, he’ll have to do the same.”
They passed beneath the arched limbs of oaks and maples, whose leaves whispered to each other above them. They traveled deeper into the woodland’s cool shadows, so different from the open expanse of plains farther south. For Disaris, the place felt closed in, sheltering and smothering at the same time. It was as if they trespassed upon some ancient, sacred space, committing sacrilege with every step forward.
She flicked the mare’s reins to pick up the pace and moved closer to Bron. “How much farther?” she whispered, reluctant toraise her voice in case she offended a forest deity watching their passage through its territory.
He held up a hand and shook his head, indicating she stay silent. They stood in place for several moments as he listened to the myriad sounds filtering through the trees: bird calls, the scrabble of claws on tree trunks and across the forest floor, the snuffle of a deer nearby. He suddenly whirled, sprinted toward Disaris and yanked her to the other side of the mare.
Two short thumps in the tree near where Bron had stood revealed a pair of arrows, shot in quick succession, their tips buried in the bark, the fletchings still quivering from the force of impact.
“He’s here,” Disaris said, staring at Bron whose eyes moved back and forth, surveilling the forest and the threat hiding within it.
“And he’s brought reinforcements.” Bron eased the provisions bag off the mare, making certain he kept himself and Disaris between the two horses. He unstrapped his sword from the gelding but kept it sheathed. Disaris nodded to show she understood when he gestured at her horse. He slapped the gelding’s flank. She did the same to the mare. The startled horses bolted in one direction while the she and Bron sprinted in the opposite one.
They dodged another arrow, swerving back and forth through the underbrush to make themselves harder targets to hit. Thorny bushes tore at Disaris’s skirt as she ran, the slender branches of the taller verge lashing her calves. She prayed she wouldn’t trip and fall as she raced after Bron.
Cimejen’s voice carried through the trees. “Stop, jin Hazarin! Don’t make me kill you!”
Bron ignored him, picking up speed instead and nearly yanking Disaris’s arm out of its socket as he pulled her along behind him. She didn’t know to where they fled, but Brondidn’t pause or hesitate, and soon she spotted an opening in the treeline, a spot of blue sky over open ground framed by a sentinel troop of oaks.
Fire licked at her lungs, and each new breath she took felt like broken glass in her nose and throat. She ignored the pain, urged on by the fear of being taken captive a third time. They burst into the clearing. Too late, Disaris spotted the sharp drop-off directly ahead of them. She tried to stop, only to find herself wrenched off her feet and into Bron’s arms.
He never slowed. Disaris clutched his shoulders and stared into the face of approaching death as they hurtled toward the edge. Just before they fell, she buried her face in Bron’s shoulder. Feeling the vibrations of each of his footfalls in her bones and then, in instant, nothing.
She opened her eyes and screamed as her stomach snapped against her spine, and they plummeted toward the ravine below.
We’re dead, a shockingly calm voice proclaimed in her head.
Bron’s own voice sounded above her and suddenly her ears popped. She screamed a second time as she was flipped, falling and falling, with Bron looming above her, his hands at her back and the sky shrinking fast. She saw arrows arc toward them, only to glance off some invisible shield and tumble out of sight. Tree branches snapped and cracked around her but never slowed their falls. She felt the pressure of their strike but not the pain. Something warm splashed her cheek, and she watched as blood dripped from one of Bron’s nostrils to strike her forehead, chin, and throat.
Time seemed to slow as they fell, and Bron’s voice caressed her ears. “Hold on, Disa.”
She was spun again, this time to see the ground rushing up to greet her. She let go of Bron to cross her arms in front of her face, teeth clenched as she waited for the moment that would shatter her bones and, if the gods were merciful, kill her instantly.
Instead, her stomach lurched against her spine a second time, but only that. No explosion of pain or the quiet black of the abyss to greet her. She cautiously opened one eye to discover not only was she not dead but that she and Bron floated just above the ground, supported by the invisible hand of sorcery. Thin ribbons of blood trickled from Bron’s nose and slid down to frame either side of his mouth. “Are you all right, Disa?” he said in a hoarse voice.
She made to answer with an affirmative, but all that emerged from her throat was a squeak and then an “oof” when Bron ended the spell he’d cast, and the cushion of air dissolved. He groaned when he hit the ground with Disaris on top of him.
Disaris rolled off him and stood, weaving unsteadily for a moment as the shock of their fall, and what she thought was certain death, lingered.
Bron rose as well, glanced at the cliff above them and caught her hand. “Hurry,” he urged. “The stone isn’t far and neither is Cimejen.”
Again they fled their pursuers, Disaris praying Bron knew where they were going and that it wasn’t another cliff.
The Hayman Stone stood huge and solitary in a field of wildflowers. Disaris set one foot down on the grass and immediately lifted it as a wave of vibration passed over her toes to her heel and up through her ankle. She turned to Bron. “Did you feel that?”
He put his hand out toward the stone, and she saw the fine hairs on his arms stand up. “I’ve felt it since we were along the riverbank. It’s how I knew which way to take through the woods.” He motioned for her to follow him. “Come. Don’t be afraid. It’s just the song of sorcery. Do you not feel it every time you translate or break a code?”
She did but not to the degree Bron did, and the sensations she got from translating the Kocyte grimoire felt less likevibrations and more like the gnawing of a rat’s teeth on her hand.
The distant shouts of their pursuers grew closer, louder. Still uneasy with the thrum of lim sorcery below and around her, she trailed Bron across the field to the menhir. If they had any chance of escaping, she’d have little time to translate the runes carved on its surface.
The wildflowers scattered about grew in thick profusion at the menhir’s base. The vibration she felt on her skin expanded until she didn’t just feel it, she heard it. A cross between song and chant, it sounded like a thousand faraway voices inviting her to join them and dance under the light of a harvest moon.
“Disa!” Bron’s sharp tone snapped her out of the strange reverie that gripped her. “Hum to yourself,” he said. “Or sing a song. Something to drown out their voices.”
Frightened by the realization she’d just fallen under the enchantment of a lim spell, Disaris began reciting the instructions she’d learned from her amman for how to bake a pie. The sweetly lyrical voices faded, leaving only the vibrations behind.
