Neither did Noah.
He’d stood night watch enough times to hear the whispered rumors about The Others—stories passed between villagers in hushed voices around night fires. Some said they were outcasts who had no place in any time. Some said they were just people who’d gone astray, lost souls who couldn’t find their way in this land, this time. But all agreed they were different. Changed. Twisted somehow by the experience of being stranded in an unfamiliar world, unwilling to abide by societal rules.
And now, as the oppressive silence around them grew, Noah wondered if they were about to encounter the reason no one who’d made this quest before had ever returned.
Uneasily, his hand tightened on the hilt of his knife.
Something moved.
The attack came fast. A blur of motion from the treetops—a figure dropped, inhumanly quick, landing in the brush with a guttural snarl.
Noah barely had time to raise his blade before more emerged, stepping from the shadows of the trees, their eyes dark and hollow in the dim light.
The Others.
Despite their vicious expressions and the threatening stance each took, they were a varied assembly. Some wore clothes that were tattered remnants of different times, different places. Colonial coats hung in shreds. A Roman tunic flapped in the wind. Remnants of a Victorian suit hung in folds on a man with bare feet, his nails blackened like claws. Their skin had the pallor of something untouched by the sun and stretched far too thin. Others were tidier. Weightier, as if they’d just arrived and hadn’t yet suffered any acute deprivations.
Even so, Noah was sure if any of them had shown up in the village and asked for food, it would have been supplied in abundance. It was the late-night raids that hurt everyone. Whenthey came, wildly pilfering the fields for produce, they destroyed as many crops as they took.
But now, it was abundantly clear they hadn’t come to beg for the meager contents of a food pouch. Or anything else.
Noah could feel the muscles of Taran’s back flex as he raised his sword. “Hold your ground!”
The one closest to Noah lunged. Noah managed to sidestep at the last second, swing his blade, and leave a thin bloody line along the man’s ribs, causing him to stumble. Another lashed out, forcing Noah to stagger back.
He knew Taran and Finn were locked in full battle as well.
The Others were fast. Too fast. And too many.Thismust be why no one ever returned from their search for The Keeper.
On many occasions, Taran had tried to explain his experience on the battlefield of Culloden Moor. Now Noah truly understood what he meant byoverwhelming odds.
Steel clashed from assorted blades, grunts and snarls ripped through the air, and the scent of blood and rot thickened the air around them.
From the sounds behind him, Noah knew Taran and Finn were still in the fight but had no idea of their condition.
He could not fail them.
Slashing at a man wearing the remnants of a French soldier’s uniform, Noah knocked his arm aside and stabbed at his chest. He thought he made contact, but the man didn’t flinch. He just kept coming.
Fighting with the most brutal efficiency he could manage, every strike deliberate, Noah was weakening. He wouldn’t be able to manage a defense much longer.
And more were coming. The battle sounds grew. Grunts and gasps filled the air.
Suddenly—a distant howl. Not human. Not animal.
And just like that, The Others hesitated. One by one they tensed, backed away, and turned their heads toward the mountains.
Then, without warning, they vanished back into the trees.
Finn exhaled shakily, both weapons still raised. “Why’d they stop?”
“I dinnae ken,” Taran replied, struggling to catch his breath.
Noah turned, his pulse thundering in his ears. “I’m pretty sure we didn’t win that battle. I could be wrong, but is it possible we’ve suddenly been allowed to pass?”
CHAPTER THREE
Slowly, the forest noises returned. Birds chirped. The furtive sound of something small, like a rabbit, rustled in the underbrush. But nothing beyond disturbed earth and some broken branches remained to point to the existence of The Others.
