She leapt over a fallen log. Then promptly slipped.
She wasn’t on the road anymore, and fleshy toadstools carpeted the vast forest. Lux slipped again. If she died because of them, she’d carry her humiliation into the Beyond.
The bandits were relentless—because there was indeed more than one. She could hear them shout to one another in the reddened afternoon light, and she could do nothing but hope she was faster. She risked a glance backward and—
Devil’s tits, there are four of them!
Four of them and only one of her. And unlike howlers, they didn’t need to be upon her to snuff her life; they could do so easily from a distance.
They sprinted after her, and judging by their quick leaps and easy dodges, they were familiar with the terrain.
How many people do they chase through here?
Somebody could havewarnedher.
Lux ducked beneath a thick branch, more curled leaves trailing soft against her temple. If she could only outrun them—
A third arrow whistled by her cheek. A choked sob worked its way up her throat.
“Aim for her legs!”
No!She clutched Shaw’s knife with every modicum of strength she had, because she knew if she did end up with an arrow embedded somewhere, she would happily cut down as many ofthem as she could before Death called her away. She leapt over another fallen log.
“You flopping idiot! Not her legs! Aim for her—”
Lux didn’t register what else the bandit said. Because the road reappeared. And not only a road but a bridge loomed ahead. Wooden and arched and overgrown with thick green moss. It crossed a rushing, narrow river, the sides of which were steeped with boulders. She ran straight toward it.
She’d obviously done something wrong on her way here. Made some big mistake. The crone had told her there were dangers. Shaw had warned her to watch her dealings. But she’d shrugged at them. She’d thought sheknew.She was a frequenter of Ghadra’s Dark Market, for saints’ sake—how worse off could anywhere else be?
Her first step onto the warped wood saw her slipping again. This time it was the combination of moisture and moss. And this time, when she pitched forward, an arrow ripped at her cloak—and stayed there. Lux grabbed at it, but it’d dug too deep. She couldn’t see the head of it at all, buried as it was in the wood. She whipped backward.
“Stay away from me,” she growled, brandishing the knife like a sword.
Angry, exhausted tears clouded her eyes. The bandits formed a blurred crescent in front of her, marking the knife’s threatening wave and keeping an appropriate distance. One woman. Three men.
I’ll skewer them all.
The reediest of them stepped forward, his speckled, white beard extending long past his chin. He waggled a finger in front of her knife. She knew it was the same finger with which he’d loosed those arrows. “Nah, don’t cry, pet.”
Thatname.He barely dodged the swipe of her blade, but still, he did dodge it, and Lux found herself pinned bodily to the bridge in the next breath. A rough hand brushed her tears away.
“Shh. We only want that bag of yours. Goldquins you have in there, hmm? We saw you in Loxlen.” His hand reached for her pack.
But that was where she drew the line. Pushing forward, Lux used her free hand to slap the expression from the bandit’s face. Grooves of red lined his cheek in the aftermath. Her pinky finger stung as the bandage flew free.
“Why,youlittle—”
The man’s irises rolled upward.
“Viktar! What’s the matter?”
Lux scrambled backward until her back met the bridge wall. She clutched the pack to her, her knife pointing out—and she watched as the three remaining bandits crowded the fallen man where he lay unmoving on the bridge. He’d keeled over.
Dead,she thought confidently, the feel of it stealing through her. Not even a shallow breath marked his chest now.
“He knew he had a bad heart! What was he thinking, wrestling with a girl spry enough to be his daughter?” The man dropped to his knees beside Viktar, swiping tears from his own scarred cheeks. “Come back!”
“He’s not coming back, Sven,” said the woman, her hand on the man’s heaving shoulder. “Can’t bring back the dead.”
