“Blutmeer sword,” the witch returned in a creaking voice. “The past is catching up with you. Bled acrid blood, I see.”
“I’m the Warlord’s shield. I’ve bled a lot of blood.”
Katla smiled wider, spinning to face Trisha. “I heard you,” she said, eyes almost as white as her lashes and brows. “Your words, your little prayer. Do you want to know if the ancestors heard it, too?”
Trisha’s heart went to her throat, voice failing her. She nodded.
“Oh, how they lament for you, Warlord’s Bard, they do” the witch cackled, spite and glee mingling in equal measure. “You should have never come back, no. They heard you, your songs of the twilight world.” She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “It follows you, spins around you, twists the very fabric of what is. The lost music of the elder gods. But they remember. The ghosts. They hear…” The grooves in her face deepened as she turned toward the shield. “Tell the Warlord the ghosts have stirred, they have.”
Reike drew a sharp breath, her face blanching. “Karring?—”
“That’s all I have to say,” Katla cut her off, gathering the hems of her dark woolen gown in her arms. “I’ve delivered what the spirits have asked, yes. Let the Warlord know.” Her age-weathered face furrowed, colorless eyes glinting in the morning light as she looked at Trisha. “Remember what I told you, bard.”
Dark cape swathed around her, she turned and walked away. Dapple shook and snorted, eager to return. The exercise across the uneven grounds had lathered his flanks.
“We should go back,” Trisha muttered, Katla’s ominous premonition echoing in her ears. She resisted the impulse toglance at Reike. If the soldier asked, she didn’t know what to tell.
“Aye,” Reike agreed.
Birdsong threaded through the wind and rustling grass, the hum of insects sounding louder. Katla’s words thundered in Trisha’s skull like a foreboding storm.
“What… what did her warning mean?”
Grass rustled as wind blew through the fields. “Trouble,” Reike said. “An enemy of the olden times. Even before Ergoth and his Five.”
Trisha’s eyes widened. “Was she right?”
“I hope not. Can’t say I envy you,” she added suddenly as their horses climbed the knoll, “for getting the Warlord’s attention.”
“You don’t?”
“A hard man. A harder man to get close to. You’d do well to remember that, Trisha.”
Before she could ask, Reike’s head perked up. “You hear that?”
Trisha listened. The wind carried faint sounds. Voices. Too bright, too high for an adult.
“By the ancestors’ rotten teeth. It can’t be,” Reike muttered, tugging at her reins. “Let’s go check.”
They crested a low hill. As they did, the voices grew louder. On the other side, in a shallow dip, stood a mule before a wooden cart, along with three shapes in light linen tunics. A volley of arrows lay on the ground, some of them sank into the bark of a stunted tree across from the boys.
“…you fetch them yourself,” Trisha heard one of the boys say. He stood in the path of the approaching Reike and Trisha. His red-brown hair gleamed in the sunlight. Two other boys waved their arms, scowling. They had yet to notice them.
“I’m the one shooting,” declared the sturdiest of the three.
The red-haired boy crossed his arms. The gesture was clumsy, a sling on his arm constraining the movement. Trisha’s brows furrowed as the boy continued, “I don’t care. Fetch your arrows.”
“Don’t be a dullard, Dietric,” said the third, a lanky boy with a mop of brown hair and a fox-like face. “You can’t shoot with that arm.”
Dietric? What was Fjorten’s son doing here?
Reike’s voice sliced through the air. “What is goingonhere?”
The boys spun around. Shock, guilt, and defiance warred across their narrow-boned features. Dietric blanched when his eyes landed on Trisha.
“You two,” Reike continued in a harsh voice, sliding off the saddle. Her boots dug into the moist ground as she strode toward the two other boys. They backed away from her looming frame. “Jaun and Egard… I’d expect no less from you. But you…” She turned toward the auburn-haired boy. “Did your pa and ma allow you to leave the castle walls, young master Tifbrunn?”
Dietric’s eyes locked on Trisha, his face flushing bright red before he looked down. “N-No, Shield Stammek.”
