“The way you speak, it’s a wonder any live near the Lichtenwald at all,” he said, watching her sharpen her knife on a strap of leather.
Pausing, she raised a mordant eyebrow. “And live where else?”
“One would think one could find a place,” he replied, brushing away a millipede climbing up his leg, wondering if it hid fangs beneath its shining carapace.
“Some think the forest’s evil,” she said. “It’s not. There’s things that help, and things that hurt. The trick is in knowing the difference.”
“Quite the trick,” he said offhandedly, keeping his pulse steady as he watched the rhythmic, forceful swipes of her knife.
She cast him a sidelong glance, then examined the blade’s gleaming edge. “You get the eye for it, with time.”
More time than they would have together, he hoped.
With a grunt, she sheathed her knife. “You’ll feel strange. You might…hear things. Stick close to me and you won’t get lost.”
Hours later, the golden sun sinking low behind the trees, they hadn’t.
And yet, in her wake, he felt more lost than ever.
Suddenly, she stopped – not like she had been, careful and considerate, but abrupt and almost alarmed. She bent to one knee. The golden light shone through the trees, highlighting her profile in stark, glowing beams.
He peered over her shoulder, trying to see what she saw. There was a soft indentation in the ground, but it looked like it could have been left by a rock or a piece of bark. She would not have stopped for that. “An animal?”
“Bear. Less than a few hours, maybe less than two,” she said grimly. As he looked, her words revealed pieces: a nail, dug into the soft earth. The pad of a toe the size of his thumb. Only a toe.
He stared at her. “You can tell all that?”
“It gets worse,” she added, scanning ahead, then behind them. “People have been this way. Horses. Carriages.”
That, he identified easily: a wheel-made rut in the drying mud.
Word had, indeed, gotten out.
“You were right,” he said, silently cursing. “We should have left right away.”
With a shake of her head, she dismissed him. “This was bound to happen. A suitable prize motivates even the dullest mind.” Her brow wrinkled drolly. “People aren’t so different from pheasants, that way.”
A startled laugh escaped him, and a small smile graced her lips before she looked ahead. She tapped a finger against the hatchet on her waist. “I’m still confident I can best them, whoever they are. But this…complicates things.”
“What should we do?”
“Weshouldmake haste. But…I would like to know what I’m up against.”
“Reconnaissance,” he supplied.
“…Reconnaissance,” she agreed.
“Their carriages will not go far,” he realized, remembering the map she had shown him, now tucked inside her messenger bag. His own bag, a brand new rucksack stuffed with food and spare clothes, weighed heavy on his back. He supposed absconding with a carriage would do them little good.
“No. But look how much ground they’ve gained on us already.”
They followed the wheel ruts and flattened grass. Soon, the sound of laughter echoed around them.
“A camp,” Anya surmised. Then added, grimly, “Bad idea.”
As they approached, the trees parted to reveal a small clearing encircled by willows and beeches, empty coaches, and horses tied to the trees. Anya eyed the beasts and Sy wondered if they shared the same thought. A carriage could not traverse the wood, but a horse?
The forest has made a brigand of me already.Despite David’s warnings, despite Anya’s convincing exhortations, he had seen nothing strange in the day they’d spent trekking through the trees. No brigands, no bears, no baleful spirits. But when he looked ahead into the clearing, what he saw stopped him short.
