He had not died well. She could smell the sharp, acrid scent of urine, and she could see where the dogs had torn into him. Near his right hand was a small axe, the blade stained with fresh blood. Davies had wounded one of them, at the very least.
Branwen knelt beside him, reaching down to adjust his cloak sothat it fell across his face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She could not have saved him; he would have been dead before his wife managed to reach the tavern. That knowledge did nothing to assuage the wave of guilt that rose up within her.
She took a step back, trying to see the man’s death as a huntress. The bite marks, the tracks—these belonged to those hounds.
She needed to find them before they killed again.
The tracks were messy and confused as though the dogs had fought among themselves. A spatter of crimson had fallen upon the dead grass; when Branwen touched it, the blood was damp beneath her fingertips. They could not be far.
As she half ran through the fields, a sense of unease tugged at her. She could not have named the reason, but with every step, her body seemed to wind tighter. Branwen took a deep breath, trying to let that unease pass through her.
The line between hunter and hunted was fear. The moment she was afraid, she would become prey.
The sounds of barking and howls hastened her steps. It was only as she reached the top of the hill that she realized what was wrong. The noises were not those of a hunting pack. They were the screams of a dog in pain.
Branwen slowed. As she crept nearer, she strained to listen. She peered through the bushes, and she saw them.
There were three hounds. One of them lay on the ground, clearly dead. The other two were pacing around the corpse, snarling to themselves. The late-autumn sunlight illuminated golden tufts of fur in the grass and nearby bushes.
Had the dogs killed one of their own? No, there was a blade wound on its abdomen. Davies must have struck true. The two other hounds sniffed at their pack mate, growling.
Branwen sucked in a breath.
She would need to do this before the dogs realized they were under attack. She drew her bow, heaved the string into place, and plucked two arrows free. She had only a few arrows left; she would need to craft more. She pulled back the bowstring, until the arrow fletching brushed the corner of her mouth. It took strength to hold the bowstring taut and unwavering, and she was glad she had spent years honing her body. She felt the air move around, smelled the scents of the harvested fields. The tension of the bow was a familiar one, almost a comfort, and she held it, aiming at the first dog’s throat. It lifted its head, sniffing at the air.
Branwen let the first arrow fly.
It cut through the air with a near-silent hiss, striking true. There was a startled yelp and a thump, but before the second hound could react, Branwen fired again.
The dog whirled.
She was not so lucky this time. The arrow hit the hound in the side, and the creature fell, crying and whimpering. A sympathetic ache swelled in Branwen’s chest—she hated the sound of anything in pain—but she forced it back down. If she could have saved these animals, she would have. But these dogs had been mistreated and let loose. They would kill others. A swift death was the best kindness she could offer.
The third arrow slammed home. All went quiet.
With a soft exhale, Branwen sat back on her heels. She had not saved Davies, but she had avenged him. Perhaps her neighbors would find some small comfort in that.
But if she had been victorious, then why was her heart still pounding? Why was her every sense still straining? Why did she see gold flecks in that clearing, like motes of dust?
She blinked. Once, twice, then she remembered. There had been four sets of tracks.
And there were only three dogs in that field.
Oh.
Branwen’s eyes flashed wide. She swallowed down a startled little noise, because that was when she heard it: the unearthly baying of a hound that had scented prey.
It felt as though someone had dripped ice water down her back. Biting back a curse, Branwen looked wildly about the fields. There was no place to hide, nowhere to run. There was a short stone wall that separated the divide between Davies’s and Rhain’s farms. An old sycamore grew there. Heart hammering, Branwen sprinted toward the tree and heaved herself up into the branches. She just needed to be off the ground to get a good vantage point. She drew another arrow—her last.
She licked her dry lips, trying to force her breaths to steady. She had been in far worse situations than this. One last hound and this hunt would be ended.
But even as the thought crossed her mind, everything changed.
The heartbeat in her ears softened, then vanished altogether.
Everything was quiet. No, not quiet. Utterlysoundless. It wasas though someone had stuffed her ears with cloth. Panicked, she reached up and snapped her fingers next to her left ear. Had she lost her hearing?
She opened her mouth to make a sound, any sound, when it hit her: This was unnatural. This was magical.
