The Blight of Muirwood

Would she die for Colvin? Yes – it did not require thinking or reasoning. If she could save him, she would. He would not let her. Not willingly. No, he was too proud and stubborn for that. He would try and stop her if he knew.

She could not tell him then. Glancing back, she saw the torches were even closer. Soon they would be overrun. How far was Doe Bridge? Somewhere ahead, in the blackness.

“Keep going,” she whispered to Colvin. “They are getting too close.”

He stopped, tugging Ellowyn with him, waking her from the dream-like walk. “We stay together.”

She shook her head. “I am not going to fight them all, Colvin. Just need to scare them a little. Keep going ahead. I will catch up with you.”

His jaw was like a block of stone. He looked frustrated, upset. He shook his head as if to cast away his thoughts. “We will wait for you.”

Lia touched his arm. “You are the Earl of Forshee and she is the last heir of Demont. Your duty is to see her to safety. My duty is to help that. Now do as I say. I will not be gone long.”

His face pinched with doubt. “Do not do anything rash,” he threatened.

Lia watched as he took Ellowyn roughly by the arm and started off into the woods again. Soon they would reach the lake at the river’s bend. Soon. It was nearly midnight. Lia tested the pull of her bow and walked through the woods the way they had come towards the bobbing torchlight. Her mind was cool and focused. All of the training rushed back to her. She found a nice twisted oak to hide behind. She would attack from the side where they would not be expecting her. She would wait until they had passed her and strike from the rear.

Breathing slowly, she waited until the torches became distinguished. Black tunics appeared, the arms of the Queen Dowager emblazoned on them. Dahomeyjan knights. Her heart felt like flint. Twelve men. Six with torches. Dieyre underestimated her. That was a mistake.

They were tired from their long march. They were not paying attention. The lead was not a knight, but a hunter. He scowled and stared at the footprints often, nodding as the trail was clear to his eyes. She watched and waited, silently bringing herself around the trunk of the oak. Slipping an arrow from her hip quiver, she set it in the string. Waiting. The prey is careless. The hunter is patient.

The man stopped, holding up his hand. He found the place where they had stopped. His head lifted up slightly, listening. Lia pulled the string back and let the arrow loose. Before he crumpled to the ground, she had another one out and dropped another one of the torch carriers.

Gasps of alarm. Swords ringing from their scabbards. Another one went down, also carrying a torch.

“Over there! From the trees!”

Lia shot another one, bringing him down with a single shaft. She darted away from the tree and slunk behind another one. They were panicking. Good. Someone grabbed one of the fallen torches and she dropped him too. Moving to the other side of the trunk, she sighted another one and let loose another arrow. He went down without a sound. There were six left.

“No, it came from that way!”

“No, I saw it! Over there! There!”

Lia waited two heartbeats and came around again, sighting another torch carrier. She did not miss. The last man with a torch was wiser than his friends. He dropped it and scampered into the woods. As the torches hit the wet marshgrass, they hissed and smoked and quickly burned out. A final one still was aflame, crackling and hissing. No one tried to fetch it. Lia stared at the dark, seeing several cowering behind trees.

She stepped away from the oak and started off the way she had come. Her heart was heavy for having killed so many. As she walked, she raised her voice and spoke in Dahomeyjan. “If you follow me, you will die too. Go back to your masters.”

For a moment, she wondered if she should go back and shoot the rest. It would be more difficult in the dark. They were afraid. Their hunter was dead. They could run to the shore and cry for help. But she knew she needed to save her strength. The greater battle was still ahead.

* * *

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears. So often we bring into our lives that which would ruin us merely by thinking and fearing it.”

- Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY TWO:

Firetaming

Doe Bridge was tall, built of stone and bricks and a double arch. One of the arches was round and narrow and a little higher than the other, to guide the overspill of the river through it when the flood season came rather than eating away at the banks of the shore. The other arch was thicker and peaked in the middle and straddled the main body of the river. Scraggly oak trees grew along the thick mossy banks. Despite the recent rains, the secondary run beneath the shorter arch was dry. An outcropping of mossy stone was revealed in the moonlight, where the column of brick and stone met to form the middle of the river and supported it. That junction formed a little bend in the bridge and connected both sides of land. Lia, Colvin, and Ellowyn were grateful for the mossy rock, for it muffled their steps as they crept towards the base of the bridge.