I was short of breath after our tussle, and not inclined to spend my reserves on a show of strength. Nighteyes lay down on the moss beneath the tree, unabashedly panting.
Disappear, I suggested to him.
In a moment.
The archer stared from me to my wolf and back again, confusion growing in his eyes. I refused to meet his gaze. Instead, I cut the leather thong that fastened the collar of his shirt. He flinched as my knife blade tugged through it. I jerked the leather loose, and roughly turned him. ‘Your hands,’ I demanded, and without quibbling, he put them behind him. The fight seemed to have gone out of him. The teethmarks in his arm were still bleeding. I tied his wrists tightly together. I completed my task and glanced up to find Laurel glowering at my prisoner. Obviously, she was taking the attack personally. Perhaps no one had ever tried to kill her before. The first time is always a memorable experience.
Lord Golden assisted Laurel into the saddle. I knew she wanted to refuse his help, but didn’t dare. Missing her mount would be more humiliating than accepting his support. That left Myblack to carry my captive and me. Neither my horse nor I were happy with it. I picked up the archer’s bow, and after a moment’s hesitation, flung it up into the tree where it snagged and hung. With luck, no one passing here would happen to glance up and see it. From the way he stared after it, I knew it had been precious to him.
I took up Myblack’s reins. ‘I’m going to mount,’ I told my captive. ‘Then I’m going to reach down and pull you up behind me. If you don’t cooperate, I’m going to knock you cold and leave you for those others. You know the ones I mean. The ones you thought we were, the killers from the village.’
He moistened his lips. The whole side of his face had started to puff and darken. For the first time, he spoke. ‘You aren’t with them?’
I stared at him coldly. ‘Did you even wonder about that before you shot at me?’ I demanded. I mounted my horse.
‘You were following our trail,’ he pointed out. He looked over at the woman he had shot and his expression was almost stricken. ‘I thought you were the villagers coming to kill us. Truly.’
I rode Myblack over to him and reached down. After an instant’s hesitation, he hitched his shoulder up towards me. I got a firm grip on his upper arm. Myblack snorted and turned in a circle, but after two hops, he managed to get a leg over her. I gave him a moment to settle behind me, and then told him, ‘Sit tight. She’s a tall horse. Throw yourself off her, you’ll likely break a shoulder.’
I glanced back the way we had come. There was still no sign of pursuit, but I had a sense of our luck running out. I looked around. The trail of the Witted led uphill, but I didn’t want to follow them further until I had wrung from this boy whatever he knew. My eyes plotted out a possible ruse. We could go downhill to where a stream probably flowed in winter. The moister soil at the bottom of the hill would take our tracks well. We could follow the old streambed for a time, then leave it. Then up the opposite side and across a rocky hillside and back into cover. It might work. Our tracks would be fresher, but they might just assume they were catching up. We might draw the pursuers off the Prince.
‘This way,’ I announced, and put my plan into action. My horse was not pleased with her double burden. She stepped out awkwardly as if determined to show me this was a bad idea.
‘But the trail…’ Laurel protested as we abandoned the faint tracks we had followed all day.
‘We don’t need their tracks. We’ve got him. He’ll know where they’re headed.’
I felt him draw a breath. Then he said, through gritted teeth, ‘I won’t tell.’
‘Of course you will,’ I assured him. I kicked Myblack at the same time that I asserted to her that she would obey me. Startled, she stepped out, and despite the added weight, she bore us both well. She was a strong and swift horse, but one accustomed to using those traits only as she pleased. We would have to come to terms about that.
I made her move fast down the hill and then pushed her along the stream until we came to a dry watercourse that met it. It was stony and that pleased me. We diverged there, and when I came to a rock-scrabble slope, we went up it. Behind me, the archer hung on with his knees. Myblack seemed to handle the challenge without too much effort. I hoped I was not setting too difficult a pace and course for Laurel. I urged Myblack up the gravelly hill at a steep angle. If I had lured the village mob into following us, I hoped this would present them with some nasty tracking.
At the top of the hill, I paused for the others to catch up. Nighteyes had vanished. I knew he rested now, gathering his strength to come after us. I wanted my wolf at my side, yet I knew he was in less danger by himself than in my company. I scanned the surrounding terrain. Night would be coming on soon, and I wanted us out of sight and in a defensible location, one that overlooked other approaches. Up, I decided. The hill we were on was part of a ridgeline hummocking through the land. Its sister was both higher and steeper, the rocks of her bones showing more clearly.
‘This way,’ I told the others, as if I knew what I was doing, and led them on. We descended briefly into a scantily wooded draw, and then I led them up again, following a dry streambed. Chance and good fortune blessed us. On the next hillside, I encountered a narrow game-trail, obviously made by something smaller and more agile than horses. We followed it. For a large horse, Myblack managed well, but I heard my captive catch his breath several times as the trail edged across the hill’s steep face. I knew Malta would make nothing of this. I dared not look back to see how Laurel was faring. I had to trust Whitecap to bear his mistress along.
My captive dared to speak to me. ‘I am Old Blood.’ He whispered it insistently, as if it should mean something to me.
‘Are you?’ I replied in sarcastic surprise.
‘But you are –’
‘Shut up!’ I cut his words off fiercely. ‘Your magic matters nothing to me. You’re a traitor. Speak again, and I’ll throw you off the horse right now.’
He resumed a stunned silence.
As the path led up and up, I wondered if I had chosen well. The few trees we passed were twisted and gaunt, the leaves hanging limp in the hovering storm’s aura. The flesh of the earth gave way to bony stones. I knew my refuge when I saw it. It was not a true cave, but was more a deep undercut in a cliff. We had to dismount to coax our horses the rest of the way up to it. I led Myblack in. It was cooler beneath the undercut and water oozed from the rockface at the back. Perhaps at some times of the year it had been responsible for carving the undercut, but now it did little more than leave a damp, green streak on the cave floor before it dribbled away down the hillside. There was no feed for the horses. It could not be helped. It offered us the best shelter and it looked defensible.
‘We’ll spend the night here,’ I announced quietly. I wiped sweat from my brow and neck. The storm was lowering and the air thick with the threat of rain. I pointed to a spot near the back of the cavern. ‘Get down and sit there,’ I told my prisoner. He spoke not a word, but sat, staring down at me. I gave him no second chance. I reached up, seized the front of his shirt, and jerked him off the horse. Anger has always multiplied my strength. I let him almost stand, then flung him hard from me, so that he hit the back wall of the cave and then slid down it to sit flat on the floor, half-stunned. ‘There’s worse to come,’ I promised him harshly.
Laurel stared, white-faced and wide-eyed, probably shocked at my taking command. I took her horse from her and Lord Golden helped her ease herself down. My captive showed no inclination to try to flee, and so I ignored him as I
