The Crowded Shadows (2 page)

The forest was now tranquil and seemingly empty of human traffic, so Wynter gave up her cautious vigil and slid from Ozkar’s back. Wearily, she leant against his neck for a moment and let her head settle. They’d been travelling since just before dawn, and it was time for them both to rest. It would be safest to rest further up the hill, but first Wynter had to replenish her water supply. She decided to risk using the stream by the road to fill the waterskins. God only knew when she’d get another chance to restock.

As she undid the ties, Ozkar snuffled at her and lipped her tunic, looking for food. Wynter pushed his head away in exhausted irritation. He was rationed to one loaf of horse-bread morning and night, and it was more than enough for him, even at this hard pace. Mind you, as far as Wynter was concerned, he could
have
it, all of it. After five days’ travel she was heartily sick of horse-bread, cheese and dried sausage. Even when soaked, the coarse bean bread was a trial to the teeth, and a torment to the bowels.

What I would not pay for a plate of liver and onions
, she thought as she slung the waterskins over both arms and dropped to her hands and knees.
Or, oh God bless us, a strawberry cordial… or apple pie and clotted cream
. She began to slither cautiously down the hill on her belly. Her ears and eyes focused on her surroundings, her heart and stomach dreaming of food.

She reached the edge of the undergrowth and peered down at the shallow little stream bubbling its way along the bottom of the ditch. Wynter knew that with her face covered she was just another dark patch in the shifting shadows. Still, she kept her body carefully motionless as she stretched her arm down to the stream and submerged the first waterskin. It began to fill slowly and Wynter laid her cheek on the bank and scanned the road while she waited.

The first waterskin full, she was just about to submerge the second one when the sound of hooves came pounding up through the turf. She jerked back her hand and pressed into the shadows as a horse galloped past.

It was a merchantman, of middling income by the looks of him, leading a fully laden pack-mule. He was travelling much too fast for the animal’s bulky load and he kept glancing behind him in a panic. Wynter regarded him with a heavy heart and wondered what the hell he had expected, travelling alone on this road. He had not even had the sense to disguise his expensive tack or the fine quality of his clothes.

There were two pursuers, galloping fast and riding low to their saddles. They quickly caught up with their quarry, flanking the pack-mule like wolves and closing in on the merchant. As he galloped past, the bandit on his left hauled back with a staff and unhorsed the merchant with a wide swing to his head.

The merchant’s bright hat sailed through the air and rolled into the ditch across from Wynter. The man himself fell between the horses and was left behind in the dust as the bandits shot forward to corral his goods.

Wynter couldn’t take her eyes from the merchant as he lay on his back in the road. He was utterly dazed, his face covered in dust, a thin stream of blood pooling beneath his head. She heard the bandits capture and turn his horses, and she knew for certain what this poor man’s fate would be. She dipped her chin and clenched her hands as the bandits trotted into view.

One of them, the fellow with the staff, dropped lightly from the saddle and jogged to where the merchant lay. As the bandit approached him, Wynter saw the merchant raise a gloved hand to the sky, his eyes questing. He seemed to have no grasp of his situation. The bandit raised his staff high and Wynter squeezed her eyes shut as he brought it down onto the merchant’s face.

There were not many blows after that and Wynter lay very still and quiet, her face hidden in her hands, while the bandits stripped the body. They chatted amiably as they went about their business, obviously well used to each other and comfortably at ease with their work. There was much talk of the inn, and of Jenny, and of which of them she liked more. There was speculation as to how much they’d get for this haul. They came to the conclusion that they should get quite a bit. Perhaps so much that Jenny might even like them both at once, if they played their cards right. There was a lot of good-natured chuckling, and Wynter pressed her fingers hard into her temples and bit her lips.

Finally, their voices moved back in the direction of the horses and Wynter risked turning her head and looking at the merchant.

The bandits had carried him to the side of the road and laid him neatly at the base of a tree, as though politely disinclined to block traffic. He was curled on his side with his back to her, and once she’d looked at him, Wynter found it impossible to look away. This was somebody’s father maybe, somebody’s son. Until a few moments ago, he had been alive and breathing, full of thoughts and plans. And now he was nothing but meat, cast aside and abandoned, carrion for the badgers and the foxes, with his family never to know what became of him.

That could be me
, thought Wynter,
snuffed out and gone in the blink of an eye
.

Suddenly the bandit with the staff came back into view. He walked to the side of the road, knelt and leant into the ditch across from Wynter, stretching to reach something far in the brambles. He sat back, grinning, and displayed the merchant’s hat for his companion to see.

Wynter should have dipped her head, but she was filled with such hatred for him at that moment that she just watched as the bandit knelt there and whacked the hat off his knee to dislodge the dust.

He was about to get to his feet when he lifted his eyes and spotted her in the shelter of the brambles. Wynter saw him blink under the shade of his hat, saw him frown and her heart froze as he rose slowly to his feet, squinting into the shadows where she lay, his face uncertain.

“What is it?” asked his companion, who was already mounted and ready to go.

The man didn’t answer. Instead, he crossed the road and hunkered down in front of Wynter’s hiding place, gazing across the dancing brightness of the water and staring straight into her eyes.

Everything Wynter had ever been taught, everything she knew she should do in such a situation, fell out of her head. To her absolute horror and dismay, she just lay there, frozen and helpless, as the man took his time looking her up and down.

His eyes travelled the length of her and she saw him register her curves and hollows, her distinctively womanish shape. When his eyes came back up to meet hers, they were calculating and hot. He bared his teeth, and Wynter felt a shrivelling, horrible fear in her belly at the hunger in his grin.

“Oy! Tosh!” called his companion. “What is it?” He had pulled his horse around and Wynter could hear him starting to drift towards them.

The bandit stood and waved him back. “Nothin’,” he said, strolling casually back to the horses. “Nothin’ but a badger hole! I thought ’twas a person lying there! Sun must a got into my head!”

A wave of nauseating relief washed over her, and Wynter clamped her hand over her mouth, certain that she was going to vomit. As the bandit remounted his horse she heard him say, “Lookit, Peter. Once we settle a price with Silent Murk, you go on ahead and take Jenny to yourself tonight. I got some business of my own to tend to.”

“Business?” cried his friend in disbelief. “Instead of Jenny…? What kind of business?”

“Ach, naught interestin’. Just fancy a bit of huntin’ is all.”

“Huntin’?” echoed the other man, clearly baffled. “Instead of Jenny? Tosh, I ain’t complainin’, God knows! But are you mad?”

The bandit chuckled. They began to trot away, but before they got out of earshot, Wynter heard his good-natured reply.

“I ain’t mad,” he said amiably. “I just find myself with a sudden craving for fresh meat. That’s all.” And he laughed again, a warm laugh that made Wynter tremble and her throat close over with fear.

A
fter a while Ozkar began to stumble, but still Wynter drove him mercilessly on and on. She had lost all sense of stealth or caution, and simply shoved forward through the heat and dust, hardly paying heed to her direction, only striving to get away.

Her father had taught her well about travelling alone, and up until this moment Wynter had conscientiously followed all the advice he’d ever given. She had been disciplined, she had been careful and she had been totally in control. Now, panicked beyond reason, Wynter fled through the sweltering heat of midday with nothing on her mind but that man’s hot eyes and the fear that he might someday look at her again.

All the things Lorcan had ever taught her about self-defence swam incoherently through her mind.
Your thumbs hard into his eyes. Your knee or your fist to his balls, the heel of your boot to the tops of his feet
. All of his detailed instructions, should a man ever try and assault her, repeated endlessly in her head.
Do not turn your back unless he’s incapacitated. If he is incapacitated, then run like hell to the nearest population. If you are alone and with no hope of company, kill him where he lies. Stamp on his head. Gouge out his eyes; slit his groin or his throat
. Wynter had heard this so many times—Lorcan’s unflinching list of ways to keep her alive and her enemies powerless or dead. And most important of all, the one thing he had told her over and over.
Fear will paralyse you, baby-girl. Fear will kill you. You must not let fear win. If it wins, you’ve lost the fight.

Well, there was no doubt but that she had lost the fight down by the stream. When that man had looked at her across the glittering light of the water, Wynter had quailed like a cornered rabbit and she had been filled with nothing but fear. Fear had won. That man had won. Had he chosen that time to strike, Wynter would have been useless against him. He and his companion would have taken her as easy as picking berries from a bush.

Ozkar stumbled and Wynter kicked him on, her teeth bared. She would keep going forever, she would never stop moving. The thought of stopping now, anywhere near that man, and the possibility that he might be able to find her, filled Wynter with terror.

The memory of Christopher rose up suddenly, sharp and clear and unexpected; his quick smiling eyes and his grin, his reckless bravery.
Christopher!
she thought, with genuine grief,
Christopher!
How could she miss him so much when she hardly knew him? But she did. She missed him and she admired him, both for his bravery and for his laughter in the face of all that had been taken from him.
Not like you!
she thought bitterly.
Nothing was even taken from you! Nothing done to you but a look cast your way. And you are destroyed by it! You snivelling coward. You big baby!

Wynter pulled back with a silent, self-loathing grimace and hauled on the reins. Ozkar came to a relieved halt and stood panting, his head down. The heat pressed around them, and Wynter, crouched in her saddle, listened for sounds of pursuit. Apart from the incessant singing of insects, the forest was silent and still.

Breathing deeply, Wynter straightened and pressed her hand to her chest, urging her heart to calm itself. Razi’s note whispered against her palm. Her guild pendant settled against her breast. The forest slumbered placidly around her. She laughed.
All right then
, she thought shakily.
All right. That’s over
.

Without wasting any more time, Wynter turned Ozkar and urged him up the hill. She let him carry her far into the high trees, and there she quickly chose a site, slipped from the saddle, and set up camp.

Within half an hour Ozkar was fed and watered, rubbed down and tethered, contentedly snoozing against a tree. Tiredly, Wynter crawled under her bivouac. She lay with her head on her saddle, looking up into the light spattered canvas, and she tried to empty her mind of everything but the calm buzz of the forest. She said a prayer for Lorcan, a prayer for Razi and a heartfelt prayer for Christopher, wherever he might be. Sleep claimed her suddenly, a dark abyss opening soundless and vast, and sucked her under without warning.

Thunder cracked in the sky above the trees and Wynter startled at the sound, trying to get her bearings. She was lying on her back beneath the shelter. It was almost dark. She must have been sleeping for hours. The air was heavy with storm heat, the small space under the canvas steamy and too close, and she was glad that she had made an open-sided shelter. Blinking, she turned her head to stare out into the clearing, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

Lorcan was standing in the forest by her camp, anxiously scanning the dark trees. “Listen,” he said.

Wynter swallowed at the sight of him glimmering there in the twilight. “Dad,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

Lorcan tutted and shook his head. “I’ve done all I can about that,” he said firmly. “You’re on your own now, baby-girl.” He glowered out into the darkness. “There are Wolves out there,” he said. “They’re coming.”

“Dad,” she pleaded, but Lorcan had drifted away already, his white shirt a pale shape in the lowering gloom. He looked back at her, his features indistinct, and put his finger to his lips.

Wynter cried out as lightning imprinted the trees against the canvas of her tent, and she came fully awake to the sound of thunder booming directly overhead. Ozkar whickered unhappily, and she heard him stamp his foot and shift in fear, pulling against his tether. She turned her head sharply as something moved in the not-quite-dark of the woods.

The bandit was standing just within the circle of trees, hardly fifteen feet from where she lay. He stood sideways on to her, a thick staff balanced in his hand, watching her through the open side of her shelter. He must have seen her eyes gleaming in the dusk because he settled his grip on the staff and grinned at her, his teeth flashing in the shadows.