Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 39 of 57

The house past the mill sat dark when Damian reached it. He left his horse in the trees. Rolo dropped from a low branch and landed without a sound. She had ridden ahead through the fields, reading fence lines and mud the way she read crowds. Now she pointed at the door. "Fresh tracks," she whispered. "She was here. Not long ago." Damian tried the door. It swung open on an empty room. A cold hearth. A cup still half full on the table. He touched it. The tea was warm. "Minutes," he said. His hand tightened on the cane. She had slipped him again. They rode hard for the drinking hall at the crossroads. Rolo knew the woman would need coin and a fresh horse, and the hall traded both. Damian left his gemmed sword wrapped under his coat and carried only the cane with the blade inside. He crossed the porch and pushed through the door. The barkeep looked up, cloth in hand. Damian set a coin on the wood. "A woman came through. Alone. In a hurry." The man's eyes flicked to the coin, then the road. "Five minutes gone," he said. "North. She bought a horse and rode north." He pointed with the cloth. Damian did not wait. He sent his raven up first, black wings against the gray sky, and the bird climbed and turned north over the road. Then he rode. Rolo kept pace beside him, low over her horse's neck, grinning into the wind. "Five minutes," she called. "On a tired horse. We catch her." The raven led them. It circled once over a rise, then dropped, marking the spot the way Damian's master had taught him to read. He crested the hill and saw her below. A woman on a laboring horse, whipping it forward. She heard the hooves and looked back. Her face went pale. Rolo cut wide across the field and closed the gap first. She rose in her stirrups, then leapt, catching the woman's reins and dragging both horses to a stop. The woman clawed at her coat. Damian saw the bundle inside it, darts tipped bright green and yellow. He drove his horse in and struck the bundle from her hand with the cane before she could turn it on Rolo. The darts fell in the grass. The woman raised empty hands. "I only pass the marks," she said. "I don't decide who buys them." "Then tell me who does," Damian said. He held the cane's point at her throat. She swallowed. "A name and a place. That's all I know. Above me. The one who pays for every mark." She spoke it, low and quick. Damian committed the name to memory. The woman who fed the endless swords was caught, and the hunt had a face above her now. He tied her hands and turned his horse toward the road. The chain of hired killers had one link left, and he finally knew where it ended.