Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 2 of 66

Rebecka rode north through low scrub until the homestead was a dark smudge behind her. She meant to put twenty miles between her and the ridge before she slept. Two miles in, her bow hummed against her back. A soft chime, then a warmer note. Something living was following her. She pulled up behind a stand of dry brush and turned in the saddle. The bow's grip warmed under her palm and painted a shape in her mind: one man, on foot, half a mile back, tracking her prints. A scout from the raider band. If he read her line north and rode back to report it, the war party would know exactly where she had gone and that the homestead was thinner by one bow. She could not outrun a man on foot who knew her heading. She had to end him here. Rebecka tied the horse in a wash and doubled back on foot. She moved wide, cut his trail, and came in behind him. He was crouched at her hoofprints, reading depth. Young. A short rifle on his back. A signal horn on his belt. She drew. The bow warmed, then went hot in her hand. The alert. He was close enough to die. She hated the small clean certainty of it. She hated that the weapon was sure before she was. She held the draw until her arm shook. Three days north. A mother and a sister behind her. A horn on his belt that would call twenty riders down on a house held by one man and two cats. She let the arrow go. He dropped without a sound. The bow cooled. She stood over him and made herself look. Then she took the horn off his belt and crushed it under her heel. She cut the strap of his rifle and buried it in the wash. She dragged him into the brush and covered him with stones. Back in the saddle, she pushed the horse harder. She had bought silence, but not much. When he failed to report in, the war party would know something had gone wrong on this line. They would move sooner, not later. She had traded her hidden trail for their hurried march. She rode until the stars turned. Somewhere behind her, in the loft above the apothecary shelf, her daughter would be curled in the floating hammock with the great violet-black jumping spider coiled at her feet, dreaming out past her body the way she did. The grey tabby with the jeweled collar would be walking the wards with the cheese-caped tom, ears up. Rebecka fixed that picture in her head and used it like a compass. Two days to the cache now, not three, if she did not sleep. She leaned forward and asked the horse for more.