Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 29 of 66

The white mare took the ridge trail at a hard trot. Aiyana rode a pace behind, silent, red fletching bright over her shoulder. Rebecka pulled the mare up where the trail forked toward the coast. Three tracks broke off the main road here. Low road along the beach. Middle road through the pines. High road along the cliff. She did not know which one four riders would take. She swung down. The coast wind smelled of salt and wet stone. Half a day, Ninka had said. If Rebecka chose wrong she would ride past him while he finished the doll for her daughter. "Compass won't hold him," Rebecka said. "He's warded. Ninka cut him and he felt it." "Then don't ask for him," Aiyana said. She dismounted. "Ask for the doll." Rebecka pulled the compass from her jacket. The face was pale under the clouds. She held it flat on her palm and thought of the thing he was building on horseback. Hair. Skin. A small wooden body wrapped in cord. Her daughter, made small enough to hold. The red needle swung. It stopped pointing at the middle road. "Pines," she said. "Ride," Aiyana said. They took the middle road at a gallop. The trees closed over them. Rebecka watched the compass on the mare's neck. The needle held. Then it slid, sharp, toward the trees on their left. She pulled up. "He's off the road." Aiyana slid down and moved into the pines on foot. Rebecka followed with an arrow on the string. Twenty paces in she saw the smoke of a small fire. Four horses tied. Three men eating. A fourth man sat apart on a log with something in his lap, bent over it, working with a knife and thread. She did not look at his face. She looked at his hands. The bow hummed. The warning came, low in her chest, the one she hated. Close enough to kill. She drew and loosed. The arrow took him through the hand and the doll and into his thigh, pinning all three to the log. He screamed. The three men came up with blades. Aiyana's bow sang twice and two of them dropped. The third ran and Rebecka put an arrow in his back at thirty paces. She walked to the log. The man was white, shaking, trying to pull the arrow free. The doll was half-finished. A twist of dark hair was bound at its head. Ninka's. "Name what you want from him," Aiyana said behind her. "Or it holds after." Rebecka pulled her knife. She cut the hair from the doll. She cut the cord. She cut his throat. She walked back to the mare with the hair in her fist and thirteen arrows left. One student to go. A cabin. A black stove. North.