Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 42 of 66

Lark restrung the bow and passed it back. Rebecka slid the paper under her belt and looked past Halvery's body to the red gate at the bottom of the slope. A man stood there. He had come out of the farmhouse while she was killing the scrier. He held a pitchfork in one hand and the reins of a saddled horse in the other. He had seen everything. "He rides, we lose the road," Lark said. "Nearest town is an hour. Armed men back here before the second rider even arrives." The eye drifted to Rebecka's shoulder. "He counts three of you now. He counts a body." Rebecka stepped over the wall and walked down the slope with her bow lowered. The bow did not hum. The farmer was not a target the arrows would take. He was a man with a family behind him and a dead woman in his ditch. He swung up into the saddle when she was still twenty paces off. He kicked the horse and it lunged onto the road heading south. Rebecka raised her hand and her daughter's voice came into her head, clear as a bell struck in the next room. "Mama. Wait." She stopped. "I see him," Ninka said. "I can go to him. I can show him the gray coat woman. The list. Me on the list." "He'll think it's a trick." "He won't. I'll show him what I look like. A kid." Rebecka watched the horse gather speed. The farmer's back was flat to the wind. Her fingers touched the fletching. The bow stayed quiet. "Do it," she said. The horse broke stride fifty paces down the road. The farmer jerked in the saddle like he had been struck. He reined in hard. He sat still. Then he turned his head and looked back up the slope at Rebecka. He held there for a long breath. He lifted one hand, palm out. Then he turned the horse and walked it back through the red gate and into the yard and did not come out. "He saw me," Ninka said. "He has a daughter. She's seven." "Get out of his head, Ninka." "I'm out." Rebecka let the breath go. "Thank you." "Second rider," Lark said. "Nine minutes." Rebecka walked back up the slope. Aiyana held the seam open a hand's width, waiting. The eye turned north along the road toward the bend where the man with the doll would come. "Close the road here," Rebecka told Lark. "We take him in the ditch, same as her. Then we ride for the cave. The farmer keeps his mouth shut for one day. That's all I need." She set an arrow to the string and knelt behind the wall. The red gate stayed shut behind her. The road north stayed empty. For nine minutes, it was hers.