Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 49 of 66

Rebecka watched the four bound figures until the kitten in her lap began to purr again. The guilt in the room had settled. But the woman on the coast road had promised food to more than she could see. The traitor had named three. The coast-road woman had baited others outside these walls, and Rebecka did not know how many. If even one of them reached the water stores at the spring above the cave, the refugees would drink poison by morning. She knelt by Katia at the ancestor's cabinet. "How many did she buy." "More than three." Katia did not look up from folding a cloth. "She feeds a net. She always feeds a net." "I need the number." "Then ask the man again. He'll know one more than he told you." Rebecka crossed to the panicked man. She crouched. "Who watched the spring for her." His face broke. "A drover. Wall-eyed. He waters horses at the seep above the mouth. She told him to drop a stone in the pool when her rider knocked." "One drover. No one else." "No one else. I swear on my girl." She rose. One man at the spring. One woman still riding. If the drover dropped his stone before the rider arrived, the poison would already be in the water. She could not wait for dawn. She took the compass from her belt and asked it for hostile life above the cave mouth. The needle steadied north-northeast, close, one point only. She took six arrows and the bow and told Marcus to hold the arch. Katia caught her sleeve at the bottleneck. "Take the cat." "For what." "For after. So you know you got them all." Rebecka slid the kitten inside her jacket and climbed through the slot. Cold pressed her face. The moon put the ridge in gray. She moved along the shelf above the mouth until she smelled horses. The drover crouched at the edge of the seep pool. A small clay jar sat open beside his knee. He held a folded paper packet over the water. She put the arrow through his wrist first. The packet dropped on the stone, not the pool. He gasped and reached for a knife. She put the second arrow through his throat. She waited. Nothing moved on the slope. She pulled the packet from the wet stone. Gray powder. Dry. She burned it with the flint from her pouch and watched the ash blow off the ridge. She carried the kitten past the two picketed horses, past the empty bedroll, past a satchel with no second cup and no second blanket. One man's kit. The kitten purred against her ribs the whole way. She went back down to the slot. The water was clean. The net above the cave was empty. Below her, the woman on the coast road was still riding, and she was riding alone now.