Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 25 of 38

The hooves came closer. Thornwyn counted four sets, maybe five. She lay behind the mound of leaves with the knife under her palm and the smoldering branch under her other hand. Her thigh burned where the moss packed the arrow hole. She could not stand. She could not cast. She had one branch, one blade, and the dirt she had banked over the coals. She listened for the shape of them. Two riders slowed at the edge of the clearing. The others held back in the trees. She heard a saddle creak. A voice asked something low. Another voice answered. Boots hit the ground. She pressed the branch into the leaf mound. The needles caught. Smoke lifted in a thin gray line. She rolled the branch and the fire crawled sideways along the dry litter toward the roots she lay behind. It would not stop them. It would make them look at the wrong place for a breath. A man walked into the clearing with a sword low. He saw the fire first, as she meant. He turned toward the mound. She waited until his boot came down beside her hand and drove the knife up through the soft place behind his knee. He dropped. She pulled the knife free and cut once more where his neck met his shoulder. He fell across her legs and did not move. She could not push him off. Her thigh screamed. She twisted her hand up and got the knife pointed at the trees. The second man stepped into the light. He saw his companion on top of her. He raised a crossbow. Something came through the brush behind him. Not fast. Steady. The piebald deer walked out of the trees with his patchwork coat dark with fresh blood and his long tail dragging. He had not gone west. He had circled back. He lowered his head and drove his antlers into the man's back below the ribs. The crossbow fired into the dirt. The man went down. The deer stood over him and did not move again. Hooves broke away in the trees. The other riders were leaving. They had counted the fire, the two down, the shape at the edge of the clearing, and chosen not to test it. Thornwyn dragged herself out from under the dead man. The deer's front legs shook. He folded down beside her with his flank against her hip. His breath came in shallow pulls. Blood ran from a fresh split along his shoulder. "You didn't listen," she said. She put her hand in the clean fur at his neck. His eye found hers and stayed there. The hoofbeats faded north. She was alive. He was dying. The girl was somewhere west with the staff, and Thornwyn still could not stand to follow.