Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 32 of 38

Thornwyn watched the girl sleep against the chimera's flank and knew the shape of the problem. Two riders had run north. They would return with more. Even if she killed those, more would come. The eastern lord had held the elf a year to find this child. He would not stop while he drew breath. She could not run forever with a wounded man and a child who would not speak. The hunt ended at its source or it did not end. She eased the staff from her lap and set her hand on the piebald deer's neck. His long tail flicked once. His ear turned to her mouth. "I need him to come to us," she whispered. "Not his men. Him." The deer's dark eye held hers. She had bound him with words before. She spoke new ones now, low against his patchwork coat. She named the lord by the scent the elf had carried out of that cell, iron and lamp oil and old sweat, and she named the road east. She told the deer to find that scent and lead it back. She took a strip from the hem of her shirt and tied it to his antler. She pressed her thumb against his brow. "Bring him within a day's ride. No further. Then turn and come home." The deer rose. He stepped over the elf. He passed through the ward without breaking it because she opened it for him, and closed it behind. His white patches slid between the laurel and were gone. She waited. The girl slept. The elf breathed. The chimera watched the mouth of the hollow with his head low between his forelegs, antlers dark against the last light. The deer came back at dawn on the second day. The cloth strip was gone from his antler. Blood matted the fur along his shoulder, not his own. He lay down at her knee and pressed his nose to her wrist. She closed her eyes and felt for what he had brought. Men on the eastern road. Torches. A wagon. A voice she did not know giving orders in the accent the elf spoke in his sleep. Close. A day, as she had asked. Less. She opened her eyes. The girl was awake, watching her. "He is coming here," Thornwyn said. "To me. Not to you." The girl put her small hand on the staff beside Thornwyn's. She did not let go. Thornwyn set her palm over the child's knuckles. The hunt had a source, and the source was walking toward her now with torches on the eastern road. She would not have to chase it. She would only have to be ready when it arrived. She began to plan the ground.