Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 33 of 38

Thornwyn had until dusk to give the eastern lord a reason to stop. If his men reached the hollow first, they would cut through the ward before he ever spoke. She needed him to hear her voice before he saw the girl. That meant meeting him on the road, alone, while there was still light. She set the staff across her knees and looked at the girl. "Stay in the hollow. Do not come out for any voice but mine." The girl's fingers tightened on the wood. Thornwyn pried them loose one at a time. "I will come back. If I do not, the deer will take you west." She pulled herself onto the chimera's back. Her thigh tore under the stitches. She bit through it and turned the creature east. The piebald deer paced beside her, patchwork coat bright against the wet leaves, long tail low. She had bound him again with new words at the ward line. He was her second voice now. If the lord would not hear her, the deer would carry her scent and her intent to him, and stand between them until he did. She found the road at the edge of a birch stand. Torches showed through the trunks, closer than she wanted. She counted eleven men on foot, a wagon, and a rider at the head in a dark coat. She dismounted and planted the staff in the mud. She sent the chimera back into the trees. She kept the deer at her side. The rider saw her and raised a hand. His men stopped. He walked his horse forward until she could see his face, thin, tired, older than the elf. "You are the witch," he said. "I am the one who has your prisoner's daughter," Thornwyn said. "She is alive. She is seven. She has not spoken in a year." She kept her hand on the deer's neck. "Your men killed three of mine on the way here. I killed three of yours. If you go past me, I will kill more, and you will still not have her." He looked at the deer. The deer looked back. He wet his mouth. "What do you want." "Your name on a paper. That you renounce claim. That your men turn now." She lifted the staff. "Or I open the ground under your wagon and we finish it here." He was quiet a long time. His horse shifted. One of his men behind him drew a bow. The deer moved before Thornwyn did. He crossed the mud in three strides and put himself between her and the archer. The arrow struck his shoulder. He did not go down. The lord raised his hand again. The bow lowered. "Paper," he said. "In the wagon." She did not lower the staff until he was writing.