Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 34 of 38

The lord signed his name and turned his men east before the light failed. Thornwyn watched the last torch disappear between the trunks. She pulled the paper against her chest and rode back to the hollow with the wounded deer limping at her stirrup. The girl was where she had left her, hand still on the staff Thornwyn had told her to guard. The elf lay under the oak, breathing shallow. Thornwyn slid down and knelt beside him, and only then did she look at the sky. The air had changed. The wet leaves were stiffening. She pressed her palm to the ground and felt the cold running up through the roots. First frost by dawn. Snow inside a week. The hollow could hide them from men. It could not hide them from winter. She counted what she had. A burnt cottage. A shed she could not reach before the elf died of the cold. A wounded elf who could not walk. A child too thin. A deer with an arrow hole in its shoulder. A chimera that could carry one adult at a time. No walls. No fire she dared light for long. The girl watched her count. Thornwyn met her eyes and made herself speak plain. "We cannot stay here. You will be cold before morning." She thought of the village across the open field. The market bargain. The matron who had opened the door for her once. She had promised weekly visits and had not made one in a month. They would have questions. They would see the elf. They would see her limp and the arrow scar on the deer. She did not care. She lifted the elf onto the chimera and tied him upright with her belt. She set the girl in front of him and put the girl's hands on the antlers. The piebald deer she bound again with new words, close to her side, guard and witness both. She took the staff. "West of the field there is a house," she told the girl. "Wildrest Haven. They took you in once. They will take us tonight." The girl did not nod. She did not have to. Her fingers closed on the antler. Thornwyn walked because the chimera could not carry more. Her thigh opened again by the second mile. She kept the staff planted at every step. The deer walked at her hip and did not fall behind. They came out of the trees at the edge of the open field near dawn. Lamps were lit in the village windows. Smoke rose straight from three chimneys. Thornwyn stopped at the tree line and looked at the house with the matron's door. She had crossed this field once before, afraid. She crossed it again now with a wounded man, a child, a bleeding deer, and a signed paper in her coat. She walked toward the door and knocked.