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“Doesn’t everyone?”
“At your age, I suppose so. Right now I seem to be having the biggest adventure of my life, and I’d rather not be having it at all.”
Tom considered the matter from her viewpoint, or at least what he could know of it from what he had seen since Archer brought her to the inn, and decided that perhaps, after all, some adventures were not worth having.
But this one was different, a trek down the river to places he had never before visited to recover food for his town, to assuage the hunger of his friends and neighbors over the winter. This was a good adventure.
“I’m sorry,” he said presently. “You must be very unhappy.”
“But that shouldn’t make you unhappy,” she said kindly. “You are here to help your entire town and should be proud.”
“I am,” he admitted. “This will probably be the most important thing I do in my entire life.”
He looked shyly her way and saw her blue eyes grow distant, as if she were seeing beyond him, beyond the woods and the night.
“Somehow,” she said after a moment, “I think you have far more important things to do, Young Tom.”
“What do you mean?”
The vagueness vanished from her gaze and she looked at him as if startled. “Oh! Well, just that most people have far more important things to do in their life than they realize. So many of the things we do seem small, yet they’re very important in the larger scheme.”
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what she meant but was reluctant to question her further. The word small made him uncertain that he wanted to know her meaning.
“Aye,” said a deep voice from nearby. Archer approached them, and with a swirl that wrapped his cloak around him, he settled on the ground with them. “The small things, Lady. They matter beyond estimation.”
The men closest to the fire, quite happy now that they were full of food and hard cider, were arguing about who had caught the biggest fish last summer. Archer ignored them. Ratha and Giri seemed to be nowhere about.
“Simply being true to one’s word, Young Tom,” Archer said. “That is of great importance. The raising of a child…” His voice hushed a bit; then he shook his head, as if trying to dislodge an annoying insect. “The love and care of one’s wife. These things matter, Young Tom, for they are the essence of goodness.”
Tom nodded, but even he could feel the disappointment that must be showing on his face.
Suddenly Archer laughed and clapped a hand to Tom’s shoulder. “If you’re lucky, lad, you’ll never have to use a sword.”
Tom nodded. While he wanted adventure, he was in no hurry to kill anyone.
“Unfortunately,” Archer continued, “luck may not hold and that day may come. Something stirs. Something dark and evil.”
Tom’s eagerness grew. “What do you mean, Master Archer?”
“Would that I could say for certain. All I know is…there is a strangeness to the air. Something awakens that were better left slumbering.”
He looked at them both. “Stay close to the fire.”
Then he rose and disappeared into the darkness, his cape swirling about him.
Some seconds passed while the men at the fire continued to happily argue. Then Tess spoke.
“What do you know of Master Archer?”
Tom shook his head. “No one knows much. He comes from time to time to town. He’s never made any trouble, and sometimes he tells the old tales to us. But what he does otherwise, none knows.”
Tess nodded and peered into the darkness. Tom knew she couldn’t see Archer any longer. No one could.
Fog crept into the woods from the bank of the river. Low, hugging the ground, dense enough to make men disappear beneath its blanket. The night’s chill grew deeper, and the moon disappeared behind a cloud. The only light came from the fire, well stocked and burning brightly.
Well beyond its glow, Archer paused to speak with Giri. “Do you feel it?”
“Aye.”
“Keep sharp.”
Giri nodded, his back toward the fire, his nostrils flared as if he were on the scent of something foul. Archer slipped away into the darkness, his movements barely stirring the fog, and came upon Ratha, who was guarding the other side of the camp.
“It’s staying away,” Ratha told him quietly. “Whatever it is, it’s too cautious to approach.”
“Can you hear it?”
Ratha shook his head. “I can smell it.”
“It wants something we have.”
“Nothing ordinary, I warrant.” Ratha shook his head and drew another deep breath.
“It knows we wait and watch.”
“That would trouble me less if there were more of us.”
Archer touched his shoulder. “We three are enough. It fears us.”
“So far. I wish I knew what it is.”
“Mayhap we’ll never need to know. I’ll keep on the move.”
Ratha nodded, keeping his attention on the night and the fog that hovered just above the ground. The night itself might betray nothing, but movement in the fog could tell much of a story.
Archer was gone again. A caw, like that of the crow, carried on the night air. Giri, saying all was still well at his post. Ratha answered in kind.
So far, it was well enough.
Tess’s sleep was disturbed. A nightmare kept returning to her, a dream of dark oily fingers slipping into her mind. Finally, able to bear it no longer, she shook herself awake and sat bolt upright. The fire still burned, lower now, and she was surrounded by sleeping bodies.
Shivering as the night air hit her back, she drew the carriage blanket around herself and tried to shake off the ill-effects of the nightmare.
Though she had no memory older than three days, she was still able to judge the scene around her as safe and normal. The fire burned, the people slept, people that she was coming to know. Even Young Tom was lost in the sleep of innocence.
But the dream would not quite go away, and uneasiness danced along her spine. Shuddering, she scooted closer to the fire, then wondered why she thought the light would make her any safer.
Or any warmer, for the chill she was feeling now came from within her. From some place so deep inside her she didn’t know how to name it. Didn’t know what it was.
“Is something wrong?”
The whisper startled her, and she jumped with a small cry, twisting to discover that Archer had come to squat beside her.
“My apologies,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you all right?”
“I had a nightmare. I can’t seem to shake it off.”
He nodded, his gaze darting around as if he were trying to watch the entire world at once. “Ratha, Giri and I are standing guard. You need not fear.”
She shuddered again.
Hesitantly he reached out and touched her hand, where it clutched the blanket around her. “Tell me,” he suggested quietly.
“It was as if something evil were trying to get inside me. Something evil and cold. And the feeling is still here.”
He nodded but said nothing. On the other hand, he didn’t tell her that she was being foolish.
Finally he looked at her again. “You’re feeling it, too. There’s something out there, but it dares not approach. You can rest safely.”
“I don’t think I’ll sleep again tonight.”
“Perhaps not. How quietly can you walk?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m not sure.”
He cocked his head. “Then it’s best you stay here. Trust me, we’re watching over the campsite.”
“How can I help?” It was a stupid question, she thought, even as she asked it. She had no idea whether she knew how to use a weapon of any kind. No idea whether she had ever fought anyone or anything.
“Keep your back to the fire and watch,” he said. “We need eyes.”
She nodded, then watched him rise and melt away once again.
It was only then that she noticed the fog that surrounded the campsite, as if held at bay only by the fire. It clung low to the ground and was so thick that nothing could be seen through it. But while it surrounded the campers, it approached none of them.
Another shiver passed through her, and she wondered how long it would be before the sun rose.
Dawn came without further incident, much to everyone’s relief. The party struggled through a quick breakfast, then set out on the last brief leg of the journey to the caravan.
The scene, when they came upon it in the clear morning light, was almost exactly as Tess recalled. The bodies were strewn about, untouched by carrion eaters. The river ran clear now, free of blood. The men of Whitewater at once began to burden their packhorses with as much undamaged food as they could carry. Then they began the bitter task of burying the dead.
Tess sat astride her horse, disappointed that there was nothing here that might wake her memory.
Archer drew his mount up beside her. “Do you remember anything?” he asked quietly, so that no one else would overhear.
She shook her head, feeling her heart squeeze with both disappointment and the horror of her earliest memory: the carnage she had seen here.
“Give it time, Lady,” he said. “For now, come with me. I want to find some sign of who wrought this destruction.”
Nodding, having nothing else to do with herself, having no personhood or even personality to guide her, she followed him.
“We’ll ride downstream,” he told her. “That would be the best place for the attackers to start from—the rear of the caravan.”
“That makes sense.”
“If anything about this makes sense.”
“This doesn’t happen often?”
“This never happens,” he said flatly. “Few caravans are attacked, and those that are rarely suffer more than a few casualties and the loss of their goods. This is surpassing strange.”
She gave a little laugh of unhappy amusement. “Like me, the woman from nowhere.”
“Be at ease, Lady. You remembered how to speak. The rest will come.”
“I’d be at ease if anything seemed familiar.”
He raised a brow at her. “Are you saying riding that horse doesn’t feel familiar?”
At that she gaped, and finally a trill of laughter escaped her. “You’ll cheer me up in spite of myself.”
“It’s the small things that matter,” he reminded her.
Then his attention began to focus more on their surroundings. They crossed the portage bridge, and he drew rein, staring up at something.
“What?” she asked.
“See those rocks?” He pointed at a bunch of high crags.
“Yes.”
“The caravan would have passed beneath them. If one could gather his group up there, he’d be in the best possible position to know when to attack.”
Tess looked around them. “I don’t see any way to get up there.”
“Not from the road. That would be too obvious. I’m going into the woods. If you’d like to stay here, that’s fine.”
“No, I want to come.” She had to start carving something out of her new life, and staying behind every time someone did something would only make her exceptionally useless in the long run.
The old forest was deep and dark, with only little shards of sunlight dappling the ground here and there. It was easy enough to pass through, but still not the sort of place one would choose to ride.
“It would be easy to get lost in here,” Tess said.
“Aye. But don’t fear. My sense of direction is excellent.”
Indeed it was, because in only a short time he had brought them round the tor and found a narrow, rocky path up its side, sufficient for them to ride single file.
But instead of leading them up it, he dismounted. “Wait here. I want to see the tracks.”
