Shadows of Myth

To Tess’s vast relief, mounting the gray gelding that was offered to her came easily, and the saddle, while feeling somewhat strange in its shape, still felt familiar. At least she knew how to ride.

The horse’s movements beneath her gave her a sense of near victory. Yes, I have a past! I have done this before.

At that moment she realized she how desperate she was for the familiar. Any little thing would do.

Drawing up the hood of the green cloak, her hands fitted into fur-lined gloves Sara found for her, Tess struck out with the party, filled with both dread and hope.

Giri, one of Archer’s two Anari companions, rode at his side. “The woman,” he said.

“What about her?”

“Are you sure she should be trusted?”

Archer looked into his friend’s dark face. “Why should she not be? Have you forgotten how we found her?”

“Have you forgotten that she was the only one to survive the attack?”

“No, I haven’t. But I also remember how we found her hiding and terrified. Calm your suspicious Anari mind. Besides, I’m offering her no trust. But perhaps we can learn something from her.”

Giri fell silent and resumed his restless watching of the riverbank along which they rode. The group was making as much noise as the caravan most likely had. He was not comfortable.

Archer spoke. “Take Ratha and scout, will you? If anyone is observing our progress, I would prefer to know.”

Giri nodded. Moments later he and Ratha melted away into the trees.

The farther they rode from Whitewater, the more uncomfortable the townspeople felt. They weren’t used to being so far from familiar places, and Archer began to wonder if they would bolt at the cry of a crow. Their voices grew quieter, until they were nearly silenced, until the only sound echoing around them was the tramp of their horses’ feet on pine needles, dirt and pebbles. The almost partylike enjoyment of their start had given way to dread-filled quiet.

Pulling his steed to one side, Archer watched the single-file group pass, murmuring reassurances to the men. Tess was in the middle of the group, and he pulled in beside her.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she answered. “The woods smell so wonderful right now, in the cold air.”

Indeed, the aroma of pine was strong, mixed with that particular, indescribable scent of nearby snow and ice.

“At least the trees are sheltering us from the worst of the wind.” He was glad of that, for if the wind had chosen to follow the river gorge directly, he doubted that most of them would have come this far. “I don’t ever remember it being this cold at this time of year,” he said.

“What time of year is it?”

He looked at her, astonished by the idea that she might have forgotten such a simple thing. And that caused him to wonder what else she might have forgotten. “It’s harvest time. But winter has come so early the frost has blackened the fields.”

“That’s not good.”

“Most assuredly not good. Many will starve this winter.” He scanned the column again, feeling the edginess of his companions as if it were a prickle in his own skin. “Tell me something of yourself,” he said.

He saw her head bow, saw her hands tighten on the reins. For a few moments he thought she would refuse to answer him. Then, as if gathering her courage, she straightened and looked him dead in the eye. Her own eyes were as clear as a midsummer sky.

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything before I woke up and saw the…the slaughter.”

He was astonished to realize just what she had meant when she said she might remember something. He had known men who had forgotten large parts of battles they had fought, or who had forgotten how they had come to be severely wounded, but never before had he met anyone without any memory at all.

“Nothing?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her lips quivered, then tightened, as if she were fighting down an overwhelming tide of emotion. When at last she spoke again, her voice was steady. “Speech is coming back to me rapidly,” she said. “I trust the rest will come, as well.”

“I’m sure it will, Lady.” He studied her profile for a moment or two, wondering why it was he kept feeling the itch of recognition. He did not know this woman, of that he was sure. She must, therefore, remind him of someone, but the elusiveness of that knowledge was maddening, dancing just beyond his ken.

But some things always danced beyond his ken, it seemed. Distant things, sorrows that had burned a permanent ache of loss into his being. Faded, almost vanished memories of other times and a different way of life. A sense that what should have been had never come to pass. The memory, from the distant mists of time, of the loss of his beloved wife. A time he had long since forbidden himself to recall.

And this woman deepened that ache, as if she were somehow a part of it. But that was impossible. His years outstretched many lifetimes of men, and the ache was so far in the past, it preceded all that had come to be.

He thought he had learned to live with the ache, with being homeless, nameless, a wanderer who could never be one of those he wandered among. A man set apart for reasons he barely recalled, a man who was not man, apparently, given his agelessness.

But this woman reminded him of the ache and the yearning. Unsettled him.

‘Twould be best to heed Giri’s warning and put distrust before trust with this woman, then. He needed a clear eye and a clear head in the worrisome days to come.

For worrisome they would be. As they rode east along the river, the silence grew deeper, as if the very trees themselves held their breath. There was more behind this early winter than a foible of nature. Beneath it a sense of huge power thrummed, a power that had more than once raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

He could not yet say that it would endure, nor even guess what it might do. But ancient magicks were stirring, and his every sense was on alert to detect anything out of the ordinary. Somehow he recognized that thrum of power, that echo of immeasurable forces at work, though he could not say he knew it.

But he recognized it anyway, in the way the tips of his fingers would tingle and the hairs at his nape stand on end. He knew it in the way the pit of his stomach responded to it. He had met this force before.

The attack on the caravan had been abnormal. Of that there was no doubt. He’d seen such things before, but rarely did more than a few die, and never were the riches left behind. As near as he could tell, nothing had been stolen.

Which meant the attack was directed at a person or group of people. That it was born of vengeance, or something even darker. But it was not a robbery.

He wondered if anyone coming with him even guessed at the kind of darkness that was approaching, or if he and his two Anari friends were the only ones.

Somehow the woman Tess had escaped the massacre. And Giri was right. That alone, given the savagery of the attack, was cause for wonder and doubt.

“Is something wrong?” she asked him now.

He realized his silence had endured too long. “Nothing,” he answered, though it was far from true. “I’m going to drop back and check on the rest of the column.”

She nodded and returned her attention forward.

Column? Ragtag bunch of merchants, farmers and youths from Whitewater. He daren’t let them become at all separated, for he doubted any of them knew how to fight. Defense would be all on him and the Anari.

He knew his skills and those of his two companions, and never doubted they could do the job, but ’twere still far better if they encountered no one at all.

Because they had to follow the trade road along the river, and because they were so many, most unaccustomed to riding over difficult ground, they neared their destination too late to hope for a return before dark. They would have to spend the night.

Archer looked up at the still-blue sky as the shadows deepened around them, knowing the sun had already fallen behind the mountains. Noting, with a sense of uneasiness approaching alarm, that no vultures circled in the sky overhead.

That could mean only one thing: someone was already searching among the remains of the caravan.

He halted the column and gave a whistle that sounded like a birdcall. Once such a sound would have seemed normal in these woods. Now, with no wildlife left to be found, it sounded both eerie and obvious.

Moments later, Giri, then Ratha, emerged seamlessly from the shadows, joining him.

“No vultures,” said Archer. “Is someone at the caravan?”

Ratha shook his head. “Not a soul for leagues around us.”

“So even the vultures have fled.”

“Everything has fled,” Giri said. “Nothing stirs in these woods any longer, not bird, not squirrel, not deer nor boar.”

“It wasn’t like that just yesterday,” Archer remarked. Though there had been a paucity of life, they had still caught sight of the occasional squirrel and bird.

“No, ’tis far worse today,” Ratha replied. “There is something foul afoot.”

With that Archer agreed. “Did you make it as far as the caravan?”

“Aye,” Giri answered. “Naught has changed. All is frozen as if in ice.”

“Best we camp here,” Archer decided. “We’ll rescue what we can in the morning.”

There was some grumbling in response to his decision, though he couldn’t blame anyone for it. None had really expected to have to spend the night in the abandoned woods, though he had warned them they probably would.

Or perhaps they grumbled because the woods and the riverbank felt so…strange. As if they had left everything familiar behind and stepped into a different world where the threats were unknown.

As Archer guided the establishment of the camp, he mulled that over. He could only conclude that somehow, someway, they had indeed stepped out of the familiar.

And he had a terrible feeling that it would be a long time before they could go back.

6

Tom was at last enjoying the adventure he’d always longed for, and he wasn’t about to let anything ruin it. In fact, he was quite delighted that everyone seemed so uneasy because the forest was empty of its normal inhabitants.

Actually he was quite glad to know they wouldn’t run into any boar or bears, and if that meant doing without deer and birds, he was content. He’d never slept outdoors in his life, and cold though this night was, the big fire they’d built cast both light and warmth, and provided yet another opportunity for the men of Whitewater to swap tall tales.

But he first had a mission. Carrying a carriage blanket made of fleece, he approached the Lady Tess. “Lady,” he said awkwardly, “Sara sent this blanket and asked me to give it to you for the night.”

The woman, who looked so alone and uncertain amidst the crowd of strangers, gave him a smile that made him feel at least six feet tall. “Thank you,” she said, allowing him to spread it over her. “How kind of you and Sara.”

“Thank Sara,” he said, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “’Twas she who thought of it.”

“And you who carried it and gave it to me. I thank you, too. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

“Tom. Tom Downey, the gatekeeper’s son. Most call me Young Tom.”

“Well, Young Tom Downey, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m Tess.” A flicker of memory flashed into her mind; the memory of a mockingbird in the morning. “Tess Birdsong.”

He smiled bashfully. “Would you like something warm to drink? There’s tea, and some mulled cider.”

“Cider sounds wonderful.”

Many of the men had brought skins of hard cider with them, a remedy against the cold, and Tom, thanks to Sara, had brought spices and a pot in which to heat it. Sara, in fact, was responsible for the fact that the party had eaten a hot meal this night. Tom’s packhorse had been loaded, unlike the others, with viands and some cooking pots, with the result that he had been something of a hero a little while ago, as he’d cooked and served a meal they otherwise would have done without, relying instead on the strips of dried fish and jerky most had packed.

And now he could give the lady a tin cup full of piping hot mulled cider. She accepted it gratefully and held it close, as if savoring the warmth. She patted the ground beside her. “Tell me about yourself, Young Tom.”

He sat, but felt nearly tongue-tied. “There’s naught to tell,” he said, when he could find his voice again. The woman was so beautiful and otherworldly, and he wasn’t accustomed to conversing with strangers, especially beautiful ones.

“Ah, you must have done something during your years,” she replied.

“Nothing of interest. My dad is the town gatekeeper. Mostly I help him.”

“That’s a very important job.”

“I suppose.”

She smiled gently. “But you long for greater adventures?”

“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.