14

B y sunset, Fawn guessed she had covered about twenty-five miles from Hickory Lake. The hours of interspersed trotting and walking, nursing her mare along in what she hoped was the best balance between speed and endurance, had given her plenty of time to think. Unfortunately, by now her thoughts were mainly variations on Have I taken a wrong turn yet? Fairbolt’s map was not as reassuring as she’d hoped. The Lakewalker notion of roads seemed more Fawn’s idea of trails; their trails, paths; and their paths, wilderness. So she wasn’t altogether sorry when she heard the hoofbeats coming up behind her.

She turned in her saddle. Rounding the dense greenery of the last curve, a husky patroller rode, followed by Hoharie, her apprentice Othan towing a packhorse and a spare mount in a string, and another patroller. Fawn didn’t bother trying to race ahead, but she didn’t halt, either. In a moment, the others cantered up to surround her, and she let Grace drop back to a walk.

“Fawn!” cried Hoharie. “What are you doing out here?”

“Riding my fat horse,” said Fawn shortly. “They told me she needed exercise.”

“Fairbolt didn’t give you permission to come with us.”

“I’m not with you. I’m by myself.”

As Hoharie sucked on her lower lip, eyes narrowed in thought, Othan chimed in. “You have to turn around and go back, farmer girl. You can’t follow us.”

“I’m ahead of you,” Fawn pointed out. She added, “Though you’re welcome to pass. Go on, run along.”

Hoharie glanced back at her two patrollers, now riding side by side at the rear and watching dubiously. “I really can’t spare a man to see you home.”

“Nobody’s asking you to.”

Hoharie drew a deeper breath. “But I will, if you make me.”

Fawn halted her mare and glanced back at the two big, earnest fellows. They would do their duty; that was a bit of a mania, with patrollers. If she let herself get cumbered with either one of that grim pair, he would see her back to Hickory Lake, sure enough, and in no good mood about it, likely. Patrollers had objections to leaving their partners.

Fawn tried one more time. “Hoharie, please let me come with you. I won’t slow you down, I promise.”

“That’s not the problem, Fawn. It’s your own safety. You don’t belong out here.”

I know where I belong, thank you very much. By Dag’s side. Fawn rubbed her left arm and frowned. “I don’t want to cost you your escort. If it’s that unsafe, you might need them yourself.” She let her shoulders slump, her head droop. “All right, Hoharie. I’m sorry. I’ll turn around.” She bit her tongue on any further artistic embellishments. Keep it simple. And short. Lakewalkers read grounds, not thoughts, Dag claimed, and Fawn’s ground had plenty of other reasons to be in a roil besides duplicity.

Hoharie stared at her for a long, uncertain moment, and Fawn held her breath, lest the medicine maker be inspired to detach a guard anyhow. But finally Hoharie nodded. “You’ve come out a long way. If your horse can’t make it back tonight, it should still be safe enough to stop if you get within ten miles of the lake.”

“Grace is doing all right,” Fawn said distantly, and turned away. Although she had to kick the mare back into a walk, as she was much inclined to turn and follow the other horses.

Dag’s groundsense range was a mile; Fawn didn’t think any of Hoharie’s party had a better range, but she let Grace go on for a mile and a bit before halting, just to be safe. She slid down and let her mare browse for a few minutes before leading her back onto the road. In the summer-damp earth, the hoofprints of the Lakewalker horses showed plain even in the failing light. No wrong turns now. Fawn grinned and trailed after them till she could barely see in the shadows, then dismounted again and led Grace off the road to outwait the hours of darkness.

Fawn watered the mare in a nearby stream, then rubbed her down and fed her oats. She washed up herself, swatted mosquitoes, gnawed a plunkin slice, squashed a crawling tick with her knife haft, and rolled up in her blanket. The songs of the small night creatures only made the underlying stillness more profound. It weighed in upon her just how different this desolate darkness was from that of her seemingly equally lonesome trudge through the settled country south of Lumpton Market. These vasty woods did harbor wolves, and bears, and catamounts; she’d seen the skins of all three in the stores back at Hickory Lake. In the aftermath of the malice, mindless mud-men like the one Dag had slain so deftly at the Horsefords’ could also be wandering around out here. She’d hardly given such hazards a thought when she’d camped during the after-wedding trip up to the lake, in woodlands not so very different. But then she’d had Dag by her side. Curling up in his arms each night had seemed like settling into her own private magical fortress. She touched the steel knife he had given her, sheathed at her belt, and sighed.

But by the first gray light of morning, neither she nor Grace had been eaten by catamounts yet. Heartened, Fawn returned to the trail and found Hoharie’s tracks once more. An hour into the ride, she was given pause when the tracks seemed to part from her map, turning off onto a path. But a closer dismounted searching found them coming back and continuing; likely the party had just diverted to a campsite for the night. A pile of recent horse droppings reassured Fawn that she remained the right distance behind. She kicked Grace along, glumly confident that she risked no chance of overtaking Hoharie prematurely. On the other hand, Grace was carrying barely half the weight of those big patrollers’ mounts. Over time that might add up to more of an edge than anyone thought.

Late in the morning Hoharie’s tracks were suddenly confused by those of a much larger cavalcade, going the other way. A patrol, Fawn guessed—Raintree Lakewalkers, or part of Dag’s company heading home? The heavy prints turned off on another trail, and Fawn, frowning, unrolled her map and studied it. They could be diverting to visit a small Lakewalker camp marked a few miles to the south, or they could be patrolling, or who knew? Their passage rendered the trail they’d come down unmistakable, but also left Hoharie’s overlying signs harder to make out in the deeply pocked muddy patches. But at midday, Fawn came to one of the rare timber bridges over a deep-flowing brown river, and was assured of her place on the map once more. From time to time she passed spots where recent deadfalls had been roughly cleared from the road, and she wondered if that was a task patrols undertook as well, when they weren’t in a tearing hurry.

By late afternoon, Grace’s steps were shortening and stiffening, and Fawn’s backside was numb. How did couriers and their horses ever manage such distances at such speed? She dismounted and led the mare up a few of the steeper slopes, insofar as there were any in these parts, fell into resentment at the loss of precious daylight, then finally considered Dirla and ruthlessly cut a switch. This activated Grace again, making Fawn feel equally justified and guilty.

At a close-grown place where the road mud seemed wildly churned, she paused, spooking a couple of turkey vultures and some crows. The former grunted and hissed, reluctantly retreating, and the latter flapped off, yammering complaint. She peeked over the rim of a shallow ravine where the vegetation was trampled down and caught her breath at the sight of half a dozen naked, rotting corpses piled below. She ventured just close enough to be certain they were mud-men and not Lakewalkers, then hastily remounted. She wasn’t sure if the patrol had slain them sometime back, or if Hoharie’s guards had done for them just recently; the stench was no certain clue. The absence of visible catamounts was suddenly not enough to make her feel safe anymore. She pushed along well past sunset mainly because she was now terrified to stop.