Anne Bishop - The Pillars of the World

“Saddlebags,” she muttered, hurrying to the bedroom.

As she walked back to the kitchen, she heard the mare scream.

Dropping the saddlebags on the table, she flung open the top half of the kitchen door.

The mare was lying in the meadow. She kept struggling to rise, but something was wrong with her legs and she couldn’t get to her feet. She screamed, struggled, screamed again.

Ari opened the bottom half of the kitchen door. The air thickened in front of her—the warding spells’ reaction when there was something nearby that shouldn’t be allowed to enter.

Moving from one side of the doorway to the other, she tried to see if there was anything out there.

Nothing.

But the mare kept screaming, and . . . Was that white pus pushing out of one foreleg?

She had to do something. She had to. She could run out to the mare and see what was wrong. She couldn’t just stand there and let the animal suffer. It would only take a minute. Just a minute to run out to where the mare struggled.

She took a deep breath—and ran.

She skidded to a stop a few feet away from the mare. It wasn’t pus. It was bone sticking through the skin.

Something had broken the mare’s legs. Broken them so fast the animal hadn’t had time to try to run.

“Mother’s mercy,” Ari whispered. She whirled to run back to the cottage—and saw the men coming around the sides of the cottage, saw more men vaulting over the low garden wall where they must have hidden. She saw the two who wore black coats. And she saw the tall, lean-faced man who now stood between her and the open kitchen door.

The woods. If she could make it to the woods, she might be able to hide from them. She knew every path through Brightwood. If she could just reach the woods . . .

Neall.

If she ran and all of them didn’t follow, what would happen when Neall came?

In that moment of hesitation, someone hit her from behind, landing on top of her when she fell to the ground.

“I told you not to lift your skirts for any other man,” Royce said. “Now you’re going to pay for it.”

She fought, squirming, twisting, kicking, scratching. She raked his cheek with her nails, drawing blood.

He hit her hard enough to daze her, and kept hitting her until someone pulled him away.

She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus, couldn’t get her legs to obey so that she could run.

A rope was lashed around her wrists. A piece of metal was forced into her mouth, holding down her tongue. More metal was strapped around her head, pressing against the places where Royce had struck her, making them throb unmercifully. Hands grabbed her arms, yanking her to her feet. Dazed and frightened, she was led to the tall man who stood waiting.

“I am Adolfo,” he said in a gentle voice. “I am the Master Inquisitor, the Witch’s Hammer. You will come with me now so that you will have a chance to unburden your troubled spirit and confess to the crimes you have committed against the good people of Ridgeley.”

But I’ve done nothing ! She couldn’t talk, couldn’t form words with her tongue held down like that. If they would just let her speak, she could tell them she was leaving.

Then she looked into the tall man’s eyes and knew he didn’t care about the people in Ridgeley. He only cared about being the Witch’s Hammer.

And there was only one way he was going to let her leave Brightwood.

“Tuck this in your saddlebag,” Ahern said, handing Neall a small bag.

As the contents of the bag shifted, Neall heard the clink of coins. “Ahern—”

“Don’t argue.” Ahern’s face was set in stubborn lines that made Neall wonder if Ari had inherited her stubborn streak from the old man. “You’re going to need provisions on the way, and you’ll need something to tide you over when you get to your land. I won’t be going hungry for lack of a few coins if that’s what’s bothering you.”

Neall tucked the bag of coins into his saddlebag, then busied himself with tying down the flap securely. “Thank you.”

“You take good care of the girl. That’s all the thanks I want or need.”

Neall nodded. He took a moment to steady his feelings, knowing the old man wouldn’t want any maudlin displays. He held out his hand. “May the Mother bless you all of your days, Ahern.”

Ahern grasped Neall’s hand, then stepped back. “Go on with you. You’re wasting daylight.”

Neall mounted Darcy, then watched Ahern check the girth on the dark mare’s saddle. He would have felt better if he could have taken the mare’s reins and led her, but Ahern had said she would follow and there was no reason to doubt that she would.

Raising one hand in farewell, he pressed his legs against Darcy’s sides. The gelding needed no further urging to canter toward Brightwood. The mare ran beside them, tossing her head in annoyance. He wondered if that was because she was going with them or because she was envious that the gelding had a rider.

You’ll have a rider soon , Neall thought as they crested the rise and the cottage came into sight. It looked more shut-up and abandoned than he’d expected it would. As if Ari was already gone.

As they rounded the cottage to reach the kitchen door, both horses stopped abruptly and laid their ears back.

Neall stared at the mare lying so still in the meadow. Then he glanced at the open kitchen door, vaulted out of the saddle, and ran inside.

“Ari!” He didn’t need to search. He could sense she wasn’t there.

“The Black Coats took her,” said a gruff voice.

Neall turned toward the open door and saw the small man standing just beyond the threshold. He couldn’t speak. One thought filled his head until there was nothing else: They took Ari. The witch killers took Ari .

“Nothing the Small Folk could have done,” the small man said. “There were too many men. And those Black Coats—” His face twisted up in disgust and fear. “They have some kind of magic, but it’s nothing clean, nothing like what we feel coming from the Mother. So you’d best beware, young Lord, when you go to fetch the witch and get her away from those . . . creatures .”

“Fetch her?”

“They were riding toward the baron’s estate.”

His heart began beating again. He hadn’t been aware that it had stopped. “She’s— She’s still alive?”

The small man nodded grimly. “Go fetch the witch, young Lord. Fetch her and take her far away from here to some place where the Black Coats won’t find her.”

When Neall took a step forward, the small man shifted. At another time, it would have been amusing to see one of the Small Folk trying to block a doorway. If Ari died, he didn’t think there would ever come a day when he would feel amused by anything again.

“You’d best take what the witch will need,” the small man said, nodding toward the pack on the table. “I’m thinking you won’t have time to come back this way.”

Desperate to leave, Neall glanced around, ready to deny that there was any time to waste on anything . But he saw the saddlebags and the long cape on the table in the main room, and the small pack with the canteens on the kitchen worktable. If— No, when he got her away from the Inquisitors, she would need those things. He grabbed them and ran out to the horses.

The mare was fidgeting and blowing, but she stood still while he fastened the saddlebags, rolled the cape and tied it to the back of the saddle, then tied the small pack to one of the rings on the front of the saddle. Ahern must have chosen that particular saddle because it was made for a traveler.

The small man watched him, then nodded in approval. “The mare came from the Lord of the Horse?”