Rachel Lee - Shadows of Myth

“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.”

She took the reins of his horse from him, although she suspected that was totally unnecessary. There was something about Archer and his horse that felt like a single entity.

She watched as he climbed the rock alongside the trail with booted feet as naturally as if he were a fly climbing a wall. Every so often he paused to look down on the dirt of the trail, to lean toward it as if studying something. Then he disappeared into the treetrops

She waited, growing increasingly aware of the silence of the woods around her. She might have no memory, but she knew woods were never this quiet. There was always the rustle of something moving about, and occasionally the sound of birdsong or the screech of some small animal protecting its territory. From time to time trees cracked and groaned like old men who had been still for too long.

But these woods were as silent as death. Not even a breeze seemed to stir the distant tops of the trees. She looked straight up, longing for even a small glimpse of the sky.

But it was as if the branches crowded in over her, jailing her.

Enough was enough, she decided abruptly. Sitting here like someone’s handmaiden, holding the reins of a horse, was not the way she intended to continue this new life of hers.

Dismounting with ease—something else she knew!—she tethered both horses to a nearby pine trunk. Then, tucking the front of her slit skirt out of the way by threading it through her belt, she began to climb the tor, following the path Archer had used.

A thrill filled her when she realized that her hands felt comfortable grasping small crannies, when her toes seemed to know on their own how to wedge against the smallest protuberance. She had done this before. Often. Of that she was now certain.

Glancing at the narrow path beside her, she could see the imprint of many horses’ hooves, most chewed up, but one or two clear as a bell. These horses had been shod. For some reason that surprised her.

The climb was strenuous but exhilarating. For the first time since her fateful awakening, she felt truly confident and alive, as if somehow she had made a connection with a deep part of herself. The brooding silence of the forest was forgotten as she mounted the tor.

Something clattered, and she realized it was a pebble falling down from above. She hoped it was Archer returning and not the thing that had terrified these woods into silence.

She was warm and breathing hard by the time she mounted the sun-drenched top of the tor. There she found a wide circle, surrounded by higher tongues of stone. Archer was squatting in the middle, looking at the black remains of a campfire. From it he picked up something small and white, and tucked it in his tunic.

He turned when he heard her.

“I thought I told you to remain below.”

She clambered over the last rock. “I don’t take orders well. I tethered the horses. What have you found?”

He put his hands on his hips, throwing back his cloak and revealing the long sword at his side. She could tell, somehow, that he was at once displeased and amused by her. In response, she tossed her head back and met him stare for stare. “Well?”

“The coals at the bottom of the firepit are still warm. Nothing unusual in that. They buried the fire before leaving.”

“Or to hide themselves.”

“Aye, or to hide themselves.”

She looked around the dirt and the few hummocks of grass that dotted the area. “There were quite a few horses here, were there not?”

“So it appears. And quite a few men, as well.” He walked over to her and guided her a few feet to the left. “However,” he said, squatting down and pointing, “they left quite a bit of information.”

“That the horses were shod?”

“That they were all shod by the same smith in Derden. See this crescent? I know who made these horseshoes.”

“That will aid in finding them.”

“Most certainly.” He straightened. “Now come over here.”

She followed him to the opposite side of the tor and at his direction peered between two tongues of rock.

“Lean just a little farther,” he said, “and look down.”

“I can see the road quite clearly.”

“Exactly.” He drew her back and pointed to the ground. “Archers lay here. As I see it, before they even went below to attack, they lined up here and began to shoot at the caravan from above.”

She nodded, picturing it.

“It would have caused a great deal of confusion in the caravan. They would have rushed for the portage bridge, which is a bottleneck.”

“Yes.” Leaning forward to look through the rocks again, she picked out the bridge a short way upstream.

“Great disarray,” Archer continued thoughtfully. “Perhaps before they had even crossed the portage, the archers had taken out most of the caravan’s guards. By then everyone would have been screaming and struggling to get as far away as possible.”

She straightened. “And other thieves were already waiting for them on the other side.”

“Perhaps.” He eyed her sharply. “Do you remember this?”

She shook her head. “It just makes sense. Terrify them with the archers, cause disarray in the caravan, and drive them headlong into the ambush.”

His gaze was now definitely hard. “You think like a general.”

She stood before him, arms hanging helplessly at her sides, no memories to guide her. When she spoke, the words sounded choked. “Maybe I was.”