Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [85]
If they camped in the forest, there would be lots of places—hollowed logs, thickets, and so forth—where they could rest close to the road and yet remain hidden. Atta would alert them if Rhys came along.
Having made up his mind, Nightshade started down the road leading into the forest. Mina, being on her best behavior after their fight, kept close to his side and Atta padded behind them. The sun slipped away to wherever it went to spend the night and left the world a lot darker than one might have imagined it could be. Nightshade had hoped for a moon or two to give some light, but the moons were apparently off on other business, for they didn’t make an appearance and the stars were obscured by the thick leaves of the overarching tree branches.
Nightshade had been in a lot of forests, and he couldn’t recall having been in one quite this dark or this gloomy. He couldn’t see hardly anything, but he could hear quite well and what he heard was a lot of slinking, skulking, and sneaking noises. Atta didn’t help matters by glaring into the woods and growling, and once she made a lunge at something and snapped her teeth and the something growled and snapped back, but it went away.
Mina took hold of his hand, so as not to lose him in the darkness. She was obviously frightened, but she never said a word. She seemed to be trying to make up for being a brat, which gesture touched Nightshade. He was thinking that his idea of camping in the forest had not been one of his best. He had been keeping an eye out for a place to spend the night, but he couldn’t find anything, and the forest was growing darker by the moment. Something dove at them from a tree and soared over their heads with a cawing shriek, causing Mina to scream and crouch into a ball and Nightshade fell and twisted his ankle.
“We have to stop and make camp,” he said.
“I don’t want to stop here,” said Mina, shivering.
“I can’t see my nose in front of my eyeballs,” Nightshade told her. “We’ll be safe enough—”
Atta gave a blood-curdling bark and attacked something and wrestled with it briefly. Whatever it was yelped and loped off. Atta stood panting and Mina’s lower lip quivered. So did Nightshade’s heart.
“Well, maybe just a little farther,” he said.
The three continued on along the road; Mina walking close to Nightshade and Nightshade shuffling along in the dark, with Atta growling at every other step.
“I see a light!” said Mina, stopping suddenly.
“No, you don’t,” Nightshade said crossly. “You couldn’t. What would a light be doing out here in a dark old forest?”
“But I do see a light,” Mina insisted.
And then Nightshade saw it, too—a light shining amongst the trees. The light shone from a window and a window meant a house and a house with a light in the window meant someone living here in the woods in a house with a light in the window. What’s more, he smelled the most wonderful smell—the tantalizing scent of bread or cake or pie hot out of the oven.
“Let’s go!” said Mina excitedly.
“Wait a moment,” said Nightshade. “When I was a little kender, my mother told a story about a horrible old witch who lured the children into her house and stuffed them into her oven and baked them into gingerbread.”
Mina made a gasping sound and clutched his hand so tightly he lost all feeling in his fingers. Nightshade sniffed the air again. Whatever was being cooked smelled really, really good, not at all like baked children. And spending the night in a soft bed would be far preferable to sleeping in a hollow log, providing he could find one.
“Let’s go see,” he said.
“Go see a horrible old witch?” Mina quavered, hanging back.
“I’m pretty sure I was wrong about that,” Nightshade replied. “It wasn’t a witch. It was a beautiful lady and she baked gingerbread for the children, not the other way around.”
“Are you sure?