The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [27]
She heard what he meant: the clopping of horses’ hooves.
Wist pulled her against the side of another building, and then slowly they backed along it as the sound grew nearer.
Anne couldn’t see anything, but she felt suddenly as if something were being pressed against her eyes. It wasn’t light but a presence, a weight that seemed to draw everything toward it.
Wist’s grip on her arm was now the most comforting thing in the world.
She heard someone dismount and felt feet strike the earth like sledgehammers. She heard a brief whispering she couldn’t make out, and then the door creaked, sounding very near.
She backed away more quickly, aching to simply turn her back and run. But Wist wouldn’t let her. He was trembling, and his breath seemed incredibly loud, as did her own.
The door clapped shut, and she felt the presence fade.
Now Wist tugged more urgently on her arm, and they did turn their backs. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and she began to discern vague shapes. They made their way into what looked to be the village center, a broad square surrounded by the looming shadows of multistoried buildings.
“We have to hurry, he said. “It won’t be long till they find us gone.”
“Who was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I would tell you if I knew. Someone important, the one who hired us, I think. I’ve never met him.”
“Then how do you know—”
“I don’t know!” he hissed desperately. “They said he would come. They didn’t know what he would look like, but they said he would feel, ah, heavy. I didn’t know what that meant until now. But you see?”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” she said. “I felt it, too.” She gripped his arm. “You could have called out to him. Why didn’t you?”
“No, I couldn’t,” he said miserably. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Now, where are we going?”
“Can you find Glenchest?”
“Glenchest? Auy, that’s just down the road.”
“How far on foot?”
“We could be there by midday.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“He’s likely to search that way.”
“Nevertheless.”
In the gray of dawn Wist looked tired, worn beyond his years. His clothes were dirty, and so was he, and it was a pervasive sort of filth. She believed he could be scrubbed for a year and somehow still be unclean.
He seemed dangerous again, too, though in a subdued way, like a vicious dog that had been beaten into lying still for a time. He kept glancing at her in a manner that suggested he was wondering exactly what he was doing and why.
She wondered the same thing.
The landscape was rather drab. Farmsteads and fields crowded to the road, but beyond them were flat plains with little relief or sights of interest.
She wondered again if any of her friends were alive, if the road to Glenchest was the right course, whether she ought to go back toward where she had been abducted. But if they were dead, there was nothing she could do. If they were fighting for their lives, she couldn’t do much about that, either, not with only one very untrustworthy companion.
No, she needed to reach Aunt Elyoner and the knights she commanded.
Assuming they still existed or were at Glenchest. What if they already had gone to Eslen to fight the usurper? Or worse, what if Elyoner had thrown in with Robert? Anne didn’t think that was likely, but then, she didn’t really know what was going on.
In truth, she had always rather liked her uncle Robert. It seemed strange that he had taken the throne while her mother and brother yet lived, but that was the news that had come to Dunmrogh.
Perhaps Robert knew something she didn’t.
She sighed and tried to push that thought away.
“Keep still,” Wist said suddenly. Anne noticed that he had a knife in his hand now and that he was near enough to use it on her without any trouble. He was glancing around. They had passed into a small grove of trees full of lowing cattle, and visibility wasn’t good.
But Anne felt and heard the horses coming. A lot of them.
“SLINDERS,” Stephen said.
Aspar had his gaze fixed across the valley, watching for one of their newly arrived opponents to show themselves.