The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [17]
“We shouldn’t just leave,” Gerard said, the thought coming belatedly that maybe this wasn’t something Sir Matthias would be pleased about. “We should tell someone where we’re going, get more men…”
“You’re right—you go tell Sir Matthias—you’re his boy, after all,” Daffyd said unkindly. “Leave the glory to the men.”
Laughter trailed back as the others heard that. Gerard’s mouth tightened as common sense warred with his pride. It took only a moment before common sense was bashed over the head and left in the bushes. Gerard rode after the knights.
The girl clearly knew where she was leading them, a path seeming to open up where Gerard had seen none before. In no time at all, they were riding out of the trees’ embrace and saw before them a small, neatly tended village, surrounded on two sides by fields.
In the early morning mist, the timber-cut houses and sheds seemed to glisten, the green patches of garden looked ready to burst with late-harvest produce, and even the occasional dog looked placid and well-fed enough not to bark at the sudden arrival of strangers on horseback.
It was, Gerard thought, a lovely picture. But it was too quiet to be the scene of such danger—unless they were too late.
“What sort of threat do we face?” he asked the girl, who had stopped to stare at the village with a sort of pained fascination.
“Go, quickly, swiftly,” she said, not quite in response to his question. “Swiftly, you may yet save us.”
The knights needed no further urging. They spurred their horses into a trot, loosened their swords from their scabbards, and readied smaller blades. Sir Thomas pulled a long dagger from a sheath strapped between his shoulder blades—placed there for easy access while riding—and grinned with anticipation of what could prove to be his first true test as a knight.
In earlier years, Gerard might have charged in, front and center, thrilled to be with these young knights, excited to face battle, determined to rescue innocents. But his travels had changed him in ways he hadn’t realized until now, and second thoughts tugged at him.
Newt had shown him that appearances weren’t always truth. Ailis reminded him over and over that even familiar, ordinary things can change suddenly. Arthur’s need to be in so many places at once taught him the importance of evaluating threats. Morgain—and her magics—had shown him that danger comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes, and from any direction at all.
“Wait!” he called, reining in his horse, but the others had already gone on ahead, riding now at a full gallop into the village itself.
And still none of the dogs barked.
Gerard turned on the girl, now beside him. “What have you led us to? What are you—” His voice dried up and stuck in his throat.
Her hair had sprouted leaves, her skin turned from buttermilk to bark-brown, and her hands—the fingers were too long, had too many joints; they looked like twigs, not flesh.
“Wood-witch!” he cried, dismayed. Of all the dangers of a haunted forest, this was one he had never thought to beware: a poppet made from an ensorcelled tree or brush, animated and given life by evil magics, controlled by the creator and used to cause mischief…or lead men to disaster.
He looked up again, just in time to see the sleepy dogs begin to move. Not getting to their feet, or acting in familiar ways, but…they moved. They shook and quivered, until their bodies broke apart and things ran out of them. Gerard pushed his horse forward, fighting to keep control of the now skittish beast, who was clearly unnerved by a smell, something sharp and bitter and unnatural, that the changing breeze brought from the village.
The wood-witch had disappeared back into the forest, but Gerard couldn’t spare any attention for her, not with what was unfolding in front of him.
The creatures seemed harmless at first. About the size of Gerard’s palm, they moved like spiders, skittish on multiple legs. A grown man—or a horse—could stomp them into splinters, taken individually or even a dozen at a time. But there