The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [22]
But there they were: Ailis and Newt sitting on a log, and Callum was perched on the stump the log had come from. Gerard had hoped to do this without an audience, but found himself without a choice.
He cleared his throat and got their attention.
“Gerard!” Ailis jumped up off the log, her hand tugging at her braid in way that always signified unease—or being caught doing something she thought she might get in trouble for. She looked up at him, concerned. “Where have you been?”
Newt, who had been sitting beside her, was slower to stand, his sharp eyes taking in the cuts and scrapes on Gerard’s face, and the leaves and twigs that were stuck to his boots and in his jerkin. “Gerard, you look like twenty monsters were after you. What’s happened now?”
“Ailis, I need you. Newt, you too, I think. right now!”
“We were—” Ailis started to protest.
“Whatever it was, it can wait. They can’t.”
“Someone’s in trouble?” Newt was ready and asking questions. “Where? Who?” Newt might not be a squire, but he understood priorities. Maybe that was why they were friends, despite all the differences between them.
“Come with me,” Gerard said.
Callum stood and looked at Gerard. “And me?” His face was alight with the possibility of going on an adventure with his new friends.
Gerard shook his head. “Not this time.” He tried to be considerate, but there wasn’t time and he had little experience with this sort of thing. He tried to think what Sir Lancelot—the kindest, gentlest man he knew—might say. “Next adventure, maybe. When I have time to—”
Gerard caught a glare from Ailis and changed his words mid-sentence. “Until we have time to…work things out. But not now. We have to move fast, and taking on another person would slow us down.”
Callum started to protest. Newt put a hand on his shoulder and nodded his reluctant agreement. The squire was deflated but didn’t argue.
“Poor Callum,” Ailis said as they walked away, and both boys looked at her as though she had grown a second head.
“I just…” She started to explain, then shrugged in frustration. “It’s tough to be left out,” she said. “Even if you’re being left out of stuff that would get you in trouble. You are about to get us into trouble, aren’t you?”
The horses were penned on the other side of the encampment, near the small creek. Sir Matthias did not outwardly believe any of the stories circulated about the forest, but everyone knew that running water could stop a curse or a witch from crossing, so it made sense to keep the most vulnerable members of his troop there. If nothing more, it made those who were superstitious feel better. Gerard led them around the outskirts of the encampment, keeping close to the trees. As they went, he told them what he had encountered.
“And you think I can do…what?” Newt asked. “Ailis, all right, she has her magic. But me? Unless you think my dog-training and horse-grooming skills are going to work on spiders, which, I’m telling you, they don’t—”
“I don’t know,” Gerard admitted. “I’m running on instinct here. And my instinct tells me you need to come along.”
“Do you think—” Ailis stopped. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Gerard didn’t even slow down.
Newt paused, looking around carefully, but when nothing popped out of the tree line or came at them from the clearing, he shrugged and moved on briskly.
Ailis waited another moment, her shoulders hunched as though expecting a blow. “What are you?” she asked, softly. “Where are you?”
“Ailis!” Newt was calling back, impatiently waiting for her. Gerard had gone ahead and was now out of sight. Getting the horses, she supposed.
“I know you’re there,” she said to whatever had made the noise. “So you might as well just show yourself.”
When nothing responded, not even the wind, she shrugged and walked on.
“How do you expect to find your way back?” Newt asked Gerard as they left camp, walking the horses as though cooling them down after a ride, so as not to risk anyone asking questions about where they were going.
Gerard was still following