Copyright © 1996 by Katya Reimann

Gaultry never carried her knife on market days. No one carried weapons on market days, and everyone agreed it made for fewer fights—or at least fewer serious fights.
       But for Gaultry, shedding her knife was only the first part of a day-long trial. Market day in Paddleways village meant changing her hunting hose for long skirts, her knife belt for her Aunt Tamsanne's good red sash. Worse, market day meant trying to cut a convincing figure as she haggled with the village crowds.
       It felt unnatural. When the villagers looked at her, they inevitably saw her aunt, who was commanding and wise, or her sister, who was charming and wise, before they saw Gaultry, who suspected she didn't impress anyone as any of these things. Dealing with Gaultry, the village people somehow always knew that they could hold to their price, and get it.
       But today, much to her surprise, it had been different. Today, with the breaking of the new spring, she had begun to find her feet as a trader. Mother Liese, the baker, let her have a third loaf of bread without arguing, and Coln, the village blacksmith, gave her a score of nails for half the price she'd been expecting. So what if Coln teased her that the look of surprise on her face was worth what he lost on the price. "Let a wild rabbit out of a trap, you get the same expression!" he laughed. But so what? She'd got her price. Her clever older sister could scarcely have done better with an hour of hard bargaining.
       Tamsanne would be pleased when she got home. Tamsanne had assured her niece numerous times she'd find her place in the world of tongues and trading. Gaultry had always found it hard to believe her.
       But not today. Gaultry was finished with her business by early afternoon. She declined a surprising offer from Coln and his wife to stop in for an early tea.
       "Tamsanne's expecting me," she excused herself to the friendly blacksmith.
       "Then plan to stay for tea next time," Coln pressed her. "That's Prince's Night. Annie can ready a cot for you if you'd like to see the fireworks."
       "Next time won't be until after the Maying Moon. Tamsanne wants me at the cottage for Prince's Night."
       "Making you miss the Prince's marriage celebrations here in the village? That's not kind."
       Gaultry shrugged. "Paddleways will be too crowded for the likes of me. I won't want to come."
       Coln, who was stocky, not at all shy, and loved to drink a holy day through, did not believe her. "Tell Tamsanne there's places for you both if she changes her mind."
       "I will," Gaultry said, hoping he didn't think her rude. "It's a kind offer."
       Afterwards she packed up to head home with bundles that were far heavier than she had hoped for.
       It was a long three miles from Paddleways village to Aunt Tamsanne's cottage. Gaultry's satisfaction with the day's good trading lightened her step for the journey and it was a pleasantly sun-filled day for the walk.
       The first mile was fields, empty today save for the wild birds. Then came a shallow ford with ancient stepping stones, washed a little too far apart by years of winter flooding to be usable. Beyond came the great woods, Arleon Forest. Past the ford, the track dwindled to a narrow path, hemmed in on either side with tender spring shoots. Gaultry folded the hem of her skirts into her sash and quickened her pace. She was eager to reach home and put aside her market clothes.
       The path wound deep into the woods, first across a broad marshy bowl, and then up through a heavily forested boulder slope. Gaultry concentrated on the rising ground, her pace steady as she picked her way among the rocks, her big pannier basket balanced on one hip, a clutch of string bags on the other. The young huntress was a strongly built woman, with long legs and the efficient grace earned of her many years spent roaming the woods. She had come this way to market since she was a very young child, and Tamsanne had held her hand to support her. In those days, even empty-handed, the climb had not been so easy. Remembering, a smile crossed her lips.
       Settling into her pace, she began to whistle.
       She turned a corner, passed between a pair of ancient, moss-covered oaks, and stepped into the grassy clearing that marked the start of the pine plateau. Intent on the ground under her feet, the warmth of the early afternoon sun as it slanted down through the trees and touched her back, she was not at first aware that she had company.
       Eight men were waiting for her in the clearing. Mounted men, with lean soldier's horses, dun and grey. But these men wore dirty leathers and dark cloaks instead of soldier's gear and armor, and insignia or heraldic badges were conspicuously missing from their shoulders. Behind them, spread loosely among the spindle-trunked pines, were half a dozen hunting dogs, coarse runners with ragged grey fur and orange-brown predator's eyes. They had waited so quietly for her, men and dogs both, that Gaultry was deep in among them before she realized that they were there.
       The dogs gave her the first warning: ears folded, tails low, and eyes suspicious, she could tell at once that they were set against her. Two men shifted, closing a loose wall across the path behind her.
       Her hand went reflexively to her belt, but of course, it was market day. No knife.
       "Good afternoon, Gaultry Blas." That was the leader, a heavy man with lank yellow hair and three days of beard on his chin, a makeshift captain's sash in red buckram looped over one shoulder. He took his horse a few paces towards her, close enough that Gaultry could smell the sweet grain on its breath. "We've been to some trouble to find you."
       Gaultry didn't know him, or any of the others. She could think of no reason for the men to want to assault her, and was for a moment more puzzled than alarmed. Surely her successful day's shopping from the village could not be the lure?
       "What do you want?" she asked. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded high and unconvincing. This was the worst thing she could have said, and the worst way she could have said it, both confirming her identity and admitting fright. "Who are you? What do you want?" More foolish questions. She bit her lip to stop herself from asking the same wrong questions a third time, and moved her basket from her hip to her front, where she could hold it shut with both hands.
       The men enjoyed her show of fear. Looking from one face to the next, she tried to guess what it meant that they were here, set to attack her in Arleon Forest. This was a planned attack. A random attack she could perhaps understand, but this?
       The leader, grinning at her confusion, dismounted and stepped forward. He was taller than Gaultry, and heavily muscled. His frame seemed very broad and strong as he came towards her. "Who are we? Why, we've been sent as saviors, Gaultry Blas. We've come all this way to make you safe." He grinned again, suddenly nasty. "Did you ever guess such a shy pure girl as you could be so threatening?"
       Gaultry retreated one step, then another. She wished that she had her knife, that she wasn't encumbered with a day's worth of shopping, that she knew what in the great gods' majesty the man was going on about. They could not be forest outlaws—Tamsanne, her aunt, had a pact with the local outriders. Indeed, anyone local, even a renegade, would have known better than to attack one of Tamsanne's nieces. Any other day Gaultry would have been armed, able to protect herself. But today, loaded with market goods, encumbered by cursedly billowing skirts—
       The leader made a signal with his hand. His men closed off the path. One man chirruped to the dogs, and the whole pack of them rose to their feet, whining, nervous, and eager.
       Their leader was very close to her now. Beneath pale, straw-colored brows, he had guarded, orange-brown eyes—a predator, like his dogs. He held her eyes with his, the smile beneath them brutal, and gave his men another signal. The circle of horses tightened, the riders readying to dismount.
       "Who sent you?"
       "You're nicer looking than we were told to expect," the leader drawled, ignoring her question. He let his orange-brown eyes flicker down her body, taking in her blue market dress, her bundles and basket, the spring posy someone at market had tucked into her sleeve, the bright cloud of her fox-colored hair, worn loose for the day in the village. He dropped one hand to the strap of her basket. "That's good," he said. A cat stalking a sparrow, with her as the sparrow. Gaultry jerked away.
       "Don't touch me."
       Two of the men behind him laughed openly at that. Her mouth went bitter with bile; panic rose in her. Everything she said only whet their will to attack. She could see their taste for her helplessness and her fear sharpened, even as she watched them.
       She stared around the circle, searching for a friendly face. Whoever had picked these hunters had chosen well. One man, maybe two, wore the cold face of duty. The rest were flushed, leering, expecting violence and gladdened by the expectation. She quavered, indecisive, knowing she should stall them, or at the very least deny she was the woman they'd named, but her mind was an awful blank. She could only focus on the unanswerable questions. Someone had decided that she, the daughter of a soldier and a hedge-witch, a woman with no business to speak of outside the bounds of Arleon Forest, was a threat.
       With one hand still holding her basket's strap, the leader dipped into the leather bag at his hip, and pulled out a pair of manacles—roughly forged iron with teeth on the inner circles of the bracelets. He looked into Gaultry's eyes, hypnotically intense, and reached for her wrist. Touching you is the least we'll do, his eyes told her.
       Gaultry dropped her basket, her net bags, everything, and stumbled back, thrashing with elbows and hands against the encroaching circle. The leader grabbed her sash and pulled. She tore away, slipping as the sash untied abruptly from her waist. Reeling as she tried to find her balance, she bounced off the barrel ribs of a horse, cursed, and ducked under the brown curve of its belly.
       Astonishingly, she was clear of the circle.
       She fumbled, finding her feet as the hunters laughed and clumsily rounded their horses to the pursuit. Stumbling past the dogs, she sprinted for the cover of the trees, her mind empty save for the spasm of flight. She barely noticed the lash of branches and leaves against her arms and body as she ran, headlong, into the green embrace of the forest.
       Running blind, she tumbled almost at once into the middle of a bramble bush, the black briar's thorns catching her skirts in a thousand places. The common pricking pain of the wine-red canes brought her back a little from her terror. The belling sound of a hunting horn rang sweet and clear through the woods behind her. Gaultry swore and ripped herself free. These men were hunters, and she had just gifted them with a running quarry to hone the edge of their aggression. Starting to run was probably the worst thing she could have done. Not that she could have borne the indignity of passively allowing herself to be captured!
       Behind her, the hunters laughed and shouted, rallying the dogs, whipping up their horses. She tucked up her skirts, cursing as the cloth slipped and flapped against her legs, and ran on.
       She was a fool. Her heart was near to bursting in her chest and her lungs were heaving and her head was spinning with the wish that she was running faster. She was a fool.
       Mervion would never have panicked like this. Her clever older sister wouldn't have lost her nerve and bolted. Mervion would have charmed the men—or their horses, or the dogs—and turned the entire pack in on itself with confusion, making her escape under the cover of that confusion. Or she would have bluffed and diverted their attention while she prepared a spell or warding to cover her flight.
       At the very least she would have tied her skirts up properly before she began to run.
       But not Gaultry. For Gaultry, the thinking usually happened after she'd already made the big mistake.
       Another clamor of the hunting horn broke her futile self-castigations. For now, a declining head start in a race she seemed destined to lose was her only advantage. She was free in the woods, and she had always prided herself that the woods were her element. Now she was going to have to live up to that pride.
       Baying howls sounded through the trees. Too close. The dogs could move faster through the thickening brush than the men on their horses. She was going to lose her lead to the dogs before she lost it to the men.
       Gaultry sucked in a ragged breath. Already her legs were failing her. She needed more speed.
       She would try a spell. A taking-spell, to spirit the strength she needed—perhaps even from one of the beasts that pursued her—into her own body. Then, if she was lucky, she would be able to maintain a lead on her pursuers until she reached Tamsanne's boundaries. Then—perhaps—Tamsanne would sense her distress and help her.
       Her taking-spell was her strongest magic. A deer would have been best for it, but with hunting sounds echoing through the forest, there wouldn't be a deer for miles around.
       It would have to be a dog, the first dog that caught her. She'd have to entangle it in the spell and pull the strength from it before the rest of the pack reached her and dragged her down.
       Gaultry cut through a clump of saplings, seizing a moment's cover to prepare her spell. She took a long breath.
       Huntress Elianté, she prayed. She tried to focus her mind, to tap an inner reservoir of calm. Hear my cry.
       The sharp crackle of breaking brush was all the warning that she had that the race was over. She whirled, meeting the tawny-grey wolfhound as it rose to seize her. There was another dog at its side—
       The animal's full weight bashed against her and knocked the breath clean out of her lungs. They crashed together into the bracken, the second dog snapping for room to join them. Gaultry found herself pressed down in the loose pine-mold of the forest floor, gasping for air. The dog clawed and snapped for her neck. If it caught her throat in its jaws, it would pin her in the bracken and hold her until the huntsmen closed in for a live kill.
       If it closed its teeth on an artery when it seized her throat, she wouldn't get a chance to wait for the huntsmen.
       White fangs thrashed inches from her eyes as she scrabbled frantically to impose her taking-spell onto the animal's aggressive will. Fetid breath blasted her face; she recoiled, sickened. Next to them, the second dog bit her ankle and howled in the triumph of having caught her.
       "She's down! Hold her, Butcher, hold her!"
       Gods, Gaultry thought, despairing. They were close enough to hear the dog's howl. Soon there would be more dogs—
       There was dog slobber on her face. Her lip had split, and she had the warm metal taste of blood in her mouth, but finally she got hold of one of the animal's small ears and gave it a vicious twist. The terrifying beast yelped—a sharp contrast to its deep throated bark—and Gaultry had a clear moment in which she had its full attention. She locked her gaze into its yellow hunt-wild eyes, and let it look deep inside her.
       It yammered in surprised terror, and tried to escape, but the spell had already crested and lashed out to take it. The yelp subsided into a whimper. Gaultry tried to block her fear of the second dog as she held her mind open for the strength the spell had opened. Her mind and body together sucked in the turbulent mist of the animal's spirit, briefly closing her vision. The dog's hot hairy body, knocked into a near coma, slumped against her.
       When her sight cleared, her vision was the high-contrast green and purple of dog-sight. The casting was clumsy—she'd taken far more from the animal than she'd intended. She had its will to hunt along with its will to race, a dangerous mixture of animal urges.
       The second dog, hair bristling on its spine as it sensed the casting, bared its teeth and stood away, stiff-legged. Gaultry struggled to her feet, giddy with power, and tried to ignore it. The first dog's keen nose had come to her with its speed, and her senses were flooded by rich forest smells. She was ready to fight, to prove her pack dominance—
       She was ready to get herself murdered, she told herself wryly, drawing herself back from a snarl. She'd taken the dog so she could run, not so she could brawl with a dog-pack. Forcing herself to turn away, she pushed her legs out into a fresh sprint.
       As she compelled it to leave the fight, the dog's maddened spirit turned its will to speeding her run. A pure animal thrill in the chase, and something of its madness, shot through her body. Fighting or running, she was in a poor state to keep the stolen strength under tight leash. With rangy dog-spirit coursing through her legs, she moved faster than any horse through the tight maze of trees. Suddenly the grim hunt had turned into a race, and it was a race that Gaultry was winning. Now that the dogs trailing her knew that Gaultry commanded a witch's powers, their pursuit was no longer eager. There was a subtle change in the tenor of their barking. They were pulled their pace short, allowing Gaultry to extend her lead.
       There was a correspondingly angry timbre in the men's hunting calls as she started to slip away. A wave of elation seized her. For Gaultry, running as a hunting-dog was almost as effortless as running as a deer, and she'd done that often enough. She sprinted full out, exhilarated, risking braining herself against a tree, but it seemed she could feel the Huntress in her, encouraging her to run. Was this how a dog always felt as it ran and hunted?
       The ground under her feet began to slope down. Already she was coming off the high pinewood plateau where the hunters had accosted her. The dry river gully was not far. Once past that, she'd be less than a mile from Tamsanne's cottage. With the slight incline in her favor, her pace was faster than ever. She pushed herself faster still down the hill, her stride crazily long. There was a rough doggy joy in her. She would win her race. She would tell Mervion about it: about how she had turned blind flight into a successful bid for escape. She could see her sister's face now, she could—
       A rabbit-hole opened under her foot. Gaultry was wrenched off balance. The ankle that the second dog had bitten crumpled. Lunging forward, she slid, throwing her arms helplessly wide in a frantic effort to brake. Then there was an unexpected lurching drop as a woody hollow opened in front of her, and down she went, tumbling, turning, smashing herself past a rocky ledge as she made a final roll and hit the hollow's mossy bottom.
       Half-dazed, she fought to regain her feet, to reorient. Blood bubbled down her left leg, sickening and warm. Fresh panic gripped her as she felt the first stab of pain. She tried to stand. Her knee buckled beneath her weight.
       A dog barked, closing in. She cursed her own foolishness, prayed to Elianté—to any of the gods—that the lead dog would miss the hollow and draw the hunt past her, and hunkered down, hoping to make herself less conspicuous. Frustrated tears sprung to her eyes, as she tried not to beg the Huntress Elianté for favor. It was said that the Huntress was deaf to beggars' pleas.
       The lead dog crashed noisily through the undergrowth nearby, then slowed, puzzled. Gaultry heard it overshoot the hollow and run, barking with frustration, somewhere into the woods near the dry gully. The next dog, unfortunately, had a better nose. It broke through the bracken above the hollow, spotted Gaultry, and let out a trilling howl. Another shaggy grey wolfhound. The running game was up.
       Gaultry brushed away tears, fighting despair, and tried to ready herself for whatever was to come. She would try a last casting to protect herself, a better prepared, more cunning casting, and if that failed—well, she would fight on while she had the breath for it.
       Above her, the dog barked nervously, and stood back. It could sense the gathering of magic down at the bottom of the hollow, and it wanted no part of it.
       The same was true of the first rider who reached her. Though he shouted and jumped down from his horse with evident keenness, he took only a single step towards the edge of the hollow. Gaultry made a warding gesture with her hand, and threw out a weak cord of power. The man flinched, put his hand to the side of his face, and backed away. The thin crackle of magic that had curled past his ear had nothing potent in it to hurt him, but the threat of magic was sufficient to make him hesitate.
       If only she had tried to bluff when they'd first stopped her! Perhaps they would have feared her then. Now, having whipped up their anger with her flight—she didn't want to think what a fool she had been.
       "View-halloo! She's here!"
       Gaultry glared at the first rider with what she hoped was a threatening look. He contented himself with waiting on the lip of the hollow.
       The rest of the pack, dogs and horsemen alike, crashed noisily through the trees towards them, shouting and calling. Gaultry released the dog-spirit. Despite her physical distress, it was still snapping and eager. Its mood wouldn't help her if she had to parley. Or beg.
       How would Tamsanne have advised her, or Mervion? Gaultry pushed the thought away. Neither Tamsanne nor Mervion would have let them start the running game. Neither would they have ripped the strength from a hunt-crazed dog and presumed it would help them escape. And if either of them had, they would have kept their attention fixed on the ground beneath their feet and resisted the call of the spell to cede control to the dog's unruly animal will.
       Gaultry hunched up, hoping to look threatening and strong, a hope that rapidly drained as one rider after another joined the first man, until all but the leader were ranged on the hollow's lip above her.
       She could hear them breathing: hard, heavy breaths as they stared down at her with dark, unfriendly faces. Their silence was more unnerving than threats.
       It was an uncomfortably long time before the leader caught up with them. When he finally broke into view, his horse was strained-looking, and covered with foam. He himself was soaked with sweat. Back in the first clearing he had been steady and controlled. When she fought to escape he had laughed, sure that he and his men could take her. Now he'd lost face and he was angry.
       There was a long pause while he stared down at the fallen huntress. Her fine, sharp-boned face was white with pain, but, though rumpled from her fall, she was hardly winded. Her attempt to comport herself bravely was not so futile as she imagined. Looking down at her proud face, the leader knew that the only reason he'd caught her had been the fall she had taken. The knowledge that his men could see this as well as he could did not please him.
       "We have orders to take you." His orange-brown eyes bore into hers, but his words, spoken loud and clear, were mostly for his men. "You're wanted alive, which is fortunate for you, by my present thoughts."
       Gaultry could see in his face, in the wet curl of his lips, in the motion of his hand on his belt, what he meant to attempt. She could stop that with a spell, but he would probably kill her if she publicly humiliated him a second time. What could she do to divert him into a beating or simple assault?
       "You say that you know who I am," she said. "Do you, truly? Do you know why I walk in the woods alone?" She kept her voice low, trying to hide its tremor. "Why would I walk alone, unprotected? Can taking me be so easy?"
       She crossed her hands over her torn knee, and called a fresh casting.
       The blood foamed on her leg. The red spatters fizzled, turned green, and bubbled to a viscous greenish-black.
       "Touch me now and you'll curse yourselves forever. I'll turn the blood in your veins to lead."
       Three of the hunters glanced anxiously at their leader. Save for the rider who had reached the hollow on the dogs' heels, the rest were still in their saddles. Gaultry's heart leapt, thinking she might win the standoff. Then an unhappy whine from one of the dogs broke the silence—and with it the short moment of stalemate.
       The leader forced out a hard laugh, and swung down from his horse. "Try your curse on our master, and see if it sticks there. Or not. I don't fear you, girl." He handed his reins to the dismounted man, and started down into the hollow.
       The drop was slick, wet, and steep. Halfway down he missed his footing, his heels gouging long brown scars in the moss. Catching himself, he took another cautious step.
       "Careful, Reido," one of his men called. "His lordship didn't warn us she was a witch."
       "Which lord?" Gaultry asked, grasping at straws. "Did Arleon send you?" The Duke of Arleon was the forest's overlord.
       With a curt nod, Reido shut his man up. "She's not a witch," he told his men. "She's barely even a woman grown, making threats she can't back up." Unbuckling his belt, he took another step towards her.
       "I have a brother—he'll ransom me—"
       For some reason that made them all laugh. Some of the tension left Reido's body, as if she had said something so dim-witted that she'd inadvertently proved her threat had no teeth.
       "Why are you laughing?" she demanded, angry despite her fear.
       Reido grinned, and shook his head. "It's not for you to know."
       His predator's eyes raked her body. "You're a fast bitch, you know." His voice was a cold whisper, for her, not for the men. "I'm going to break you for testing me." The iron manacles were once again in his hand, the chain that linked the bracelets chinking menacingly.
       "My curse will follow you past my death."
       "Maybe. If you have a curse to lay on me." The men behind him roared with fresh laughter. Gaultry clawed out, hoping to draw blood. The big huntsman knocked her blow aside, and grabbed one of her wrists. Exploiting her weakened knee, he rolled onto her body, pushing his weight against her bad leg. One of his knees pinned the folds of her dress as he wrestled her wrist into the first of the manacle's bracelets.
       Horrified that he had trapped one hand so easily, Gaultry snatched her other hand clear, and wound it in the folds of her dress, as far out of his reach as she could manage. If he managed to lock both her wrists in cold iron, she wouldn't have a chance against him. One hand at least had to be free to invoke her last desperate casting.
       Misinterpreting her retreat for fear, Reido relaxed. He pushed her manacled wrist above her head. "You really don't know why we're here, do you?"
       She stared her hatred at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of an answer.
       His eyes steady on hers, he hiked her skirts over her knees. His eyes taunted her, dared her to fight. She stared stonily back, trying to show neither fear nor pain.
       Then he reached down and gouged his fingers into the open wound on her knee. She screamed, and fought to escape. He used her spasm of pain to pry her legs apart.
       "Hear her cry," one of the hunters called. "Make her scream again, and she'll promise you her blessing, not her curse."
       Gaultry shook her head, trying to clear the haze of pain. The hunter's words maddened her—as if her suffering was a joke, as if she wanted his captain grunting in rut atop her. She would call the spell. A last humiliation for Reido, if nothing else. The calculation in the way he had hurt her had earned him that.
       Reido was looking for the encouragement of her pain—he could have it! She let herself cry out again. The men on the hollow's rim hooted and catcalled. Reido, excited by their applause, thrust his hips against hers and reared up to smirk his triumph at his followers. Rucking up his long tunic, he let his gut slap against Gaultry's stomach. More catcalls.
       She pulled the hand that was buried in her skirts clear. Her fingers sizzling with heat and power, she released the spell.
       The big hunter roared with horror. Gaultry tried to wriggle away, not sure whether to feel gladness or fear. She'd hit him with a witch's bane, a protection spell that had frozen and withered his man's flesh against her leg. He'd never take her against her will with that hex on him.
       Whether he beat her to death or not in payment for it was another question entirely.
       Horror, shock, and blossoming rage passed across Reido's face. Despite the spell he'd seen her cast on her own blood, despite his own men's willingness to believe her, Reido himself hadn't believed she was a witch. Gaultry, struggling to free herself from between the big hunter's legs, was newly surprised. What little reputation she possessed was as a huntress and spell-caster, yet her attackers seemed unaware of either skill.
       A split-second whistle interrupted the buzz of her thoughts. She ducked instinctively into the moss. Reido, more exposed than she, did not get a chance to duck. Cut off in midcry, he sprouted a black-feathered arrow high on the left side of his rib cage, an arrow that pierced him through to the heart. It happened so fast: the whistle, then the bright red ribbon of blood jetting down from the point of entry. Reido gave a throaty gurgle, a last pawing struggle, and collapsed, his face fixed in a shocked grimace.
       Gaultry, gawking with surprise, clawed out from under the corpse, and stumbled shakily up onto her good leg. With seven men left on the hollow's edge, this was no time to question her deliverance.
       "Who's next?" She flung her hands wide, and made as if to throw a bolt of magic.
       One horseman turned to flee, and the horses of the other men, the scent of blood in their nostrils, were eager to follow. The dogs, already anxious about the magic used against them, added to the confusion, racing underfoot with the horses as they disappeared among the trees.
       Unlocking her injured knee, Gaultry sank onto the grass and stretched both legs out. The color spell was spent and her blood was back to running crimson, but the early mix of green and red spatters remained, a nauseating sight. On her right wrist, the iron manacle cut painfully into her arm's circulation. Hand and wrist both throbbed, well on their way to turning an unpleasant color of purple-under-white.
       Reido lay face down, not a yard in front of her, the fatal arrow's long shaft protruding from his rib cage. His leather tunic was soaked with blood. His pale dead legs were an obscenity against the fresh green of the moss. Gaultry focused on the arrow, trying to avoid seeing the gore. Black feathers with an iridescent green and purple sheen. Pretty—and like the hunters who had now fled, not local.
       What had she got herself into, to have men hunting and dying for her on a warm spring day?
       "I've hurt my knee," she called. "I can't walk." Silence, and perhaps a whisper of bracken moving. Around her the forest seemed to sigh and grow quiet, save for the rasping of her own breath.
       On another day the little hollow would have been a pleasant place: leafy-green, surrounded by pale, moss-covered oaks. Even now, the bright spring foliage, dappled gold by the rich afternoon light, was lovely and fresh. Soft wind ruffled the branches overhead. The sounds of the horsemen as they fled among the trees faded as they ran.
       Young branches across the hollow rustled, and parted to reveal a new form. Gaultry found herself staring up into the face of a tall, powerfully built man. His grey cloak was touched with a sheen of forest green —colors that blended with the forest trees.
       His dark, cropped hair was soldier-short, emphasizing hard, wolfish features. Cold grey eyes like winter ice. He had a fresh arrow nocked in his stubby, sturdy-looking bow. As she watched, he drew the bowstring to critical tautness, raised the arrowhead.
       In Reido's eyes there had been cruelty and the hot promise of pain. In this man's eyes there was only the bitter shadow of death, a dark shadow that held her, stupefied, with fright. He was a bleak predator, battle-hardened and lethal. There was nothing Gaultry could do to stop him as he sighted the arrow at her heart. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
       Then something in him shuddered, and his black anger loosened. He shook his head, un-nocked the arrow, and deftly unstrung his bow. He had the effrontery to smile, as though the moment of terror had never been.
       "Beauty in distress. With more distress to come, I daresay, if we don't get you moved." A door had closed—or opened—and the violence had been put away. "Lucky for you I was here."
       He came down into the gully and gave Reido's corpse an inquiring shunt with his boot.
       "That's the end of his troublemaking," he said.
       "Thank you for that," Gaultry managed. Her mouth was dry as sandpaper.
       Above high, flat cheekbones and an arrogantly tilted nose, his deep-set wolf's eyes turned, severe, to measure her.
       She forced herself to smile and plucked at her skirts, covering up her legs. His expression softened, and he smiled again, as if to reassure her.
       "I am indeed lucky that you were passing." She tried to choose her words carefully, to join him in pretending that he hadn't threatened her. Light-headed with worry and confusion, she bowed over her torn knee, and tried to pull her wits together. It could no more be chance that he was passing than it had been chance that Reido and his men had attacked her. She could only hope that he did not mean to hurt her, that the violence she had seen in him was truly put away. "I'm beholden to you, Master Archer. They were sent to waylay me. They didn't like it that I tried to escape."
       He nodded. "They'll be back once they've had a chance to regroup. Let me strap that knee and see about getting that iron off your arm. Then we'll get you moved before they can come back." He kneeled by Reido's body and commenced stripping the corpse of its tunic and shirt. "I'll make some bandages."
       He was quick, efficient, and callous, moving the dead man's heavy body as though it was no weight at all, and ripping the bloody shirt into even strips. Watching him, Gaultry half-wondered that she had found the hapless Reido and his men so frightening. Compared to this man, her earlier attackers had been bumblers.
       If this man had been sent to abduct her, he wouldn't have wasted time scaring her and letting her run.
       He found the key for the manacles on a blood-soaked string around the dead man's neck and tossed it over. "More luck for us that one of his lackeys didn't take off with it," he said, hands busy in Reido's hip bag. "Nothing here to say who sent them."
       "Don't you know who they were?" she asked.
       "I knew that they were attacking you," he said.
       He bound her knee in a tight, military wrap, using the least bloodied part of Reido's shirt. Close to, he was less stark than he had first appeared, up on the hollow's edge. She could see now that the wolfish features were handsome, that the winter grey eyes could soften and charm.
       Despite his efficiency, something in his manner suggested that he was tired to near exhaustion. A deep tension ran through his body—a tension that the lowering of his bow to her had not entirely dismissed. As he wrapped her knee, his hands were strong and firm, but there was an uneasy pressure in his fingers as he pulled the bandage ends tight and made her wince. Her involuntary recoil brought an odd hint of emotion to his eyes—fear?
       "You're not hurting me, you know."
       "I know," he said shortly, tapping her bandaged knee as he tied the last knot. "Thank the gods for that," he added, so softly she almost missed hearing.
       "There," he said, taking her hand. "Beauty in somewhat less distress." A bitter light filled his eyes, and his tone was mocking. Was he laughing at her, or himself?
       She jerked her hand free. "I don't see what's funny," she told him. "A man is dead for me, and I don't even know why. Are you trying to tease?"
       His eyes cooled. "I'm trying to rescue you. Or so I thought."
       "I don't understand," Gaultry said. His quicksilver changes of temper made it hard to know if he was friend or foe. "And I wish you would explain. I don't even know who you are—let alone what you're doing here in Arleon forest."
       "Put bluntly, I'd say your choices are me, or this man's band of worthies." He shrugged in Reido's general direction. "Which would you prefer?"
       "That's not an honest question," Gaultry said, trying to keep her voice calm as angry color rose in her cheeks. "I'm sure you know who I am. And I'm grateful to you, whoever you are, for what you've spared me. So why toy with me? I don't know who you are—why shouldn't I be a little chary of you, a little frightened?"
       "Why shouldn't you be frightened?" His broad wolf's face loomed over her. "I couldn't hurt you if I wanted."
       She answered him with silent disbelief, and somehow, more than words, that broke his temper.
       "You want to know why I'm here? I am— I am— I'll show you!"
       He grabbed at her, abrupt and terrifying, seizing her head between his hands, palms covering her eyes, blinding her. She squealed in fear, realizing, too late, that the strange tension that held him was a spell—a powerful geas, and he meant to share its impress with her. Ignoring the pain in her knee, she fought to free herself, but he was too strong, his hands wound too tightly into her hair. A shock of power passed between them, and Gaultry, through the darkness, saw a flicker of light—a flicker of light that coalesced, in a ripple of blood-dark geas-magic, into a clear image.
       Like a forced dream, like a hot explosion of fire, the image blossomed and opened. Herself. Her past. Herself as a tangled woods-child, dirty and wild, green eyes blazing in temper, slim child's body coiled with rage. A desperate emotion seeping from her—don't go, don't leave me! Traitor! Traitor! Tears were mixed with the anger, the fury. Behind this dominant image, a confused mix: images of herself and Mervion, exchangeable childish figures, running beneath broad, green-leafed trees, happy; Mervion in her old summer dress; Mervion dancing, graceful; herself carrying her old winter hat—the hat filled with fish.
       Trembling, she put her hands over her rescuer's, nervously trying to pull them away. "I don't understand," she said. "Those are a dead man's memories."
       He loosed her and stepped back. "A dead man who put a geas on me to protect you before he died. And very pleased your father was with himself when he did it." Her rescuer's voice was embittered. "Believe me, it wasn't a gift that I asked for. Now, shall we sit here and talk, or will you let me help you? I have a horse. I'll share my saddle with you until we're someplace safe. That's my first priority."
       "And your second is the undoing of the geas?" Her voice shook. Beneath the magic of the geas, the magic that forced him to protect her, she could sense little of the man's own feelings, beyond a certain coldness and resentment.
       He thought he had been sent to protect a spoiled child. A spoiled child who was unjustly angry at a man who had loved her.
       As if he could know anything of the reasons for which her father had abandoned her and her sister.
       "That's right." He met her eyes, equally level. "I want to fulfill this geas and get myself free of it. Can you blame me?"
       Gaultry shook her head. The geas was obviously a strong one—it had to be, if it pressed on him so heavily that even tightening a bandage over a wound distressed him. What was he to her father, that he should be thrown into bondage as her protector? The old man had much to answer for. Such a geas was tantamount to enslavement. "But the memories—we're children. My father didn't tell you—"
       "Talk later. Move you first." He offered her his hand, waiting this time for her to take it.
       "I'm not sure I can walk."
       "I'll help if you can't."
       She couldn't. He had to half-carry her out of the hollow, her bad leg dragging. On level ground she was a little more stable, though he had to hold her shoulder to keep her upright as they went the few paces through the trees to where he'd left his horse.
       "Here we are." He propped Gaultry against the animal's glossy side and turned to adjust his equipage.
       "I don't know how to ride," she said.
       He shot her a surprised look, then shrugged. "We'll manage."
       His horse was a muscular dapple-grey mare, with slender legs and a spirited curve to her neck. Gaultry, balancing one-legged as her rescuer padded the front of the saddle, gave him a sharp look. In Arleon forest, only soldiers and the gentry rode horses. Gaultry, judging by the worn condition of the man's grey and green leathers, had guessed him to be the former. Now, looking at the quality of his horse's lines, obvious even beneath the filth of what must have been several days' travel, she wasn't so sure. The worn scabbard of the longsword that he untied from the saddle and slung across his shoulders further muddied her guess. It was a knight's weapon, but the scabbard was so decrepit—
       "Ready?" Barely waiting for her response, he slung Gaultry across the bow of the saddle. With her leg dragging, she was as graceless as a sack of potatoes, and she had an awkward time getting her good leg over the pommel. She patted the mare's shoulder, and was startled to find her body was cool and dry.
       "It didn't take you much running to intercept us."
       "Luckily for you, right?" Her rescuer settled behind her in the saddle. "Let's move. Just relax and try to keep your balance. I'll do the rest."
       Under different circumstances, Gaultry would have rebelled against his tone. It had been more than five years since she'd been up on a horse. The last time she'd ridden had been before her father had been made into a gentleman, before he had made his decision not to bring Gaultry and Mervion, the children of his first marriage, into his new life. He had owned a horse as a soldier and horses as a gentleman—but it had been seldom indeed that he had ever put either of his daughters up in the saddle. Looking back, Gaultry could only wonder if that meant he'd always planned to abandon his daughters when he'd attained rank.
       Thinking on her father, how could she relax and settle into the front of the saddle as her rescuer had directed her? What would he have thought to see her mounted now?
       Then the horse lunged forward, and concentrating on staying in the saddle took over. Her knee was stiff, and the tight binding turned her leg awkwardly outwards, forcing her to lean tightly against her rescuer for support and balance. His head was just above hers as they rode. She felt uncomfortably small and helpless, particularly as she could see that her rescuer was comfortable in the saddle, relaxed in a familiar element even as he sent the horse careening forward at an almost recklessly fast pace.
       He caught her expression and grinned, sardonic. Don't imagine I'm happy about this either, his eyes seemed to tell her. But all he said aloud was, "Where am I taking you?"
       There was nothing for it but for Gaultry to direct him to her aunt's.