Free B007IIXYQY EBOK by Donna Gillespie Page B

tribal tongue, and darted across her path. One playfully cast a spear that missed.
    But a firm command in a strange tongue called them back. More surprising to her still, the four obeyed.
    Brunwin’s hooves broke the river into showers of crystal; as he lunged through knee-deep water, she heard bits of a shouted argument.
    “…a pretty wench…spirited and proud….”
    “This one’s mine, you lust-maddened brigand!”
    “Take one of mine if you’re so in need. We’re already found out—there’s no time.”
    “We’re doubly found out if you let her live. Get her!”
    Auriane gained the stone-strewn far bank. A spear was aimed in earnest. It ripped through the side of her bearskin tunic and tore flesh near her ribs. The pain was like scalding water but panic quickly numbed it.
    Then the pony’s right shoulder pitched sharply down. He struggled up with Auriane clinging to the side of his neck, skittered sideways, then settled into a lurching canter that was painfully slow. With a fresh seizure of dread, Auriane realized he had slipped on a stone and lamed himself.
    From behind came the sound of leather-clad feet slapping the ground in rapid rhythm, followed by splashing as they struck the water. She looked back. Three warriors raced each other in their eagerness to catch and kill her. Each was lightly armed with one short spear. Two had hair of dirty yellow, menacingly long, trailing in the wind. The third was smaller in stature with hair that was unusually dark. He pulled slightly ahead with a grin on his face that was fixed and triumphant like a skull’s.
    Fright froze her muscles. She cried out jumbled words to Fria, hardly knowing what words she spoke, and managed to lash the trailing end of the rein across Brunwin’s rump, but her hardy mount, as terrified as she, was already doing his best. The pony followed no path, struggling and crashing through the underbrush, while she bowed her head to avoid being struck from his back by low-hanging branches. For the moment at least, the thick forest rendered their spears useless. She prayed they would become discouraged and give up the chase.
    She looked back to see if they gained ground. They had. She felt her bones go limp. Her soul slid quietly toward death, not protesting, feeling a dull throbbing acceptance, a muddy sense of punishment deserved, dragging her down.
    It was meant to be. Was I not cursed from birth? Hertha knows it. Could I not always see my evil reflected in her eyes? The earth purges itself on me. My own cursedness coughed up these fiends. Why struggle? Why not slip from Brunwin’s back…and into the talons of the Fates?
    The forest broke; they burst in on the side path of a narrow field of einkorn wheat. Here she sensed human presences. On the field’s far side was a humble thatched house smeared with brilliant clay; it resembled a misshapen hornet’s nest. A crone named Herwig lived there with her thralls, the grandmother of a vast family scattered over all their lands. But now there was only evil stillness about; the house and all who sheltered there had taken to the souterrains—the farm’s underground storage pits—at the first sounding of the horns. Some, doubtless, hid in the field. She screamed out the old woman’s name, even though she knew her voice would not carry far enough. From the door of the thatched house a curious cow thrust her head. Auriane’s tears of hopelessness were blown off by the wind.
    One fair-haired runner dropped back, exhausted. The remaining two gained a horse length. She realized Brunwin’s staggering canter would take her through the great Ash Grove, a dread and hallowed place she would never enter willingly for fear of rousing the brooding spirit of the Ash. Hope surged again. Surely her pursuers would fear to follow her there.
    Another spear was cast. It arced above her, piercing the ground ahead of her, standing upright as a boundary pole. She looked back and saw that one of the remaining runners