Rinda thought for a moment. “Well, that might be the case and then again it might not,” she declared, as if to put the issue to rest for the moment. She was scanning the darkness around them, her nervousness growing. “When the bards would sing of spending a night in the Marches, gathered around a campfire, it used to sound so nice, so romantic. I don’t think I shall ever want to hear one of those phonies playing the kitara and chortling such nonsense again.”
“I believe,” said Guin, his voice rising abruptly as he looked into the sky, “that we are on the verge of a much greater adventure than merely warming ourselves around a campfire.” Around them in the darkness, things swished and scattered, startled by his sudden growling cry.
“What is it?”
“The wind is wet, and I smell rain. If a storm comes, our fire is done for.”
“How…” Rinda was at a loss. How could this warrior feel something that not even she, Rinda Farseer, could? The night air seemed no wetter than usual to her—unless he really did have the senses of a leopard?
But Rinda didn’t wonder long. She knew that, if a real storm was coming, they were in a great deal of trouble—and soon she too could smell the wetness blowing in the wind. She bit her lip and shivered as a premonition wracked her body. The fire danced and trembled in the rising wind; beyond it, Rinda could sense the things that lived in the darkness moving back and forth, flapping and fluttering as they went.
“Jarn the weaver of fate is a spiteful old fool!” the girl exclaimed, punching her little fist up at the sky as she cursed. “He could have just let us sleep, but no—he won’t even allow us to make it through one measly night, huddled around this fire. He must want very much to end our royal bloodline, that’s what I think.”
“Rinda, he’s got a hundred ears! He’ll hear you!” whispered Remus, hurriedly uttering a prayer of penance.
“I wouldn’t care if each of those hundred ears were as long as a torris hare’s, I really wouldn’t!” said Rinda, a note of challenge in her voice. But she bit her lip and fell silent when she saw the clouds hastening ominously across the sky, and the trees lurching back and forth as though in spasms of agony, and the countless crimson eyes all turning to look in her direction, watching and waiting.
The twins held tight to each other’s hands, wondering how they were going to get through this latest in a long series of calamities. The warrior Guin sat still with his shoulders hunched, glaring at the fire. He seemed either utterly unaware of, or utterly indifferent to, the approaching danger, so it surprised Remus and Rinda when he suddenly stood up and slapped the hilt of his broadsword.
“Careful! You’ll make the fire go—” began Rinda, but the look in Guin’s eyes made her break off. The warrior’s eyes were gleaming in the firelight, but it was a gleaming filled with darkness—so much like the eyes watching the three from beyond their circle of firelight that, for a second, Rinda thought he was one of those things come into the light to kill them.
“Run with me, girl child! Follow close if you want to live to see daybreak!“Guin’s voice was a howl. Quickly he swept down and picked up the longest stick from their pile, and after lighting it in the fire, thrust it upwards like a torch and ran off into the woods.
“Wait!”
In a flash, the twins shot to their feet and chased after the leopard-headed warrior, still holding hands. Guin was fast, but they managed to keep up with him.
An unseen force seemed to be guiding the leopard warrior, or perhaps it was the wildsense of a forest beast. Deftly, he dodged this way and that through trees that stood on all sides like eerie black skeletons, picking up a trail that had been lost for hundreds of years.
“Guin! Guin, please! Where are we going?” Remus called out, gasping for breath.
“Quiet! Save your strength!” Guin shouted back—then added quickly, “Stafolos Keep!”
“Rinda! Did you—” Remus began, but Rinda interrupted with a scream as a grass snake cut across their path. She quickly regained her composure, however, sensing that if she did not, she would surely perish.
“He’s right!” she gasped as they ran. “Either we take over the keep, or wander through these woods until we die! I bet he can do it, too!”
“I said no talking! If you would live, run! To Stafolos Keep!” shouted Guin.
“Guin!” Rinda yelled. “Guin, listen! The horses! The horses, Guin!”
“What?”
“That clearing where you fought the Gohran riders! If their mounts are still there—”
“Right!”
Guin glanced quickly to both sides, then abruptly shot off in a new direction, guided by the instinct of a beast.
“If some fiend hasn’t eaten those horses, we might just make it to Stafolos Keep before the storm!” Rinda panted, trying to ignore the pain in her legs, which were threatening to cramp any moment now. She was breathing hard, but every time it seemed like the torch in Guin’s hand was pulling farther away, she thought she could feel the breath of some strange and horrible thing on her neck, raising goose bumps on her skin, and she would run harder. Remus caught her by the hand and tried to drag her along, but that just ended up slowing both of them down.
It was no good. Rinda stumbled and emitted a quick yelp as she fell to the ground—when suddenly she felt herself being lifted lightly into the air.
“Guin! No! Put me down!”
“Hold the torch steady! Unless you want to be eaten,” Guin howled in reply. “If the vampire vines come down, use the torch on them—just don’t let it go out!”
And the leopard-man ran weaving through the trees toward the clearing.
It was as though the darkness had bared its fangs at them. Whichever way they turned, countless crimson eyes glinted from the deep pools of shadow under the trees, and the night air was stirring, filled with the pulsing life of things that were not alive. The clouds drifting across the sky moved faster, and the companions’ last, unreliable ally, the moon, vanished, the bluish-white light of the goddess Aeris simply blotted from the sky.
“Girl child!” howled Guin, stopping abruptly. “This is the place? You are sure?”
“I… I think so, but then…”
“Lift up the torch!”
Rinda was used to ordering people around and having her orders followed. To be issued an order, and in such a brusque manner—that was new to her. But there was something in the leopard-headed warrior’s voice that made her listen, whether or not she wished to, and so Rinda did as she was told. Steeling herself, cringing in anticipation of a sight of strewn bodies and carnage everywhere, she thrust the torch out toward the clearing.
Remus gave a quiet gasp of surprise from where he stood clinging to Guin.
“They’re gone! All gone!”
In the wavering light that spilled from their torch into the clearing, they could see the two vasya bushes with branches broken here and there where the riders had ripped them apart looking for their quarry. Beside them on the ground were the black helmets, a broken broadsword, and blood stains from the battle before. This was certainly the clearing where the riders had chased down the twins, where Guin had saved them.
But where the corpses of the fallen riders should have been, there was nothing. The man that Guin had crushed with his hands, the man he had beheaded with a single swing of his broadsword—all were gone. There were no horses tied between the trees, either, poking their noses into the grass or scratching the ground with their hooves in worried impatience.
“Guin?” said Rinda in a dry whisper.
“They were eaten,” said the warrior, his voice a solemn growl.
“But Guin, what could—”
“Ghouls, wolves, giant adders, maybe something else.”
“Oh!”
Rinda shut her eyes, and with her free hand, she grabbed onto Guin’s leopard pelt as hard as she could. She felt as though some horror might emerge from the darkness any moment; but at the same time, she was starting to feel that, here with her arm around Guin’s neck and her cheek pressed to the soft fur of his mane, they would be safe no matter what came.
Guin, standing with the girl perched lightly on his shoulder, assessed their situation in the blink of an eye. They had lost the horses, and it was still a formidable journey to Stafolos Keep. The distance wasn’t actually too great, but he wouldn’t have bet on their chances of reaching the fortress before the storm hit, and no warrior, no matter how courageous, wanted to weather a storm in the Marches. Even in the Marches, there were rules that governed the ways of spirits and men, that laid down a clear line separating them. The storm would suspend those rules.
The winds began to howl and rage, and the trees groaned and creaked. Then the three heard a fearful sound, like a woman’s wail, trailing off into the distance—a sobbing shaitan, or a mountain wolf.
“Guin…” Remus’s voice quavered. “There’s something—”
“I know. They are come.”
The darkness grew thicker, slowly drawing in around them. It was a wet, unpleasant mixture of murk and shadow and the only thing holding it at bay was the pitifully dim light of their torch, which now only barely succeeded at carving out a small patch of light from the darkness.
“Boy child,” said Guin in a low growl, “get behind me, hold on to the belt beneath my cloak and move as I do. Girl child, hold tight onto my neck. I am of flesh and blood; I am a living man. As long as I fight, they will not harm you.”
“But if the storm comes—”
“Then we shall beg for Jarn’s pity.”
Rinda, shaking, gripped the leopard mane as tightly as she could. While she had no idea what kind of past this man had buried in the valley of his lost memory, he seemed experienced in the world, and he had managed to survive thus far while wandering alone and wounded in the Marches. That experience, and his sword, were all the twins of Parros had to rely on now.
The wind began to howl even louder. In the darkness, the three could feel the things hiding between the trees surrounding them, hateful eyes watching for any sign of weakness.
Then suddenly something approached with terrible swiftness, and Rinda screamed.