The Three Fat Eagles

Shadowfang found the tracks first.

He stopped with one forepaw lifted above the mud, nose working at the space between two alder roots. Sasaha nearly walked into him. She caught herself on a branch, which shook cold water down the back of her neck.

Behind her, Roy made a small, thoughtful sound.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“About the branch?”

She wiped her neck with her sleeve. Shadowfang glanced back at them, ears forward, looking pleased with himself.

“Yes,” she said. “About the branch.”

Roy’s mouth moved beneath his beard. He managed to keep the smile small, which was worse than laughing.

Sasaha crouched beside the roots. The track held a little standing water, but its edge was clean. Another lay beyond it, where the ground rose toward firmer soil. She followed the line with her eyes instead of her feet this time.

“Elk.”

“What else?”

She studied the deep marks beside the first print. “It came through after the rain.”

Roy waited.

“And it’s heavy.”

“How heavy?”

“Heavier than me.”

“That narrows it down.”

She looked up at him. “I could leave you here.”

“You’d miss my delightful conversation.”

“I’d manage.”

Shadowfang nudged her shoulder. She put a hand into the thick fur behind his ear and felt the warmth beneath the damp outer coat. His attention stayed on the trail.

The forest smelled of wet bark, turned earth, and the sharp green scent released when someone stepped on young fern stems. Mist hung between the trunks. It never seemed to leave Evermist entirely; on dry days it waited in the hollows, and on wet ones it came looking for you.

Today it had swallowed the hill above Carne. Sasaha could no longer see the pale shoulder of the White Serpent Mountains through the branches. She knew where they were all the same. Roy had taught her that a thing did not move merely because she stopped being able to see it.

He also said she ought to apply that lesson to her boots.

She had misplaced those yesterday.

The elk’s trail bent toward the higher ground. Sasaha rose, careful of the branch, and slipped the bow from her shoulder.

Roy touched two fingers to the back of her wrist.

She stopped.

He pointed beside the track.

There was a smear in the mud, narrow at one end and squared at the other.

“Broken hoof?” she whispered.

“Look from here.”

She moved around Shadowfang. From the other side, the smear separated into two overlapping impressions. The deeper one had a heel.

A boot.

Heat crept into her face. She had crouched close enough to put her hand beside it and still missed it.

Roy did not say that.

“Which way?” he asked.

She followed the bent stems ahead. “Same as the elk.”

“For a little while.”

Three steps farther on, the animal had gone left. The boot marks continued uphill.

Sasaha looked back at the first print.

“If we’d kept following—”

“We’d have followed a person.”

“I would have noticed.”

“I know.”

That made her look at him. He had no smile now.

“Before we came close enough for them to notice us?” he asked.

She examined the mud again.

There were more prints than she had thought. One deep set crossed the elk’s trail; two others had flattened the fern bed beside it. Someone had tried the softer ground and returned to the rise.

“Three?”

“At least.”

“Hunters?”

Roy knelt. The wet leather of his coat creaked.

He eased a fern aside. Underneath lay a short length of waxed cord, cut rather than broken. One end was tied around a sliver of pale cloth.

Sasaha reached for it.

His hand closed around hers before she touched it.

“Leave it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know why it’s here.”

She drew her hand back.

The words sounded simple. His voice did not.

Roy stood and looked uphill. Sasaha followed his gaze, seeing only trunks, mist, and the crooked outline of a fallen tree.

Shadowfang’s tail had lowered.

“Bow down,” Roy said.

She lowered it.

“Stay behind me. If I stop, you stop.”

“I can—”

He looked at her.

She swallowed the rest.

They left the elk’s trail.

*

The fallen tree made a wall high enough to hide Roy if he bent his knees. Sasaha crawled beneath a broken limb and felt damp needles work into the neck of her tunic.

Shadowfang settled beside her. She laid a hand over his muzzle, not holding it shut, only giving the familiar signal to be quiet. His breath warmed her fingers.

Above them, something clicked against stone.

Roy pressed one hand flat.

Stay.

Sasaha wanted to lift her head. She could see a strip of hillside through the roots, but not whoever was making the noise. Water ran down a root into her left sleeve. She shifted, and Roy’s fingers closed briefly around her ankle.

She went still.

Boots appeared beyond the tree.

Not three.

A fourth pair came into view, then a fifth. The wearers passed slowly, keeping enough distance between them that Sasaha had to wait for each set of legs to cross her narrow opening.

One carried a shovel.

Another had a crossbow held low, a bolt already seated.

The last stopped.

Sasaha felt Shadowfang tense against her hip.

Mud squelched. A metal buckle scraped bark.

“Road’s there,” someone said.

“Road’s watched.”

“By six men with bad shoes.”

“Then you can explain to the Knight why we let one run.”

Sasaha knew the shape of that title from stories spoken when adults thought children had gone to bed.

She looked toward Roy.

His face had changed. The softness she took for granted had drawn tight around his eyes.

Farther up the hill, a voice said, “Before the bell. Both paths. No one leaves to fetch help.”

The man beside the tree spat.

Something white swung into Sasaha’s view: a strip of cloth knotted around a sword belt. It was cleaner than the travel-stained clothing around it.

On the cloth, in black, someone had drawn a closed circle with a line through its center.

She knew that too.

Not because she had seen it often. Because the last time she had asked about it, Roy had told her to come inside and shut the door.

The man moved on.

Sasaha waited until his footsteps faded before taking her hand from Shadowfang’s muzzle.

“What—”

Roy shook his head.

They stayed beneath the tree so long that her knee began to ache. Then he backed away, drawing her after him by a light pressure against her shoulder.

He did not stand until the hillside was hidden behind a screen of young firs.

“The White Covenant,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Are they coming to Carne?”

“I don’t know how many.”

That was not an answer.

It was worse.

Sasaha glanced uphill. “We should follow them.”

“No.”

“If we knew where—”

“We know enough to warn people.”

He took the bow from her hand and checked the arrow she had nocked. He slipped it back into her quiver himself.

His fingers were steady.

“Now listen. We go by the old charcoal path. You stay where I can see you. Shadowfang stays with you. No calling out, no stopping to look.”

She nodded.

“Sasaha.”

“I heard.”

“I need more than that.”

She met his eyes.

“I’ll stay with you.”

He held her gaze a moment longer, then returned the bow.

As they moved, a small flicker of green darted through the leaves beside her. It hovered near a split branch, bright enough to catch her attention, then vanished behind the bark.

She looked after it.

The branch shook, although the air was still.

Not that way, a voice seemed to say.

Or perhaps it had only laughed.

Sasaha touched the tree as she passed. Roy glanced back, and she hurried to close the distance between them.

She had meant to ask him something about the elk. She could no longer remember what.