Page 18 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

ten

Enya

E nya scrubbed her eyes with her fingertips. She’d slept poorly, if one could call it sleep at all. Her blanket roll did little to cushion the hard ground tangled with tree roots, and as Arawelo dozed beside her, Enya lay awake, jumping at every rustling of leaves and cracking of a twig.

As she plotted her flight to the east to turn herself in, she’d been telling herself she could make the journey to Windcross Wells alone. She had to make the journey to Windcross Wells. It was the only choice left to her; the only choice that would preserve Ryerson House.

She managed to convince herself she could do it.

She was no stranger to long days in the saddle.

She could hunt for her food and manage to cook it well enough.

She’d spent nights out under the stars with the stable hands when they pushed the horses up to graze in the high passes of Greenridge, but she learned in those first nights, nights out here were nothing like nights out there.

There were no merry crackling fires, no stories to be told around them, and no men keeping watch.

There was no canvas tent over her head and no calm, steady presence of her father or Liam or Del.

It was just her and Arawelo. As dark fell around her, she sat with her back pressed against the rough bark of trees, one hand clutching the hilt of her belt knife, the other clutching Liam’s horse head carving.

She kept her bow strung with an arrow next to her knee and she dozed, jerking awake when her head slumped to the side.

Enya thought about the map dots between Westforks and Windcross Wells and wondered how many inns she could sleep in before she ran out of coin.

Some Sana Silverbow. A few nights on the Queen’s Road and she was aching for a roof and a feather pillow.

The first creeper of bitterness started to take root somewhere in the eddying exhaustion.

She didn’t have the energy to light a fire to make a pot of tea, so she ate a meager breakfast of stale bread and hard cheese. Arawelo barely cracked an eyelid when Enya hung a feed bag full of oats around her nose.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, scratching behind the mare’s ear.

She was, for more than just the hard press and poor accommodations.

Arawelo was her biggest regret. She didn’t know what would happen when she marched into a wielder’s barracks and declared herself gifted, but the thought of abandoning the mare in Windcross Wells or letting Pallas Davolier’s men have her was enough to cleave her heart in two.

Enya resolved to save enough gold to have her stabled and send word to her father of where to collect her.

Her body groaned in protest when she swung up into the saddle and turned back for the road.

To both east and west, the wide swath of dirt was empty.

It was like that most of the time, with only a farmer’s cart here and there, lumbering toward Westforks from some place they’d put down roots amongst the trees.

Most eyed her askance but said little more than a polite greeting as they passed her by.

The Queen’s Road remained mostly deserted as she moved deeper into the heart of Greenridge Forest, but it did not leave her wanting.

Rich spring grass grew along the sides of the hard pack for Arawelo and there was no shortage of babbling water at the base of the mountains.

The trees offered enough coverage she could camp unseen by passersby, not that she camped long enough to see many of them.

The silence was something she hadn’t accounted for.

For most of the day, there was only the soft creak of her saddle, the steady clip-clop of Arawelo’s hooves, and the chittering of birds and squirrels in the trees.

It was oddly deafening. In her exhausted state, it lulled her into a hypnotic fog.

She drifted in that fog, letting it carry her away from Ryerson House, away from thoughts of the Testing rod, away from the unknowns of what lay at the end of this journey.

For now, it was just her, Arawelo, and the road.

It wasn’t until late in the day that an uneasy feeling withered that fog.

Her skin pebbled as an itch settled between her shoulder blades.

Her head whipped around, scanning the road ahead and behind, and the trees to left and right, but there was nothing there.

Still, she felt the weight of unseen eyes fixed upon her.

“Is someone there?” She called, her voice cracking from disuse.

The squirrels paused their chittering to look her way.

Arawelo’s ears swiveled, listening. Something, or someone, lurked unseen.

Perhaps it was only a flight of fancy, some delusion in her sleep deprived state, but Enya freed her bow and nocked an arrow.

She would feel a fool if it was nothing, but nothing would not see her look a fool.

The unease grew as the road ahead curved around a massive tree and disappeared from view.

Marwar’s voice drifted through her mind.

Fear is as deadly as an arrow. She would not be afraid.

Steeling herself, Enya nudged Arawelo into a trot.

She would either shake what dogged her, or meet it on the other side of the ancient tree as wide as a house.

As she rounded the bend, she found herself face-to-face with four men on horseback.

Only men. For half a blink, some of the tension leached from her, until she saw how they sat fanned across the road to block her way, and took in the crossbow aimed straight for her heart.

Bloody men. Her body at least seemed to work faster than her mind.

She hadn’t consciously drawn her own bow string, but she found her aim trained on the crossbowman.

He leered at her from beneath a mop of unkempt hair.

To his left sat a man whose tangled bush of brown ran into an unkempt matching beard.

One hand ended in a stump; the other fingered an axe at his belt.

To his right, sat a gray haired man with close cropped hair and whiskers.

A jagged scar crossed his face beneath an eye patch.

The last man wore more hair on his chin than the long straggly strands that fell around his shoulders, but he wore a sword as if he knew how to swing it.

Their clothes were full of old faded patches and new holes in need of mending. They wore mismatched bits of plate and mail that looked as if it had been pillaged, and she realized with a sinking feeling it likely had.

Brigands.

And by the way the dense underbrush rustled, there were likely more of them sitting in the trees. She once thought she’d rather face brigands than suitors, but as she eyed their pilfered weapons - broadswords, axes, hammers, a mace - she realized she’d been a fool. The road is no place for a girl.

“Why don’t you put that down before someone gets hurt?” The man with the eyepatch drawled, indicating her bow .

Enya jerked her chin toward the crossbowman. “You first.”

The greasy haired man’s lip curled, but the bolt remained pointed squarely at her chest.

“What do you want?” She snarled.

“Your gold, of course,” the eyepatch man said.

“Haven’t got any.” In her periphery, she studied the trees.

“I find that hard to believe,” the man with the eyepatch mused. “Mighty fine horse for a girl who hasn’t got any gold.”

“That’s a fine saddle,” the man with the stump remarked.

“Nice boots,” the crossbowman spat. “Might make a gift of them to my lady wife.”

Perhaps it was rash, but as Enya let anger well up where she pushed fear aside, she didn’t bother to temper impulse. “I pity the girl wed to you enough that I just might make you a gift of them.”

The crossbowman snarled but the man with the eyepatch held up his hand with a warning look. “What’s a lady doing out here alone?”

“Who says I’m alone?” She spat, never taking her eye off the finger that rested so casually on the trigger. A finger that seemed to twitch. Rash, Enya. “And who says I’m a lady?”

Her shoulder started to protest under the strain of the draw.

The crossbowman would have no such problem; he could wait all day for her to move first. The problem with a crossbow was how long it took to reload, Marwar always said.

A good archer could loose half a dozen arrows in the time it would take him to crank another bolt.

A fast horse could reach the shelter of the dense trunks.

The man with the stump peered around her mockingly. “Don’t see an army.”

“Didn’t nobody ever tell you the road’s no place for a girl?” The crossbowman sneered.

“Plenty of people.” Enya mentally counted the strides to cover.

“Should have listened. What’s your name, girl?” Eyepatch asked.

“Girl works well enough.”

“Do you know what they call this tree, girl ?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“Smart mouth on this one,” Stump huffed. “Ought to cut out her tongue.”

“A shame that would be,” the crossbowman mocked.

“This here is the Hanging Tree,” Eyepatch said over his men. “Do you know why?”

“I can hazard a guess,” Enya answered coolly. “What I don’t know is why no one’s seen fit to to let you swing from it.”

Eyepatch’s mouth curled into a sneering smile. “Enough yapping. Get off your horse and turn out your pockets.”

Enya had no illusions about what would happen if she were separated from Arawelo. “I don’t think I will.”

“Silen.”

Gods, don’t fail me now.

Stump took a step toward her, and with a tap of Enya’s heels, Arawelo lunged.

The twang of a crossbow split the air between them.

She loosed, more on instinct than on aim, willing the arrow to do what she needed.

With a crack that produced a shower of sparks, the two arrowheads collided and the crossbow bolt flew wide.

“After her!”