Kerowyn's Ride

stuck finger when she caught up to him.

“You left this,” she said sardonically, holding it out to him before he could accuse her of lagging. He took the thread from her, his mouth shutting with a snap, and frowned. Without saying a single word, he turned back to studying the ground, ignoring her.

She saw that Warrl’s tracks vanished here, as his trail crossed a dry streambed. The obvious answer was something any reasonably smart animal would do—run along the streambed for a while, then leave it at some point that wouldn’t show much disturbance. A bed of dry leaves, for instance.

But Warrl wasn’t an animal.

Kero studied the trail, and noticed that the tracks were blurred, the claws dug in a bit too deeply.

He walked backward in his own tracks, the beast! she thought with admiration. I didn’t think he could do that!

Instead of following downstream (as Daren was moving upstream and obviously expected her to take the other direction), she traced the tracks back, and found where Warrl had leapt out of them and into—yes—a pile of dry leaves off to the side of the trail. There were several old, wet leaves on top of the dry ones, and a few more scattered against the direction of the last winds, showing that the leaves had been disturbed.

She waited beside the telltale traces until Daren came storming back. By that time the expected drizzle had been falling for about a candlemark; and as she had anticipated, his cloak and his leathers were soaked through. He was shivering, and the leather was probably chafing him raw wherever it touched bare skin, and his temper was not improved by his discomfort.

“You were supposed to take downstream!” he shouted. “I had to take both! You lazy little bitch—you’re supposed to be doing something, not standing around waiting for me—”

“He left the path here,” she said, clenching her hands to keep from hitting him. “He walked backward in his own tracks, and then jumped off the trail into that pile of leaves.”

Daren looked at her scornfully. “I’m not some green little boy who believes in Pelagir-tales. I’m a prince of Rethwellan, and I’ve been trained by some of the finest hunters in the world. You—”

She lost her temper, and grabbed the lacings in the front of his leather tunic, then dragged him past the pile of leaves, surprise making him manageable for the necessary few steps. “Does that look like a Pelagir-tale, little boy?” she hissed, pointing at the very clear paw-print in the mud. “Seems to me you’d better start growing up pretty quickly, so you know what to believe and what not to believe. I’ve beaten you at this game five times out of six, and you know it, so don’t you think you’d better stop playing the high and mighty princeling and start paying attention to somebody who happens to be better at this than you are?”

He pulled out of her grip, his face growing red. “Since when does half a year of training give you the right to act like an expert?” he shouted.

“Since—”

That was all she had a chance to say.

Something very dark, and very large suddenly loomed up out of the bushes just behind her. She never had a chance to see what it was; the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air, and she had barely enough time to curl into a protective ball to hide her head and neck before she impacted with a tree.

After that all she saw was stars, and blackness.

Eight

This was the worst headache she’d ever had—

—and the most uncomfortable bed. It felt like a bush. A leafless, prickly bush.

What happened?

Kero tried to move, and bit back a moan as every muscle and joint protested movement. It felt as if the entire left side of her body was a single ache. And her head hurt the same way it had when one of the horses had kicked her and she’d gotten concussed.

“Well?” That was Tarma’s voice. “You two certainly made a fine mess out of this assignment.”

She opened her eyes, wincing against the light. Tarma stood about twenty paces away; just beyond her was Daren, lying up against another tree, as though he’d impacted and slid down it. Fine mist drooled down onto her face; droplets condensed and ran into her eyes and down the sides of her face to the back of her neck. Her mouth was dry, and she licked some of the moisture from her lips.

Looks like he got some of the same treatment I did, Kero decided, and shivered. Even wet, her wool clothing would keep her warm, but she must have been lying on the cold ground for a while and it had leached most of the heat out of her body.