Owlflight

The shout acted as an added incentive, not that he had needed one. But somehow he managed to put on another burst of speed and shot past the two men nearest him, bursting through the underbrush and into the woods.

Here he was at an advantage, for he knew the paths, and they did not. It wasn’t possible to shoot at anything moving as fast as he was, for the paths twisted and turned, with foliage making it difficult to get off a clear shot. He heard men floundering through the undergrowth for a while, but after a bit, they gave up their pursuit of him.

He continued to run through the thick green Forest, pelting headlong down the path, his feet thudding in the dirt. By now his initial burst of energy had worn off; his lungs and legs burned, and he had no choice but to slow his mindless dash. Once he lost his momentum, he woke out of his trance. Strength just ran out of him, he had to slow, and then, finally, to stop.

He bent over double in the middle of the path, hands braced on both his knees to keep them from collapsing, panting and sobbing at one and the same time. He wanted to scream, to weep and never stop, to run until he came to the edge of the world, to run back to the village and fling himself against the entire army.

He hadn’t the strength to do anything but take huge, gasping breaths that burned his lungs and brought a stitch to his side.

He could not believe what he had just seen, and yet the scene was etched into his memory as indelibly as if the fires Justyn had called up had scorched the image there.

He still couldn’t think clearly; conflicting emotions warred in his mind for the upper hand. Rage grappled with heart-shattering grief and kept him from breaking into helpless tears. Fears warred with confusion and kept him from going on, despair battled with determination and urged him to crawl into the nearest hole to hide. Where was he to go? What was he to do? How was he to get away from these madmen? For madmen they must be; why would anyone in his right mind want to attack an impoverished, dying backwater like Errold’s Grove, a place where so few people had even a single copper coin to their names that most of the village transactions were run on barter and tally-sticks?

A single small, sane voice spoke up amidst the confused babble of thoughts in his head. Get off the path, stupid! If they’re still following you, that’s how they’ll come!

He straightened up with difficulty, trotted a few, stiff paces farther along the wall of underbrush, and wriggled through a set of vines whose springy tendrils would snap back behind him, rather than breaking, leaving no trace of his passage.

Unless, of course, they have some sort of tracking beast, the voice reminded him. This is no place to hide. Collect your thoughts, and think of something better.

He wriggled underneath some bushes and huddled there, breathing hard, each breath stabbing the bottom of his lungs like a red-hot poker, and listening. There was plenty of noise behind him, but nothing immediately around him.

Where did I get into the woods? Through the wheat-field; that was on the back side of the village, next to the corn and away from the bluff. So I won’t be striking the river if I keep on this way, but I also won’t have to climb. Will these people have a tracking-beast? Do armies have such things with them? He hadn’t seen any dogs, but that didn’t meant they weren’t there. He tried to remember what, if anything, Justyn had said about the armies he had been with, but he couldn’t recollect enough. Now he regretted not listening to the old man’s stories; they’d seemed so irrelevant at the time, but now - !

Now I only hope I have more time to regret not listening to him!

His next thought was to climb a tree, but he dismissed it immediately as a bad idea. If the enemy had a tracker, he’d be trapped. No, he had to get as far away from the village as possible.

And then what?

One thing at a time; get away first, worry about what comes next after you’ve gotten away.

He stayed where he was until his sides and legs didn’t hurt as much, listening cautiously for sounds that meant pursuit. That didn’t just mean the sounds of someone coming down the path behind him; it meant the lack of normal sounds from the small birds and animals nearby, and the warning calls of birds that had been disturbed by intruders, cries that would come from higher up in the trees.

There was nothing immediately around him but silence broken only by a few faint rustles and mutters, and he decided with some reluctance that he ought to go back to the path. It was true that anyone hunting him would have to use it, but it was equally true that he would make much better time if he didn’t have to fight his way through the undergrowth. His passage would be quieter, too.

I can wait until I’m deeper into the Forest before I get off the path. A bit farther on, the undergrowth thins, and I can move through the trees a great deal easier.

That would make for another danger, though. Thinner undergrowth would mean a better chance of being spotted if the enemy had also gone off the path. Just because he knew the Forest, it didn’t follow that the enemy was ignorant of it.