lucky.
The next day, when she expected to reach the castle, she stumbled instead into Bywater. At the time, she considered the sidetrack to be ill fortune. Now, after meeting Fain Flinn, she believed it was fate.
Jo sighed, her thoughts returning to the present. Absently, she looked up. With a start she saw she was out of the brushy foothills and into true forest. Spruce and pine grew in tight stands, blocking out the gray winter sun. The dead branches of the trees clawed her even more viciously than had the thorny bushes of the foothills. The undergrowth was so dense that Jo could clearly see where Flinn and his mounts had passed. Wearily she realized darkness would soon fall on these woods; she would need to overtake Flinn soon to claim pilgrim’s rights from him. She thought forlornly, I wonder if he’ll even offer me food and lodging, no matter how hard I work. She gritted her teeth and pressed on, rethinking her decision to use the blink dog’s tail. Maybe, she thought, if I just use it to go ten paces at a time-
For the second time that day a hand came down on her shoulder. This time Jo dropped to the ground in a defensive move, prepared to roll away and onto her feet for flight. But the underbrush hemmed her in, preventing the roll. She fell in an undignified heap and stared up at her attacker-Flinn the Fallen.
Flinn put his hands on his hips and glared down at the girl. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he snapped. He was surprised by the anger in his own voice, but he had dodged and evaded this girl long enough. Besides, Baildon’s insistence about hunting the dragon still rang irritatingly in his head. He was no longer a knight, yet people still expected him to act like one. They heaped insults on him, then expected his protection!
The girl blinked her gray eyes and Flinn realized they matched the eyes of the Immortal Diulanna, as did the girl’s reddish hair. Flinn prayed to Diulanna often, for she inspired willpower and discipline. The Immortal had appeared to Flinn twice in the past, and he found the physical resemblance between Diulanna and this girl disconcerting. She blinked again, then said, “I want to talk to you, Master Flinn.” Flinn snorted. “Don’t stand on ceremony with me, girl. I am not your master.” Grudgingly he extended his hand to her lithe form and pulled her to her feet. “Stop following me and go back to where you came from.”
She tried vainly to brush a few of the pine needles out of her clothing. “My name’s-” she began.
“I don’t care what your name is or who you are,” Flinn interrupted brutally. “Just go back, or else I’ll tie you up here and leave you to the wolves. You’ve invaded my forest and now you want to invade my home?!” Flinn gestured to the woods surrounding them. “Leave me alone.”
The young woman’s expression became quizzical, then thoughtful. Flinn felt an inexplicable urge to turn away under the girl’s gaze, but instead he repeated angrily, “Leave me!” Still she stared at him. Then came words that would haunt Flinn, said simply and with trust, “But you’re Flinn the Mighty. My father told me all the tales of you when I was a child. I want to become a knight in the Order of the Three Suns at the castle. You can help me become a knight like you.”
Flinn half-turned away but kept his eyes locked on the girl’s. She had pried into his business affairs in town, followed him through the woods almost to his very doorstep, and was now idolizing him. Most damnable of all the transgressions was the last-a painful reminder of all that he had been. His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. The longer he looked into the girl’s innocent gray eyes, the more he saw the worship there. He could almost hear the tales she had been told of him, hear the songs that had been sung of Flinn the Mighty. He could hear the story of his fight with Verdilith the great green, his single-handed defeat of two giants, his lonely sojourn to the Lost Valley of Hutaaka to recover his baron’s stolen scepter. He could see the depth of her adoration. And the more he glimpsed her absolute faith, the greater grew his anger and rage and pain.
He slapped her.
The blow knocked the girl off her feet. Flinn stepped over her. “Leave me be!” He strode off to where he had tethered the griffon and mule. He yanked once on Ariac’s lead rein, and the bird-lion screeched its disapproval. Flinn took no notice and began leading the mounts through the thick undergrowth.
His way was blocked suddenly by the girl, her hand holding the tail he had noticed earlier.
“What kind of knight are you? What right have you to hit me when all I want is to ask you a few questions?” she, shouted, her eyes flashing. She held one hand to her cheek, and he saw a faint trickle of blood at her lip. He quelled the feeling of remorse that tried to rise.
“I am no longer a knight, girl, and you have no right to question me! Leave me be!” With that he tried to brush her aside, but she was stronger than she looked and stood her ground. She had the effrontery to put her hands on his arms to stop him.
“But you’re a legend-you’re Flinn the Mighty!” she cried.
He grimaced and then savagely pushed her away. The undergrowth caught her fall this time. Through clenched teeth he spat, “The man you’re looking for is dead. Dead. There is no more ‘Flinn the Mighty’.” The words were bitter on his tongue.
Amazed, the girl stared at him. Flinn shook his head in disbelief and walked into the undergrowth, leading Ariac and Fernlover, his mule.
Deliberately, he closed his mind to what had just transpired.
He quelled the small voice that prompted him to turn around and ask for her forgiveness. The matter was settled. He wondered how the child could be so foolish as to search for Flinn the Mighty. His thoughts threatened to grow darker yet, and deftly he cut them off, dismissing the girl from his mind completely. The last seven years had taught him how to ward off painful thoughts.
Flinn pushed through the brush and hurried Ariac along. The home trail lay just ahead; if he could reach it in the next hour, he would be back to the lodge by true dark. He suddenly longed for the comfort and safety of his little home, a crudely built house of logs. “Some warrior,” he muttered to himself. “I didn’t used to need a haven.” All at once he felt weary and indescribably old.
Always before, Flinn had called a campfire his home. Whether he was on the trail of an orc troop as a knight or hunting bear as a trapper, Flinn had spent more than two decades by a fire. Now, he only wanted the safety and privacy that his own hearth could provide. That longing disturbed him. After thirty-seven winters, he was content with a lap-robe and a fire and a good pipe?
He glanced behind him to make sure the girl wasn’t following. Nothing but dark tree branches met his gaze.
His mind wandered back to the morning’s events. For some reason he had dreaded entering the village, even more so than usual. Flinn’s semiannual sojourns into Bywater-every spring and fall-accounted for all of his social contact. His long solitude made these contacts more painful over the years. He couldn’t help feeling a superstitious twinge at how this particular trip could have turned out, and he dreaded what the next might hold.
As always, the children of the village had come out to taunt him. He had grown inured to their words, though, and hadn’t given them any notice. The boy with the rock had been a different matter, however. Never before had one of the children threatened to stone him. Flinn wondered what would have happened had the girl not intervened. Then he wondered why she had. He thought about trading his furs elsewhere, but the nearest place was the castle he had once called home. Flinn snorted. He would never return to the Castle of the Three Suns again. No, Bywater had proved ideal: one day’s ride from his home, small, but with a large enough mercantile to supply most of his wants and a merchant whom Flinn trusted as much as he could. In a larger town, he might encounter someone from the order, and that he couldn’t abide.
The mule brayed eagerly, and Flinn saw the scraggy pine that marked the clearing where his cabin stood. His thoughts turned to the business at hand. As always after having been away, he approached his camp warily. On the little crest overlooking his place he stopped, his eyes straining in the dark.
Nothing seemed amiss. On the right stood the cabin, dark and undisturbed. On the left loomed the bam, home to Ariac and Fernlover. Along one side of the bam rested a stone cellar with heavy wooden doors, doubly barred. Flinn kept Ariac’s meat there. The smell often drew wolves at night, but the stone walls and stout wood had kept them at bay in the past. Thankfully, no wolves nosed about the camp now. A divided corral abutted the back of the stables. He sensed rather than saw that the top bar of the gate was down. “Perhaps it was the wind,” Flinn murmured.
Something appeared next to him. “What’s wrong?”
Flinn jumped violently, his hand reaching in reflex for his sword. He could just make out the girl’s form in the
