Like a cold finger at the back of my neck came the memory of the nickname I’d heard only once: Griff Unsouled. He looked like that, sitting there, his arms in the ale-slop, like something animate but with no spirit. I thought, once, for only a moment, that it was too bad for Mistress Haugh to be leading her father’s death right to him, but then I decided that was no matter to concern me. There isn’t a killing I do or help at that isn’t worked for gain. This one would serve that end just fine. Besides, would you deny that Griff Rees had this killing coming to him?
If anyone had asked me, I’d have picked a different horse for Olwynn to ride than her dancy little red mare. For that matter, I’d have advised she ride no horse at all but that she and Griff take the Haven Road walking, as I did. It’s a good road in good seasons, broad enough for three riders to go abreast, but lately storm rains had washed away the sides, leaving it narrow and soft at the edges. The red mare hated those soft sides, and she always found herself slopping around there. Olwynn, riding with Cae in a sling and close to her breast, did her best to keep the mare going straight down the firm middle, but the mare was contrary-minded as any mule, veering right and left and shying each time she felt the yielding edge of the road. Two hours out of Long Ridge, the mare had slipped three times and twice threatened to throw her rider- infant and all-into the road. Whatever hopeful idea we’d had of how far we’d get that day lay in ruins.
“Slit the damned horse’s throat,” Griff growled the fourth time the mare went slipping off the road. It was the first thing he’d said since we took to the Haven Road, and he didn’t say more than that. He rode ahead, dark and quiet. Me, I was left with the mare and the girl, trying to get them back onto the road again, dodging hooves and teeth all the way while Cae set up a long, howling wail.
The Dwarf of Darken Wood, that’s what Griff names me, and maybe you wonder why I spend so much time in that place. There are many reasons. One is the silence.
Olwynn held the child close, whispering soft sounds that were not words, when the mare clucked her head to start kicking. I moved fast and punched the beast hard between the eyes just as her head came down. I did some harm to my fist and none to the mare, but I got her attention. She let me lead her up out of the mud and onto the road again.
“Thank you,” Olwynn said, her voice low and shaking as she took the reins from me. “I–I’m not so good with horses. My husband, though. .” She let the thought go, rocking her baby. “Well, thank your for your help, Broc.” She said it sweetly, no smile upon her lips but the light of one in her quiet eyes.
“Come on!” Griff called, his pied gelding restless. “We’d like to get at least a mile up the road before nightfall, eh?”
We made good time after that. The mare seemed be weary of contrariness now and enjoyed the chance to trot in the brisk morning. I ran ahead of the riders, jogging along the road, checking right and left, my pack a comfortable weight on my back, Reaper on my hip, near to hand.
It’s not a good place to be, Darken Wood on the Haven Road. All the pretty stories you hear of dryads singing in the glades, the tragic tales of the ghosts in Spirit Forest, even the brave legends of centaurs over in the western part of the wood-these are true. When you’re going into Darken Wood from the Haven Road round near Solace and Long Ridge, though, you’d be a fool to worry about specters and dryads and centaurs. What you find there are bandits and outlaws hiding in the aspen woods, men exiled from home and kin by law or, like me, by choice. You’d be a witling to go in there without weapons and the skill to use them.
Behind me, Olwynn’s little daughter cooed and sighed, the tiny sound drifting on the wind. Birds flitted over Solace Stream, kingfishers dived for a meal, finches and warblers came out from the wood to drink. A doe, wide- eyed and startled, leaped across the road and plunged into the darkness of trees. I stopped, listening to her run, and to the following silence as smaller creatures, fearing predators, swiftly ducked for cover. I waited until I heard the wood return to normal, heard the song of birds and the sigh of cold wind from the north, then went on.
The road no longer ran straight, for it had been cut out of the wood to parallel the wandering stream, and it became more narrow. I glanced back, then signaled to Griff that I was heading out of his sight, around the bend to see the way ahead. He gestured assent, and Olwynn spoke to him, her voice low. If she had asked after something, he gave no answer.
A dove among wolves, so I’d thought her the night before in the Swan and Dagger. Well, she was that, wasn’t she? A little dove homing with a deadly message for her father, aye. He could make a neat plan, Griff could.
I rounded the bend where, off to the east Solace Stream runs chattering and laughing out of Crystalmir Lake, and there I stopped, cursing to see a tangle of aspens fallen across the road. The rains of days before had filled up the lake so that the runoff swelled the racing stream past its banks. We’d have to leave the road and thread the verge of the wood where trees grew close together, their roots weaving snares for our feet. That red mare was going to enjoy this. I went closer to the pile, still cursing, trying to think how best to get the mare off the road and into the wood. The crisp sound of hooves at jog fell upon the silence. As if to protest, a jay cried in the wood, another echoed, and a third joined the racket. Some small creature rustled within the tangle of fallen trees, drawing my eye.
My heart lurched hard against my ribs as I saw a thing hidden from the casual glance. Every one of those trees had been taken with a wood axe, and every one of those raw new wounds told me the trees had been cut down in the night.
“Griff!” I shouted, running back, “heads up!”
The jays fell silent. The wind turned, carrying the near scent of sweat and horses. I rounded the bend and saw them, two riders abreast. Griff had his sword out, the steel shining in a fall of sunlight. Behind him, like a trap closing, came ten ragged figures, some human, some goblin. They made a half-circle across the road, catching us between them and the fallen trees.
“Back!” I shouted. “Behind you!”
An arrow hissed past my ear, and a second flashed past the eye of the red mare. The beast bolted. Olwynn screamed, flung over the mare’s back, Cae clutched to her breast as she fell onto the road. She lay there, helpless, the breath blasted from her as her child shrieked. Griff was off his horse and over her at once. To see him, you’d have thought he was protecting his own dear daughter, so fierce and fiery were his eyes now. He was protecting, all right. Not Olwynn, no, but something more-his road to revenge.
I leaped past Griff, swinging Reaper hard, and took out the knees of a tall, thin goblin who fell screaming. He struggled, trying to gain his feet, and I saw that here was the rag-eared fellow who’d gone suddenly missing from the Swan. Reaper harvested, smashing that goblin’s skull to bloody bits.
Olwynn shouted, “Broc! Behind!”
I turned on my heel, Reaper already swinging. Bone crunched, someone howled in agony, and a stocky human fell to the ground.
Olwynn cried out again in wordless terror, and I jerked around in time to see her hunched over her wailing child, trying desperately to protect herself and her baby as two goblins rushed her. With her, they must be certain, lay the pouch full of steel coins their fellow had seen in the tavern.
With his wild, terrible war cry-ah, that cry the same as the first one he ever shouted-Griff leaped over Olwynn’s huddled body. His sword glinted as he plunged it into the gut of a goblin, the gleam quenched in red, red blood. Yet seven remained, five humans and two goblins, all of them certain of their skills, certain of the treasure they had come for.
I grabbed the mare’s reins as she dashed past and grabbed Olwynn’s pack from the saddle horn. Griff snatched his pied gelding and his own pack. One swift glance passed between us. With slaps and cries we sent the horses plunging into the knot of ambushers.
“Run!” I shouted, flinging Olwynn’s pack at her as Griff grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet. “No! Not ahead! The way is blocked! Into the wood!”
We scrambled off the side of the road, into Darken Wood, and none of us wasted time looking over our shoulders.
We ran, but not for long. The wood was sparse along the verge, but we soon found that beyond there it grew thick and close. Trees leaned together, brush clogged what clear spaces might have been, while roots reached up from the ground to trip us. Olwynn’s breathing came in gasps and sobs, ragged with effort and fear. Cae wailed constantly, her cries muffled against her mother’s breast but still loud enough to be followed. Shouts and curses
