Fool's Errand (36 page)

And, hopefully, despair.

THIRTY-SIX

Eighty-four beans left in the jar

^“
“
I
‘
M BEGINNING TO THINK
we should not have cut through the forest,” croaked Persephone, trying to sound lighthearted in spite of the fact that her throat was so parched she was finding it difficult to swallow.

Rachel nodded unhappily as she reached up to scratch at an insect bite upon her grimy neck.

“Cutting through the forest was a risk we agreed we ought to take given our urgent need to reach the coast in advance of the coming storm season,” reminded Azriel as he stopped for the hundredth time to scan the vast, endless sameness of the forest for some sign that they were yet travelling east.

In a normal forest they'd easily have been able to tell direction from the growth of the moss on the tree trunks since in a normal forest moss grew thickest on the shaded north side of trees—particularly young trees. But this was not a normal forest. This was the Great Forest. Here, moss grew evenly on all sides of the trees because the canopy overhead was so thick there was nothing
but
shade. And here, there were no young trees because any saplings that managed to take root soon withered and died in the shadow of their mighty, ancient brethren. Since entering the forest four days past, every so often Azriel had climbed to the top of the tallest tree in the vicinity to determine direction from the position of the sun. Try as they might to thereafter stay upon an easterly course, however, each time he'd climbed up to check their position again he'd discovered that they'd drifted off course—sometimes so far off course that they'd somehow ended up travelling
west
.

Though none of them wanted to say it, the truth was that they were hopelessly lost—as lost as Finn was going to be if they didn't find the eastern edge of the forest very soon.

To make matters worse, the last of the Xanther meat had spoiled three days past, the hunting and foraging had been disappointing, and they'd not seen water in two days. Even that had been nothing but a tepid puddle covered in a skin of green slime. It had tasted of dirt and bitterness and Persephone would gladly have given all the diamonds in the Mines of Torodania to have a mugful of it now, for her share of the dewdrops they'd managed to painstakingly collect these past mornings had done nothing whatsoever to slake her growing thirst.

Yet there were bright spots in the gloom. For one thing, Persephone had fully recovered from the sickness that had so debilitated her while she was upon the mountain. For another thing, Ivan had returned. Shortly after dusk the previous evening, he'd swooped down out of nowhere to present Persephone with the gift of a dead hare and to ruffle his feathers so menacingly at Azriel that, hungry as he was, the offended Gypsy had only grudgingly agreed to partake of the hare after it had been skinned and roasted.

A third bright spot was that in four days of walking in circles, though they'd heard many roars and snarls and growls—some from frighteningly close by—they'd not encountered a single ferocious beast intent upon tearing them to pieces. Azriel could not understand why this should be so, for he believed that the scent of them and the sounds of their progress should long ago have drawn every large predator for miles around. He'd been so certain of this, in fact, that on their first night in the forest, he'd herded Persephone and Rachel into a hollow at the base of a giant tree, drawn his sword and spent the entire night on his feet, guarding the entrance and waiting for the attack he was sure would come.

But it had not come—not that night, nor on any night that had followed. Even so, Persephone could not help glancing over her shoulder from time to time as they trudged along. Though she never detected anything in the misty gloom behind them—no whisper of movement, no telltale glint of eyes peering back at her—she could not shake the feeling that they were being followed.

No, not being followed.

Being
stalked
.

“I suppose I ought to go up and check our direction again,” said Azriel now, reaching for the lowest branch of the tree before him.

The instant his hand touched the branch, Ivan alighted upon it and began opening and closing his sharp little beak to show that he couldn't wait to jab it into Azriel's hand—or better yet, bury it in his eyeball.

Azriel scowled and snatched back his hand. Rachel laughed.

“I'll check our position,” offered Persephone, smiling as she shrugged off her pack. “Ivan will tolerate my intrusion better than yours, and besides, I've hardly seen the sun in four days—even a glimpse of it would be welcome.”

“Well, all right,” muttered Azriel, eyeing Ivan askance, “but be careful.”

“I'm a good climber,” reminded Persephone, thinking back to the night she'd climbed a tree in an attempt to escape from him.

Azriel's grumble told her that he was remembering the same thing. Smiling again, she jumped for the branch on which Ivan was yet perched. Hauling herself up onto it, she paused to blow a kiss to her feathered friend—a gesture that caused him to screech with embarrassment and explode into flight—then reached for the next branch. Thereafter she climbed quickly and easily, for though she was hungry and thirsty, she wasn't yet
weak
with hunger and thirst.

And even if I should become so, I will never lie down and wait for Death to claim me
, she vowed as she carefully rose up onto her tiptoes in an effort to reach the next sturdy branch.
Death will have to cut me down in my tracks. He will have to—

A sudden, human scream from somewhere below and behind her startled Persephone so badly that her body gave a violent spasm and she lurched forward. With a cry, she jerked back in an effort to regain her balance, overcompensated and nearly toppled backward off the branch. Forward and backward she wobbled wildly for several heart-stopping seconds before finally managing to fling her arms around the tree trunk. As her badly trembling knees gave way beneath her and she sat on the branch hugging the tree for all she was worth, she heard another scream. This one was cut short with chilling abruptness and followed by the sound of men crashing through the forest toward the very tree in which she was sitting.

Her trembling knees abruptly forgotten, Persephone snatched her dagger from the scabbard on her thigh, clamped it between her teeth and began shimmying down the tree as fast as she could. There was no doubt in her mind that it was her cry that had alerted the men currently running toward Azriel and Rachel, and Persephone did not intend to see the two of them stand alone against the approaching menace.

Unfortunately, before she was able to get all the way down, a dozen masked men materialized out of the greenish shadows. Most wielded crude clubs or farm implements—pitchforks and axes and the like. However, one wielded a sword that was even bigger than Azriel's sword, and one—a surly-looking dwarf who stood close by the swordsman's side—wielded nothing more impressive than two stones connected by a long string.

“Lay down your sword,” commanded the swordsman in an accent that was unmistakably lowborn.

“If it is all the same to you,” said Azriel lightly, “I think I'd prefer to keep it with me.”

Persephone knew he was playing for time—sizing up the situation, trying to gauge his chances of cutting them all down before taking a mortal wound himself, should it come to that. Shifting her dagger from her teeth to her hand, she bit her lip against the urge to bellow down to her handsome husband that his chances of doing so were approximately
zero
.

“It is not all the same to me,” said the swordsman. “Lay down your sword or face the consequences.”

Azriel casually shifted into a fighting stance. “You look like reasonable men,” he said with a winning smile at the nearest pitchfork-wielding masked ruffian. “Perhaps we could discuss the situation over a mug of—”

Without warning, the dwarf lifted his strange rock-and-string contraption over his head. After giving it several rapid twirls, he flung it at Azriel's legs, which quickly became so entangled that when the charging dwarf slammed into him, Azriel went sprawling. Though he managed to hold onto his sword, this didn't do him much good because by the time his face hit the forest floor, the dwarf had plopped down onto his back. And struggle and heave though he might, Azriel was utterly unable to
budge
the little villain, let alone
throw
him.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't cut out your heart for having brought danger to our very doorstep,” said the swordsman.

“I can give you several,” said Azriel even as Persephone puzzled over the ruffian's accusation. “First, I happen to be quite as attached to my heart as it is to me. Second, my companion and I are but innocent travellers—”

“That is not true,” interrupted the swordsman, wagging a finger at him. “Innocent travellers are not pursued by soldiers from the Regent's army of New Men.”

Rachel—who was standing with her back pressed against the tree in which Persephone was perched—gasped at this.

“We're being pursued?” asked Azriel in alarm.

“Not anymore,” grunted the pitchfork-wielding ruffian, shoving the bloody tines of his pitchfork under Azriel's nose.

Up in the tree, Persephone shuddered for all sorts of reasons.

“Innocent travellers are not pursued by soldiers, but wanted criminals often are,” continued the swordsman as he idly ran his thumb along his sword blade. “Oft times, wanted criminals also have sizable bounties placed on their heads.” Looking over at Rachel, he smiled. “Tell me, sweetheart,” he said in an almost-friendly voice, “do you have a bounty on that pretty head of yours?”

Without waiting to see if the bandit's next move would be to remove Rachel's pretty head—and without even
trying
to gauge her chances of cutting down all the bandits before taking a mortal wound herself—Persephone dropped out of the tree. As intended, she landed squarely on the back of the startled swordsman. With a loud “OOF,”he slammed to the ground. He didn't lie where he fell, though. Instead, he reared up onto his knees so fast that Persephone—who'd had the wind knocked out of her—nearly lost her hold on him.

She managed to hold on, however, and the next moment the masked swordsman felt the tip of her dagger at his throat.

“Lay down your sword!” she commanded. “And have your men lay down their weapons, as well!”

“If it is all the same to you—” began the swordsman.

“
Now!
”cried Persephone, digging the point of the dagger a little deeper into the flesh of his throat.

To her surprise, without another word of protest the swordsman tossed his sword to one side and indicated to his men that they should follow suit. As soon as they'd done so, a petrified-looking Rachel darted forward and gathered up the weapons. After ordering all the other ruffians to lie on their bellies with their hands where she could see them, Persephone ordered the dwarf to get off Azriel. When the dwarf told her to piss off, she decided not to press the issue for the moment. Instead, she eased her dagger away from the now-swordless swordsman's throat and stepped back. Slowly—as though half-expecting her to plunge her blade into his back at any moment—he got to his feet and turned around.

Without taking his eyes off Persephone, he slyly called to the dwarf,

“The one you're sitting on is too damn handsome to be lowborn and too damn brave to be highborn. Peel down his breeches and see if he bears the Mark of the Gypsies on his pretty arse, will you?”

Though Persephone managed not to cry out in protest, the flash of alarm that swept across her face apparently told the swordsman all he needed to know.

Chuckling at how easily he'd managed to trick the truth out of her, he raised his hand to stop the dwarf from
actually
ripping off Azriel's breeches (a task the dwarf had already cracked his big knuckles in preparation of undertaking) and said, “So. You're not just wanted criminals, then, but wanted
Gypsy
criminals.”

Persephone knew it was too late to deny it and that a denial would almost certainly result in Azriel suffering a thorough body exam at the hands of the surly dwarf, who'd eventually find the mark anyway. So, clutching her dagger a little tighter, she licked her dry lips and said, “The one with the pretty arse and I are Gypsies, yes. But criminals? No.”

The swordsman laughed mirthlessly. “In this realm, all Gypsies are criminals,” he reminded her, “though I can assure you that I would not have it so, for to be compared to bonny infants and strutting peacocks is an insult to us real criminals.”

At the mention of strutting peacocks, Rachel glanced down at Azriel, who pretended not to notice that she was looking at him.

“Is that what you are?” Persephone asked the swordsman warily. “Real criminals?”