“And where is this Samuel now?”
Isabelle scratched at her neck, a thin trickle of panic sweat winding down her back. “Well, uh, probably doing the same, sir. He’s a…tiny fellow, you see, can’t hold more than a thimble at a time. Mean as a hungry badger when he’s in his cups, though. He’d even pick a fight with the likes of you.”
“Is that right,” the soldier said flatly. He glanced back toward the trees where he had first appeared, as if he would rather be back at the Blue Boar Inn cracking pates instead of discussing bodily functions with her. “I suggest you find your way back to your friend and keep him out of trouble, then, boy. There’s enough of that going around this night.”
“Yeah, sure, ’course,” Isabelle said. The soldier had already turned away from her, as good as a dismissal, and Isabelle was so relieved and pleased, she committed her second mistake of the night. “None of the Boar for us tonight, sir!”
The soldier paused, and in the half turn it took him to face her again, all her hopes sank into a well of panic.
“What was that about the Boar?” the soldier asked, each word carefully crafted and laid out.
“What?” Isabelle asked, her voice edging higher.
“Would that be the Blue Boar Inn to which you are referring?” the soldier asked, his tone so very casual, his gaze so very not.
“I don’t…I didn’t…” Her heartbeat spiraled out of control. “No, I don’t know a thing about a Blue Boar, or any other color boar. I said…what I said, what I meant, was no—no more for us. That’s not—I don’t know any Blue Boar, sir. Is that…What is that?”
It got worse as she went along, but the words kept bubbling up out of her as the soldier lifted his sword and advanced across the small space. His gaze cut through her disguise, his shoulders tensing and his eyes crinkling with determination. The world spun around and she feared she might faint, but still the words kept flowing, an endless stream of nonsense.
“I don’t…look, I don’t want any trouble here, sir,” she said, stumbling back a step and bumping her hip on the tree. Only after she said it did she realize she’d forgotten to disguise her voice. She cleared her throat, muttering a few more gruff words, but it was too late.
“Put down your bow and stay where you are,” the soldier said, the point of his sword only inches from her face.
“Yeah, sure, of course, mate,” Isabelle said, bending down and placing her bow on the ground. “Don’t want no trouble, none at all.”
She waited until the soldier had lowered his sword to spring forward, barreling into him and knocking him flat on the ground. He coughed in surprise, stunned into momentary inaction, and Isabelle took the brief advantage to scramble up and snatch her bow, sprinting into the thick of the woods. She crashed over bushes and ricocheted off trees, raising an unholy racket that would do more to bring the soldiers down on her than the shout of warning from the one she’d left behind, but it couldn’t be helped. She was spooked like a deer with an arrow through its haunch, leaving a bloody trail of noise even an amateur could follow.
Her chest heaved, her lungs screamed, but she could not stop. She was lost before she even knew it, running blindly at the contingent of soldiers for all she knew, but still she could not stop. Her heart or her lungs or both would have to explode before she could be brought down. She’d hunted a fox like this for hours once, the injured thing so desperate to escape she found it lying on its side, legs still twitching, eyes roving about madly. She’d sat with it and smoothed the fur behind its ears until it quieted down, then stilled forever.
If I escape this alive, I vow to never hunt another fox again, she thought, though she already knew the answer. The foxes were safe from her either way.
In the end, it was not a soldier or an expired heart that brought her down, but a lowly tree root, snagging her toe and sprawling her face-first in the dirt. She lay there in the sudden quiet, her ragged breaths muffled in crunchy, half-moldered leaves, her body refusing any command she issued. She could not have lifted a finger if an angel came down from on high and offered her eternal salvation. A wretched, broken sob slipped out of her, the last of her energy wasted on self-pity. She had just enough time to miss her mother, and the safety of Kirklees, and even the wretched Sister Catherine and her hatchet-like nose, before she heard the crunch of approaching footsteps.
Somehow, some way, she dipped into a well of strength she did not think existed to drag herself to her feet and draw up her bow. She might not be able to escape the soldiers, but she would be damned if they found her lying facedown in shame. She set an arrow and lifted the bow, focusing her attention along the narrow line of the shaft, stilling her breath and her heart and the maelstrom churning within her, to confront her fate.
“I know you are out here, girl,” said the voice, off to the right, the brazen confidence in it sending a tremor through her hands. “Your…friends at the Blue Boar Inn have already been dealt with. Do not make me do the same to you.”
Oh, poor Thomas. What had she brought down on him? On all those men in the tavern? How many lives tonight had been ruined—or worse, ended—because of her? Because of something she still did not understand. What hope did she have of saving herself if even those fearsome foresters could not stop the Wolf?
Moonlight glinted off the shoulder plate of the approaching soldier, only a few steps away, when a shadow dropped in front of her on silent feet, taking her by the waist and tossing her up into the branches as if she were nothing more than a sack of feathers. Another set of shadowy hands caught her, hauling her up and clamping a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream of surprise. She thrashed her legs, clawing at the figure to release its grip.
“Stop that or you’ll knock us both out,” a voice hissed in her ear, young and male and irritated.
Isabelle thrashed harder, biting into the hand still pressed against her mouth. The boy growled, doubling his grip on her waist in one sharp jerk.
“Would you stop that?” he said. “We’re here to bloody help you.”
Had she the freedom to speak, Isabelle might have protested, but below them the soldier stepped into view, eyes raking the trees for any sign of her. She stilled, her captor doing the same, neither of them daring a breath with the soldier mere feet below. Suddenly she was grateful for the hand over her mouth, for she wasn’t sure she could stop the squeak of terror rising up from her belly otherwise.
“Where the hell has she gone now?” the soldier muttered, turning in a half circle. “One damn girl and we’re combing half the country looking for her. A bloody mess, it is. The Wolf’s lost his mind.”
She sucked in a breath at the mention of the Wolf, her captor pressing his hand more firmly against her mouth to stop any further sounds escaping. Isabelle prayed to every saint she knew and a few she made up on the spot that the soldier would not look up, or even stop to rest. Already her thighs trembled from holding her position for so long, and she didn’t think she could stand it much longer. The boy holding her must have sensed it, because he drew her back against his chest for support.
“Steady on, sister,” he said, no more than a breath brushing against her ear that sent a single shiver over her. “I’ve got you.”