Lethal Red Riding Hood (Dark Goddess Chronicles Book 1)

by Leonard Wilson

  In a flash Keely was herself again, wearing only her boots and blowing Riordan a kiss, before hefting the heavy fallen axe and leaping with it off the ledge toward the next lower stretch of road. In mid leap, she shoved the axe away to fend for itself, and melted into feline form just in time for a dagger thrown by the priestess to pass through the air where her human shoulder-blades had been. Graced with the body of a cat and the mind of a woman who’d spent much time testing that body’s many advantages for making rapid exits, Keely landed completely unharmed and scrambled away down the road.

  Above her, the priestess spurred her courser to race back down the road as quickly as it dared, while Riordan abandoned his destrier to come clambering down the cliff face, following Keely as directly as he could—but it proved a chancy and slow business. Until the slope and the switchbacks gentled out, they had no realistic hope of catching her—and by then the foliage would be thick enough for her to disappear into. Keely lured them on as best she could while trying to not be too obvious that she wanted them to follow.

  “What the…?” Ulric looked up from helping Elissa limp along, and he watched the courser and its black-robed rider galloping recklessly down the road below them. He had noticed the riders earlier—with some resigned and wary hostility—but had thought nothing particular of it. He’d known the Inquisition was in town. This sudden change in their behavior, though, could not herald anything good.

  Immediately, Ulric shifted his burden completely to his comrade, Nolan, and started to un-sling his arquebus as he spun about—in his gut, expecting he would see the knight who’d been riding with the priestess come charging up the road at them—and hoping he would have time to load the gun and fire it. All Ulric spied was the knight’s warhorse pacing restlessly about on its own—and that only after some searching. Then Ulric noticed his own party was short one postulant.

  Elissa learned several new curse words at that moment, and she turned an impressive shade of red as Ulric swept her off the ground and practically threw her over Nolan’s shoulder.

  “Get her to the top and sit on her,” Ulric demanded, then he charged off back down the slope, scanning all around for any sign of Keely. When he arrived at the switchback, he peered with dread over the long drop-off there, with little hope there was any place else she’d have had time to vanish to. Not seeing her lying broken at the bottom offered only limited relief, in the same manner as a brief stay of execution.

  Ulric paused for a moment, searching in every direction for some new clue to the puzzle. Spying none, he turned his attention back to the inquisitrix. Whether she was riding to something or away from something in such haste, she clearly had information right now that was probably a life-or-death concern for him. So he slung his rifle back over his shoulder and scrambled down the rocks to the road below.

  It was not a pleasant or easy sort of shortcut, but taking it three times did allow him to get ahead of the rider before she could reach the open lower slopes of the Wolf’s tooth. He muttered to himself as he unslung the rifle again and began loading it. The process felt like it took forever, but by the time the inquisitrix drew near, he was ready and waiting—taking careful, steady aim at her horse.

  The inquisitrix gave some serious thought to trying to ride Ulric down, but apparently decided she liked that horse enough not to risk it, and she reined up short of Ulric by a couple dozen yards as they sized each other up in silence. The petite, blond-haired woman in black, sitting imperiously astride a fiery courser, made for a striking contrast to the dark-haired, roughly shaven veteran blocking her path.

  In the end, it was the priestess who blinked first. “Out of the way, fool!” she shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Questioning the Inquisition. The way I have it figured, I’m a dead man just for pointing this thing at you. I’ll get more of a head start if I kill you where you are before I start running, too, so you might want to convince me your death would be a waste, and not a blessing. This is nothing personal, but I have to have answers, and I have to have them now.”

  The woman continued to glare at Ulric for several long seconds, still sizing him up, and then her expression finally began to soften. “I’ll not fault your courage,” she said at last. “Convince me that killing you would be a waste, and perhaps I’ll forgive both the insult and the interference.”

  “What am I interfering with?” Ulric said, lowering neither his weapon nor his guard. “You’d been almost up the Tooth before you changed your mind and took off like a shot.”

  “What? Is that all that’s worrying you?” The woman gave an easy laugh. “I’m chasing a witch. I’d be more angry with you, but I’m afraid she’s already got away. Unless Sir Riordan’s already caught up with her—in which case he may be in need of some assistance. She’s got the best of him before. So if that’s all…?”

  “I saw no one else on the road but the two of you,” Ulric answered.

  “Not even a little white cat, about so big?” the woman asked, gesturing demonstratively with her hands. “That’s how she met us on the road. It seems to be her favorite animal form.”

  Ulric shook his head but accepted that the inquisitrix might be speaking true. Something he didn’t understand had happened, and there were plenty of places along the road that a cat could have hidden.

  “I’m Sister Shoshona, by the way. We’ve been following the witch across the kingdoms and thought we might catch up to her here, but it was only a guess until just now. Now that we know she’s here, I’ve got something you really ought to see. May I?” she asked, tilting her head toward her saddle bags.

  Ulric considered for a moment before nodding his assent, and Shoshona climbed carefully down to rummage through the horse’s load. “Here,” she said producing a folded paper and holding it out to him.

  “I can’t read.” Ulric shook his head.

  “That’s okay,” Shoshona urged. “Just look at it.”

  “Open it,” Ulric said.

  Shoshona shrugged and obliged him, unfolding the wanted poster. “You’ve seen her?” she asked. The man had a pretty good poker face, but she’d seen through better.

  “Maybe,” Ulric said. She might have caught his subtle reaction to the image, but he’d caught her subtle reaction in turn. The inquisitrix may have put away her claws, but she wasn’t done mousing for the day. “I’ve seen a stranger in town who could be her.”

  “Silver hair?” Shoshona asked.

  “More red.”

  “Where have you seen her? What caught your eye?”

  “She’s pretty.” Ulric smirked. “A man remembers a pretty girl. We barely spoke, though, and I haven’t a clue where she’d be right now. If it’s the woman you’re looking for, you’ve seen her more recently than I have.”

  “Well, now, aren’t we a fine pair of fools to have nearly killed each other over a simple misunderstanding?” Shoshona laughed. “Just leave me to go rescue Sir Riordan, say you’ll let me know anything you learn about the witch if she eludes us, and I’ll forget any of this ever happened. Everyone wins but the witch. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough.” Ulric nodded. He laid the gun on the ground and took a step to the side, leaving the courser ample room to pass—but beneath his cloak, his hand lay anxiously on the hilt of his sword until horse and rider were well clear and on their way, disappearing down the hill. “I’m dead,” he muttered, watching them go.

  “Yeah. Didn’t see that coming. What were you thinking?”

  Ulric spun to find Keely standing behind him, wrapped in a tattered red cloak—and probably nothing else—with the wind tousling her silvery-white hair.

  “She didn’t forget to ask what was so important for you to question her at gun point,” Keely went on. “She let it drop because she’s not done with you, and she’ll come looking when she can finish it on her own terms.”

  “I know,” Ulric said grimly, stooping to pick up his gun.

  “I feel kind of guilty,” Keely said. “Like it�
�s sort of my fault.”

  “It’s all your fault,” Ulric glowered, though Keely showed no sign of hearing the accusation.

  She had been thinking she’d cop to being the witch and then play the card about the postulant being her cousin in pursuit, but now that the moment had come, she knew just by meeting Ulric’s gaze that this man would not be buying it. There was no bewilderment or doubt or hopefulness to play on there—only anger and resolve.

  “Thanks for not ratting me out,” Keely simply said instead.

  “This isn’t our first dance with the Inquisition around here,” Ulric answered, “and they’d stomped on plenty of feet before the music stopped. Anyway, I had to save the pleasure of killing you for myself.”

  “Pfff.” Keely brushed off the threat as the hollow thing it was. “You know, some farmer down there actually hung a skull on his scarecrow? A real skull?” she said, adjusting her tattered cloak.

  “They all do,” Ulric said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I am not going to let you change the subject!” he snapped.

  “Where do they get them all?” Keely asked, biting her lip as a perplexed and disturbed expression crossed her face.

  “This isn’t just the usual business of the Inquisition seeing witches everywhere,” Ulric pressed her. “When I go back up the Tooth, I’m going to find paw prints picking up where your footprints leave off, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t know.” Keely shrugged. “Are you a good tracker?”

  “Good enough.”

  “Then probably.” She sighed. “Look…”

  “No, you look,” Ulric growled. “I don’t care what you are. I care what you do. What you’ve done is written me a death sentence, and you’ve shoved a bunch of other folk toward the headsman’s axe!”

  “I’ll fix it,” she said quietly but with conviction, her jaw set.

  “Will you now?” He laughed bitterly. “Now that’s magic I’d like to see. The last time the Inquisition was here, Haywoodshire went through two bloody slaughters. The first came when the Inquisition rounded up their ‘witches’. The second came right after they left, when ‘Bloody Scarlet’ went on a rampage.”

  “Bloody Scarlet again?” Keely asked, morbidly curious. “The ghost who tore down the cathedral?”

  “Bloody Scarlet is the local scapegoat—the bogey of the Crimson Forest,” Ulric explained, shaking his head. “She’s the legend parents use to keep children in line. Wander off into the forest or forget to do your chores, and she could come ‘a slinkin’ and a creepin’’ to take your head and put it in her cupboard. People generally outgrow believing in her, but whenever something goes horribly wrong, we won’t hesitate to lay it at her feet. So when folk who’d testified against the ‘witches’ began meeting with unfortunate accidents or disappearing from their beds…”

  “People started saying it was the work of Bloody Scarlet, rather than point a finger at the families of the witches?” Keely finished for him.

  “The Inquisition left town just before the fall harvest, and before the first snows fell, anyone who’d allied himself with the Inquisition was either dead or missing. Perhaps some of those who went missing simply left all their possessions and fled for their lives, but I’ve never heard of any of them turning up. So even if I could appease the Inquisition by turning you in,and if you could convince them to patiently treat you as an honored guest until the pontifine returns in a couple of months, and if she didn’t hold us all responsible when the Inquisition still roasted you alive despite her best efforts, I’d still wind up mysteriously dead within a fortnight.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that does sound sticky, when you put it that way. But you know…”

  Ulric was about to cut her off again, but not before they were both cut off by the sound of someone crashing and cursing through a nearby thicket. “Riordan,” Keely explained with a lopsided smile. “We’d better get moving.”

  Ulric laid a hand on her arm as she started back up the road toward the peak. “Not that way. The knight left his horse up there. Someone’s going to come for it—probably on horseback—and there are too many ways this could all end in them running us down on that slope today. We do need to get up to the cathedral site, but there’s a safer way, and a quicker one. You’d never get a cart or a horse up it, and I’m not even sure about your Sister Jenny, but given the run you just gave the Inquisition, I think you’ll make it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Crossing Paths

  Tobias’ horse reared in alarm, and he struggled to keep from being thrown as a spirited black courser burst from around the hedgerow in front of them. The courser’s hooves kicked up great clods of muddy earth as the animal raced past, the cloak of its black-clad rider billowing out behind it. As if all this wasn’t enough to deal with by itself, Tobias realized with another note of alarm that this was a priestess of the Inquisition who’d just come hurtling past him like a dark bolt of retribution from a vengeful Seriena.

  By the time Tobias brought his horse under control, wiped away the grime that had spattered his face, and taken a moment to silently thank Seriena that he was at least no longer choking on dust from the parched earth he’d spent so many days riding through, the inquisitrix was already disappearing around the next bend in the road.

  Glancing to Conrad, his only companion to have accompanied him out of Denecia, Tobias was pleased to note that the young squire had managed to keep ahorse himself and appeared only moderately muddied by the incident. He grinned at the boy, who grinned back as he used his fingers to comb dark, dank soil out of his fair hair.

  The prince’s grin was one that Conrad knew well, and it meant something exciting and totally reckless was about to happen. Conrad didn’t mind a bit. Those were his favorite moments in Tobias’ service, and he’d yet to come out the worse for them. His eagerness to embrace those moods was exactly why it was Conrad that was here with Tobias now, and not some more-seasoned squire who might be better with arranging logistics or at swinging a sword. He was, in fact, the least likely person in all the world to suggest that Tobias might wish to think before acting.

  With not a word exchanged between them, Tobias spurred his horse after the inquisitrix, and Conrad started after him. Considering how far they’d come from the heartlands, and that the Inquisition was after the same quarry he was, Tobias could not imagine that this woman was not close on the heels of the witch.

  They rode hard, now kicking up their own share of earth, but even Tobias’s best horse would have been hard pressed to keep pace with the courser—much less overtake it—and this was not his best horse. The inquisitrix was long out of sight ahead, and Tobias was just wondering if he should slow before Conrad fell out of sight behind, when he came upon the carriage. He reined up, partly from curiosity over whether the misfortune that had befallen the carriage had had anything to do with the witch, mostly because it sat at a fork in the road, and he could not be sure immediately which way the courser had gone.

  Standing apart from the men who were working to lever the carriage up onto a block so the damage could be inspected, Baldassare Marini watched with cool interest as Tobias stopped in front of him. “I’ve seen strange things today,” Baldassare finally said, raising an eyebrow, “but the Inquisition is on the run from you? Perhaps I should just go back to the inn and have a lie down until the natural order of the world reasserts itself.” Despite the rake’s willingness to make light of the situation, it did not escape Tobias’ notice that Baldassare’s hand lay ready on the hilt of his blade.

  “We’re merely chasing the same witch, and the Inquisition is doing it faster.” Tobias smirked, casting a glance over the coat of arms painted on the side of the carriage. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t actually say he recognized it, and he decided that it must belong to a local branch of a family he’d encountered back east.

  As for Baldassare himself, Tobias had twice attended the same crowded ball and once been at the same tournament, so it wasn’t fair to s
ay he had never laid eyes on the man. Four times, in fact, his gaze had passed directly over Baldassare without ever stopping to focus on him.

  Baldassare had actually looked directly at the prince once from a distance, and might even have recognized his coat of arms had he been displaying it—but as it was, he recognized only that the finery of a wealthy and important nobleman lay beneath the dirt on the horseman in front of him, and Baldassare decided belatedly he was probably addressing the local earl.

  “So…there really is a witch?” Baldassare asked, an unaccustomed look of concern creeping onto his face.

  “Absolutely,” Tobias assured him. “I’ve been chasing her for weeks.”

  “I’d thought I was only humoring my sister’s foolish imagination,” Baldassare said, scowling at himself. “And now she’s gone missing, with a genuine witch on the loose. We were taking a shortcut through the forest, and she ran off in a fit because I didn’t believe her. When we didn’t find her, I figured she’d just come back when she cooled down, but…”

  “Yes, you’d best find her, and quickly,” Tobias nodded. “And pray that it’s not too late. The witch has a penchant for turning people into animals, so I’d advise tracing her footsteps, and look for signs of something else leaving the spot if you find that they suddenly stop without her in them.”

  “I’ve never been one for the hunt,” Baldassare said. “All I see when I stare at the ground is…well, ground. Any chance you could…”

  “I wish I could help,” Tobias said sincerely, “but I can’t leave one woman to face down the witch herself. Nor would you thank me if your sister’s been turned into a hedgehog and I allowed the inquisitrix to kill the witch without first making sure she wasn’t needed to restore her victims. That is…” Tobias paused, his eyes shifting uncertainly from side to side for a moment, “…unless perhaps you have a particular fondness for hedgehogs, I suppose.”