No one would think to look for them in the Shadow Lands, and even if they did, they would not dare come after them or be able to convince anyone else to do so. And if they did, well, she rather thought she and Sonja and their beast men could handle pretty much anything less than an army.
* * * *
Sonja was tired and hungry when she finally found a suitable place to leave the horse. She didn’t like leaving it at all considering the speed the beast men were capable of, but she thought it was unlikely that she could get the horse any closer without it giving her away. The poor thing was already a nervous wreck. Despite all of her efforts to mask the scents of the beast people that inhabited the Shadow Lands, it detected just enough of the ‘predators’ surrounding it to quiver almost constantly and shy and try to balk every few minutes.
She at least had no doubts that the horse would manage to outrun any beast man that got after them if and when she gave it the opportunity, but she didn’t want to risk being thrown and not have a way to reach the border.
After allowing the horse to drink its fill from the stream she’d been following, she led it to an area where it could find grasses to munch on and picketed it securely with the rope she’d made of her underskirt to make certain it couldn’t break free if it was startled. Almost as an afterthought, she took the reins and loosely knotted them together across his neck in case she needed to get them quickly.
She left him grazing then and wandered off in search of berries to appease her own hunger, ignoring the temptation to fashion a snare in hopes of catching a rabbit or some other small animal. She couldn’t afford to build a fire and she certainly wasn’t hungry enough to eat one raw!
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t gone hungry plenty of times in her life! She could deal with it when necessary and, unfortunately, this was one of those times.
She considered the situation while she chewed the berries she found, shuddering at the tartness.
Tanya, she decided, was unfamiliar with the beast men. That being the case, she would consider night the best time to attempt to elude them. In truth, there wasn’t a good time—their senses were too keen and darkness did not hamper them at all!—but she knew that Tanya would believe as she had that that would work best. Since there was no way to alert Tanya to that fact, she would simply have to work with it.
It might actually be an advantage to her at the moment, she decided. No doubt the beast men, knowing the limitations of naturals, were more alert to the possibility of night raids. They would probably sleep during the day … or at least lower their guard to a degree.
She finally decided that she really didn’t have a choice, regardless. She needed to reconnoiter and fix their route of escape firmly in her mind while she had the light to see.
Chapter Fifteen
It was a surprise and not a terribly pleasant one to discover that the trail Tanya had left for her to follow didn’t lead to the caverns. Despite the fact that she’d surmised that it was used only as a camping site when they were watching the border, she’d still expected the trail to lead her there.
There was a band of wolf men there, but it wasn’t Jarek and his pack.
She decided it must be Loki. The man that appeared to be their leader seemed vaguely familiar and she was certain that was the only way he could be, but it had been too dark to see him well and she’d been in no state at the time for her perceptions to be very keen anyway. Nevertheless, there was the sense of having met him and he looked to be about the right size.
She was actually a little surprised to see that him and his men were as well built as Jarek and his men. They weren’t at all hard on the eyes either.
Tanya might be interested, she thought absently, focusing on retreating as stealthily as she’d approached.
So they had two packs of wolf men to contend with! Joy! No huge surprise and yet damned inconvenient!
A faint whiff of smoke alerted her to the fact that she was nearing another group, and that it was likely to be Jarek since Tanya’s signs led that way. Suddenly uneasy that the men might be out hunting when it hadn’t occurred to her before, she stopped, trying to decide whether she should go any closer or not.
It didn’t fit what she knew of their habits, though.
Not that she could honestly say she was in a position to have learned them. They’d been on the trail most of the time she’d been with them. That being the case, it had made sense that they’d only hunted after they’d stopped for the night. It didn’t necessarily follow that that was typical for them and she should have considered that!
It might be typical, though, in which case the fire and the smell of cooking food might mean that she hadn’t found her sister.
She decided to try climbing a tree to see if it would give her enough of a view to make a determination instead of trying to creep any closer.
The search for a tree that appeared scalable was a fairly lengthy process but she finally found one that had limbs low enough she could grab a hold and hoist herself up. She had to climb nearly to the top to see anything at all, but she finally managed to get high enough for a glimpse of the source of the smoke. It wasn’t a campfire at all. The smoke was coming from the chimney of a sprawling, two-storied cottage.
Irritated, she was about to climb down again when the sound of someone cutting wood drew her attention. She strained to find a clear look at the rear yard of the cottage and nearly fell out of the tree when she saw that it was Jarek. Wearing nothing but a pair of leather breeches that rode low on his narrow hips, he paused just as she caught sight of him and glanced around, giving her an unmistakable look at his face.
A tingling warmth flashed through her. For many moments, she was so mesmerized by the play of muscles in his torso and arms as he resumed his chopping that she lost all awareness of her surroundings. She wasn’t certain how long she stood gaping at him, but her legs and arms had begun to cramp when the slamming of a door jolted her from her trance.
She wasn’t certain if it was Thorne or Arman she saw cross from the back of the house to where Jarek was cutting wood, but it was clear that the cottage was theirs.
She felt perfectly blank about the discovery. Since she couldn’t really sort the thoughts and emotions churning through her, she dragged her gaze from them and searched as much of the house and surroundings as she could from her vantage point. She finally spied a flash of color and enough of a form to identify Tanya strolling around the yard. Not far from her, she saw a pair of male legs—whoever had been assigned by Jarek to keep an eye on her sister, she thought wryly.
That accounted for three and Tanya was taking the opportunity to familiarize herself with the lay of the land and get her bearings—good!
It bothered her that there were two still unaccounted for and although she knew it was possible they were inside the house, she finally examined the tree and carefully moved around it to see if she could a better view. Almost as soon as she looked toward the cottage again, she saw them—in a field on the other side of the house.
She discovered she was in no great hurry to leave but there was really no reason to linger other than the fact that she enjoyed watching them. She’d already begun searching for hand and foot holds to climb down when it occurred to her that her vantage point might also help her in plotting their escape across the border. She needed to at least get an idea of how far they were.
The rocky outcropping where the cavern lay was easy enough to spot, thankfully, and she’d already determined it was little more than a quarter of a mile from the border of Doral. She decided the cottage was situated a mile and a half to two miles from the border—a very long way to run even if you had a pack of angry wolf men on your heels!
Climbing down from the tree finally, she headed back to where she’d left the horse, trying to decide if she could move the horse into a position halfway, or there about, between the border and the cottage without alerting Loki and his men.
She needed to try, she realized. Tanya would take the shortest ro
ute.
She pondered the best time to make the move and the best place while she made her way back. She was tired enough by the time she reached the place where she’d hidden the horse, however, that she decided she could better spend her time resting since she was bound to need her strength if she had to outrun Jarek and the others and she didn’t hold out much hope that Tanya would get away clean. She would certainly be delighted if that was the case, but she wasn’t counting on it!
After another search for berries to stave off her hunger, she drank her fill of the water from the stream and settled back to drowse the afternoon away, reflecting that it would probably be best not to leave the horse for very long anyway at what she hoped would be the pick up point. The longer it was there the more likely that it would be discovered and she was really counting on the extra speed of the horse to get them across the border.
As soon as the sun dipped below the tops of the trees, she collected the horse, re-outfitted him with fresh coverings on his hooves and another mask over his nostrils and then led him as quietly and carefully as she could to the point she’d decided upon. When she’d secured him to make certain he couldn’t escape and leave them stranded, she removed her dagger from its sheathe on her inner thigh and pushed it into the pocket of her gown to make sure it was ready to hand if she needed to cut the tether. Then, she tucked her skirts up between her legs to keep them from tripping her up if she had to run. With that possibility in mind, she loosened her stays. She didn’t want to pass out again as she had the last time she’d had to make a run for the border.
Deciding there would be less chance of missing Tanya if she moved a little closer to the cottage to watch for her, she left the horse as soon as it was full dark and began to make her way slowly toward the cottage. She hadn’t gone far when she realized it was so dark that she was having trouble keeping her bearings. Cursing under her breath, she settled in the brush to wait until the moon rose, listening intently to the sounds in the forest around her for anything that seemed out of place.
She’d just begun to wonder if it was the dark of the moon and she wouldn’t have the light to guide her no matter how long she waited when she finally caught sight of it through the trees.
Unfortunately, she discovered that the moon was in the wrong place—or rather she was in the wrong place in relation to the rising moon. She’d wandered far closer to the damned border than she realized!
That realization sent a jolt through her and she surged to her feet in panic. The moment she did, a man stepped from the shadows little more than twenty yards from where she stood. She froze, not even daring to breathe, trying to convince herself that he had his back to her, trying to convince her feet to move. After several long, heart-stopping moments, the man lifted his head, almost as if he was sniffing the air—because he was!
A beam of moonlight lit his eyes eerily and she realized he didn’t have his back to her. He was staring straight at her!
Oh fuck, she thought, just as he uttered a sound like the baying of a wolf and surged toward her. Sucking in a sharp breath, she whirled and fled in a blind panic, trying to jog her chaotic mind into figuring out which direction she was going and where she’d left the damned horse.
Her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears she couldn’t tell whether he was gaining on her—though she was more certain than she wanted to be that he probably was—or the pounding sounds deafening her were her feet and her heart. Abruptly, a figure appeared out of the shadows in front of her, heading straight toward her. She screamed before she could control the impulse, veering away. The other figure also screamed, veering off in the other direction.
It took her mind several moments to actually tabulate that and several more to stop her churning legs so that she could skid to a halt and reverse directions. “Don’t go that way!” she screamed at Tanya. “Beast men!”
“Don’t go that way they’re right behind me!” Tanya, who’d also skidded to a halt and changed directions screamed at her at almost the same moment.
Fortunately, that marked the two directions they didn’t want to go. Sonja grabbed Tanya’s hand as she reached her and began racing back toward the horse. Behind them, they heard furious howls and roars as the two rival packs met up with one another. Thank the gods! Sonja thought. Please, please, please don’t let them hurt one another! Just let them keep each other occupied for a few minutes!
She and Tanya frightened the horse so badly when they burst from the woods that it took both of them to calm him down enough to climb on his back. Searching frantically for her pocket the moment she was seated, Sonja leaned down and cut the tether as soon as she’d freed her dagger, and then made a frantic grab for the reins when the horse took off.
She had reason to be thankful she’d had the forethought to knot the reins and left them draped over the horse’s back. She wouldn’t otherwise have managed to grab them and the crazed horse, frightened already by them, was too mindless to know which direction to run once he caught the sent of the beast men. They made a crazy circle, weaving between the trees, but she finally managed to point the horse toward the border.
The battle between the beast men hadn’t lasted long. Clearly, despite their fury at one another, they weren’t so maddened that it hadn’t occurred to them very quickly that their quarry was escaping while they were battling one other. Despite the horse’s fear he was slowed by the brush and Sonja could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as the crashing of brush behind them came closer and closer.
She and Tanya leaned low over the horse’s neck to keep from being swept from his back by any low hanging limbs, but she could still feel the occasional tug and sting as a branch snagged strands of flying hair and yanked it out. For several moments, it almost seemed that the beast men would manage to surround them, but the horse bowled over the one who did manage to leap in front of them. It stumbled but regained its footing and, as the brush began to thin, poured on a burst of speed that finally outdistanced them from pursuit.
Sonja didn’t even attempt to slow the horse until she was certain they were well across the border and into Doral. He was still frightened enough despite his heaving sides from exertion that it took a great deal of coaxing and wrenching at the reins to slow him down even when she finally decided it was safe enough to do so.
Heaving a shaky breath when she finally had the horse under control, Sonja glanced back at her sister. “You alright?”
“Ask me next year!” Tanya replied shakily. “My god! What were those horrible things?”
Sonja wrestled with herself. “It was the men,” she said finally, a little defensively. “They are beast men.”
“Yes, but ….” She broke off shuddering. “You said wolf clan. I thought they could shift into wolves.”
“They can—and that form is about halfway between the two—and the scariest, and most dangerous,” she admitted.
“Do you think they would have … attacked us?”
“No. They shifted into that form because Loki’s pack challenged them,” Sonja said firmly. “They might have shifted into that form to catch us—because they’re stronger and much faster, but we were never in danger from them.”
She wasn’t certain she’d convinced Tanya, but she knew it was the truth, felt it and trusted her instincts where they were concerned. Mayhap, she thought, she should have trusted them enough to confess to them?
She shook that thought off. She wasn’t sure they could accept her for what she really was and she didn’t want to know. If there was any chance at all that they would accept her it would be far better if they never knew the things she’d done.
It wasn’t that she felt that it was wrong—certainly no more wrong than two men meeting on a field to kill one another for no reason beyond a test of strength, no more wrong than men killing one another on the battlefield—complete strangers who had the misfortune of trying to make a living out of killing.
She didn’t believe they would see it that way, though. Men tend
ed to find it unnerving if women were capable of some of the same things they were. They wanted to believe they were weak and helpless and that they were completely in control.
Besides, she wasn’t going to risk them trying to stop her and she knew they would have if she’d told them. They would’ve thought it was too dangerous. They would’ve thought it cold and calculating to kill for money—as if men didn’t!
She and Tanya had risked their lives. They deserved to get paid for it and she meant to collect!
It unnerved her to stop so near the border when she couldn’t be sure Jarek and the others wouldn’t still be following, but she had little choice but to guide the horse to the meeting place she’d chosen anyway. The man she’d hired would’ve left the horse she’d bought there and they would probably have need of it. Beyond that, she thought it was entirely possible they might well be racing to reach the border of the Shadow Lands very shortly, and she didn’t want to have too far to run in that direction if the king’s men were behind her!
She dismounted with Tanya. While Tanya was helping her to repair some of the damage to her appearance, they went back over the plan in detail to make certain they hadn’t forgotten anything … which was when Sonja realized she’d lost her dagger.
It was absurd to be so upset about it when she could take Tanya’s instead, but she felt, somehow, that it was a bad omen.
Chapter Sixteen
Heaving for breath, Jarek slowed and finally stopped. He would’ve howled his rage if he could’ve found the breath for it.
The vixen! She’d done it again! Slipped right through his damned fingers the moment he took his eyes off of her!
“Gods damn Loki!” he bellowed, shifting abruptly into his human form again. “I will tear his fucking head off and crush it! When I am through with him there will not be a piece left that is large enough to toss upon a funeral pyre!”
“The bastard deliberately held us up so that she could get away!” Thorne agreed furiously.
Shadow Runners Page 13