Empress of Dorsa (The Chronicles of Dorsa)

“But if we can’t find her by sundown, we head back to camp.”

Zandra frowned. “We’re not going to make it all the way back to camp in the dark.”

“I don’t trust our Lieutenant Clovis,” Megs said. “In fact, I trust him less and less. So at sundown we head back.”

“Hiking back once the sun goes down is asking for a broken leg. Or far worse.”

“These tribesmen,” Megs said, pointing at the main trail, “are heading northeast. If we’re lucky, they’ll pass the camp well to the north and never realize we’re there. If we’re unlucky… They could be headed right for our people.”

“And we’ll be no use to our people if we get ourselves killed trying to get back to them.”

“Then let’s find her quickly,” Megs said. “She’s clearly running from the mountain men. Maybe she can tell us what’s going on.”

“If you’re so worried about the tribesmen finding our people, maybe we shouldn’t track her. If we head back to camp now … we’d still spend some time in the dark, but probably only the last few miles.”

“Except that I want to talk to her,” said Megs. “She and Clovis are connected somehow. I want to know what she knows.”

“We don’t know she’s ever even seen Clovis.”

“They’re connected, Zandra.”

The muscles of Zandra’s jaw worked back and forth. For a moment, Megs thought she would challenge her decision, insist upon heading back immediately. But Megs knew she was right. She knew the woman fleeing the mountain men was important for some reason. Her instincts had kept her alive through a war, and for the four years following the collapse of the Empire in the East. She couldn’t always explain her intuitions, but she had learned to trust them.

“Fine,” Zandra said at last. “I think it’s unlikely the mountain men will find our people anyway.”

Megs thought about Clovis, still feeling that cold knot in her stomach, and wasn’t so sure.

Zandra turned back towards the trail, the one that led away from the mountain men’s. Over her shoulder, she said, “Let’s go,” and then belatedly, sarcastically, added, “Empress.”

Megs sighed. At least Zandra had agreed to help her find the woman. She supposed she couldn’t ask for more than that.

#

When the stranger’s trail led them into a cluster of fir trees that marked the end of the grassy meadow and the start of the next mountain, Zandra slowed and turned to Megs. “You want to keep going? Tracking her in the forest will be slower.” She glanced at the sky. “And we’re only an hour, maybe an hour and a half from sundown.”

“Then let’s use what light we have while we still have it.”

Zandra gave no response. Her lips pressed into a tight line, she turned and headed into the forest.

A quarter of a mile later, their progress slowed by the steep grade of the rising mountain, Megs was on the verge of telling Zandra that it was time for them to turn around. But something – intuition again? Fate? Mother Moon herself? – pulled Megs’s gaze to a group of boulders jutting up from the ground a dozen yards to their right. The gods had balanced a large rectangular boulder at an angle on top of a cluster of smaller, rounder boulders.

And on the outside of the rectangular boulder was a smear of something reddish brown. Megs squinted at it. Mud? No. Too red for mud. Megs walked towards it to get a closer look. Up close, Megs thought the shape of it resembled the heel of someone’s palm. Like they had blood on their hands when they climbed the boulders.

Zandra came up beside her.

“This is what I think it is, isn’t it?” Megs asked.

Zandra touched her fingertip to the smear, rubbing it between forefinger and thumb before putting it under her nose. “Yes. Blood. No more than an hour old.”

Megs looked at the bloody palm print again. So their quarry was still in the area. Or at least, she had been an hour ago. Which meant –

“She’s nearby,” Zandra said. “Probably hiding.” Her dark eyes crawled up the boulders as she spoke, searching for additional clues. “Put some space between her and the people chasing her, then found somewhere she could rest and recover.”

“How badly do you think she’s hurt?”

Zandra nodded at the print. “Bad enough that she’s holding her injury, getting blood on her hands. Bad enough that she’s getting sloppy compared to when she started in the meadow.” She gestured left. “The trail keeps going up the mountain that way. I’m guessing at some point she stopped climbing. Turned. Looked for some place to stop.”

“And that brought her over here.” Megs turned her right hand, lining it up over the palm print so that they were both at the same angle. Megs’s hand was definitely bigger.

Zandra circled the boulders, scanning for more signs.

“There,” she said, pointing.

Another smear of blood on the trunk of a fir tree wedged between three of the boulders above them.

Zandra pulled herself up and moved cautiously towards the tree, a hunter stalking prey. Megs climbed up behind her. About ten yards ahead of them, boulders gave way to a rocky formation jutting out from the mountainside, forming a shadowy overhang.

A perfect spot for someone injured and pursued to hide for a few hours.

The two of them crept towards the overhang, with Zandra silently pointing out splotches of dried blood dotting the rock beneath them.

The overhang was empty, but a strip of bloodied cloth lay crumpled in one corner. It looked like it had been torn from a tunic.

Zandra scanned the terrain left to right and then, like a wolf, sniffed the air. She pointed up, towards jutting rocks that formed the overhang. The rocks were positioned in such a way that someone could be hiding above them without being seen. The back of Megs’s neck prickled.

They were not the woman’s enemy, but she didn’t know that. And Megs had worked with enough wounded livestock in her life to know that even domesticated creatures could get nasty when they were hurt and perceived a threat.

Her farm girl experience meant that she kept her hands away from the blades hanging from her waist. Never frighten an injured animal. But Zandra didn’t come from a farming family; she came from a family of hunters and trappers.

Before Megs had a chance to tell her not to, Zandra drew her rune-marked dagger – which thankfully emitted no glow – and backed out of the overhang, eyes on the boulders above.

The slightest rustle came from above them.

“Oi, you up there. We – ” Megs called to the stranger, intending to express that they meant no harm despite Zandra’s blade.

But then everything happened far too fast.

With a wild cry, a dark blur emerged from above. The blur dove, knocking Zandra to the ground.  The two rolled down the boulders until a tree stopped their descent.

Megs dashed forward, but the woman had already immobilized Zandra, pinning both of Zandra’s arms with her knees and holding the tip of Zandra’s own dagger to her pulsing carotid artery.

Without looking away, the woman said in lightly accented common tongue, “Take one more step and I drive the dagger through your friend’s throat.”