She heard another roar and lifted her head to see Tova leaping onto a dark figure. Both went down. A man screamed. Then Tova threw the man aside, his body falling limply as Tova stood there, snarling, his legs planted, fur on end.
"The dog!" a man shouted. "Shoot it!"
"No!" Ashyn screamed.
She ran for Tova and threw herself over him. Something hit her shoulder, piercing right through her cloak and tunic. Then another, this one catching in her cloak before clattering to the rock. Arrows.
"Get off the dog, girl!" a man shouted.
"It's not a dog!" Wenda shouted. "It's a Hound of the Immortals. And that's the Seeker."
Laughter echoed seemingly from every direction. Ashyn's heart pounded, but she stayed on Tova and slid out her dagger, keeping it hidden under her.
"All right, Seeker," a man's voice said, mocking, drawing closer.
He stepped from the darkness. He had the coppery skin and eyes of one from the distant desert lands. His head was shaven and he stood at least half a head taller than any man she knew, with broad shoulders and burly arms, bare despite the cool night air. His filthy clothing was covered in silver beads, an odd display of wealth on such shabby apparel. When he smiled, his teeth shone, too, his front ones silver-coated.
A bandit.
Another man sidled up behind him, smaller, with lighter skin and braids.
"Look at that hair," he said, his voice breathy. "The color of the setting sun."
The big man snorted. "Have you never seen a Northerner? Skin pale as a fish belly. Hair like dirty straw." His lip curled in distaste. "We'd be lucky to find a man willing to take her to bed."
"Oh, I'd be willing," the smaller man chortled. "I think you need spectacles, Barthol, if you think that hair resembles straw. And those eyes? Like a summer sky."
The big man--Barthol--shook his head. "On your feet, girl. Mind your cur."
"It's not a cur," Wenda said. "It's a Hound--"
"Yes, yes," Barthol said. "It's a poxed Hound of the--"
He broke off as Tova rose. Then he stared at the huge hound. Behind him, the smaller man whispered, "By the spirits . . ."
"His name is Tova," Ashyn said, as loud as she could while keeping her voice steady. "I am Ashyn of Edgewood. I am the Seeker who guards the Forest of the Dead. He is my bond-beast."
The smaller man dropped to his knees. "My lady. I meant no offense with my joking--"
"Oh, don't grovel," Barthol muttered. "She's a girl, barely old enough to be sold to a whorehouse."
"Barthol!" the other man said.
Another man stepped forward, still hidden in the dark. "Fyren's right, Barthol. Our customs may not be yours, but you ought to show some respect. The girl is blessed by the spirits."
"I know what a Seeker is. A rare and valuable creature." Barthol smiled, teeth shimmering. "The empire will pay well to ransom her."
"Ransom?" Fyren choked on the word, sputtering. "A Seeker? They'd exile us all to her forest . . . after they burned out our tongues for blasphemy."
Noises of assent came from the darkness.
"It's true," Ashyn said. "You cannot ransom me. But if you found me and the child--the last survivors of our village, dying of thirst in the Wastes--and you gave us water and escorted us to Fairview, you would be handsomely rewarded."
"Last survivors?" Fyren said.
"I can explain," she said. "When you bring water for the child."
As Ashyn soon realized, the bandit leader--Barthol--was not a stupid man. One doesn't rise to that position without at least a feral intelligence. He dismissed her stories of shadow stalkers and death worms as the panicked ravings of a girl who'd spent too long in the sun without water, but her suggestion of a reward struck him as rational and sensible. They would escort Ashyn and Wenda to Fairview.