Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

Instinct made her duck to the right. A second arrow spit past, just where she’d been standing. A third caught in the dense fir above her, tumbled, and vanished as it fell.

A cry of alarm split the air. Shrieks and shouts erupted from the refuge within the firs.

Hanna scrambled back into the firs. Branches scraped her face, pulled at her cloak, and yanked her hood back from her hair. Her braid caught and tangled in the crook of a branch. As she jerked her head sideways to free it, another spray of needles whistled past, spattering like falling stones down around her before they hissed out of existence. One struck her in the heel, but the needle-thin arrow couldn’t penetrate leather. Or so she hoped. Stumbling forward, she didn’t have time to check.

She burst into the open space under the tallest trees, as dark as sin except for the fire smoking and sparking where someone had thrown needles over it to kill it. She sucked in a breath to cry a warning but got such a lungful of smoke that she could barely breathe. Hacking, eyes burning, she grabbed for the nearest horse, snagged its reins, and glimpsed Gotfrid. The old Lion had formed up with two of his fellows to make a little wall of shields to defend Prince Ekkehard, much good that it did them.

Someone yelled, “God save us! My arrows go right through them! They’re demons—”

The voice cut off. Then a man—maybe the one who had shouted fell backward right onto the smoking fire, clawing frantically at the arrow stuck in his throat.

Between one breath and the next, Ekkehard and his entire party panicked.

Hanna barely kept hold of the horse as men and horses bumped and careened past her. Smoke filled her eyes, blinding her, and she staggered into the thickest tangle of branches until she fetched up there, face scratched and raw, one glove torn off, hair coming free of her braid. She couldn’t go any farther, and she’d lost the horse’s reins. She turned around to try to find it, and almost screamed.

Facing her stood a pale figure, more shadow than substance. It had a woman’s body but the face of a vulture, and the gleaming bronze armor at its chest was embossed with vulture-headed women bearing spears into battle.

Hanna could actually see the faint outline of the fir trees through its body, or maybe, horribly, actually even piercing its body, as though it weren’t really entirely there.

Lowering its bow, it spoke. “I smell the stench of our old enemy upon you, human. That is how we tracked you down.” It drew a long, ugly knife.

Stark terror flooded her.

It was going to kill her. With the branches pressed in against her, she couldn’t reach her bow. Her fingers found the hilt of her eating knife, but she knew it was hopeless, that cold iron would do nothing more than stick itself in the trunk of the tree behind the phantom, while any least touch from a cursed elven blade or arrow would sicken a mortal unto death.

It was going to kill her.

That was it, her last thought: Ai, God. I’ll never see Liath again.

The owl appeared out of nowhere, all beating wings and tearing beak. A moment’s reprieve, that was all. A moment was all Hanna needed. She dropped to her knees and crawled like a madwoman, finding room to escape all the way down against the ground under a roof made of the lowest branches. Her bow scraped wood, and an arrow, catching on a branch, snapped as she broke forward. The bed of dry needles gave way to a dusting of snow, and she pushed through low-hanging branches and found herself facing into a drift. She burrowed up between two sprawling branches and floundered forward through the snow.

All she could think about was getting away.

There was enough light to see, now, although everything was still in shades of gray as dawn fought to vanquish night, not an easy task with snow falling heavily and a dense blanket of clouds covering the sky. It was bitterly cold. Through the snow she saw other figures struggling to flee and, there, a lone horse.

s.

One flung back its hood. She saw its face clearly: an Aoi face, more shade than substance, with the sharp cheekbones and broad lineaments common to Prince Sanglant’s ancestors. Feathers decorated its hair, and the bow it carried in its hands gleamed softly, as if it weren’t made of wood but of ensorcelled bone. Its eyes were as cold as the grave as it paused to sniff the air, scenting for prey.

There were some things more frightening than the Quman.

She whistled sharply. The sound gave away her position. Before she could even take a single step back into the protecting tangle of firs, an arrow caught in her sleeve. As delicate as a needle, it had no fletching. It hung from the cloth, point lodged where the fabric creased at her elbow, and dissolved into smoke, simply and utterly gone.

Instinct made her duck to the right. A second arrow spit past, just where she’d been standing. A third caught in the dense fir above her, tumbled, and vanished as it fell.

A cry of alarm split the air. Shrieks and shouts erupted from the refuge within the firs.

Hanna scrambled back into the firs. Branches scraped her face, pulled at her cloak, and yanked her hood back from her hair. Her braid caught and tangled in the crook of a branch. As she jerked her head sideways to free it, another spray of needles whistled past, spattering like falling stones down around her before they hissed out of existence. One struck her in the heel, but the needle-thin arrow couldn’t penetrate leather. Or so she hoped. Stumbling forward, she didn’t have time to check.

She burst into the open space under the tallest trees, as dark as sin except for the fire smoking and sparking where someone had thrown needles over it to kill it. She sucked in a breath to cry a warning but got such a lungful of smoke that she could barely breathe. Hacking, eyes burning, she grabbed for the nearest horse, snagged its reins, and glimpsed Gotfrid. The old Lion had formed up with two of his fellows to make a little wall of shields to defend Prince Ekkehard, much good that it did them.

Someone yelled, “God save us! My arrows go right through them! They’re demons—”

The voice cut off. Then a man—maybe the one who had shouted fell backward right onto the smoking fire, clawing frantically at the arrow stuck in his throat.

Between one breath and the next, Ekkehard and his entire party panicked.

Hanna barely kept hold of the horse as men and horses bumped and careened past her. Smoke filled her eyes, blinding her, and she staggered into the thickest tangle of branches until she fetched up there, face scratched and raw, one glove torn off, hair coming free of her braid. She couldn’t go any farther, and she’d lost the horse’s reins. She turned around to try to find it, and almost screamed.