The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

Once Enid reached the woods, she angled back toward where she had seen him. And yes, he was clearly watching her approach. His hand rested on a palm-length sheathed knife lashed to his belt.

A knife that could have killed Ella, Enid thought. Maybe she should have brought Teeg along, with his staff.

She moved calmly, arms at her sides, letting her steps make noise. “Hey there,” she called out. “Hola.”

Back pressed to the tree, the stranger finally caught her gaze.

He couldn’t have been more than twenty or so, and still had a wiry adolescent look to him, despite the shadow of beard on his face. His fuzzy black hair was cut short, and his demeanor was hard and wary.

For a moment he just looked back at her. Then he bolted deeper into the forest.

“Oh no, not this time,” she muttered, and gave chase.

She thought she’d picked a good route straight through the woods that would cut him off on the arcing path he took, but she quickly got tangled in shrubs and undergrowth, and the stranger pulled ahead.

Enid knew she’d lose to him in a straight-up footrace. Desperate, she slowed, looked around for something, anything, to throw, and found a stick the size of her forearm. Hefted it back over her shoulder and let fly. She wasn’t quite aiming at him, but if it hit him and got his attention . . . well, that would be okay. It didn’t, in fact, hit him, but it flew right past, in front of him—enough to get his attention and make him pull up short, arms flailing as he recovered his balance. That gave Enid time to close the distance between them.

Scrambling, the man made the mistake of looking down at his knife sheath as he reached for the weapon. That gave Enid a window, and she lunged forward, reaching to grab whatever she could. It turned out to be the sleeve of his tunic, which she yanked as hard as she could to try to throw him off balance; it worked—the stranger stumbled . . . and the knife fell from his grip. With a quick twist, she stuck out a foot, pushed him in the direction of his own momentum, and forced him to trip over her outstretched leg. With a frustrated grunt, he fell to the ground.

Teeg had the tranquilizer patches, and she cursed herself for not bringing any. Never mind whether or not she had any real right to use tranquilizers on an outsider.

“Please, I just want to talk! Sit still a minute, would you?”

She loomed over him, and he lay flat on his back, staring up at her, catching his breath. Once he did, he said, with a snarl, “What did you do to Ella!”

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

He scrambled to his knees then, and when Enid didn’t stop him, he got to his feet. Dead leaves and dirt clung to his clothes. He pointed back toward the pyre. “You’re burning her. She’s dead, and you people killed her; you must have. She didn’t deserve it.” He tightened his hands into fists, maybe to start a fight, but he stepped back, instead of toward her. Ready to flee, but his question still hung there.

“You’re right,” Enid said calmly. “She didn’t deserve this. But you and I want the same thing. I want to know what happened to her, how she died. Can you help me?”

“You people killed her!”

Everyone is a suspect when you don’t know who the culprit is. He started scanning the ground; jumped toward a spot, reaching, and came back up with his dropped knife. He held it menacingly, the tip pointed in Enid’s direction. He left no doubt he knew how to use it. Was it possible he’d used it on Ella?

“The folk down in the Estuary assume one of your folk did it.”

“None of us did it. Why would we?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone got mad at her, given how she died.”

“What’d you mean, how?”

“So you don’t know how she died.”

“What’re you saying?” He kept the knife between them. Enid was ready to run if he attacked; she was good in a fight, but didn’t want to take a chance against his knife. She probably ought to yell for Teeg, but if she did, this young man would definitely flee. She needed him to stay, to talk.

But he didn’t flee, and didn’t attack.

He backed up until he leaned against a tree trunk, as if to steady himself. His fingers dug into the tree bark, then absently began to peel bits of it off.

“Her throat was cut,” Enid said. “Someone attacked her with a blade and cut her throat. Maybe a blade like that.”

His face screwed up and he choked, the sound of a stopped sob. “Someone . . . someone cut her throat?”

“Yes, I’m sorry—that’s what happened,” Enid said softly.

“Folk are afraid of you,” he said. “Down on the road, they talk about you. Afraid of the bullies in brown.”