“This would be a good hub.” She looked at Cian as she spoke. “If they have decent shelter in here, it’s a good spot to nest during the day, spread out for food at night.”
“Leaves are still thick this time of year,” he agreed. “And there’d be small game as well if they needed to make do.”
Larkin took the lead, following the trail until the trees thickened to block the light. He dismounted again, tracking now on foot. By signs, Blair assumed she couldn’t see.
Then again, she’d done the majority of her hunting in urban forests and suburban trails. But Larkin moved with the confidence of a man who knew what he was doing, pausing only to crouch down now and then, studying the tracks more carefully.
“Wait,” she said abruptly. “Just wait. You get that?” she asked Cian.
“Blood. It’s not fresh. And death. Older yet.”
“Better get back on your horse, Larkin,” she told him. “I think we’ve got some of the gods’ luck after all. We can track it from here.”
“I can’t smell a thing but the woods.”
“You will,” she murmured, and drew her sword from the sheath on her back as they walked the horses down the path.
The wagon was pulled into the trees, off the path, and sheltered by them. It was a kind of small caravan, Blair thought, covered in the back with its red paint faded and peeling.
And the smell of death seemed to soak it.
“Tinkers,” Larkin told them. And she’d been right, he could smell the death now. “Gypsies who travel the roads selling whatever wares they might make. The wagon’s harnessed for two horses.”
“A good nest,” Blair decided. “Mobile if you need it to be. And you could drive around at night, no one would pay any attention.”
“You could take it right into the village,” Larkin said grimly. “Drive it up to someone’s cottage and ask for hospitality. In the normal course of things, you’d get it.”
He thought of the children who might run outside to see if there would be toys for sale they could beg their parents to buy or trade for. And the thought sickened him even more than the stench.
He dismounted with the others, moved to the rear of the wagon where the doors were tightly shut, and bolted from the outside. They drew weapons. Blair slid the bolt free, tested the door.
When it gave, she nodded to her companions, mentally counted to three, then yanked it open.
The fetid air came first, crawling into the throat, pouring into the eyes. She heard the hungry hum of flies and fought against the need to gag.
It leaped out at her, the thing with the face of a pretty young woman whose eyes were red and mad. The stink rolled off her, where it was matted in her dark hair, streaked over her homespun dress.
Blair pivoted aside so it landed in the brush on its hands and knees, snarling like the animal it had become.
It was Larkin who swung his sword and ended it.
“Oh God, sweet Jesus. She couldn’t have been fourteen.” He wanted to sit, just sit there on the ground while his belly heaved. “They changed her. How many others—”
“Unlikely more,” Cian said, cutting him off. “Then they’d have to compete for food, worry about keeping it under control.”
“She didn’t come through with them,” Larkin insisted. “She wasn’t one of them before. She was Geallian.”
“And young, pretty, female. Food isn’t the only need.”
Blair saw when the full impact of Cian’s words hit Larkin. She saw not just by the shock but the sheer outrage on his face.
“Bastards. Bloody fucking bastards. She was hardly more than a child.”
“And this surprises you because?”
He whirled on Cian, and would, Blair was sure, have vented some of that horror and outrage. Perhaps Cian was giving him a target for it. But there wasn’t time for indulgences.
She simply stepped between them and shoved Larkin back a full three paces. “Close it down,” she ordered him. “Just settle it down.”