The Ghost's Crusade

Chapter VII: Akkali (cont)

The trail cut a less-than-clear path through the forest. While it was artfully concealed in the beginning by dragging sod to and fro across the deep tracks, it became less and less so the further they followed it along. Eventually their quarry didn't even bother to avoid snapping branches or having their clothing catch on brambles.

They just keep getting lazier and lazier.

"I can't believe no one has captured this person yet," muttered the Inquisitor. "If we had more men up here we could flush every espiri witch out of the Shalewarrens inside a month."

The Enkiri clenched her fist in a concentrated effort to hold back the visceral reaction Tiernan's words caused. Every instinct she had screamed at her to kill him now and be done with it. If the Shalewarrens were invaded by the Inquisition and their foolish hunt for heretical witches, there was no way she would be able to hide everyone. She had to protect the people of her clan, regardless of the monster it forced her to become.

Freedom carried a blood price, and it was one she was more than willing to continue to pay in their stead. It was the only thing that had remained constant since their escape from the Empire.

Drystan caught her eye and gave a small shake of his head, knowing better than most what was going on in her mind. He was one of the very few outsiders that had seen what she so fiercely guarded, one of only three that knew why she was so diligent in guarding them. Obviously he was of the opinion that his friend was not like the rest of the religious zealots that would kill her on sight. Akkali knew better-everyone was capable of anything, and involving religion only made it easier for them to write off their worst atrocities as righteous acts of divine bidding. That Tiernan happened to be his friend did not exempt him from being one of those people. It merely blinded Drystan to what the man was capable of becoming.

Clamping down on her emotions, she returned his silent admonition with a sneer and turned her attention back to the trail. She knew Drystan would never let this particular subject go, but he was smart enough to leave it be until they were somewhere safer than a tunnel full of shattered skeletons or off in the woods chasing after the people who had left them there. The man knew how to pick his battles, at least, and he usually saved arguing over any serious disagreements he had with her when they were somewhere there would be little risk of significant collateral damage.

Tiernan lead them on for hours as they hiked through the normally raider-plagued hinterlands outside Baedorn. The rolling hills and towering treeline made for perfect ambushes, either from the branches overhead or the shallow but steep-sided valleys that provided ample cover for a large crew of cutthroats. Akkali herself preferred launching attacks from the branches; few ever bothered to look skyward for their doom. Many and dead were the fools upon whose skulls she had simply dropped a heavy log or rock. Because of this she kept a watchful eye on the canopy as they went along, but as with their journey into the city, she spotted nothing more than apathetic birds and damp moss.

The trail wound into a dense stand of bent trees that looked as though they had been lighting-struck in recent years. They were gnarled and dead, blackened and hollowed with fire. Among their roots were the signs of a hastily abandoned hunting camp. Unfletched arrows were scattered where they had been dumped in a rapid retreat. The fire pit still had the faint glow of embers lodged away beneath logs burned stark white and merely waiting for the wind to blow them away into ashes. Tracks from half a dozen horses trampled whatever was left, all of them hastily headed for the main road.

Arms crossed flat against his chest and lips pursed into a thin, calculating line, Tiernan paced to and fro from the camp to the trail that lead away towards the road, eyeing the tracks and occasionally the whole of the area where they had been made in absolute silence. Finally he stood up straight and shook his head. "We'll never catch them up now. They have four or five hours on us on horseback in the open country."