Chapter 12
it’s not until they reach the Leutewild Inn, nestled in the foothills of a mountain range in Skylan that Brielle senses they are being followed.
They step off the stagecoach that Brielle, Dreska and Inesh have shared with two others on the journey into Skylan so far.
A governess, who will now change coaches to reach her final destination, the capital city of Bergstat and a man who peers at them quietly from under a wide-brimmed hat, muttering a farewell before setting off to his farm, a few miles east on foot.
Brielle moves through the press of pipe smokers and travellers to a table under a window by the bar, shuffling her two young charges into seats.
Inesh droops in her chair, a little green still from the stuffy coach and bumpy lanes, but Dreska, keen-eyed as ever, is already signalling to a barman.
She holds Inesh’s hand, squeezing it gently. ‘You just need to line your stomach.’
Brielle hides her smile, a flare of pride startling her. She’s never mentored anyone before, but, for the first time, she wonders if it will suit her. If this might be her calling after all.
That’s when she hears it. A low hum of voices, words indistinct, the cold touch of a witch’s eyes brushing the back of her neck.
She freezes, then forces herself to joke with her young charges, handing out the glasses of water from the barman, as though nothing is amiss, but it’s unmistakable.
There are witches in this inn, hunters like her, and they’re searching for Brielle.
She accepts a plate of roast meat and seasonal vegetables, cooked slowly with the local herbs grown in the loam of the fields.
She pours thyme sauce over the meat, relishing how Inesh eats a full plate and asks for seconds, the colour and life returning to her after her time as a wraith and the long, arduous journey.
Casually, she glances around, signalling for ale and a second helping for Inesh, sweeping a long, unhurried look over the other patrons.
A flash of silver, a pair of eyes snagging on hers, and she knows for sure.
There are hunters from a coven here, and they’ve marked the three of them.
Nova winds through the chair legs, pausing at Brielle’s side and she pretends to drop her fork, bending down to scoop it up. ‘At least two witches and they’re watching us. Will you find our driver?’
Nova yowls. I see them. Witches indeed and no friendly purpose, I fear. I will search for the driver so we can be on our way.
Brielle gulps down her ale before wiping her mouth with her sleeve, and finds Dreska watching her.
‘Something is amiss, isn’t it?’ she asks.
‘Do you sense it?’
Dreska shrugs, crossing her cutlery on her plate and leaning back. ‘I sense a press, or a brush of eyes. Someone, or something, studying us.’
‘Good,’ Brielle says with a nod. ‘That’s your witch sense. Some never develop it, but as a hunter it’s vital.’
‘Do you know who they are?’ asks Inesh between mouthfuls.
‘No. And as they have not approached us openly …’
Dreska nods in understanding. ‘We should leave.’
‘Quietly,’ Brielle agrees. ‘And swiftly.’
Inesh watches wistfully as a server carries a tray of treacle tarts to another table. ‘I suppose there’s no time for pudding?’
‘Sadly not,’ Brielle says as she spies Nova by the door. She pushes back her chair and raises her eyebrows. ‘We must return to the coach at once. Be alert.’
Outside the Leutewild Inn it is eerily quiet compared to within. The ostler has taken in the horses to be fed and watered, the coach left in a row with two other carriages and a cart. Brielle eyes them thoughtfully before seeking out Nova. ‘No sign of the driver?’
None, Hunter. I’ve searched high and low, but his scent begins and ends in our coach. As though he didn’t even make it inside the inn.
‘Can you sense magic? Any ill workings?’
Nova scrunches her nose. I cannot be sure. There is an odd, cloying scent masking almost everything.
For Brielle, that’s enough of a warning.
She’s learned over years of assignments that when your own senses clang like discordant bells it’s time to move.
She flags down a passing stableboy, pressing a copper into his palm to bring the horses round.
The ostler appears a few minutes later, grousing until Brielle presses more coin into his palms too.
Her eyes dart everywhere as the ostler secures the horses to the coach and she checks the horses herself, inspecting the coach, the wheels.
Dreska and Inesh clamber inside and she casts a wary look back at the steamed-up inn windows, then at the two other carriages. ‘Nova, I need you to stay inside the coach with Dreska and Inesh. Keep them calm.’
And what do you intend to do?
Brielle smiles. ‘Our coach needs a driver.’
She runs a hand over the horses and speaks softly to them, opening up a path between her and them.
She finds they are weary but well fed. She whispers a witch word to each of them, giving them strength and courage, and leaps on to the driver’s seat, taking up the reins.
As she urges the horses forward, rain peppers the seat beside her.
She looks up, finding the grey clouds shrouding the last of the sun as it dips down, near the horizon.
She doesn’t want to make this journey now.
If anything, they should hunker down, allow the horses some rest, take a room and set off at dawn.
Slick roads, poor daylight and the chance of witches on their heels is a poor recipe for success. But they have little choice.
Brielle clicks her tongue and the horses pull forward, away from the inn.
She peers over her shoulder through the steadily increasing rain and, just before they round the corner, she sees the door fly open, two figures emerging.
She was right. They are being watched. She whispers again to the horses and they launch into a trot, needing to put distance between them and the hunters.
If they can just reach the mountain pass, they can find a place to hide.
There’s a village where she has friends, where she rid them of a ghoul a year ago …
It’s dangerous, this pass, and at this time of the year, if the rain has swelled the river, if the horses baulk …
but she has to try. She sets her sights on the road, determination steeling her as the rain trickles down inside her jacket.
She clicks her tongue again, picturing those witches already in pursuit. ‘Faster, beauties. Faster!’
Then she hears it, between the sounds of this coach’s wheels and the horses’ hooves as she attunes her senses. Another coach. No, two coaches, the clatter of many hooves, of wheels clashing against the stone and ground as they pull away from the inn.
She swears softly, calculating the time to the pass, hoping that this coach doesn’t throw a wheel.
The horses can canter, but only over a short distance while attached to the coach and there’s no time to unhook them now.
She clicks her tongue again, her entire being tensing, fizzing with the possibility of a skirmish with these hunters.
As the rain falls around them, the wind whipping up the trees crowding the road as they flee, she wonders if they will survive the night.