Chapter Seven
He followed her through the forest.
Three days after he’d woken in her house, the morning turned warm rather quickly, the sun already filtering down in long shafts where the canopy overhead was thin.
The air held that early-summer softness—cool in shadow, but pleasant where the light struck full.
Avery walked ahead of him, her stride steady, neither hurried nor cautious, and several times snuck glances back at him.
Charlie loped between them and the trees, nose low, tail swaying, doubling back now and then to circle Avery before darting off again. The hound did not treat Morggán as an interloper or as a threat, but he wasn’t overly curious about him either.
Morggán had invited himself to walk with her, hadn’t been invited.
“I’ll join ye, as ye go,” he’d said ten minutes ago, as she’d made to set out.
He’d caught her unawares, as told by the fleeting stiffening in her expression. He thought then and still that she’d wanted to make some excuse why he shouldn’t or couldn’t accompany her, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d nodded her acceptance, but he didn’t mistake that as welcome.
His intent was twofold, in that first, he could not abide another maddening day of only standing idle, and second, because he was still curious about her, the latter not being anything he bothered to hide from himself even as it bedeviled him.
Aye, he had some sense of what kept her busy during the day.
She’d returned daily with rabbits attached to her belt, and in the afternoon with an armload of jagged cut wood, which she added to the piles inside and outside the house.
But he wanted to see and know how she went about it, how she conducted herself, the reason behind his want being labeled as mere curiosity even as he knew the pull was stronger than only that, though inexplicable all the same.
Still, he might regret not letting the curiosity keep a day or so longer.
Each step jarred faintly through his ribs, a reminder of the blow that had cracked them.
The gash high in his thigh pulled when he lengthened his stride, the flesh knitting but not yet sealed.
He measured his pace carefully, neither limping nor straining, not intending to keep pace with Avery, only to keep her in sight.
But already the stiffness had eased since dawn, and he trusted his body enough to know its limits.
He would not climb high ground or break into a run unless pressed.
Walking he could manage. But then, he walked out of his way to go around a fallen trunk Avery stepped over without thought.
He didn’t need to push himself, and it wasn’t worth aggravating any injury to arrive somewhere he’d get to only a minute later.
He’d wondered how she’d managed her hunting and here was the answer, he saw, as she and moments later, he, came upon a snare set near a cluster of low brush where the ground dipped slightly.
Avery crouched and brushed aside a snarl of roots and brush near the trap.
The loop had caught nothing, had only been sprung loose from the nudge of some small creature that had escaped before the line tightened.
She reset it without comment.
Morggán approached the snare after she’d moved on and studied it without touching it.
The loop was set at the right height for hare, no wider than necessary, the cordage thin enough to pass unnoticed yet strong enough to hold.
She had placed it where the ground narrowed between two low hazel stems, forcing whatever passed through to keep to the center.
The trigger was simple but well-balanced, carved clean and seated with care so that the slightest brush would loose it, yet not so delicate that wind would spring it uselessly.
He might have expected rough work born of necessity, something that functioned by stubborn luck more than skill.
Instead, he found balance and foresight in it.
The surprise flickered and passed though, as she had already shown him she was competent, skilled even, in regard to trapping hares.
“The wind has shifted,” he said as they moved on, hardly able to fathom how she, a female, talked less than he did, never having met the like.
“It does that in the morning sometimes,” she answered, not looking back.
Morggán studied the path she chose between traps. She favored no clear trail, instead weaving through bracken and young birch, placing her snares where small animals would pass unnoticed by larger hunters. It was thoughtful work, not random. She didn’t wander, but seemed to plan.
At the second snare, the hound paused and sat back on his haunches as if already aware of the outcome.
Avery knelt again, and removed the trapped hare from the loop.
She dispatched it quickly, one firm motion of her knife, and then rose and sunk the body into a fairly large—hopeful—sack tied with cord to her belt.
The hound was then distracted and burst through a patch of brush to their right, chasing something unseen. Leaves scattered. A flash of red darted up a tree—a squirrel—and the hound barked once in excitement and then circled the tree in stops and starts, his gaze riveted.
Morggán watched Avery’s mouth twitch faintly at the sight. Not quite a smile, but close.
“He ever catch anything?” Morggán asked.
“Never,” she replied. “And likely won’t unless hopefulness suddenly becomes a useful tool.”
Morggán considered that, grinning himself now, thinking about soldiers to whom the same sentiment might apply. The hound lost interest in the squirrel, now out of sight, and circled behind him before slipping ahead again.
At the third snare, the line had been disturbed, the trap sprung, but it held no game.
Avery went to her haunches and inspected the ground, then glanced left and right.
Morggán arrived and peered over her shoulder, wondering what gave her pause.
The earth bore a faint impression—longer than a fox, heavier than a marten.
She studied it again and traced the imprint with two fingers, though was careful not to erase it entirely.
“Your hound, mayhap?” he asked, though he knew the answer before she gave it.
She shook her head once. “Wolf.”
He studied the direction of travel. The track angled from deeper timber toward the narrow run where she set her lines, then veered away again.
“Ye’ve seen evidence of packs?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’ve seen two and three together,” she said. “I’ve heard them, and have seen the tracks of larger numbers but haven’t run into larger packs myself.”
Wolves did not trouble dwellings unless hunger pressed them or man drove them from other ground.
“Do they come near your clearing?” he asked.
“Not close, not often.”
He nodded once, but his gaze remained on the print.
Wolves were cautious by nature, testing weakness before committing. They would be troublesome to a grown man armed and steady, but a solitary dwelling at the edge of their range, one woman and a dog? If a winter grew hard or meat scarce, boldness could follow.
“Ye bury your scraps and bones?” he asked.
She nodded as she rose to stand. “Always,” she said, “and not close to the house.”
Morggán nodded now, satisfied that she practiced caution, and they moved on.
However, the satisfaction thinned as an unexpected scent reached him—woodsmoke.
He paused and drew a fuller breath, careful not to expand his ribs too quickly.
The air carried damp earth and green leaf, but beneath it lay the scent of smoke, which did not belong to the forest. He glanced around and upward, knowing he was too immersed inside the forest to find smoke rising above it.
“I need high ground,” he asserted.
Avery stopped and turned, her brow wrinkled.
“I need to see the forest,” he explained.
Without taking her perplexed gaze from him, she pointed toward her left.
“Lead the way,” he said, already closing the distance between them with his awkward gait. “Keep the hound close.”
She asked no questions, but pivoted once more and made her way through a band of fir trees, going as straight as possible, as the terrain would allow. Morggán struggled now to keep up, being both winded and in pain for this greater exertion.
The ground eventually rose gently through a copse of thinner trees, and almost immediately the gradual climb taxed him further. He weighed that against the need to see, to find the source of the smoke.
Avery reached the crest well before he did. She glanced back several times to watch his slower progress. When he finally arrived at the ridge beside her, wearing a grimace, she pointed to the east, over the top of the trees.
Three columns of smoke rose beyond the eastern tree line.
They were evenly spaced, fifty yards apart, thereabouts, steady, not hidden.
Three fires meant a company large enough to post watches.
These fires did not belong to hunters or shepherds.
No small band would announce itself so plainly.
His own men would never dare an open fire in the daytime, so close to the enemy only days ago.
English, his guess, most likely riding the outer edge of the forest where the land lay flatter and more open.
In all probability, they would not force horses through heavy growth unless compelled.
They would skirt the forest, only press along its margins.
He traced the line from that smoke back to the clearing where Avery’s hut stood, nearly a mile behind them through dense undergrowth, fallen timber, and uneven ground, poor terrain for cavalry.
For now, the forest shielded her, mayhap always had and always would—that is, until the day it didn’t.
Morggán shifted his weight carefully, easing pressure off the thigh before starting down the slope. Avery followed him now, though not until a full ten seconds had passed.