Chapter 10 James
James
James.
He jerked upright, certain that he’d find Ahnna standing before him, but there were only the sleeping shapes of his men and the glow of the campfire.
“Sir?” Arthur stepped from the shadows, a loosely nocked bow in his hands. His full head of curls pushed out from beneath his woolen cap, his face red from the cold.
“What was that?” James asked.
“Screams,” Arthur answered, turning his back to the fire so that his eyes were once again on the shadows. “Sounded like a lion caught something farther up the valley.”
James stiffened, and his stomach dropped.
“Not human screams,” Arthur clarified, rocking on his heels. “Horse.”
The world spun, James’s mind filling with a vision of Ahnna’s half-eaten corpse, her hazel eyes staring glassily up at him. He hunted her with the intent of killing her, but the vision made him feel sick, his mouth sour. “Wake everyone. We need to ride.”
“It’s not wise to ride in the dark, Major General,” Arthur said. “If a lion took her horse, we’ll catch her quick come daylight.”
“She might be injured.” The words came out without thought, and as Arthur frowned, James added, “The king will want proof she’s dead. That’s hard to give if she’s in a lion’s stomach.”
All true, but not the reason his pulse thrummed with urgency. “Get everyone up.”
Though the men moved swiftly, it felt like an eternity before they were mounted, and it was all James could do not to gallop Maven down the dark trail.
Under any circumstances, doing so would be dangerous, but he was well aware of Ithicana’s reputation for booby traps and trickery, and the idea that this might be a trick sat in the back of his mind as they pressed onward up the winding trail.
“Should’ve brought the dogs,” Arthur called, and though he was a reliable soldier, James wished he spoke less. “She could’ve backtracked around us and we’d never know it. We should send someone back for them.”
There was no backtracking here, at least not on horseback.
The terrain was too rough, torn apart by rockslides and crisscrossed with deep ravines.
On her own, she’d manage the climb, but Ahnna wouldn’t abandon Dippy in the wilds, of that much James was certain.
“Dogs don’t survive these mountains,” he called back.
“If the lions don’t get them, they bring bears down upon camps. No dogs.”
James had hunters and their hounds with them, but he’d sent them back when they’d first encountered mountain lion scat.
Though it had been tempting to keep the hounds longer, given the way they bayed and barked at Ahnna’s fresh trail, James knew better.
The Blackreach lions didn’t just eat dogs, they ate men, and it was better to take longer than to risk his men’s lives by tempting the wildlife down upon them.
Yet for all his thoughts for caution, he heeled Maven into a canter at the first glow of dawn light.
Only to draw her up short as he rounded a bend.
The small clearing had signs it was regularly used as a camp by travelers, and the remains of three charred campfires looked fresh. But it was the dead lion at the center of the site that stole his attention.
James drew his sword, hunting for signs that this was a trap even as his heart climbed into his throat with the certainty that the next body he’d spot would be hers.
But there was no sign of Ahnna or her horse.
Sliding off Maven’s back, James left the mare and approached the dead lion. It was broken and bloodied, fur more red than white, but there was no mistaking the distinct shape of a horseshoe repeatedly crushed into its flesh.
Dippy had proven his worth.
Reaching down, James touched the broken arrow jutting from the cat’s flank, feeling the temperature of the body, which had not yet frozen. “She’s not long gone. Ride!”