22 PREDATORS
“YOU TWO ALWAYS stare this much, or is it just me?” Fern’s voice, edged with faint amusement, shattered the silence.
Darkness had settled fully now, bringing mist and the restless sounds of night. An owl hooted somewhere beyond the trees. Something moved in the undergrowth. Far off, a wolf howled.
Ailsa barely noticed.
Her dagger lay within reach should Fern try anything.
Dale muttered something under his breath and tore his gaze from their companion, scanning the trees beyond the firelight while one hand rested lightly on the dagger at his thigh.
“We don’t see many Shee in Braewall,” Ailsa replied after a lengthy pause.
Fern arched a brow, stripping the last meat from a pheasant bone. “Aye, well, there are plenty of us roaming the North these days.”
Ailsa shifted, discomforted by this admission.
Catching her reaction, Fern snorted softly and tossed the bone into the fire. It hissed as fat caught flame. Her gaze then flicked between them, measuring, before she glanced over at Rùn. The stallion whickered, swinging his head around to look at her.
Ailsa frowned. Had the pair of them just communicated?
Fern turned her attention back to the fire, her expression veiling.
“Who stuck you with an iron blade then?” Dale asked finally.
Fern glanced up, grimacing. “The bastards came out of nowhere at first light this morning.” She paused then. “I’d been following them the day before and thought I’d stayed hidden. I was wrong. They shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on me though … I must be losing my edge.”
Pulse quickening, Ailsa leaned forward. “Did you get a good look at them?”
“Aye. Warriors. Wearing black. Heavily armed and fast.” Fern paused then, her jaw tightening. “Too fast.”
Ailsa stilled. That sounded like them.
“What do you mean?” Dale asked with a frown.
“They don’t move like common men,” she replied. “They don’t hesitate. And they don’t tire easily. They nearly had me.”
Silence settled, pressing in before Dale shattered it. “Why were you following them?”
Fern shrugged. “A hunter’s instinct, I suppose. I spied them on the road ahead, and something didn’t feel right.” Her gaze flicked from his face to Ailsa’s. “You’re tracking them too, aren’t you?”
“They’ve taken someone,” Ailsa admitted, unable to hold it in any longer. “A woman with red hair. Did you see her?”
“I did.” Fern gave Ailsa a long, penetrating look. “What do they want with her?”
“We don’t know.”
Another silence followed before Fern pulled a face. “You’re both game, I’ll give you that … but you’re outmatched.”
Dale gave a rude snort.
“You underestimate us,” Ailsa replied stiffly. “We’ve tracked them this far, haven’t we?”
“Aye … but you haven’t faced them yet.”
“We’ll manage,” Dale answered.
Fern’s gaze flicked to him. She didn’t look impressed. “You’re tired. You’re already behind.” The challenge in her voice sharpened the air. “And I’d wager you have no plan beyond running at them in the dark and hoping for the best.”
Ailsa’s fingers tightened into fists. “We do have a plan.” She shot Dale a quick look, daring him to contradict her.
Fern inclined her head.
“We strike at night.” Dale bit out the words. “When they’re camped. We’ll take them off guard.”
“What if they’re expecting you?”
Ailsa scowled. Gods. She hoped they weren’t. However, she couldn’t deny the possibility. After all, they’d already sent one of their group back to deal with her and Dale. Fern didn’t need to know about that though.
Dale’s brows drew together. He clearly didn’t like being second-guessed, least of all by a stranger.
For once, Ailsa was completely in agreement with him. Folding her arms, she fixed Fern with a hard stare.
The huntress merely shrugged. “All I’m saying is you clearly haven’t thought this through.”
The glower Dale gave her then could have melted iron.
However, Fern stared back, unbothered. “You’re driven … I’ll give you that. And”—her gaze narrowed a little—“desperate.” A warning rumbled in Dale’s throat, but she wasn’t finished. “Both of which will get you killed.”
Silence followed these words.
The fire crackled between them. After a while, Fern sighed and leaned back on her hands. “You’re going the right way, at least. They’re following this burn northeast. It bends toward a narrow pass. If they keep that course, they’ll make for higher ground by tomorrow.”
Dale nodded, his jaw tight now. “They’re heading into The Goatfells, then?”
“Aye.”
Ailsa awoke early. Somehow, she’d rolled onto a hard root that now jabbed her in the ribs, bruising her. Wrapped up in blankets and her cloak, she’d been warm enough, although the tips of her ears were numb, reminding her that the bitter season was upon them.
Wincing, she pushed herself up into a sitting position.
Enough rest. They had a quarry to catch.
She climbed to her feet and started deftly rolling up her blanket.
As she did so, her gaze traveled across the smoking embers of the fire to find Fern watching her.
She looked as if she had been awake for a while, for her grey eyes were bright, her long, silken black hair braided into a neat plait.
She sat cross-legged, her posture relaxed yet ready.
Ailsa pursed her lips. “What are you looking at?” Her breath clouded the sharp air.
Fern smirked. She then pulled out a knife from the sheath on her thigh and began to sharpen it.
Ailsa glanced around. “Where’s Dale? We should already be moving.”
“Just went off into the trees … to take a piss, I imagine.” Fern paused then, still focused on sharpening her blade. “How well do you know the man who travels with you?”
Ailsa moved across to Dale’s abandoned blanket and started rolling that one up too. She didn’t have time for games. “We’ve been traveling together for a few days,” she hedged.
“There’s something off with him.”
Ailsa cut her a sharp look. So, Fern had noticed too, had she?
“He smells wrong.”
Ailsa turned away and scooped up their water skins. “Does he?” She hadn’t noticed. To her, Dale smelled of horse, leather, and virile male—unsettling for a different reason. One she wouldn’t be admitting to Fern.
“Aye … his scent carries the undertone of something … animal.”
Ailsa stiffened. Those golden eyes still haunted her.
“You don’t smell right either,” Fern added.
Dumping the rolled blankets and water skins next to Rùn, Ailsa went to fetch the saddle. Dale was taking his time. Kayla would already be on the move, and she’d had enough of Fern’s unsettling observations. “Really?”
“Different from him.” Ailsa turned to see that Fern was leaning toward her, nostrils flaring as she took another sniff. “Ice. And something metallic … like blood.”
Cold slid through her chest. Blood?
Fern’s gaze roamed over her face, scrutinizing. A moment later, she drew back, a groove etching between her finely arched brows. “You both smell like … predators.”
A twig snapped behind Ailsa.
“Good … you’re both up.” Heart pounding, she glanced over her shoulder to see Dale emerge from behind a large oak on the far side of the glade. He moved toward them, boots crunching on frost, limping slightly. “Time to get going.”
“Watch yourselves with the Circines in The Goatfells. They don’t welcome visitors.”
Darach nodded as he cinched Rùn’s girth. He appreciated the warning, although he wouldn’t say so.
Fern already treated him like he was a wet-behind-the-ears pup, and he didn’t enjoy being patronized.
All the same, he hadn’t traveled farther north into The Uplands than this before.
The Goatfells loomed ahead. Lawless ground, if the tales were true. Hill tribes. No crown ruled up there.
“Which way are you headed now?” he asked, vaulting up onto his stallion’s back.
He itched to be rid of Fern. She put him on edge.
It didn’t help that the beast was growing restless again. The fucker had pushed and clawed all evening, and he’d awoken before dawn to a throbbing pain in his thigh. His breathing was now tight, his nerves taut.
The two of them, Ailsa and Fern, had been whispering together earlier when he emerged from the trees. A conversation that had abruptly ended upon his arrival.
He didn’t like that either.
Ailsa’s already pale skin had turned the color of bone. Her face looked thinner than it had a few days ago. She’d appeared shaken. Frightened even.
What had Fern said to her?
“Golval Barrow isn’t far from here,” Fern replied, adjusting the dagger belt around her hips, before strapping on the quiver of arrows and shouldering her bow. The day before, she’d been half-dead, and now, she looked fresher than either him or Ailsa. “I will return to Sheehallion there.”
Despite his impatience to part ways from Fern—to strike out into The Goatfells after Kayla—curiosity pricked at Darach.
Shee used barrows, portals between this realm and theirs.
Malevolent wraiths, wights, protected those burial mounds.
They allowed the Shee to pass, but not Marav.
He wondered what it would be like to cross into Sheehallion, to see the land of eternal spring.
Like all his people, he’d never get the chance.
Wordlessly, he held out a hand to Ailsa. She took it and sprang up lightly behind him. However, her body felt as rigid as a plank of wood this morning.
Aye, whatever Fern had whispered had rattled her.
“Thank you … both.” The words, spoken sincerely, made Darach glance Fern’s way once more. She was watching them, her expression solemn now. “Coming to a stranger’s aid is no small thing … I’ll remember it.”
Darach nodded, acknowledging her, even as his stomach tightened. She shouldn’t include him in her thanks. Ailsa was the soft-hearted one.
Something caught his eye in a nearby oak then. Bare branches were silhouetted against a grey morning sky. A huge black raven was watching him.
He stilled. Was it the same one they’d spied twice the day before?
He jerked his attention back to Fern then, just as she turned, braid swinging. And then, she stalked away without a backward glance. With a loud caw, the raven launched itself from the branch and took flight, following her into the trees.