Aydin and Colwin exchanged a look Emma found hard to decipher. It didn’t reassure her. Ordinarily, she would’ve dismissed such a legend as silly, scary stories made up to make children behave, but there
were
centaurs here! And centaurs weren’t supposed to really exist. “I guess we’re going to go a different way?” she asked a little weakly.
Aydin turned to look back in the direction they’d come. “We’d have to double back several miles and find another way.”
“Well, let’s just do that, ok?”
Colwin shot an unfathomable look in her direction. “It’s legend, Aydin. Look at this thing. It must have been standing here hundreds of years.”
Aydin shrugged. “Legends are usually based on fact,” he muttered.
“True, and I imagine the lost tribe existed at one time, but, if they still did, someone would’ve heard about them, right?”
“I don’t like the smell of this place,” Aydin said flatly, “or the feel of it.”
Colwin lifted his head as Aydin had before. Watching him, Emma lifted her head and sniffed until she felt lightheaded, but she didn’t smell anything—except old—a musty sort of smell.
Colwin frowned. “I think it might be a mistake to double back. We have a strong lead on the hunters, but that would cut our lead in half and we don’t know how far out of our way we’d have to go.”
“Hunters?” Emma echoed, feeling her heart contract painfully. “You mean to say the king’s men are behind us?”
Colwin and Aydin exchanged a look. “
Someone
is following us,” Aydin said coolly. “I’m guessing it’s the king’s men.”
“Oh my god! Why didn’t you say something? How long have they been behind us?”
“Pretty much since we entered the forest,” Colwin said dryly. “That’s why we didn’t try turning toward the village.”
“I don’t think we should go back if there’s any chance of running into them,” Emma said unhappily.
She saw indecision in Aydin’s eyes for the first time. It scared her worse than anything they’d discussed, because she knew Aydin must sense something really scary ahead of them.
“We’ll go on,” he said finally. “Just … look sharp.”
Emma noticed he didn’t put his sword away.
Colwin noticed, too. He began to search the ground, picking up golf ball sized rocks and smaller and tucking them into the pouch he’d made similar to the one Aydin carried at his waist. When they’d traveled a little further, he paused long enough to pull a broken tree limb from the brush. After testing it, he tossed it away, but his search for a club made icy fingers of dread creep up Emma’s spine.
They hadn’t traveled far when they came upon another of the huge stone carvings. Colwin and Aydin slowed, stared at it hard, but they didn’t stop.
Emma scanned the sky worriedly. The sun was already halfway toward the horizon and sunset. She had no idea how long it might take them to get through the area that was making Aydin and Colwin uneasy, but she hoped they could pass it before the sun set. The only thing scarier than being in a really scary place at all was being there after dark!
Apparently, Colwin and Aydin were of a similar frame of mind. They began to move a little faster once Colwin had armed himself the best he could. Emma burrowed her face against Aydin’s back, hoping not to see what an ogre looked like. They’d only been traveling a little more than an hour, however, when Aydin stopped so abruptly she knew even before she lifted her head that she was going to see something nightmarish.
She smelled it before she saw it, the most ghastly odor she’d ever smelled wafting from a living thing. It was the color of something dead—a nasty grayish color—and it looked sort of like a cross between an ape—with the mange—and a hideous ugly man.
It grinned at them, showing a double row of rotting, broken teeth. “Come here, little ponies,” it crooned in a gravelly voice. “I’m hungry. Or you can just give me that tasty little morsel on your back and I’ll consider letting you pass.”
Emma screamed.
It galvanized everything in the narrow gulch. Ogres appeared from behind every rock, it seemed. Colwin, using the sling he’d made with a strip of her underskirt and the rocks he’d collected, launched a hail of missiles that had the ogres running and ducking for cover even as he and Aydin launched into a full out run.
“Hang on, Emma!” Aydin bellowed, lifting his sword as he charged straight toward the towering blob of flesh that had blocked their path. The thing tried to jump aside when Aydin swung at it, but it was too slow to avoid the blade. It screamed as Aydin’s sword bit so deeply it nearly severed the arm, countering with a blow with its other arm that staggered Aydin.
Because he didn’t duck to avoid it because Emma was right behind him.
Emma tried to duck, however, and when Aydin lost his footing, she lost her grip on him and tumbled off, hitting the rocky ground so hard it stunned her. The instinct for survival had her bounding up without the time it would’ve taken her mind to assess her situation. Something slammed into her even as she rose, an arm snagging her around the waist. She caught a flash of flying golden hair and registered that it was Colwin who’d scooped her up and then a dizzying blur as he tossed her onto his shoulder.
Aydin, she saw, had regained his feet. He bucked, slinging his hind legs into the air and slamming both hooves into the ogre’s face. The ogre’s head rocked back on it’s neck and it toppled backwards. Emma could see ogres converging on him from every direction, however, even as Colwin rounded a bend in the gulch and cut off her view.
“Aydin!” she screamed. “Colwin, you have to go back!”
He ignored her demand, racing along the dry bottom of the gulch at a pace that was dizzying. In a moment, she saw Aydin charging around the bend, dodging the rocks the orgres were undoubtedly lobbing at him.
He was hurt. She could see he was favoring one leg, could see blood trickling from his head and his chest and arms from the rocks.
She was in distress herself, though she’d been too terrified at first to feel it. Jouncing along on Colwin’s hard shoulder, though, it felt as if she’d cracked ribs. She could barely breathe and even before she’d caught sight of Aydin, the world had begun to narrow and grow dark.
She was still hanging upside down across Colwin’s shoulder when she surfaced toward consciousness again, but she discovered Colwin had stopped. He dragged her from his shoulder, curling his free arm across her shoulders as she slipped toward the ground and then knelt with her and settled her gently on the ground. She struggled to lift her eyelids and was relieved to see Colwin’s and Aydin’s worried faces swim into view.
“Where are you hurt, dearling?”
Warmth wafted through her at the endearment. She frowned, though, trying to pinpoint where she hurt when she hurt everywhere. “Can’t breathe,” she gasped finally when she tried to take in a deep breath and discovered she couldn’t without pain.
“It’s the gods damned dress!” Aydin growled.
One of them rolled her onto her side and she felt the laces being loosened. A few minutes later, she felt the tug and pull of the dress being removed and lifted her arms to help. She discovered to her relief that she actually could breathe a lot easier once it was gone.
A hand lightly stroked her ribs.
“Better?”
That was Aydin. She wondered if it had been his hands checking her ribs. She tested her lungs carefully and found that it didn’t hurt nearly as badly to drag in a breath.
“Yes,” she grunted.
“Bruised, I think. I can’t feel a break.”
She opened her eyes wide as memory abruptly flooded back and struggled to get up.
Colwin held her down. “You are safe.”
“They’re gone?” she asked shakily. “You’re sure?”
“We didn’t stop until we were.”
Emma stared at both of them and abruptly burst into tears.
Colwin glanced at Aydin uneasily and got up. Emma flung her arms around Aydin before he could escape, clinging to him tightly and burrowing her face against his chest. He hesitated for a moment and wrapped his arms around her. “It is alright, dearest. You are safe now.”
“I was so scared!”
“I know. It is alright now, though.”
She sniffed, suddenly remembering she’d seen that he was hurt and pulled away to look at him. “You’re hurt.”
He shook his head. “Bruises, a few small cuts. It is nothing that will not heal quickly. We were fortunate they are slow beasts.”
Emma shuddered, suddenly remembering things she hadn’t even been aware that she’d noticed at the time—bones. It had looked like human remains, skulls grinning up at her from among the rocks.
“You hurt your foot,” she wailed.
“Not badly,” he assured her.
“Is Colwin hurt?”
“He is only bruised—we are all only bruised and scraped.”
She shuddered. “It could’ve been so much worse!”
“But it wasn’t.”
But it could’ve been! There’d been dozens of them! And Aydin hadn’t had anything to defend himself with but his short sword and Colwin hadn’t even had that much! Just the club and the rocks!
“Do you feel well enough to keep moving? We need to find water before we make camp for the night.”
Sniffing, Emma leaned away from him and mopped at her face with her hand. She didn’t want to let go of him, but she knew he was right. In any case, the further they could get from the ogres, the better she’d like it. She nodded, but she had to make her hands unclench from him.
“I will carry her,” Colwin said. “It will be easier on your ankle.”
Emma had been about to object strenuously. She wanted to cling to Aydin still, wanted to reassure herself by holding him. She’d been so afraid he wouldn’t make it, so terrified that Colwin would leave him behind to save her.
She knew that was why he wouldn’t stop. She knew if it hadn’t been for her he would’ve been beside Aydin, fighting with him.
She started crying all over again when she realized that Aydin had almost died because of her.
Colwin looked at her uncertainly, but he helped her onto his back. “He will be alright,” he said gruffly. “I do not think it is broken.”
Emma tightened her arms around him. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you either,” she said tearfully. “You almost got killed—both of you and it was all my fault!”
Colwin made a sound of irritation. Reaching around, he pulled her off his back and cradled her in his arms instead. “That is not true, Emma!”
She coiled her arms around his shoulders, burrowing her face against his neck. “It is true! You wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me and … and if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have tried to go this way … and you wouldn’t have left him if you hadn’t been worried about getting me to safety.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said after a long moment. “And neither would Aydin.”
Sniffing, Emma lifted her head to look at him. “You wouldn’t?”
His gaze flickered over her face. He shook his head. “I do not like to think about what would have happened to you if I had not gone after you.”
Despite the reassurance, Emma was still so shaky when they finally came upon a small pool of water she could barely stand when Colwin set her on her feet.
“Let us get these scratches washed up, huh?”
Emma blinked at him, but she didn’t object when he led her to the edge of the pool and helped her into the water. The moment she stepped into the water, though, she felt every stinging abrasion she’d hadn’t been aware of before. Releasing a hissing breath, she lifted her arms and looked at them.
Both palms and forearms looked as if they’d been through a meat grinder. She couldn’t see her legs, but she didn’t have to to know they were in pretty much the same condition. Her ribs, she discovered, were already beginning to turn black and blue from the bruising.
No wonder she’d felt like she hurt in too many places to count!
She looked up to discover Colwin had a cloth in his hand. “This will sting, but I need to be sure there is nothing in the scratches that might get infected.”
She nodded. To her surprise, he cupped her chin and very gently dabbed at it—and it still hurt like hell! He studied it frowningly for several moments and then rinsed the cloth and touched it to her forehead.
She sucked in a sharp breath, flinching, but gritted her teeth and closed her eyes until he’d finished washing the knot on her forehead. She opened her eyes again when he stopped and discovered he was studying her face. He met her gaze for a moment and lowered his head, brushing his lips lightly along hers.
It warmed her and not merely in a sexual way. Actually, not really in a sexual way at all, she realized. It was more like the offer of comfort and it warmed in her just that way.
She saw that Aydin was studying the two of them when Colwin gave her the cloth and moved away and the sense of comfort vanished like mist. He met her gaze for a long moment and then returned his attention to his own wounds. They’d stopped bleeding, but there was dried blood near the hairline on his forehead.
Instead of focusing on her scrapes and scratches, she moved toward him, moving around him to examine his back. There was a mass of bruises already forming from the rocks he’d been pelted with and several wide swaths of scratches. Rinsing the cloth, she carefully wiped at them with it.
It wasn’t actually much a relief to see that most of the blood came away and that the scratches weren’t that bad. The deep bruising was evidence enough of force of the blows. She was pretty sure she’d gotten most of hers from simply falling off of his back—her own clumsiness. He’d caught the brunt of the assault while Colwin was busy trying to get her to safety.