“We’ll search more quickly with more scouts,” he continued, “but if the Lost Ones bide in the woods, then they’ll kill them.”
“They did not kill you, walking here.”
“I am no threat to them. They may fear Sorgatani, as they should.”
She nodded. “I’ll come alone, and Sorgatani will search with us.” She ran back to the gate and told Ingo what she meant to do, and when he began to protest, she cut him off. “Let no man walk beyond these walls lest he see what will kill him. Believe what I say, and if you will not believe me, then believe Aronvald or Sister Rosvita. Stay close.”
The path lay quiet. Nothing disturbed them, although water dripped now and again from branches. She stopped once to drink from a brutally cold stream. She had forgotten how thirsty she was, and she gulped down the water and felt her head ache as if the iciness of the water were trying to freeze it.
Sorgatani waited by her painted wagon, anxious as she scanned the forest. “They are gone,” she said to Hanna without turning to see who it was.
“Are you sure?”
She pointed. “Liathano went in that direction. Come.”
They made of themselves a line with Sorgatani in the middle and Breschius and Hanna to either flank. Moving into the trees, they found no bodies. If Sorgatani had killed any, then some had survived to carry away the dead. The light trailing through the trees had a brighter edge today, although haze again covered the sky. Was it thinner? Was there hope that the weather would change?
“Here!” called Breschius.
Hanna beat a path to him with her staff, cutting through thickets and slogging through a patch of mud that slimed her boots. He stood in a clearing staring down at an object hidden by grass. Sorgatani stood beside him; she hid her eyes behind her hand, as if she did not want to see but knew she had to look. Hanna came up to them.
Liath’s bow could never be mistaken for any other. It lay, strung, in the grass, carelessly dropped. Beside it her quiver rested untouched, still full of arrows. A polished black beetle crawled across the clustered shafts of arrows, then balked as it tested the cruel ledge made by a griffin feather.
“Do you think …” whispered Breschius, as if the words actually hurt “… that the galla caught her?”