Nimue went back to her tree and slumped to the ground.
The accusatory silence of the faceless victims in the forest hung over them.
THE DEMON BEAR’S JAWS UNHINGED AND STRETCHED TO SWALLOW HER WHOLE.
TWELVE
THEY HEARD THE FLIES BEFORE they saw the bodies. The toppled wagons of an ambushed caravan came into view when Arthur and Nimue rounded the bend of a sun-dappled trail. A clear, cool November sun fought through the red leaves of the large beech trees that filled the forest. The lumps in the road Nimue had first taken as fallen baggage were soon revealed to be dead bodies. They lay strewn over the path and deep into the thicket, chased and cut down in panicked flight.
Nimue slid off Egypt’s saddle as they approached.
“We don’t want to linger here,” Arthur warned. But Nimue ignored him. “They probably camped nearby, waiting to loot the wagons by daylight so they didn’t miss anything.”
Nimue pulled a woman’s bloody corpse over onto its back, revealing a dead toddler beneath her. The mother’s body hadn’t been shield enough for the paladin’s broadsword. The child’s face was cherubic and peaceful, cheeks and eyelids tinted blue with death. Nimue stroked the locks that spilled out from under the girl’s wimple.
“You’re a brave one, aren’t you?” Nimue whispered. “I’m very impressed with you. You didn’t cry. You stayed strong for your mum.” She held the girl’s cold hand. She thought of leaving her mother in the temple. She felt so ashamed. “I wish to be as brave as you.”
Nimue felt a stir in her stomach. The hum.
The girl’s eyes snapped open.
Egypt whickered and turned in a nervous circle, sensing Arthur’s tension. For his part, Arthur surveyed the woods, eyes darting for any movement among the trees. He couldn’t keep his gaze from drifting back to the bodies.
It looked like the paladins had been too lazy for crosses this time. They’d tied three of the Druid men to separate trees and simply swung away at them with their steel until their bodies were unrecognizable.
Something even more disturbing caught Arthur’s eye. It sat by the front of the caravan. Arthur swung his leg around and dismounted Egypt to have a closer look. It was the body of a woman, propped up against one of the wagon wheels. Her head, which lay nearby, had been replaced with a dog’s head. Someone had drawn words in blood on the broadside of the wagon.
DELIVER THE WOLF WITCH
Nimue’s heart pounded. Every instinct told her to run, but the hum held her to the spot. It throbbed in her ears. The girl’s eyes were absent of light, yet open and staring at her all the same.
“They are watching you.” The dead girl’s lips barely moved.
Nimue managed to croak in reply, “Who?”
The dead girl stared at Nimue for a long pause, then answered, “Those who seek the Sword of Power. They wait for you to abandon it so they may claim it.”
“My mother told me to bring the sword to Merlin.”
“The sword has chosen you.”
The thought panicked her. “But I don’t want it.”
“Who in the bloody hell are you talking to?”
Nimue jolted and turned to Arthur looming over her. “Noth-nothing. No one.” Nimue looked back at the dead girl. Her eyes were closed. Her cherubic face was still once more.
“There’s something you should see,” Arthur said softly.
He led Nimue to the woman’s propped-up body. Despite all she’d seen in the past few days, her knees still weakened at the almost joyful savagery of the Red Paladins. Stifling an urge to vomit, Nimue growled. “And?”
Arthur pointed out the bloody words on the wagon. “I can only assume this is you.”
Nimue stared at the words and then closed her eyes and felt her scars burn under the warmth of the sword on her back. She could sense the steel through the scabbard, and an enveloping fury rose up from her guts, into her neck. For a moment she thought it might blind all her senses, but then she steadied her breath and allowed it to writhe within her like some unchained animal.
“We shouldn’t keep them waiting.” Nimue turned on her heel and walked toward Egypt.
Arthur turned, confused. “What? Wait—what?”
THIRTEEN
ARTHUR LED EGYPT DOWN THE path at a crawl, stopping every few minutes to listen for riders and to scan the terrain. Nimue felt Arthur’s sidelong glances but paid him no mind. She felt far away inside herself. She wanted to unleash the demons. She now knew how to do it.
She could still taste her father’s sour brew on her tongue, his paste of juniper and rue and coal dust. Her insides twisted at the memory of those sick mornings, writhing on her bedroll, too ill to stand as her mother and father bellowed at each other. But for all her retching and poison swallowing, Nimue could not control her episodes nor expel the demons causing them.
Eventually, her father packed his seeds and tools, loaded them on a wagon drawn by their only palfrey, and rode north. Nimue had been making dolls that day and came home only to find her mother crying and her father’s wagon turning onto the forest path. He hadn’t even said goodbye to her.
Lenore tried to pull Nimue into the hut, but she broke free.
“Papa!” she shouted, and ran after him. It took forever to reach him and when she did, she was so out of breath she couldn’t speak. She could only pull on the palfrey’s reins.
“Let her go, Nimue,” her father had said.
Her stifled sobs made breathing even harder. Again, she had tried to pull on the horse, but her father’s switch lashed her on the wrist. Nimue stumbled and fell onto the road.
“You’ve brought darkness to this family, Nimue. It’s not your fault, child, but you’ve done it all the same. You’re cursed.”
“But I’m like Mama! The Hidden speak to me, too!”
“Let your mother explain it,” her father growled. “Let her give name to the shadow inside you. I’ll not speak it.”
“I’ll fix it, Papa,” Nimue had pleaded. “I’ll take the medicine! I won’t complain!”
“It’s in your blood, child. There’s no fixing it.”
“But you can stay for Mama. You don’t have to speak with me, just please don’t go!”
Her father’s voice was choked with emotion. “Go now.” He flicked the switch and the palfrey moved on. Nimue ran after him for nearly an hour, until the moon rose over the trees.
But her father never looked back.
Nor did he come home.
Arthur cursed under his breath and Nimue’s attention snapped back to the present. Six horses were tied to a set of pines a hundred paces from the road. Nimue could hear voices in the distance. Arthur clucked his tongue for Egypt to hurry past.
Red Paladins. The effect of those words on Nimue was like a torch to oil. It was a fire that swept through her. Her father leaving, Lenore’s last dying cries, Biette kicked into the dirt, the mocking eyes of the paladin at Hawksbridge, the demon priest’s cold blue eyes, Pym shouting her name.
Nimue slid off the saddle and ran across the road.