Ellis had never believed in monsters. And even if he had, this map wouldn’t have made him turn back. For one thing, whomever had crafted it had done a laughable job with the distance markers. If this map were accurate, he would have arrived at Colbren in the afternoon and been cozily asleep under some tavern’s roof.
Instead of spending the night on the fringes of a forest, under a crooked tent.
He balled up his cloak as a pillow and closed his eyes. Insects chirped and the wind whispered through the trees. He tried to focus on each sound, directing his mind away from his own discomfort.
And then everything went silent. There were no animal sounds, no rustling of wind through the trees.
The change kindled to life some instinct he had not known he had—an animal reaction of raw fear, of pounding pulse and shortened breath.
In the flickering light of his lantern, it took him a heartbeat to see the man. He knelt over Ellis, having entered the tent in perfect silence.
Cold fingers wrapped around Ellis’s throat, so lightly at first it was almost a caress. The man’s hand was as slick as a freshly landed fish, as cold as rainwater. And then the grip went tight.
Panic burned through Ellis. He reached for the only weapon he possessed: a walking stick. He jabbed it toward the man, trying to hit him around the shoulders and head. But it was little use. His heartbeat throbbed with an ever-rising pressure and his sight blurred at the edges.
Ellis could do little more than flail his arms and legs when the man began dragging him out of his tent. It took a moment for Ellis to realize that he was being pulled away from his camp, away from the cheery lantern light and the few trappings of civilization.
He was being dragged into the shadow of the forest.
Ellis was going to die. He was going to die alone, outside a village he could not find because someone had put incorrect distance markers on their map.
Desperation gave him new strength, and he threw a punch at the man’s face. A cut opened up on the man’s forehead, but there was no blood. He seemed more startled than injured; his fingers went slack. The man’s wounded forehead sagged oddly, and revulsion crawled up Ellis’s throat even as he broke free and skittered back into the circle of his small camp. The lantern light cast odd shadows upon the man’s face—there were hollows where cheeks should have been, and his eyes were strangely blank.
He took a step toward Ellis, his fingers outstretched.
That was when the young woman appeared.
She looked at Ellis, then to the man. She was dressed in a loose tunic, her leggings worn and dirty at the knees. Her dark hair was bound in a tangled braid, and in one hand she carried an axe.
“Get out of here!” Ellis rasped, unsure if he was speaking to himself or the girl.
She didn’t listen. When the man staggered toward her, she whirled once, as if to pick up speed, and then she swung the axe with more strength than Ellis could have mustered. The blade sank into the man’s chest, collapsing part of his rib cage. The man fell, twitching, to the ground.
The girl placed her foot on the man’s hip, holding him steady as she pulled the axe free.
Silence fell upon the small camp. Ellis breathed raggedly, his gaze fixed on the dead man. He didn’t look like a bandit—or at least, not like any bandit Ellis had read about. His clothes were too fine, albeit soaked through with muddy water. His skin was too pale, and there was an odd bluish cast to his fingertips.
“Sorry about that,” said the girl.
“No need to apologize to me,” said Ellis, startled.
The girl’s gaze flicked up, then went back to the man. “I wasn’t.”
The man twitched again. Ellis choked back a shout as the man began to sit up. He couldn’t still be alive, not after taking a blow like that. But how—
The girl brought her axe down again. There was a thud and the next thing Ellis knew, there was an arm on the ground. Ellis found himself staring at it. He’d never been in battle before, but surely the removal of a limb would involve more blood.
“Listen,” the girl said, as if speaking to an unruly child. The man rolled over, reached for her with the other, still-attached arm. “You need to stop that.” A swing—a thud.
The man tried to move toward her, using his legs to push himself across the dirt.
“By all the fallen kings,” said Ellis, sickened by the sight. “How is he not dead yet?”
The girl grimaced and slammed the axe into the man’s knee. “He is. That’s the problem.”
“What?”
Finally, the man stopped trying to move. But still his eyes rolled about like those of an enraged animal.
“Do you have a sack?” asked the girl.
For a heartbeat, Ellis stood could only stand there. With a shake of his head, he ducked into the woefully crooked tent and began pulling the canvas free. “Will this work?”
The girl nodded. And without a trace of squeamishness, she reached down and began picking up the pieces of the man she’d just dismembered.
Ellis stared at her and wondered if he shouldn’t cut his losses and run.
“Oh, sit down,” she said. “You look like you’re about to swoon.”
He sank to his haunches. “Who—who are you?”
The girl began hauling the head and torso of the man onto the tent cloth. The dead man was still looking at her, mouth moving silently.
“Aderyn verch Gwyn,” she said. “Gravedigger. And you are?”
Ah. No wonder a corpse did not disturb her.
“Ellis,” he replied. “Of Caer Aberhen.”
She waited for a family name—and he remained silent.
Aderyn looked down at the dead man. She began drawing in the edges of the canvas. A piece of twine appeared in her hand and she looped it around the bundle. “What did you do to him?”
Ellis frowned. “What?”
“Well, you must have done something.” She finished tying off the canvas. “You wearing any iron?”
“What?” he said again. “No.”
“Well, you should. Did you speak the name of the Otherking three times?”
“I—no, of course not.”
“Dabble in magic?”
“Magic doesn’t exist anymore,” he said, some of his fear hardening into irritation. But if there was no magic, how could this man be—
“Dead,” he said softly. He felt as if all his wits had been scattered about the camp, and he was scrambling for them. “He was dead and walking around—that can’t happen.”
Aderyn studied her handiwork. “Outside the forest, no. Inside the forest, yes.” She gave his bedroll a dubious look. “Perhaps he just wanted to share your camp.”
Ellis smiled thinly. “He probably could have found better lodging elsewhere, if he’d bothered to look.” Aderyn laughed. Her gaze came up to meet his and she did not look away. It was the kind of look that held on a little too long. But it was not the same flirtatious glance that some young ladies gave him—rather, it felt like he was being picked apart, dismantled as easily as Aderyn had taken apart the dead man.
He glanced down, eyes on his hands. “Thank you,” he said, realizing he had not said it yet. “For saving my life.”
She let out a breath. “Well, to be honest, if I’d found that the bone house had already killed you, I was going to steal your coin.”