Later, far away, she heard men speaking. There was nothing she could do about it. Her arms were too heavy to move, and she could hardly feel her legs. Swallowing was difficult because her throat was sore, mouth dry, lips cracked and bleeding. Thirst burned through her, and she made a small sound; a croak, or whimper.
A strong, warm hand slid under her neck, and the cool rim of a tin cup touched her lips. Water flooded her mouth, and she choked on it; but she tried again, greedily, and managed to swallow every last drop. The effort exhausted her, though. Sally fell back against the rocky ground, eyes closed, too weak to care where she was, or whom she was with. All she could see inside her mind were the children, and one in particular: the little girl, wild-eyed and inhuman, whispering, Hurry.
“Hurry,” Sally heard a man say.
Strong arms slid beneath her body, lifting her off the ground. Her head lolled, and another set of hands, smelling of horse and ash, pushed under her neck, supporting her. She was carried a short distance, and her eyelids cracked open just enough to see sunlight filtering through the leaves, green and lush, whispering in the wind.
Sally was placed on another flat surface that was considerably softer than the ground, and felt as though it had been padded with blankets, bags of meal, hay, and several sharp objects that jutted uncomfortably into her side.
A man’s face suddenly blocked the sun. Sally could see nothing of his features, but he held up her head again to drink from the same tin cup, and then wiped her mouth with the edge of his sleeve.
“Damn,” said a gruff voice. “This is a strange place.”
“Just drive,” replied the man beside her, with a distinct weariness in his voice. Reins cracked, and the surface upon which Sally rested lurched with a groan. The leaves began moving overhead.
The man who had helped her drink water lay down beside her with a tired sigh. He did not touch her. Sally tried to look at him, but her eyes drifted shut, and her head felt too heavy to move. She heard the man humming softly to himself. His voice carried her into sleep, though she dreaded the darkness. She was afraid of her dreams.
But when she opened her eyes again, she remembered nothing of her sleep. The sun was still up. She stared at the branches of trees, and the wind was blowing. But the wagon had stopped, and the man who had lain beside her was gone.
Sally smelled woodsmoke. She rolled over on her side, and found that she still had her belongings; even the gold coins in her pouch. She checked her throat for her necklace, and pulled it out from beneath her neck-line. Amethyst glittered, though her eyes were drawn to the tiny remains of the wooden heart, the grains of which suddenly seemed threaded with gold.
Sally tucked the necklace back inside her dress, and peered over the wagon wall. She saw a clearing surrounded by oaks and dotted with clumps of bluebells; and a man who was juggling stones.
Quite a lot of stones, all of them irregularly shaped, as if he had just gathered them up from the ground and started juggling on the spot. His hands were a blur, and he was sitting in front of a small crackling fire. Except for the juggling, he was utterly unassuming in appearance, neither tall nor short, big nor small, but of a medium build that was nonetheless lean, and healthy. His hair was brown, cut unfashionably short, and he wore simple clothing of a similar color, though edged in a remarkable shade of crimson. A silver chain disappeared beneath his collar.
Several horses grazed nearby. Sally saw no one else.
The man suddenly seemed to notice that she was watching him, and with extraordinary ease and grace allowed each of the rocks flying through the air to fall into his hands. He hardly seemed to notice. His gaze never left hers, and Sally found herself thinking that his face was rather remarkable, after all—or maybe that was his eyes. He looked as though he had never stared at anything dull in his entire life.
His mouth quirked. “I wondered whether you would ever wake.”
Sally was not entirely convinced that she had stopped dreaming. “How long was I asleep?”
He hesitated, still watching her as though she were a puzzle. “Since we found you yesterday. Just on the border of the Tangleroot. Another few steps and you would have been inside the forest.”
Sally stared. “Impossible.”
He tossed a rock in the air, and in an amazing show of agility, caught it on the bridge of his nose—swaying to hold it steady. “Which one?”
“Both,” she said sharply, and tried to sit up. Dizziness made her waver, and she clung to the wagon wall, gritting her teeth. “When I stopped… when I stopped yesterday to rest, I was nowhere near that place.”
“Well,” said the man, letting the rock slide off his face as he stared at her again, thoughtfully. “Things happen.”
And then he looked past her, beyond the wagon, and smiled. “What a surprise.”
Sally frowned, and struggled to look over her shoulder. What she saw was indeed a surprise—but not, she thought, any cause for smiles.
Men stood on the edge of the clearing, which she realized now was beside a narrow track, hardly used by the length of the grass growing between the shallow wagon tracks. The men were dressed in rags and leather, with swords belted at their waists and battered packs slung over lean shoulders. Some wore bent metal helms on their heads, and their boots seemed ill-fitting, several with the toes cut out.
Mercenaries, thought Sally, reaching for the knife belted at her hip. A small scouting party, from the looks of them. Only four in total, no horses, little to carry except for what they could scavenge. Sally had no idea how far she had come from home, but she knew without a doubt that she was still well within the borders of the kingdom. Her father had been right: one day soon there would be the sound of hard footfall outside the castle; and then it would be over.
The mercenaries walked closer, touching weapons as their hard, suspicious eyes surveyed the clearing. The man by the fire started juggling again, but with only two rocks—a slow, easy motion that was utterly relaxed, even cheerful. But something about his smile, no matter how genuine, felt too much like the grin of a wolf.
And wolves, Sally thought, usually traveled in packs.
“You’ve come for entertainment,” he said to the mercenaries, and suddenly there was a red ball in the air, amongst the rocks. Sally could not guess how it had gotten there. The mercenaries paused, staring, and then began smiling. Not pleasantly.
“You could say that,” said one of them, a straw-haired, sinewy man who stood slightly bent, as though his stomach hurt. He gave Sally an appraising look. She refused to look away, and he laughed, taking a step toward her.
By the fire, the juggler stood and kicked at the burning wood, scattering sparks and ashes at the mercenaries. They shouted, jumping back, but the juggler kept his rocks and red ball in the air, and added something small and glittering that moved too quickly to be clearly seen. He began to sing and stood on one leg, and then the other, hopping in one place; and finally, just as the mercenaries were beginning to chuckle coarsely and stare at him as if he were insane, the juggler threw everything high into the air, twirled, and flicked his wrist.
Sally almost didn’t see him do it. She was crawling from the wagon, taking advantage of the obvious distraction. But she happened to look at the juggler just at that moment as the rocks and red ball went up—taking with them the mercenaries’ attention—and caught the glint of silver that remained in his hand.
The straw-haired man staggered backward into his companions and fell down, twitching, eyes open and staring. A disk smaller than the mouth of a teacup jutted from his forehead, deeply embedded with edges that were jagged and sharp, as irregularly shaped as the points on a snowflake. His companions stared at him for one stunned moment, and then turned to face the juggler. He was tossing rocks in the air again, but was no longer smiling.