She stood by the corpse for a moment. There was only the faintest hint of decay in the still darkness. He had been kind to her, even when she had tried to run away. He had taken care that her bonds weren't too tight and had refused to listen to the older men insisting that he beat her into submission. One of the girls taken with her had died from such a beating and two others regularly bore bruises until they had proved their worth by bearing children. He hadn't even forced himself on her, waiting until she finally turned to him in loneliness and despair and surprising her with tenderness that offered at least Heeling gratification to lighten her misery. Eventually she had been happy enough in her way, with her daughters,
and when they were gone, with the old man. He had made no secret of sharing her sorrow at the loss of their children.
She looked back out to the distant fire in the centre of the village. She had never given up in her youth. Even in the darkest nights she had never been tempted to do the same as that girl who had refused all food and secretly eaten dirt from the floor of her hut until she had died. She wasn't about to give up, even in this wretched old age.
Clutching her bundle, she stole out of the doorway, pressing so close to the fragile walls that splinters from the laths caught at her skin wrap. Heart pounding, she slipped into the shadows by the side of the hut and waited. No shout of surprise or greeting came and she slipped further round to put the whole hut between her and the rest of the village. Still no one seemed to have noticed her.
Scrubby trees and bushes had reclaimed the deserted plots where those long dead had once built their huts. Beyond the rustling undergrowth, the taller trees of the dark forest rose up black against the star-filled sky. The twin eyes of the sky looked down on her. Half-closed, they still shed enough light to show her the faint scar of the path worn by women and children fetching kindling from the forest margins and water from the distant river in the cool of each morning. She hurried away down the track, moving as quietly as she could lest she startle some ground-roosting bird into raising a shrieking alarm.
Ignoring the fork where the path branched off towards the river, she took the hunters' trail into the depths of the dark forest. She had never done so before, but what did she have to lose? If they looked for her, they would look by the river first, so this way she might avoid notice just long enough to escape.
The blackness beneath the sprawling canopy of the trees was absolute, giving her no choice but to stick to the main path. Mysterious feet pattered alongside her from time to time or scampered in the branches overhead. Menacing snarls and pitiful cries spoke of battles for life and food won and lost. She hugged her pathetic bundle tight to her breast and hurried on as fast as she could, her old bones aching with the exertion.
She lost all sense of the night passing. There was only the endless darkness. Once she heard something larger than a man moving slowly through the trees. Saplings creaked and snapped as it forced its way through a thicket. She could hear its rasping breath and smelled a rankness she had never encountered before. Frozen with terror, she stood trembling on the path, face buried in her bundle to muffle the impulse to cry out in sheer terror.
Whatever it was moved away unseen, uninterested. She stumbled onwards on numb feet, shaking with relief. Gradually her calm returned. She wouldn't have made much of a meal for whatever the creature had been. Old age had dried her to skin and bones. But she wasn't ready to die just yet. Not that she knew what she was going to do, or where she was going to go. That didn't matter, not yet. A curious peace filled her as she walked on through the night. She just had to keep on moving. Every day she kept moving was another day gained. Life was hard but she wasn't done with it yet.
Little by little, the sky paled up above the treetops and she could see further into the grey colourlessness beneath the trees. She began searching for some animal trail leading off the main path. Hunters from other villages would be up with the dawn and she was a prize to be Captured without mercy or malice. A prize to save them from giving up one of their own when a painted man cameand demanded tribute for his beast.
The path curved around a mighty fallen tree that was fast subsiding into decay. Green tufts growing along the length of the mouldering trunk spread their leaves to the open sky above. The old woman moved more cautiously in case birds were browsing on the tender shoots in the transitory glade. In case men lay in wait for the birds with their spears and slings.
She looked along the void ripped into the forest by the falling of the great tree. Beyond, the green shadows led away towards the higher ground. Fewer people lived on the higher slopes, that much was certain. Life was harder up there, with less water and food for hunting or foraging. What was that to her? She was leaving one death behind her. If she ran into another, she was no worse off. And if there were fewer people on the higher slopes, surely there was less chance of her being seized? And if there was less prey for the hunters, there must surely be fewer creatures that might hunt her.
Her stomach gnawed within her and she felt lightheaded with hunger. If she didn't find something to eat, and soon, she might as well just lie down to die here. Hands shaking, she untied the rope around her bundle. Setting down the scurrier hide, she took out her digging stick and gave the rotten wood of the fallen tree an experimental prod. It crumbled to damp splinters. She dug harder beneath the edge of a sheet of bark, ignoring the hot ache in her gnarled knuckles.
She snatched at the fat white grubs squirming in the unwelcome light, biting down hard on the pulpy bland-ness twisting on her tongue and swallowing hastily. She managed to eat a couple of handfuls before the rest writhed in blind terror away from the daylight. Drawing a deep breath, she spat out a few fragments of sour wood and wished fruitlessly for a drink of water. At least the meagre meal had dulled the worst of her hunger pains.
Where should she go now? The sunlight was strengthening and this was a well-trodden path. Better to trust in the concealing gloom of the forest. She peered cautiously around the tangled mossy roots before leaving the shelter of the fallen log and picking her way through the tangled vines and bushes enjoying their brief tenure of the open glade. She would make for the higher ground, she decided. Though the underbrush was scant beneath the mighty trees blocking out the sunlight, the leaf litter lay thick under her feet. She walked carefully, alert for many-legged stingers and poison snakes. The few patches of open ground were smudged with marks that she could not identify, ripped up by vicious claws.
She noted fallen wood here and there out of old habit. Would a fire protect her when darkness fell again and the forest's night dwellers came hunting? She dismissed the notion with caustic self-censure. Where would she get an ember from? Besides, a fire would surely snag the all-seeing eye of a painted man or a great beast.
The forest grew quiet as the day progressed. Only the birds were busy, flitting from tree top to tree top high above, serenading each other. She stopped when she heard a harsher note of disagreement. Picking her way towards the sounds of yellow birds squabbling, she found a tree ripe with brown furry fruit.
A scurrier was already feasting on the fallen bounty, cramming food into its mouth. It looked up, its dark muzzle clotted with fruit pulp. Lashing its fringed tail, it raised one clawed hand towards her and snarled, its sharp teeth white and pointed.
The old woman retreated, but only far enough to find a rotten bough lurking beneath a sprawl of leaves. She edged back towards the brown-fruit tree and saw that the scurrier had forgotten her, more interested in filling