broke on Khirro’s brow. The thoughts of home, Emeline, and the farm, disappeared. His gut churned.
The Shaman’s curse won’t let me.
“Give it back,” he croaked, his throat suddenly dry.
Ghaul hesitated, looked like he’d refuse. Khirro’s eyes flickered to his sword belt lying on the rock, then back to the warrior. He couldn’t reach it fast enough. Ghaul closed his fingers around the vial, holding it in his fist. Then he laughed.
“I don’t want your vial, Khirro,” he said tossing it back nonchalantly. Khirro bobbled it but kept it from dropping. “I don’t know how to find the Necromancer.”
Relief calmed Khirro’s gut, but sadness tempered it. Maybe he’d never be able to return home. He tucked the vial back into its spot.
“Sorry.” He retrieved his sword belt from the rock.
Ghaul shrugged. “No need to be. But next time you eye your weapon, you will be.”
Chapter Ten
They ate hard cheese and dark bread from Ghaul’s pack, but didn’t sleep. Khirro begged for rest, but Ghaul insisted they push on while they had a chance to increase their lead.
“The glade is too open,” Ghaul said as they followed the stream south west. “We’ll find somewhere less obvious to rest soon.”
Soon turned out to be more than three hours later. The sky had lightened to bright morning blue, the sun promising another hot day when it peeked through the branches overhead. They stopped at a huge fallen tree, charred by fire and hollowed by time. A perfect place to sleep unnoticed. Khirro surprised himself by offering to take the first watch. He felt good. A bit of food and a splash of water had done wonders to refresh him.
Ghaul had been sleeping for an hour when a black bear lumbered by, two cubs cantering along behind. Khirro watched in awe and fear as they passed; Mama bear sniffed the air once and glanced his direction but otherwise ignored him. He’d never seen a bear before. Cows and goats, pigs and chickens were as close as he came to wildlife. He told Ghaul excitedly about his sighting when he woke an hour later. The warrior seemed less than impressed.
When Ghaul woke Khirro, the sun was hidden above the trees, so he couldn’t tell how long he’d slept. His companion’s expression told him immediately he wasn’t waking him because the time had come to move on.
“Wha—?” he began, but Ghaul silenced him with a gesture. More gestures followed, but Khirro’s sleep fogged head couldn’t immediately grasp their meaning. It took a moment to realize Ghaul had heard something.
Birds chirped, insects buzzed; Khirro heard no other sounds as they listened. Minutes passed. Could Ghaul have been mistaken? A smile tugged at Khirro’s lips at the thought.
Mighty warrior hearing things.
Then there was a noise, small and far off. It wasn’t the sounds he’d been afraid to hear—no clanking armor, neighing horses, or men shouting that they’d discovered the trail.
It was a woman’s voice.
Tension released from Khirro’s shoulders; Ghaul looked at him, shaking his head. He signaled the direction the sound came from and moved from beneath the hollow tree, presumably expecting Khirro to follow. After collecting the items he’d removed for sleep, he did. They picked their way through the brush quickly and carefully, striving for silence, a task Ghaul accomplished much better than Khirro.
As they drew nearer the sound’s source, other voices joined the woman’s. Khirro heard at least two, perhaps three, all of them men. The woman’s tone suggested anger, though the tangle of trees and shrubs muffled her words as surely as they hid the group from view. Ghaul took the bow from his shoulder and plucked an arrow from the quiver; Khirro drew the black and red blade. When Ghaul saw the sword, his forehead creased and he glanced a questioning look at Khirro but quickly turned his attention back to the sounds before them.
At the top of a short rise, the trees thinned and the ground dropped away in a gentle slope. A clearing spread out beyond the edge of the forest, not unlike the one at which they’d stopped. Three men laughed and cat-called the naked woman standing in the middle of their rough circle. She seemed unconcerned by her nudity.
Ghaul motioned Khirro to take cover behind a fallen cedar claimed by moss. Khirro crouched and stole a glance over the top of the log. The woman stood almost as tall as the men surrounding her, red hair spilling down her bare back. He averted his eyes from her nakedness, feeling a