Warwolfe (de Wolfe Pack Book 0)(83)

“Stop!” he roared. “You have just alerted the entire town!”

Winded, Gaetan came to a halt, looking around to see that, indeed, lights were appearing in windows and voices of alarm could be heard. The bridge guards were still banging on the bell and he could see, very quickly, that the situation was deteriorating rapidly. He grabbed Aramis by the arm.

“Did you find her?” he demanded.

Aramis shook his head, running back to the spot where the foot imprints had disappeared into the bushes near the river. He was pointing at the mud but no one could really see what he was talking about; the torches were burning out and the moon had sunk over the horizon. It was far too dark to see anything.

“The imprints disappeared here,” he pointed out. “Either she went into the river or she hid beneath the bridge, but you startled those fool guards before they would allow me to see.”

Gaetan and Wellesbourne made their way into the foliage, ripping it apart as they came to the river’s edge but it was simply too dark to see very much. People were now starting to come out of their homes with weapons, with shouts of alarm going up. Gaetan knew they had to get out of there or risk fighting off the entire town.

“Damnation,” he hissed. “We must get out of here. We cannot do battle against everyone in the village.”

Jathan, standing aback behind the knights who were hunting around in the foliage, looked about fearfully at the townspeople, up in arms. “We can seek sanctuary in the cathedral,” he told them. “We can explain to the priests that we are looking for a lost woman!”

Not seeing a figure in the water, or even near it, Gaetan made his way out of the bushes as the others looked about as well. “How long would it be before the priests, loyal to the Saxons and not the Normans, opened the doors to the cathedral and let the mob take us away?” he asked, eyeing the people now coming out onto the road by the bridge. “Nay, we must leave now. We will cross the bridge to the other side of the river and….”

A shout cut him off. “Gate!” It was Wellesbourne. “On the bridge! Look!”

Everyone strained to see what he was pointing to and, beneath the starry sky, they could see the outline of a big shaggy dog at the opposite end of the bridge.

God’s Bones, Gaetan knew that shape. He knew that dog.

Camulos!

“Cam!” he hissed. He began grabbing men, pulling them from the foliage even as he was running himself. “Come on! We must get across the bridge! She is on the other side!”

There wasn’t one knight among them who had ever moved faster in his life. In short order, they were plowing through the crowds on the bridge, riding as fast as they could for the dog, who turned and ran up the road, through the dark fields and black forests beyond.

They followed.



Ghislaine wasn’t sure how long she had been walking, only that it seemed like endless hours in an endless night. The sky above changed with the hour and she’d lost her bearings some time ago, but she refused to turn back. She refused to go back to that town where Gaetan had left her.

So she continued to walk in the dark, limping heavily on her bad leg. She was confident that once daylight came, she’d be able to discover where she was and go from there. Tenebris wasn’t far from Worcester and, knowing that’s where Gaetan and his men had gone, she was certain she could catch up to them.

Those were her thoughts, anyway.

But the reality was that she was still running something of a fever and her body was near to the point of collapse because of her injury. She was weak and the more she walked, the more muddled her mind became. It was oh-so-dark now that the moon had set, making it difficult to go any further. The sky blended with the land and Ghislaine’s rational self, the one that was being suppressed by the illness taking over her mind, knew that it was time to stop. She simply couldn’t go any further.

Stumbling off the road, Ghislaine pulled the coat she was wearing up around her head, protectively, and wandered into a forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was protection here from the road and from the elements, for the most part. Around her were the sounds of the night, of nocturnal creatures looking for food, but she wandered and wandered until something tripped her and she fell forward, into a flooring of leaves that had fallen from the canopy as winter approached. It was rather soft, if not very cold, but Ghislaine wasn’t one to be choosy. With the skirt of her cote wrapped up around her head for warmth and protection, she toppled over into the leaves, exhausted, wounded, and muddled.

Sleep claimed her immediately.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN




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Capable of Killing


Near Warwick, 40 miles from Tenebris

Travel had been slow with Alary and his men, something Kristoph had been exceedingly grateful for considering the injuries he’d sustained during his capture those weeks ago. His ribs were much better and he was feeling as close to normal as could be expected given the circumstances. He still wasn’t getting enough to eat and with all of the walking he’d been doing, because Alary still wouldn’t allow him to ride a horse, he’d lost a significant amount of weight. His trousers were hanging on him now. His wife wasn’t going to even recognize him.

He’d also grown a fairly bushy beard and his blonde hair, usually cut short, had grown. It was shaggy and dirty, something that bothered him because he was usually well-groomed. But that was of little consequence considering his circumstances, circumstances he soon intended to change.