“Help!” The cry was distant and garbled, but it sounded like a young woman. Kira clenched her teeth. She knew they were right, but . . .

“She could be dying,” she said. “I don’t want to fall asleep tonight haunted by some lost girl’s dying call for help.”

“Do you want to fall asleep at all?” asked Heron, and it was Kira’s turn to glare.

“Let’s keep moving,” said Samm, nudging Buddy with his knees. The horse started forward, and Kira’s Bobo followed without waiting to be asked.

“Help!”

“I’m going,” said Kira, grabbing the reins and turning Bobo’s head toward the side of the road. “You can come if you want.”

“Why does she just say ‘help’?” asked Afa.

“Because she needs help,” said Kira, sliding out of the saddle at the edge of the road. The slope was steep and covered with bushes, and she didn’t think the horse could make it in the fading light. She tied his reins to a mile marker and unslung her rifle.

“I think she’d be saying, ‘Help me,’” said Afa, “or ‘Is anybody out there?’”

“They’ve heard our hoofbeats,” said Samm, who suddenly shook his head and swore. “Kira, I’m coming with you.”

Heron stayed on her horse. “Can I have your stuff when you’re dead?”

“You’re the spy,” said Samm, gesturing at the hills below. “Sneak around behind them and . . . I don’t know, help.”

“It’s getting dark,” said Heron, “and they’re already aware of us, and we don’t know where they are, or how many of them there are, or how they’re armed, or what they’re doing. You want me to sneak behind them by what, magic?”

“Just stay here and watch the horses then,” said Kira. “We’ll be back soon.” She climbed over the railing at the side of the road with Samm close behind her, and they picked their way carefully down the side of the hill. The brush was thick, clutching at her boots, and the hill was steep enough that she found herself grabbing the bushes for support, descending almost on hands and knees. The bottom was no better, with thick scrub reaching all the way to the water line.

They heard the cry again, back in the reaches of a narrow gully, and Kira decided they wouldn’t be hidden much longer anyway and called out. “Hang on, we’re coming!”

“I don’t know how they even got back there,” said Samm, fighting through the brush behind her. Almost immediately Kira stumbled into a narrow path, and Samm bumped into her from behind as he did the same.

“An animal track,” he said. “Deer?”

“Wild dogs,” said Kira, looking at the worn earth. “I’ve seen this kind of track before.”

“I figure this is an injured hunter or something, but who follows a dog trail?”