If the galla had intelligence beyond that of hunting hounds, she could not see it in them.

Eleven. The last shadow pushed at the haze. Blessing.

The fire that bloomed within its insubstantial black form almost blinded her, like the flash of the sun.

In the silence, her ears rang with bells, and after a while she heard herself sniveling. She stank of piss. The bones in which she lay stank of hot iron. Her eyes stung as she wept. She could not stop herself. She just could not stop, not even when the spell he had raised dissolved and his soldiers broke out cheering. Not even when flame sprang from the oil lamp and they set about their encampment, each one as merry as if he had faced down his own death and laughed to escape it.

She could not stop, especially when Lord Hugh came into view, carrying the burning lamp. He paused to study the bones with more interest than he studied her, a touch of that ice-blue gaze. The kiss of a winter blizzard would have been more welcome.

He was a monster, no different than the monsters that stalked him. Hate flowered, but she lowered her eyes so as not to betray herself.

“A cup of ale in celebration, my lord?” asked scarred John. She glanced up to see the soldier arrive with a cup in each hand.

Hugh smiled. Strange to think how beautiful he was. Impossible not to be swayed by beauty, by light, by an arrogance that, softened, seems like benevolence. All of it illusion.

So might the Enemy smile, seeing a soul ripe for the Abyss.

So might the Enemy soothe with soft words and a kindly manner: Come this way. Just a little farther.

They drank.

“Here, now,” said scarred John, sounding surprised. “The girl survived! Yet see—is that the horse?” He made a retching sound. He shook with that rush which comes after the worst is over. “That would have been us! Sucked clean of flesh!” He clutched his stomach, looking queasy.

“So would we all have been,” agreed Hugh. “The Holy Mother Antonia controls many wicked creatures. She is a servant of the Enemy. Now you see why we must oppose her and Queen Adelheid, whom she holds on a tight leash.”

The others gathered where Anna lay, humiliated. She did not know what to do except let them stare at her and pick through the bones around her as though she were deaf and mute. At last, she crawled sideways to get away from them. None stopped her or offered her a hand up. Her leggings were soaked through, and a couple of the men waved hands before noses and commented on the stink.

“Is it safe now?” they asked Hugh, kicking the remains of the horse. “Can we sleep?”

“It is safe. Before we left, I instructed Brother Petrus to scatter skulls and bones in the woodland a day’s ride south of Novomo. After some fruitless searching, a loyal soldier will by seeming happenstance lead the searchers to these bones, and Mother Antonia will believe we are all dead, killed by those black demons, her galla.”