Gillen’s horse waited outside, apparently a well-trained military mount. The gelding rolled his eyes at her approach, but did not protest when she searched through the saddlebags. He was even more cooperative when she fished out an apple and fed it to him, stroking his nose.

Gillen’s gear included a large heavy sword in a scabbard, a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. A bedroll and a canvas tent. One entire saddlebag was packed with trail food, which would prove useful, assuming she lived long enough to get hungry.

She fingered the crossbow. Unlike Byrne’s longbow, it required no great strength to draw it. A memory came back to her: her eight-year-old self trailing Amon to the archery field. She’d refused to leave the butts until he gave her a chance at the crossbow. At first, the quarrels had gone wide of the straw target, but her aim improved quickly. Amon had loaded the first few bolts for her, then shown her how to cock it herself, his patient hands over hers.

On her next name day, her father, Averill, had gifted her with a longbow, made to fit her size and strength. That was her preferred weapon, but her bow had been left in the pass.

Fitting her foot into the weapon’s stirrup, she spanned it, grateful for the muscles her year at Oden’s Ford had built. She clipped the bolt into its channel. She’d have one shot, at least.

Methodically, she adjusted the stirrups to her small frame, wanting to hurry, but making sure she did it right. Leading the gelding alongside a fallen tree, she used the trunk to vault aboard.

A glance at the sky told her that dawn was not far away. By then she needed to get a better fix on her location and find a hiding place. If she weren’t already dead or in the enemy’s hands.

C H A P T E R  S I X

SIMON SAYS

The day after his meeting with Crow, Han rode in a kind of worried stupor. His head ached and his stomach churned, like he’d been drinking stingo and chasing it with blue ruin.

He would have made an easy target, had any of his enemies happened by. Fortunately, most of his fellow travelers were refugees simply intent on making it to a place of shelter for the night. If he nearly rode over a few, well, they managed to get out of the way.

Could it possibly be true, what Crow claimed—that the infamous Demon King of the Fells had lain fallow in the serpent jinxpiece that Han now carried? That the powerful evil he represented had never gone out of the world?