“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hoping Mop and Ness heard her words. Then, though she was small and the guard clutching her large, she rammed her elbow into the soft of his belly so that he gasped and—for a moment—lost the strength in his hands. She twisted away. “I’m sorry!” she cried again as, now running, she tore away, sprinting across the field, strides long and desperate.

A clamoring followed—“Rae!” and “Get her!” yelping over the meadow.

Rae did not glance back. She kept her eyes on the forest, the line of dark trees, her feet thudding I’m sorry I’m sorry beneath her. She listened for the men behind her, heard them yelling to mount horses, to give chase; she heard hoofbeats rise, a galloping over soft earth. She could not outrun them for long—she did not want to outrun them for long. She wanted only to draw them away from Mop and Nessa, to bring them as far away as she could from her home. If she could only reach the woods, she could hide in its shadows—make them search for her, make them forget about Mop.

Her hem flapped about her knees; blades of grass, sharp stalks, prickling weeds lashed against her calves, burned underfoot. Even panicked, rushing, she knew the form of the land; her feet carried her in mad flight across meadow, along the pebbled banks of the stream, hoofbeats gaining all the time.

“Rae!” she heard behind her—Nessa sobbing—and no word, but a horror-struck sound, Mop wailing, keening.

I’m sorry I’m sorry, her feet crashed. Her chest heaved; she gasped, gasped again—she could not run faster. The line of trees rose and fell, rose and fell—the hoofbeats pounding closer, the earth trembling, even, beneath her, the tremors of the horses’ wild strides.

“Don’t take—r daugh—!” Ness’s cry came broken across the field. “-ae! Rae!”

Shadows. Shadows. She’d reached the edge, the forest’s ragged line. She threw herself into its gloom, still running, root and stone and moss and pine and fern and twig and branch entangling her, tripping her. She crashed through bracken and underbrush, the horses now crashing, too, the men shouting, while behind her, Ness’s wailing, Mop’s keening grew fainter and fainter.

“-aaaae!” she heard, the last cry of Ness.

But beneath Ness’s faint cry, beneath the sounds of lashing twigs and crashing underbrush, beneath unsteady hoofbeats and her own stumbling steps, high in the distant hills, almost hushed by the forest’s burgeoning green, another sound rose. Long. Mournful. Dark.

An answering howl.

XLII

A GREASY SHRIEK

Rae did not stop running until she was far into the forest, and even then, she kept going, ducking under woody vines, pushing through ferny undergrowth, clambering over fallen logs, their bark crumbly with rot and moss and slick with fungus. On foot, off the path, she was faster than the horses who balked at the tangles of branches and uneven ground: Rae heard the men cursing behind her, urging their mounts to Go on, go on!