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Hadrian was uncertain if she was asking him or her fellows.

“Look at all this stuff they’re carrying. She was young, and-despite the dirt-cute, and almost childlike, but her tone was aggressive, even vicious.

“But they’ve got bags of gear,” the girl said. His lower lip looked to have been split about the same time his nose was broken. An inch or two taller than Hadrian, he was the largest of the party, a stocky brute with a thick neck and large hands. “They don’t look like they got much money,” a man with a flat nose said.

Each was covered in mud, a ground‑in grime, as if the whole lot slept in a dirt burrow. She was dressed like the rest in pants and boots, her hair a tangled mess. With them was a girl wielding a bow, an arrow notched and aimed. They wore rough clothes, leather and wool, stained, worn, and filthy. Hadrian counted four men with unshaven faces and drawn swords. The crush of leaves grew louder until at last the thieves stepped into the narrow band of moonlight. They were on their own, in the middle of nowhere-the kind of place people never found bodies. Almost a day’s ride from any town, Hadrian could not recall passing so much as a farmhouse in hours. They were deep in the forest on the old southern road, engulfed in a long tunnel of oaks and ash whose slender branches reached out over the road, quivering and clacking in the cold autumn wind. Mist pooled in the dips and gullies, and somewhere an unseen stream trickled over rocks. Behind lay the long moonlit corridor of empty road. Royce said nothing and just continued to shake his head.īefore them stood a wall of fresh-cut brush blocking their way. Hadrian did not need to see his expression to know what it looked like. His friend’s head was bowed and shook slightly. He glanced over at Royce, who sat beside him on his dirty gray mare with his hood up, his face hidden. Hadrian felt his stomach sink, knowing this was his fault. “We’re just gonna lighten your load a bit. “We’ve got arrows aimed at your backs, and we’ll drop you in your saddles if you try to run.” The speaker was still in the dark eaves of the forest, just a vague movement among the naked branches. “Don’t neither of you move,” a harsh voice ordered from the shadows. There were more than one, more than three, and they were closing in. Hadrian could see little in the darkness, but he could hear them-the snapping of twigs, the crush of leaves, and the brush of grass.