‘Home!’ hissed Gaelen. In the following silence he listened intently. Satisfied the Aenir were alone, he ran to the girl.
It was Deva, her face bruised and swollen, her lips cut and bleeding. She was unconscious. Gaelen gathered what remained of her clothes and lifted the girl to his shoulder. Then he made his way back through the thicket to his pack and laboured on up the slope, keeping to the rocky paths and firmer areas that would leave less sign of his passing.
His breathing was ragged as he reached the highest point of the slope, cutting into a sheltered glade where he lowered Deva to the ground. She was breathing evenly. Her shirt was in tatters and he threw it to one side. Her skirt had been ripped in half. Removing it, he spread the cloth and sliced an opening in the centre. Sheathing his knife he lifted the girl to a sitting position and put the skirt over her head, widening the slash until the garment settled over her shoulders like a cape that fell to her knees. He tore her shirt into strips and fashioned a belt which he tied round her waist, then he laid her back.
‘Stay!’ he ordered Render and the hound settled down beside the girl. Gaelen gathered up his bow and quiver and retraced his steps to the slope, crouching in the undergrowth, eyes searching the trail.
There were so many questions. Why were the Aenir so far into the Farlain? What was Deva doing alone in the wilderness? What manner of men were these warriors who dressed like foresters and carried hunting-knives like the clans? Had the war begun, or were they merely scouts? How many more were searching these woods? He could answer none of the questions.
He had been lucky today, waiting until the men’s lust was at its height before launching an attack. But once the enemy discovered the bodies they would be on his trail like wolves after a wounded deer. More than luck would be needed to survive from now on, he knew.
He was at least two days from the valley, but if the war had begun there was no point going east. If it had not, there was little point heading for Attafoss, a day or more to the north-east.
Down the slope he saw a flash of movement and drew back into the bushes. A man appeared, then another, then a file of warriors bearing bows. They did not seem to be hunting a trail, but if they kept moving along the track they would find the bodies. Gaelen waited until the file had passed, counting them, despair growing as the figure topped one hundred.
This was no scouting party.
Pulling back out of sight he ran to the glade, kneeling over Deva, lifting her head and lightly stroking her face. She came awake with a start, a scream beginning as his hand clamped over her mouth.
‘Be silent, Deva, it is Gaelen!’ he hissed. Her eyes swivelled to him and she blinked and nodded. He removed his hand.
‘The Aenir?’ she whispered.
‘Dead. But more are coming and we must move. Can you run?’
She nodded and he helped her to her feet. Hoisting his pack, he gathered up the remains of her clothing and bade her wait for him. He moved east for two hundred paces, crossing the stream, leaving his track on a muddy bank, and looping a torn fragment of Deva’s shirt over a gorse bush. Satisfied with the false trail, he turned west again, moving more carefully over the rocks and firm ground until he rejoined Deva in the glade.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, heading for Attafoss.
They made almost half a mile when the horns sounded, echoing eerily in the mountains around them. ‘They’ve found the bodies,’ he said grimly. ‘Let’s push on.’
Throughout the long afternoon Gaelen led them ever higher into the mountains, stopping often to study the back-trail and keeping ever under cover. Deva stumbled after him, still in shock after her narrow escape, and yet awed by the authoritative manner in which Gaelen was leading. There was no panic in him, nor yet any sign of fear. He was, she realised not without shock, a clansman.