Two and Twenty Dark Tales by Georgia McBride Page B

soothsayer said.
    He glanced around the room, little more than an odd hole in the hill, lit only by flame and whatever cooked and spit scent from the glowing brazier, and pulled out the parchment. “I have this.”
    “Ah,” she said, reading the script. “But are these the words that begin a journey, or end it? It seems so familiar—like the ghost of a long-forgotten song.”
    “It’s a song?” Marnum shook his head.
    She nodded, and her hands swept some things off the floor before her, and she shook them like the barracks boys shook dice. She threw the rattling pieces down, and Marnum stooped to see.
    With a slender finger, she prodded a set of tiny bird bones.
    Marnum swallowed hard.
    “ Wise is he, so clever and strong, fell from grace, all for a song. He will give you more of what you seek. But do not stray from your duty, Marnum. Time is slipping away.”
    A breeze blew in and the lights guttered out, leaving the room silent, dark, and oddly empty.
    “The tree is as real as I am.”
    Marnum turned and raced back to the road.
    ***
    The road felt even wilder walking it at night, and Marnum kept his arms wrapped tight around him, his gaze sharp and wary. Dawn set fire to the sky at his back and still he walked, searching for his next turn. It was midmorning when he heard men on the road behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and felt the sun light his scar. Three men dressed in black pressed forward in a run, laughing as they recognized their quarry. Fast as a spooked buck, he vaulted away, racing down the road, until the only noise he heard was his own breath pounding out of his body in gasps, and the thrumming of his own blood in his ears as his heart raced to keep up with his flying feet. He no longer heard them—there was no sound of feet pounding the packed dirt, no shouts.
    He spun to look, to see how far behind…
    Someone joined them—a flash of a royal guard’s crimson-colored suit and… a wolf mask?
    He jerked backward, seeing a third man emerge from his blind spot, his hand nearly on Marnum as he closed the last bit of distance between predator and prey, just a moment before the one in the wolf mask pummeled the first Huntsman, taking him to the ground with an efficiency that made Marnum’s eyes widen. The Wolf took down a second Huntsman with a few quick moves.
    At the road’s edge, Marnum’s arms flailed, spinning like blades on a windmill. For a split second, balanced precariously, his world slowed as he reached for the remaining Huntsman to stop his fall. The Huntsman chuckled, nodding to him encouragingly as he stretched forward to take Marnum’s hand.
    But Marnum pulled his arms in, committing to the fall. Gravity pulled him downhill into briars and underbrush that snagged his clothing, but couldn’t hold him.
    Curses followed him as he plunged down a steep embankment, hitting rocks and the lumpy roots of trees. Bruised and panting, he lay at the bottom of the slope, waiting for the blood in his veins to stop throbbing, and letting the normal sounds of the world seep into his battered consciousness. He heard the grunts and shouts of another fight on the road above, and… a body hitting the ground?
    “Not so jovial now, are you?” he heard the victor ask.
    Standing, he decided not to return immediately to the road. As much as he might like to thank the Wolf, he would rather not risk the Huntsmen again. Mentally, he conceded that danger could be found anywhere—on and off the road.
    ***
    Although he believed his next destination to be nearby, the trails had become switchbacks by noon, and deciding which way to go was mind-numbing. He shoved blindly forward, hoping that the paths would converge ahead, and once again he’d be on his way.
    The royal guard was suddenly before him, a wall of red wearing a leather and brass wolf’s head helmet that hid nearly all his face.
    The Wolf had found him.
    “Thank you for saving me… twice… or three times, I guess?”
    The eyes hidden deep in