The jawbones hanging from her belt rattled when she dismounted. Chewing a strip of dried venison, she studied their route while Shim devoured a sack of grain. Ahead, the shadowed hills to the east and west converged, their faces abruptly changing from shrouded swells to bleak cliffs. The road led to a deep crevice between them, the entrance to Vela’s Labyrinth—a maze of canyons dug out by the goddess’s fingernails as she’d writhed in the agony of labor and gave birth to the twins, Justice and Law. This gaunt landscape had been their first cradle. It seemed better suited to a grave.
The labyrinth would not be Mala’s grave. She scratched Shim’s withers. The Hanani stallion could follow a scent as well as a wolf. Any travelers who had passed through the maze might have left markings to indicate the route, but even if they hadn’t, Shim should be able to guide her through.
She poured watered mead into her cupped hand and let him quench his thirst before taking her own swig from the wineskin. Despite the rain, this land was as dry as it was gray. Since leaving the river, not even a stream had trickled across their path.
But there would be plenty to drink when they reached the city beyond the maze, which still lay five sprints distant. She swung up into her saddle again, but before Shim had taken a step, his body tensed beneath her.
A rider on a gray horse emerged from the crevice ahead. An oxen-drawn wagon followed, then several more. A caravan—obviously headed for the bridge and the lush valley behind them, because unless they planned to settle on this barren waste, there was nowhere else to go.
Eyes narrowed, Mala studied the train. The law of the road demanded courtesy between travelers. Most of the people she’d encountered followed that code. The eyeteeth of those who hadn’t decorated her belt like pointed beads.
She probably wouldn’t be adding more today. The arrangement of the wagons suggested that they were driven by families who had banded together for safety. Almost all of the horses were pulling wagons and carts. Packs burdened both humans and animals. A few dozen people walked behind on foot, some of them children.
And perhaps one hired soldier. A mercenary, maybe, or a roaming warrior who earned his coin as he traveled. A dark figure mounted on a gray horse, he halted on the side of the road, as if studying her as Mala studied him. He would see no more detail across the distance than she did—Mala would be a red-cloaked figure atop a brown horse—but the color of her cloak would tell him enough. Only those who quested for Vela wore such garments.
For good or ill, the cloak always drew notice. The goddess favored and protected those who served her, and seeing Mala inspired in some strangers the hope that the terrors wrought by Anumith the Destroyer were coming to an end. But Mala had also encountered those who had challenged Vela’s protection, most of them determined to prove that the goddess was weaker than the demons and demigods they worshiped.
Mala wore those challengers’ teeth, too. She hadn’t even needed to call upon the goddess to defeat them. When she’d faced groups of more than three or four, Shim had come to her aid, instead.
Now she told him, “Be easy, friend.”
The appearance of these strangers was an unexpected boon. Shim would have a fresh trail to follow through the maze, and if they weren’t averse to talking, Mala could learn more about the beast she’d come to find.
As the stallion started forward again, Mala’s attention returned to the mounted warrior. He’d ridden to the tail of the caravan, waiting near the crevice as the last of the travelers emerged. Mala frowned. Instead of walking at a steady pace, now they rushed ahead. The caravan had stopped, the train breaking apart as wagons and carts drove off the sides of the road and clustered into a group.
Circling, she realized. Creating a defensive wall. Against what?
The warrior’s gray horse pranced uneasily. Steel glinted at its side. His rider had drawn a sword, and he backed his mount away from the crevice.
Shim suddenly pitched to a halt, ears laid flat against his head and nostrils flaring. Mala’s thighs gripped his sides, her body swaying with the abrupt motion. Furtive movement drew her gaze to the cliffs surrounding the maze’s entrance. Shadows crept across the bleak stone face.
Dread filled her stomach. Revenants.
The creatures would rip the humans apart.
“Shim!” she cried, crouching low over his neck and gripping his thick mane in her left hand.
The stallion surged forward. The beat of his hooves quickened, each powerful stride cleaving the distance. The wind and rain blasted Mala’s cheeks and whipped tears from her eyes, but she kept her gaze on the slinking shadows. While unmoving, they had only appeared as crags on the rock face, but their hunt betrayed their positions. Almost three dozen of the creatures. Once, they might have been goats or dogs or ponies. Befouled by demons, revenants only faintly resembled the animals they’d once been—and most animals couldn’t have traversed that sheer cliff face, yet they slithered across it like sinuous spiders.