Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

Sackett was easy to identify. His beard was short and his dark hair hung straight and reached well past his shoulders. The other two were just as easy to recognize. One had a patch over a missing eye, the other lacked a hand. Adler’s patch was small enough to reveal part of the scar where the bear had gouged him. He continually shifted his head from side to side, making up for the loss of vision. Hegner had it the worst of the three. He was heavier, and lacking a hand he couldn’t scramble up the rocks.

“What are you doing out here?” Persephone called down cheerily. Although the forest wasn’t as frightening as she’d expected, Persephone appreciated the company. The bear was still out there.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Sackett answered.

Suri, who nimbly climbed back down to where Persephone stood, asked, “You know these men?”

“Yes. They’re from the dahl. Brave men who were with my husband when he hunted The Brown.”

“Minna doesn’t like them.” Suri bent down and stroked the wolf. “She is an excellent judge of character.”

Persephone looked at the wolf. “Probably just doesn’t like the spears. Sackett is our new chieftain’s Shield. We’ll be in good hands with him.” Looking back down the cascade, she shouted, “Are you out hunting?”

“Yes, we are,” Sackett shouted back.

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to travel with us for a while. I’d love an escort.”

“Certainly. Just wait for us to catch up,” Sackett said.

Persephone waited as they struggled up the wet stones, using the butts of their spears for stability. Their progress was made more difficult by the large wooden shields slung on their backs.

“The trees are talking,” Suri said. The girl’s head was tilted up, watching the leaves overhead.

“They are? What are they—”

Suri held up a finger to stop her, then narrowed her eyes, listening. Persephone listened, too, but all she heard was the wind rustling branches.

“What are you doing out here?” Sackett asked. The man had given up trying to avoid the pools and waded through knee-deep water, soaking his sandals and matting the hair on his legs so that it looked like fur.

There is such a thing as being too hairy, Persephone thought. Despite his luxuriant black mane, Sackett wasn’t a handsome man. In addition to all the hair, his deeply sunk eyes beneath a jutting brow gave him a serious, gaunt appearance.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but we’re going to talk to a tree,” Persephone explained.

Sackett stopped just two rocks down, catching his breath.

“Did you say, talk to a tree?”

“Yes.” Persephone pointed at the girl. “This is Suri and her wolf, Minna. She’s our new mystic, who studied under Tura. She’s listening to them right now.”

The tattoos on Suri’s face made her look serious again. She stared at Sackett, and like Minna, she didn’t appear happy.

“Yeah, well, I think it would be best if Suri and her wolf were on their way,” Sackett said.

“Oh, there’s no need to worry,” Persephone said. “Minna is perfectly tame, and Suri’s our guide.”

“She’s not from the dahl. She needs to go.”

“The trees say they know these men, murderers who can’t be trusted,” Suri told Persephone.

“Suri, hunting animals isn’t murder. We rely on the meat they bring in. We’d all starve if they didn’t.”

“I said get!” Sackett shouted in a sharp tone that was frightening enough to cause Persephone to jump, but Suri remained oblivious.

Minna was not. With bared teeth and raised fur, the wolf growled.

Sackett sighed. “Can’t say I didn’t try.” He pulled the shield off his back and looked down at the progress of Adler and Hegner, who were almost up to them. “Adler, go ’round left. Stump, go right. We’re gonna have to kill this wolf.”

“Don’t call me Stump,” Hegner told Sackett.

“You aren’t killing anything!” Persephone exclaimed. “Your weapons are making Minna nervous, that’s all. Suri, can you calm her down?”

The men kept advancing. “Adler, you come up. Hegner, stay where you are. I’ll block it in; then Adler can slay it. He has the best angle.”

“I order you to stop!” Persephone yelled.

Sackett and Adler chuckled, looking at each other, amused. Persephone had always known laughter to be a warm, friendly sound, but this was cold—the noise a raow might make when tucking itself in for the night on a bed of human bones.

“Don’t care what you do with the wolf or the girl. We can move their bodies after,” Sackett said. “But no cuts on Persephone. When her body is found, it has to look like an accident. I’m guessing she took a bad fall on these rocks.”

“What?” Persephone couldn’t believe her ears. Her mind struggled to make sense of the absurd and failed.

Adler fanned out to flank Minna.

Suri finally took her eyes off the canopy and looked squarely at Adler. She pointed at him and announced, “The trees say you’ll die first. They told me you offended Wogan. He doesn’t appreciate killing in his woods.”

Suri turned to Sackett. “The trees tell me you will die second. Not because you deserve to live longer but so you’ll have time to understand. They say you won’t be going to Alysin or even Rel. The paths to paradise are shut to you. Your spirit will enter the darkness of Nifrel.”

Sackett’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need to be a mystic to predict the future. I’m not the one about to die, little girl.”

“Yes, you are,” Suri said. As usual the girl’s tone was wildly out of context. She sounded pleased, almost giddy—a child excited to have been called upon because she knew the answer. “And I get to watch.”

“She’s crazy,” Sackett said. “Go on, Adler. Kill the wolf.”

“Now, Minna,” Suri whispered.

Adler was shifting his weight to his back foot and raising his spear when Minna sprang. A hundred pounds of snarling teeth and claws landed on him. Perched on a ledge of slick stone, the man went over. Shield and spear clattered on the rocks, swept away by the water. Adler and Minna both fell one shelf down; Adler landed on a boulder. The back of his head struck the rock, making a hollow sound, a muffled crack. Whether he was dead or merely unconscious was impossible to say, but the one-eyed man wasn’t getting up.

Sackett raised his spear to throw it at Minna, but Persephone grabbed the shaft. Although she had hold of it with both hands, Sackett jerked it free and slammed the pole of the weapon into her stomach. Persephone collapsed to the rocks, gasping for air.

“Sackett!” Hegner shouted. The one-handed man used his stump to gesture wildly down the cascade.

Still gasping to fill her lungs, Persephone saw two more men coming up the rocks. Both were strangers. The man out front was tall, beardless, slender, and dressed in shimmering robes, with a silver torc around his neck in the fashion of a wealthy chieftain. But Persephone knew every chieftain of the seven Rhulyn clans and hadn’t seen anyone like him before. The second man was as different from the first as a wolf was from a dog. Large and muscled, he had a tempest of black hair and a bristling beard. His clothing was as intriguing as his friend’s. Dressed mostly in leather, he also wore a black-and-white-checkered leigh mor bearing the pattern of Clan Dureya.

Sackett tracked Minna’s movements, but the wolf didn’t attack. She leapt back to Suri’s side. The two women looked past him toward the strangers.

Persephone shouted, “Help! They’re going to kill us!” With her newfound breath, she started to crawl away from Sackett as best she could.

“This is a private matter,” Sackett called out to the approaching men. “None of your business. Be on your way.”

“The lady just invited us,” the slender man said as he passed Hegner without incident.

“You’re a stranger here. Best keep it that way.”

“I’d rather not, so allow me to introduce myself. My name is Malcolm.” The man approached quickly as he spoke, brandishing a spear with both hands. Behind him, the larger man struggled to keep pace. “By what right or authority do you plan to harm these women?”

The two strangers navigated the last of the rocks that Hegner hadn’t yet bothered with and stood on equal footing with Sackett, albeit across a shallow pool. The big man had a hand on a naked sword wedged in his belt.

A sword!

Persephone had never seen a man with a sword. They were the weapons of gods, and this elaborately decorated one shone brightly. On his back, she spotted the hilt of another.