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Ghosts

One flung back its hood She saw its face clearly: an Aoi face, more shade than substance, with the sharp cheekbones and broad linealant’s ancestors Feathers decorated its hair, and the bow it carried in its hands gleamed softly, as if it weren’t made of wood but of ensorcelled bone Its eyes were as cold as the grave as it paused to sniff the air, scenting for prey

There were so than the Quave away her position Before she could even take a single step back into the protecting tangle of firs, an arrow caught in her sleeve As delicate as a needle, it had no fletching It hung froed where the fabric creased at her elbow, and dissolved into sone

Instinct ht A second arrow spit past, just where she’d been standing A third caught in the dense fir above her, tumbled, and vanished as it fell

A cry of alare within the firs

Hanna scrambled back into the firs Branches scraped her face, pulled at her cloak, and yanked her hood back froled in the crook of a branch As she jerked her head sideways to free it, another spray of needles whistled past, spattering like falling stones down around her before they hissed out of existence One struck her in the heel, but the needle-thin arrow couldn’t penetrate leather Or so she hoped Stu forward, she didn’t have time to check

She burst into the open space under the tallest trees, as dark as sin except for the fire s where someone had thrown needles over it to kill it She sucked in a breath to cry a warning but got such a lungful of s, she grabbed for the nearest horse, snagged its reins, and glimpsed Gotfrid The old Lion had formed up with two of his fellows to make a little wall of shields to defend Prince Ekkehard, ood that it did theht through them! They’re demons--"

The voice cut off Then a ht onto the s frantically at the arrow stuck in his throat

Between one breath and the next, Ekkehard and his entire party panicked

Hanna barely kept hold of the horse as men and horses bu her, and she staggered into the thickest tangle of branches until she fetched up there, face scratched and raw, one glove torn off, hair coo any farther, and she’d lost the horse’s reins She turned around to try to find it, and alure, more shadow than substance It had a wo bronze armor at its chest was e spears into battle

Hanna could actually see the faint outline of the fir trees through its body, or h it weren’t really entirely there

Lowering its bow, it spoke "I smell the stench of our old enemy upon you, huly knife

Stark terror flooded her

It was going to kill her With the branches pressed in against her, she couldn’t reach her bow Her fingers found the hilt of her eating knife, but she kneas hopeless, that cold iron would do nothing more than stick itself in the trunk of the tree behind the phantom, while any least touch from a cursed elven blade or arroould sicken ato kill her

That was it, her last thought: Ai, God I’ll never see Liath again

The owl appeared out of nowhere, all beating wings and tearing beak A moment’s reprieve, that was all A moment was all Hanna needed She dropped to her knees and crawled like a ainst the ground under a roof made of the lowest branches Her bow scraped wood, and an arrow, catching on a branch, snapped as she broke forward The bed of dry needles gave way to a dusting of snow, and she pushed through low-hanging branches and found herself facing into a drift She burrowed up between two sprawling branches and floundered forward through the snow

All she could think about was getting away

There was enough light to see, now, although everything was still in shades of gray as dawn fought to vanquish night, not an easy task with snow falling heavily and a dense blanket of clouds covering the sky It was bitterly cold Through the snow she saw other figures struggling to flee and, there, a lone horse