We slipped out the North Gate a little after noon, mingling with a group of farmers and tradesmen who had been trapped in the city by the unpleasantness. Hard faced mercenaries scrutinized the crowd but the simple expedient of scattering a few copper pieces in the street was enough to provoke a scramble that diverted their attention. Though I chafed at the slow pace but we didn’t dare risk horses, they would have marked us out as people of note. As it was I wore a cowled cloak to conceal myself and I had instructed Kian to hunch, though he remembered to do this only intermittently. 


We struck north toward Pavona, taking the Great Road. Astia was out of the question as we already knew the port was closed and I thought Luccini too obvious a destination seeing Du Ponce and his shadowy mistress knew that we had saved the life of the Ambasador, Maximo Panyo, and were likely to guess we might seek shelter there. The thought of the woman, of whom I retained only the vaguest of recollections after my fuge state, chilled me and made me suddenly and irrational glad the sun was high overhead. I kept myself covered having found myself unusually sensitive to the sun, though the sensation was fading.


We kept to ourselves as we followed the great road up the modest hills. Kian’s Tilean was good enough that people took him for a native, or perhaps an Estilian who had been here a long time. I tried not to speak, hoping my cloak would render me sexless and unremarkable. Twice mounted mercenaries raced up behind us and the group cowered off the side of the road. Both times they passed us without comment, probably carrying orders to the forts north of the city.


Our numbers dwindled as the afternoon wore on. Peasants and artisans took the smaller trails that led to their hamlets and villages. We briefly discussed hiding out in some such place, but decided strangers would be too much cause for gossip. I felt growing unease as the sky darkened, becoming unreasonably nervous about being on the road after nightfall. Perhaps it was this worry that caused me to bump into a young merchant when he stumbled to avoid horse droppings he had nearly missed in the fading light. He turned to snarl some curse at me and got a good look under my hood.


“Sigoritta,” he gasped, making an elaborate bow. He didn’t know me of course, but I could tell that the fact I was concealing my gender wasn’t lost on my traveling companions. Some, a pair of dust stained masons, merely looked concerned, but a hooked nosed miller and a merchant cast speculative looks down the road. The young merchant who had spotted me seemed oblivious to the tension he had created.


“It is growing dark friends,” he proclaimed, “it is about time to make camp and I for one would welcome the company. Lacking a convincing reason to object we turned off the road into a small grove of olives to make camp.


_______


“So tell us Signorita what brings a woman like you out of the city?” the young merchant, who turned out to be named Adriamo asked as we sat around the small fire we had built with scavenged timber. I had by now removed my hood, it no longer being useful to try to conceal my face.


“I am relocating to Caratzo,” I lied, giving him the name of one of the medium sized towns to the north and west.


“Ah and what will you be doing there?” he pressed. He was jovial and friendly but he clearly wasn’t going to leave off pestering me. 


“I will work,” I said with a touch of dejection in my voice. Predictably he didn’t pick up on it.


“And what is your trade Signorita?” he asked.

“Sono una prostituta” I replied. He opened his mouth and then closed it with a clop, casting an eye sideways at Kian and drawing the logical conclusion that he was my pimp. It had the desired result as Adriamo colored and didn’t renew his questioning.


_________


I awoke to the sense that Kian was moving. The fire had by now died to smoldering embers that cast virtually no light but the moon was nearly full and bathed everything in it’s silver glow. I sat up to find Kian frozen with his head cocked. I heard the sound that had disturbed him immediately, distant hoof beats. He made a wait here gesture which I completely ignored, following him to the edge of the road. For long minutes we waited in the dark, the distant sounds of hooves on the stone roadway growing louder. An owl hooted close overhead and I nearly jumped out of my skin. There was a fog coming up, clinging to the wooded hilltops like a crown. It seemed to flow down the road in a slow motion river that seemed sentient and sinister. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, but there seemed little point in mentioning it.  I could taste bile in my mouth and feel my heart beating in time to the relentless drum of hooves.


After a subjective eternity something stirred in the mist and  four riders appeared on thin unhealthy looking horses. Far from reassuring me, my dread increased at the sight of them. They were cloaked and hooded and as they closed I saw an odd glow in the eye sockets of their steeds. I noticed that though the horses seemed poor, their tack and gear was very fine. The wind shifted abruptly and I was assailed by an unpleasant smell, like meat that had turned but been concealed with harsh and astringent spices. I was sure that the strange riders could hear my heartbeat so loudly did it strive to burst out of my ches.

“My lords!” 


I just about soiled myself at the sound of the voice. A man stumbled onto the road waving both his hands to attract attention.


“Do you seek a man and a young woman? For the right price I can take you to them!” It was the miller, evidently woken by the hoofbeats. I never did learn his name because the riders wheeled in eerie unison and rode him down. It was almost dainty, save for the snapping of bones and the shattering of the miller’s skull. Only once all four horses had passed did the last rider break from the formation, lowering a rod of ivory and brass to stab through the miller’s heart. Incredibly the mangled body was still drawing breath until the tip of the rod crushed the rib cage. The temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees in a heartbeat. Icicles hung from the leaves of nearby trees like tiny glittering needles in the moonlight. A pale ethereal glow seemed to pour out of the wound, uncoiling into a transparent facsimile of the dead man. It was distended and deformed where hooves had crushed it in life and a great millstone hung around the figure’s neck. It looked mournfully down at the body from which it had emerged then turned its pale silvery eyes on our hiding spot, seeming to smile through its horribly crushed jaw.


I screamed. It wasn’t my finest hour, but I challenge you to keep it together when you have just seen a man trampled to death and then raised into unnatural servitude before your very eyes. Kian told me later it was very loud, though all I really remember were the birds bursting from the cover of the trees and taking flight in a storm of feathers. The riders turned on us with the precision of a drill team. Their faces were covered with eyeless masks that seemed to be woven from silver and gold thread. The faintest hint of witchfire seemed to glow within. I was very certain I didn’t want to see what the masks concealed. 

“Run!” I shouted, forcing my icy limbs into uneasy action as I turned and fled into the woods.