Bloodstone by Helen C. Johannes Page A

staring up at her was as blank as a wall of unpolished jet. A trickle of cold sweat crawled down Mirianna’s ribs.
    “This is the Wehrland,” said the voice, welling unmistakably from the blackness scant inches away. The head turned as if surveying her companions who seemed somehow frozen although she knew, logically, the whole incident occupied no more than seconds. “You’d do well to be out of it.” With a sweeping gesture, the figure stepped away, and blackness slid like a magician’s robe from her horse’s head.
    The gelding snorted and back-stepped. Mirianna snatched at the reins and pulled them tight. To her left, the figure still stood, barely visible against the wall of trees. Then, as suddenly as it had emerged, it blurred into the shadows.
    The clearing erupted with sound. “Mirianna!” Tolbert trotted to her side. “Are you all right?”
    “What in the name of the Dragon was that?” Rees rode up with his bow still clutched in his hand.
    “I’m fine.” Mirianna squeezed the hand her father stretched toward her. It was cold, but her own was colder. Freeing hers, she tucked it inside her cloak before its tremor gave away her lie. Deep within her stomach and heart and spine, her body still vibrated like a sounding board. Sensations rushed and tumbled one upon the other, making her flushed then chilled. She was frightened, terrified, yet—somehow—calm.
    “I’m fine,” she repeated, this time to Rees who was riding his horse in a circle around both her and Tolbert.
    “Bloody Wehrland,” he muttered, reining to a halt between them and the line of spruces.
    “Hey!” shouted Pumble.
    They turned at the note of panic in his voice.
    “The boy!” He waved his sword frantically at the fire pit. “Where’s the boy?”
    Mirianna stared. In her mind’s eye, she could see the boy as he’d last appeared, frozen and clutching his staff. Now, the place where he’d stood was vacant. “He’s gone,” she whispered.
    “Dragon’s blood!” Tolbert breathed.
    “They were here,” Rees snarled. “Someone was here. Look, there’s the damned fire! Somebody had to build it.”
    “I don’t care.” Pumble tugged his charm from his tunic collar and backed away from the empty circle of light. “I know what I saw, and I’m leaving—now.” He seized his horse’s reins and mounted.
    Rees hauled his horse across Pumble’s path. “What in Beggeth do you call yourself? A coward? Look at you—running from a few shadows in the night.”
    Pumble sat with his amulet pressed to his lips. His face glistened like a full moon on rippling water. “When it comes to the Wehrland, yes.”
    “I think that’s wise,” Tolbert said. “We have directions. I suggest we use them.”
    “Do you think they’re true?” Rees retorted. “Look at who—”
    “They’re true.” Mirianna’s voice carried around the clearing though she was sure she’d no more than mouthed the words that had bubbled, unbidden, to her lips. She flushed, startled by their certainty.
    Rees swung toward her, his face livid. “Now, don’t you start—”
    “Even if they’re not true,” she blurted, “what have we got to lose?”
    “Right.” Pumble urged his horse around Rees’s mount. “We were already lost.”
    “If this path goes downhill, it’s going in the right direction.” Tolbert motioned to Mirianna to follow him out of the clearing.
    Keeping her eyes fixed on the chestnut’s tail, she heeled her horse, maneuvering it around Rees. His horse jerked its head up and, for an instant, she thought he would cut her off. Instead, he sat immobile as stone while, one by one, they passed him and rode out of the clearing.
    After Pumble had located the trail, and her father assured himself it led downhill, she heard the slow thud of hooves as Rees rode silently into place behind her. She felt his gaze burning at her back, but she didn’t turn. Nor did she speak. Heeling her horse, she followed her father down the path that,