CHAPTER 1
The Dream
Summer 778 - Gaul, on thePyrenees border
Lara
Lara woke with a start as the facelesswarrior grabbed for her hair, her heart pounding as hard and fastin her chest as the hoofbeat of his black charger echoed in herears.She sat up on her bedroll and focused her gaze on thesurrounding meadow, slowing her breathing and lifting hersweat-dampened hair from the back of her neck.
A wet tongue licked herchin.
“Wolf?”She blew out ashaky breath at the soft whine he gave and buried her fingers intothe ruff of his thick russet fur.“Just a dream, boy,” shemurmured.“Just a dream.”
A dream she’d had every night for thepast thirteen nights straight.A dream she’d hoped wouldn’t findher here in the high meadow, a place of peace and solitude whereshe brought her small herd of milk goats to every summer solstice.A dream that had turned out to be as impossible to outrun as theman in it: a warrior whose face remained hidden behind his helmet,but for the cold, steel gray of his eyes as he chased herdown.
She stood on shaky legs and gazed upto a sky as clear and blue as a robin’s egg, without a cloud insight.The soft morning sun would be glaring hot by noon.“We’ll betaking the river path home,” she told Wolf, her constant companionsince she’d found him four years ago as a half-dead, newborn pupalone in the woods.He’d fit into the palm of her hand then.Now hewas as big as the goats she signaled him to round up.
After plaiting her unruly curls into along braid, she piled it high atop her head and pinned it in place.She bundled up her bedroll and few cooking utensils, threw the packover her shoulder, and carried the two sacks full of yarrow,sorrel, and mustard seed she’d gathered over the past two days tothe goats and slung them over Nana’s back.
Glancing around the meadow, shestrolled over to the little pool formed by a natural outcropping ofrocks and pulled her waist knife to cut a blood-red rose from avine heavy with blooms.It felt like velvet and smelled of pureattar.She stripped the stem of its thorns and wove it into herbraid, then she pulled her skirts up between her legs and tuckedthe hems into her waist belt.She’d learned the freedom of movementthis gave her years ago, and had never fully given up the habit,despite her Aunt Sophie’s repeated warnings about being caught insuch a state.
Which had happened only once, whenRanulf, the Count of Oloron’s snake of a son, had spied on her andfollowed her into the wilderness five summers ago.
Lara tightened her waist belt, checkedthe strap to the small dagger she wore tied around her thigh sinceher run-in with Ranulf, who wore her mark on his chin to this day,and smiled grimly.
Birdsong filled the dry mountain airas Lara, Wolf, and the goats made their way down the mountain’sside, playing hide-and-seek with the sun as it dappled the canopyof oak wood or reflected bright and metallic off the ripplingriver.
Yet as warm and sun-filled as the daywas, Lara couldn’t shake the shadows of her dream, causing her tolook over her shoulder at every rustle of leaves or snap of atwig.
By noon, the cool morning had givenway to the heat of day, and after stopping to share the last of herjerky with Wolf, she waded knee-deep into the river to rinse herhands and splash cold water onto the back of her neck.
Shivering as icy cold rivulets soakedinto her tunic and pooled at her belt, she pulled an errant strandof hair from her neck and stuffed it back into her braid.Sheturned for the shoreline, but then stopped.Wolf stood erect at herside, his ears cocking back and forward, his nose thrust high inthe air, sniffing furiously.
“What is it, boy?”shewhispered.His ridge of fur standing on end from neck to tail, hefixed his gaze on a grove of oak along the river’s bank and growledlow.Lara pulled her knife and dagger, then set her feet as ashadow the size of a large beast moved in the tree line.“Heel,Wolf.”She turned to run for the opposite shore, then stilled asthe shadows there moved too.
Lara swallowed hard and gripped herblades tighter.
“Do not fear, lady,” a mancalled, his voice low pitched and deep timbred.
Despite his assurances, every nerve inher body screamed at her to flee as the biggest, blackest horseshe’d ever seen emerged from the shadows, its head and chestcovered in lacquered plates.The warrior astride the charger wore ahelmet that covered his face to his nose, and a vest of iron ringsset over a sleeveless tunic of leather a shade darker than thetanned bronze of his thickly muscled arms.
There was a short sword sheathed athis waist, a longsword at his saddle, and leather gauntlets tuckedinto his waist belt.At sight of the gauntlets, Lara’s throatconstricted.She lifted her gaze and squinted to see what she couldof the man’s face.The man curled one corner of his lip, then theother, displaying strong, straight teeth grinning down at herthrough the dark stubble of his short beard.
“Truly, Lady.”The manpulled his horse up at the water’s edge.“We mean you noharm.”
We?Lara whirled around as another armed warrior emerged from theopposite tree line on a gray steed.She shuffled sideways, givingher a clear view of both.The warrior on the black giant doffed hishelmet, sat it down on the pommel of his saddle, and ran a handthrough thick black hair worn short in the northernfashion.
As the black-haired warriordismounted, Wolf growled low.“Stay,” she commandedsoftly.
She gripped her knives even tighterand glanced at the warrior on the gray, who made no motion todismount, then turned her attention back to the black’s rider, whowas wading into the water, toward her.
Though Lara was tall enough to standeye to eye with most men, this man was taller than her by a fullhead.He had a high, wide forehead and thick black brows.An oldscar slashed across his right eyebrow and down his cheek, and hisnose looked to have been broken more than once and was as crookedas his smile.Neither of which softened the hard line of his jawone whit.He stopped no more than two paces from her, and his eyeswere the color of honed steel.
“Have we met before?”Hisdeep, resounding voice resonated throughout her body.
Had they met before?Onlyevery night for the last thirteen nights.Lara shook her head.“No.”
He cocked his head and offered a slow,lopsided grin.“Let me introduce myself, then.I am Captain TalonGuiscard, king’s soldier, newly garrisoned at CrossroadsKeep.”