The road was quiet.
“It’s peaceful here,” Oliver said, as the breeze rustled the leaves of the trees, whose shade kept most of the day’s heat from them.
“Most of this world is peaceful,” Kitsune replied. “It’s only those few fools who are desperate to draw blood that ruin it for the rest of us.”
Oliver glanced at her, no trace of humor on his face. His brow furrowed. “Yeah. It’s pretty much the same way in my world.”
“I know. Legends mirror the human world far more than anyone here wishes to admit.”
The hush of the wind accompanied them. Dust devils eddied up on the road. Deep in the woods, creatures skittered through the underbrush. A bird began to sing, and others replied.
Ahead there was a bend in the road, but Kitsune could hear the trickling of a brook. As they approached, she saw a stone bridge that spanned the little brook, and beyond that there was a weathered old house that looked as though it had been uninhabited for years.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Kitsune to catch Oliver’s hand in her own, twining fingers together like any couple out for a stroll in the country. For a moment, he left his hand there, warm in hers, and it was pure contentment.
Then Kitsune’s ears pricked forward. She frowned, breathed in the scents on the air, and turned back the way they’d come.
“What is it?” Oliver asked, breaking away from her.
“Hoofbeats. One rider, coming fast.”
“What do we do?”
Kitsune glanced around. “The bridge.”
They ran. The sound of the brook grew louder, but it was a gentle burble quickly lost in the thunder of approaching hooves.
Kitsune and Oliver reached the little bridge but did not cross. They ran beside it and down a small incline to where a swift, shallow brook rolled over gray and black stones that glistened wetly. There were far too many people, legendary and Lost, hunting them now. Better to just let the rider pass than risk being identified and having their position given away.
Her hood was back and her cloak floated behind her as she ran. Oliver thumped down into the brook, water splashing his heavy boots, and they ducked into the damp, shady hideaway underneath. Oliver’s breath came fast and his exhilaration was contagious. Kitsune looked at him and felt desire overcoming her. The rugged stubble on his face and the flush of his skin made him seem wild, for a human, and his blue eyes were alight.
Hooves hammered the road, not far off now.
“You there!” a voice boomed across the brook. “Identify yourselves!”
Oliver flinched and Kitsune spun, dropping into a lower crouch, fingers hooked into claws.
On the other side of the brook, in amongst the trees, several Euphrasian soldiers moved toward them. Kitsune counted five, then a sixth appeared from the woods, hitching up his pants as though he’d just relieved himself. Four of them hung back a bit, studying them with curious bemusement, but the two at the front, both officers from the insignia on their chest plates, were gravely serious. Some kind of patrol, she presumed, though what they were doing out here in the middle of nowhere, and on foot, she could not imagine.
Kitsune glanced back to the west and saw the rider approaching. The horse galloped toward the bridge, perhaps a hundred yards away. He had no chest plate, nor a helm, but he wore a band tied around his right arm that fluttered in the wind: green and yellow, the colors of King Hunyadi.
“Come out of there! Show yourselves, now, and answer the question,” snapped the nearest of the officers. He stepped into the brook and the metal sang as he drew his sword.
“What are you, Clegg, a fool? You can see it’s him,” snapped the other officer, older and more stout than the first. His beard was gray, but his eyes were bright with vigor.
Kitsune stood and stepped, rigid as a queen, from beneath the bridge. “Captain Clegg, is it?” she said, and her tone gave both men pause. “Are you in the habit of waylaying travelers like highwaymen and brigands?”
Clegg took a step nearer. The sun gleamed on his silver helm and on his blade. “Your name, miss. And that of your companion.”
“Damn it, Clegg-” began the other officer.
“Shut your gob, Sergeant Matthias!” Clegg snapped, but he did not turn his attention away from the travelers. He was wary, this one, though not as canny as the sergeant.
“I am Kitsune,” she said, and then she stepped aside, giving them their first full view of Oliver. He came out from under the bridge and stood to his full height, and they could see the scabbard that hung from his belt, and the insignia upon it that matched the one on their chest plates.
“As for my companion, as you can see, he bears the Sword of Hunyadi himself. Now you shall sheathe your blade, or his will be drawn.”
The rider was twenty-five yards from the bridge.
Clegg stepped nearer still, the water washing over his boots. He raised the tip of his sword and pointed it at Oliver. “Your name, sir!”
“Captain, you’ve seen the sketch. It’s him,” Sergeant Matthias shouted. “It’s the Intruder!”
With a roar of frustration, Clegg rounded on the sergeant. “That’s enough of you. There are protocols to be-”
Kitsune glanced at Oliver, the thrill of mischief rising up in her, no different from the arousal that burned in her. The situation was dire, but danger was delicious.
“Fight,” she whispered.
Then she lunged at Clegg, copper fur cloak floating behind her on the air as she practically flew across the space that separated them. Even as he turned, she grabbed his wrist, turned the point of his sword toward him and plunged the blade into his chest with such ferocity that his arm broke in several places.
He fell onto his knees in the brook, and blood pooled in the water.
Kitsune kept moving. With less than a thought, she transformed into a fox, splashing across the brook and barking. The soldiers beyond Matthias were shouting to one another in a panic, drawing swords, one of them rushing back into the trees.
“Come, then, myth!” Matthias called. “Traitor!”
She darted forward, his sword came down, and the fox leaped aside. The blade thudded into the dirt, and Kitsune snapped her jaws down on his wrist, fangs sinking into flesh. Matthias cried out and released his weapon, and then Kitsune was past him, running for the others.
The horse and rider reached the bridge, the clop of hooves on stone echoing off the woods and the water. But the horse neighed loudly as the rider-a messenger for Hunyadi, if his armband was genuine-drew back on the reins.
The messenger began to shout at the soldiers.
Kitsune glanced back. Sergeant Matthias was reaching for his sword, scrabbling on the bank of the brook. Oliver wielded the Sword of Hunyadi, pointing it at him as he approached.
“Stand and surrender,” Oliver said loudly.
The fox growled as two of the soldiers rushed toward her. One carried a sword and the other a pike. He wielded it with the expertise of a master, and she hesitated a moment, then raced around the swordsman, putting him between herself and the man with the pike.
The swordsman swung.
Kitsune leaped at him, jaws closing on his crotch. Blood spurted from his soft parts into her mouth and he screamed shrilly. The other soldiers all shouted furiously, and that brought them running. There was no longer any hesitation. If confusion or wariness had held them back before, it was gone now.
The man with the pike kicked the screaming man out of the way, and he fell to the ground, hands clutched over his bleeding, mutilated groin. The pike waved before Kitsune, the blade feinting toward her again and again, and she realized he was only buying time for his fellow soldiers to reach her.
She transformed again, becoming human in the space between heartbeats. Her cloak blossomed around her, black hair falling across her face in a curtain as she moved.