Shadows of Myth. Rachel Lee

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Epilogue

      1

      She awoke to the smell of blood, the sound of running water and the icy bite of the wind on her back. For a long moment, that was all she could be certain of, as if her brain had to learn all over again what it meant to be conscious. Then, in the instant when disorientation gave way to awareness, terror slammed into her gut like a falling tree. She fought to breathe, even to open her eyes and see.

      She wished she hadn’t.

      The scent of blood spilled from the cooling, inert form upon which she lay. His throat had been slashed from ear to ear, the flesh parted in an obscene smile, still glistening in the brilliant moonlight. His eyes were fixed forever in a terror-filled gaze.

      Bile rose in her throat, and she rolled off the body, pushing at it, pushing at the air around it, as if she might somehow banish the event, erase it from her mind, never to have happened. But it was not to be, for as she rolled backward, she tumbled upon another body.

      The boy was small, not yet seven to judge by his features. Deep brown eyes seemed focused vaguely beyond her head. His abdomen had been laid open in an ugly, razor-smooth diagonal gash from just beneath his left nipple nearly to his right hip. Tiny, dirty hands clutched a small walking stick over his belly, a terrified, confused, tormented child’s futile attempt to both hold his innards within him and protect himself from further blows. To judge by the savagery that must have followed—for surely that sort of mutilation could not have been done until he stopped fighting—he had succeeded in neither aim.

      Her eyes rose to take in the rest of the scene around her. A river gurgled black with blood, stinking of it, over rocks worn smooth by the water’s patient, insistent, inexorable caress. She looked upstream for the source of the blood in the water. She didn’t have to look far. For at least a hundred paces, the bodies of men, women and horses sprawled along the bank like so much litter, as if haphazardly thrown over the side by a passing ship, their last agonies visible in every vivid, stomach-wrenching detail.

      She fought the dizzying wave of nausea and lost. As she spat the last of it into the river, she realized she was naked and covered in blood. A new panic tore through her as her hands roamed over her body, feeling for wounds. There were none immediately apparent, so she made her way upstream, methodically checking each body in a manner and for reasons she could not fathom, until she reached the head of the column and clear water.

      The water stole her breath away, so cold it nearly burned her skin. Gritting her teeth, she steeled herself to the pain and washed the gore from her body, then checked again for wounds in the pale light of the moon. Nothing so much as a scratch. She stepped out of the river, and the wind bit anew, sending her into an uncontrollable shiver.

      At this temperature, I’ll freeze to death in less than an hour, she thought, then wondered why she would know such a thing with such utter certainty. With that wonderment came the most terrifying shock of all. She had no idea who she was, or where, or how she’d gotten to this place.

      Nor was there time to find out.

      The whimpered moan sent a chill down her spine. She looked around, wondering if it might have been the wind, but then it came again, the sound full of pain and fear. Every rational thought told her to hide, and yet she was drawn to the moan like a moth to a flame, working her way back down the column, pausing every few steps to listen until the sound repeated.

      It was a girl, perhaps the same age as the boy she’d seen earlier, perhaps even his twin. The girl’s lips, thin and almost white, quivered as she gasped for breath. She knelt beside the girl, feeling for a pulse in the bloody mess that was a throat, and finding it fluttery and weak. The girl’s eyes seemed to search the darkness before finding her.

      “Oon-tie,” the girl moaned. “Oon-tie.”

      She had no idea what the word meant, but the message was clear enough: help me. Her fingertips probed the wound at the girl’s throat. Somehow the killers had missed the artery, although the slash had opened several smaller blood vessels. It was a superficial wound. Fear, cold and shock had done the rest. The girl must have lain still, clinging to her dying mother, feigning death until the attackers had grown bored with their blood sport and melted away into the darkness.

      “Shhhh,” she whispered, trying to find a reassuring calm that would quiet the girl. “Don’t talk. Let me try to help you.”

      It was then that she noticed her fingertips were burning. She decided it was the cold.

      “I’ll be right back,” she said, rising to look for something to wrap around herself and the girl.

      “Ooooon-tieeee,” the girl moaned as she moved away.

      The sound tore at her heart, but discipline and a training she did not remember took control. If she didn’t find a way to keep them both warm, nothing else would matter. They would simply die here, in the dark, in the cold, vainly clinging to each other for a warmth neither could give.

      She picked through the slashed bundles that lay on the ground, finding nothing but sacks of wheat and rice. Surely one of the bundles ought to hold a blanket or spare clothes. But there were none to be found. Shuddering at the thought, she combed through the column again, finding the body of a woman roughly her own size. She closed her eyes as she undressed the woman, whispering a nearly silent I’m sorry, fighting back revulsion as she pulled the damp wool garment around her, knowing that the dampness was blood.

      Still, wool dried