Page 86 of Edge of the Wild

“Lia,” Malcolm whispered, beside her. She shook herself all over and found him leaning in close, studying her with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Only tired.” She knew from his expression that her attempt at a smile failed. “I’m fine.”

“My lady!” one of the men called, and she turned gladly away from Mal’s probing scrutiny. “There’s something you should see.”

They’d dismounted a half-mile inside the forest; this deep, still at the edges of the vast woodland, the road was wide and well-maintained, and the underbrush low and navigable. They hadn’t reached the deep bramble thickets or confusing, interlaced game trails, yet, though already the scent of leaf mold had grown stronger, and the air cooler. The birds that called overhead in the canopy sounded more like shrieking children than twittering songbirds.

She stepped off the road and through a screen of bare-limbed shrubs. “What do you have, Julian?”

Her man was crouched in a shallow depressed bedded with old, half-disintegrated leaves. She followed the gesture of his hand to the curved, gleaming ivory of fresh bone: part of a skull. It took her a moment to make sense of the bit of spine and tawny fur left behind.

She felt her brows go up. “A lion?”

“A big one, too, from the looks of it,” Julian said, voice grim. “It looks like the deer did, my lady. He pointed to the ragged bit of flesh left behind the creature’s cupped, spotted ear. “This isn’t the work of a knife.”

“And if the Strangers had killed it, they would have used every part of it,” she said, straightening, casting a glance around them at the play of sunlight and shadow. It was easy to imagine something waiting, watching them. “They’d never leave the skull like that – they like turning the whole pelts into cloaks.”

He hummed an agreeing sound.

“But what sort of animal would kill alion?”

Malcolm joined them, leaf litter crunching underfoot. “Bear, maybe? That would be the only thing big enough.”

“Maybe,” Julian said, but sounded doubtful. “It’s winter, though. Most will be sleeping.”

“Maybe it was a female.” Malcolm toed at the bloodied end of the corpse’s snout. “A much bigger, hungry male happened along. It’s not breeding season, so…” He made a slashing gesture, fingers curled.

“Maybe,” Amelia said, “the throat was torn out.” But her gut told herno. Mountain lions were solitary hunters; once a year, they came together when the females went into heat, their yowling cries ringing out through the foothills like the screams of distraught women. Once the females ran off their cubs, they were on their own, hunting in large territories whose edges they marked. Males had been known to kill females, but there was plenty of forest, and plenty of game within it. “Look at this skull, though.” She bent down to examine it again. “Look how square the back of it is. And big. I think this was a male. And there’s no gray on the muzzle.” A glance proved that Malcolm and Julian were both frowning – thoughtful, troubled. “What’s hunting this wood that goes from felling stags…to felling big male lions in their prime?”

She saw her own answer reflected in both their gazes: something even bigger.

“Lady Amelia!” That was Thomas; he sounded urgent – and Thomas was nothing if not steady.

She leaped the screen of bare shrubs on her way back to the road. She’d left Carson holding Shadow, and the stallion was agitated, head thrown back, nostrils flared. He rolled one eye in her direction and she reached to grip the reins; Carson relinquished them gladly, and Shadow put his head down to nose at her shoulder.

“It’s fine, you’re fine.”

“Amelia,” Thomas said, voice taut.

She lifted her head and saw what he was staring at; what had gotten Shadow stirred up. A figure dressed in homespun and fur stood a dozen paces ahead, dark hood pulled up over a tangle of dark hair, arrow nocked and pointed straight at them.

Amelia stepped up to stand beside Thomas, leading Shadow along with her. The latter snorted explosively and aggressively.

When the archer spoke, it was with a woman’s voice. “Are you a Drake?” she called.

Thomas’s hand settled on the hilt of his sword.

Malcolm’s voice sounded from Shadow’s other side. “Who wants to know?”

The girl’s arm drew back another fraction, string taut, the wood of the bow creaking.

“Mal, don’t,” Amelia murmured. To the girl, she called, “We’re a simple scouting party from the Drakewell lake district, trying to understand what’s been hunting and killing the wildlife here. Something that is clearly competing with the–” She bit off the wordStrangers. She’d heard they didn’t like being referred to as such. “People of the Inglewood,” she returned. “Something that’s driven them to poach sheep from Drakewell lands. You wouldn’t know of such a predator, would you?”

Silence – but hesitation, too. It counted for something that none of them had been struck through with an arrow yet.

After a moment, the girl said, “He called you ‘Lady Amelia.’” She gestured with the tip of her nocked arrow to Thomas. “You’re Amelia Drake, ain’t you?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Thomas said.

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