Around midnight, the moon had still not risen, and she was alone in the near blackness of the forest. She moved with the silent tread she had learned as a little girl. It was the only way she knew to walk anymore. Since she had been stretched out so many times, her body would only carry her along as it perceived time should flow: smoothly, steadily, rhythmically.
The children on the estate called her the Young Dread. It was not her name, of course. She did have a name, though no one used it anymore. She could remember it if she wanted to.
She thought of the three apprentices—two were sworn Seekers now—as children, though by some accountings they were older than she. That was a riddle with no clear answer.
Maud. It came to her, floating up into consciousness like a piece of treasure rising from the floor of the ocean. My name is Maud.
She’d heard them call her companion the Big Dread, though he was, in fact, the Middle Dread, and her dear master was the Old Dread. Those young Seekers had not yet been taught all they would come to know about the Dreads.
Across her shoulders she carried a young deer she had brought down with an arrow. It was growing heavy as she walked, but weight meant little. She did what she must, regardless of discomfort.
To a normal eye, there was not enough light in the forest for her to find her way. For the Young Dread, however, even the faint background glow of the stars was sufficient. Perhaps it was an effect of being stretched out so often, or perhaps it was her old master’s teaching, but her eyes were as sensitive to light as they needed to be. It might be they had learned to take all the time necessary to collect the light around them until they had enough for the work at hand.
Far away there was a noise. She paused midstep to listen, her foot hovering inches above the ground. She could hear the distant song of the river, night birds hunting among the trees, and insects even, moving through the soil at her feet. But this sound was something different. It had come from south of her, in the wildest part of the estate. As she listened, she heard it again. It was the sound of trouble.
She shifted immediately, her motions accelerating. In an instant, the deer was off her shoulders and on the ground. Before it had even touched the forest floor, she was sprinting through the trees, heading for the giant elm at the edge of the clearing to the south. Her body moved so quickly, she could scarcely feel the ground as she sped over it. Then she was at the tree, leaping to its lower branches. Like a jaguar, she scaled the trunk to the very top and stood concealed among its leaves, looking south toward the source of the noise.
There were horses there, six of them, with men on their backs. She scanned the entirety of the estate from her vantage point. These men and horses would be visible to no one else yet. They’d chosen the ideal route to enter the estate undetected.
She threw her sight, as her old master had taught her, sending it out across the distance to touch these men. At once, she was able to examine them closely, as though they stood directly in front of her. They were carrying weapons and wearing masks—but one was familiar to her, even with his face covered.
They had a disruptor. The familiar one was securing it with straps around the body of another man.
She threw her hearing at them, bringing their words to her ears as though she stood among them.
“It’s bloody heavy,” the man said as the disruptor was tightened across his back.
“Remember, it’s only value is terror,” the other one said, the one she recognized. His voice was quiet, and it was all wrong. He sounded like a demon, not like a person, his voice hissing and scratching. “Do not fire unless I order it. Do you understand? There are innocent people here. All I want is the stone dagger.”
The man grunted an acknowledgment, and his fingers explored the disruptor’s controls. The other men were checking their weapons as the horses moved about restlessly.
The estate was under attack.
She would throw her thoughts. She would reach out with her mind to the Middle Dread, her companion. It was the fastest way to alert him, and he would decide if he wished to alert the others on the estate. Mentally she reached toward him, sending her mind across the distance to his small stone cottage. He was there; she could feel him. Yet with the slightest touch of her mind against his, she recoiled. To her old master she could communicate easily this way. To the Middle it was different. The dislike between them was so great, the thoughts died in her before she could send them.
She would have to tell him in person. He would strike her, she knew, as he did when she said anything to him that was not in response to a question he had asked. But he was unlikely to give her a full beating when he heard what she had to say.
The Young Dread swung down from the tree, dropping from branch to branch until she had landed on the soft forest ground. She was already running.
