Gordath Wood Read online

  Lynn stared at her. The stories? The summer camp stories that said Gordath Wood was haunted? Was Mrs. Hunt serious? “Stories, yeah. The summer camp kids get a kick out of them . . .” She hastily improvised. “It’s really not that far. I ride these trails twice a week or more with clients. I really think we should be getting the horses home.”

  “Yes, of course, the stories are nothing but stories. They’re nothing.”

  Lynn waited while Mrs. Hunt tried to convince herself.

  Finally Mrs. Hunt took a deep breath. “Very well. Ride him home. We will see you back at the barn. Howard, I believe I left my hat at the owner’s pavilion when it collapsed.”

  As he escorted her off, remonstrating with her, Lynn let out a silent breath. She and Joe exchanged glances. What have I gotten myself into? She shook her head.

  “Well,” she said. “Let’s tack him up.”

  While they got busy taking off Dungiven’s shipping blanket and bandages, Lynn got the first aid kit from the van, fished out the aspirin bottle, and shook out two, thought a moment, then shook out one more. She swallowed them dry. They would have to do to stave off the migraine that had been threatening all day.

  Lynn went around to the front of the van and slipped out of her hacking jacket, laying it across the passenger seat. The evening was growing chilly; she shrugged into her down vest and checked for her cell phone in the pocket. The reassuring display glowed at her.

  Dungiven was ready. He turned to look at her with his ears pricked and gave a low whinny as she took the reins and flipped them over his head. Joe gave her a leg up, and she boosted lightly into the saddle, gathering her reins and settling her feet into the stirrups, trying to hold back the headache. Joe held her ankle for a moment.

  “Listen—are you doing this because she didn’t let you ride him in the Classic?”

  She leaned down to adjust her stirrups and to whisper in his ear. “All I want is to get these horses home. Are you okay with that?”

  He stepped back. “Fine by me, you pull a crazy stunt like this.”

  She immediately felt sorry. “Look—I’ll see you in an hour, tops. Okay?”

  He accepted it grudgingly. “All right. Go.”

  She took the helmet he handed her, strapped it on, and gathered the reins. Before she set off, he called out, “Hey.”

  She stopped and turned in the saddle. “What?”

  “You’re not going to have one of your damn horse show headaches tonight, are you?”

  She felt herself smile, and he smiled in return. She stood in the stirrups and dug her apartment key out of the tiny front pocket in her breeches. She flipped it to him, and he caught it. “See you in an hour, Joe.”

  Darkness dropped almost as soon as they entered the woods. “Shoot,” Lynn said under her breath. She had forgotten the flashlight. After the first quiver of uneasiness, though, the peace of the dark woods fell around her. Insects buzzed and twanged, and a breeze fanned her cheeks. The trail was a pale smudge in front of her, the footing solid and even. Dungiven’s walk was strong and quick. He knew he was going home. They’d be at the barn soon, and she’d call the emergency vet out right away to make sure there were no hidden strains or bruises from his fall.

  Her headache faded a bit, and she smiled again, thinking of her implicit promise to Joe. They’d been seeing each other for a few months. He had started at the barn last spring doing the general handyman stuff, painting, fixing grain bins, mending kicked doors and downed fences. She found herself drawn to his quiet manner, his polite Texas drawl, his dark eyes and dark hair. All that summer she had tried to treat him with professional courtesy, and all the while she had half her mind on him when she was teaching lessons, supervising the farrier visits, or schooling the young horses.

  Now he was a part of her life the way no other boyfriend had ever been. Lynn thought about the last guy, a bartender at the local riders’ hangout. That had been a mistake from the beginning and had ended quickly. Rumor had it Mark had gone back to Colorado. Thank God, she thought, shifting in the saddle. Joe was about as different from Mark as a person could be.

  Dungiven flicked an ear, his head a ghostly vision in front of her. She patted his shoulder, letting the reins go slack, and eased her boots from the stirrups for a moment. She couldn’t wait to get home, get out of her tight breeches and boots, and take a shower. She let the peace of the night woods lull her, then picked up contact again.

  With a crashing of the underbrush, a deer exploded out of the woods and leaped across the path, disappearing into the trees.

  Dungiven bolted. He probably didn’t even see the three-rail fence; she knew she didn’t. He ran straight through it and brought it down in a splintered, crashing wreck. Lynn was launched off his back and landed hard on the forest floor.

  She sat up, groaning. Dungiven stood nearby, his head hanging down to his knees. “Oh Christ,” she sobbed. She tried to get to her feet but sank back down; her knee flared with pain, and she was shaking. After a few moments her heart slowed, and she pushed herself to her feet. She hobbled over to the horse. For a moment she just hugged him, his neck damp with patches of sweat, whispering an apology. He was unresponsive. Painfully, she reached down and began to feel his legs. His left foreleg had a warm spot—probably a bruise, she thought. He flinched and yanked his leg away when she ran her fingers down the long bone under his knee. Right where he must have hit the jump, she thought, and looked behind her.

  She had to look twice, but it did no good; the jump wasn’t there.

  It was dark, yes, but it wasn’t that dark. She could still make out trees and brush. The path had been visible as a slightly paler trail along the ground. Now there was nothing. No path, no fence, no short ride home.

  Lynn’s hands shook so hard she could barely hold on to her cell phone as she fumbled it out of her pocket. She punched in the number to the barn phone and pressed Send, imagining what she would say. Not the truth, she thought grimly. She would save that for later. The phone beeped and flashed No Service on the display. “Damn,” she muttered, and canceled the call, trying the main house. Even if the van weren’t quite home yet, Mrs. Hunt surely would be. Once again the phone beeped unhelpfully. Dungiven cocked his ears forward, his nose at her shoulder, his warm, oaty breath misting on her vest. Lynn canceled again and dialed 911.

  Nothing. In the middle of a dark forest, she stared with a sinking heart at her useless phone.

  The forest is full of gate magic tonight, thought Captain Crae. He looked out over the forest from the walls of Red Gold Bridge, his back to the torches that lined the stronghold’s stone stairs and walkway. The forest was a mass of darkness in the night. He could sense the restlessness that it hid at its heart. Red Gold Bridge may have been carved out of the mountain ridge that backed up against Gordath Wood, but it quivered beneath his boots.

  Generations of strongholders had chipped away at the caverns that riddled the mountain, smoothing walls and carving out windows in the stone. Beams of oak and other hardwoods harvested from the forest shored up walls and ceilings. Outside the main stronghold stood a stout, high wall of carven stone, its mortar well-tended against time and war. The wall and the iron and wood gate that buckled it would never be neglected, for even if there were peace in Aeritan, there was still the Wood.

  The guardhouse housed his men, and it was hot in the dim, small space. All twelve stood around the walls, leaning against the stone, their arms folded across their chests or one hand held near a sword hilt. They wore green coats, the muted red stone insignia naming them Tharp’s. Lord Tharp himself sat at one end of the long wooden table that took up most of the guardhouse. He sat back in his chair, his coat thrown over the back of it, his rich brown shirt open at the throat, and his sleeves rolled up. Despite the lateness of the hour and the waning of the year, sweat beaded his forehead and darkened his hair. Crae knew he sweated the same, as did all his men. Some days the Wood breathed out hot air like a man with a fever.

  At the other end
of the table sat Bahard. The stranger man was sulky, annoyed.

  “Look, I shouldn’t of shot him, I know that now,” Bahard said, his words heavily accented. “But you wanted the damn thing open, and he was trying to close it. He would have closed it, if I hadn’t done something.” His sulkiness increased. “I was just trying to get his attention.”

  Tharp looked at him over laced fingers. “Did he say anything to you before you shot him?”

  Bahard threw up his hands. “He was pissed as hell, yeah. I don’t know—I couldn’t begin to tell you what he said. He was mad, though.”

  Tharp sat back as if he were holding half-monthly grievances, his mouth a thin line. Crae knew he must be seething. There had always been an uneasy truce between the citizens of Red Gold Bridge and the guardian who kept the gordath quiet. The arrival of Bahard already upset that balance; shooting the guardian—Arrim—could only make it worse.

  “Are you sure you didn’t kill him?” Tharp said brusquely.

  Bahard lifted his hands. “I told you. I just winged him. He took off into the woods.”

  “We followed the blood trail as far as we could,” Crae put in. “The guardian crossed at the stream west of the old morrim, and we lost the trail in the water.” Even wounded, the guardian had shown cunning woodcraft. Crae hoped that’s all it was. He hoped that the Wood hadn’t turned full against them by concealing the guardian. Then again, the Wood’s capricious nature had been sorely tested these past months. The constant earth shakings had made that clear, and earlier that day, the violent shaking of the earth when Bahard shot Arrim had been enough to put cracks in the stronghold’s walls. This night the air fairly hummed with the energy from the gordath.

  As if to emphasize its malice, a soft rumbling came out of the heart of the forest, and dust sifted down around Crae’s head. It toys with us.

  Tharp pinched the bridge of his nose. “South and west,” he muttered. Crae knew what he was thinking. Arrim’s course would take him to the Council’s army, the one that amassed outside Red Gold Bridge in a show of strength against Lord Tharp. If Arrim reached the Council, told them how Tharp was getting his weapons—Crae had nothing against Arrim, even thought him a good man, but he could do nothing to save him from his treason.

  Then again, a guardian gave his allegiance to the Wood and the portal he guarded, not the lords.

  Tharp shook his head. “Halfway measures. If you had to be such a fool, Bahard, would that you were one who went all the way to foolhardy without restraint.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Bahard retorted, holding his ground. His mottled green jacket and trousers made him look bulkier than he was. “Look, all I want is to be paid for the guns, just like we agreed. You wanted this thing open, and this guy was trying to close it. I took care of that. You want me to kill someone for you, that’s separate, and anyway, I’m not sure I’m gonna do it.” He scowled. “I have to sleep at night, too.”

  Tharp ignored him. He turned back to Crae. “What do you think?”

  “If he’s still in the Wood,” Crae said carefully, “we’ll find him. I’ve set up scouts around the gordath itself, in case he means to come back and try again.”

  Tharp nodded. “All right. Take your men back on the hunt.” He threw another disgusted look at Bahard, but he addressed Crae. “We still need him, Captain, so I expect him returned alive. For now, all goes on as it has been. The gordath remains open. My lord Bahard, take your wagon and meet the weapons merchant at the cottage as planned.”

  “Yeah, don’t want to keep Garson waiting. You have the first payment, right?”

  Tharp eyed him without comment. The stranger man did not look cowed; Crae had to give him that much credit. Tharp stood. “The wagon has been loaded with goods that should please your merchant. Captain Crae, make haste.”

  They bowed except for Bahard. Tharp ducked out the small guardhouse door, followed by the stranger man. Crae gestured to his men, and they filed out as well.

  A breeze came from the river, refreshing him and for a moment cooling the night. Crae paused to savor it. Summer always lingered near Gordath Wood, but the promise of fall and winter hung on the winds from the river. In his home country of Wessen, autumn had already come. Or so the wind said when it blew in from the water.

  In the dim torchlight the stranger man disappeared down the stairs cut inside the wall. Crae watched him go. He hadn’t looked like much for a bringer of war, Crae thought, but he had carried trouble with him the day he arrived at Red Gold Bridge under heavy guard. He also brought his weapons and the promise of more. It had not taken Tharp long to see their potential. Crae had served Tharp long enough to know how the man chafed under the reins of the Aeritan Council. Red Gold Bridge, by its position on the long banks of the Aeritan, could control trade along the river, and with it most of the country, if the balance of power tilted enough. With Bahard’s strange weapons providing leverage, Lord Tharp stood ready to push.

  The wounded guardian had a different view, one that saw not the opportunity for Red Gold Bridge to become a true power in the region, but the danger of arousing the gordath. He might have paid for his dissent with his life, unless Crae could find him, and time was running out.

  Crae cast one last look over the wall at the night-dark woods and hurried down the stairs after his men.

  Two

  It was full dark by the time Joe pulled into the parking lot at Hunter’s Chase. He maneuvered the big van next to the indoor ring and cut the engine and the lights. Night fell around them. He could hear the small grunts and whinnies of the horses, eager to get out of the cramped compartments and into their comfortable loose boxes. From inside the barn another horse neighed a greeting.

  Beside him in the cab, Gina stretched. She had been riding shotgun, Lynn’s usual spot.

  “What a day,” she said. “I’ll be glad when Lynn gets back and this is over.” She opened the door and hopped out. He heard her talking to Kate, who had ridden in the back, watching over the expensive horses to make sure they didn’t get tangled in their lead ropes or throw a fit out of fear or boredom.

  Joe got out a little slower, throwing a look across the fields for a bobbing flashlight coming through the woods. Instead, the trees hulked thick and indistinct, a greater darkness in the night. He had never grown used to the woods. Nothing like them in Texas, and sometimes he felt like they were watching him. He’d be at work in the fields or even behind the main barn, and have to look over his shoulder constantly. God’s earth, my ass, he thought, dropping the ramp with a muffled scrape. That’s what people round here said the name for the woods came from. Maybe, like everything else, God was different in Texas, too.

  While the girls unloaded the first horse, he pushed back the big bay doors to the ring and turned on the small lights that illuminated the walkway around the arena as well as the floodlights that beamed down on the parking lot. The thick, warm smell of horses, hay, oats, and manure wafted over him. Joe had seen Lynn breathe it in deep like it was the best smell in the world. All he could smell was shit, but he could allow the peacefulness of it, of drowsy animals, warm and well-fed. One of the barn cats twined around his leg, and he nudged it aside with his boot. It meowed indignantly, and he snorted. Speaking of wellfed—“Go catch a rat, you,” he said.

  A car rolled up on the gravel drive. He could hear voices, and Kate answering. Alarm tightened in his belly, and he headed back out, squinting against the outdoor floodlights.

  “But Mom,” Kate said. “I can’t go yet. Lynn’s not back. It’s just Gina and me.”

  Mrs. Mossland nodded over at Joe coming out of the barn. “What about Joe? It’s just that it’s nine o’clock, Kate. We need to be going.”

  Kate’s father frowned. “She’ll be here soon, Kate. I don’t understand why she didn’t drive back with the van. Doesn’t she usually?”

  Kate hesitated. “She rode Dungiven back. He didn’t want to load, and she thought it would be quicker to just ride him.”

  Kate’s parents e
xchanged quick glances. Joe hastened forward. They were nice enough folks, but they were clients, even if Kate worked off part of the bill for her little horse, Mojo.

  “If Kate needs to go, that’s fine,” he said. “Gina and I got it covered.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gina flounce off, clucking to a tall chestnut thoroughbred named Piper. He remembered her talking about having a date that night.

  Mrs. Mossland said, “I suppose—well, we can stay a bit longer. I’m just not sure I understand why she rode the horse home. Was it part of the show?”

  “Mo-om,” Kate said. Her face reddened with embarrassment.

  “All right,” Mr. Mossland said. He clapped his hands once. “Let’s go. Get these horses put away, so we can get out of here.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” Mrs. Mossland added politely, clearly relieved when Kate and Joe assured her that no, the best she could do was to just wait; they wouldn’t be that long.

  Joe thought that unloading took longer than it should have, even though they were all anxious to go home. He kept stopping to look out toward the drive.

  Why isn’t she back yet?

  More than an hour later, when all the horses were safely tucked away, the three gathered in the tack room while Kate’s parents waited in the car.

  “She should be back by now,” Gina said. She fiddled with her car keys.

  “Maybe she called in when we were in the hill barn?” Kate ventured.

  “I thought of that. I checked the messages on the barn phone, but there weren’t any,” Gina said. “I could go look again.”

  “Do you think she just got lost?” Kate said. “I mean, it’s not likely, but—”

  “If she did, she would have called. Unless—” Gina didn’t finish. Unless she couldn’t.

  “Maybe she stopped in at one of the other barns, High Hollow or Stone Brook,” Kate said, still desperately hopeful.

  No one said anything. The words But she would have called if she had bounced around the dimly lit barn.