The Banshee's Walk by Frank Tuttle

she had the good grace not to show it.
     
    I hadn’t been south of the city since I was kid. All I remembered from that trip was the cool shade cast by the Old Wall, the lush mosses and huge ferns that covered the shaded parts of it, and the way the noise and stink from the city stopped right as the scent of wet stones and moist soil and green growing things began.
    Back then, the cattle roads were well east of where Gertriss and I stood after leaving the cab. Back then, the road I’d taken had been a well maintained if narrow affair made of smooth, carefully set flagstones that wound between arching old pines. Tidy little stone bridges spanned clean, burbling creeks. I’d spent the whole trip fully expecting to see Elves cavorting in the sun-dappled wood at any moment.
    My, how things had changed.
    The cabbie had laughed when I’d asked him how far he was willing to go. Now I saw why.
    The road, or more precisely the wide, flat old pavers that made up the road, was gone. Hauled away by industrious country folk during the War, I surmised, when the Watch was gone fighting and the locals decided their houses and barns needed a new stone or two.
    Gone also were the quaint moss-covered stone bridges. Ramshackle post and beam affairs stood in their places, showing profound signs of neglect and weathering.
    The clear burbling creeks were foul, muddy rushes, polluted and defiled by the cattle roads, which were now in plain sight and raising a stink even though the wind was blowing toward them.
    I regretted not hiring a pair of horses for a week. Gertriss might have brought old boots, but I hadn’t, and we both stood a good chance of turning an ankle on the treacherous, muddy trail ahead.
    “Lady Werewilk came through this?” asked Gertriss, incredulous.
    “She had a horse and a butler, I imagine,” I said. “Anyway, we don’t have to walk the whole way. She said she’d have a wagon waiting for us up where the road hasn’t been quarried.”
    “How far is that?”
    “Not sure,” I replied. “Only one way to find out.”
     
    But Gertriss wasn’t listening to me or looking at me anymore. “What’s that?” she asked, taking a step off the trail toward a big swaying pine tree.
    I followed her eyes.
    The pine had sprouted feathers. Black feathers, crow’s feathers, three of them arranged in a neat triangle right about eye level.
    Gertriss touched the ends of them just as something streaked past her shoulder, close enough to ruffle a few strands of her hair.
    I was maybe three long strides away. She saw me coming and put up her hands and that’s all she had time to do before I hit her midways and took her down. We rolled, and she snarled and clawed. Despite my weight and experience the only way I got her to be still was by pinning her shoulders and head with my rucksack.
    “That was a crossbow bolt,” I said. “Shut up and be still.”
    She growled something that didn’t sound much like assent but at least she quit trying to knee me in the groin.
    I rolled off her, kept low and kept my rucksack in front of me, and peeped around the big old pine long enough to scan the woods before I pulled my fool head back. I’d seen nothing but trees and scrub, heard nothing but wind and the far-off lowing of cattle, but I knew at least one crossbow-wielding Markhat-hater was lurking somewhere near.
    Gertriss scooted closer, biting her lip. I felt blood running down my face, shrugged. “Hush,” I said. “You didn’t know.”
    “How many?” she whispered.
    “I figure two,” I whispered back. One to reload. One to fire. If they were smart they had at least two crossbows, probably sturdy, quiet army-surplus Stissons.
    “What do we do now?” asked Gertriss. She was eyeing my rucksack. It dawned on me that they’d wanted her dead first so she wouldn’t scream when I went down.
    I shook my head. “Crossbows trump swords,” I said. “So we wait.”
    Gertriss frowned. “Wait for what?”
    I heard a tromping in the