Page 17 of Blood & Claw

A few yards into the village, a woman was carrying a basket out to the river for washing. She was young, around the same age as Ailsa, her belly swollen with bairn. Spying the newcomer, she halted, her eyes narrowing.

“Good morning,” Ailsa called out. “Can I trouble you for a skin of ale?”

The young woman scrutinized her for a few moments. She then frowned.

Ailsa dredged up a smile. “I have coin … I can pay for it.”

The lass’s mouth pursed. She put down the basket and rested a hand on her protruding belly. “All right then. Follow me.”

Relieved, Ailsa followed. She then handed over the empty water skin.

Waiting outside the roundhouse, she looked around at where the other women were getting on with chores while their men tended to their flocks. A crone sat nearby, crushing oats with a stone, while a few yards distant, a lass scattered grain for the fowl that strutted around, clucking self-importantly, while another woman milked a goat by an enclosure.

All of them watched Ailsa.

She shifted uncomfortably.

Aye, she’d be an odd sight—a lanky young woman with a pallid complexion, traveling alone—nonetheless, she didn’t like being stared at.

Instinctively, she curled her fingers into her palms.

She didn’t want the women to see her nails.

Moments later, the pregnant lass reappeared with a jug of ale. Wordlessly, Ailsa handed her half an iron penny. Only then did she fill her empty water skin.

“Have travelers passed this way today?” she asked as she stoppered the skin.

“Maybe.”

“A group of warriors with a pony and cart?”

The lass’s lips thinned.

“Is that an ‘aye’ or ‘nay’?” Ailsa knew she should ask more sweetly, yet she was tired, and this woman’s unfriendliness was getting to her. She needed a straight answer.

“It’s an ‘aye’,” she replied sullenly.

Silence fell, broken only by the croak of a nearby raven.

“We don’t want any trouble here, lassie,” the elderly woman crushing oats called out then. “Best be on your way.”

6: PROOF

FIVE LONG DAYS followed.

Painful ones. But despite that self-doubt plagued her, Ailsa didn’t slow.

She wouldn’t until she found Kayla.

She tore strips off her long undertunic and wrapped her blistered feet so she could tolerate wearing boots, but each step hurt, nonetheless.

Hunger and thirst became traveling companions. If it wasn’t for the few villages she passed, where she parted ways with more iron pennies than she wished to for bread, cheese, ale—and shelter—she’d never have made it to Farnoch.

In every village, she asked the same question: had a band of mercenaries passed through?

The answer was always the same.

Aye. Only a short while before. The bastards were always a step ahead.