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She had no idea how long she’d run, but after a while, her tears stopped. Her head ached, and the stupid cap made her scalp itch, so she removed it and shoved it into the bag. It was dark now, and she was exhausted. She needed to stop and rest.

She looked around, but everything looked the same—dark-gray trees and bushes, blackness behind them even under the moonlight.

Except…was that a light glowing between trunks? She stopped and squinted, trying to see.

Wind rustled the trees. Did she hear voices?

Maybe it was a village or a farm or something? Maybe she could spend the night there.

God, what she would give for a proper bed and a blanket. Hell, just sleeping under a roof would be amazing. It would be good for Andor…

Ah well. Screw him. She was on her own now.

Maybe whoever it was had food. She’d finished her mushrooms and nuts some time ago. Her stomach rumbled.

She went through the woods towards the light, stepping as quietly as she could. The closer she got, the louder the voices grew. People talked quietly and hummed some sort of a melody.

Could it be a festival?

It was a small crowd, maybe twenty people standing in a circle and three by what looked like a tall, flat rock. Like a table. The light came from several campfires and from torches in people’s hands. Among them stood several horses.

Behind them was a small hill with giant rocks standing like columns. Leaning against the hill was a large, almost-round rock that bore a chalk drawing of a horse. Right under the rock, a campfire burned, making the chalk horse move in the dancing flames.

A man in a long robe and a heavy apron stood by the table. The top glistened with something dark. Fear knotted Cathy’s stomach. Could it be blood? Two dead goats lay next to the table, and on it, she suddenly realized, was a third one, still alive. Cathy’s feet chilled, her pulse racing. Poor animals! The man wore a metal band on his head with engraving along its length. His hands held a butcher’s knife high above the goat. The animal struggled in the hands of two men who held it by its legs.

Cathy’s skin crawled as she began to understand what she had walked into.

A pagan sacrifice.

“Wēland, the invisible smith! Take this silver coin and take this sacrifice in your honor. Repair our weapons, chain mail and horseshoes, and armor us against Danes, so that our land is finally free of them.”

The woods began closing in around her. Her arms and legs grew weak, and she began hyperventilating. A scream rose in her throat, but she covered her mouth and stopped it. She needed to get out of here. Why had she left Andor? She was such a fool to think she could make it all the way to York without running into trouble.

The priest’s hands fell, and with one swift motion he cut off the goat’s head, ending its cries and sending blood gushing forth.

Cathy yelped in horror even through her cold fingers.

While another man held a bowl under the altar and gathered blood, several people looked in her direction. And one man saw her and narrowed his eyes.

Horror paralyzed Cathy. She couldn’t move a digit, her breath caught as though in a steel vise. Everything within her screamed at her to run, but she could only watch him and four more men and women coming right at her. They were just a few steps away when she finally unfroze, turned, and ran.

But she might as well have been in a nightmare. She moved way too slow, as if she was slogging through a swamp. She willed her legs to pump faster, but the pagans were right behind her. They grasped her hands, and someone knocked her to the ground.

A man with bad breath pointed a knife right at her throat.

“Who are you?” he said in Old English.

The rest of them loomed over her, their faces dark against the light of the fires behind their backs.

Cathy shook. She needed to lie.

“I’m from your village,” she said, trying to make her voice low, like a boy’s. “I’m Katherine’s son, remember?”

The man’s face straightened, and a sly smile spread on his face.

“I have no village, there is no Katherine, and you are no boy.” He looked up at his companions. “We are lucky. Today, we feed the smith-god a woman.”

CHAPTER TWELVE