She reached around desperately and felt a smooth, long shaft. A broad-headed arrow had snagged the hood of her cloak and pinned it to the bole of an aged birch. She struggled to yank herself free. Two years of running from Mongols had taught her that another arrow, better aimed, would soon fly, and she had best leave the garment behind and make a run for it.

But a voice—like the voice of her mother, only far away and sad—spoke as if in her ear: “First arrow perfectly timed, perfectly aimed.”

Cnán understood immediately. She lowered her hand. The archer had accomplished precisely what he had intended. Likely he had left camp even before she arrived, to circle around, guard, and observe.

Running was useless. She was dealing not with Mongols or their jackals, nor with ill-trained bandits, but with men born and raised in the woods. At any false move, that second arrow could strip through the green branches and split her spine.

Cnán quieted herself. Her eyes twitched at more rustling, faint, very close. She had been tracked through the trees by at least two men: the archer, still unseen, off to her right, and the stalker, now approaching from behind. Both were almost certainly from the camp, posted in the woods as sentries.

The hunter behind her began to move freely, making plenty of noise, but she could not yet see his face, nor he hers, because of the pinned-up hood and the dense cowl of mud-crusted black hair falling from the part in the middle of her head. He circled her warily, and when he finally came into full view, they spent a few moments gauging each other.

Cnán had seen some wild-looking men during her long trek across the lands of the Ruthenians, but this fellow—clothed entirely in things he’d killed, sporting a matted beard thick as a bear’s pelt—looked half animal. Nothing woven—no womanly arts for him. Green eyes, sun-wrinkled at the corners, lent him a glimmer of youthful amusement.