Liars and Thieves (A Company of Liars short story) Read Online Free PDF Page A

frightened into labour before their time.
    I could just make out the glow of the fire through the weave and it occurred to me that if we were left for long enough, I might be able to twist myself round and burn through the rope, if I could steel myself against both the pain of moving my injured shoulder and the heat of the fire. But as if she could hear my thoughts, Dye leaned down and growled that if either of us attempted to escape, they would cut Zophiel’s throat. And I was certain she meant it.
    Although there’d been times on the journey when I would gladly have cut Zophiel’s throat myself, I couldn’t bring myself to leave him to their mercy. Besides, how far would a pregnant woman and wounded old camelot get, especially when the outlaws probably knew the forest better than the owls calling from the trees? Our best hope was that the rest of our company would find us.
    We could hear the voices of the outlaws, the clatter of stones being picked up and tossed impatiently aside. Then the howling began again, closer this time.
    Adela whimpered. ‘Those poor monks  . . . their bodies  . . . Can the dogs smell them?’
    The corpses lay abandoned just yards from us. The stench of their blood would carry far on this wind.
    ‘The dogs will only be interested in the dead,’ I assured her. ‘They won’t harm us.’
    It wasn’t true. I’d once seen a pack of feral dogs snarling and fighting over the fresh carcass of a sheep. In their blood frenzy they’d turned on a passing woman and child, and mauled them as savagely as the dead sheep. And if the howls were coming not from dogs, but wolves  . . .
    I stiffened. Something was creeping towards us. I could hear the soft squelch in the mud, the faint rattle as it crept over the rubble, the hard breathing of a beast panting. My throat tightened as I realised it was not just the bodies of the dead monks that smelled of blood. My own cloak and shirt were soaked in the blood from the wound in my shoulder.
    ‘Adela,’ I whispered urgently, ‘draw your knees up and turn to the wall, press your face and belly hard against it, if you can.’
    She was still wrapped in Dye’s sheepskin cloak, which I hoped might protect her back a little. I heard her struggling as she tried to move her swollen belly, but with her arms bound behind her, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I too tried to turn my head towards the stones, wincing against the pain in my shoulder, anything to protect my face and throat, not that it would save me for long. My heart pounding, I braced myself against the first savage bite that I knew was coming.
    I drew a deep breath and yelled, ‘Pecker, Dye—’
    Something clamped itself to the outside of the sack, pressing against my mouth and nose so hard I couldn’t draw breath. I’d been so sure that I was about to feel teeth tearing at my flesh, it took me a moment to register that a human voice was whispering urgently close to my ear.
    ‘Make no sound, Camelot.’
    The next moment, the sack was pulled off. I was staring up into the anxious face of the musician, Rodrigo.
    Crouching down, he gripped my shoulder, trying to help me turn. I yelped and he snatched his hand away in surprise, then looked down at his wet fingers glistening in the firelight.
    ‘
Sangue
! You are hurt, Camelot.’
    ‘It’s nothing. But Adela—’
    ‘Osmond helps her. Where  . . .’
    Rodrigo broke off with a gasp of horror as he caught sight of the two bloody corpses on the ground, the shadows and firelight running over their naked flesh like an army of mice.
    With a frightened glance around him, he knelt clumsily and began to saw through the rope that bound my wrists with his knife.
    ‘Zophiel, he is dead?’ he whispered.
    ‘Not yet. But we were taken by some outlaws. Four of them. He’s with them and they have him bound. They’re searching for something out there among the trees.’
    Osmond was untying his wife, a process which was hampered by him repeatedly kissing