Dream of Me/Believe in Me

directly into the trap set by Alfred. Just as they crossed the border into Mercia, when they imagined themselves to be safe, they would be caught in a pincer between Athelred and Hawk himself. The womenwould likely survive for no one would seek their deaths, although Athelflad might have something to say later about Esa's fate.
    Yet as the prints left by the horses became clearer, Hawk's easy mood began to darken. He had taken the measure of the Mercians at court and knew their numbers. It seemed to him there were fewer mounted than he would have expected. Concerned, he called a halt and got down to look at a clear stretch of the prints more closely.
    “Is there a problem, lord?” one of his lieutenants asked. He waited nearby, astride his mount and holding the reins of Hawk's stallion.
    Slowly, Hawk straightened. He continued to stare at the prints as he said, “I make this a dozen or so short.”
    Hearing him, the men closest by glanced at one another in surprise.
    “The ground is very soft, lord,” the lieutenant ventured. “Some of it looks rode twice over.”
    “Possibly,” Hawk agreed, yet he was unconvinced. The thought began to form in the back of his mind that perhaps the Mercians had not all stayed together. In their panic to get away, some might have struck off on their own. That
was
possible, yet it was also possible that there was something more at work. Something vastly more threatening.
    Udell was a vain, treacherous, venal bastard. But he wasn't stupid. No man actually could be stupid and survive any length of years in the cauldron that was English politics.
    Hawk was mulling that over, on his haunches beside the hoof prints, when he looked up suddenly and noticed the ravens clustered in the trees overhead. They had not been there minutes before, of that he was quite sure. But then he had learned the hard way to pay much more attention to such matters than ever he had before.
    “Ravens,” he muttered and his lieutenant frowned, struggling to discover what concerned his lord.
    “They are only birds,” he said.
    “Absolutely, only birds. You did not hear me say otherwise. Birds, that's all.”
    One of them, the largest of the bunch, with a shrewd glint in her eyes, cawed loudly. At once, Hawk heard a rustling in the nearby brush. He was on his feet, hand on the hilt of his sword, when a dog bounded forward. The animal ran right at him, jumped up on its hind legs, laid its paws against Hawk's broad chest, and dragged a wet tongue over his bemused face.
    “He likes ye,” Thorgold chuckled. The little man stepped out onto the road and whistled for the dog, who gave off licking Hawk and loped over to Thorgold's side, where he sat on his haunches, panting happily.
    “He's a good dog, he is,” Thorgold said, gently petting the animal, who waved his tail even more vigorously.
    Looking more closely, Hawk saw the signs of a beating he suspected was recent but that seemed to be healing with unusual—he wasn't going to think “unnatural”—speed.
    “Is that—?”
    Thorgold nodded. “That's him.”
    “I'm glad he landed on his feet,” Hawk said with a grin. “All four of them.”
    “Aye, he did an' ye can be gladder of it than ye know. He has the scent of Udell an' can follow that bastard over stone.”
    “That's why he's here, because you're trailing Udell?”
    “Nay, because ye aren't. Yer fetchin' up a dry gulch, lad.”
    Hawk stared at the old troll as the confirmation of what he had seen in the hoofprints settled over him. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, the knucklesglowing white. The curse that broke from him sent the ravens into the air.
    Thorgold waited until the leaves stopped shaking before he spoke the words he knew would plunge the Hawk into white-hot fury. Then he prudently stood back as with lightning speed the Lord of Essex divided his force. He chose with unerring precision the deadliest killers among his men. At his orders, they handed over to the others all weight that might conceivably slow them down. What was left was a war band honed to single purpose and lethal will.
    An extra horse was brought. Thorgold bounded onto it and whistled for the dog, who leaped onto the saddle before him. Hawk spared a single glance to be sure they were well seated, spurred his stallion to a flat-out gallop, and raced back down the road toward Winchester. Only one thought drove him on, to find the woman he loved while she lived.
    L YING WHERE SHE HAD BEEN THROWN IN THE BOW