The Pillars Of The World

ran inside.
    “Ari!” He didn’t need to search. He could sense she wasn’t there.
    “The Black Coats took her,” said a gruff voice.
    Neall turned toward the open door and saw the small man standing just beyond the threshold. He couldn
    ’t speak. One thought filled his head until there was nothing else: They took Ari. The witch killers took Ari .
    “Nothing the Small Folk could have done,” the small man said. “There were too many men. And those Black Coats—” His face twisted up in disgust and fear. “They have some kind of magic, but it’s nothing clean, nothing like what we feel coming from the Mother. So you’d best beware, young Lord, when you go to fetch the witch and get her away from those . . . creatures .”
    “Fetch her?”
     
    “They were riding toward the baron’s estate.”
    His heart began beating again. He hadn’t been aware that it had stopped. “She’s— She’s still alive?”
    The small man nodded grimly. “Go fetch the witch, young Lord. Fetch her and take her far away from here to some place where the Black Coats won’t find her.”
    When Neall took a step forward, the small man shifted. At another time, it would have been amusing to see one of the Small Folk trying to block a doorway. If Ari died, he didn’t think there would ever come a day when he would feel amused by anything again.
    “You’d best take what the witch will need,” the small man said, nodding toward the pack on the table. “I
    ’m thinking you won’t have time to come back this way.”
    Desperate to leave, Neall glanced around, ready to deny that there was any time to waste on anything .
    But he saw the saddlebags and the long cape on the table in the main room, and the small pack with the canteens on the kitchen worktable. If— No, when he got her away from the Inquisitors, she would need those things. He grabbed them and ran out to the horses.
    The mare was fidgeting and blowing, but she stood still while he fastened the saddlebags, rolled the cape and tied it to the back of the saddle, then tied the small pack to one of the rings on the front of the saddle.
    Ahern must have chosen that particular saddle because it was made for a traveler.
    The small man watched him, then nodded in approval. “The mare came from the Lord of the Horse?”
    “Yes,” Neall said, hastily checking things one last time. Then he realized what the small man had said. “
    You’ve always known about him?”
    “We’ve known. Just as we’ve always known about you, young Lord. Just as we’ve always known about the Daughters,” he added quietly. “But some things are not meant to be spoken.”
    Neall shook his head. There wasn’t time to ask what the small man meant.
    “There are the five of us who were nearby when we felt something evil touch the land.” He gestured to the other four small men who slipped out of the cow shed. “If you’ll take up two of us, the mare can carry the other three. We’ll do what we can to help.”
    “I’ll take what help you can give.”
    After lifting three of the men onto the mare’s saddle, he set another on Darcy’s saddle, mounted, then lifted the last man up behind him.
    As they galloped toward the baron’s estate, he fretted about the minutes that had passed. But surely nothing terrible could happen to Ari in so short a time.
    Surely not.
    When Morag burst into the room where she’d last met Dianna, the Huntress wasn’t there. But Aiden, Lyrra, and Morphia were.
    She rushed toward them, stumbling in her haste.

    Aiden grabbed her arms to steady her at the same time Morphia and Lyrra hurried to stand beside her.
    “What’s wrong?” Morphia said.
    “Where ... the Huntress? The Lightbringer?” A dam inside her had burst during the ride back to Tir Alainn. Now too many feelings were clamoring to be heard. The fierce need to speak made her mute for several seconds.
    “What is it, Morag?” Aiden asked gently. “What has happened?”
    Morag looked into his eyes and saw passion that had not been diluted from living in Tir Alainn because he, too, often walked in the human world. His gift had demanded that from him. If there was anyone who could understand—and make others understand—it was the Bard.
    “The witches. The wiccanfae.”
    Aiden nodded encouragingly while Lyrra and Morphia made soothing noises.
    “Wiccanfae is an old name for the witches,” Aiden said.
    Morag shook her head. “They’re the wiccanfae. The wise Fae. The Daughters. We forgot