The next beat was closer.
She grabbed Elara’s arm, her voice filled with alarm. “Wake the village.”
Elara didn’t hesitate. She ran into the cold morning, calling names, pounding on doors. The first few she roused blinked sleepily, confused, until the sound reached them too, a deep, steady drum that seemed to come from the woods beyond the fields.
People threw open their shutters to listen as if they did not believe the threat or did not want it to be true. Dogs barked, sensing danger, and somewhere a child began to cry.
Elara turned toward the hills, her heart hammering with the rhythm of that frightening, never-ending pounding of drums that drew closer.
The villagers gathered quickly, drawn by the sound that no one wished to hear. Faces pale, eyes wide, they crowded into the village square. The drums suddenly stopped, yet the silence they left behind was worse.
Elders murmured to one another, their words carried on sharp gusts of wind.
“No good ever comes when the drums sound,” one said.
Another shook his head. “Say it for what it is… Hunters.”
A low, frightened murmur rippled through the crowd.
Elara stood beside Maelis, the older woman’s hand gripping her arm with surprising strength. The warmth of that touch could not chase away the cold that crept into Elara’s chest.
“We all know what their arrival portents,” someone whispered.
“Some in the village will vanish,” another said, fear trembling his words.
“That can mean only one thing,” a fellow said. “Their quest to find the powerful healer, the one who can conquer death itself, has yet to be successful.”
“The Hunters never fail, especially if tasked by the king,” said another.
The words spread like a chill wind, sending shivers through the crowd. The murmurs died into fearful silence. Even the children, sensing the shift in the air, clung to their mothers’ skirts.
All eyes turned toward the hills where the road vanished into the trees. The mist had begun to lift, revealing the faint line of the forest’s edge, quiet and waiting.
“Hide the young ones,” someone called out, and people began running.
Maelis’s grip on Elara’s arm tightened. “You must hide.”
Elara looked at her, startled. “Hide?”
“Into the woods. Now.”
Elara shook her head. “I am not a healer?—”
“They won’t believe you,” Maelis snapped, her voice sharp though low. “Your hair, your eyes… they’ll see you as the one they seek before you draw breath to deny it.”
“They won’t find me guilty of a gift I don’t possess.”
“You think that will matter?” Maelis hissed. “Hunters have no need of truth. They take what they’re told to take. You’re marked whether you wish it or not.”
The drums began again.
This time closer.
The sound rolled over the hills, deep and relentless, setting the very air to trembling.
Maelis shoved Elara toward the forest path. “Go, lass, and stay off the main roads, take the old trails less traveled and be wary of strangers. Go now. Go and warn the other villages that the Hunters’ drums sound strong. They come for the healers.”
Elara turned, her cloak flaring in the wind. “What about you?”