Page 52 of No Place in Time

“Stop him!”

Finn looked up from the broken axle he had been repairing. A man was running, one of the other soldiers, younger than Finn, wild-eyed and desperate. He bolted between two wagons and made for the tree line.

For two days, since the order came to move north, Finn had waited, watching the guards stretch thin with the chaos of breaking camp. He’d lifted three fine tools, one by one, wrapping them in cloth to silence their clank. The hard weight of them against his ribs was a constant reminder that the time machine needed repairs before he could take Cecily away in it.

Cecily. She would be married by spring, the letter had said. It was spring now.

The guards were converging, boots pounding. The young man didn’t slow. He ran like his life depended on it. The guards were twenty paces behind the deserter now, then fifteen. One raised a crossbow.

Finn looked away before the arrow flew.

This was his chance. To his left, the horse pen. A single handler, distracted by the shouting, his back turned. Three horses stood saddled near the fence. Finn didn’t hesitate. He crossed the distance in a blur, his hands closing on the nearest reins just as the handler turned.

“Oi! What’re ye—”

Finn kicked hard. The horse lurched forward, nearly unseating him, then found its stride. Behind him, the handler was shouting, but Finn didn’t look back. He leaned low over the horse’s neck and drove his heels in again.

The edge of camp blurred past. Tents, wagons, and men scattered out of his path. Someone yelled at him to stop, but he kept going.

An arrow hissed past his shoulder and buried itself in the ground ahead.

Finn yanked the reins left, swerving between two supply carts. The horse’s hooves skidded in the mud, found purchase, and he was through. Open ground stretched ahead to the road cutting south, back toward England, toward Kent.

Toward Cecily.

He risked a glance back. Three riders were already mounting. Behind them, near the tree line, the young deserter lay crumpled in the dirt. Guards stood over him. One nudged the body with his boot.

A wave of nausea swept over him, but he faced forward and rode harder.

The sun climbed as he pushed south, the horse’s breathing growing labored beneath him. He turned off the road where a stream cut through a stand of trees, urging the horse into the water to break the trail. The cold soaked through his boots, but he kept moving, following the stream, then climbing out on the far bank and circling back toward the road.

Behind him, he heard hoofbeats.

Finn dismounted and pressed himself against the trunk of an oak, one hand over the horse’s muzzle to keep it quiet. The riders passed on the road, two of them, moving fast, eyes scanning the ground for tracks.

Finn waited until the sound faded. His legs were shaking. The horse’s sides heaved with each breath. Foam flecked its mouth.

“Easy,” he murmured, running a hand down its neck. “Just a little farther.”

He knew he couldn’t push the animal much longer. And staying on horseback made him too visible.

By midday, the horse was limping. Finn dismounted and checked its foreleg. The hoof was sound, but the animal favored it when it walked. He couldn’t ride it anymore without risking permanent injury. He turned the horse loose and kept walking, moving south.

∞∞∞

He’d been walking for hours when he heard singing, off-key and earnest. It came from a group of pilgrims heading to Canterbury, a dozen of them on foot. He approached the group of pilgrims cautiously. An old man leading them eyed his bruised face and torn tunic.

“Are you heading to the shrine?” Finn asked. “Canterbury?”

The old man hesitated, then gave a slow nod. “Aye. God’s road is for all. Join us if ye will.”

Finn fell in at the edge of the group, grateful for the acceptance. There was safety in their numbers.

On the second day, the road narrowed into dense woodland. The singing stopped.

∞∞∞

Finn felt the threat before he saw it. A jay screamed somewhere in the trees. Then another. Then nothing.