It was cold and growing dark by the time Cinnamon reached the strange jumble of standing stones. He quietly called Vitus' name, and, getting no response, repeated his call loudly. Still nothing. This place made Cinnamon's stomach ache, the fine hairs on his arm standing up in drunken almost-rows. There was something eerie about this place, and in his heart Cinnamon cursed Miss Aemilia for dragging Vitus out here. He hoped the strange stones didn't mark a tomb. This was exactly the sort of place for a gibbering half-mad spirit to rise from the grave, Cinnamon thought.
He circled the stones, hoping to find a footprint, a note, anything to indicate where Vitus might have gone. Eyes trained on the ground, Cinnamon stopped abruptly at a muddy point. The mud was not smooth, but troubled. There was something that might be part of a bootprint, up against the rock, and fine lines leading away from it. He was bending down, hoping to see the impression of a boot hobnail in the smudged mass of damp soil, when something occurred to him. The smudges were not what one would expect from a man casually walking around the stones. Not even if that man had been suddenly hugged by an eager fiancée – the lines led away from the stones, not towards them. In fact, it looked like something – or someone – had been dragged away through this mud puddle.
Internally, Cinnamon began to panic. If something had happened to Vitus, the master would have Cinnamon's head on a spike. Vitus was the only son, after all. And besides all that, slave or no, Cinnamon did know that Vitus considered them to be friends. Cinnamon knew that, if he were in trouble, Vitus would try to help him. The least Cinnamon could do was the same. He forced the rising panic back down into the pit of his stomach, imagining a dark box there that he could slam a lid onto, as soon as the fear was all piled in. Then he began to look, really and truly and methodically look, for clues as to where Vitus might have been taken
YOU ARE READING
The Baby and the Battlefield
FantasyA baby? On a battlefield? Marcus is a clerk in the Imperial army. When he finds an abandoned baby on a battlefield, he has no idea what to do with her. His best friend is no help; he thinks Marcus is a sucker for taking the kid in. The slave who end...
