Ilona was instantly aware of the tableau she presented, slumped in the open doorway with one leg doubled under her, the other trailing down the steps, skirts tumbled awry. She saw doubt in the woman’s blue eyes as well as reticence.
Immediately her professionalism asserted itself. “May I help you?”
The woman had light brown hair, though much of it was hidden beneath an enveloping shawl. She was young, her face a lovely oval, but strain printed her face with an unattractive tautness. “You’re the handreader?”
“I am.” Ilona smiled crookedly. “Though at this particular moment, that may strike you as unlikely.” And it bloomed again in her mind, in her heart: she was able to read hands again, when for a while she could not. “I’m afraid I haven’t had time to arrange my table and cushions outside; would you like to come in?”
The woman glanced past her, looking inside the wagon, though with the sun gone the interior was murky. She nodded.
Ilona got up, realized one leg was nearly asleep, and set about finding flint and steel, a lantern containing wick and oil, the means to illuminate her tall wagon with its new canopy. She jerked the rumpled cot coverlet into order, then turned and gestured for the woman to enter. And as Ilona waited for her to seat herself on the cot, she reflected that the time spent with this young woman would do more to restore her sense of self than anything else. Smiling, happy, she sat down beside the woman and took the work-roughened hand into her own.
Chapter 28
THE HECARI WARLORD sent four of his warriors to accompany Brodhi back to the settlement. They were as all Hecari males: dark-skinned, black-eyed, skulls shorn save for a black scalplock, faces painted indigo from mid-face down. Heavy ear-spools stretched their lobes. They carried warclubs and blowpipes and poisoned darts.
He discovered within a matter of moments prior to departing the Guildhall that either they spoke almost no Sancorran, or spoke it well and hid it. Brodhi’s grasp of Hecari was quite good but he saw no reason to indicate that. He said only what was necessary; otherwise, he rode in silence.
In the evenings, over dinner, the warriors spoke quietly among themselves but without excessive conversation. At night, two were always on guard duty while the other two slept. Brodhi let them tend that duty; it gave him opportunity to sleep the nights through.
As at last they left the Cardatha road, cutting northward across open grasslands, the warriors’ alertness level increased tenfold. They exchanged a few terse words concerning the new route, but did not question Brodhi. They watched him, fixing black, fathomless stares on him. Days had passed since Brodhi journeyed this way headed to Cardatha, but his horse’s hoofprints were still visible. No rain, no wind, no one else upon his tracks. The world felt immense, untenanted.
When the smudge upon the horizon formed itself into forest, Brodhi noted the warriors exchanging glances. In his company they were neither voluble nor expressive men, but he was well aware that the appearance of the forest where none had been before, and their awareness of it, suggested the warriors had at one time ridden this way. Possibly they had been part of the culling party that decimated the settlement. They knew very well that they followed no familiar track, that the forest now stood where none had stood before. All maps, all knowledge of routes, were suddenly obsolete. To a nomadic people whose overriding goal was to conquer provinces, such things as disappearing roads and unexpected forests was of great concern. Alteration of the land was potential alteration of their warlord’s plans.
Brodhi smiled. The four men made deft, quick gestures to one another that conveyed precisely how concerned they were. He saw it in their eyes, in their faces, in their postures. Now and again their black eyes flicked in his direction, searching his face for telltale signs of fear or superstition. Brodhi maintained a bland quietude that little by little added to their concern.
He took them up to the narrow opening, to the gateway through the curving arms of Alisanos. There he reined in. He waited as they did, watching their eyes shift from his face to the opening, to the close-grown forest on either side. It was the beast’s maw, and they knew it. The warlord had obviously told them what Brodhi had told him, and these men knew enough to take Alisanos very seriously.
They were not, Brodhi knew, men who would willingly ride into the deepwood simply because he suggested it, ignorant of consequences. They reined their horses into a single line, pointedly placing him at the front. Each right hand now held a blowpipe.
Brodhi said, in Sancorran lacking intonation or emphasis, “Don’t go into the forest. Devils abide there, and they will behead, dismember, and eat you.”
There was no reaction from the men save continuing suspicious stares.
In fluent Hecari, he repeated the warning. As they exchanged startled, frowning glances, hands tightening on blowpipes, Brodhi calmly lifted the reins from his horse’s neck and led the warriors single-file through the opening.
A DAY OUT from the settlement, Davyn halted the team for the evening, pulling off to the side of the nearly impassable shortcut. Chores took up the twilight, actions so familiar he need not think about what he was doing: placing wheel chocks; unhitching the borrowed team and hobbling them, freeing them of the harness, brushing them down; laying a modest fire so he might have tea. As night spread around him, cloaking the grasslands, he ate dried meat and fruit, smoked his pipe, drank tea. It was the first time he had undertaken ordinary tasks since his family had been taken; all of his mind had been utterly focused on his loss, on the absence of those he loved, on ideas for their recovery. Desperation now was banished because of the hand-reader’s description of what she saw in his hand. Worry remained, as did anxiousness and a sense of urgency, but there was room now to breathe, space within his mind to find a small release from the crazed fear and lack of self-control that had driven him to the settlement, to accuse the Shoia guide of intentionally sending his family to the deepwood.
Ashamed, Davyn looked up at Mother Moon, gravid in the heavens. He asked her forgiveness for behaving so poorly, for making assumptions about a man’s character. He vowed to her that he would apologize to the guide, once his family was safe from Alisanos.
Nightsingers filled the evening with continuous sound. A breeze ruffled the grass. He heard the horses snorting as they grazed, blowing dirt out of nostrils. Fireflies flickered near the ground. With his spine against a wagon wheel, the hub softened by a folded blanket, Davyn felt a measure of relief trickle into his soul. The world smelled of grass, of woodsmoke, of horses and tea and seasoned meat. The blanket behind him carried the scent of his children. Time, only time, and patience, were needed. Brodhi would find Torvic and Megritte, and then they would search for the others. And Rhuan, Rhuan was with Audrun. He would see her safe.
On the journey to the settlement, Davyn had slept out of doors with Audrun, leaving the wagon to the children. But this night he craved company as best he could get it. Instead of a sleeping mat spread upon the ground and absent of Audrun, he climbed into the wagon, found the family bedding, and settled down for the night upon the floorboards. In his mind, he could hear his children, recalling snatches of conversation, glimpses of their faces. For the first time since the storm, he went to sleep smiling.
MIKAL, WITH JORDA back from accompanying the farmsteader to his wagon, quietly called a meeting of certain men in the karavan and from the settlement as the sun went down. Bethid learned of the meeting from Timmon and Alorn, and accompanied them to the ale tent. As she entered she saw Mikal note her presence and smile crookedly, with an expression that suggested he should have expected her. Jorda took note of her and merely indicated a table near the bar with a tilt of his head. Within moments all benches and stools were filled.
Jorda and Mikal stood before the bar. Quietly, with economy and clarity, each man spoke. They outlined their thoughts, described details, offered suggestions, answered every question without hesitation. Bethid realized the topic had likely been on their minds for some time, discussed at length, and they had f
inally felt the occasion was right to bring it to the survivors. But they knew better than to address everyone; they had chosen certain men in order to keep control of the discussion, knowing these men would carry clear word to the others without the freight of excess emotion. It would prevent dissention, curtail panic. Wise, Bethid thought.
She disagreed with none of it. She wondered, however, if any of the survivors would be able to do what Jorda and Mikal recommended. She wasn’t certain she could.
Then Bethid remembered watching Kendic die in a sea of Hecari, recalled the panicked screaming, the shrieking of the children, the sound of skulls being pulped by warclubs, the odor of burning oilcloth and human bodies, and knew that yes, she could do it.
The only question, she realized, was when.
AUDRUN DISCOVERED THAT Rhuan’s stamina was far superior to hers. It did not come as a surprise; it was confirmation of something she hadn’t thought about, but admitted to readily as he led her through the deepwood. This was home to him. She understood now that the membrane in his eyes, akin to a third eyelid, was necessary in a land with two suns, as was the coppery tint to his skin. The interwoven tree canopy, Rhuan explained, provided shelter against the suns, but not all of Alisanos lay under canopy. The suns were small, he said, not like the single one she was accustomed to in the human world; she simply would have to adjust to having two hanging overhead. Long sleeves, he advised, and a broad-brimmed hat, when they left the forest. Also there were plant oils she could use to protect her skin.
Progress was difficult. Without paths, tracks, or trails, their way was obscured by any number of trees, vines, thorny underbrush, ropelike groundcover that caught at the ankles, twisted roots hidden beneath leaf mold. Her legs felt battered and sore, her hands were victim to numerous cuts from swinging branches and fronds, and from time to time she simply fell down. Each time, Rhuan walked back to help her up, then calmly suggested they go on without delay. He managed not to fall down, but then he was taller than she, his legs were very much longer, and he was simply stronger. He had been born to this deepwood, reared in it. To her, it was nightmare come alive.
She fell into the habit of asking him, each time they stopped at a stream for water, to catch a breath, or to relieve themselves, how much farther they had to go. By the sixth stop and her sixth version of the question, Rhuan simply looked at her.
Audrun shoved loose hair out of her face and stared back. “Well?”
“What was your answer each time your children asked how much farther it was to the settlement?”
“It depended on whether it was the same day, or another.”
“The same day.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it.
“Exactly,” Rhuan said. He gestured. “Shall we?”
She watched his back retreat. Several different responses warred in her mind, but none made it as far as her mouth. She needed her breath for walking. For crashing through the obstacles Alisanos saw fit to put in her way. Once again she batted branches aside, ducked sharp-edged fronds, tore a foot away from vines wrapping around her ankles, slapped at the insects that flew toward her face. Rhuan was approximately three paces ahead of her, and she was unable to close the gap no matter how hard she tried.
“You,” she gasped, “never had a baby. You never carried a child for nine full months. You never had four months of pregnancy escalate into a matter of hours … you have no idea what it is to deal with sore, leaking, overfull breasts … or to completely lose your sense of balance because your belly is huge and your back is tired … nor have you had to tend other children while pregnant with the next. You haven’t the faintest idea of what it is to be a woman who’s recently given birth. You—”
“I,” he said from very close by, and she glanced up in time to stop herself from crashing into him.
She muttered an apology, caught her balance, pushed hair out of her face again, and looked up at him, panting.
“I have done none of those things, it’s true.”
“Well—” She yanked a booted foot free of an encroaching vine, spat out the foul taste of tree sap. “It isn’t easy! Any of those things! It’s cursed difficult!”
“Audrun—”
She stomped on grass attempting to insinuate itself beneath the remains of her skirt, picked out a twig hanging from her hair in front of her eyes, peeled away from her neck a delicate but tensile clinging vine. “I,” she said, “have done all of these things. Several times—well, no, I haven’t had more than one escalated pregnancy, but the point is—”
“Audrun—”
“—that I’m tired!” She wiped a forearm across her face, still breathing hard. “I’m tired.” Her voice and emotions ran down into exhausted blankness. “I’m … just … tired.” When he said nothing at all, merely waited as if he expected her to add more commentary, Audrun gestured. “All right. We can go on now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She picked a soggy strand of hair out of her mouth. “Yes.”
“Are you very sure?”
She glared at him. “Just go!”
Rhuan went.
THE VEGETABLE GARDEN died. The chickens died, depriving them of eggs. Blight struck the wheat. When ears of corn were stripped, kernels were discovered shriveled on the cob. Snares remained empty. Melons rotted in infancy. They ate up every scrap of food remaining in Lirra’s cabin, rationing it so carefully they all were hungry night and day. Lirra’s expression was frozen into a taut, stricken mask. Meggie, again, cried every night.
“We could fish,” Torvic offered as they all sat on Lirra’s bed, contemplating their straits. Meggie was on his left, Lirra to his right.
Lirra was distracted. “We’re nowhere near a stream or river.”
“We could find one,” Torvic said. “We could leave here for a few days and go looking.”
She glanced at him sidelong. “You and Meggie?”
“You could stay here and check the snares, tend the stinkwood fire … we’d look for fish. And fruit!”
Lirra sighed. Her eyes were distant again. “It’s a brave offer, Torvic, and I thank you, but I fear it’s much too dangerous for you and Meggie to go alone.”
“A river might come here,” Torvic said, who had at last grasped the unpredictability that was Alisanos.
“Rivers don’t do that,” declared Meggie, who hadn’t.
“They do here,” Torvic muttered.
“They do,” Lirra agreed. “And it’s true that a stream may be closer to us now.” She chewed absently at her lower lip. “If we built a large enough stinkwood fire, I could accompany you. We couldn’t go very far, I don’t think, but if we sorted out our directions very carefully and went out each way a certain distance before returning to build up the fire again, we might have some luck.” She leaned forward to see Megritte beyond Torvic. “Would that suit you, Meggie?”
In a very small voice, Meggie said, “I’m hungry.”
Lirra smiled. “Then that settles it. We’ll gather up the biggest pile of stinkwood ever seen in the deepwood, and go hunting for fish! Shall we begin now? Meggie? Torvic?”
Torvic scooched himself to the edge of the bed and let himself down. “Come on, Meggie.”
Meggie crawled across the bed. “Stinkwood stinks.”
Lirra laughed. “Indeed it does! Which is a very good thing for us all, don’t you think?”
Torvic did not miss the worry that remained in Lirra’s eyes. “We’ll find fish,” he declared, to lessen that worry. “We will.”
Chapter 29
RHUAN KNEW AUDRUN was exhausted and badly in need of rest, but the very kind of rest she needed was not what he dared allow any time soon. It was too dangerous. The longer they remained in one place, even to sleep, the more likely it was they might be attacked by beast, demon, or devil; the more likely it was that Audrun, with momentum halted, would not be able to continue; and, of course, the longer it would take for them to reach the Kiba. It was vital they reach the Kiba as soon a
s possible, either to mitigate the damage Alario might have already done them, were he there; or to, in fact, prepare their own offense before he could arrive. And so Rhuan insisted Audrun keep moving; insisted they could stop only rarely, and only if absolutely necessary; woke her at dawn and urged her on yet again. She was flagging, but he saw also a core of resilience within her she very likely was unaware of. Were she weaker, were she less determined, were she the kind to give in, pushing her so hard would have been unnecessary because there would be no hope of winning over the primaries at the Kiba. It was precisely because he felt Audrun capable of confronting the primaries on their own ground, entirely unintimidated by them or by her surroundings, that Rhuan was willing to make himself resented and hated.
Unhappily, he recognized that by behaving in such a manner, whatever the reason, he risked being viewed more like his sire than he ever anticipated.
The forest canopy overhead began to thin. Trees grew farther apart, copses and groves grew sparse. Two suns blazed overhead, dazzling their eyes. Audrun took to holding a wide, flat plant frond atop her head to shade her face and shield her eyes. The forest floor, dense with leaf mold, deadfall, and underbrush, became firmer underfoot, giving way to terraces of stone. The terrain altered from mostly flat to uneven, rocks forming shoulders, crude steps, upthrust spines upon the earth. To avoid slipping on inclines, they grasped vines to lower themselves down the steeper areas, soil and leaf mold sliding away beneath their boots. Audrun lost her frond when two hands were required. Her nose and cheeks slowly reddened.
Down and down they climbed, slipping, sliding, losing footing frequently. Audrun no longer asked how much farther they had to go, when they might rest, what they could eat. Either she had no breath for it, or she conserved and banked her anger for a time she viewed as ideal to confront him.
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