Floodpath

by Emily B. Martin

  He smothers his own look of surprise at his reflexes. “I thought you might try that,” he says. “I’m not entirely stupid, you kn-oow, blue blessed Light—”

  His remark is cut short as I finish twisting his arm. His fingers release, and in the brief few seconds he takes to clutch his wrist, I break into a run for Three Lines.

  “You follow me and I’ll shoot,” I shout over my shoulder.

  “Lark!” he cries. “Wait—stop! There’s something I need to tell you!”

  But I’m fueled by anger now, and my shaky exhaustion is replaced by a burst of energy. I race up the grassy slope, Rat tearing along behind me.

  I don’t stop to wonder why there’s nobody out in the trace—Andras should be here with the ox and the horses, watching the road and letting the animals graze. Lila should be gathering greens, maybe with little Whit at her side. But the slope is silent and empty. Perhaps it’s too early in the day, or they’re waiting until the river recedes so they can bring the animals to water.

  Perhaps some horrible thing has happened, perhaps the canyon flooded in the night, perhaps it caved and they’re stuck inside, perhaps lightning struck and set the place burning, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

  I run faster.

  “Lark!” Veran is following me, stumbling over the rocky tussocks. I hope Sedge has the crossbow oiled and loaded—maybe if I shout he’ll do the aiming and shooting for me. My lungs burning, I reach the lopsided boulder at the entrance of the canyon. The three wavy lines carved into the rock, the ancient glyph proclaiming a water source inside, blur as I rush past them.

  “Sedge!” I call. “Lila!” My voice bounces off the rocks. “Rose! Andras, Whit, Moll!” Pickle. Saiph. The litany of my campmates cycles through my head, my throat hitching at the two I’ve already lost.

  “Sedge!” I shout again. “Get your crossbow! Get the horses!”

  I hop over the stream coursing over the path from the overflowing seep. On any other day it would be a blessing, fresh water running right by our toes, but now it’s only another unnerving anomaly—where is everyone? Are they hiding? Does Sedge have them sheltered above the seep? And where—I crest the little rise to the flat place where we keep the horses—where are the horses?

  “Lark!” Veran calls again. “Stop!”

  I break through the scrub oak fringing the camp and skid to a halt.

  There’s nothing, nobody. The fire ring is black and cold. The mud-and-stick lean-tos are in stacks on the ground. One of our rock walls has been disassembled and lies in a pile. There are no blankets, no pots, no bits of survival scattered around. No, that’s not quite true. There’s the ax handle I broke a few weeks ago, still missing its head, and the dinged-up metal staff Pickle used to throw to jam stagecoach wheels.

  But everything else, everyone else, is gone.

  Veran crashes through the scrub behind me, gasping. “Lark—”

  I don’t let him finish. I take off in the direction of the seep. They must be there, up the little slope—maybe the water rose too high, maybe Sedge decided it would be easier to defend . . .

  “Damnation, Lark!” Veran shouts. “They’re not up there! They’re not here! They’ve left—I sent a wagon!”

  I slide to a stop again, rocks scattering under my boots. My blood rages in my ears, and I stare up the slope without seeing it, my vision spotting white.

  “I mean, not a wagon, like—that kind of wagon,” he continues behind me. “A cart. In the letter I wrote to Iano—that Saiph carried to Pasul—I told him to send Saiph back with an eight-seater cart. We paid the driver—they’re probably nearly to Callais by now. No, wait—”

  I pivot toward him, and he throws up his hands. “I was going to tell you in Pasul. I thought the sooner they could get help—”

  I advance on him, ready to break his nose, his fingers, his knee. He stumbles backward on the rocks. “Lark—”

  “You have taken every single thing away from me!” I snarl.

  “You wanted me to get them out, you wanted me to help them, I thought—”

  “You’ve ruined. Everything!” I shout. “You and your stupid hero complex, you’ve ruined everything I ever had!” I stoop down and scoop up a stone, cocking it back over my shoulder. He flings his arms over his face, crouching by the scrub.

  I stop. From this angle, on the other side of the stacked lean-tos, I again catch sight of the pile of rocks from one of our walls. But it’s not just a pile. Something’s wrong about it—it’s arranged too neatly, too purposefully, and in too recognizable a shape, longer than it is wide, with a large, flat stone propped up at the far end . . .

  I drop the rock. Veran looks up half a breath later, but I’ve already veered toward the pile. He rises slowly from his crouch.

  “Lark . . . is that . . . ?”

  I stop at the foot of the mound, first staring directly between my toes, where a frayed corner of a blanket peeks out from under the rocks. I catch more glimpses of the fabric through gaps, wrapped neatly, tightly, around something inside . . . my gaze travels to the big, flat stone at the head of the pile, leaning against the canyon wall. I recognize the stone—it was one of our general work surfaces, something we’d use to stitch leather or hammer metal or beat corn into meal. The face has been cleaned, and the remnants of black smudges, drawn on with charcoal, fleck the surface. The thunderstorm has rendered them unreadable, but it’s clear they were initially letters.

  A few letters, spelling out a short name.

  The name of someone I left here, near death, at the reckless whim of a royal stranger.

  Rose.

  My heart shudders to a stop. My knees buckle, and I land at the foot of the cairn, staring again at the frayed corner of the blanket that’s serving as a shroud. The blood has ceased roaring in my ears, leaving only a vast, noiseless void.

  “Rose.” My voice is hoarse, abraded by muddy water and too much emotion. My fingers clench on the rocks, and I fight the sudden, wild urge to tear away the cairn, to rip open the shroud beneath.

  “Is it . . . how do you know?” Veran whispers behind me. “It’s just . . . there’s no name . . .”

  I clench my jaw so hard it pops. How do I know? Which one of my campmates did I leave unconscious while I rode off to Utzibor? Which of my campmates had already lost a calf because of me, and now, thanks to my mistakes at the wagon, lost her life? My oldest friend, the closest thing I’ve ever had to family . . . my chest tightens, crushing my breath. I wind my arms around my head and squeeze.

  “Lark,” he says again, seemingly ignoring my silence. “Listen, I know . . . I know this is bad, but we need to get to the horses. We need to get on the road, head toward Callais. I sent your campmates to my friends there, to Gemma and Colm, and if we start now, we can be far enough away before the soldiers—”

  I snap.

  I jump to my feet and whirl around in one sharp movement. He leaps back a second too late—I’ve already lunged and caught him by the collar. He staggers and we both go down, his breath whooshing from his lips as he lands with me straddling his chest. The packed ground sends spikes of pain up my knees, but I barely feel it. I cock my wrist back.

  “Lark,” he croaks. “I’m sorry, listen, I’m sorry—”

  I pause to aim. I’d like to break his teeth, or his jaw, but that would hurt my knuckles. I decide to settle for his nose, his pretty aquiline nose—that’s going to hurt, too, but at least I shouldn’t get anything embedded in my skin. I hinge back a little farther.

  He blinks up at me, his chest rising and falling under my legs. Some of the dirt from the river has sloughed off, and underneath I can see the pink scar over his eyebrow, and the purple-green bruise on his forehead, the lingering mark from where he hit his head after collapsing in a seizure a few days ago. Down above his right ear is the blistered patch from rescuing Tamsin from the burning building. On his neck is a fresh wound, a long, thin scrape, as if from a flailing dog’s claw.

  My fist trembles in the air. My own burns s
ting; my shoulder twinges from the blow from Dirtwater Dob’s mattock. My scrapes and bruises from the flooded Burr throb.

  He continues to gaze at me with those sagebrush eyes, his palms shaking on the ground.

  “I shouldn’t have sent them away without telling you,” he says slowly, softly. “I’m sorry, Lark. I made that decision before we ever left Three Lines—I thought I was doing you a favor, getting a head start on things, that you’d appreciate it later. It was only after we’d been traveling for a while that I realized I messed up. And I never imagined someone might die while you were away. Lark.” His voice cracks. “Hit me if you want, if it’ll help, but then let me fix some of this. I know I can’t fix all of it, but the rest of your campmates are all right—Saiph is okay. If he weren’t, the others would still be here.”

  My shoulder aches with holding my fist back. I rearrange my knuckles. He winces in anticipation but doesn’t toss up his hands.

  From down the canyon comes the echo of a voice.

  Veran’s eyes widen a little. “Uh, that’s the other thing. We’re being followed.”

  My arm spasms, and my gaze drifts to the rocky earth just over his right shoulder.

  “Don’t—!” he warns, but my fist is already flying down. I ram my knuckles into the dirt by his ear. We both suck in a breath at the same time—he in shock and me in pain. But I don’t waste any more breath. I roll backward, my left hand still closed on his collar, and drag him upright.

  I hold his face inches from mine.

  “What do you mean, we’re being followed?” I snarl.

  “The soldiers from Pasul,” he gasps. “From the Moquoian palace—they followed my trail after I set out after you. I didn’t think they’d move this fast, but they’re on fresh horses.”

  The horses. “And you just left Jema and Kuree by the river?”

  His eyebrows knit. “Well, you did, too!”

  I shake him. “Because I was planning to shoot you and be done with it.” I look over his shoulder. “How many?”

  “I never got a good count. Five or six, maybe?”

  “Armed?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  I grind my teeth again and glance around, but Sedge and Lila were thorough—all our caches are cleaned out, empty. Not so much as a blunt knife. I let go of his collar—maybe with an extra shake—and stalk to the old ax handle and metal staff. I toss him the handle. He drops it, and then stoops to pick it back up.

  “We’ll have to go over,” I say.

  “Over what?”

  “The canyon,” I say. “We can climb up the track to the water pocket and then over the ridge. We can come down the draw on the other side and try to get to Jema and Kuree.”

  “And then Callais?”

  “One thing at a time, okay?”

  The dirt on his face cracks as he smothers a smile.

  “What?” I demand.

  “You got that from my ma.”

  I point at him with the metal staff, my collar hot. “Look, rule one is you absolutely shut up about—any of that, you understand? I am still so close to punching you.”

  He twists the corner of his mouth, trying ineffectively to smother his smile. “Got it.”

  I nearly swing the staff at his head, but now the canyon walls echo with clattering rocks. I turn away from him, my stomach dropping as my gaze passes over Rose’s cairn again, and then I start for the overflowing seep.

  “Keep up,” I say without looking back.

  Veran

  The climb up the canyon headwall is steep and loose, with several slips saved only by a grip on clumps of stringy grasses. A few scorpions and a tarantula skitter from our approach, and at one tight twist, the air fills with the gut-wrenching whisper of a snake rattle. But Lark only growls impatiently at the creature, giving it just enough berth, as if she’s angry at it as well as me.

  I shouldn’t have grinned at her down there, not after seeing the grave, but by the Light, so much about her makes sense now. I want to point them all out to her, connect all her mannerisms and turns of phrase, but climbing takes all my breath, and chances are high she’d use that metal staff to send me over the edge.

  There’s a shout from down the canyon, and I glance over my shoulder.

  “They’ve spotted us,” I call. Lark twists, frowning at the knot of soldiers pointing up at us. She pulls her bandanna up over her nose and mouth—it looks odd without her eyeblack and broad-brimmed hat. She turns back and keeps climbing, using the metal staff as a hiking pole.

  “Is this just about my bounty?” she asks gruffly.

  “No, I don’t think it has anything to do with your bounty,” I say. “I think they’re after me.”

  “Oh, is that all? Why the gall am I running, then? Is there a reward?”

  “Ha,” I reply flatly. “I’m sure they’d be just as happy to get their hands on you, too, so I wouldn’t risk it.”

  “What’ve you done to make a bunch of Moquoian soldiers chase you from Pasul?”

  “Rescued Tamsin, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” she mimics, a snarl in her voice. “I thought we rescued her for the prince. I wouldn’t have thought that would result in jail time.”

  “Tamsin isn’t just a court noble,” I say. “She was the ashoki, the—”

  “The folk who sing at everybody to tell them what to think?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” I say, annoyed. “They don’t just tell people what to think, they bring things to their attention, frame things in ways people haven’t thought of. Tamsin got caught up in the slave trade several years ago. She made it her goal to play for the court to make lawmakers see the system doesn’t work like they think it does, that it’s not a just institution.”

  “Funny that somebody had to explain that to them,” she says shortly.

  I sigh. “I won’t argue that point. Politics can be an insular world, I don’t deny it. And I won’t defend it. Folk are resistant to change, at their best, and greedy and corrupt at their worst. But that only makes Tamsin’s work all the more remarkable—she completely changed Iano’s frame of mind. The next king of Moquoia, Lark. He has no compelling reason to disrupt the status quo, except she helped him see that he should, and he could. Don’t you think that’s remarkable?”

  She doesn’t answer my question. “So what you’re saying is, some of the politicians in court got angry that she was rocking the boat?”

  “That’s a Lumeni phrase,” I point out.

  “What?”

  “Rock the boat. You learned that in Lumen Lake.”

  She stops dead and turns to me, her bronze eyes blazing over her bandanna. The end of the metal pole hovers an inch from my nose.

  I wave it away. “Sorry, couldn’t help it.”

  “You’d better start helping it.”

  “Come on, the soldiers are starting up.”

  She looks down, to where the first Moquoians are starting the ascent up the headwall, hindered by their crossbows. She makes a frustrated sound and continues.

  I press on, wanting her to have the full story, still fighting the guilt of not telling her about the wagon. “You’re right, though—Tamsin made enemies in court. The problem is, we don’t know who. There are plenty of people who would be against upsetting the slave trade, and in favor of Iano appointing an ashoki with more traditional politics. The minister of infrastructure is at the top of my list.” I recall my handful of unpleasant interactions with Minister Hetor Kobok, coupled with his long absence around the time Tamsin was abducted. “But it could be anybody, really. It could be the new ashoki, or an ally of hers determined to keep a proslavery voice in power. Or any of the ministers who depend on exploited labor. Or someone with some other motive; I’m not familiar enough with the nuances of Moquoian politics to—”

  “Veran,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Shut up. Focus on breathing, or you’re going to pass out. If you do, I’m leaving you.”

  I fall s
ilent, following the crunching of her bootheels. Rat’s panting is the only other sound.

  “I mean,” she says suddenly, as if realizing what she’d said. “I’m not going to leave you if you . . . that’s not what I—”

  I allow a dismissive sigh, letting her hear my irritation. “Oh, so it’s one thing if you shoot me yourself or knock my brains out, but blessed Light, you couldn’t bring yourself to leave me if I have a seizure? I don’t want your pity, Lark.”

  She doesn’t turn around, but her steps slow just a bit. A few rocks scatter under her boots.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  “You can shut up, too,” I snap.

  We toil upward. My thighs burn from the climb, my breath hitching in my chest. Every now and then I glance down at the Moquoians—we’re keeping pace ahead of them, thanks to Lark’s familiarity with the nigh-invisible path. I work to keep my footprints as light as possible, to avoid making the way any clearer for them.

  “Here’s the pocket,” she says after a while. I follow her over a lip of stone to see a shallow depression. Lying in the center is what looks like an oblong puddle, but I know from our last foray up the sandstone bluff a few days ago that it must be deep to provide such a reliable water source.

  We drink from the pocket in silence, the cool, sweet water washing some of the mud out of my throat. I splash my face and hair and let the droplets fall through my fingers. I wish we could carry some with us—I wish we had a canteen or a bottle, a pot, a skin, anything. Lark seems to be thinking the same thing. She crouches at the edge of the pocket, gripping the lip with her knuckles in the water, staring down into its depths.

  “It never ran dry,” she says. And I realize then that she’s not just climbing out of Three Lines Canyon—she’s saying good-bye to it. With the soldiers behind us and her campmates in Callais, she might never be back in this place again.

  My thoughts flicker briefly to the Silverwood, to the dark slopes and ancient trees, and my heart squeezes a little tighter. I’ve said good-bye to my home plenty of times, but I’ve never expected I’d never return.