Darkwood

by M. E. Breen

  “Not better for Gregor.”

  “No. Not better for Gregor.” Page took Annie’s hand.”

  Annie, what I’m going to tell you now, you cannot tell anyone. Not Beatrice or Serena. Not Gregor when we find him. Do you understand?”

  “I understand. I promise.”

  “There is one last cache of ringstone. There is more stone there than in Uncton’s mine, more stone than at the Drop.”

  Something cold and certain settled in Annie’s chest. Her eyes found the fist of land raised toward the northwest corner of the map. Still she asked, “Where?”

  “Finisterre.”

  “Does Gibbet know about the ringstone there?”

  “Sharta thinks he does. I told him what you saw, Gibbet speaking with the wolf. He thinks—he thought—that Gibbet has made a bargain with the wolves. He learns their language. He throws them food from time to time. In exchange they let him mine at night. Perhaps they’ve even promised to help him take the crown. Who knows what he’s promised them. Of course the first thing he’ll do when he’s king is tear a path to Finisterre.”

  Annie shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why the wolves would agree to fight for him.”

  “They are starving, Annie. Their pups are dying. Think of the men who go to work for Gibbet at the Drop. Would any of them choose that life if they could help it?”

  “But Sharta must have warned them. Why didn’t they listen?” Annie said stubbornly.

  “They should have. But Sharta … he and his mate did something a long time ago that turned the pack against them. They don’t trust him. Especially Rinka.”

  “What did they do?”

  “They helped a human.”

  All the time they had been talking, the wolf had never taken his eyes from them. Annie met his gaze. He bared his teeth.

  “How did Gibbet find out about the stone?” she asked. “Why would the wolves tell him?”

  “I don’t know. Sharta didn’t know either. Perhaps he learned in the same way he learned to speak Hippa. Gibbet is not like other men.”

  Annie hesitated. “Does the king know about Finisterre?”

  “He doesn’t. He mustn’t.”

  “Page?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How can we convince Rinka that Gibbet can’t be trusted if Sharta couldn’t?”

  “We can’t. Like I said, it would have been better if he died.”

  After Page went to bed, Annie lay for a long time watching the wolf. The shivering stopped at last. His eyelids drooped. When she was sure he was asleep she reached out and touched her finger to one black paw.

  The wolf wanted to travel with Annie. Annie alone.

  “Of course it’s out of the question.”

  “But why, Page? I think we have an understanding, Rinka and I.” Annie looked around hopefully for a nod from Beatrice or Serena, but they were studying the breakfast buns with rapt attention.

  Page set down her teacup.

  “And what understanding is that? That he’ll use you for food and transport until he’s well enough to kill you? Or perhaps he won’t wait that long. Perhaps he’ll call his pack the first night on the road and they’ll do the killing for him. Is that what you understand?”

  Annie’s breath caught in a hitch of outrage.

  “I’m sorry,” Page went on. “But just because you’ve spent the past three days barking at each other across the hearth doesn’t make you friends.”

  Rinka looked up from his bowl of stew. He was nestled comfortably in the bed Annie had made for him out of an old quilt.

  “Rinka,” Annie asked. “How do you say ‘my sister is unpleasant’ in Hippa?”

  He cocked his head to the side and barked.

  “Again.”

  This time she closed her eyes. The bark wasn’t a single note, but an arc of sound, starting low, back in the wolf’s throat, and ending high, behind his teeth. What do you ask?

  Carefully, eyes still closed, she barked back. I ask how say sister bad.

  He made a sound that could only be a laugh. Annie opened her eyes to find Page struggling between expressions of surprise and annoyance.

  “You’ve made considerable progress,” she said primly.

  Annie leaned across the table. “Page, just listen a moment. The king is looking for you. I heard his soldiers talking at the inn the day after we left the palace. Disguise yourself all you want, you still look … the way you look. He doesn’t care about me. I’ll hide Rinka in the back of the wagon. May we borrow it, and the horse?” Beatrice nodded vigorously without looking up from her plate. “And I’ll stay on my guard around the wolf. I promise.”

  “And if you do reach his pack, what then?”

  “I’ll talk to them. I’ll practice Hippa every day. I’ll tell them what Gibbet really wants, what he’ll do to Fin—” She caught herself. “I’ll warn them of the danger. We have to try, Page. Sharta told us to try.”

  Page dropped her head between her hands and rubbed her temples. Annie took the opportunity to cast beseeching looks at Serena.

  “It is dangerous,” Serena ventured. “And I don’t like our Annie to go alone any more than you do. But if this Gibbet is planning something as bad as you say, perhaps the risk is well run. None of us wants to get caught in the middle of a civil war.” She glanced uneasily at Rinka. “Especially not with an army of kinderstalk.”

  “Not that we’d dream of interfering in a family dispute,” Bea put in, looking significantly at Serena.

  “Not dream of it,” Serena replied.

  The fight left Page. She slumped in her seat. “I promised Father I would keep you safe.”

  “I was a baby then.”

  “Why won’t you let me keep you safe?”

  “I can go?”

  “I hate it. But yes, go.”

  The rest of the day passed in a frenzy of preparations. Page and Annie ran around gathering supplies; Serena hammered away at the wagon, alternately cursing and coaxing it into shape for a long journey; and Beatrice disappeared in a cloud of steam and flour in the kitchen. Hours later she emerged with strips of salted fish and pork, jars of buttermilk, red, wizened links of sausage, flatbread, leeks, endless oatcakes, and the last of the fresh meat from the icebox.

  She wagged her finger at Annie. “Keep it packed in snow as best you can. And make sure he doesn’t eat it all at once or he’ll be sick.”

  Annie and Page were in the barn getting the horse’s tack together when Page tugged the end of Annie’s braid. “Look at me.”

  Reluctantly, Annie raised her eyes. She dreaded the hardness she would find in her sister’s face. But Page surprised her.

  “Little one,” she said, stroking Annie’s hair away from her forehead. “Besides you, Sharta was my only …” She bowed her head. “I’m only letting you go because I know, we both know, you’ll go anyway.”

  She pulled Annie into her arms, squeezing her tight. Annie’s ear was crushed against one of the ornate buttons on Page’s cloak, but she didn’t mind.

  She spoke into her sister’s shoulder. “Bea’s calling. To feed us again, probably.”

  Page laughed and let her go. “Then let’s eat.”

  But when Annie made to leave the barn, Page hung back.

  “Wait. There’s something else.” She had an odd expression on her face, as though she was nervous but not about to admit it.

  “The other night, when Sharta died, how did you find me?”

  “What do you mean? You could hear the fighting a mile away.”

  Page shook her head. “No, I mean, how did you find us? It was night and you didn’t have a torch—how did you even know what direction to walk? That night you found me in the pleasure forest—you didn’t have a light then either.”

  Annie felt the smile stiffen on her face. It seemed unfair that Page should ask her this, but Annie wasn’t sure why she resented it. She wasn’t even sure why she hadn’t told Page about her dark sight.

 
“I did have a torch. You must not have noticed,” she lied.

  Page looked confused. “But you were holding the pistol in one hand and I’m sure you—”

  Beatrice appeared, flapping a dishrag at them from the doorway. “Girls! I’ve been calling you! Supper is nearly cold.”

  They’d agreed Annie should leave after breakfast the next day. Bea had baked a dozen dandelion muffins. Serena had plotted her course.

  “If you travel hard you’ll reach the Wren’s Nest Inn before dark. Mistress Zeb that runs it is an old friend of mine from my trips west. Tell her I sent you. She’ll help you see to the wagon. Best not show her what’s in the wagon, mind,” she added hastily. “But she won’t pry.”

  Annie nodded and smiled and studied the map, but she had no intention of doing any of it. Despite what she’d told Page, she felt fairly certain the king’s soldiers would be on the lookout for her, too. And Gibbet’s men—she could just imagine Smirch knocking on the door of the inn. Seen our girl? Long hair? About so tall? Keep your eyes peeled. There’s stone in it for whoever helps us find her. We do miss our girl. We surely do.

  She would travel at night. She would be invisible.

  The note contained a lie, but only a small one.

  Dear Page, Beatrice, and Serena,

  We left at dawn. I couldn’t sleep in any case, and didn’t see a reason to wake you. I have my map and my muffins. I will find some way to send word when I have news.

  My love to you all,

  Annie

  They set out in the perfect dark. Whatever feeling of change or wonder the dawn brought, the dark evoked its opposite. How long had they been on the road? Ten minutes? Forty? Annie felt she had always been exactly here, on this hard seat, staring between the horse’s fringed ears, and always would be. It wasn’t a bad feeling. The dark seemed full of patience, full of peace. The wolf dozed in the back amid sacks of food, a blanket pulled up under his chin as if he were a child. The cats slept beside her on the seat.

  Chapter 14

  At the first sign of dawn they turned north to travel the few miles across country to the forest. Baggy balked at leaving the road, but Annie coaxed him into it without too much trouble.

  “Apples, Baggy, as soon as we get there, with sugar on them.”

  She had forgotten how dark the forest was in daylight, how long it held the night sky with its million branches. The pleasure forest on the palace grounds was no more like this forest than a lap dog was like a wolf, she thought, and wondered how Sharta had been able to stand it.

  Page. Page had helped him stand it. Annie glanced back at Rinka, alert now and sniffing the air. Could they trust each other, as Page and Sharta had?

  “Whoa, Baggy.”

  They stopped in a clearing just wide enough to turn the wagon around. The horse’s muddy hooves made dark circles in the snow covering the forest floor. She’d been glad for the start of warmer weather, but she shouldn’t have been. The road held their tracks like a mold.

  Rinka swallowed his food listlessly. She tried to examine the wound in his leg, but he snarled and jumped from the wagon bed, landing clumsily chest-first in the snow. He tried a few times to walk, but each time he fell it seemed to take a greater and greater effort to get up. Finally he stayed down, turning his head away from her.

  As Annie was arranging the blankets for her bed, she caught sight of Isadore washing himself. He had kicked up one hind leg above his ear and was cleaning the fluffy white fur of the underside. In that position, his leg appeared to be caught up in a sling. Annie jumped down from the wagon and hurried over to Rinka. She tore a wide band of cotton from her petticoat and knelt beside him. He didn’t look at her. She touched his leg; he jerked away from her, growling. To her surprise, Annie growled back. Now Rinka did look at her, his ears cocked in surprise.

  “I’m just trying to help you,” she muttered.

  If a wolf could shrug, Rinka did. He laid his head on his paws and looked into the distance with a bored expression, but when she touched him again he didn’t pull away. Carefully, she worked the piece of cotton around his hips and then around the second joint of the injured leg, tying it close to his body so only the tips of his toes were visible. As she worked, she spoke to him softly in her own language, telling him what she was doing and why she thought it would help. He shifted his weight from side to side as she passed the cloth under him and yapped at her when the bandage felt too tight.

  Sitting back on her heels, Annie eyed her handiwork. The white cotton stood out starkly against his dark fur. Annie giggled. She couldn’t help it—the bandage looked like a giant diaper. She laughed harder, until she rocked back and landed on her elbows in a mist of snow. Rinka narrowed his eyes.

  “You, baby. Person baby,” Annie tried in Hippa. She must have said it correctly, because he glared harder.

  “How say, ‘ha-ha-ha’?”

  The Hippa sound for laughter drove the humor straight out of her. Like a rusty hinge, or a bone breaking.

  Annie ate her breakfast and pretended not to watch Rinka’s attempts to walk in the diaper. He fell over, once, twice, a third time, but on the fourth try he stayed standing. He hopped a few paces, stopped to steady himself, then hopped a few paces more. By the time Annie had settled under the blankets he was moving quite quickly around the copse of trees where they had made their camp.

  “I take sleeps now,” she called out.

  The wolf turned his head and looked at her quizzically. She cleared her throat and tried again, laying more emphasis on the first syllable of the bark: I take sleeps now.

  This time his ears perked up and he barked back: Sleep soundly, dark hair.

  Annie dreamt of wolves. Dozens of them ran over the white earth. One wolf began to fall behind the others. He limped on three legs, then began to crawl, not a wolf anymore, but a baby. Behind them, out of the trees, came a laughing black bird. The bird swooped down and snatched up the child. All the wolves began to howl.

  Annie sat up, heart pounding. Far off, she could hear Rinka howling for his pack. No answer came, and after a long time she heard his scuffing gait return to camp. She lay down, but did not sleep again.

  The second night of their journey passed much as the first, the darkness unspooling itself slowly as they made their way along the wide, rutted road that linked east and west How-land. Annie practiced speaking Hippa to the horse, but it was hard to engage a pair of hindquarters. Rinka, exhausted from his attempts at walking, scarcely moved. Gradually the road turned south to accommodate the growing bulk of the forest. They had entered Dour County.

  “Leave the road. Quickly.”

  Annie started. She had dozed off. Light filled the sky to the east.

  Blushing, hoping the wolf hadn’t noticed, she turned the wagon north.

  “Soon Finisterre,” she said in Hippa. “Tomorrow, or—”

  “Be quiet.”

  Annie turned in her seat, mouth opened in protest. The wolf lay hunched against the wagon bed, head and ears straining toward the empty road.

  “What is it?” Annie whispered.

  “Listen.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to quiet her heartbeat and her breath.

  Koom, koom, koom.

  The sound broke in two, the beat followed by the echo of the beat.

  Koom-koom, koom-koom, koom-koom.

  Hoofbeats.

  The sound splintered into fragments: creak of leather, slap of reins, spatter of mud, grunting breath.

  She opened her eyes. A dark cloud stood out against the brightening sky, moving fast. Annie shook the reins. “On, Baggy, on!”

  To her astonishment, the old carthorse broke into a smooth, powerful canter. The wagon jumped and bumped over rocks and ditches. Annie looked back. She could make out the sharp points of spears now and the glint of armor. Soldiers, and not mercenaries this time.

  The forest loomed ahead of them, a haven. Even if the King’s Guard dared to follow them, they could split up. They could hide among the tre
es.

  Only about fifty yards left, forty … the horsemen swerved from the road and pounded toward them.

  Twenty yards. They were closing the distance to the forest.

  They were going to make it.

  Then, with a great crack, the wagon tipped sideways. Annie screamed and gripped the seat. In a blur of orange, she saw Isadore’s body flying through the air, then she felt her own fingers come loose and realized that she, too, was flying.

  She landed hard. Snow filled her ear. She struggled to a sitting position and found herself looking into the flared black nostrils of a horse. Something caught hold of the back of her cloak and she was lifted onto her feet.

  “Are you injured?”

  Annie raised her eyes past the horse’s broad chest. The horse was twice the size of Baggy. Its coat was the color of smoke. The man holding her cloak looked like an extension of the horse. His nostrils flared big and black and a bushy gray beard obscured most of his face. Behind him four more men waited on horseback. They were all broad and bearded, except for one who had no hair at all. The skin hung in triple folds around his neck, like the neck of a turtle.

  “The captain asked if you were injured,” the turtle said. She shook her head, peeping around as she did so for the others. Rinka and the cats were nowhere in sight. The wagon lay on its side, three remaining wheels spinning slowly. Baggy stood trembling between the snapped shafts.

  The captain surveyed the supplies scattered over the ground: apples, blankets, candles, spoons, even Bea’s muffins.

  “You’re a tradesperson of some kind, I gather?”

  Annie hesitated. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Produce your travel permit, please.”

  “My permit. Of course.” She pretended to search her pockets, casting around all the while for something she could use to—what? One of the horses kept tossing its head. On the ground by its feet were a carrot, a rye loaf, and there, in a red lump, the meat Beatrice had packed for Rinka.