Seer's Blood

by Doranna Durgin

  “Me, the traitor?” Trey said, and his temper was as hot as hers. “After what he done? You’re lucky I didn’t just put an arrow in the both of you.” He spat his disgust on the ground.

  “What do you mean, after what he done? He ain’t done nothing to you!” She smacked Burl again to quiet him, and demanded, “Is he all right?”

  “Come see,” Trey invited, grim malice in his voice.

  “And give you all the chance to grab me?” she said scornfully. “I ain’t stupid.” All the same, she wished she had a free hand to wipe the rain out of her eyes, that she didn’t feel so precarious on top of Burl now that he wasn’t distracted by her savage blow to his tender parts. She pushed the knife against his throat just to remind both him and Trey that she still had the advantage.

  Short-lived advantage. Burl had had enough; his scowl matched her own. And then someone within the pines gave a thin cry of angry alarm, followed by a grunt of pain; Blaine started, and Burl moved. Burl moved fast. He jerked his head to the side, freeing his throat. He yanked the knife away from her, threw her off his stomach, and jumped up, snatching the knife on his way — and snatching Blaine, too, almost effortlessly lifting her until her feet barely touched the ground. “You little bitch-child,” he said. “Why, I ought to —”

  “Just set her down, Burl,” Trey said. “Bring her in out of the rain. She wanted to see her hero’s all right — though it don’t mean he’ll stay that way.”

  They stared at one another in hate-filled silence — and then, startling them all, someone groaned, the kind of sound a man made when he didn’t have a choice, didn’t quite know what he was about. Trey gave the pines a surprised look, and Burl shoved Blaine aside long enough to sheath his knife, then took her arms just above the elbow, holding them close to her sides. She couldn’t move them at all; her feet hovered just above the ground. Numbly, she wondered how she’d ever gotten the advantage over this brute in the first place. Too dumb to know I couldn’t.

  Burl shoved her through the pines, never minding what their branches did to her face. Immediately behind the big pine were two others, smaller trees in a triangle that created a mostly dry shelter between them. And within there was Dacey, and a third boy — a scrawny, smug-looking creature who stood over him.

  “Dacey!” Blaine strained uselessly against Burl’s grip as the third boy gave Dacey’s crumpled form a lazy kick, turning him over. Mage, crouching by Dacey, gave a lip-wrinkled snarl but held his place, enough of a warning that the boy backed away a step.

  Burl paid Blaine’s struggles no mind, turning to speak to Trey through the pines. “Trey...we got a problem here.”

  Blood covered the entire side of Dacey’s face. They must have roughed him up some besides, but the blood was all Blaine could see, all she could think about. “What have you done?” she cried. “Why?”

  Trey pushed his way into the small area, took in the scene before him, and swore. “Estus!”

  The boy shrugged. “I got careless with this rock, is all.” He was younger than the others and Blaine had the feeling she’d seen him before, although she could not place his thin, sharp features. He held out his hand and tipped it so the blunt, bloodied rock that he held rolled slowly off his palm and thudded into the needle-covered ground.

  Trey swore at Estus again, and turned to Blaine. “Dacey said he was on our side.” His chin stuck out, defiant, but his eyes looked a little panicked. “He said he was gonna help.” He snorted. “Now the Takers are taking the menfolk over, one by one, sifting their thoughts — looking for him.” He pointed that chin at Dacey. “I know it was him, ’cause it sure weren’t one of us.”

  Blaine jerked against Burl’s grip, having not the slightest effect on him, and almost screamed in her frustration. “What are you talking about?”

  “The two men he killed, o’course,” he said angrily. “The Takers are blaming us — your own people, Blaine, not this outsider you’re trying to protect.”

  “You’re lying!” But her mind went to the look on Dacey’s face when he’d returned to camp the previous afternoon. All wet...washed clean. Of blood?

  Trey instantly sensed her doubt. “I’m not and you know it.”

  He wasn’t. “But that don’t make this right!” she cried, suddenly fighting tears. She gave another futile twist; it gained her nothing. But Trey shrugged, and Burl slowly released her arms, momentarily resting his hands on her shoulders as a warning. Blaine threw herself down beside Dacey, where Mage whined his worry at her. Fix this, he seemed to say, when he’d never so much as bothered to look at her before.

  Trey looked at Estus. “Can’t say as we meant to hurt anyone,” he said, and then gave a sudden shrug. “Then again, I can’t say as I care that we did, either.”

  “Dacey was right.” Blaine’s hands resting on Dacey’s shoulders were gentle — her gaze, resting on Trey, was fierce. “You are a fool.” Mage, following her gaze, lifted his lip and rumbled; Trey took a step back. “We’ll lose everything without his help — everything!”

  “An’ what makes you so sure?” Trey snapped back, mindful of the dog. “What do you know? Do you know his seer’s lore? Or does he hide it from you, like he hid killing those men?”

  “You keep yourself quiet!” Blaine cried, wild to defend him but realizing she had no defense at all. She didn’t know what Dacey had in mind. He had kept the killings from her. “You don’t know nothing! Dacey knows more about the Annekteh than anyone I’ve ever met! He’s the one they’re afraid of — he’s the one they tortured, wanting the same answers you do!”

  “Tortured?” Burl said, looming behind Trey. “Why not just —”

  Dacey groaned, pure relief to Blaine. She hissed Burl to silence and gave Dacey a tentative nudge. “Dacey?”

  His eyes, one of them washed with blood, flickered open —

  Blaine had an instant of warning, no more — the wild look in his eye, full of alarm — and he flung himself to his feet — or almost on his feet, swaying, backed up against one of the pines in pure animal panic. One hand clutched at long needled branches for support, not doing much good.

  He thinks they have him. “Dacey,” Blaine said, cautiously getting up on one knee. Behind her, the boys had frozen, all their aggressiveness startled away with Dacey’s unexpected explosion.

  “Stay back!” he gasped, spitting out the blood that had run into his mouth.

  “Dacey,” she repeated, more gently this time, a tone of voice she hadn’t known was in her. “It’s Blaine. You’re safe.” And glared at Trey, daring him to open his mouth and deny it.

  “Blaine,” Dacey repeated. One leg gave out; he caught himself, but barely held it. His expression wavered into confusion. “Blaine.”

  “Blaine,” she said firmly. “You’re safe.”

  As abruptly as he accepted her words, he lost the fight to stay on his feet, going down on his knees elbows, cradling his tender head in his hands. His groan was one of frustration, of trying to understand.

  “Be still,” she commanded, and he was, relaxing slightly under her hand on his shoulder. She stared accusingly at Trey. “I don’t know what happened with those men,” she said, “but I know it weren’t worth this. Just what were you going to do with us?”

  “Give you to the Takers,” sneered the thin-faced boy. Blaine gave him a scornful glance and returned her attention to Trey.

  “I figured once they had the killer, they’d leave our folk alone.” Trey gave another shrug, a gesture she was growing to hate.

  “And what made you think they’d pay a bit of attention to you?”

  “They’d just have to Take him over for a minute to find the truth,” Burl offered. “That’s what I was saying —”

  And once again Blaine cut him off. “Trey, you’re such a... a...” She searched for the words, and took Dacey’s again. “Fool. If you give him up, you’ll hand over our only chance to beat this thing — fer nothin! He’s seer’s kin, Trey, they can’t Take him.”

  “They �
�� what?” Trey stared at her as if he couldn’t comprehend her words.

  “You heard me,” Blaine said grimly. “More’n likely they’ll Take you. Then you’ll see what trouble is!”

  “Spirits,” Burl said, low and troubled.

  “He asked you to trust him. To work with him. Now look at what you got — you can’t take him to the Annekteh without making trouble for yourself, and there’s no telling how much sense you knocked out of his head for good.” She lifted her chin, looking straight at Trey. “Even if I did have some notion of his plans, I wouldn’t tell you. Not now. So you might as well git. Spend some time figuring what you’re gonna do now.”

  Estus snorted. “We’re taking you all back, o’course.”

  “Shut up, Estus,” Trey said shortly. “Ain’t you listened to a thing?”

  “We’re taking em back,” Estus repeated, looking hard at Trey and Burl. “They don’t gotta Take him, not if they already know him. They’ll be grateful to us!”

  “I said shut up. I ain’t so sure no more,” Trey said.

  “Fine time to be knowing that,” Blaine said, contempt heavy in her voice. Trey ignored her and sat next to the larger pine, his face pensive. Blaine figured he had plenty to think about.

  Burl sat next to him, eyeing Blaine and Dacey, making her wish his face was more friendly. Blaine couldn’t imagine how she’d missed seeing him before this. He must be in one of the western-most families in Shadow Hollers. Just like the rest of these boys, damn their hides.

  Dacey gave a low groan, stirred like he was thinking about sitting up. Estus reached over to give him another kick, but Blaine slapped the offending foot away. “Haven’t you done enough?”

  “Estus,” Trey said, without looking up from his thoughts, “I’m beginning to think it was a mistake to ask your help. If you hadn’t brained him with that rock, we wouldn’t be in such a fix.”

  “He was going for my knife, Trey,” Estus protested, moving back from Blaine and Dacey.

  Quietly, Dacey said, “What happened?”

  Thank goodness. That almost sounded sensible. “You just lie there, Dacey. You’ll feel better in a bit.”

  “I doubt that,” he said, as a strange look passed over his face.

  Burl straightened in alarm. “Trey, he’s gonna —”

  “Get him outta here! It’s the only dry place —”

  But Burl didn’t wait for him to finish. He grabbed Dacey under the arms and hauled him out of the pines, and Blaine was still sitting, blinking stupidly, when she heard the sound of retching. Oh, his poor head. Estus could have picked a smaller rock!

  “Trey,” she said, thinking suddenly of her book, of how well her tea had helped after Dacey’s escape from the Annekteh, “You got to let me go find him some white pine bark to put against that head. And...sassafras. I need sassafras.”

  Trey gave her a quick, hard look. “The Takers —”

  “Want sassafras groves,” Blaine interrupted. “I know. I think... Dacey says the sassafras soaks up hill magic, Trey. You find any, you can’t tell them!”

  “Hill magic,” Trey said, injecting scorn into the words.

  “You never mind whether you believe it or not. Just say you won’t tell! And let the others know, too.”

  “We don’t tell them nothing,” Estus said, butting into the conversation with much bravado. Blaine ignored him.

  “Iff’n you need sassafras...” Trey started, but trailed off and didn’t pick it up again. Blaine would have pressed it him on it, but Burl returned, with Dacey draped over him, rain diluting the blood on his face in little runnels.

  “Dacey,” Blaine said, going to him as Burl eased him down against the bare lower trunk of one of the pines. White pines, she realized suddenly, with their long, soft needles. Then all she needed was sassafras... “Dacey, you doing?”

  “Damn, I’ve been better,” he said, wiping a hand across his face and looking at the red-stained palm. “Trey, I reckon we got some things to straighten out here —”

  This time, Blaine recognized the look. So did Burl, for he pulled Dacey up and out of the shelter. Trey watched them go, thoughtful. “I want to talk to you,” he said abruptly, standing.

  “So talk.” Blaine frowned up at him. “You’re the one who’s making decisions around here, I got that clear enough. Don’t need my say-so for anything.”

  “Alone,” he said, warning Estus off with a look. Estus, none too happy, backed away to the edge of the pine cover and stared out at the clearing. When Trey was satisfied, he sat on the pine needles next to Blaine. “I ain’t figured what to do now,” he confessed, his voice low.

  “You started it. You finish it.”

  “But it weren’t supposed to go like this! Spirits, I was mad enough, but I wanted to talk to him first, find out what happened — gruesome as that killing was, I hoped he had reason. But he ired me, wouldn’t have a thing to do with me once he saw Burl and Estus.” He stared moodily at Estus’ back. “Still...if it weren’t for that dimwit, we’d be all right. But if what you said about him being safe from the Takers is right, and without me hearing his story...well, I just can’t take him down to them. Just get myself in a fix, that way.”

  “What, then? Now there’s two more that knows of him an’ me, and us without Dacey’s brains on this thing — at least not for sure. He could sleep for days. That don’t leave us in a real good spot.”

  “Aw, we can trust...” Trey hesitated, met her eyes for only an instant. “We can trust Burl.”

  Blaine looked at Estus and shuddered. “He’s squirrelly. I don’t like him.”

  Trey did not respond. When he looked up at her again, his expression had grown resolute. Decided. “Listen,” he said. “I c’n tell you where to find a right big patch of sassafras, great big tree, bunch of littler ones around it. Takers don’t know about it, and I ain’t gonna tell ’em. None of us would, less’n we thought we was about to be caught at the lie, or Took. We play ’em like that. You get that sassafras, you think you can help him?”

  “All I know’s that I can try. And that working sassafras has done helped me before. Close your eyes.” She reached into her jacket pocket, waiting for him to comply, gesturing impatiently with her chin when he didn’t. “Do it, I ain’t going anywhere. Won’t work if you’re looking straight at me all the time.”

  Reluctantly, he closed his muddy brown eyes. She took up the blinder, wrapped her hand around it, and waited. Not making a sound, not doing anything to locate herself to him. After a moment, he cracked open a wary eye, and his face opened in astonishment to find her gone. Just as fast, it closed down again in a scowl, and he was about to leap to his feet when she let go the blinder.

  “See?” she said, grinning at his astonishment.

  “You were — you were —”

  “I was right here. And I done that with sassafras, but I ain’t saying how.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, angry at being fooled, angry that she knew something he didn’t.

  “Seer’s lore,” she relented, finally. “I learned it from an old book I found.”

  “Damn,” Trey said. “Them Takers are bad enough already...what if they could do that? We couldn’t even see ’em coming!”

  “Don’t tell ’em about no sassafras,” Blaine said grimly.

  Trey looked away from her, giving a sudden shake of his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll make sure of it.” Then he scrubbed his hands through his drying hair. “Maybe I got an idea. But you’ll have to go along.”

  “You tell me, first.”

  “All right,” Trey leaned forward to speak confidentially, his eye on the spot where Estus had left the pine shelter. “Look, Dacey ain’t going nowhere, leastways not for a day or so, right?”

  “I’d say not,” Blaine agreed, sighing at a timely round of retching from downhill of them. “Even if I can do something with the sassafras...I ain’t no seer. I’m just guessing at what I’m gonna try. He’s not going to be ready for dancing any time soon.”
>
  “Then how’s about telling Estus we can’t move Dacey down to the Takers till he’s got his senses back — even Burl can’t carry him that far — an’ leaving him here to watch y’all? I’ll fetch that sassafras for you. I found — no, I ain’t saying. Takers got too many ears. Just ask you this — you want the bark, like for tea?”

  “Estus?” Blaine wailed as quietly as she could. “You said yourself you don’t trust him no more!”

  “I don’t. This Taker thing’s been too much for him, I guess — he ain’t like he used to be. Squirrelly, like you said. But we need time to think, and as long as he’s up here, he can’t be ruining things by blabbing to the Takers’ men.”

  That was true. “But he ain’t likely to behave himself, neither. Not without Dacey to watch him.”

  “Get that Blue dog down here. He’ll watch good enough.”

  She gave him a reluctant nod. “I reckon I’ll go along with keeping Estus here, if you give me Dacey’s knife back — Estus don’t gotta know — and if you check on us tomorrow. I don’t think it’ll take more’n a day before he can go as far as our camp. Then we’re quit of you.”

  Trey didn’t answer right away. Lighter fluffs of dry hair stood out from the darkened skullcap of his head, and he stared at Blaine’s wet, scratched legs, perhaps forgetting that it wasn’t polite. When he looked up it was to gaze pensively at his two compatriots, his mud-colored eyes narrowing in an outward sign of an inwardly admitted mistake. When he looked at Blaine and found her watching, he shrugged. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “Iff’n you all try to follow us to our camp when we’ve moved on, there’ll be plenty of trouble,” Blaine said, without acknowledging his meager apology. “I don’t care what you tell your squirrelly friend. Since you believe Dacey’s killed once, you can just figure he’ll do it again.”

  Trey lost his air of repentance and scowled at her. “I bet your daddy wore his hand out a’spanking you.”

  It was a comment Blaine saw fit to ignore. She stood and squeezed the water out of her skirt, smoothing it out the best she could, watching as Burl returned with Dacey again. Her boots — a smaller, thinner soled version of the mid-calf boots Trey and Dacey wore — were soaked through, and she bent to pull them off, and to peel off the worn socks beneath. Blue, first. Then she’d see to Dacey, clean up that wound some.