by Meg Caddy
Kaebha.
‘How do you know that name?’ I hissed. His reply was slow and measured.
‘You have said it often,’ he said. ‘When I first found you by the river, you said it twice. And once again the day we sent for the Derrys. I wondered whether it was another language, or the name of a place.’
‘No.’ I forced the fear down. Kaebha was far away. I was beyond her reach. ‘Kaebha is a woman.’
‘From Caerwyn?’
‘Yes.’
‘She is an enemy to you.’
‘Yes.’
He turned and pulled across a chair, sitting in it. I gingerly lowered myself onto the bed.
‘Who are you?’ The question was abrupt and rude on my lips, but I made no attempt to soften it.
‘My name is Lowell Sencha.’ He reached out a hand. ‘Madam Derry told us your name. Lycaea.’
I did not take his hand. ‘How do you know about Caerwyn?’
He hesitated. ‘Madam Derry said you disappeared in Caerwyn,’ he said at last. There was a lie there, or something withheld.
‘And?’
He sat without moving or speaking for a while. I waited.
‘People are searching for you,’ Lowell said at last. ‘A missive was sent to Alwyn, the lord of the Valley. He gave it to me and told me to be discreet about your presence. That was some weeks ago now. The message came from Caerwyn,’ he added, as if I had not guessed. ‘I imagine we are not the only ones to have received something like it.’ His face hardened. ‘It was hateful.’
‘He has no love for your people.’
Lowell cocked his head, quizzical. ‘Our people,’ he corrected. Disgust contracted my gut.
‘Your people,’ I maintained. Lowell furrowed his brow, but he did not argue. Again, he deliberated on his words. I wondered if he always took so long to phrase an idea, or whether it was due to what, for him, must have been an unusual circumstance.
‘A “vile criminal”, you were called,’ he said. ‘Is it accurate?’
I had the irrational urge to laugh. After all his consideration, it was the bluntest question he could have asked. I wondered, for a moment, if he was in jest. A glance at his expression told me he was serious.
‘How should I answer?’ I demanded. ‘If I say “yes” you send me to Caerwyn. If I deny it, I doubt you will believe me.’
‘A fair answer,’ he conceded. The man unnerved me. Did anything surprise him? I could not read his expression. I doubted I could trust him. Or the landlord who had supposedly opted to conceal me rather than assure the safety of the Valley. Or Moth, who had allowed me to be sent me into Leldh’s hands in the first place.
The things I had suffered for her mistakes.
‘I’m tired,’ I told Lowell. ‘Let me sleep.’
‘Tomorrow, come walking with us,’ he said. ‘It will be good for you.’
‘Let me sleep,’ I said again. I had no intention of going anywhere with any of them.
‘After you disappeared, we searched for a year.’
Moth dropped a coat about my shoulders and leaned forward to wind a scarf about my neck. I swatted her hand away and laced the toggles of the coat. My fingers shook. The thought of leaving the house made my head reel, my vision blur. I could bear it if she just stopped talking.
‘We sent people to Caerwyn. They died. We waited in the mountains, hoping to catch a trace of you. There was nothing. We tried to get in ourselves, but Leldh has ways of blocking us. Perhaps we could have managed it, with your mother helping us, but she refused. There was no way for us to get to you.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s why we sent you in the first place.’
‘I know.’
‘We tried everything, Lycaea. We could find nothing. Not even with our particular resources.’ Ridiculous, that she still labelled them ‘particular resources’. She and I both knew what she could do. ‘And then so much time passed. We thought you were dead.’
‘I imagine it makes you feel much better.’ I pulled to my feet, gripped her shoulder for balance. ‘I may as well have been, but I’m not. And I don’t have the information Hemanlok wanted, if that’s what you’re concerned about. Three years later, I doubt it could be of much use in any case.’
‘I’m concerned about you.’
‘Well, that’s a nice change.’ Where was their concern when I was fifteen? What good had it ever done me?
Moth swallowed. I could see her hesitate. She did not know whether to ask me the question I knew she had come to ask. The question she had been waiting for three years to hear the answer to.
‘Lycaea,’ she said. ‘Daeman Leldh. Were our suspicions correct? Is he what we think?’
And this was the real reason she had brought me back from the brink. To her, I was just another resource. I was tempted to make her wait. I was tempted to give her nothing. Instead, I inclined my head, and looked away so I did not have to see the fear and deep weariness flash over her face.
Lowell stuck his head through the door. He gave a slow smile when he saw me.
‘Better every day,’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’
‘No.’
‘She’s ready,’ Moth said. ‘I think we could all do with a walk. Is Kemp coming?’
‘No. He was sent to his room for tracking mud through the house. He will help to prepare the evening meal as penance.’ Lowell came forward and offered me his arm. ‘We will not walk far,’ he promised. ‘I need to be home for the Grey Worship, when dusk falls. The fresh air will do you good, though.’
Pride and revulsion warred with necessity. Necessity won out. I took his arm. By the time we reached the front door, I was glad of it. It was difficult to focus, to keep my balance. Each step was steadier, though, and the open door blew fresh air into my lungs. It was a cold day but it was dry. I stepped onto the grass, felt it brush my shins.
‘One in front of the other, lass.’ Dodge took my other arm and guided me out. I forced myself to accept his help. I needed to regain my strength. I had not escaped Caerwyn to just lie down and die. Leaning on Dodge and Lowell, I went out onto the hill.
I could see the whole Valley from there. It stretched down towards the south-east, away from Caerwyn. The Sencha house was the first residence of the settlement, a good way from the village. It stood at the crest of the hill, squat and stone and swamped by trees. In front of us was a small field, and then a cluster of trees before the river at the foot of the hill. Sheep bedded down in the field, bleating as we drew near.
‘Sheep.’ It was a poor jest, if it was one. ‘Kept by wolves.’
‘The irony hasna been lost on any of us, lass,’ Dodge chuckled.
‘We raise the sheep for the wool, and for trading with the chipre-folk,’ Lowell explained. ‘Sometimes the local lads stray this way when they hunt, but for the most part they have enough control to leave our flock alone. We have had some troubles teaching Kemp to do the same.’
I wished he had not mentioned hunting. The wolf stirred in my gut, scented out the sheep. I shuddered. Control. I focused on the Valley instead. The grass was the deep green of a land blessed with frequent rain. The skies were grey, but I could see the sun shining through faintly, and it was enough to throw the emerald of the trees and grass in sharp contrast. I was never much one to dwell on aesthetics, but after weeks inside I had to appreciate my surroundings.
‘This way,’ Lowell said. He took us around the hill, where the slope was gentler. He was more comfortable outside; I could see it in the way he walked, hear it in the warmth of his voice. It was the wolf in him, I suspected. I followed Lowell Sencha, but at every turn I reminded myself what he was.
What I was.
Lowell
Every afternoon before the Grey Worship, we walked Lycaea down the gentle slope of the hill. The winter air was cold, but it was preferable to the risk of her capture if she was seen in the bright of day. Sometimes Kemp came with us. Sometimes Dodge stayed behind with him. Moth always walked with us, in spite of the cl
ear tension between her and Lycaea. Even as they clearly repelled one another, there was something binding them together. I did not ask.
Lycaea herself was cool and dour. The vulnerability I had seen in the early days of healing was gone. Her face was all sharp lines and caution, and she moved with quick jerks and starts. Her voice was flat and hard, like a piece of slate. Beyond our first conversation, she told me nothing about Caerwyn, or about Kaebha. Even more forbidding was the matter of waer. It was clear to me from the beginning she had her own distate for our people, complicated by the fact she was one of us. Once or twice, her body seemed as if it wanted to Shift. Her muscles would contract and she would lean forwards, her face pale and tight with restraint. It was particularly bad around the sheep, or the other animals. I found myself wondering if she ever Shifted at all. I could not imagine being confined to the one shape.
Our three gods were all shape-shifters. Felen could take the form of a large cat. Hollow changed into a wolf: black like us, but bigger. As large as the souther-waer, my mother said. Freybug was the only one who took more than one shape. Sometimes, lore had it, she was a black dog who shadowed Hollow and repaired what he destroyed. At other times she was an insect, or an otter, or even a little brown wren. She was quiet and subtle, and went where she was needed most. All three maintained a balance between their shapes. As children, we were told stories of when Felen decided to shun her cat form and became maddened and sick from it. A tale designed to teach us the dangers of staying in the one shape for too long.
Lycaea, though, curled her lip whenever she saw Kemp in his Form, or heard me speaking of Shifting. I let the matter be. She could not have been a waer for long; I had never known anyone to resist Shifting for longer than eight or nine months, and that was only expectant mothers who had been advised to refrain. Perhaps when she returned to her home in Luthan she would be able to work through it.
I enjoyed the evening walks. Each day, we went further. I steered us away from the river; I thought it best to avoid as many memories of trauma as we could. Instead, I took them the back way, around the hill and behind the house, where the meadow stretched out between home and the mountains.
‘It is a sight in the spring,’ I told Lycaea. She was walking on her own now, though I sensed her frustration at her slow pace. ‘And sometimes we get deer, though usually our scent unsettles them. The sheep are used to it by now, but not the deer. Lots of rabbits, though. You should see Kemp go after them.’ I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. ‘We were hunting rabbits the day we met you.’
‘The day you found me.’ She would not let me be obscure with my words.
‘Yes.’
‘Mind your footing here,’ Moth said to Lycaea. Dodge was at home, regaling Kemp with stories before the hours grew late and my brother was sent to sleep. I was a buffer between the two women, intercepting the rising tensions between them. I offered Lycaea my arm, but she was strong enough now to do without it, and she stepped across the rabbit-hole.
‘Rabbits,’ I apologised. ‘Everywhere.’
‘Just as well you work so hard to reduce their population, isn’t it?’ I could not tell if she was being humorous or unkind.
‘Control and balance,’ I told her. ‘It is better to have rabbits for food than to have waer stealing livestock from one another, or attacking humans.’
‘So who goes hungry?’
I frowned. ‘What?’
‘Who goes hungry? In every community, someone loses out. There is always someone who goes hungry, unloved, unwanted. Who goes hungry here?’
I could not frame my thoughts around such an idea.
‘No one,’ I said. ‘No one goes hungry here.’
‘Liar.’
‘The Valley is an unusual phenomenon in Oster,’ Moth said. ‘Lowell is correct. They care for one another here.’
I turned to face Lycaea, but she was not looking at me. Her eyes were on the mountains. There was movement. I squinted, tried to make out what she was seeing.
‘Get to the trees,’ Lycaea snapped, and strode ahead of us. She seemed unsteady, but she did not falter.
‘What is it?’ I could smell something, something strange. It distracted me, pulled my attention from Lycaea. I glanced around, then looked towards the mountains. I could see nothing amiss. ‘Lycaea?’
‘Lowell.’ Moth grabbed my arm. Her face was ashen. ‘Run. Run!’
I stumbled into a run. I would have sprinted across the green, but Moth was so slow. I could not leave her alone. By the time we joined Lycaea at the treeline, I was soaked with sweat, and we were both breathless. I removed my clothes and Shifted. I was better as a wolf. I did not panic, as a wolf.
‘Soldiers.’ Her voice was bleak. ‘Leldh’s soldiers. They’ve found me.’
‘Not yet, they haven’t. Keep in the trees. We must get back to the house.’ Moth gathered my clothes and tucked them under her arm. Her face was grey. Her voice shook.
‘They will search the house.’ Lycaea made an effort not to look at me. ‘They will kill anyone in there.’
The words rattled through my head, but I could not understand them. Kill. Kill?
‘No one is going to kill my husband,’ Moth said. She reached down and touched my back. I barely felt it. ‘We are going to the house, Lycaea. You may stay here if you wish, but we are going back for the others. They need to be warned.’
‘Are you addled?’ Lycaea spat. ‘What can you hope to do about it? It’s the first house they’ll come to! We have to hide, Derry!’
Moth, in her yellow frock and her round spectacles, squared her shoulders and started moving through the trees. My thoughts clicked into function and I ran. My paws skimmed the earth. Kemp. Mother. Father. Kill. Anger and fear pulled my mouth into a snarl. Growls ripped through my chest. I could smell them now: metal and sweat, oil and smoke. They were close. They spoke above the wind, and I could hear them. I caught Lycaea’s scent as she joined us. She was drenched in sweat and fear. We started towards the open, but Moth gave a whimper and pulled back, hauled Lycaea along with her.
We waited in the growing shadows as men dressed in red and black streamed past. They clattered and shouted. I heard one cackling. Another clapped him on the shoulder. They carried torches, weapons. Our Valley had never seen such weapons. It was hard to remain silent. I shook, suppressing growls. I could hear Moth’s breath by my ear as we crouched in the shadow of a large oak. The sounds of the soldiers faded and Lycaea pushed Moth forwards. Again, we ran. All I could hear was air rasping through my lungs, and the sound of my paws hitting the earth. Someone burst through the trees. Another Valley wolf, from down the way. Running in the wrong direction. He collided with Moth, then bounded away. Howls sprang through the Valley. A demented chorus. I saw a break in the trees, saw a flicker of light, knew my home was close. I pressed forwards.
‘Stop. Stop, stop! Stop here.’ Lycaea grabbed my scruff and dragged me to a halt. ‘Fool. You’ll be seen. Derry, stop here.’
We were surrounded by trees. Dusk was upon us, and the light of the sun faded swiftly. I pressed against the ground, straining to hear. Lycaea crouched. Her eyes were animal. The smell of smoke drowned my senses. It was everywhere. I could not pinpoint the origin.
‘We cannot be seen,’ Lycaea whispered.
‘There are no trees between here and the house,’ Moth said. ‘Can you move fast enough, Lycaea?’
Lycaea said nothing. She rolled back her shoulders, sprang to her feet, and moved for the edge of the trees. I was a step behind her when she swore and stumbled back. She tumbled over me, fell heavily. I choked back a yelp, smothered it into a growl. Lycaea, breath ragged, scrambled to her feet.
‘Fire!’ she hissed.
I was deaf and blind, and animal. I ran. The fire, bright in the night, blinded me. Someone was screaming. The wood snapped, roared as it fell and sent flame howling into the night. I made a sound. Something neither a bark nor a howl, but a scream that left my throat sore and my lungs empty. I ran for the
door, but the wall of flame knocked me back. I had never felt such heat. I tried the window, but it belched smoke and fire at me. I yelped and fell back. I scrabbled in the dirt. I was neither wolf nor man. I was made of pain. Kemp. Mother. Father.
Moth ran past me.
‘Dodge!’ she screamed. ‘Dodge!’
I imagined Kemp, choking on black smoke. My mother and father, crushed beneath the wood. Hollow taking each one of them.
Lycaea grabbed Moth about the shoulders and held her back from the flame.
Kemp, crying out for me. Burning. My mother and father, holding one another. Unable to escape. Wondering where I was. Needing me. Needing me.
‘Sencha. Sencha!’ Lycaea. Angry, or frightened. Both. I could not tell.
I lay on my belly and panted. Kemp. Mother. Father.
‘Lowell.’ Moth took my face in her hands. Her eyes were red, her face hard from withholding tears. ‘Lowell, we have to go. I’m so sorry. We have to go. It’s gone. Maybe they escaped. The house is gone. There’s nothing we can do here.’
A crash. Roof falling in. Our home. Moth dragged my fur and I stumbled, stood. Shouts washed over me. I could not tell if they came from Moth and Lycaea, or from my neighbours, or from our enemies. Enemies. I gasped for air. The ground slid beneath my feet. Kemp. Mother. Father.
Back to the trees, but they offered no sanctuary this time. I wanted to scream and keep screaming, but fear and pain left me mute. I was dumb in the darkness.
‘We need a place to hide.’ Moth’s voice was threaded with grief. ‘Lowell. You need to show us where to hide. Please. I know. I know, but we have no time.’
I Shifted, found the clothes Moth had dropped when she saw the burning house. I pulled them on, clumsy in the dark. My fingers fumbled with the laces. Lycaea hissed her frustration, but I could not focus on her. I fixed my attention on my fingers, and then my legs as I started to walk. For a misty moment, I had no idea where we were going.
‘Caves,’ I managed. My tongue was numb and heavy. ‘Caves at the foot of the mountains.’
