“I can’t have you wandering around in a place where the animals haven’t been cleared. It’s too dangerous. What if we startle the wrong animal in a bush?”
Linnea rolled her eyes. “What are the chances?”
“Slim, but not zero, Nay. Not zero is too much for my comfort, okay?”
“Owen and I brought back a lot of that medicine. Isn’t there enough if something did happen?” Zander wondered.
“No,” Thomas said. “Not really. There’s enough to cover a few more emergencies, but not enough to go inviting them. It’s not the vaccine that’s as big a concern as the immune globulin. Now that we have more vaccine sample and more time, Nathaniel, William, and Jacob are pretty certain they will be able to make and test a safe enough version of the vaccine. But we don’t have a way of making the immune globulin. In order to make it, you need blood from a large number of people who have had the vaccine – or from horses that have. But we don’t have those numbers. So we need to be extremely cautious of anyone who hasn’t had the vaccine and would need it if they were exposed.”
“Besides,” Ben said, “someone needs to stay with the horses and keep an eye on them. We can’t risk their safety either. I should have checked to make sure this area had been cleared before we came out here.”
“I just don’t like the idea of you in the woods alone, Ben.” Linnea had taken hold of his hand.
“I’ll go with him,” Zander said. “I know I’m not all that useful, but I can at least keep him company and be an extra set of eyes.”
Thomas shook his head. “We try to send our visitors home in the same condition they arrived in.”
“You sent Quinn h – back once with stitches and bruises all down her arm.” He didn’t know when it had happened, but he couldn’t really think of Bristlecone as Quinn’s home anymore.
“That’s because she didn’t listen to us.”
“Well, I’m not going to listen to you either. I’ve had the vaccine before, so I’m not at risk of needing immune globulin. I’m safe. You don’t want Ben to go alone, so…”
“Just come on, then,” Ben said, tucking the map into a leather pouch and slinging it over his shoulder. “Carry this.” He held out a long-handled knife in a leather sheath that was attached to a belt.
“I’m probably more dangerous with this thing than without it, you know,” Zander said, though he accepted it and began buckling the belt around his waist.
“I don’t know about that,” Ben said. “You were starting to do pretty well with the knives in the gym yesterday afternoon. I’d still appreciate a warning to stand clear if you need to take it out, but I think I’d rather you had it.”
Linnea chuckled, but for once it didn’t irritate Zander. Instead, he felt a strange warmth in his chest – Ben had said he was doing well at something here. Maybe he wasn’t entirely useless.
Of course, some of his pride faded a bit when he took a few steps away so that Linnea could kiss Ben good-bye, and he realized how sore and wobbly his legs were – a vivid reminder of how far he still had to go.
“Don’t leave yet,” Thomas said, again letting out the low whistle Zander had heard earlier. The giant bird swooped immediately into the clearing, landing only a few feet in front of Thomas.
“Oh, good idea,” Linnea said, and a second later, she, too, whistled, bringing her bird down from the trees.
“Do they follow you everywhere?” Zander asked, stunned.
“Yes. Unless we send them somewhere – with a message, or to find someone.” Thomas walked to Storm and pulled something small out of the saddle bag before returning, and holding the little item toward Zander.
It was a pouch, he realized, made of some kind of thick cloth – oilcloth, maybe? It felt waterproof. Frowning, he opened it. There was dried meat inside.
“Feed him a piece,” Thomas said, nodding toward the bird, which was – to Zander’s discomfort – strutting closer. Linnea’s bird was looking at him, her black liquid eyes blinking in interest.
He raised his eyebrows. “Feed him?” The bird’s beak looked razor-sharp and he wasn’t even considering the…
“Don’t worry. He won’t use those talons on you if you’re giving him a treat. He has better manners than that. So does Zylia. Go ahead. Take out a piece of meat, and then kneel down and hold it out toward him.”
He couldn’t believe his hands were actually trembling as he reached into the pouch for some of the meat, though he was grateful when crouching down to the ground wasn’t as hard as he’d feared it would be – his legs were beginning to recover.
The bird wasn’t nearly as shy as he was expecting – hoping? – it to be. As soon as he extended his hand with the treat in it, Sirian headed straight for him, snatching the meat away from him. He didn’t even have time to pull his hand back before Zylia startled him by knocking her head on the underside of his hand, obviously looking for hers.
Linnea chuckled. “You’d better hurry.”
“Or she’ll what?” he asked, suddenly nervous.
But Zylia answered the question for him. A second later, she closed her beak on the pouch itself, pulling it right out of his other hand and carried it several feet away.
They all laughed as both birds descended on the pouch, managing somehow to get all of the meat out and eat it without even damaging the leather.
Linnea clicked her tongue at them. “And after we just praised your manners to Zander,” she chided them. “You ought to tell Zander thank you now that you’ve enjoyed your snack.”
For a moment, he thought Linnea was only being facetious – the birds couldn’t have understood her – but then both Sirian and Zylia strutted toward him, and, one at a time, rubbed their heads against his hand very gently, in a gesture that seemed like supplication.
Zander nearly fell over backwards.
“Do they really understand you?”
“Yes. And now they know who you are, so we can send them searching for you if we need to.”
“That is amazing,” he breathed. Though he was awestruck by the birds, he was nearly as impressed when he was able to stand back up on his feet without help.
“All right,” Thomas said, as the birds took off into the sky again. “Here are some sandwiches. You two have an hour to do your exploring before we send the birds after you for real.”
~ 24 ~
The Tent
Carperos Forest, Eirentheos
LESS THAN FIVE minutes into his walk in the forest with Ben, Zander knew that he was worse than useless; he was counter-productive. Even armed with a heavy sword and the crossbow, Ben’s steps were silent, undetectable – a feat Zander wouldn’t have been able to manage even unarmed and on a day where he wasn’t walking bow-legged and sore from sitting in an unfamiliar saddle.
Every twig that Zander snapped, every leaf that crunched under his heavy steps had to have been grinding on Ben’s last nerve, but if that was the case, he didn’t show it. He walked slower than necessary, matching Zander’s pace, moving overhead branches out of the way for both of them. Several times he stopped and pointed at an interesting bird in the air or a hearty plant that was still growing at the base of one of the massive trees.
After a while, Ben even gave up the pretense of silence, chuckling and pointing up again. “Zylia has decided to just go ahead and be protective of us.”
Sure enough, the enormous bird was perched in one of the trees just behind them, her watchful eyes seeing everything. When they continued moving, she waited only a moment before taking to the air, landing again where they would have to walk directly under her.
“She should be protective. If she’s half as smart as she appears to be, she’s got to be worried I’ll get you killed out here.”
Ben snickered. “I’m not worried about you getting us killed. You are probably scaring away anything big that might be out here, I’ll admit.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. If I see any tracks or signs of anything, we can sweep the area again when help comes to
haul away that deer … and at least you’ll scare away any bears, too.”
“What? Are there bears in this area?” Zander suddenly wished Ben had given him a few more lessons with knives before he’d said yes to the horseback ride.
“Well, not with the noise you’re making. But, yes, sometimes we’ve heard reports of them in this area.”
Somehow, thinking about the possibility of running into whatever this world’s version of a bear was improved Zander’s stealth considerably. Over the next several minutes, he paid attention to the careful way Ben was placing his feet, and soon, he understood how Ben either avoided the twigs and leaves, or managed to muffle the sounds they made when he had to step on them.
But even though they were now silent and probably not scaring anything away, twenty more minutes of searching the area turned up nothing bigger than a chipmunk. Ben shook his head when Zander pointed out the tiny creature nibbling away at something right next to a rotting log.
“We don’t have to worry about anything that small,” he said, barely even glancing at it as he continued scanning the area.
“I thought any mammal could get rabies.”
“I think any mammal probably could – if it could survive the bite that would cause it.”
Okay then.
“Let’s just finish searching this spot – I’m going to go down and take a look along the riverbank – and then we can head back.”
“Okay,” Zander said, nodding as he headed for a stand of trees.
The long, unfruitful search had caused him to drop his guard much too soon – a fact he didn’t realize until he walked confidently into the grove and stepped on something that squirmed underneath him.
His yelp was much louder than the creature’s.
Ben was beside him before he even had a chance to fully catch his breath. “What’s wrong?”
“What … is … that?” he asked, pointing to the animal that he’d now taken several steps back from.
It was like nothing he had ever seen in his world. About the size of a terrier, its long fur was mottled brown and gray, except for the black stripe that extended from its forehead all the way down its back and the black rings circling the length of its incredibly long tail. He assumed it had eyes, though they were impossible to see underneath the thick mass of fur on its face.
It was shaking and making odd humph noises every few seconds – though Zander didn’t know if that was due to the fact that it had just been stepped on, or if it was because the thing was trapped. A rope was secured just under its front legs, tied tightly enough to reveal just how much of what appeared to be the animal’s mass was really only its excessive fur, and the other end was secured to the nearest tree.
“That is a capiya,” Ben said, sighing. “You should step away if you don’t want to watch.” He pulled out his sword.
Zander didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t look away, either. Ben’s technique was so clean that the animal didn’t suffer at all; only seconds later, the capiya was completely still.
“Let me guess. Those things can get rabies.”
Ben looked up from where he was cleaning his sword. “Capiyas are one of the biggest carriers of rabies. Do you not have them in your world?”
“No.”
“You’re lucky. They’re kind of cute, but they’re vicious. They’ll eat anything. Sometimes, three or four of them will work together and take down a sheep.”
“I was sad about you killing it right up until you said that.”
Ben stood, tucking his sword back in the scabbard. “The real question is where did this trap come from? Someone was trying to catch something out here.” He started looking around, and Zander followed.
At first, there was nothing – the same nothing they’d been seeing their entire search. But then he saw it – a patch of gray between the trees that didn’t quite match the surrounding landscape. “Ben!”
Ben looked where Zander was pointing. “What?”
“Down there, close to the river. Is that a tent?”
Ben froze, putting one hand on the hilt of his sword, and using the other to push Zander behind a large tree, whistling as he did so.
Almost instantly, a bird flew out of the trees – not Sirian or Zylia; this one was pure alabaster, except for her black hood and the undersides of her wings. “Cielian,” he whispered to Zander, by way of introduction.
When the bird landed, Ben knelt next to her, reaching to open a small metal cylinder attached to her leg that Zander hadn’t noticed. From inside, he retrieved a rolled-up piece of paper and some kind of pencil.
“Are you sending a note to Thomas and Linnea?”
“No. To the castle. I need more armed guards than they’re sending to pick up that doe – someone who won’t have a wagon so they can ride faster.”
Once the bird was gone, Zander and Ben stood there in the trees for a long time, staring down at the structure. Whether it was actually a tent or not, Zander wasn’t sure, but it was most definitely a shelter of some kind. Someone had built it there. Perhaps the same person daring enough to set a trap for capiyas.
After about ten minutes had passed with no movement from the shelter, though, Zander looked over at Ben.
“I know we were trying to be quiet and all of that, but … don’t you think that whoever is down there has probably already heard us?”
“If they’re even there,” Ben said, nodding. “It’s possible someone is just using it as a hunting shelter.”
“I thought there weren’t many people living out in this direction.”
“There aren’t.”
“I think we should go and check it out.”
Ben raised an eyebrow, though it was obvious from the look in his eyes that he’d been considering the same thing for several minutes.
“Our hour is almost up. We can’t wait here, or Thomas and Linnea are going to come looking for us, and then it might really get dangerous. And if we go back to them and wait for soldiers, someone might sneak out of there and we’d miss it.”
“That sounds like a safer option.”
“Okay,” Zander said, turning his body back toward where Thomas and Linnea were waiting and taking a step.
“Come on,” Ben sighed.
Slowly, silently, the two of them crept toward the shelter. As they sloped downward toward the river, more of the structure came into view. It was much larger than he’d thought at first – an enormous canvas tent. They were facing the side of it, but when they curved their path to avoid a large felled tree, he could see the sides of the unsecured entrance flapping in the breeze.
They were only about ten feet from the tent when the wind suddenly shifted, and Zander nearly fainted.
Ben buried his face in his elbow.
Zander’s eyes were watering as he looked around, desperately searching for the source of the stench.
“Something’s dead,” Ben said. “In that tent, or the smell wouldn’t be so concentrated.” He had his hand clenched tightly on the hilt of his sword.
Zander turned his head to the side as far as he could to try to suck a breath of clean air through his mouth. He wasn’t sure if the rolling in his stomach was only from the appalling odor, or if the thought that there might be a dead body only a few feet away from them was contributing. “There can’t be anybody alive in there. The smell alone would kill them.”
Nodding, Ben reached into the leather pouch he wore on his belt and pulled out something white – some sort of cloth. Zander realized there were two pieces of the cloth when Ben separated them and held one out to him. A handkerchief – or something like one, anyway, although they were quite a bit larger than normal handkerchiefs.
“Tie it around your face,” Ben said, demonstrating with his own.
It was a little easier to breathe with the cloth covering his nose and mouth – but only a little. The closer they got to the tent, the more tempted Zander was to turn and run away. “Maybe we should wait for the other soldiers; you’ve already asked
them to come.”
“If this is too much for you I understand. You can wait for me back up the hill away from the smell.”
Yes, sure, he could go wait back up the hill like a coward and let Ben do this alone. Pulling the cloth as tight as he could, he matched his steps to Ben’s.
When they reached the entrance, Ben pulled out his sword and stepped in front of Zander, motioning him back with his free hand. “Stay out here for a minute.”
Although he was expecting it, and he’d made sure to inhale as much upwind air as he could first, the wall of fumes that escaped when Ben pulled the flap all the way open nearly knocked Zander over. He tried to hold it together, but finally he couldn’t, and he managed to rip the handkerchief away from his mouth only a fraction of a second before he vomited on the ground, right there on the side of the tent. Ben was already inside.
“Zander!” At the sound of the alarm in Ben’s voice, Zander’s nausea was instantly replaced by a jolt of adrenaline. He barely managed to get the handkerchief tied back over his face as he ran into the tent.
He had almost forgotten about the knife he was carrying, but he remembered just as he slipped through the opening in the canvas, and he grabbed it, wrapping his fingers tightly around the handle.
The scene inside the tent nearly made him drop it, though. The source of the smell was obvious almost immediately. Just inside the entrance of the tent, off to the side, there were two animals – a gray thing that looked like a fox, and another capiya – lying on the floor under two wood-and-wire crates. Aside from the smell, they weren’t a danger to anyone, although they appeared to be a boon to the thousands upon thousands of flies buzzing around them.
But the animals weren’t what had made Ben cry out.
Next to the back wall of the tent, there was a cot – the folding wooden kind that reminded Zander of military movies, in the same way the tent itself did. And on the cot, there was a man.
He didn’t know how the man could possibly be alive; even in the dim light in the tent, it was obvious how ill he was, but his chest was rising and falling in shallow breaths, and as Zander approached, his eyelids fluttered, though they didn’t open for long. Zander suspected that even the action of blinking required a level of effort the man was no longer capable of exerting.
Canes of Divergence (Dusk Gate Chronicles) Page 23
