From Across the Clouded Range

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  #

  “Follow me, and try to be quiet,” Tethina ordered as they emerged from the bush. She had her teeth gnashed together and caressed her arms where the red was punctuated by white scratches from the thorns. Her eyes searched the forest, but the smoke had returned denser than before, and Dasen could not imagine that she was finding much. Then, without so much as a glance back, she ran silently from the village, perfectly retracing their approach.

  Dasen followed as quietly as he could and was aided by Tethina’s slower pace. When the smoke had been reduced to a few clinging wisps, she stopped and gave the forest a long look. She thought for a moment while Dasen caught his breath. Sweat dripped from his head and ran down his face. His shirt was soaked and he cursed the jacket that he, for some reason, still wore. His mouth still tasted like that horrible bark that Tethina had made him chew, and his thirst was devastating. A look at the sky showed that the sun had already dipped below the mountains to the west. They only had another hour before twilight. Without the village to return to, their situation was growing desperate.

  Returning to his full height, Dasen was nearly toppled as Tethina threw her arms around him and held him in a crushing embrace. Dasen was shocked but soon recovered enough to wrap his arms around her. Her chin rested on his shoulder. Her sweat dampened hair brushed his cheek. Her soft body crushed against him through the silk of her dress. Her scent washed over him, strangely metallic and musky with a hint of dellum sap and pine. Dasen was overwhelmed by her presence, could barely find the ability to breathe as every nerve in his body came to life while a thousand emotions battled for control of his mind. In the end, he could only hold her and stammer. He expected to feel her crying on his shoulder and built himself to give her strength, but she did not shed a tear.

  The moment was over almost as soon as it began. Tethina pulled away, put a hand on his chest, and looked into his eyes. “Thanks, I . . . I just needed to make sure that something was real.” She released a heavy sigh and turned to the forest. “This is bad. Did you see all those bodies?” Tethina paused to gather herself. Dasen felt the bile rising again as he thought about what he had seen. “These men are animals. They killed dozens of innocent people just to get Ipid, for nothing more than his money. And they must already have him, or they’d be out searching for him. So why kill all those people?” Tethina stopped and chewed her lip. Dasen drew a breath, but she put a hand over his mouth. “Not now. There is no use discussing it. I’d love to save him, but it’s too big a risk. We don’t even know where he is. There is nothing we can do.”

  Dasen had not even thought about trying to rescue his father. He had only meant to suggest that they find someplace to hide, preferably with food and water. He had no illusions that he was capable of sneaking into the village, finding his father, or getting back out again. And even if they did, what then?

  “We’ll go to my aunt’s,” Tethina proclaimed after some thought. Dasen felt relief wash over him, someplace to rest. “We can’t risk that these savages will find her cottage. I don’t know how, but she’ll have to come with us.”

  Dasen felt his hope crash. Come with us?

  Tethina stopped and looked around without seeming to see him. He opened his mouth to protest, but she spoke over him. “We’ll make our way to Potter’s Place. From there, you can send messages to whoever will fix this: the governor, the forest masters, the Chancellor himself. We’ll have to stay off the roads, which will be hard with my aunt. She can’t walk, but we can take turns carrying her or make a stretcher for her. But it’s not a long trip. Even with her, not more than a couple of days.”

  “Do you really think that’s prudent?” Dasen finally managed to ask. “We need water, food, a place to sleep. How are we going to take care of your aunt too?

  “We’ll just have to find a way,” Tethina proclaimed. “I’m not leaving her to these savages.” She turned to Dasen and glared until he dropped all thoughts of opposition.

  “Can we at least stay at her cottage until morning? The sun will be down soon.”

  Tethina looked toward the mountains and the orange glow that outlined them. “Too risky, but we can get water and food there. We’ll sleep under a fir tree. You’d be surprised how comfortable it can be.” She looked at him with a sly smile that did not betray her joke, if that’s what it was. Dasen could only hope so. “Come on then. It’s not far to the house. Can you run?”

  Dasen had barely caught his breath from the previous run. His legs were trembling, his head hurt, his stomach rumbled, his tongue felt like leather, but he nodded.

  “Okay. I’m going to go ahead. Just keep me in sight. If you lose me, knock on a tree like this.” Tethina picked up a stick and tapped quickly on a nearby trunk. To Dasen’s uninitiated ears, it sounded like a woodpecker. “But beyond that, you need to be silent. We are going to be skirting around the village and cannot risk drawing attention. Got it?”

  Dasen nodded again then watched as his wife bounded off, leaping from tree to tree like a jackrabbit. Unfortunately, the forest floor had not become any smoother since his last trip across it, and he was soon stumbling along with every step echoing in his ears. He winced at each thud, wondering if it had been heard in the village. His mind became obsessed with a coming pursuit, imagining it with every sound. As it was, he was barely running. The ground was so rough and slick that he had to concentrate on each step. Still he was soon gasping. Sweat ran down his face into his eyes. His shirt clung to his back and his pants chaffed his inner thighs, adding another misery.

  When he thought the stitch in his side had become a real knife, he stopped, put his hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath. When he brought his head up, he saw the last shadow of Tethina disappearing through the trees a hundred paces ahead. He searched momentarily for a stick to call her then cursed himself. They had only been running for a few minutes. What will she think if I’ve already given up? How will I ever gain her respect if I can’t keep up for five minutes? With a sigh, he resumed his run, pushing his pace to match that of his wife.

  In a moment, he had found Tethina again. She had stopped to look back for him. Seeing her watching, Dasen made the mistake of trying to impress her. He took his eyes from the forest floor, increased his pace, lengthened his stride, and tried to imitate her apparent ease. For a few strides, he felt like a natural. His feet hit rocks or roots and surged off confidently to the next. He was just preparing to congratulate himself when the forest delivered the punch line. His toes landed on a rain-exposed root, slipped off of it, and became lodged under another. He pitched forward. His left knee led the way, slamming with an audible crack into a waiting stone. Pain lanced through him, and he cried out in surprise before his hands landed in the mud and slid away to leave him face down in muck.

  Anguish assailed his senses. He rolled onto his back clutching his knee and gnashing his teeth against the unbearable pain. Somewhere he was aware that he was crying out as he rolled in the mud but could not control the sounds. When the pain subsided enough for his mind to regain control, he clamped his mouth shut, hoping that his outburst had somehow gone unnoticed. But on this Order-cursed day, no such luck was available. Cries of alarm came first, surprisingly close, a few hundred paces to his right. Orders were issued in a foreign tongue a second later followed by the thunder of horses’ hooves.

  Terror overran pain. Dasen rolled onto his stomach and looked for Tethina just as she closed the final few feet between them and pulled him to his feet. “You idiot!” she seethed. “You're going to get us killed.” She slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled him through the trees to the west.

  Dasen tried to bring his legs around to support his part of their scamper, but only one of them would support his weight, and he ended up leaning heavily on Tethina. Even holding his weight, she ran nearly faster than he had managed before the fall.

  The sound of
hooves spread through the forest behind them. The bandits were searching, riding at a careful pace in the tangled forest, but they seemed to be everywhere. A shadow appeared in the distance before them, the dark outline of a horse, the rider’s body and head blocked by a pine. Tethina altered their course to take them around the man, but it was pointless. Unidentifiable words sounded through the forest behind them, a call of discovery that would have been clear in any language. Hooves pounded the forest floor until they consolidated behind them. The hunters had found their prey.

  Tethina mumbled a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush. Taking the opposite approach, Dasen tried to think of a prayer. The sharp thwack of an arrow hitting the side of a tree a few feet in front of them ended his attempt at piety. There was only one option now.

  “You have to leave me,” he said. The words came with a calm that he had not thought possible. “I’m the one they want. I'll hold them up. Go and get help. Find the forest masters." He tried to break away, but Tethina would not release him.

  “Too late for that now,” she growled.

  Dasen did not understand and did not have the time to consider. He could almost hear the horses labored breaths in his ears. They were caught for sure. There was a rasp of steel leaving leather.

  Tethina finally released him. He looked toward her just in time to see the ground depart from beneath his feet. He felt a moment of weightlessness before he began to fall.

  Mercifully short, the fall ended in a rush of water. The icy current enveloped him and shook him senseless. In shock, he struggled to keep his bearings, to find air. The White River into which they had fallen was fast-moving and violent. It eagerly pulled him under its tumultuous current, but surprise was the river’s only advantage. Dasen had learned to swim in the river that ran by his father’s estate in Thoren and still swam often in the university baths. As such, he soon recovered and pulled himself to the surface with a sputtering gasp.

  As his head surged from the water, he looked back at the fading bank. Standing there were three mounted men shaking swords over their heads in frustration. As the bandits faded from view, a smile crept across Dasen’s face and grew into his first laugh of the day.

  Chapter 13