Shakre straightened and looked at him. Then she saw the faint smile on his face. “Not helpful, old man.”
“Not everyone can handle the other voices,” Elihu said. “Their worlds are not like ours. To those who are already cracked slightly, the voices can shatter them completely, like a clay pot that is not made correctly will crack when put on the fire. But if the clay pot is made correctly, it will not crack, even if the fire is fierce.”
“Are you calling my head a clay pot?” Shakre asked with mock severity.
“But not a cracked one,” he responded with a smile.
“Keep it up and you may end up with a cracked pot,” she said, leaning against him once more.
The two parties had formed up and were about to leave the camp. Nilus started to walk off, then turned and looked at Elihu, who raised his hand in silent approval. Nilus nodded and led his group into the woods to the east. In contrast, Rehobim studiously avoided looking at Elihu or any of the Walkers, even Youlin. Shakre sighed. Not long ago it would have been unthinkable for a group to set off on a major undertaking such as this without some sign of approval from one or more of the Walkers.
Elihu heard her sigh and interpreted it correctly. “He burns with a secret shame. In his mind, only war will wash it away.”
Shakre straightened. “He led our people to vengeance when they needed him to stay and guide them. I fear we won’t be so lucky next time.”
“When have the Takare ever been lucky?” Elihu asked.
“But now, more than ever, we will need the guidance of the Walkers,” Shakre said. “He is hotheaded and impulsive and I don’t like where he wants us to go.”
“Maybe the time of the Walkers has passed,” Elihu said, gesturing with his chin at Rekus, who was hunched over himself, staring at his hands. “We were born of the Plateau, but we live there no longer.”
“Maybe Youlin can make him see sense,” Shakre said, though not very hopefully. Rehobim had ignored her as well. Still, she carried a great deal of authority amongst the warriors, who had not forgotten the time she spent helping them relive past identities and how important that had been in reawakening long-dormant skills.
“Perhaps,” Elihu agreed. “But will her leadership be better? I cannot see anything about that one. She is a moonless night under the trees.”
“Weren’t you trying to make me feel better?” Shakre asked, giving him a sidelong glance. “Because it’s not working.”
“I’m just trying to hold onto you so you don’t fly away again. At least not without taking me with you,” Elihu said with a chuckle.
Twenty-seven
When Netra awakened from nightmares of being chased by Bloodhound the first morning after fleeing the plateau, she looked at a world that had turned gray. At first she thought she was still trapped in the nightmare. Ash had drifted down during the night and covered everything. Trees sagged under it, bushes and boulders were buried under it. In the distance she could hear a low, grinding hiss. She stood, wincing at the pains in her muscles, and moved out from under the trees where she had slept. What she saw when she looked up made her gasp. The plateau looked as though a giant’s fist had struck it. Huge rents snaked down its face, filled with sluggish rivers of molten rock. Wild masses of black clouds hung heavy over it.
For a while Netra just stared at it in disbelief. She wasn’t going to find her mother. If her mother had been on the plateau, she was most likely dead. A terrible sorrow drifted over her and she wrapped her arms around herself, the pain nearly causing her to cry out. She had come so far for nothing. What was left for her now? Her mother was dead. She was in lands controlled by Kasai and she might be found by its followers at any time, whereupon she would be burned. Even if she survived, what difference did it make? She and everything she loved was going to be destroyed in the cataclysm to come.
She heard a noise and raised her head. A squirrel was running down the trunk of a nearby tree, leaving tracks in the ash. It reached the ground and darted over to a boulder, then began digging at its base. A few moments later it came up with a pine cone and it raced back up the tree. Watching her with its bright little eyes, it began to strip out and devour the seeds from the cone. Netra watched it for a minute, then took a deep breath and wiped the tears that had gathered on her cheeks.
She dug around in her pack and found her meager rations. She ate what she could and came wearily to her feet. So long as she still lived, she would not quit. She stuffed her blanket in her pack and put it on her back, then straightened and considered her options. To the west Kasai was gathering an army. Obviously she wasn’t going that way. Qarath was east and south, and it was a logical choice, since the FirstMother was there, but she knew she wouldn’t be going that way. Not yet. There was only one place she wanted to go right then.
She looked south toward Rane Haven. Where else could she go? She had to know if her sisters were safe. Then she would have to convince them to come with her to Qarath. The Haven was too dangerous. She would tell them what she had seen and together they would figure out what to do. Her mood brightened somewhat as she took her first steps. She still had family left. She wasn’t entirely alone.
She hadn’t gone far when she heard heavy footsteps behind her. Wearily she turned and eyed the huge, copper-skinned warrior who had saved her from the tree-thing.
“What do you want?” she asked him, not trying to keep the irritation from her voice. She had not forgotten his first words to her. Why did you not leave me to die?
“I…follow you.” His voice had an unusual accent.
“What? Why?”
He stood there for long moments, his face impassive. His features were coarse, his nose broad and flat, his eyes deep set and burning amber below a thick brow. He was hairless. Scars crisscrossed his face, too regular to be accidental. Something his people did to themselves, then. She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but at last he said, “I owe you a—” He paused, searching for the word and then settled for some of his own. “Tenken ya.”
“Whatever this tenken ya is, you don’t owe it to me.”
His heavy brows drew together and something like a snarl lifted one lip. The next words cost him dearly. “You saved my life. I owe you.”
“No, you don’t.” She strode up to him and poked him in the chest, which was about eye level for her. “You saved me, I saved you. We’re even.” She gave him her fiercest stare, daring him to contradict her.
“No.” He crossed his arms and stared down at her. He was a rock, a mountain. His tone and his posture said he had decided and he would never budge.
“Can’t you count?” She held up her right forefinger. “I save you.” She held up her left forefinger. “You save me.” She held them next to each other. “Even.”
“No,” he said again.
“Explain it to me.”
For just a moment he looked startled, then his face settled back into its normal impenetrable frown.
Netra turned and resumed walking.
Again the ponderous tread followed her. She whirled on him. “Look, I release you from your debt. You don’t owe me anything.”
He just stood there staring at her.
“Go on.” She waved her hands as if he were an irritating insect. When he still didn’t move she snapped suddenly, the strain of too many terrifying days breaking loose. “I killed to save you, but you don’t remember because you were unconscious and dying. I trapped a deer and dragged it over to you so I could drain its Song, which I then used to keep you alive.” She wiped away an unbidden tear. “Do you have any idea what it felt like to do that, to kill an innocent animal like that? Do you have any feelings inside you at all?”
He flinched before her words and she felt a twinge of guilt, but she was angry now. Her voice was hoarse and she was almost growling when she continued.
“And then I find out you want to die! Why, if you’d just told me that in the beginning, I could have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble.” She stopped, breathing hard
, wiping angrily at tears she couldn’t control. “I don’t want anything to do with you, do you hear me? Go kill yourself somewhere that I can’t see.”
His face visibly twisted and something vulnerable peeked through just for a moment. In a voice so low she almost didn’t hear it, he said, “Allow me this. I have nothing else.”
His words shocked her to silence. Now she looked away, suddenly shamed by her outburst. Weariness overwhelmed her once again. She wanted to lie down and just give up. It felt like she had been tired and afraid forever. “Okay,” she mumbled. “You can come with me. But just know that you can go any time. You don’t owe me anything.”
She started walking again, but after a short distance she stopped and turned around. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. Things have been…difficult lately. I’m a little tired.” Which was a huge understatement. “Anyway, my name is Netra. Who are you?”
“I am Shorn.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
His heavy brows drew together, considering her words.
“But I suppose that makes sense, since you are clearly an unusual person. If you are a person. Where are you from anyway?”
His lips tightened, but he did not respond.
“Not a big talker, are you?” He just stared at her, his expression unreadable. Netra shrugged. “Have it your way.”
She continued walking. Strangely, she realized that she was glad he was coming with her. How long had she been on her own? Why had she ever left her home? It all seemed so silly and childish now, the way she’d acted toward the women who were her family. When she got home, the first thing she’d do was apologize. At least she hadn’t been exiled like her mother. At least she could return home.
She paused and looked back at the plateau. She’d lost her mother, but she still had her family. That counted for a lot.
For the next few hours she and Shorn walked through a world as gray as Melekath’s dreams. The sun was a barely visible glow in the sky, hidden behind clouds of ash and smoke. The ash on the ground was deep enough that it was hard to find and follow a trail, so they spent a lot of time fighting their way through bushes and slipping on hidden loose stones.
Several times she tried to engage Shorn in conversation—all the time alone had made her desperate for someone to talk to—and when that failed she found herself thinking back over the last few months. It was unbelievable how much had happened and how fast. It was only a short time ago that she had just been a foolish, hard-headed girl battling Brelisha over her lessons, trying to get out of her chores, sneaking out to follow wildlife through the hills. Then came the nightmare in Treeside, when Tharn killed Gerath. After that she and Siena went to Nelton and there she’d been attacked by Gulagh. She couldn’t even remember the name of the Tender she’d killed to escape Gulagh.
Consumed by guilt, she’d fled the Haven, going to find her mother. She hadn’t been able to help the ancient tree in that nameless town, nor had she been able to help the girl shot with an arrow while she fled the monsters that burned her family alive. Then the same monsters caught her and nearly burned her to death, before she’d miraculously escaped and then spent a few days being chased by Bloodhound, only escaping when he fell down the side of the plateau.
Then she finally made it up onto the plateau, only to be attacked by some kind of creature living within a tree, then saved by whatever it was that was following her now.
It was beyond crazy. It was unbelievable. She gazed around her at an ash-covered world and knew she was far too small for it. Nothing she did made any difference. She was so worried about whether she was doing the right thing, but the truth was it didn’t matter. Forces were in motion that were so much bigger than she was.
It was late afternoon when the sun finally broke through the ash clouds for a few minutes. By then the ash covering the ground had begun to thin and there were bare patches here and there. They hadn’t made it very far, partly because of Netra’s exhaustion, and partly because she was not dropping down into the valley she had traversed on her approach to the Plateau. Instead she stayed up on the long ridge of broken stone that jutted north from the Firkath Mountains. She couldn’t bear the thought of running into Bloodhound and his ilk again. Though he appeared to have been badly injured by his fall off the cliff, she wouldn’t be surprised to hear his cry in the distance. As far as she knew, he was completely healed by now. Who was to say what was possible anymore? Staying up on the ridge slowed them down, but it was worth it if she could avoid Kasai’s minions.
They stopped beside a small stream to camp. The water was fouled with ash, but not so badly they couldn’t drink it. Netra knew it would be better if she didn’t light a fire. Bloodhound could be right over the next hill. But the truth was that she didn’t care. Not right then. The truth was that she needed the comfort that the fire would provide and she was willing to risk everything for it.
As she coaxed the small flames into life, movement caught her eye and she saw Shorn approaching. She sat up, ready to argue with him if he told her to put it out, but to her relief he simply sat down across from her with a grunt. He had a dead shatren, probably a yearling, in one big fist and he proceeded to clean it with what was probably a short sword, though it looked like nothing more than a large knife in his massive hand. Once Netra would have been sickened by the sight, but now she only watched numbly.
The meat was sizzling, fat dripping into the flames, when guests arrived.
“You’ll be letting the whole world know where you are with that fire,” a woman’s voice said.
Netra jumped and came to her feet, ready to flee. Shorn stood in one smooth motion and took one huge step. Before the woman could move his hand was around her throat and she was lifted onto her toes.
“We mean no harm,” she said, choking out the words, raising both hands to show they were empty. “Just drawn to the light, like moths we are.” She was dressed in a worn traveling cloak. Behind her stood a man, shorter than she, his face pale and smudged with ash. The man said nothing, made no move to help or to flee. “We’re not the enemy, I promise you that.” The woman pulled the hood back on her cloak. One eye was swollen shut and surrounded by blue-black flesh. Her hair was long and gray.
Shorn looked to Netra and after a moment she shook her head. She sensed no malice in the couple, just weariness and fear. He let the woman go. If she had not been so tired, so filled with her own thoughts and fears, she would have sensed their approach. Carelessness would get them killed.
“You can stay,” Netra said. “I’ll share the fire. I can’t say for him and his food, though.” Shorn had picked up the skewer where he’d dropped it in the fire and was brushing dirt and ash from the meat. He seemed to have completely forgotten anyone else was there. No, that wasn’t right. He looked like someone who didn’t care that there was anyone else there. They were nothing to him.
“Beacon or no, we could use the time by a fire. The days have been hard and we’re about worn through,” the woman said, dropping a rough pack she carried and sinking to the ground with a sigh. She gave Shorn a sidelong glance and rubbed her throat. “Just when I think there’s nothing left to surprise me.”
All at once Netra realized why the woman had pulled her hood back. She was letting them know that they weren’t marked with the burn on the forehead. She noticed that the man had pulled his hood back also. “How did you escape them?”
“They didn’t see us. Boys went into town that day. Good boys, ours were. Not tall, but strong. In the day’s work, they could help. An’ they respected their ma, that’s me.” Her voice trailed off as she faded into the past. But then something flickered in her eyes, a returning sadness, and she picked up again, though softer than before.
“They were gone not long when we decided to follow, thinking about going to town, getting a tall glass of Jemin’s rum to take the dust off. But the small cart was broken, and we cut across on foot.” She gestured vaguely, as if Netra could see the place she was talking about. “Came throug
h the hills and up to town from the woods. Saw the questioners, the black spot most took rather than burn.” Her voice went tight. “They had our boys and was nothing we could do but run.”
“And keep running,” the man put in softly. The woman turned and patted him on the shoulder.
Out of nowhere the woman said, “We’d take it as a kindness if you’d give us your blessing.”
Netra’s eyes widened. “You want my blessing? Why?”
“You’re one of Xochitl’s aren’t you, a Tender?”
Netra hesitated before replying.
“I understand your reluctance. You don’t know us. You think we might turn you in. But you saw we’re not marked. We couldn’t hand you in even if we were setting to. They’d lay hold of us, too.”
“I still don’t understand why you want my blessing.”
“Why not? Who else is going to save us? Wasn’t it Xochitl who did for Melekath before?”
“It was.”
“Then maybe she’ll come back and fix him again. What else do we have?”
“I don’t know,” Netra said. Did they have anything? she wondered. Was it all just foolish hope?
“Might not be Xochitl who does the saving,” the woman confided to the man as she levered herself onto her knees and bent her neck to receive Netra’s benediction. “Could be one of the others, but it’s best to keep all the gods happy. Whatever gets the job done.” The man nodded and followed her lead, then hobbled closer on his knees until he could have reached out and taken hold of Netra’s feet.
Netra stared down at the backs of their necks and it was all she could do to swallow. The waiting began to grow long and she knew she had to do something. Bending over, she laid a hand on each of them and breathed, “Go then, with the Mother’s eyes upon you.”
The woman sat back and her eyes flickered to Shorn, still cooking the haunch over the fire. “Once I would have feared such a creature. Now I think you have Xochitl already helping you. I’m thinking no blinded man would easily question him.” Her smile was feral. “If I had anything left, I’d give it to see that.”
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