“I had my suspicions after the circle of stones,” said Enat. “But after the things we found in his cottage, I knew I was right to be afraid for them.”
Caymin’s jaw tightened. “How could we have trusted him?”
“I knew him far longer than you and had no idea,” Enat said. “I don’t believe he was evil or attracted to dark magic in the beginning, but something has changed. He is not the man I knew. Some people are easy to read.” She smiled. “I always know what you are feeling if you feel it strongly enough. But some have learned to mask what they think or feel. It would seem Timmin was one of those.”
Caymin shivered in anticipation of seeing Broc and Cuán again, but her expression suddenly sobered. “If he would do this, use them to get to me, he would do almost anything. The forest, all of you, you are not safe while Péist and I are here.”
“Do not worry about us, little one,” Beanna said.
“Beanna is right,” Enat said. “We will work together to protect you, protect the badgers, protect the forest, come what may.”
She thanked Beanna again, and started to get to her feet when she froze at the sound of a branch snapping outside the hollow tree.
Enat ran out with Caymin on her heels and Beanna taking to the air to scan the area, but none of them saw anything. A quick search of the hard, frozen ground around the tree yielded nothing.
“Perhaps it was a four-leg,” Caymin said dubiously.
“And perhaps I am a two-leg,” said Beanna, landing on Caymin’s shoulder.
Caymin glanced at her. “You are a two-leg.”
Beanna flapped her wing against Caymin’s head. “For a human, you are funny, little one.”
CHAPTER 17
Reunited
Caymin waited anxiously, watching the moon each night as it seemed it would never wane to the dark.
“Remember,” Enat had warned her after they had left Beanna, “you cannot tell the others the truth about why Broc and Cuán are coming without also telling them about Timmin. And that means telling them about Péist. I think it would be wise to keep this among you and the elders only for now.”
“Do you trust Ivar and Neela?”
Enat smiled grimly. “I do. But we trusted Timmin, didn’t we?”
“I wish I could leave the forest to go meet them,” Caymin fretted.
“I know, but Beanna will fly out to meet them and escort them the rest of the way. We will know when they get here.”
“What should I tell the others?”
Enat considered. “Tell them only that the badgers’ forest has been overrun with humans and they wished to be someplace safer.”
Caymin found it difficult to concentrate during their lessons.
“Would you pay attention!” Neela sighed in exasperation as Caymin haphazardly tried to turn a clay pot into a scroll.
She succeeded only in covering the pot with writing.
“Remember, all of you, you cannot permanently turn any object into anything else, you can only create the illusion that it has changed, and the change will only last as long as you feed the spell. Try again.”
Neela moved on to where Diarmit hadn’t been able to change his cup into anything.
Cíana leaned close. “You’re anxious for your clan to get here?”
Caymin nodded. “I am. I have missed them greatly.”
“We’re all looking forward to meeting them.”
Caymin smiled at her. “You will like them. They are kind and… honorable.”
She tried again and the clay pot disappeared, replaced by a rolled-up scroll. Cíana reached out and picked it up.
“Nicely done.”
Nearby, Gai was trying to turn a cup into a candle. Daina had already succeeded in this, but the candle wouldn’t light.
Caymin looked at Cíana. “Do you miss your family?”
She nodded. “I do. Especially my mother. My brothers were all older and were making matches when Ivar came for me. I think it was hard for my mam to let me go, knowing I wouldn’t be a girl any longer when I came back.”
“Daina said she would have been matched this past Bealtaine,” Caymin recalled. “Did you want to make a match?”
“I never thought about it before,” Cíana admitted. “Making a match is what everyone does. No one asks whether you want it or no.”
“But do you?”
“I don’t know.” Cíana frowned. “I don’t want to have a man expecting to tie me to a home, filling me with baby after baby. Not when I’ve all this power that I’m just learning to use. I’ll be taking the potion come the next moon. I’ve already spoken to Neela about it.”
“What potion? What are you talking about?”
Cíana glanced over to see that Diarmit and Gai were listening. “Come outside.”
They left the meetinghouse and wandered a short way into the forest, snugging their cloaks tightly around their shoulders.
“Hasn’t Enat talked to you about this?” Cíana asked.
“About what?”
“Have you started to bleed yet?” Cíana asked in a hushed voice.
Caymin held out her arms, inspecting her hands for any blood.
“No.” Cíana pulled her down to sit on the ground. “When girls get to a certain age, they begin to bleed, every moon.” When Caymin still looked baffled, Cíana rolled her eyes. “Didn’t Broc come into season, and then she and Cuán would mate?”
“Yes. Once a year.”
“Well, human females do the same thing, every moon.”
“Every moon?” Caymin looked indignant.
“But there’s a potion,” said Cíana. “Enat or Neela can show you. You drink it every moon and it will keep you from bleeding. If you ever want to have babies, you stop drinking the potion, and after two or three moons, your cycle comes back and you can mate.”
“What if I do not ever want to have babies?”
“Then you just keep making the potion every month.” Cíana nodded. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
“I will as well.” Caymin couldn’t imagine dealing with a baby. She made up her mind to ask Enat about the potion that evening.
A soft whirring of wings startled both of them as a thrush landed on Caymin’s shoulder.
“Beanna says you are to come to the edge of the forest.” The thrush flew off.
“They are here!”
Caymin jumped up and tugged on Cíana’s hand as they ran through the forest, following the path Enat had taken when first she brought Ash there. She had forgotten how far they had journeyed after passing over the forest boundary. They were both out of breath as they felt themselves approach the protective barriers around the forest.
They dropped to the ground, panting.
“We are here,” Caymin called out. She listened.
From a distance, she and Cíana both heard, “We are coming. We will need your help.”
Caymin got to her feet, pacing anxiously as they waited. At last, there were snuffling grunts and the noise of something moving through the forest, and suddenly, Beanna burst through the foliage. She landed on the ground, looking back in the direction from which she’d come. In a moment, a white-striped badger head appeared through the undergrowth.
“Broc!”
Caymin fell to her knees, but Broc backed away with a snarl.
“Do you not know me?”
Broc sniffed, edging nearer. “It is you, Ash?”
Caymin nodded, only now realizing how different she must look to the badgers, wearing human clothes, her hair cut short. “It is I.”
Broc crawled up her lap, nuzzling her face with whickers of happiness. Caymin wrapped her arms around Broc, hugging her tightly. Eight of the clan came in after her – older cubs from past seasons. They, too, crowded around Caymin. Lastly, Cuán staggered into the clearing, panting.
Caymin crawled to where he’d dropped. “What happened?”
“We were attacked,” Broc said. “This is the first we have traveled during the day.”
/> “Who attacked you?” Caymin scoured the forest growth, expecting Timmin to come crashing through the underbrush.
“It was a clan of foxes,” Beanna said. “We were passing through their territory.”
“Are you hurt?” Cíana asked anxiously.
Broc looked from Caymin to Cíana and back. “This two-leg can speak as you do?”
“Yes. Some can here.” Caymin echoed the question. “Are you hurt?”
Cuán turned to nuzzle his haunch. “One of them bit me.”
Cíana stopped Caymin who had started to lay her hands on him. “Do you want to heal him here? Or take him back to the others? You don’t know how much energy this will take from you.”
“She is right.” Beanna hopped nearer. “Can you carry him to the village?”
Caymin nodded, wrapping her arms around Cuán and lifting him. The small group retraced the path to the village, and Caymin quickly realized she wouldn’t be able to carry Cuán the whole way. She whispered words to partially levitate him.
Cuán lifted his head to look at her. “What did you do, little one?”
“Just a bit of magic to make it easier.”
“You have learned much.”
Caymin smiled. “I have.”
Beanna flew ahead to warn Enat and the others that Caymin was carrying an injured Cuán, so they were assembled and waiting for the strange party that trudged in from the forest.
“Set him down here, Caymin.” Enat had a soft blanket spread on the ground along with pots of herbs and salves.
“Caymin?” Broc looked up at her.
“I will explain later,” Caymin said as she gently laid Cuán on the blanket.
Together, Enat and Caymin examined Cuán and found a deep bite on his haunch. Enat frowned.
“We need to clean it,” Enat said to him. “This will hurt.”
She dipped a cloth in one of her salves, and then, as gently as she could, used a long bone needle to push it into the punctures made by the fox’s teeth. Cuán gnashed his teeth and snarled, panting in pain.
“Can we not heal it magically?” Caymin asked Enat.
Enat shook her head. “We will, but this wound is already infected. Feel it.”
She placed her hands over Caymin’s, guiding her. There, almost like a cauldron bubbling, Caymin felt the festering of the wound, deep inside Cuán’s body.
“If you were to try healing that as it is,” Enat said, “it could take all your energy for the infection alone, leaving you none left for the actual healing. We’ll let this work, and then we’ll finish with magic.”
Cuán’s panting eased as Enat finished packing the wounds with dampened leaves to draw the last of any infection out.
“Help me now,” she said to Caymin. “He needs to sleep.”
Caymin soaked a piece of bread with a strong tonic. “Eat this. When you wake, you will feel better.”
Cuán sniffed the bread and hesitated. Caymin laid a gentle hand on his head, looking him in the eye.
“Trust me as you always did,” she said.
He took the bread from her hand and ate it. Within a few heartbeats, his eyes began to close and his head dropped to the blanket.
“He will sleep through the night,” she said to Broc.
“Thank you,” Broc said to Enat.
“You are most welcome.” She looked at the other badgers who were huddled together, anxiously watching the two-legs gathered around them. “You are all most welcome here.”
Cíana sat down on the ground and gestured to the others to do the same. “We have all been most eager to meet Caymin’s clan.”
“You mean Ash,” Gai said. “They knew her as Ash.”
“You’re right. I forgot.”
Caymin felt a rush a gratitude to them for speaking so that the badgers could understand everything, rather than only a word here and there when spoken aloud. Daina and Diarmit could not join the conversation, but sat anyhow, looking around in mild bemusement.
Neela brought out a large basket of apples and root vegetables as well as some smoked fish. “You must not have had time to do much hunting as you journeyed here. This will help until you can hunt for yourselves.”
“Thank you, Neela,” Caymin said, for she herself hadn’t thought about food. “I have found a place, deep in the forest, that will make a good sett.”
Broc huddled next to Caymin and ate a bit, as the other badgers tasted the food Neela had offered.
“You must be very tired,” Caymin said.
“We are, little one.”
“I know where you can rest for now, until you can dig a sett.”
Beanna hopped onto Caymin’s knee. “The tree?”
“Yes. It will be warm and safe.”
She got to her knees and carefully wrapped Cuán in the blanket. Standing with him, she said to the others, “I will show them where they can sleep for now.”
Beanna led the way and the badgers all followed as Caymin carried Cuán to the hollow tree. Gently, she laid him inside, keeping him covered with the blanket.
“You can all rest safely here,” she said.
The badgers sniffed and explored the interior of the tree. “Can you stay with us?”
She smiled. “I will stay.”
She lay down and the badgers snuggled next to her, keeping her warm.
Broc nuzzled her cheek. “It is good to see you, little one.”
She woke when Cuán stirred. Outside, snow had fallen overnight. She removed Enat’s dressing and laid her hands on his haunch.
“This is ready to finish healing.”
She closed her eyes and, as the badgers had seen once before, her hands glowed with her power as she completed the healing of his wound. Even with the infection gone, the healing demanded a good bit of energy. She took a deep breath and sat back.
“How do you feel?”
Cuán sat up. “Hungry.”
She chuckled. “I have some food for you.”
She laid out some of the food Neela had packed for them. To the others, she said, “Do you feel up to hunting? You need not wait until nightfall here.”
“I will stay,” said Broc.
The young badgers left the tree. Caymin leaned against the trunk and Broc settled against her thigh.
“You have not eaten,” Caymin said. “And you carry new cubs inside you.”
“I will hunt later. Tell us of your new name.”
Caymin told them of the night of her spiritwalk. “I saw my two-leg parents, and heard them call me by my name. And I saw you rescue me. You and Cuán and your sisters. Just like the story you told me when I was but a cub.”
Broc made a low, contented growl. “You have grown. And you dress as a two-leg now.”
“Yes.”
“You wear skins on your feet.” Cuán sniffed Caymin’s leather boots.
Caymin squirmed.
“I am not blaming you,” he said. “You are one of them now.”
“I am, and I am not,” Caymin said.
“What do you mean?”
“I have always been apart from them. They were raised in two-leg families; I was raised by you. They know the two-leg stories and festivals; I do not. They speak of being matched with mates someday; I do not. But it is true, that I now wear skins and eat two-leg food.”
Broc sat up. “What troubles you?”
“I do not wish to disappoint you.”
“You could never disappoint us, little one.”
Caymin stroked the sleek fur. “I am glad you are here and safe.”
“Can you tell us more of this two-leg who is so dangerous?”
“He has powerful magic, and he wants something.”
Broc turned as if sniffing for something. “He wants what follows you?”
Caymin looked at her in surprise. “You can sense him?”
“He is near. Can you call him?”
Caymin called to Péist, who was indeed very near. She’d felt his concern for her safety.
“Come. Mee
t my badger parents.”
Within a short while, there was a rustling sound as Péist wriggled into the end of the hollow tree. Cuán growled and Broc backed up against Caymin, who said, “This is Péist.”
Broc stretched her neck as long as it would go, sniffing as she circled Péist. “This is what the magical two-leg wants?”
Caymin smiled at the disdain in Broc’s voice. Péist crawled nearer and dropped a dead vole at Broc’s feet before moving to Caymin’s side and pressing against her thigh. “He knows you have not eaten and brought you a gift.” She laid a hand on Péist.
Broc came around to Caymin’s other side and she and Péist stared at each other. “He does not speak.”
“Not yet. He is a cub. And will have magical power of his own one day. That is why Timmin wanted him. I have been told he will speak someday. I… feel his thoughts. And he feels mine.”
Broc gave a clear sniff of disbelief. “He is the ugliest cub I have ever seen, but if you feel connected to him, little one, then we are as well.” She nosed the vole. “Give him my thanks.”
Enat looked up from where she sat near the fire, sewing new soles on her boots as Caymin entered the cottage, shaking snow off her cloak. “Are the badgers pleased with the site you chose for them?”
“Yes. They will be busy digging for many days.”
Caymin sat in front of the hearth. She stirred the fire and added a block of peat.
Enat set aside the boots. “Does something trouble you?”
Caymin stared into the flames for a bit before saying, “Broc did not know me at first.”
“That’s understandable. You’ve grown, and you look very different now.”
Caymin nodded. “Péist came to meet her and Cuán while the others were out hunting.”
“He honored them, as he felt what they mean to you.”
A smile tugged at Caymin’s mouth. “She said he was the ugliest cub she had ever seen.”
Enat chuckled. “I daresay one day no one will call him ugly.”
CHAPTER 18
The Secret Shared
A hard, bitter cold descended on the forest and a deep snow fell. Caymin had helped the badgers to lay in a supply of food in their new sett so that they could settle and rest after their long journey and Broc could give birth in peace.
Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin Page 18
