by Sandra Waugh
And she was waiting. There on the other side of the bridge, facing me, hands behind her back like a guilty child.
“Lill!” I stopped short, gasping. “You didn’t have to run!”
And then I realized I was wrong. Her hands were clenched but there was no guilt in it. “You saw it,” she said. “The soldiers’ camp.”
“They aren’t here.” I walked toward her, annoyed. “You should have waited for me!”
“Why?”
Rudely flung, dismissive, even, as if she hadn’t been frightened! I scowled. It was too hot for this. “You make no sense.”
“Don’t I? They can have you.”
That stopped me. A harder, ugly edge to her voice now—neither guilt nor child. If she’d lured me out hoping the soldiers would frighten me…I bit my tongue, grabbed for the bridge—
“I wouldn’t!” she said sharply.
I felt the ropes give and jerked back, tumbling into the grass. The slingbridge broke free at my feet and dropped away to dangle limply from its stakes on the opposite side.
She said, “I warned you.”
I scrambled up. There was no way I could cross; no way she could throw any part of the bridge back to me to catch. But she wouldn’t have. I stared at Lill in disbelief. Her eyes were bright, her smile fiercely frozen.
“What have you done?” I cried.
“I’ve made the fort safe. You can’t hurt anyone here anymore.”
Lill pulled her hands away from her back and dropped to her knees. One hand gripped something I’d totally forgotten: the little knife the Bog Hag had given me. The gift from Lark, the knife I gave to her so she could cut Laurent from the waterfall. “Safe?” I echoed, stunned. I looked down—at the posts where the ropes for the bridge had been tied. The knots were still there, but the little bits beyond weren’t frayed, they’d been sliced just enough to carry the weight of one small person across before they tore free. She was doing the same to the other side, now, sawing the ropes.
“Lill!” I shouted, heart racing. “Lill, stop! Listen to me! The shell. ’Tis a precious amulet. You witnessed its power but don’t understand what it’s for.” I was babbling, dumbfounded she’d cut me off from the fort, from Laurent. “Remember what you said about the Guardians being wakened? Lill, I am one of those Guardians! I have to get the shell to Castle Tarnec, but I need help—I’m not supposed to do this alone!”
She didn’t stop. I don’t know what my expression was—blank with shock or frantic—I’d never been lied to before. But Lill was terrifying. Letting out snorts of breath as she worked, her jaw hard; I could see her hands trembling, even, as if scared by her own intensity. As the ropes gave and the intricately knotted slingbridge disappeared into the crevasse, she choked in some sort of horrified triumph. And then, that the deed was done with such finality seemed to calm her.
Not me. “Lill!” I screamed. “I am a Guardian, Laurent is my Complement! Remember the bond? He has to come with me!”
She stood up slowly, facing me. “I know who you are. Do you think Laurent does not speak as I sit by his side? You—he talks of you. You, who said bonds were not made out of love! Yet now you tell me he is necessary!”
I couldn’t answer; the breath went out of me, but Lill seemed to grow stronger, filled with enough hatred that its bile spilled out to fill the silence I’d left. She shouted across, victorious, “Eudin will know I saved Gren Fort! The soldiers are too close! He will understand I had to cut the bridge even with you on the other side! But I cut you off, Guardian of Death! You’ve brought us ill luck—your dark ends, your conceits, your pretense at magic. Take it to Tyre. The soldiers will be glad to escort you!”
“It’s not magic! ’Twas never magic!” Something rustled in the grass behind me and I flinched, thinking the Tyre soldiers had already found us. “Please, Lill, for the amulet! It has to go back to Tarnec—I don’t know the way! Please! It’s too special—”
“Why should I care for your shell?” She sneered. “It can’t free my sister. It can’t make him look at me.”
Laurent. He was somewhere far below our feet, sleeping maybe. I shook my head, for Lill was right. She could not have what she wanted.
A pair of ravens flew raucously out of the trees, disturbed by something. My breath caught and Lill smothered a scream. I looked up at the sudden chaos of wings, then back at Lill.
Rightfully frightened this time, she turned and ran.
“Lill, please—!” I watched her disappear, the grass swallowing skirt, shoulders, and braids.
And then I turned and ran too. Back to the trees.
—
For once that morning my cloak was necessary. I slung it over the lowest branch of an ash, grabbed the ends to help me climb, tucked into a crook of limb and held still. There was the faint rustling of leaves. And then there was a heavier rustling, the tread of boot.
And voices. Soldiers filed into the grove. Three of them.
I wasn’t scared—at least not like Lill—of the soldiers. But her betrayal shook me to the core. I was cold for it, my joints brittle. Nothing from home prepared me for this.
Merith! I missed it suddenly, searingly. But then just as suddenly the voices and boot tread were closer, and nostalgia was a waste of attention. I hugged my cloak tight, holding still as they passed, so they would not look up and see me there as bright as an enormous robin’s egg. Lark and I once laughed about hiding in such colors—my turquoise as opposed to her soft moss green.
The soldiers paused nearly beneath my tree. I held my breath against their foul sweat stench; celebrated each minute they’d not spied me. Yet it became obvious ’twas not fortune that kept me hidden. I could see them standing, speaking gibberish in guttural voices, staring out at the field where Lill and I parted—intent on something far more important.
“Pass” was a word I did understand. So was “quarry.”
They knew of Gren Fort, or had gotten word, somehow, or tracked the stranger or Eudin’s posse. They were looking for signs. And even though nothing could be seen from here, nor a hundred paces closer; even if they could not cross to Gren Fort for lack of that bridge, they would find the severed knots and stakes, camp there and wait. People traversed this area, they’d know. And where there were people, there were slaves to be reaped. Or, if they discovered the outpost where Arro was attended…I felt my heart sink, then a challenge. None of this, none of this could happen.
I was glad, then, that I was not camouflaged in Lark’s moss green; I wanted them to find me.
I counted how long it would take to cross through the grove of trees, to the scrub and silly ansel thistle. I was fast—I could outrun those armored men; I knew it. With axe and long sword as weapons they could do little harm unless they caught me. Still, I’d have to give them a worthy target; they’d have to want to give chase.
They faced the sea of grass. I climbed down the ash limb by limb and was on the ground running before I realized they’d not heard my escape beneath their thick helms. I ran back to a spindly birch, tied my cloak around my shoulders, and then jumped for as high on the trunk as I could reach. I was briefly suspended, with the cloak swirling wide and bright, before the tree bent over with my weight. I touched down and let go with a furious yell; the birch swung back, smacking another tree. I dropped to my knees, yelling my lungs raw.
Let them think I’ve fallen from my hiding place. Let them think I am scared.
And they did. They turned with shouts, came stumping forward. I waited until they were but twenty paces away before leaping up with great screams of terror, and then I took off, limping. Let them think I’ve hurt my leg. I came out of the trees into the scrub and checked that they had a good view of me, then hobbled to the first ansel thistle. I counted to three, and hobbled to the next. I was blatantly visible; nothing else moved save for the glossy blackbirds shooting between bushes, or a blundering insect.
And so it went, my taunting of the soldiers, leading them far from the fort. ’Twas a game of sorts
, a sick kind of pleasure. I limped between bushes, snapping stems and leaving little ripped bits from the hem of my cloak to be found for a trail, and crumbs of Lill’s horrid scones. Let them think I am foolish. Let them think I am weak. Even so, I grew the distance between us. They could not keep up, and after a while it seemed silly that they tried. And I wondered why they bothered for one limping girl. I wondered how they caught anyone at all—or if fear simply paralyzed escape.
Perhaps the soldiers did grow tired. Sometime late in the afternoon I heard a clarion call, startling the blackbirds altogether so they shrieked and swooped. I peeked around the bush I sat by. The soldiers were stopped. One of them had pulled out a horn—not of metal, but something thin and curved to such a degree it had to be from one of those fiercely ugly pin bulls. He blew into it again, sharp and loud in the dry air, summoning, and I snorted. What was the point of more soldiers when even a hundred of them under such armor would not catch me? I broke off a few of the soft-spined thistle heads, split them open to slurp the milky sap, and left the remnants in an obvious scatter before moving on. Above, the birds cried.
Gren Fort was far distant. It was late and I was restless, bored of this tease. I hunkered down for a time by a dead elderberry and drew a vague map in the dirt, estimating the distance between the last village the Rider and I came upon and the fort, and how far east I’d have to backtrack to find Castle Tarnec. If I could put Dark Wood on my right and then head north I’d be near enough, I thought. It was a semblance of Lark’s travels, on the opposite edge of Dark Wood. I sat on my heels, arms hugging my legs to my chin while I studied my sketch—
There was a strange shrill and hissss, like a snake, a whirligig. A sound so odd, I popped up to look. As I did, one of the scrub bushes I’d hidden behind earlier burst into a fiery ball, the noise knocking my eardrums and pitching me over. I spit out the dirt, crawled to my knees to look. Smoke funneled up from the flame, sharp and hot. But then with a sudden whoosh the flame was snuffed, and the spot lay black and bare.
The soldiers stood like little toys in the distance—the metal men, the old woman had called them. I squinted to see. One was flinging something; there was another hissss and I clamped my ears against a second blast.
Before me another bush was seared from the earth, seared from my gaze.
They are erasing the hiding places. Even as I thought it, a third and fourth bush detonated. Blackbirds shrieked up, flew on. Hisses screamed through the air; I watched, stunned. Little balls were being flung; each soldier had them. They flew far—farther than anything without wings had the right to—then landed, rolling fast along the ground, leaving singed trails until they hit something solid and exploded. The birds were wild with distress, looking for safety, closing in on where I hid. They reeled above the fray, too bewildered to leave the plain, yet with no place to rest.
I remembered the little seabird with its damaged feathers. It must have been caught by one of those things. I remembered how fast the hunchbacked woman’s village burned. Those had to be the reason.
The air grew hazy. It smelled of rust, of lead. One of the balls went spinning toward nearby brush—too close. The blackbirds flew up and I jumped up too, running for another hiding place. A lucky throw, I thought. But then I saw the birds alight on the last bush I’d hid behind—realizing with a jolt what these blackbirds were: grackles. Eudin said they’d been spying above the quarry. They weren’t displaced by the explosions; they were showing the soldiers where to throw their bombs.
I picked up and tore off, knowing they saw me, but it hardly mattered. I would run, far from any ball of fire, any clarion call….But a moment later I was stumbling, dropping to my knees as a new sound rocked the air, something huge and feral and far more terrible than fire. The hair stood up on my arms.
I held motionless, then looked back against my will. There, at the edge of the plain, the setting sun glinted off the armor of approaching soldiers. Twelve were coming, making a total of fifteen soldiers. But it was what the twelve soldiers wrestled—two to a tether—that made my heart skip. Dogs. Not dogs as I knew them; not Lark’s Rileg, or Kerrick Swan’s Romer, grinning, tail-wagging, unassailable companions. These clay-white beasts reached to the breastplates of their handlers, dragged the metal men toward the sound of the horn.
These dogs were weapons.
I didn’t wait to watch. I knew what the soldiers had in their favor: a trail I’d so considerately fashioned for them along my course, and a landscape even more barren than before. I’d be tracked in a moment.
I whipped around, scanned the horizon. There were ripples in the distance where some granite hills heaved up. I took off. Enough of limping; I aimed straight in flight. Enraged yelps filled the distance. The dogs were already loosed.
I raced head down for the rocks. Better cover, at least—at best, water would be collected in their basins. Water was the method of erasing scent, any trail. But then, if water gushed even a half league away it would be too late.
It was stunning how quick their speed—in minutes the dogs crossed the plain that I’d navigated over hours.
Stunning how quick that soft bed at Gren Fort was a thing of the past.
BOULDERS, CRAGS, HARD drops into wells of dead grass, but any water was long gone. Lark had sent no trinkets for this. I cursed at the dry earth, at the lack of hiding places: “No good comes if the shell is lost here! Give me something to use!”
Lark had connection with the Earth, with its creatures, why didn’t I? Wouldn’t Earth want to help her champions?
Right back came my own reply, an echo of Lill’s sneer: You are Guardian of Death, not Life.
And what help was that?
I raced on, clambering up the scabs of granite, mind running as feverishly fast as my feet. How much time? Would the dogs surround me first the way wolves challenged a deer, or would they rip me apart without ceremony? And what of the shell: Would I lose it, be forced to destroy it, or die before either?
Somewhere it occurred to me that these scattered questions were at last the beginnings of true fear, that this was what fear felt like: worry becoming dread becoming terror. And yet they kept my mind from caving to Healer concerns—that I was parched, and starving, and exhausted—and maybe that was a good thing.
It was nearly dark. The soldiers in their black armor had disappeared into dusk and distance, but I saw six pale streaks coursing over the land. I faced forward again, hissing at myself to stop gauging my chances, and scrambled up a ridge—
It ended abruptly, the ridge. With two stumbling steps and an impromptu leap I hit the other side hard, falling from its edge, grabbing for anything to hold, then dangling with breath knocked out, arms scratched raw. I’d caught an edge of stone, barely. I grabbed at crevices, grunting, tearing skin and nails, worked my way up onto solid ground and huddled at the brim to find my breath, soften the pain. The dogs howled closer. Think, Evie! I had to do something; I had to protect the shell.
The dogs…The dogs…Brutally loud as they closed in. The only defense I had was that deadly gap. I lifted my head, grim but resolute. I’d lure them, I would. Self-preservation trumped killing, didn’t it? This was defense.
I crawled to my feet, sick with intent, forced myself to wait on the edge of the ridge. A moment later the dogs arrived in a ferocious tangle. Shaking, sore, repulsed, I dragged in a breath and raised my hands above my head to lure their focus so they wouldn’t see the drop. And then they were there, running fast, coming straight at me with double rows of teeth and fangs as long as my fingers, and—
A dissonance of howls and snarls. Some went over the edge, most not, and a failure, all of it. My stomach pitched. I turned and scrambled up a ledge of boulder, hearing the remaining dogs leap the gap. I lunged for the next little ridge, crying out against the pain, anger, and yes, fear—
Then my cry was cut short as a hand covered my mouth and hauled me up hard. A voice against my cheek breathed, “Hush.” Then: “Don’t look.”
Laurent.
He spun me around so that I faced away from the attack—an attack that never happened. I remembered how deft he was with his sword, how he spitted the Troth on his blade back in Merith that day. The Rider was deft this night as well. The dogs went silent, all at once. No, no attack at all. They were dead before the chance.
I sat down, numb. At length I heard Laurent approach, heard him wipe his sword, felt him kneel at my side and brush loose strands of my hair back from my face.
His voice was hard. “You are all right?”
I leaned into him, nodding, forehead against his shoulder, feeling how solid…how safe. But Laurent pulled away abruptly as the pin bull’s horn sounded in the distance, and said, “Listen. The soldiers are calling back the reaping hounds. They believe you were taken down.”
He stood and I was left off balance, surprised for it. My hands went flat to the ground. “Reaping hounds…,” I echoed. The name tasted brutal. All of it was brutal.
“Breeders’ creatures.” Laurent sheathed his sword. “Just one of many beasts they provide to their cronies in Tyre.”
“And the explosions, those fireballs—Breeders’ weapons?”
“Incinerators.”
He was cold to me and I didn’t know why. I stared at the ground, defeated by rejection, violence, and betrayal, by the fact that I’d have failed to save the amulet had not my Complement swept in to do the killing. At length, I mumbled, “How did you find me?”
“You were gone,” Laurent said simply, as if it should follow that he’d be here. “You and Lill were spotted leaving the quarry by the west route. I crossed to the caretaker’s post to saddle Arro and then tracked you, or rather the soldiers. I skirted wide ahead to wait for dusk. I left Arro in the gully so the hounds would not catch his scent. And then you ran up here….”
