by Jenna Rhodes
Grace shut her eyes and felt the river’s cold touch on her, through her clothes, soothing her skin. With her eyes closed, she could almost forget the closeness of the tiny cellar, the warmth of the forms crowded around her, the smell of the blood on Hosmer, and the heavy burlap bags of onions and garlic to the fore of the cave. High water or the slow stream of late summer, the Silverwing had always moved her. Now it seemed to envelop her in its care, as Nutmeg had said it would, sighing along her skin as it evaporated slowly, keeping her chill and still.
She did not dream, but felt her inner self drift away in a kind of haze, to murmured voices only slightly louder than the river itself, though it was no one she knew talking, nor words she could quite make out, all hushed, all muffled as if the weight of the earth itself was upon them. She felt small and insignificant beneath the words, as if she had never been meant to understand them nor could she do anything to stop their falling, any more than she could stop the rain, yet she thought that they might sweep her away, if only she could understand them. After long moments, their sounds became dull and pounding, thundering down on her. Puffs of dirt rained down from the dirt ceiling overhead in fits and spurts, and they fought to keep from coughing. Nutmeg’s arm on her shoulder tightened.
“They’re here.” Her voice muffled, her fear all too clear.
Rivergrace closed her eyes again to fight her own fear that pushed her to get up and run, to bolt from their shelter into even greater danger. She balled her hand into a fist, her nails digging sharply into her palm until her fingers went numb. Thumps and bumps grew louder but not at the hidden trapdoor. Tolby clamped down harder on his pipe stem, the noise of his teeth clicking sharp in the quiet.
Grace could feel Nutmeg shivering next to her. She leaned hard against her sister to comfort her, but nothing stopped the attack overhead. Little bits of pebble and dust fell down periodically, then stopped. After what seemed forever and a day, the stomping grew fainter.
She opened her eyes, with a soft sigh, the knots unwinding from her neck and shoulder, but Tolby sitting in the dim candlelight across from her took the unlit pipe from his mouth. He seemed to be listening intently, his head cocked, then he said, softly, “Smoke.”
Keldan stirred. “It would be stronger if they’d found the cellar chimney.”
“Maybe.” Tolby looked downward, and they all fell into silence again, while the smell of burning filtered in and around them. Greenwood smoke was different from dry wood smoke because of its very nature. Grace blinked as it began to fill the area, stinging her eyes and making them water. The urge to run pushed up in her throat, filling every pulsing thought. She’d be safe at the river, safe in the water. She had to get out.
Nutmeg gave her a little shake, as if hearing her labored breathing. Grace tried to take a deep, still breath and her whole body fought her as the reek of the smoke swirled about them. Not just wood burning. Their life. The stench of burning fruit and flesh began to rise in the cellar, and Grace and Nutmeg both hunched over, shoulder to shoulder, fists pressed to their mouths. Everything they knew from their first memories they could now taste in char in their mouths, in the stink of every breath. It was a burning she knew she could never forget.
Hosmer groaned. Lily put a hand out and rested it on her husband’s knee. “They’re going to smoke us out.”
He shook his head. “Not intentionally, but . . . maybe. Hold on, long as you can. If the candle goes out, we’ll have to go, ready or not.”
Lily took her scissors from her apron and began to rend it into shreds. “Wrap your faces,” she ordered each of them as she handed out long strips. Rivergrace hesitated as she took hers, then dipped it into the half bucket of water near her. She pulled the sash into place across her mouth and nose. The others followed suit. Lily laid the final sash gently across Hosmer’s face and he became silent again, as if eased. Then they lapsed into quiet, gazing upward for signs of prowlers through the wreckage, for signs of anything.
She must have slept, smoke or no smoke, fear or no fear. She lost sense of time and shifted wearily in her corner of the cellar, careful not to jostle Nutmeg, aware only that the sash across her mouth and nose had dried. A small stump of candle still burned across the way. Lily rested her head on Tolby’s shoulder. The smell of burning still hung strongly in the air. Heat wavered about them, a hot, heavy heat, and she thought of a chicken baking in one of Lily’s clay pots. Panic began to crowd her again, pushing up from the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t stay in there any longer, waiting to be roasted or crushed. She pulled the sash from her face. She gathered her feet under her and stood, her muscles cramped and stiff, moving to the trapdoor. Splinters scored her hand and broke her fingernails as she muscled the bar aside. Putting a shoulder to the trapdoor, Rivergrace strained to stand, and tried to raise it. It did not budge. She put her hands up, searching the bar, making sure she’d cleared it. Then, holding her breath, she pushed up, waiting for the trapdoor to give way, swinging up and outward.
It stayed firmly in its frame.
“Grace,” said Lily softly.
She did not stop to listen. She pounded on it, her fists sore and bruised, her body aching to stand tall in the cramped space, the darkness smothering her, the smoke suffocating her. “I have to get out!”
“I’ve already tried,” her father said tiredly. “It’s blocked. We’ll not be getting through till it’s burned out above.”
“Or we’ll dig our way out through the air pipes,” Keldan added. “When it’s all done.”
She kept pounding. Tolby got to his feet and put his arms around her in a fierce embrace.
“We’ll die down here!”
“No, lass, we won’t, and we’re still alive. That’s something to be said after a Raver raid.”
She shuddered in his hug. “I have to get out!”
“We all do, and we will. Somehow.” Tolby’s eyes took on a fierce glint in the dying light of the candle. “We wait till it’s a bit safer.”
“I can’t!” A scream began to rise in her throat, choked and stifled, fighting its way clear. Tolby held her tighter, muffling her voice against his shoulder.
Then, from above, came thuds and thumps and heavy scuffling. Dirt poured onto them from cracks about the framing. Rivergrace froze, Tolby putting his head back to listen, his own breath caught as his chest went still. Dull thunder reverberated throughout the cellar as the noise buffeted them from one end of the small, cramped cave to the other.
Searching. The raiders had to be searching. They would be plucked from their hiding hole like a roasted animal from its cooking pit. Rivergrace craned her neck, waiting for the breakthrough. Long moments passed in which she was certain her heart barely beat, her breath shallowly escaped, and then, Tolby inhaled and exhaled deeply. He let Rivergrace go with a little shake.
“We wait,” he said.
She stumbled back to sit next to Nutmeg, and they held each other’s hands. This time she did not sleep. She dared not, afraid it could be the death of her.
Hunting finished, Lariel urged her horse into an easy lope, ahead of Jeredon and Sevryn, the set of her posture revealing her tension to the two who followed. As the boundaries of the hold came into sight, she threw up her hand and they rode to a halt beside her.
“Sevryn, I am sending you to the healer today. No arguments, I want those wounds and scars of yours attended to.”
Sevryn’s mouth moved imperceptibly as he rested his rein hand lightly on his horse’s neck, but he made no sound of disagreement. His very un-Vaelinarran eyes watched her.
She added, “Then, I am sending you back to Tressandre.” It was Jeredon who made a noise. Her gaze rested on him. “It serves no purpose,” he said.
“It serves my purpose, for now. The Andredia is not recovering.” She made a gesture through the air, a wave of frustration. “The river is dying, and with it, Larandaril, our pact, and many lives.”
“You blame ild Fallyn?”
“I have no one to blame—yet. Bu
t if they look east, then I have to look east as well, and if we fail here, then ild Fallyn will rush to strike the deathblow, you know that. If they knew what I’ve been facing, they would already be harrying our gates. They covet this land, polluted and dying or not, and I don’t want to hand it to them. I’ve combed the library, I’ve read the scries, I’ve done all that I can think to do.”
“Every warrior has a power they must bow to, sooner or later,” Sevryn remarked gently.
“I won’t bow to this one.” Lariel’s chin went up and her horse stomped under her, feeling the fight in her. “Tressandre has sent me a challenge.”
“What? She dares to?”
Lariel shrugged.
“Outside the Accords? You won’t do it, Lariel.” Jeredon’s mouth set firmly.
“Of course not. She has to be answered.”
“Let her stew. Answer her at the Conference.”
“I haven’t refused to go,” he countered Jeredon mildly.
“You’re a fool, then. The ild Fallyns bow to Larandaril very reluctantly.”
“I serve where I can.”
Jeredon muttered, and reined his horse half around.
“Don’t leave, brother. You have to know this. I will offer her an alliance in her eyes on the east.”
“And tip your hand?”
“Yes. She has to know that we know, it’s the only way to garner her respect. I want you to search out Daravan.”
“He keeps his own counsel, and tight at that.”
“We came alone to a strange land and stayed alive by staying together, more or less. Except for him.”
“As you wish.” Jeredon inclined his head. “He trails trouble or perhaps it trails him.”
“I know. I cannot leave a stone unturned, even if I unearth a viper.” She put her heels to her mount then, hard, and the tashya horse threw its head up with a trumpet of challenge, bolting off. The two men traded looks, then leaned low in their saddles and went after her, all three charging to the holding in an all-out horse race, which Jeredon’s mount won by the merest nose in a hail of stable yard dirt and a storm of shouts from the riders.
The smell of smoke grew a little fainter or perhaps it was that they had all gotten used to it, but the heat felt more and more stifling and sweat rippled down their bodies, turning their shirts and blouses black in the faint light of the cellar. Rivergrace plucked her blouse away from her body uncomfortably and moved to stretch her long legs out in front of her, accidentally jostling Keldan as she did so. He grunted as she breathed an apology.
“I feel like I’m bent in half,” he whispered.
She nodded miserably. Before she could whisper back, a deep rumbling noise ripped through the cellar. Dirt erupted, splattering all of them. They jumped to their feet. Nutmeg let out a hoarse shriek and threw herself over Hosmer’s still form to protect him. Wood, stone, and clay groaned and cracked as they were torn asunder. Tolby shoved Lily behind him and pulled out the short sword he’d girded at his waist. A sudden gust of air blew into the cellar, blowing the candle out. For a moment, they stood in inky blackness, the rending of their sanctuary filling their ears.
Then sunlight slanted in, through a ragged hole from where their air pipes had led.
“Tree’s blood, you going to wait all day to come out?” Garner yelled down to them cheerfully.
Keldan wiggled through the tunnel first, his brother pulling him out with a painful grunt, and then they went out one by one, all but Tolby who stayed to guide Hosmer’s still form through as carefully as he could from his end. At last, they all stood together surrounding Hosmer at the end of the farm and orchard, where the air pipes to the cellar had been pulled apart and out so Garner could free them.
Around them, the world was even more destroyed than Grace had imagined. Flames licked at the blackened stumps of the framework of the house, little left beyond that. The barn, the press, dark and glowing ghosts of themselves, orange and gray ash and blackened charcoal. Nothing remained but the stone foundation Tolby had laid in his youth, and heat from the fire had cracked the stones wide open. She turned her gaze quickly from the sight of a spit, and a carcass upon it, not wanting to think what it might have been.
Nutmeg cried out. “Oh, poor Bumblebee!”
Garner shook his head, leaning on Keldan. “They tried to get that old pony, but he was too shrewd and quick for them. That’s what’s left of Yellowbeard when he came back to defend his haystacks. A stringy meal they made of him.” He nodded his head toward the spit in memory of the billy goat that had chased Rivergrace more times than she cared to remember, as ornery himself as the little goats that he sired were sweet.
“You were close enough to watch?” Tolby shaded his eyes, looking across the cloud-studded sky where the coming rainstorm had veered away from them, and sun peeked through momentarily, dazzling those who’d been in the cellar for what seemed nearly half the day.
“Not that close. I saw the hounds, but the smoke and such filled their nostrils and any scenting wanted from them, they couldn’t do. They’d torn the house apart, Da, and fired everything by the time I got to the windbreaks. So I climbed up and watched, and hoped by Tree’s blood you were all safe.” He looked at Hosmer. “And most of you are, it seems.”
“Bolgers?”
He shook his head slowly, wearily, and Keldan stepped closer to take more of his weight on his shoulders. “Ravers and Bolgers. You’d not have made a stand, none of us would. Outsmarting them was all we could hope for, and we’ve done it.” He gusted a sigh. “A lot of rebuilding to do . . .”
“No.” Tolby hiked up his belt. “I’m not a quitter, but it’s time for a change. The city, I think, where Lily can do that weaving and tailoring she’s so good at, and I can have a press closer to the drinkers who profess a fondness for my cider. Still . . .” He looked about. “It’ll be a long walk. A night in the trees for all of us, and we’ll start tomorrow.”
And so they did.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SOMETIME BEFORE DAWN, when all seemed still except for the grumbling snore of her husband and the soft, deeper, yet quieter purrs of her children, Lily undid the ties Tolby had fastened about her and slid down the tree. By the dark of night, the wreckage of her life seemed pooled in shadow everywhere she looked. Not only the house and outbuildings, but the orchard itself had been torched, the green and fruiting trees burning reluctantly, it seemed, but still burning. Only here on the outskirts, among the emeraldbarks, had the trees withstood the fires. She’d seen the hills scorched black after wildfires and seen the greening return, after seasons, and so their own ranch and orchards might come back. The Farbranches were the ones who wouldn’t recover from this.
She and Tolby had talked quietly long after the others had fallen asleep. Time to move on, they agreed. Time to let the children know a different life, and time for them to slow down a bit. And time, perhaps, to hide Rivergrace in the crowds of a city rather than in the open country. She never spoke of the attack during the fair a few years back, but Tolby knew something had happened to fill her with silence, uncharacteristic even for her. Nutmeg remembered being taken by a Bolger but little else, and Grace never said anything beyond washing her hands over and over for the next few days, although it had been one sister who found the other. None of them ever spoke of that time, until this eve, when Tolby told her he feared that the Ravers had marked the family and they might find peace hard to keep. The raiders were fierce and their ways unknown, unfathomed.
Lily found a sharpened poker and went to the part of the house she remembered. The main cellar had finally fallen in, the kitchen floor which was its roof burning through, and she moved carefully because everything still held a surprising heat. The stone stairs rocked under her light steps and she paused at every other one, fearful of being dumped downward all at once. It took her a few moments squinting in the bright moonlight to find her digging spot, and bring up the leather bag of coins she kept buried there. Her hands went over the pouch of Rivergrac
e’s things. After hesitating a moment, Lily buried them again in the oilcloth sack she’d put them in so long ago. Perhaps it would be best to keep the past buried.
Feeling soiled and gritty, Lily retraced her steps through the broken foundation of the home she and Tolby had built together, and where they’d spent a loving life together. She looked round, her heart aching, yet knowing they could have lost much, much more. Hosmer’s injury should heal cleanly and although more serious than Garner’s, it was Garner’s wound that worried at her. It looked like a shallow yet long flap of skin gouged aside, but it showed festering, and she knew his ribs had cracked as well from the blow. He’d said little even when they’d discovered that he was injured, more concerned about Hosmer, but a quiet, somber Garner was a Garner in pain. She knew both her sons well enough to know that Hosmer, hurt as he was, was healing quickly while Garner might be denying just how much attention he needed. She would have to find poultice makings along the road and insist he use them.
Bumblebee had come snuffling back, stiff-legged from the hard drive Tolby had given him, yet nudging at all of them as if worried about them more than himself. Rivergrace and Nutmeg had fussed over him, rubbing his legs and grooming him, he groaning and leaning on them both like a big, overgrown dog. She patted his shaggy, slumbering form now as she passed, and found the windbreak tree she and Tolby had shinnied up. For a few brief minutes that night, it had been almost as if they were young again, climbing trees as young lovers in a glorious spring and summer. She remembered one moonlit night when they had climbed to a tall tree outside their town, and picnicked, and Tolby had thrown twigs at passersby from the tavern down the lane who could not for the life of them figure out where the debris had come from. But the climb tonight had been a lot harder, with joints stiffer than she cared to think about.
She stood at the trunk, craning her head back and wondering if she could clamber up again without waking Tolby. Lily got to the first big fork in the tree’s branches, when she could see torches on the road, flickering. They’d come back!
