Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (12 page)

Bethid nodded. “But if nothing else, Alisanos is a forest, which means it’s visible. Just none of us knows how close we can go without being swallowed. In the meantime, we need shelter, meat, and
crops.” She looked searchingly at each man. “It may be that no supply karavans can come here anymore, if by some chance Alisanos
surrounds
us. There may be no way in, no way out. If that’s true, we must find a way to survive on our own, on what may now be an island.”

A tense silence ensued as the men grimly contemplated the possibility of being surrounded by the deepwood. Then Mikal raised a belaying hand. “Wait, Beth. For the moment, let’s say we are not surrounded—though that is a harrowing thought! You’re forgetting another danger. The Hecari. They came for a decimation once. They may do it again. Especially if this truly becomes a settlement. Yes, ordinarily there would be safety in numbers, as you said … but numbers is exactly what led the Hecari to cull one in ten here.”

Bethid put a finger into the air. “I have an idea about that. The Hecari. If we’re not, the Mother be kind, an island in the midst of the deepwood.” When she offered nothing further, both men looked at her more sharply. “It concerns Brodhi,” she explained, “and whether he’ll agree.”

Mikal scoffed. “If it requires aiding anyone, we cannot pin hopes on him.”

“Only indirectly,” Bethid replied. “Mostly it requires him to fulfill his vows as a courier, and that I believe he will do.” She nodded at them both, heart lifting; it was a plan that could work. “We’ve an hour or more before sundown. Let me find Brodhi, talk to him, and then I’ll return to see Ilona safely through the night.”

“Wait,” Jorda said as Bethid turned to depart. “Did you find your fellow couriers?”

She paused. “Yes, they’re both well. Or will be, when the bumps and bruises heal.” Then her thoughts skipped ahead. She looked thoughtfully at Mikal. “We have plenty to do for months, I daresay, in rebuilding, planting, mapping—but what we were discussing before the storm is still an issue, providing the deepwood doesn’t surround us. Perhaps you might mention to Jorda what we talked about, with regard to Sancorra and the Hecari. After all, a karavan-master is in his own way a courier, and I know we can trust him. I suspect we may
need
him.”

STANDING STIFFLY ATOP the ridge of stone free of soil, of creeping vine and cutting grass, Ellica set trembling hands to her head, fingers spread across the crown of her skull. Was it human, the scream? Did it issue from a human mouth? It was not the shrill, piercing cry of a child. It was an older voice.

It might be prey. It might be human.

It
sounded
human.

A second scream carried through the forest. Indeed, human. Male. Someone in extremity, in agony. Someone possibly dying.

Was it Da? Could it be Da? Might it be Gillan?

Ellica breathed audibly through clenched teeth. Fingertips curled hard against her head. Every portion
of her body shuddered, stiff as it was. As tears cut through the grime on her face, she pulled her hands slowly down the sides of her head, was tempted to dig fingernails into her cheeks and jaw. Anything to turn her attention from the screams, and the fear. Human. A
human
had screamed.

“Stop.” It issued unexpectedly, breathily, from her mouth. “Stop this.” Ellica drew in a very deep breath, exhaled sharply, then inhaled again. She tamed the trembling in her body in very small increments.
“Think.”
Her parents had taught her that years before. She fastened upon it, slowly quashing the panic that made her want to cry, to wail, to give up everything in her queasy belly. She was not a child. She was not Torvic or Megritte. She was nearly a woman grown. Her parents would expect better of her.
She
expected better.

Think:
she was in Alisanos
. Demons dwelled here, demons and devils, all manner of beasts and creatures, so the tales told. She believed it now. She believed all she had heard. And she was alone, completely alone, wholly dependent on herself. There could be no rescue, not here. No discovery of her by father, mother, siblings. But she could not spend her days perched upon the crown of a boulder, starving to death, or, worse, waiting to be eaten. She must gather her wits and
do
something.

Upon the boulder’s crown, no grass grew. No vines quivered. No branches reached for her. Ellica looked at each carefully: at grass, vines, trees. At the shadows of the forest. And, looking upward, squinting through
the interstices of tangled tree canopies, at the double suns of Alisanos, one white, one yellow, against a sepia sky.

Ellica nodded. Once. Then stepped off the stone.

THE FOREST DREW closer, larger. Davyn, with a stitch in his side and breath ragged, slowed from a jog to a walk, pushing himself to keep going. He was wet again, but not from rain; sweat sheathed his flesh. It ran down his temples, stung his eyes, dripped from his jaw. He thought longingly of the waterskin, but had decided to save what was left. His family might need it. They might have spent many hours without water, and might be thirsty.

He wished he had the wagon. He wished he had a horse. Even an ox would do; he could place Torvic and Megritte atop the beast as they turned back toward the wagon. But he had none of those things, only himself, and now, so close to the forest, it became imperative to keep going just as he was, trotting and striding, never stopping.

Almost… almost
. He nodded as he walked with long strides, waterskin slapping against his thigh.

His heart was full. The nightmare was nearly over. Renewed energy coursed through his body. He broke once again into a jog, wiping a forearm swiftly across his brow to clear the sweat away, so he could see clearly. Much of his hair, which had dried in the sun,
was wet again, sticking to his skull. His chest hurt. His side ached. He kept jogging.

The guide had made certain his family was safe. Davyn remembered that, recalled the man riding out of the midst of storm to arrive at their wagon, to warn them, to see them to safety. Davyn remembered, too, that he had not wished the guide to accompany them. It had pricked at his pride, then, that the guide felt he, the husband, the father, could not protect his family. But in the midst of chaos, with the wagon canopy shredded and carried away, dust and dirt so thick no one could see a hand in front of his face, he had welcomed the guide with so profound a relief that he realized the soul inside him had feared that he, husband and father, was
not
enough. Yes, he had brought his family safely to the settlement, but doubts had risen, doubts and pride, as he measured himself against the Shoia guide. Memory recalled the man’s efficient expertise with throwing knives, with the willingness and ability to kill Hecari the instant threat arose.

He coughed a laugh at that thought; one of the guide’s throwing knives had ended up in Davyn’s shoulder. But considering how swiftly the guide had reacted, how unerring his aim had been in sending blades into Hecari eyes and throats, the lone knife in his shoulder was a small price, Davyn felt. And by then the guide had a Hecari dart in his forearm, was dying of its poison. Still he had tended Davyn. Still he had thought of the children as death overtook him, to tell them not to fear. That he would revive.

And in that storm he had carried the youngest of them to safety, turning back for Gillan and Ellica, turning back for them all. With Alisanos on the move, the Shoia guide had put himself in harm’s way to save a family of strangers.

I owe him much
, Davyn thought.
More than I can repay.

And then the thought left him, all thoughts left him. As he came upon the outer perimeter of the forest, he saw how the land changed. No grass existed beyond a certain point. It was charred, burned to ash. The area appeared to have
melted
. It was—nothingness. Blackened. Consumed. Beyond it stood the forest, but Davyn had never before seen its like. Twisted, oddcolored tree trunks, boughs knotted one upon the other, multi-hued leaves glossy as glass. The colors were wrong.
Everything
was wrong.

He fell out of his jog into an ungainly, broken transition. Then even walking was impossible. Panting, Davyn stumbled to a halt. For a moment he hung there on his feet, leaning toward the forest. But between his feet and the forest ran fissures in the earth, carved into the blackened, grassless surface.

The guide had taken his children into Alisanos.

A garbled cry fell from his mouth. He dropped heavily to his knees. “O Mother, O Mother of Moons, please, please … no …”

But Davyn knew the answer was incontrovertibly
yes.

H
UNTING HAD BEEN successful. Brodhi, astride his chestnut gelding with the carcass of a small, field-dressed grasslands deer draped across the horse’s withers, rode through the grove that had once hosted karavans gathering to depart, then those who had been wounded in the Hecari attack. It was empty now, branches stripped of leaves, boughs cracked and twisted, younger trees uprooted and thrown down in disarray. Empty, save for a handful of bodies. Two men and three women, clearly dead; three too weak, perhaps, to flee the settlement when the storm came down, while two had been burned by lightning. The latter were sprawled on the ground, faces muddied, hair and clothing charred.

Brodhi rode farther, leaving the bodies behind, then reined in beside a massive elderling oak. Most of its branches were stripped of leaves, but the grand old tree had withstood the rain and wind. Bare branches clove the sky. He heaved the deer over the left shoulder
of his horse to drop it to the ground. Then he dismounted, took from the saddle the length of torn oilcloth he’d fashioned into a rope, tied the cloven front hooves together, then flipped the end of the makeshift rope over a heavy branch. Brodhi hauled the open carcass up until there was a foot of distance between the ground and the deer’s tail, then tied off the rope. The delicate deer swung slightly; Brodhi stopped it with a hand on one front leg as he unsheathed his long-bladed knife.

Then, even with his back to her, he said, “What is it, Bethid?”

He heard the gust of air exhaled in something akin to a laugh. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“I listen,” he said. “I know your walk. Your scent.”

Her tone was dry as she approached. “How utterly romantic.” She stopped beside his horse, running an experienced hand down the gleaming neck. “Did you find the rest? Churri, and Timmon’s and Alorn’s mounts?”

“I did.”

“Are they well?”

Brodhi made a circular cut around the deer’s neck, then sliced downward to the cavity prepared by the field-dressing. “My mount is fine, as you can see. The other three have some welts, some scrapes, but all are sound. They came when I whistled. I’ve hobbled them so they can forage. The grass is wet, but the sun will dry it soon.”

“Poor Churri,” she murmured. “I’m neglecting him.
I’ll have to take him down to the river and let him soak.”

He gripped the deer’s hide at the cut on either side of the neck, then began to strip it downward, occasionally using his knife to slice with precision between skin and flesh. When Bethid made no further comment, he glanced over his shoulder at her. Her short-cropped fair hair, as usual, stood up in tousled spikes. Ear-hoops glinted. In the onset of the storm she had not had time to grab her scroll-case and other courier accoutrements; she wore a mud-caked, indigo-dyed homespun tunic belted at the waist, and baggy trews, gaitered in cross-gartered leather from knee to ankle over her boots. Her face bore the remnants of mud, dust, and grime, smeared by the applications of tunic sleeve and the back of her hand.