Fallen (22 page)

Ramus could make out no details at all. He closed his eyes, and asked.

“Yes, it's them,” Lulah said.

Ramus nodded and sighed. “So now we follow. We'll leave it until they're camped, cooking and telling tales. Then I'll do what I have to, and you and I can leave.”

“It won't be that easy,” Lulah said. “They'll post a guard. And now that we're closer to the border, I suspect they'll have two on watch at all times.”

“I'll go quietly.”

“You can barely see in the daytime. At night you'll be caught. I'll go.”

Ramus looked at Lulah, trying to see any hint of deception in her expression.
We need trust,
he thought, but she had already stated that she trusted no one. That made him uncomfortable.

“I can create a diversion,” he said.

Lulah nodded. “That will help.”

“Thank you for coming with me.”

She nodded again. Opened her mouth as if to say more, but instead said nothing.

LULAH RAN ON
ahead and left Ramus to guide her horse. She would be more silent on foot, she said, and more in control. She knew how Beko and the others worked, and she was confident of being able to track them without being seen. Ramus remained a mile behind, always keeping a fold in the land between him and them, until dusk began to draw shadows from hiding and Nomi's group stopped moving for the night.

Lulah returned, panting hard and her face slick with sweat. “They're camping by a stream,” she said. “The stream's between us and them. It's wide, but shallow enough to cross on foot. The land's lightly wooded, so there's plenty of cover, and they've already lit a fire. They don't feel threatened.”

“Nomi probably thinks we've ridden on ahead.”

Lulah nodded, catching her breath. “How far are we from the border?” she asked.

Ramus had already consulted the map while she was away, using the last of the sunlight to try to place their position. “About twenty miles,” he said. “Southeast are the Pavissia Mountains, and directly south the Steppes begin.”

Lulah nodded, catching her breath. “You know you'll only get one chance to do this?”

“We'll only need one chance.”

Lulah mounted her horse and led them off.

THEY GAVE THE
camp a wide berth, and by the time they stopped again the moons were high and the sun long gone. They tethered the horses and each took a drink. It was going to be a long night.

Ramus handed Lulah the pouch. “Don't scatter them too far or they'll get lost. We only need to get three or four horses, not all of them.”

“What will your distraction be?”

“A noise. It'll draw them long enough.”

“You're sure you can do this in the dark?”

“I'm not completely blind.”

“Not yet.” She stripped her weapon belt and slung it on her saddle.

Ramus raised an eyebrow.

“I'm not fighting anyone,” Lulah said. “I'm sorry for your illness, but they're my friends. They catch me, that's it.”

Ramus remained silent, but he could not help thinking to the future. There was a long ride ahead, and at the end of it, if they climbed the Divide and found that a Sleeping God really was there, such petty conceits as friendship would cease to matter.

“Go well,” he said, holding out his hands. Lulah glanced down, nodded once and vanished like a shadow. He did not even hear her leave.

_____

RAMUS WENT SOUTH,
then west. He moved slowly and cautiously, not wishing to give himself away. His head was throbbing and the pain behind his eyes gave a false light to the scene. What he saw as solid ground was marsh, and where he saw marsh was a spread of shale, slipping and sliding beneath him, loosened by the rain that had begun as soon as he started to move. His clothes were wet and heavy, his hair lank and plastered across his face. He held out one hand ahead of him, knowing that if he caused too much noise, he would likely encounter a Serian in the darkness.

When he judged he had gone far enough past the camp, he turned north once more, going carefully until he saw the glow of a campfire in the distance. He should have asked Lulah how far from the camp the Serian guard or guards would be, where they would choose to keep watch, how they would be armed. He could see the fire from here, but if he set the distraction he had planned, it was possible they would not hear it. Lulah would be waiting way past that fire even now, hunkered down in shadows, ready with the pouch of berry bugs.

Ramus moved closer. He entered a lightly wooded area, slipping from tree to tree and doing his best to avoid the undergrowth around their trunks. There were noises from all around: scurrying things, leaves rustling and caressing in the breeze, raindrops dripping from above.

This is not for me,
he thought.
Give me a warm library, a musty book and a bottle of root wine any day.

As if to mock him, the raindrops grew warmer, and he felt the occasional impact of something harder against his scalp. He held out his hands and caught a slick serpent, the length of his index finger. It flexed and snapped at the fleshy pad of his thumb. He dropped it, and more landed around him, slithering away into the damp grass. Something larger struck the ground to his left, and he heard the meaty sound of something bursting.

Ramus moved on, cringing whenever something other than rain hit him. He stamped on the small serpents when he saw them, kicked at running, many-legged shapes and stepped over the wet mess of things that had split upon impact. They streamed into the night; some had legs, a few had the stubs of rudimentary wings.

He slipped on a slick of leaves and went down, sliding into a gulley he had not even seen. His head struck the ground and the pain flared, sending spears of light into his eyes. The heat of agony did its best to draw a groan or a scream from his mouth, and he ground his teeth together to hold it back.

Lulah needs her distraction,
he thought. This strange downfall would not suffice—this far north, squirm-storms only ever lasted a few beats. If he left it much longer, she would assume that he had been caught, and he suddenly had the image of her walking into Nomi's camp. Once that happened, he doubted she would be able to leave again.

As he sat up and slipped off his backpack, the storm turned to simple rain once more.

It would have to be here.

Ramus had brought several souvenirs from the Widow with him, and one of them was a handful of screeching-lizard eggs. These creatures were limited exclusively to one valley in the Widow's mountains, but their reproductive technique was so unusual that Ramus had felt compelled to bring some home. Not with any intention of hatching them, or selling them, or even presenting them to the Guild for its museum. It had been pure curiosity. These were the only animals Ramus knew of that were hatched by fire.

The rain had eased, for which he was glad, and he found it easy to dig down through the leaves to a level of drier soil. He worked by touch, making a nest from an old paper map and dried kindling from his bag, and placing the eggs on top.

He wished the Widow had told him more about these screeching lizards. She had said that they lived mainly in caves and crevasses, their eggs exuded a sticky fuel when heated, they were hatched by fire and they made a terrible sound once born into the world. Being woken from peace into pain did that, she'd said. But Ramus had no idea how long their hatching took, nor whether the tiny lizards would even still be alive. These eggs were old.

I could just shout,
he thought.
Scream and crash around in the woods.
But that would give him no time to escape. And he had to accept that Lulah had been right about his eyesight.

Shielding the nest from the rain with his body, he used his flints to throw sparks, and it did not take long for the old paper to catch on fire. The kindling caught next, then came a shower of crackling sparks as the eggs began venting their own fuel.

Ramus ran. Hands held out before him, he darted between the trees, tripping several times before he burst back out into the open. South a little way, then east again, always aware of the vague glow of the campfire through the trees to his left.
Is this right?
he thought, and cursed his weakness. Why have doubts when the deed was done? He may well be a man of words and not action, but that had to change.

The sounds came sooner than he had expected. Several loud cracks first, like branches being snapped in the night, and then soon after, the screeches of the newborn lizards rose up. The eggs were small, but the noise they made was tremendous.

Ramus ran faster still, distancing himself from the crying lizards and the small fire that had birthed them. The rain continued falling, and now his wet clothes were musty and warm from the sweat rising from his body.

He soon slowed, heart thumping, vision clouding, and he had to sit beside a fallen tree to regain his breath.

Shouts came from the direction of the camp. It was too far away to make out who was calling, but if he concentrated he could hear the voices moving into the woods, seeking out whatever made the noise.

He wondered where Lulah was and what she was doing.

And then he began to wonder about Nomi: Would she be scared, worried, concerned? Would she suspect that this was Ramus's doing? She would be in the camp, guarded by Ramin and Beko, perhaps, while the others searched the trees for the source of the sounds.

Ramus rested his head back against the tree and closed his eyes. The lizards' cries still pierced the night, and the pain behind his eyes sang as though in harmony. He had run farther than he had for a long time. Exhaustion took him, and before he knew it he was drifting away from this rainy night and into the more complete darkness of a nightmare.

_____

HE IS AT
the center of things. To his right is a fire, burned down to glows and ashen sculptures; to his left are unoccupied tents; ahead of him is the wood from which a howl of rage continues to rise, going higher and higher and yet somehow never passing beyond the realms of hearing. Moonlight bathes the trees and silvers a thousand sword blades across their leaves. Raindrops and limp serpents gather and drop from the tree canopy, and each impact is the footfall of a killer. Steam rises and flows where there should be no steam, and the ground gapes open as it vents its own nightmares to the night.

He is at the center of things, and events radiate outward. He sees the running shapes darting away in their search for whatever threatens them. Moonlight streaks across the grass, as though illuminating routes for those who have gone, or those who have yet to go. And then events radiate inward as well, and the trees begin to part as things emerge and come for him. He has never seen or imagined these things before, but he recognizes them as something personal and secret to someone other than him.

RAMUS SCREAMED HIMSELF
awake, huddled against the fallen tree. For a beat everything startled him, but then the nightmare—
Nomi's
nightmare—faded rapidly, and it was as if he had never dreamed at all.

Nomi's nightmare
. . . He had seen her fears, and they were terrible. He should have felt happy.

He stood, shivering and wet, listening for movement or voices. But he heard nothing, and when he looked around he could no longer see the glow of Nomi's campfire. There were no stars, and the rain was heavy again, blinding him. He had no idea how much time had passed.

Lulah could be back at the horses by now. He had to hurry.

But she came to him. As he struggled across the sodden ground, lightning cracked and thunder split the darkness, and shadows manifested before him. He drew his knife but quickly made out the shapes of two horses, one of them ridden by the slight but impressive figure of the Serian.

“Are you well?” she asked.

Ramus nodded, and it felt as though a ball of fire seethed behind his eyes.

“Mount up,” Lulah said. “Lean forward and rest if you must. I'll lead your horse.”

“Is it done?” he asked. His voice came from very far away.

Someone was helping him then, and every heartbeat was disjointed. He was suddenly astride his horse, and Lulah rode ahead, his mount's reins tied to her saddle.
Is it done?
he tried to ask again, but even his voice had failed him.

Nomi must think I wish her dead,
he thought. And as pain and exhaustion dragged him down to a deeper, darker sleep where even nightmares would never reach, he could not feel pleased.

PART TWO

The Stone
Man

Curse—Widow's Warning—Ascent

“Voyaging great distances—through forests, from island to island, across plains and into the mountains—is all about finding ourselves.”

Sordon Perlenni, the First Voyager

Chapter 9