Karavans (56 page)

They told him as a flicker of lightning illuminated their dirty, tear-streaked faces. Thunder crashed overhead.

“I want Mam!” the little girl cried. Very likely she had been saying it for some time, but in the storm no one could hear her. Here, the forest muffled the worst of the wind and thunder.

“They’ll come,” Rhuan said. “The horse couldn’t carry everyone, so I chose the most important folk.”

The boy slanted him a disbelieving glance. “
Da’s
the most important.”

Rhuan elected not to argue it with them, even as a de-
vice to distract them. “There is a crevice here where these two boulders meet. See it? It’s not large, but I think it will do for a brother and sister.” Rising, he untied his bedroll from the back of the saddle. “Here is oilcloth, and a blanket for each of you. Climb up in there and wrap everything around you, even over your heads.”

“What about you?” Megritte asked.

Rhuan began to drape a blanket around her shoulders, bundling her up. “I,” he said, “am going to ride back a way and look for the rest of your folk … can you hold this? Good.” He pulled a portion of the blanket over her tangled hair, turned her, and gave her a gentle push toward the crevice. “Go on up there, and leave room for your brother.”

Torvic was struggling with his own blanket, but Rhuan didn’t want to injure childish dignity by treating him as mostly helpless. He waited until Torvic had climbed up tumbled fragments of shattered stone and sat down next to his sister, then swept the oilcloth around both.

Lightning sliced diagonally into trees some distance away, shredding leaves, exploding trunks. The children flinched. Tears rolled down Megritte’s cheeks.

“I’ll be back,” he told them. “I swear it.”

“With Mam and Da?” Megritte asked.

“What about Gillan and Ellica?” Torvic demanded.

“Gillan and Ellica, too,” Rhuan declared. “But maybe not all at once.” He smiled at them, then untied the horse. “I know you’re probably hungry and thirsty, and when the storm dies we can go back to the wagon for water and food. But for now you must remain here, tucked up in your stone cocoon. Will you do this for me?” Both nodded. “Good. I will see you as soon as may be.”

It was far more difficult walking away from them than he expected. But there was nothing else he could do. While the storm raged, blotting out visibility, smothering shouts for help within the cracking and crashing of thunder, he believed it unlikely the rest of the family might find one another. He saw better than they in the gloom and was not intimidated by the first tentative awakening of Alisanos. He was the only one who could find the family.

Rhuan led the horse back along the way they had come, following broken stems and crushed vegetation. But when he was clear of the forest, walking out of the depths into the thinner verge, he realized he had far less time than he’d expected. The rain had turned hot, much too hot for humans.

Swearing, Rhuan tossed his reins over the horse’s head and swung up into the saddle. With a mental apology, he asked the spotted horse for a gallop once again and headed back the way he had come, ignoring lightning, thunder, quivering earth, and burning rain.

AS BETHID AND Mikal ran, debris from the settlement blew past them, tumbling along the ground, carried on the wind. From time to time something struck them; Bethid reflected that she’d be bruised by morning, provided morning ever came. Mikal now was laboring, but she knew by the look in his eye that he was committed to continuing on no matter how difficult. But the wind’s strength was greater than his, the wind’s speed faster. Bethid finally pulled him to a stop, but let him believe it was she who needed it.

“Wait,” she gasped breathlessly; the word, the plea, was snatched out of her mouth so quickly she didn’t know if Mikal even heard it.

He tugged at her hand. “Come on!”

Bethid, bent over for breath, looked back toward the settlement. It was invisible in the shroud of ash and dirt—or else it no longer existed.

Could the wind be so strong as to erase an entire tent settlement? Or was it all Alisanos?

Mikal tugged again. “Beth, come on!”

Even as she straightened to continue, she wondered how Timmon and Alorn were. She wondered
where
Timmon and Alorn were. Ahead of them? Behind? Possibly even dead? Her courier’s oath required her to help fellow couriers
in need; she felt surviving this storm qualified. But all she could offer were prayers that both would be safe.

ILONA, CLINGING TO the security of Jorda’s belt as they rode his draft horse through the storm, thought she might be chafed before they completed the ride. Draft horses were never meant to be ridden; they were huge, ungainly horses prized for their strength, their stolid temperaments, not their gaits. She had already discovered that this one favored one side more than the other, and was large enough, powerful enough, that any human upon its back for any length of time would end up sore. She fully expected her spine to be bent like wire by morning.

But she was infinitely grateful to
have
a horse to ride. She and Jorda passed many people straggling unhappily from the settlement, wives clearly commanded by husbands; husbands obviously begged by wives. And there were those who did not straggle, but ran; jogged when they could not run; walked when they could not jog. As an exodus, it was something; as actual escape, Ilona could not say. But she was safer than all of the others, save those who were also on horseback.

She had no idea how far they should ride. For all she knew, that entailed riding through the night. A deeper night; the day, at the moment, looked more like twilight because of flying ash and dust.

They and others who were mounted were glared at by those on foot as they rode by. It was true that the urging by Bethid and Mikal strongly suggested all settlement dwellers leave at once, forgoing horses if they had them, and now, clearly, folk regretted their hasty departures. In fact, Ilona saw a few families stopped along the way, arguing over whether to continue on or turn back. So once again she played the part of Rhuan’s proxy.

“Keep going!” she shouted into the wind. “There are no
tents left! Keep going!” She didn’t know for certain that no tents survived, but she believed it likely. Too often the wind carried items past them that had clearly come from the settlement.

Jorda turned his head so she might hear him. “How far?”

Ilona raised her voice. “Rhuan just said to go east!”

She sat close enough to his broad back that she could feel his grunt. “Trust him to give us only half the information.”

It was true Rhuan had said nothing at all about how far they should go, or when they might stop. But she knew him well enough that she felt it likely they would know when to stop, that something would happen to provide the information.

For now, the wind still raged, debris still blew, the east yet lay before them.

And rain began to fall.

IN THE MIDST of a modest clearing, surrounded by elderling oaks, Ferize danced in the rain. Her skirts flared out as she spun, arms outstretched, black hair flying. She laughed as she danced, as she twisted and spun, as the wind slid through the grove, tossing branches and fluttering leaves. Brodhi, leaning against a wide trunk with arms crossed against his chest, allowed a smile to reshape his mouth, to let his face shed its usual solemnity and relax into appreciation of Ferize’s dance. It was not solely for him, he knew; the wind sang of Alisanos, of deeper woods than this, of sulfur pools and sweetwater, of crags and heat and ice, of a land that, as easily as Ferize, shifted its shape from day to day, from moment to moment. Ferize was born of Alisanos; it lived within her body. And that body, now, rejoiced in the process that would set her homeland free.

She danced her joy in Alisanos, laughed aloud as she whirled, gestured for him to join her. But though he heard the same song she did, he was not moved to dance. His joy was not of the deepwood and its imminent move, but of
her, only her, dancing for Alisanos in the midst of windruffled elderling oaks and rain.

TWO HUMAN SHAPES, holding hands as they ran, hove out of the gloom as lightning streaked overhead and sheets of rain fell from the skies. Rhuan slowed his horse so he wouldn’t overrun them. He recalled their names: Ellica and Gillan, the eldest of the children.

That they had been hard-used by the storm was obvious. Ellica had gotten the worst of it, with torn and tattered skirts and hair so tangled she would need to cut it off. Their faces were browned by dust, eyes reddened from irritation. The rain, burning hot, flattened their hair against their scalps and soaked the shoulders of their tunics. They flinched as droplets struck them.

Rhuan reined in for only a moment, long enough to give them explicit directions to the boulders in the forest where the youngest took shelter. “Keep running,” he told them as they slowed. They were young, with more strength than even they knew inhabiting their bodies. They might think they could run no more, but what he said next would assure they could. “It will only get hotter.”

A muted wail of exhaustion and fear issued from Ellica’s mouth. Gillan, face taut with fear, reached for her hand and closed it in his own. “Let’s go, Elli.”

Rhuan nodded approval and went on. Riding west as they ran east.

DAVYN REALIZED THE rain, hot as it was, had begun to settle the dust. It was easier to see now than when the wind was whipping dry dirt into the air. Ahead of him he saw a distant fringe of tree canopies along the horizon. His children were there somewhere, but Audrun was not.