Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (13 page)

“What?” she asked, pale brows arching up beneath his steady gaze.

Brodhi hitched a shoulder in a slight, elegant shrug. “You came to
me
.”

She frowned a little, eyeing the deer. A doe, young and small. “I don’t think that’s enough to feed the survivors.”

“No,” Brodhi agreed, pulling and cutting steadily, “but then none of us has any idea of how many survivors there are.”

“We should take a head count,” Bethid murmured absently, thoughts clearly active. “We need to gather everyone, find out who is injured. There are wagons in the grove across the settlement; we can gather there.
The trees will provide a little shelter, even if most of them lack leaves.” She scratched at her neck, wincing as her fingernails found a welt. “So cursed much to do …”

“And you have decided this is your responsibility?”

She scowled at him. “This is everyone’s responsibility. Even yours.”

Brodhi indicated the half-skinned deer, making it obvious that he had contributed. “In the meantime, at your gathering divide the people into groups. Give them tasks. Some to assemble the dead. Some to bring water from the river. Some to fish. We’ll need cookfires, if sufficient kindling can be found—”

“And will you bleed all over each pile of wood to set it afire? The wood’s still damp, Brodhi.”

His smile was slight. “Do we want people still in shock to witness such a thing? I think not. But then, you have a fire already, outside the hand-reader’s wagon. It only requires one; others may be lighted from it.”

Bethid nodded, gesturing the suggestion aside. “Yes, so it does. Well enough. But there’s something more. Something you can do that might keep us safe. Something to buy us time to build again, so we’ve shelter when the rains come.” She wiped the back of her right forearm across her forehead. “As a courier, it’s your duty to advise the Hecari warlord of what’s happened.”

He stopped the skinning process to turn to her, to give her all his wary attention. “
A
courier’s duty, yes.”

“Yours,” she said steadily. “Ride to Cardatha, Brodhi. Do that duty and tell the warlord what happened here. Tell him all about Alisanos, about all of its horrors—and how it moved. How it swallowed mile upon mile. How it destroyed settlements, took over roads, killed many, many people. Tell him this area is dangerous to all, even to Hecari warriors. That old roads no longer exist. That no man, coming near, can escape the deepwood. I can’t go; he won’t listen to a woman. Timmon and Alorn haven’t your edge, your arrogance. Make the warlord
believe
, Brodhi. Make him understand that nothing remains … nothing worth his attention. You’ve scouted it, you see. You know what remains, and what lies now in Alisanos.” She grimaced. “And for all we know, it may be exactly as I have described.”

As he listened to her words, he realized precisely where she was heading. By the time she finished, he was nodding.

Her eyebrows quirked slightly. “I may be
only
a human, as you are constantly reminding me, but yes, I can think now and again.”

He studied her a moment. This was the Bethid who’d come to the Guildhall in Cardatha years before, determined to take the trials to become a courier. She knew what she proposed was unlikely to be accepted. The courier service traditionally was made up of men. Other girls, he knew, had grown up wishing to become couriers. Other girls had even come to the Guildhall. But all had been sent away.

Bethid refused to leave. Bethid
insisted.
Eventually, Brodhi suggested to the Guildmasters that they permit the slight, small girl to undertake the trials. Horses, he told them, didn’t care which gender rode them. And if she were to fail—he granted her that
if
—it gave the Guildmasters an example to present to any other young women who came sniffing about the Guildhall.

That Bethid, confident, determined, stubborn, willing to do whatever was asked of her to prove her worth—
and had
—stood before him now. And he knew very well that no amount of argument, no matter how persuasive his words, would sway her.

“Jorda told me that Rhuan is sensitive to Alisanos,” she went on. “That he knows where its borders lie before they’re visible, and when it’s preparing to move. Is it a Shoia thing? Can you sense it also?”

He found that an amusing question, though she wouldn’t understand why. Unless he told her what he was. “I have that land-sense, yes.”

“Then you are ideal.” She spread her hands. “A Shoia with land-sense, a courier who knows Sancorra better than any Hecari, who knows also where the deepwood lies. Who can
draw a map
for the warlord. Who can instruct that warlord, in precise, minute detail, as to how much of the province Alisanos has eaten.”

“And so the warlord sends no culling parties when there is nothing to cull. Time is bought to recover. To begin your rebellion.”

“But when he does send culling parties—because at
some point he will—perhaps we can lure his warriors
into Alisanos.
And out of Sancorra.” She smiled. “A fitting fate for them, yes?”

“A few would be trapped,” Brodhi agreed, “and thus could no longer trouble Sancorra. But not enough. Not nearly enough. The Hecari will learn, just as Sancorrans did, to avoid the deepwood.”

Bethid nodded, stroking the gelding again. “But perhaps by that time we’ll be better prepared to withstand them.”

“Then you are proposing to rebuild here permanently. To encourage people to stay, and others to come.”

Her blue eyes were bright, determined. “I am. Only this time it won’t be just a place to pass through, to meet the karavans. It will be a staging area for the reclamation of Sancorra.”

TORVIC ROUSED AT the sound of a human-sounding voice that was not his sister’s. “You can come out now. It’s safe, for the moment.”

He jerked awake and felt Meggie do the same beside him. They were both squeezed into the back of the crevice as far as they could go, with blankets and oilcloth wadded around them. His eyes were sundazzled; waving branches and leaves caused the light to flash on and off, directly into his eyes. He squinted.

A woman knelt before them. She was poised on the
border between stone and soil, hands clasped loosely in her lap. She had brown hair braided back neatly and pinned against her head; in the blinding flicker of sunlight, he couldn’t be sure of her eye color. Dark, he thought.

Meggie said, “Mam?”

That brought him to full wakefulness. “No, Meggie.” And as she made to move he grabbed a handful of her tunic. “
Wait
.”

“Wise boy,” the woman remarked, “here in the deepwood. No, I’m not your mam. Just one who would be your friend.” She wore a tunic and skirt of rough, rustcolored homespun, a dark rope belt wrapped twice around her waist. Slowly she lifted her hands and displayed her palms to them. “I won’t harm you.”

Meggie’s natural curiosity reasserted itself. “Are you a demon?”

The woman laughed again, teeth showing. Human teeth. “No. I’m like you. A human trapped in Alisanos.” The laughter and smile died out as she lowered her hands. “I’m sorry. I know it’s frightening. It’s—very frightening.” Brown eyes, Torvic saw now. Not a girl, or a young woman like Ellica. He thought she was perhaps the same age as Mam. “The deepwood took me three years ago. My husband and I were on the shortcut to Atalanda. We got—too close.”

Meggie sat up straight. “
We’re
going to Atalanda. Mam needs to have the baby there. The diviners said so.”

The woman sighed. “I wish the diviners might have warned my husband and me.”

“Where is he?” Torvic asked.

“My husband? Oh, he’s dead. Something—took him.” That struck them both into shocked silence. After a moment the woman managed a flickering smile. “It was in the first year. I’ve made my way alone since then.” She rose, shaking out her skirts. “My name is Lirra. I have shelter. More room than a hole in a rock.” She stilled, lifted her face into the air. She appeared to scent it, almost as if she were a dog. Relief brought a smile to her face again. “There. I smell the woodsmoke. It will lead us to my home. Remember, nothing in Alisanos remains the same. If you wish to find your way to a place more than once, you must do something to bring you back again. Tie rags on trees and bushes, burn stinkwood, something.”

Now Torvic could smell it. “It does stink.”

“I’m afraid so. But it grows aplenty here, and it’s easy for me.” Lirra looked up at the tree canopy overhead, shielding her eyes against the flickering light. “The suns are setting. It will be dark soon, and the nightbeasts will be out. Best we go now.” She watched as Torvic and Meggie crawled from the crevice. Something akin to grief shone in her eyes. “You poor children. I know you’re terrified and exhausted. Best to feed you something, then let you sleep. I’ll tell you more in the morning. Here, I’ll help roll up the blankets and oilcloth.”

“Is it far?” Meggie asked as they worked. “Your home?”

“Sometimes,” Lirra answered. And again, rising, “Best we go now.”

AUDRUN FELL HEADLONG, right foot caught beneath a gnarled root. In midair, the world all in pieces, she twisted to land on hip and elbow, not facedown. The impact snapped her head on her neck, sending a fizzing thrum of pain from her skull through her shoulders. She rolled over onto her back, hands grasping her skull.

For a moment, she could only lie there dazed, thinking over and over again,
Let me not be hurt, let me not be hurt
—There was Gillan to find, an infant to tend. O Mother of Moons,
let me not be hurt
. It mattered. It mattered that she be whole. For her children, for all of them, each of them, when they were found. She must be whole.

Ah, but she hurt. Panic-bred strength was gone. She shook, now, as if she had a palsy.

And she lay within the deepwood, beneath double suns.

That drove her up, drove her to her knees, to her feet. But one step told the tale: she could put little weight on her right ankle. Off balance, she reached for support and found a gnarled branch. Flat, sharp-edged leaves cut into her palms. She bled. She burned.

Fury rose, coupled with helplessness. Screaming
with rage, Audrun struck out. She grabbed the limb, ignoring the slicing leaves, and twisted,
twisted
, trying to tear it from the trunk. But she had not the strength even for that. She ended up with a handful of stems, a few tattered leaves, stained with her blood.

“Audrun!”

Only instinct identified him as he came up on her, sidelock braids swinging. Still furious, Audrun faced him full on, trembling with rage, thrusting stems and leaves at him. “What good am I? What good am I to him?”

“Audrun—”

“I don’t know where he is! I can’t find him! I can’t even make my way through a forest!
What good am I to him?
”

He stripped the leaves and stems from her rigid hands. He made no answer, merely drew up the long tail of her tunic and wadded it into her palms, rolling her fingers closed.

“O gods … O Mother…” She let go of the tunic and lifted her hands to her head, pressing bloodied palms against her temples. She was empty of all save failure. A terrible, harrowing failure. “I’ve lost my children …”

“There’s no time,” he said. “We must return to the dreya ring.”