Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (14 page)

Gripping her head, she stared at him through a film of tears. Did he not understand? “I’ve lost my
children!
”

His face was calm. “Sarith remains.”

That was too much. Audrun wept.

“Come,” he said. “We must go now if we’re to find the ring.”

Her chest and throat ached, threatening to burst. “Don’t you understand?”

“Come,” he said again. “There is Sarith to tend.”

She was too exhausted, too weak, to argue. And the guide was correct. Sarith needed her. Sarith she
could
tend. Gillan … Gillan was gone. Ellica and Torvic. Megritte and Davyn.

Gone.

A
BOVE THE PEAKS, against the sky, winged demons raged. Russet gold, both of them, terrifyingly beautiful, shedding scales as glints of gold. Talons struck, wings beat, forked tails whipped. Blood from slices, slashes, and gashes rained down, drop by drop, ruby in the unflinching light of double suns.

She stood below them, atop a peak, wind from their wings tangling hair, stirring clothing. Around her fell their blood, staining grass, staining cloth. It burned against her face.

Ilona roused abruptly as a large hand and forearm slid beneath her head, lifting it carefully from the pillow. A deep voice told her to drink as a cup was pressed gently against her lip. She did so; there seemed no other choice. Willow bark tea. She recognized its bitterness, its bite. She drank all of it. Then opened her eyes and saw a weathered, bearded face looming over her. Ruddy brows were knit together.

Ah. Jorda.

She felt odd. Distant. Detached. Her gaze traveled
upward, discovering in mild surprise that her wagon lacked a canopy. Oh, but that had been the storm. Though she couldn’t recall when the storm had struck.

Above Jorda’s head she saw the arch of glyphcarved roof ribs, and bare-branched trees. Was it winter? But amusement broke through, skittering across her mind: the grove, like her wagon, had been undressed.

“Are you with us?” Jorda asked, carefully slipping his arm from beneath her head.

She stood atop a peak as demons in the sky shed their blood in battle.

“Ilona?”

She said, “One of them will die.”

Frowning, he leaned down to set the empty cup upon the floorboards. Overhead, perched upon a tree limb drooping over the naked wagon ribs, a mockingbird sang tangled melodies.

“You’re fevered,” Jorda said. “You’ve broken your arm. It’s set now, and splinted. Time will tell us if it’s to grow straight.”

Her arm was of neither consequence nor relevance. “One of them must die.”

The karavan-master’s lips flattened briefly. Then he sighed. “Sleep, Ilona. Rest. Bethid’s to come and stay the night. You won’t be alone.”

The skies rained blood.

Ilona said clearly, “One of them
must
die.”

THIS TIME, DAVYN did not weep. He spent no more of himself on tears, no more of his time in prayers. His family was taken from him as surely as the Hecari had burned the farmstead, swallowed by a forest he dared not enter. Yes, he wished to; what he wished most was to stride across the blackened earth and into the vanguard of trees that formed his horizon, filled his eyes. But now what rose up within him in place of grief, in place of frenzied impulse, was the cool and clear understanding that were he to enter Alisanos here and now, he could do very little to find or save his family; he might, in fact, do very much to lose them forever by losing himself.

The guide had been very clear that certain safety lay in the direction he took Torvic and Megritte on horseback. In the direction he sent all of them; to safety, he said.
Away
, he said.

And into Alisanos.

Davyn rose. He stood upon feet in mud-weighted boots and stared hard at the deepwood. Then he turned his back on it and began to walk swiftly, steadily, away toward the wagon. Food was there, water, clean clothing, supplies. There he could outfit himself for the journey that he knew would require time and determination and unrelenting endurance. The tent settlement lay days away by wagon; on foot, it lay farther, and longer yet. But it was there,
and only there, that he was likely to find the guide; if not him, then the karavan-master, Jorda, who employed the guide. And who might be able to divulge where the guide was, since clearly he would not have taken himself into the deepwood. No sane man would.

But Rhuan, the Shoia, claimed to have land-sense, to know where Alisanos lay, to know when it intended to move. Likely he also knew
where
it intended to move. And he had come upon them in the midst of maelstrom, riding out of the storm, to direct them in a different direction than Davyn wished to go.

No sane man, no
human
man, would send a pregnant woman and four helpless children into the deepwood.

But the guide wasn’t human. He himself had said so.

Questions would be asked. Answers would be demanded. Davyn intended to learn exactly who and what the Shoia was, because he would insist. As he would insist, too, that Rhuan, who knew the land, who sensed Alisanos, would take a husband and father into Alisanos safely and directly to his family, then guide them out again. Each and all of them.

Davyn repeatedly recited the names of those to whom he would speak, if not to the guide himself. Jorda. Ilona. And Darmuth, the other guide. Someone would know where the Shoia was. One of them, or all of them. Someone would know. And someone would tell him.

He would
insist.

THE WOMAN, RHUAN saw, had injured her ankle and could barely walk, though she tried. Time grew short; it was vital they reach the dreya ring as soon as possible. Ignoring her protests, he swept her up into his arms and strode on steadily, ducking limbs and vines.

He shielded Audrun as much as possible, and she put up her left arm to fend off vegetation as well; her right arm was hooked around his shoulders. Avoiding the glittering edges of frondlike leaves that would slice into their flesh, Rhuan stepped over the endless lattice of roots broken free of soil, pushed through drifts of leaf- and vine-mold, threaded his way through groundcover and grasses. High overhead, tree canopies merged, broke off, fell away from the suns. He walked from shadow into light and back again, over and over, lowering the red scrim of membrane over his eyes against the worst of the blinding shafts cutting through the canopy, retracting it again when shadows defeated light. It painted the deepwood in hues of rose and ruby, purpling the darkness.

When they came upon a stream, Rhuan halted. Carefully he lowered Audrun until she stood in the edge of the creek, water lapping above her ankles. Rhuan gripped her hands so she wouldn’t slip. “We’ll wait here a moment or two,” he explained, “and cool your ankle. It will help. But then we must go on.”

Rage had left her, along with the feeling of helplessness.
She was calm now, almost cold, and stood as he recommended, balancing carefully. Tawny hair had come out of its braids entirely, snarled from shoulders to midback. Her face bore cuts, scrapes, and welts, was reddened and swollen in places. Homespun tunic and skirts were in tatters—twigs, thorns, and leaves were caught in snags. Her forearms, too, were full of welts, criss-crossed from wrist to elbow. He knew beneath the skirts, bare legs were as damaged. But then he bore his own innumerable blemishes, being bare-chested save for the baldric holding his throwing knives. He was grateful for his braids; they kept his hair from mimicking hers.

He tried to summon a smile, but failed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know this is difficult for you. I wish I might improve matters.”

Brown eyes were steady, as was her voice above the gurgle of the creek. “We should go on. I must reach my daughter. I know that you said the dreya would tend her, but they are
trees
. She needs a human. She needs her mother.” Audrun lifted her chin and took in a deep breath, as if preparing for something. “And when I am there to tend her, I want you to leave us.”

It startled him. “Leave you?”

“I ask you to look for my son.”

He shook his head. “You and Sarith would be endangered.”

Appeal in her eyes lessened the tension in her voice. “You said the ring was safe. You left my baby there, did you not? You can leave us both. Find my son, Rhuan. Please.”

He desired very much to do as she wished, but could not. “Audrun …” He shook his head. “Forgive my bluntness, but he may already be dead.”

She was vehement. “Then I need to know
that
.” She pulled one hand from his and shoved hair away from her face. “Look, I mean no disrespect, but you aren’t human. You’ve said so yourself. And that children, here, are raised in a creche, not by their parents. Possibly your folk don’t feel the same way about children as humans do—
wait!
What are you doing?”

She was in his arms again, though stiff and awkward with surprise and dismay. Rhuan splashed his way across the creek and climbed out the other side. “My priority,” he said, striding swiftly, “is to return you to Sarith in the dreya ring, then find us food. After that, we can discuss searching for your family. As to your implication that we don’t feel the same way about children as humans do, well …” He sighed. “—unfortunately that may be so. Things
are
different here. But first we must survive, you and I, before we can search for anyone. We owe that much to Sarith.”

The tone in her voice was raw. “Please don’t tell me I must choose among my children!”

He didn’t hesitate, though he knew it was cruel. “Audrun, it may come to that, yes.”

“You can’t ask a mother to do such a thing! No one can!”

“It wouldn’t be me doing the asking,” he said. “It will be Alisanos—and the deepwood won’t
ask.
”

“Rhuan—”

“We’re here.” He set her down and turned her, aiming her through two trees that formed a silver archway. “Tend Sarith.” He pushed gently on her spine with his hand. “We can’t have a fire in a dreya ring—too dangerous for the trees—but I saw fruit along the way. That will do for now. Remain here … it isn’t safe for you to leave. I will return as soon as I may.”

She had knelt, taken the baby into her arms, and now stood facing him. She was within the ring, he without; perhaps two feet apart, but it felt like two miles. “And if something happens to you?”

None of his habitual lightheartedness answered his summons. Only grimness. “Pray to your Mother that nothing does, else you and Sarith might not survive the night, let alone a ten-day”

Her brows shot up. “You said we were safe in this ring.”

“You can’t
live
in a dreya ring, Audrun. Seek respite for a night or two, yes; the dreya will keep out vermin and beasts, but they are not proof against everything that dwells in Alisanos.”

The baby squirmed in her arms and began to cry thinly as Audrun tipped her head back to gaze a moment at the spreading canopy. She nodded blankly in his direction, thoughts on the infant, and turned away, fingers working to loosen tunic and smallclothes so the baby could nurse.

He did not believe, as she lifted the hungry child to her breast, that Audrun was aware the leaves of the dreya trees fluttered in response to Sarith’s cries.