Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (43 page)

“It’s all of stone,” he said. “It’s a part of the cliff itself. There’s no danger of any portion breaking away.”

“
You
say,” she muttered.

“I have climbed up and down this path more times than I can count. If you like, I will descend in front of you, and if at any time you feel unsafe, say so. I will be happy to provide a steadying hand. Or you may place your right hand on the wall if it serves your sense of balance.”

She looked at him, prepared to answer sharply, until she saw that he, too, was weary. At some point he had been transformed from the dimpled, laughing guide she trusted to a man with tension and tiredness etched in his face. He had nearly died in defense of her baby. For all she knew, his wounds still troubled him.

But still, she had to say it. “You pushed too hard.”

“It brought us here.”

“You asked too much.”

“No,” he said, “Oh, no, that I did not do. The spirit dwelling inside you can survive much more. And once we reach the Kiba, you will need every bit of it.” His lips twitched briefly in a tired smile. “Tonight, and tomorrow, we can give our souls and bodies the rest they deserve, but only if we first descend this trail.”

After a moment, Audrun nodded. But before he could move to take his place before her, she took the first step, and another, and another, upon the path of stone.

D
AVYN MADE HIS way into the ale tent and found Mikal there as well as Jorda. No one else was present. They shared a table companionably with jugs and tankards at their elbows and a wheel of cheese set on a platter. Heads were bowed over a sheet of parchment weighted down in the center of the table. They glanced up as he entered.

Smiling, he went directly to the karavan-master. “I’ve left my wagon in the grove and returned your team to your horse-master with my thanks for his aid. Now I tender you the same, and an offer of any help you may need, at any time.” He thrust out an arm and Jorda gripped it. “I see much has been done since the storm—tents repaired and raised, and an orderly arrangement! Much improvement. And the bonfire ring will do well as a place all may gather.” He nodded. “Well done.”

Jorda and Mikal exchanged wry glances. “We decided,” Mikal said, “after hearing from a few wives
and mothers, that if we wished families to be part of the recovery, we needed to offer a place more appropriate than an ale tent.”

“Join us, if you like,” Jorda said. He gestured at the parchment. “There have been developments over the last two days.”

Davyn looked and saw the beginnings of a crude map. The circle of tents had been inked in, as well as the karavaner grove, the river, and the road leading southeast out of the settlement. He frowned, studying it. Parts of the map looked familiar, but other portions did not. “It’s changed,” he noted, “the way we came.” He indicated markings denoting a forest. “Is all of this Alisanos?”

Jorda touched a finger to the parchment, tracing a route. “This is the old road, this beginning—here. But Alisanos encroaches now, as you can see. We must swing northeast two full days through a narrowing cut before we reach open grasslands again. But there is a way. Brodhi came through it. This map is his.”

Davyn glanced up sharply. “Brodhi’s back?”

“He is scouting for us,” Mikal said. “With his landsense, he can tell where the edges of Alisanos lie. Within a ten-day or so, we should have a better idea of where we may go safely, without fear of stumbling into the deepwood.”

Dismay was abrupt. “Then he’s not here now? I need to see him.” He met Jorda’s eyes. “I told you what I must ask of him.”

The karavan-master looked beyond Davyn. “Then I would say you can do so in short order.”

Davyn swung around abruptly, feeling his heart lift as he saw the Shoia entering the ale tent. He didn’t believe he had seen Brodhi before, but found him very like Rhuan in appearance. They shared coloring, build, complex braids, and yet there was an austerity, a coldness in Brodhi’s face Davyn had never seen in the guide’s. He wondered, idly, if this man ever smiled.

Brodhi strode to the table with a scroll in his hand. “Somewhat more,” he said, “and more yet to do.”

“Brodhi.” Davyn cleared his throat. “May I speak with you? I have work for you.”

The Shoia glanced at him as he handed over the scroll to Jorda. “You wish a message carried?”

Davyn shook his head, looked briefly around the tent, then pointed to a table tucked into a corner. “May we speak privately?” He paused, shot a questioning glance at Mikal. “May I offer you ale or spirits?”

Brodhi contemplated him a moment, then hitched one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Ale will do. I’ll hear what you have to say.” He turned and headed toward the table, the heavy cluster of braids filling the space between his shoulder blades.

“It’s midday,” Mikal said, rising from the table. “I’ll set you out food as well.”

Davyn thanked him and followed Brodhi, seating himself across from the courier. He began without preliminaries. “My family was taken into Alisanos when the storm came down, on the Atalanda shortcut.” He
paused, but Brodhi said nothing, nor did his expression alter from one of something akin to boredom. “I haven’t many coin-rings, but I will give you all of them if you will do me this service.” He drew in a deep breath, then said it all at once. “I wish you to go into the deepwood and find my family.”

Brodhi ignored Mikal’s arrival with two tankards of foaming ale clutched in one big fist, and the platter of bread, butter, and cheese in his other hand. The alekeep set all down on the table and departed. Davyn waited, trying not to squirm, twitch, or babble with impatience beneath the Shoia’s steady, emotionless gaze. He knew he was being weighed, and likely came up short in the other’s estimation.

“No,” Brodhi said.

Schooling his face into a similar austerity, Davyn picked up his tankard, drank several swallows, then set it down again, brushing foam from his lip. He was not surprised by the response, but felt he himself was in control of the situation—yet how did one
tell
a man he had to do so, because a diviner had seen it? “I am offering to hire you.”

“No.”

Davyn met the cold brown eyes with his own and held them, unflinching. Quietly he said, “I think you must.”

Brodhi’s eyebrows arched up. “Must? I
must?”

Davyn nodded. “The hand-reader says so.”

“The hand-reader.”

“She saw you there, in the deepwood. In my hand. She saw you with two of my children.”

“I have no intention whatsoever of entering Alisanos.”

“The hand-reader said—”

“I care nothing at all for what this hand-reader said. I will not do it. She will have to admit her reading is wrong.”

“I believe her.” Davyn hung on to self-control with great effort. “I have to. All of them are in Alisanos. Can you understand what that means to me? My wife, four of my children—” He stopped short. “No.
Five
of my children; the diviner says the baby is born. Yes, I know it is dangerous; I know that very well, if you please. But this is my
family
. I would go—I told the diviner so—but she read my hand and says that
you
go. She saw you with two of my children.”

The Shoia’s expression was no longer bored. “You believe that on the word of a hand-reader, who may well be a charlatan, I will enter a place known to all as deadly. A place all avoid. A place that even now I am mapping precisely so that no one ends up there by mistake.” Brodhi leaned forward, hands resting palm down on the table top. “Are you mad? Or are you simply stupid?”

“She said—”

“I don’t care what she said, human! Go yourself. This is your family—
you
take the risk.”

Davyn spoke quietly, deliberately, relying on fact,
avoiding emotion. “My oldest boy is sixteen. His name is Gillan. The next oldest is Ellica, fifteen, his sister. The younger ones—”

Brodhi stood up so quickly his stool fell over. He was clearly furious. For a moment Davyn believed he saw something red flicker in his eyes. “This is Ilona, your hand-reader?”

Davyn nodded. “She reads true. Everyone says so.”

“
Do
they?” Brodhi picked up his brimming tankard and upended it, spilling ale onto the floor. “I will not drink your ale. I will not take your coin-rings. I will not enter Alisanos to search for your family. But what I
will
do is have a word with your diviner.”

“My younger ones are five and six. Megritte and Torvic. The baby—her name is Sarith.”

Brodhi turned on his heel and strode out of the tent, slapping the entry flap aside. Davyn slowly drew in a breath, then released it. When he lifted his tankard, he saw his hands were trembling.

But Ilona had seen it. Ilona read true.

“IT’S TIME,” DARMUTH said. “We must leave now.”

Gillan, awakening slowly and stiffly, peered up from the rude pile of leaves he used as a bed. The demon stood over him. “Time for what?”

“Time to go.”

Brilliant sunlight cut through openings in the tree
canopy. Gillan shielded his eyes with a flattened hand, squinting from under it. He had not slept well until near dawn, and was slow to grasp such thoughts as arising for the day. “Go where?”

Darmuth leaned down, closed a firm grip around Gillan’s left arm, and pulled him up from the bedding. “To the Kiba.”

Gillan scrambled up in ungainly fashion, keeping weight off the burned leg. When Darmuth released his arm, he grabbed the tree beside his bedding, taking all his weight onto his sound right leg. “Now? It’s barely morning.”

“Time to go,” Darmuth repeated.

Rising from the confusion of an abrupt wakening, Gillan scowled at the demon. “Is this a jest? If so, it’s a poor one. I can’t walk anywhere yet.”

“You’ll be riding, not walking.” Darmuth closed a hand around Gillan’s upper arm and took him from the tree. “There is a log just there, see?”

Gillan, completely taken up with attempting to stay upright, hopped to catch his balance. “I see it. What about it?” The guiding hand was inexorable; he had no choice but to follow its lead. “Darmuth—”

“Sit a moment,” Darmuth directed, placing Gillan immediately in front of the log. “When I’m ready, use it to help.”

Gillan sat down hard on the log, hissing as it jarred his ruined leg. “Use it to help what?”

But Darmuth didn’t answer. Darmuth was, in fact, losing substance. Gillan gaped as the demon’s form
thinned nearly to transparency. A moment later substance returned, but was completely reshaped. What stood before Gillan now was a four-legged creature in place of a man who usually appeared perfectly human.

“You’re a
horse
—?”

A gray horse, in fact. And it bent its neck around to place its mouth atop Gillan’s shoulder, which it proceeded to bite.

“Ow!” Gillan jerked away, rubbing his shoulder. The message was clear enough, as was the means to mount. Gillan sighed. “Yes, I see. Be patient, if you please; this will be difficult.”

The horse sidled a step closer, dropping its head down as if to graze. Nodding, Gillan grasped mane. He pulled himself upright; then, using the horse to steady himself, he hopped one-legged up onto the surface of the log. Balance was nearly lost, but the horse stepped closer yet. Gillan clung to him a moment, found his balance on the one leg, then spread his hands along the horse’s back. His left rested at the gray withers. His right was at the beginning of the horse’s rump.

Gillan had ridden since early childhood. He had mounted this way many times when there was no saddle, once he was tall enough. But never, never using only one leg. Never when the other leg hurt unremittingly.

Gritting his teeth, Gillan dropped his body as if to crouch, bent elbows outward, bounced three times,
then thrust himself upward. Pain shot through his bad leg, but he was in motion. Momentum carried his body up and over. He landed belly-down across the horse’s back. Trusting to instincts, Gillan immediately swung his good leg across the broad rump and scooted into place behind the horse’s withers. He reeled there a moment, contemplating vomiting from pain and dizziness, but clamped both hands tightly into the mane before him. The horse moved one way, then the other, barely shifting its weight, until Gillan’s sense of balance reasserted itself.