Flame of Sevenwaters (32 page)

The withies were uneven and slick with moisture, and even with arms outstretched I teetered and wobbled as I moved gradually forward. I made myself breathe slowly. When the bridge seemed to bounce and shake beneath me, as if in protest at my crossing, I told myself sharply to stop being silly. I set one foot in front of the other. Now I was in the middle. Now I was more than halfway over. Now I was nearly there…I reached the far side and stepped off the bridge to collapse in a trembling heap on a shore carpeted with perfectly round white pebbles. Gods! Let me not have to do such a thing again, at least until I was heading home with Finbar. Bear’s howling had ceased. Had he settled to wait for me or decided to run for home? I looked back across the river.

Bear was halfway across the bridge. He stood frozen, staring down between the loosely woven withies at the raging water below. Faithful Bear.

I was up again before I had time to think, walking out onto the bridge, standing to face him. “Bear, come!” I called, stretching out my arms in the sign he knew and making my tone calm and confident.

Bear looked up. His amber eyes were full of trust, though he was shivering so violently I feared he might fall.

“Good boy, come on!”

Step by slow step I talked him across. I held his gaze; I pushed down my fear and filled my voice with warmth and welcome. “My best boy. Come on, now. Good Bear. Brave boy.” As he advanced toward me I backed slowly to the end of the bridge.

He ran the last few paces, sending my heart into my throat, but he reached me safely and almost knocked me over with his exuberant greeting. For a few moments, as I threw my arms around him and felt the rough caress of his tongue on my face, I was filled with sheer delight. Then I stepped off the bridge, and Bear came down beside me, and we faced the oaks. I was reminded of the moment when I had looked up from dealing with my disobedient hounds to see Cruinn’s mounted warriors staring back at me, a hostile wall of men.

There were so many trees: a great army of oaks. A person might wander here all season long, checking one trunk after another and finding nothing but last season’s nests and the leavings of mice or beetles. I took a deep breath and made myself let it out slowly, counting up to five.

“Very well, Bear,” I said. “We’re here, and we’re going on. Let’s not think about what we can’t do, but what we can do.” The chance that Finbar had been brought over this very same bridge seemed most unlikely, but Caisin Silverhair had said I would find him among these oaks, so that was where I must look. The task was daunting. But I did have Bear, and Bear had found a trail before.

I hitched up my skirt, then crouched to feel inside the pouch with my mouth. I lifted my head, the little straw creature held in my teeth.

“Find Finbar,” I said, kneeling to drop the thing on the ground in front of Bear. “Find him.”

It seemed he understood, for he sniffed at the little creature and pawed it, then took a few steps toward the trees before looking back over his shoulder at me, as if to say,
Are you coming?

I got the straw animal back up and into the pouch. I would not leave this token of my brother behind. I rose to my feet. As I did so, the sun edged over the treetops, turning the river to a stream
of silver and the oaks to a dazzling curtain of red-gold. To a person who believed in omens, this would have been a good one. “All right, Bear,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We walked for a long time. Once, I stopped to take a drink from Caisin’s flask, which by daylight showed itself to be of a metal I did not recognize, bright as moonlight and chased with strange figures that were neither men nor creatures, but something between. The vessel was of an ideal size and shape for me to manage between my wrists, and the stopper could be put in and out with my teeth. Luck or good preparation? The fey woman’s knowledge of me had been unsettling. Could the Fair Folk read our minds? Were they privy to our most secret thoughts? I did not like that idea at all. Indeed, the more I thought about our encounter, the more it troubled me.

“Why wouldn’t she bring Finbar to us, if she knew where he was?” I addressed this question to Bear, who took no notice but continued moving on. “Why did she wait until we were half-frozen to come and rescue us, since it seems she knew exactly what was going on? And if she is kin to the Lady of the Forest and her kind, the benign type of Fair Folk, where was she when Mac Dara was establishing his hold in these parts?”

Bear had nothing to say. We were deep in the oak forest now; the rushing sound of the river had long since died away. Fallen leaves lay ankle-deep on the path, slowing our progress. If anyone was about, they would hear us approaching by the crunch of our footsteps. Should I be calling Finbar’s name as I walked? The forest was vast; he might be anywhere.

No sign of Swift today. No evidence that a horse had passed this way, or a dog for that matter. More likely they had been separated soon after they left the nemetons, for unless Swift had been led away from his field—unlikely given how soon he had vanished—he would have quickly outpaced both boy and dog.

We came to a rise, and Bear helped me climb up. The moment we reached the top he ran on.

“Bear, wait!” I bent over, my sides aching. I felt sick. “Bear!” A pox on it, I would have to sit down and catch my breath before I could go any farther. “Come back!”

He obeyed, padding back to lie down beside me. He was panting; even he could not go on forever. I would not give him the cordial, for despite the fey woman’s assurances that it was quite safe for us, I had some misgivings about it. I could not think of any drink available to humankind that produced such an immediate sense of well-being, and it seemed to me that so powerful a gift would not come without a cost. I would take that risk for myself, if it meant getting Finbar back safely. I would take it for my brother if it was the only way he’d have the strength for the walk home. There was no need to subject Bear to the same peril.

“I think I must be hungry,” I muttered, stroking his back. “It feels like a long time since breakfast, if that was what it was.” I had abandoned Caisin’s little basket on the far side of the withy bridge. If there was a special reason why she had bid me carry it over my arm, that was too bad. Getting across the bridge without falling into the river had seemed more important. “We must find him soon, Bear,” I whispered. “The sun’s quite high already. I wonder if folk are out looking for us.”

They would be, of course. I pictured Father, silent and grim-faced; Luachan, horrified that his charge had gone missing, even if it was not on his watch. Folk from the keep, diverted from the search for Cruinn’s lost men. Perhaps even Cruinn himself, for he would understand Father’s anguish all too well. I imagined how my family would feel if Finbar never came back, or if he was discovered dead as Cruinn’s men had been. “Tiernan, Artagan and Daigh,” I murmured. “I hope they survive where the others could not.” Bear licked my face. “They have the strength of grown men, at least. But Finbar isn’t very strong, Bear, and we must find him quickly.”

Bear got to his feet, understanding the meaning if not the words. I rose more slowly. I prayed that we would find Finbar soon. And I prayed that when we found him we would find Badger and Swift as well. Because if we did not, I would have to take Finbar home and leave them behind.

“Bear, come.” It no longer felt right to command him thus; in this hunt, he was the leader and I the follower. “Show me the way, good friend.”

We walked on. The sun reached its peak and began to sink again; the sky clouded over and rain began to fall. The half-clad trees provided some shelter, but soon enough both Bear and I were damp and cold. He still seemed to be following a trail, and it seemed more and more likely it was not Finbar’s scent but Badger’s. My brother could not possibly have come so far. Not on his own. Yet Caisin’s words had not suggested Finbar was a captive.
He sleeps as the squirrel sleeps.

“Kidnapped by squirrels,” I murmured, trying to keep up my spirits. “If I get him safely home again, I’ll make up a song about that. Rhian would probably enjoy it, even if nobody else did. Only I imagine she’d prefer clurichauns.”

The light began to fade. The clouds thickened, threatening heavier rain. Even if we found him right now, we could not reach home before dark. It would be another night in the open, without food or fire. I had carried Caisin’s blanket over my shoulder all the way from the bridge. Once or twice I’d been tempted to abandon it, for even a small burden grows heavy when a person is weary to the bone. Now I was glad I’d kept it. Its warmth might be the difference between life and death for a little boy on a cold night.

Bear’s eager gait had become more of a resigned plod. I was full of a longing to be back home and by the fireside, warm and dry, with a full belly, and I despised myself for it. Such thoughts were not only selfish, they were weak. Bear had not given up. I would match him. But as the rain increased, persistent enough to soak us even through the protection of the trees, and as the sky turned to a bleak stone gray, it was harder and harder to stay strong.
Believe in yourself
, I muttered, digging deep for some of Uncle Bran’s wisdom.
Trust yourself, and know you are never quite alone.

True enough; I did have Bear. And now my companion had halted in front of me, his head up, his body tense with anticipation. What had he seen?

Around us, the curtains of rain hid everything. Water poured off the thinning foliage of the oaks and pooled around the drifts of fallen gold beneath. The air was filled with a wet, earthy smell. The birds were quiet.

“What is it, Bear?” He had not moved. He stood intent, staring ahead into the obscurity.

Then I heard it. Barking; barking getting rapidly closer.

“Badger?” I whispered, unable to believe that at last we had found one of our own.

Bear barked a joyous greeting, running forward until the rain concealed him from me. A few moments later, the two of them came rushing out of the veil, chasing and jumping and playing together like young pups, until Badger ran up to me, planted his muddy forepaws on my chest and licked my face. It was a first.

“Badger, my lovely boy! Where have you been?” I blinked back tears, hugging him and at the same time doing my best to check whether he was hurt. “Good boy, Badger, fine brave boy. You, too, Bear.” Oh, how I longed to turn around and head for home with the two of them, to get my boys to safe shelter and let someone else continue the quest. I suppressed the feeling quickly; it shamed me.

My elation at Badger’s arrival soon drained away. Surely all this rain would erase any trace of Finbar’s trail. Here we were, miles and miles into an immense tract of forest—I could not remember it being part of Sevenwaters at all—and perhaps there was now no way to find either Finbar or the path home. Rhian’s voice sounded in my mind:
You don’t have to do everything yourself.
But that was exactly what I had chosen to do, and now here I was, with only the dogs, and I must keep on looking for my brother until…I would not think of that.

“Bear, come. Badger, come.”

We walked on until it was almost dark. My legs were shaking; they could barely carry my body forward. The rain eased, then stopped, and a chill wind came up in its place, sending probing fingers under my wet clothing. Beneath the oaks, vapors rose and twisted, clothing the knotty roots in shrouds of white. Here and there misshapen fungi sprouted alone or in clumps, like tiny wizened men in fantastic hats. Once or twice I thought I saw a taller figure, a person clad in gray or green or brown, but when I peered closer there was nothing but the oak trunks and the gathering dusk.

“A fire would be good,” I muttered. “But even if I could kindle one, where would I get dry wood?” We would have to stop and find a place to shelter before it grew too dark. The oaks stretched off into the distance. Each way I turned, the vista was the same. “A tumbledown cottage,” I murmured. “A fallen tree. Some rocks. A hollow. Anything that might keep out this wind.” I wondered if Finbar had been out in the rain like me, and whether he, too, was cold to the marrow. “Where is he, Badger? Where is Finbar?”

The two dogs looked at me as if I was a little touched in the head.

“All right,” I said. “We’re not walking any farther. Let’s find somewhere to sleep.” Oh gods, Finbar out for another night, all by himself, without even Badger to keep him warm. How could he survive this?
I’m sorry, Mother. Oh, Father, I’m so sorry.

Just when it seemed we would walk on forever, there was a fallen tree, and a hollow within it large enough to accommodate the three of us. Water was no longer hard to find. Bear and Badger lapped from puddles on the ground; with a certain difficulty, I did the same. A little later, as I was squatting to relieve myself, Bear hurtled off into the darkening woods with Badger close behind.
Finbar
, I thought, knowing in my heart how unlikely it was. I tried not to think of the possibility that the dogs would not come back.

It was a lonely wait. I laid the blanket in the hollow, ready for the three of us to lie on. Oddly, it was not sodden like my clothing, but felt dry and warm. The cloak Caisin had given me was drying, too, though everything I wore underneath it was wet. Magic. I would not think too hard about that. It seemed to me that if the fey woman were to appear now and offer me Otherworld food, I would devour it with scarcely a second thought. My belly felt hollow, my head dizzy. Given the choice between being condemned to live in the Otherworld or dying of cold and hunger, I was fairly sure I would choose the former. Besides, those old tales might be wrong. They might be inventions designed solely to stop children from sampling every berry they came across.

I wondered if any of those fungi we had seen earlier were edible. They were not like the ones that grew near Harrowfield. Those, Aunt Liadan had taught me to recognize.
This is beneficial for the shaking sickness, and this for irritations of the skin. This one can be eaten in a stew with no harmful effects, but raw, it will give you a powerful bellyache. A bite of this red spotted one will kill you.
If I found the right plants, I could probably pick a few, using my feet. Or I might crouch down to graze like a sheep. Finbar would find that amusing. “Where are you, little brother?” I whispered. “Be safe. Be warm. We’re getting closer.” I prayed that this was true.