Forest Born (17 page)

Rin stared at the broken ends, twisting and drifting in and out of sight. If she had been with anyone else in the world, she would not have spoken aloud her fear, but to Razo she said, “They could already be dead.”

“Not my Dasha. Don’t let her fool you with her smiling and hopping around all the time. She’s smart as a mongoose. And Isi and Enna aren’t exactly thick in the head either. You’ll see. They’ll stay nice and alive as long as they can. You can bet your boots on that, Rinny-roo.”

Rin snorted with disgust. “You tried that one before and it didn’t work then either.”

“Rinny-roo doesn’t enchant you?” He mouthed it a couple of times, then shrugged. “You’re right. I’ll find the right nickname sooner or later. And the moment nightfall gives me some good shade for sneaking around, I’ll find a way into the castle.”

But how? And if he did manage to get inside, what good could he do? While Selia had been speaking, Isi could not manage to answer, let alone free Tusken. Then again, Rin could not imagine that Selia stayed with the three girls in the castle, speaking to them constantly. They must be jailed—and surely no jail could hold Enna, let alone Isi and Dasha.

“We need to get to them when Selia’s not there,” Rin said. “When they hear you and Tusken are safe, they’ll break free.”

“See, I tried to convince you that you’re almost as smart as I am. But you always insist, ‘No, no, Razo, you’re the smart one. I’m just happy to be your baby sister. I’m just thrilled to—’ ”

Rin’s water skin smacked him in the shoulder, and he stopped talking to take a long drink.

Tusken sat up, rubbed his eyes, and blinked at the world. Rin and Razo were immediately at his side. Rin stroked his hair, and he blinked at her several times, yawned hugely, and looked at Razo, who was grinning.

“Morning, Tusk! Look who joined us! See, I told you we’d find our Rinna-girl sooner or later.”

Tusken lay his head against her shoulder.

“Win,” he said happily. “Win, Win, Win . . .”

She hugged him and hugged him, relishing the tingling gladness that filled her. And thinking of Isi, she kissed him all over his face and neck and hands, and loved him as much as his mother might if she were there herself. He laughed and wriggled until he grew tired of the affection and rolled back to Razo and into his lap, the spot he had no doubt occupied for days.

“Ma?” Tusken asked, his fingers scratching Razo’s unshaven cheeks.

“We’ll see her soon too,” Razo said. “Maybe tomorrow. That cage game was getting old, wasn’t it? Whoo-wee. But just you wait, little man, all the games we’re going to play today—hide-and-find-me, and squirrel’s tail, and if Uncle Razo is lucky, maybe even bathe-the-stinky-boy-in-the-nearest-body-of-water. How’s that, huh? I told you and told you we were going to have the best time ever. Now I want to see if you’ve grown any more ribs this morning—better count them to make sure. One, two, three, four—no fair wiggling and laughing. You’re making me lose count! I’ll have to start over. One, two . . .”

The boy had endured days of cramped travel, not enough food, crying for his mother and father, and not understanding what was happening. And now all he wanted was to play. So as they walked north, they played chase, sometimes hopping on one leg for a stretch or running backward. Whenever Tusken spoke loudly, Razo pretended not to hear.

“What’s that?” Razo said in an exaggerated whisper. “I can only hear you when you sound like this.”

Tusken seemed to enjoy making whisper noises, and for the most part kept his voice quiet. When Rin found a hazelnut tree and stopped to pick clusters of the fruit for breakfast, Razo taught Tusken to climb.

“What a smart boy. Look how he’s found a handhold. A Forest boy, natural as can be, no fancy folk weakness in our Tusken.”

“Take care he doesn’t fall and break an arm.”

Razo scoffed, one hand resting lightly on Tusken’s back as he climbed higher. “Really, as if I haven’t been around plenty of children. We were scaling trees like this before we could walk, and we never—”

Tusken’s hand slipped, and he gave a strangled call. Razo dove, catching the prince a few handbreadths above the ground and groaning in pain. He stared at Tusken and Tusken stared at him, his eyes wide and mouth open as if deciding just how loudly to wail before letting it all out. Tusken took a deep breath, then shouted, “Again! Again!” banging happily on Razo’s head.

“Shh,” Rin reminded the boy.

Razo forced a smile. “Right. Again. Um, how about we take a nice easy walk for a bit, toward that noise that just might be a stream? Huh? And wash out Uncle Razo’s scrapes? That sound like buckets of fun?”

Razo moaned again as he got to his feet.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Rin asked.

Razo shrugged. “It’s nothing, just bruised a bit.”

He was lying, Rin could see. But they arrived at the stream and Rin let the idea drop away as they washed and drank. Razo feared it was too good a landmark for the searchers, so they left quickly, crossing the water on stones, carrying Tusken over the muddy banks to firm dirt that marked no prints. For some time after, Razo would not speak, giving all his attention to listening.

“We’re mushroom hunting,” Rin told Tusken. “We have to be quiet or we’ll scare the mushrooms away.”

Talking to Tusken was a relief, and Rin wondered if young children were not affected by people-speaking, perhaps not until they were old enough to think about themselves more and care what others said. That was a good thought. Maybe after they rescued the fire sisters, Rin could travel from city to city and hire herself as a nurse-mary, caring for babies and young children, and . . . and never speaking to the parents and running off as soon as the children were old enough to be affected by her speech. She sighed with the ache in her chest. Imagining her future was like searching for a dropped needle with her eyes closed.

She put a hand on her belly and felt how soft it was, imagined how easily a sword would part that skin, how simple it would be for a bolt to slide through her and end everything. And how Ma would ache to hear of it.

And she worried all day.

Chapter 19

T
hey walked, and Rin watched the shadow of the sun, feeling its downward plunge tug on her, promising afternoon, and after that, night. The day seemed motionless, a kettle of water waiting to boil; and yet at the same time, it sped recklessly forward to the moment when Razo would leave and might not come back.

Rin’s stomach was growling when they came upon a group of quail.

“Rin,” Razo whispered, and understanding, she dug through her pack and handed over her sling, as his had been taken by Selia’s men. She did not offer stones, guessing Razo would already have a pocketful. While Razo crept after the prey, Rin followed Tusken to a log to hunt for bugs. A few minutes later, she heard the crunch of a boot to her left and assumed it was Razo. She turned instead to meet the eyes of a soldier in a metal helmet and leather vest, his expression as startled as hers. Her heart banged once, as if just coming back to life.

Running to Tusken, she yelled, “Razo!”

At the same time, the soldier hollered, “I’ve got them! I’ve—”

She heard Razo’s footfalls, his sling whirling. The soldier veered away from Rin and toward Razo, his sword out.

Rin scooped up Tusken without stopping and fled toward the thicker trees. She heard a dull thud, glanced back and saw the soldier stagger. The sword was still in his hand, though his eyes looked slightly dazed. Razo placed another stone in his sling as he walked backward, buying himself enough time and distance to get in another shot before the sword reached him. The soldier lifted his weapon and roared as he swung at Razo.

Rin stumbled on a tree root and looked where she was going again, clinging to Tusken.

“Wazo?” said the boy. “Wazo doing?”

“Nothing, just playing,” Rin whispered, gasping through the fear for enough breath to speak. “Everything’s fine. But we need to be very quiet, all right?”

She peeked back again. The soldier lay on the ground, motionless. Razo was stooped over him, holding the soldier’s sword. Rin did not realize how hard she was squeezing Tusken until he started to cry.

“Sorry, lamby,” Rin said between pants as she pushed herself to race faster. “Hush now. It’s all right.”

In a few moments, Razo was hurrying beside them, his forehead damp with sweat. The soldier’s sword hung from his belt, clanging against his knee as he ran.

“That one’s down.” Razo’s tone was casual, but his face was full of pain, and he was breathing hard. “Don’t know if there were others close enough to hear his hollering. Can’t chance it. Let’s go northeast for a bit.”

When Razo did not offer to take Tusken from Rin’s arms, Rin panicked, thinking that the soldier had gotten him with his sword after all. But she looked Razo over and did not see any blood, and he did not complain.

They ran hard to get some space between themselves and the soldiers, then changed course so there was no straight line to follow. Northeast they traveled, and then east, so as to confuse the searchers but still keep Daire close. Soon they slowed, taking care in their passage to leave no boot-print, no twig broken. Tusken sat on Rin’s shoulders, and he fussed and screeched from time to time, anxious to get down. Their pace was plodding and Rin itched to just bolt, but Razo insisted they keep on with the trackless sneaking. After a time, Rin just could not carry the boy anymore, and she let him down to run alongside them.

There were no human sounds from the wood, and Rin had finally let herself breathe easy when Razo flipped out his sling and let loose a stone. Her hands clasped her chest as she searched for sight of the enemy. It was a squirrel.

“Sorry,” said Razo. “I spotted dinner.”

It was afternoon when they stopped again, Tusken so tired of walking he was likely to draw notice with his howls of protest. They chanced a small fire, finding a nice dense glade to hide in. Rin gathered wood and fished her small flint bundle from the depths of her pack, where it had lain unused and unneeded while she’d been traveling with the fire sisters. She made triple sure each piece of wood was completely dry, and Razo hopped around, arranging each stick to keep the fire burning clean with no smoke.

They roasted a squirrel and a quail on sticks, then ate the bland, hot meat and licked their fingers. It was not enough to fill their bellies, but in the Forest, Razo and Rin were used to not enough. Tusken ate his fill and curled up beside Rin. Soon his head nodded onto her chest and his breathing went slow and soft. Rin pressed her lips to the top of his head.

“Thanks for keeping him safe.”

“ ’Course,” said Razo. “That’s what I do—keep people safe, and save people, and find murderers, and get a nice fat quail for lunch. Wasn’t that a nice fat quail?”

Rin smiled. It was shocking to discover a smile on her mouth so soon after running for her life. Meat in her stomach, Tusken’s sleepy breathing, and the trees all around filled her with a delicious and rare contentment that made her feel indulgent of Razo, so she said, “It was. And you do keep everyone safe and make everything better.”

“Not always.” He dipped the roasting stick into the flames, and the bits of fat left from the quail sizzled.

She had expected him to agree and preen a bit, and maybe even tell some rousing story of his good deeds in Tira.

“Come now, Razo, what have you ever done that was bad?”

He glanced over his shoulder, the direction they’d left the soldier’s body some hours ago, and his face was tinged with pain. His eyes back to the fire, his voice went soft and simple, as if he were talking to himself.

“It should be a good thing to keep people safe, shouldn’t it? It should be. Except . . .” He stirred the flames with the stick. “I guess I never talked to you about it. At that, I don’t think I’ve talked to Dasha about it, or Finn. Or Enna. Never Enna.

“Well. Near the end of the war with Tira, Enna was dying from the heat of the fire inside her, I could tell that. Finn and I had been prisoners in a Tiran war camp, and everything was bad, bad, bad. The three of us were chasing the Tiran army, which was about to attack the Bayern capital. War was everywhere and nothing could get worse. Nothing seemed to matter except stopping the war, because any moment we would all die or the whole world would just crumple up and fall away. I don’t like thinking back on it. But I do. Think about it. More and more since I met Dasha, for some reason.

“So Enna, Finn, and I were riding after the Tiran army. And we were almost too late.

“The Bayern army met the Tiran in the battlefield, and both sides clashed. It was like banging two rocks together, the way they clashed—loud and hard and doing no good. People started to catch on fire. Is it so much worse in a battle to burn people than to hack them with a sword? That’s what I can’t figure. Death is death, right? It shouldn’t be worse. But it was, so much. It was . . . it was bad, Rin.”

His eyes flicked to her face then back at the fire. “I knew what was happening. Enna. She was setting them on fire, and they were screaming. The Tiran. She wasn’t trying to torture them, she was just killing as many as she could, fast, to end the battle. To end the war. She was trying her best not to—not to let them suffer for long. I believe that. She thought she was doing good. But all those people . . .”

Rin watched him until she could not bear the sight. Razo’s curse was to show exactly what he felt in his every expression. What horrors he must have seen. She’d had no idea.

When he spoke again, his voice was pleading, as if she’d accused him of murder and he was desperate to explain. “Back then the Tiran army was trying to kill us. All of us. In their square, they hanged straw men dressed like Isi and Geric—at the first chance, they would’ve hanged my friends for real, you see? And she’d been through some hell, our Enna had, prisoner to a Tiran captain for months. And he’d been a people-speaker to boot. So the lashing out—I’m not saying it was justified, though maybe it was, I don’t know—it was understandable, that much at least.”

He took a deep, quavering breath, as if he was at last getting to the spot that stung. “While Enna burned, I stood beside her with my sword and I fought anyone who came her way. Finn and I did. We kept her safe while she burned those soldiers. And I never dare think too hard about it, because if I do, I wonder if I’m responsible too. If what I did, protecting her while she burned, if that means I helped kill them all, if I made a mistake so big that if I even think about it, it’ll drag me down and suffocate me.

“Curse it all, there I’ve gone and thought about it! Why’d I do that? What is it about you, little sister, that makes me think about things I’d happily decided to forget? Curse you and war and everything, but that was a bad, bad time, and sometimes I feel like I’ll never crawl out of it.”

He wiped savagely at his face, then pushed his fingers into the corners of his eyes to stop the flow of tears. When they slowed, he met her gaze, expectant, pressing his lips together. He needed something from her. This memory of death and burning and guilt had been possessing him for two years—what could she say to all that? She wished that he’d let it stay buried, but the memory, the question, was out now, a bird hatched from an egg, angry with hunger and screeching. And he was waiting for her to speak, to make it better.

Her belly was full, Tusken was perfect contentment in her arms, the tree at her back stretched between sunlight and soil. Though inside she was still clenched up, flinching away from the idea of people-speaking, the fight in her was ebbing some, and she thought easing Razo’s worry might be worth the risk. So she looked inside herself for something honest to say back.

“I’m surprised.”

“Surprised that I defended Enna while she burned hundreds of soldiers?”

“Well, no. I’m just surprised that you thought you might’ve made a mistake.”

Razo stared, then slowly his frozen incredulity softened and turned into an almost-smile. “You’re yanking my boots now.”

“I didn’t think you were capable of making a mistake—you’ve always been the brother who can do no wrong.” Though it was just the sort of thing she might say to tease him, she spoke the words earnestly.

Razo grabbed his knees and rocked back, grinning at the canopy. “I’d sock you one for the mean joke, but you’re as serious as gravel in my socks, I can tell! You didn’t think I was capable? But I’m the biggest . . . How can you have lived with me so many years and say I can do no wrong? Don’t you ever listen to what our brothers say?”

“Yes. You’re noodle-armed, you’re too slow to catch a snail, you’re short one leg, two arms, and a brain, you’re—”

Razo forcefully cleared his throat. “Just so you know, for the future, that was one of those questions I didn’t actually intend for you to answer.”

“Anyway, you know the brothers are hard on you because they’re jealous.”

“Jealous of me.”

Rin nodded.

“They’re so hard because they’re jealous of me. Of how perfect I am. How I can do no wrong.”

Rin nodded.

Suddenly Razo was on his feet, moving his legs and back in a jerky motion Rin could only assume was meant to be a dance.

“Jealous of me. Jealous of me. Those big boys are jealous of me.” Still not raising his voice above a whisper, he chanted and jigged and shuffled.

“They are, you know. You’re the one who’s traveled and fought and done and seen things, the one who always comes back and brings Ma enough coin to keep us all fed. You’ve always been the clever one, and clearly Ma’s favorite. Of the boys, that is.”

He sat back down, his face all innocent happiness. “I almost believe you, but it doesn’t matter. You thought they were jealous. You thought I could do no wrong. You’re better than roast chicken.”

He smiled at her, so she smiled back, and her smile seemed to please him so much, he grabbed her hand that was not pinned under Tusken and shook it, then knocked her shoulder with his elbow, ruffled her hair, nudged her boots with his, making several small gestures of brotherly approval.

The conversation still felt half-formed, a crescent moon that was aching to wax round, and that empty space bothered her. She realized that despite the crowing and dancing, what he’d done while Enna burned would still bother him. On quiet nights it would sneak up and surprise him with the horrible sting of memory. And with that realization she knew what else to say. Habit bid her clamp down on the words, but her brother’s sorrow made her feel angry and reckless. She let her energy warm in her belly and push the words up her throat and out.

“Razo, you had to protect Enna. She’s your friend, and you were a soldier. She made the decision to do what she did, not you. Even if what she did was wrong, you couldn’t have stopped her, and you certainly couldn’t have stood back and let her be killed. You had to protect her.”

“You think so?” His eyes were so serious, so hopeful. Even though speaking to Razo was almost as easy as talking with a child, it still cost her. Part of her recoiled from the people-speaking, but she fought back, needing to say one more thing to make it just enough.

“I know so. I don’t think you ever need worry about that day again, Razo. You did right.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. No jolting dance this time, no hurrahs and happiness. He put the back of his hand over his eyes and kept nodding, speaking to himself as if to a troubled animal. “Sure enough. That’ll be how it was. No worry now. All right then.”

He took a deep breath and when his hand fell from his face, his expression was calm, even pleased.

He pointed at her. “You’re the one who can do no wrong, Rinna-girl. You’re the family treasure. You’re the reason Ma can keep smiling and none of our brothers have strangled each other yet and the homestead is the best place in the Forest. You are.”

She shook her head, though she wished Razo could make her believe it.

“I want to go home.” The idea filled her suddenly with hopeless longing. “I miss the little ones and the Forest, and Ma. Even our brothers. I miss it all.”

He nodded. “We’ll get you there. Maybe we’ll be on our way tomorrow morning. You just stay here with Tusken while I sneak in and make the rescue.” When he spoke, his hand strayed to his left side.