From Across the Clouded Range (27 page)

The moment was over almost as soon as
it began. Tethina pulled away, put a hand on his chest, and looked
into his eyes. “Thanks, I . . . I just needed to make sure that
something was real.” She released a heavy sigh and turned to the
forest. “This is bad. Did you see all those bodies?” Tethina paused
to gather herself. Dasen felt the bile rising again as he thought
about what he had seen. “These men are animals. They killed dozens
of innocent people just to get Ipid, for nothing more than his
money. And they must already have him, or they’d be out searching
for him. So why kill all those people?” Tethina stopped and chewed
her lip. Dasen drew a breath, but she put a hand over his mouth.
“Not now. There is no use discussing it. I’d love to save him, but
it’s too big a risk. We don’t even know where he is. There is
nothing we can do.”

Dasen had not even thought about
trying to rescue his father. He had only meant to suggest that they
find someplace to hide, preferably with food and water. He had no
illusions that he was capable of sneaking into the village, finding
his father, or getting back out again. And even if they did, what
then?

“
We’ll go to my aunt’s,”
Tethina proclaimed after some thought. Dasen felt relief wash over
him, someplace to rest. “We can’t risk that these savages will find
her cottage. I don’t know how, but she’ll have to come with
us.”

Dasen felt his hope
crash.
Come with us?

Tethina stopped and looked around
without seeming to see him. He opened his mouth to protest, but she
spoke over him. “We’ll make our way to Potter’s Place. From there,
you can send messages to whoever will fix this: the governor, the
forest masters, the Chancellor himself. We’ll have to stay off the
roads, which will be hard with my aunt. She can’t walk, but we can
take turns carrying her or make a stretcher for her. But it’s not a
long trip. Even with her, not more than a couple of
days.”

“
Do you really think
that’s prudent?” Dasen finally managed to ask. “We need water,
food, a place to sleep. How are we going to take care of your aunt
too?

“
We’ll just have to find a
way,” Tethina proclaimed. “I’m not leaving her to these savages.”
She turned to Dasen and glared until he dropped all thoughts of
opposition.

“
Can we at least stay at
her cottage until morning? The sun will be down soon.”

Tethina looked toward the mountains
and the orange glow that outlined them. “Too risky, but we can get
water and food there. We’ll sleep under a fir tree. You’d be
surprised how comfortable it can be.” She looked at him with a sly
smile that did not betray her joke, if that’s what it was. Dasen
could only hope so. “Come on then. It’s not far to the house. Can
you run?”

Dasen had barely caught his breath
from the previous run. His legs were trembling, his head hurt, his
stomach rumbled, his tongue felt like leather, but he
nodded.

“
Okay. I’m going to go
ahead. Just keep me in sight. If you lose me, knock on a tree like
this.” Tethina picked up a stick and tapped quickly on a nearby
trunk. To Dasen’s uninitiated ears, it sounded like a woodpecker.
“But beyond that, you need to be silent. We are going to be
skirting around the village and cannot risk drawing attention. Got
it?”

Dasen nodded again then watched as his
wife bounded off, leaping from tree to tree like a jackrabbit.
Unfortunately, the forest floor had not become any smoother since
his last trip across it, and he was soon stumbling along with every
step echoing in his ears. He winced at each thud, wondering if it
had been heard in the village. His mind became obsessed with a
coming pursuit, imagining it with every sound. As it was, he was
barely running. The ground was so rough and slick that he had to
concentrate on each step. Still he was soon gasping. Sweat ran down
his face into his eyes. His shirt clung to his back and his pants
chaffed his inner thighs, adding another misery.

When he thought the stitch
in his side had become a real knife, he stopped, put his hands on
his knees, and tried to catch his breath. When he brought his head
up, he saw the last shadow of Tethina disappearing through the
trees a hundred paces ahead. He searched momentarily for a stick to
call her then cursed himself. They had only been running for a few
minutes.
What will she think if I’ve
already given up? How will I ever gain her respect if I can’t keep
up for five minutes?
With a sigh, he
resumed his run, pushing his pace to match that of his
wife.

In a moment, he had found Tethina
again. She had stopped to look back for him. Seeing her watching,
Dasen made the mistake of trying to impress her. He took his eyes
from the forest floor, increased his pace, lengthened his stride,
and tried to imitate her apparent ease. For a few strides, he felt
like a natural. His feet hit rocks or roots and surged off
confidently to the next. He was just preparing to congratulate
himself when the forest delivered the punch line. His toes landed
on a rain-exposed root, slipped off of it, and became lodged under
another. He pitched forward. His left knee led the way, slamming
with an audible crack into a waiting stone. Pain lanced through
him, and he cried out in surprise before his hands landed in the
mud and slid away to leave him face down in muck.

Anguish assailed his senses. He rolled
onto his back clutching his knee and gnashing his teeth against the
unbearable pain. Somewhere he was aware that he was crying out as
he rolled in the mud but could not control the sounds. When the
pain subsided enough for his mind to regain control, he clamped his
mouth shut, hoping that his outburst had somehow gone unnoticed.
But on this Order-cursed day, no such luck was available. Cries of
alarm came first, surprisingly close, a few hundred paces to his
right. Orders were issued in a foreign tongue a second later
followed by the thunder of horses’ hooves.

Terror overran pain. Dasen rolled onto
his stomach and looked for Tethina just as she closed the final few
feet between them and pulled him to his feet. “You idiot!” she
seethed. “You're going to get us killed.” She slung his arm around
her shoulder and pulled him through the trees to the
west.

Dasen tried to bring his legs around
to support his part of their scamper, but only one of them would
support his weight, and he ended up leaning heavily on Tethina.
Even holding his weight, she ran nearly faster than he had managed
before the fall.

The sound of hooves spread through the
forest behind them. The bandits were searching, riding at a careful
pace in the tangled forest, but they seemed to be everywhere. A
shadow appeared in the distance before them, the dark outline of a
horse, the rider’s body and head blocked by a pine. Tethina altered
their course to take them around the man, but it was pointless.
Unidentifiable words sounded through the forest behind them, a call
of discovery that would have been clear in any language. Hooves
pounded the forest floor until they consolidated behind them. The
hunters had found their prey.

Tethina mumbled a string
of curses that would have made a sailor blush. Taking the opposite
approach, Dasen tried to think of a prayer. The sharp
thwack
of an arrow
hitting the side of a tree a few feet in front of them ended his
attempt at piety. There was only one option now.

“
You have to leave me,” he
said. The words came with a calm that he had not thought possible.
“I’m the one they want. I'll hold them up. Go and get help. Find
the forest masters." He tried to break away, but Tethina would not
release him.

“
Too late for that now,”
she growled.

Dasen did not understand and did not
have the time to consider. He could almost hear the horses labored
breaths in his ears. They were caught for sure. There was a rasp of
steel leaving leather.

Tethina finally released him. He
looked toward her just in time to see the ground depart from
beneath his feet. He felt a moment of weightlessness before he
began to fall.

Mercifully short, the fall ended in a
rush of water. The icy current enveloped him and shook him
senseless. In shock, he struggled to keep his bearings, to find
air. The White River into which they had fallen was fast-moving and
violent. It eagerly pulled him under its tumultuous current, but
surprise was the river’s only advantage. Dasen had learned to swim
in the river that ran by his father’s estate in Thoren and still
swam often in the university baths. As such, he soon recovered and
pulled himself to the surface with a sputtering gasp.

As his head surged from the water, he
looked back at the fading bank. Standing there were three mounted
men shaking swords over their heads in frustration. As the bandits
faded from view, a smile crept across Dasen’s face and grew into
his first laugh of the day.

Chapter 13

Teth closed her eyes, grabbed her
nose, and let go of Dasen. She dreaded what would come next, but
there was no other way. When the pursuit had started, she had known
that she could either leave Dasen or test the river. On her own,
the bandits never would have found her. But then she would have
been on her own, counting for the bastard forest masters for help –
and she knew from experience what they did with girls they found
alone in the forest. Dasen wasn’t much use out here, but in the
city, with the forest masters, his name, power, and connections
would mean everything. The forest masters would probably do
anything he asked. By the Order, the Chancellor would probably
dispatch the entire army to save Ipid, but there was no guarantee
that they would even let her tell her tale. At least that is what
she told herself when she could not bring herself to leave the boy
behind.

The fall into the river was not nearly
long enough. Teth clamped her hand over her nose and felt icy water
embrace her. The furious current dragged her into its rain-bloated
depths where she tumbled weightless, water battering her from all
sides. She opened her eyes. Chaos greeted her. Blue and white raced
before her vision in an indistinguishable rush that gave no
indication of which was water and which was sky. She kicked, pulled
but had no idea where to go. The river roared in her ears, laughing
as its cruel joke was revealed.

Panic gripped her. She had never
learned to swim, and the deadly White River was no place to start.
Its powerful undertow and sudden rapids could drown even the most
experienced swimmer, and every child in Randor’s Pass knew not to
tempt its fury. She now understood why, understood how powerful
nature could be. Her wild kick and flailing arms did nothing but
drain her energy, suck the air from her lungs. And still, she could
not find the surface. She searched through the maze of blue and
white for some sign of that sanctuary, some hope for air and the
chance to yell, but in the weightless torrent, she could have been
inches or miles from the surface and not known the
difference.

Frantic struggle and unabated panic
steadily drew the last of the air from her burning lungs. Her legs
grew tired and numb. Other muscles followed until she could no
longer make her body respond to her hysterical requests to fight.
Sensing its victory, the river wrapped its cold arms around her and
sucked her down into its dark bosom. Spots danced before her
sightless eyes. Her entire body ached for air. She could not hold
out any longer. Her lungs opened to the river, and it celebrated
with a demonic howl that was cut short by blackness.

#

Dasen swam smoothly but purposefully
to avoid the shifting currents that threatened to disrupt the
delicate balance he held with the surface. Jubilant, he searched
for Tethina. He wanted to grab her and kiss her. He had been sure
they were going to be captured – or worse. Now, he was so happy
that he would have kissed a frog if there were one close at
hand.

As his casual search
failed, Dasen’s concern grew.
Where is
she? Certainly she must be a strong swimmer. But then, where is
she?
He spun himself all the way around,
searching every direction, but could not see anything but
white-capped water and trees.

His stomach clenched. He made another
circle, concentrating this time on the depths. Almost immediately,
he saw her. Remarkably close but well below the surface was a
shimmer of blue that did not belong to the river. He dove toward
it. The undertow pulled him gladly to Tethina’s lifeless form. He
wrapped his arms around her chest and looked for the surface. The
churning water made it difficult to orient himself, but he did not
spare any time to gauge his surroundings. Tethina was not moving.
How long had she been under? Was she hurt? Powered by fear, he held
her with one arm, pulled with his other, and kicked with all his
might.

The effort seemed to bring him no
closer to what he hoped was the surface. The river pulled at its
prize, trying to suck her back. Dasen fought for her, but his
strength was waning. The river was too strong. The power faded from
his arms and legs. His grip began to loosen. She was slipping away,
back into the river.

But the Order had not yet finished
with her. The current reversed and expelled them, shot them into a
universe of sweet, clear, revitalizing air. Air had never tasted so
good as that first breath. Dasen swallowed it in ragged gulps, his
entire body burning to have it. He was so happy to have found the
surface that he did not even notice the waves that beat at his face
to leave him sputtering.