Path of Fate (3 page)

The village seemed entirely populated by shrieking children and barking dogs, and Reisil supposed that many of the adults had gone to Kallas or the surrounding farms looking for work, or foraged for food in the hills. As she wandered through, the children stopped their play and clustered around, eyeing her curiously, with a hint of both hope and fear.

Before Reisil could do more than offer a smile, there came an agonized groan from within the trees along the north side of the road. It started low and rose to a howl before dying away in a wrenching wail, sending goose bumps prickling along Reisil’s arms and legs.

“What’s that?” she asked, pushing through the crowd of children toward the source of the sound.

A boy of perhaps twelve years stepped in front of her and put a grimy hand on her arm, his brown eyes flat and unyielding.

“This ain’t your business. You best get along.”

Reisil brushed his hand off as the tortured cry came again. This time he grabbed her pack and yanked, twisting her around. His lips curled like those of a cornered weirmart, his head hunching low.

“I said, you git,” he growled, and his tongue was wet and pink against his dust-browned lips.

Reisil paused, taken aback by his hostility. But when the cry came again, she jerked her pack out of his hands, shoving him back with the heel of her hand.

“Get out of my way, boy,” she said, already looking over her shoulder for the source of the cry. “I’m a tark, and someone here surely needs me.”

His voice changed, sounding hopeful. “Yer a tark? Why dinya say so? Come on!”

She followed after him as he darted ahead into the trees. He led her to a shelter at the confluence of three close-growing spruce trees. She would have missed it if she hadn’t had a guide. The sweeping branches of the trees had been propped and tied together to form the braces of a roof. On top of those had been spread more branches as thatching. A series of bushes and vines had been planted and woven together to form a latticework that would eventually grow into thick, leafy walls. From the outside, the shelter appeared to be nothing more than dense undergrowth.

But the boy offered no hesitation as he dropped to his knees and squirmed inside. Reisil followed quickly.

The only light filtered feebly through the dense foliage. In the gloom Reisil saw a woman reclining on a pallet, clutching her stomach as she curled up into herself. Her voice rose razor thin and her neck tented with strain as she wailed. Beside her another woman, equally young, clung to the stricken woman’s hand, bending to murmur soothing words against her ear.

“How long has she been like this?” Reisil asked the boy as she shrugged out of her pack.

“This morning. Not this bad, though. Been getting worse all day.”

“Has she got family?”

“Me. My brother.”

“She’s your sister?”

“Nah. Carden’s wife.”

Carden, Reisil supposed, was the boy’s brother.

“Better go get him,” she said, taking in the woman’s sweating pallor, ragged breathing and unceasing writhing.

“She gonna die?” There was a matter-of-factness about his question that made Reisil’s stomach curl. But there was no time for him.

“Not if I can help it. Now get going.” After a tiny pause, he did as she asked. The rustle of leaves was the only indication that he’d left.

“What’s your name?” Reisil asked the sick woman’s attendant. She looked up, fear stretching the skin around her redrimmed eyes.

“Ginle,” she said, her voice cracking.

“And who is she?”

“Detta.”

Reisil crawled over to the pallet and ran deft fingers over the squirming woman’s stomach, pressing against the hard expanse. Detta moaned and flung out her hands in defense of the probing. Reisil gave a little nod to herself.

“Try not to let her twist, Ginle. I know it hurts, but she’s only making it worse.”

Reisil once again dug into the limited supplies of the emergency kit she kept at the bottom of her pack. Working quickly, she measured ingredients carefully into a flatbottomed wooden bowl, mixing them together with a pestle. With her fingers, she formed two pastilles from the moist mass. The first she put between the agonized Detta’s cheek and gum, straddling her chest to hold her still.

“Detta, you must not swallow this. Do you understand? Chew it, and swallow the juice, but nothing else. All right?”

Detta whimpered and nodded, the whites of her eyes like shining moons in the gloom.

“Good. Now there’s another one. We have to insert it below. So I’m going to undress you. It won’t hurt, but you’re going to have to pull your knees up and spread them apart. Can you do that?”

Reisil completed her ministrations, then dabbed Detta’s face with cool water mixed with crushed mint leaves. She didn’t know if her treatment would work. It depended on what had caused Detta’s innards to block up. But the pastilles contained both a very strong aperient and an antispasmodic. If they were going to have an effect, it would be very soon.

And soon it was. A half hour later, Detta sat up, wanting help outside, refusing to soil her home. A short time later, Reisil departed just as the worried Carden returned in the company of the boy.

“My wife, how is she?” Sweat runneled the dirt on on his florid face, and he panted with the effort of his hurried return. His left hand was missing, as well as his left ear. Scars of the war, Reisil thought, disturbed by the brutality of the old wounds.

“She’s better. Give her broth with a little bread floating in it, maybe add a bit of grain or vegetable in a day or so. She needs a lot of water. Try to keep her quiet. She should rest for a couple of days. I’ll check back later.”

Reisil’s stomach growled and she flushed as Carden took it as a signal to begin gabbling about food and payment.

“It’s not necessary,” she said, her voice revealing nothing of her impatience to be on her way. If Detta had continued to need her, she’d have stayed by her side without hesitation. But now that her patient was on the mend, Reisil wanted to be about her business. She still wanted to make her devotions to the Lady.

“I have my lunch,” she assured Carden, patting her pack with a tired smile. “And I am a tark. I am pleased to help anyone in need.”

She departed the village at last, having accepted Carden’s offer to refill her water flask. He did so clumsily. He had been lefthanded, Reisil realized, watching him hold the flask under his elbow to unstopper it before sinking it in a bucket of water, bubbles rushing out as the water ran in. What work could a one-handed man find? How would he rebuild a decimated home? Plow a field? Scythe a crop?

The afternoon sun had grown hotter, and Reisil’s steps were slow on the rutted road. The heat intensified her weariness, but the relief of Detta’s recovery gave her energy enough to struggle on. She thought of the pitiful village, remembering Beren’s prediction—that the
ahalad-kaaslane
would drive them all away. She shook her head. The village had not been so deserted because the people were lazy beggars. Only those too young or ill had remained behind, while everyone else went in search of work and food. Even Carden with his one hand.

Reisil wiped away sudden tears with an irritated hand. Tarks who got too involved didn’t survive long as tarks. Swallowing, she resolutely put the plight of the squatters from her mind. There wasn’t anything she could do about it. The
ahalad-kaaslane
would make that decision.

 

The Lady’s grove was as cool and restful as Reisil could desire. A shrine stood on the western edge of the clearing. Its simple, square lines were faced with color-fully glazed tiles with pictures of wild animals. Banding the top was a series of green tiles with redeyed gryphons gamboling around. A crystal spring bubbled from an opening at its base. The water collected in a red-tile pool and then ran off into a rill, the same one that ran near Reisil’s cottage.

The smell of charred wood clung to the clearing, and a large scorched spot opposite the shrine told why. Four times a year a fire was kindled before the shrine to celebrate the Lady’s generosity, and Her victorious light holding back the Demonlord’s night. The Lady Day fire always burned highest and longest. It was the longest day of the year, when the Lady’s power waxed greatest.

Reisil skirted around the scorch and knelt before the shrine, pulling off her hat. So tired was she that she sat for several minutes, unable to focus on a prayer. She opened her mouth and then closed it. Finally she bowed her head and let her thoughts tumble together, swirling and rolling like a quick-running river. With them came her fears, her hopes, her pity for the squatters, her desperation to stay in Kallas. Above all else was her gratitude.

“My heart and my hands belong to you, Blessed Lady. You have given me so much. A home at last. Let it be your will that it remain so,” Reisil whispered fervently. And then she dug a rosemary candle out of her pack and set it on the shrine. She lit it with a steel and flint, watching the flame lengthen and flicker.

Her stomach growled again, reminding her of just how hungry she was. Pressing a hand to her heart, Reisil bowed a deep obeisance to the shrine and then retreated to a fallen log nestled in a hollow just beyond the clearing. She smiled and sighed as she sat back against it, stretching her legs out before her. The lush grasses were matted here, the leafmeal furrowed. Someone had completed an assignation here during the Lady Day celebration. She chewed, wondering who it had been, and if they had been married, or hoped to. Her mind flew to Kaval, leagues and leagues away. She blushed in the leafy silence. If he were here now, what they would do! Her flush deepened, remembering the warm, sleek skin wrapping his ribs, the swell of his buttocks, the rough warmth of his chest.

A belligerent voice shattered her daydream and made her stomach clench. She tensed to flee, but didn’t have time to escape without being seen.

“Haven’t you been listening at all? The Patversemese are monsters. They didn’t just invade; they
spoiled
. Look at what’s happened to these squatters! Look at Mysane Kosk! How can you defend them?”

There were the sounds of scuffling boots and crackling twigs and then four figures—no, Reisil corrected herself, eight figures: four human, four animal—entered the Lady’s grove. Juhrnus stalked in first, his jaw jutting like an angry bull. He carried his
ahalad-kaaslane
draped across his shoulders. The green-and-yellow-striped sisalik splayed contentedly on its pale belly, black claws clamped around Juhrnus’s bicep in a gentle grip. The lizard’s long, prehensile tail wrapped Juhrnus’s other arm three times down to his wrist.

Juhrnus was dressed like his companions, in sturdy leathers with a sword on one hip, a long knife on the other. Everything he wore was new—a sign of his recent choosing. He was taller than Reisil by a few inches, with a wide, muscular chest, powerful legs and a square, boyish face. Thick brown hair fell in shaggy locks over his forehead and past his collar. If Reisil hadn’t known him, if he hadn’t spent her entire childhood tormenting her, she might have thought him attractive. She knew many girls did. But she did know him and the very sight of him made her blood boil.

After came Felias. She was about the same height as Juhrnus, dressed nearly identically. Her round face was framed by curly brown hair. Like Upsakes, who followed, her
ahalad-kaaslane
was a weirmart. It crouched on her shoulder, hissing at Juhrnus, needlesharp teeth clacking together as it snapped at the air. The minklike animal lashed its thin tail from side to side, the hair on its back standing on end. By the look on Felias’s face, she was as angry as her
ahalad-kaaslane
.

Reisil’s lips tightened in a sympathetic grimace; she had too often been on the receiving end of Juhrnus’s attacks.

“I’m not defending them!” Felias retorted hotly, facing Juhrnus across the firepit, hands on her hips. “All I’m saying is that peace is better than letting the war go on.”

“At any cost? Have you eyes? Look at the squatters’ village! Most of the men missing hands and ears and eyes. The women and girls swollen with their rapists’ babies. Do you think they want the Patversemese to get away with that? And what about Mysane Kosk? What’s to stop the wizards from doing that everywhere?”

Reisil blinked, startled by his genuine anger and concern. This was a side of Juhrnus she had never suspected.

“The Lady is,” said Sodur mildly, wiping his brow with a ragged square of linen he pulled from his pocket. Lanky, stooped, with thinning hair, he looked older than his years. Adding to the impression were his patched boots, threadbare elbows and limp, battered hat. He had a pinched face as though perpetually hungry, his thin, crooked nose and squinting eyes adding to the effect. His
ahalad-kaaslane,
a silver lynx, lapped water from the spring before sprawling in the shade, panting.

“The wizards destroyed Mysane Kosk because it was on the border and they somehow managed to breach the Lady’s protection. But their magic does not, as a rule, work inside the bounds of Kodu Riik. Only the Lady’s hand is at work here. The siege of Koduteel failed largely because the wizards could only aid the attacks from ships, and the force of their magic wilted before reaching the walls. And because the Lady answered our prayers and sent aid. The rivers outside of Koduteel diverted so that there was no fresh water outside the walls. The firewood in the Patversemese camp would not burn, and the snows came early. Mud bogs appeared in the middle of camps, and moles and ground squirrels burrowed fields of holes to trap their horses’ legs. Wolves and bears prowled the camps, and any game in the vicinity retreated beyond the reach of hunters. The Patversemese had no choice but to withdraw.” A slight smile creased Sodur’s lips with the memory.

Reisil might have smiled at Juhrnus’s dumbfounded expression, if Sodur’s revelation hadn’t astonished her equally as much. Felias, too, gazed openmouthed at the elder
ahalad-kaaslane
. Sodur chuckled and patted her on the shoulder, flashing a quick grin at Juhrnus.