The White City (14 page)

W
HEN THEY CAME DOWN INTO THE VALLEY
, R
AY CIRCLED THE
mare and leaped from the saddle. He knelt in the tall grass and inspected the path of broken stems. Pushing back the blades revealed a footprint pressed into the soft earth. “She came through not more than two days ago,” he said. “We’re gaining on them.”

Jolie looked down at the other trail parting the grasses. “Only because he is growing worse. When I tracked them up from the plains into the mountains, Quorl and Sally walked side by side. But now—”

“I see it,” Ray said, and got back into the saddle. “He’s not following a straight course like she is. He’s drifting from side to side.”

“Like an animal distracted by every scent and smell,” Jolie said grimly.

Ray nodded. “Right, like an animal.”

He surveyed the valley ahead and the distant mountains. “There’s a lot of open country between here and that range.”

Jolie rubbed Élodie’s mane. “The horses are exhausted.”

“Let’s get them down to the river first, then they can rest.”

With a crack of the reins, the horses set off through the belly-deep grasses. When they reached the river, Ray and Jolie dismounted and let the horses eat from the thistle growing along the banks. Ray dug up some of the starchy thistle roots to roast later. Under the tufts of grass, he found large, fleshy mushrooms and bright orange chanterelles. He cut up some to share with Jolie.

As they ate, Ray said, “Jolie, what happens after we find Sally?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your sisters,” Ray said. “Are you … well, you said before that you belonged with them. Will you go back?”

“To the Terrebonne?” Jolie asked, her expression growing serious. “With the Machine still out there? Ray, the Gog must be stopped. I would not run from all there is to do, no matter how hopeless it might seem at times.”

Ray nodded as he picked up another mushroom. “Good.”

“But that still does not answer your question,” Jolie said. “Where do we go after we catch up with your sister and Quorl? Chicago?”

“Where else would we go?” Ray asked.

She shrugged. “Do you not want to know what the rabbit’s foot is pulling to?”

“It’s not him,” Ray said. “It can’t be him. Even if he’s
alive—and I have no reason to think he could be—my father’s in the Gloaming. How could the lodestone possibly be pulling to something in the Gloaming? It doesn’t make any sense that—”

The black mare whinnied and turned her head to the east. Ray and Jolie looked back. All they saw was the forest of cottonwoods from where they’d come. Élodie stamped her hooves anxiously.

“I thought you said the steamcoach could not follow us up into the mountains,” Jolie said.

“It can’t.” Ray lifted his hand and held it out. He felt the jolt of current immediately.

Jolie’s eyes were wide. “I do not see any smoke.”

“Because there’s no steamcoach out there. Get on Élodie!” he shouted as he leaped up into the saddle. “It’s the Hound. They’ve sent the Hound after us.”

The horses splashed across the river, and once they reached the far bank, Ray and Jolie drove them into a hard gallop. After they had covered a mile or more, Ray glanced back. On the other side of the river, a white form emerged from the cottonwoods.

Ray kicked his heels into the mare’s haunches and leaned low across her neck, yelling, “Go! Go!”

The two horses raced side by side, hooves thundering. Ray searched for Sally and Quorl’s passage, some sign of where they made their way out from the valley, but he had lost their trail. There was no time to stop and track them.

He looked up at the range ahead. “Do you see any sort of pass?” he shouted.

Jolie’s eyes searched along the mountains. “I see gaps between the peaks, but to reach them would be impossible.”

“Over there!” Ray steered the mare toward a grove of aspens slightly to the north. The mountains behind them came together in a narrow gap. “See that pass? It starts just on the other side of these trees.”

“Can the horses climb that?” Jolie asked anxiously.

“Probably not.” Ray pointed to the looming range. “But it’s all too steep. We don’t have time to search for a pass that the horses can manage!”

“So what should we do?”

“Get into the trees,” Ray said. “Just keep riding.”

Giving one last look back, he saw the pale form of the Hoarhound coming through the tall grass and knew they had only minutes before the Hound would reach the trees. Leading the horses into the dark grove, they ducked from low hanging branches and wound through the ferns and underbrush and around fallen branches and boulders.

“There it is,” Jolie said as they came out the other side of the forest. A steep gully of broken rocks and debris jutted up into the mountains. “The horses cannot climb that.”

“We’ll go on foot,” Ray said. “And we don’t have time to argue about it. There’s no other choice.”

Jolie leaped from Élodie’s back. “All right, but we cut the saddles and set the horses free.”

Ray looked back as he dismounted. The trees were too thick for him to see how far away the Hound was, but he couldn’t hear it yet.

“Okay,” Ray said. “But hurry.”

When they had gotten the saddles and harnesses stripped, the horses stamped their hooves anxiously, seeming uncertain of what to do. Jolie nuzzled Élodie’s snout. “You are free. Go.” She clapped her hands and the horses set off together, galloping swiftly away.

A roar broke, rumbling through the forest and echoing off the mountainside.

Ray shook his head and pointed to the pass. “We won’t get beyond that first bend up there before the Hoarhound catches us.”

“We cannot go back,” Jolie said, clutching the handle of her knife.

Ray frowned at her knife. “And we can’t fight it either! Our best hope is to hide. Up that tree,” he said, running toward a tall leafy aspen.

“The Hound will have us cornered—”

“He already does,” Ray said. “Climb!”

Jolie went first, grabbing the lowest branches of the aspen and hoisting herself up. “Higher,” Ray said, climbing swiftly behind her.

Ray and Jolie scrambled to a cleft in the trunk nearly forty feet up. As Jolie scanned the forest below, she said, “If it sees us up here, it will topple this tree at the roots.”

Ray was already taking out the saltpeter and a half-burned branch of sagebrush. “Then we’ve got to hope this keeps it from seeing us.” He blew the saltpeter powder in his palm into a flame. After lighting the leaves, he dropped them into the jar.

Ray waved the sagebrush jar to scatter the smoke around them. The fragrant smoke drifted down through the limbs
and leaves toward the earth. “Say nothing,” Ray whispered, shifting his boots to find a secure perch. He and Jolie faced each other with the forked trunk at their backs. Jolie took a deep breath and looked down.

A snort sounded below. The Hoarhound’s heavy footsteps approached until at last the beast came into view, winding its way slowly through the trees. Ray waved the jar once more, and Jolie had to put a hand to her mouth to stifle a cough.

From their high vantage, the clockwork monster looked more like a pacing bull. The ground crackled with frost under its heavy paws. The cold drifted up on the breeze. As the Hoarhound neared the trunk of their tree, it stopped and sniffed the ground.

Jolie squeezed the branch overhead anxiously, the skin across her knuckles tight and pale.

The Hound took a few more sniffs, then turned its enormous head side to side, searching the forest but not looking up. A guttural growl grew in the monster’s throat. Ray tensed.

With a sharp exhale of frost, the Hoarhound bounded forward and trotted up toward the gully. When the monster had left the grove, Ray sighed with relief.

“I was certain it smelled us,” Jolie whispered.

“The sage masks our scent,” Ray said, holding out his hand to feel for the Hound. “Keep still and wait. It’s not left yet.”

“Ray,” Jolie said with a note of alarm. “The jar.”

The sagebrush in the jar was burning out. “Take out the branch,” Ray said, tilting the jar her way as he got back out the saltpeter. She reached her slender hand in through the mouth to remove the sage, but it crumbled to ash.

“Is there any more?” Jolie asked.

“That was the last branch.” Ray extended his hand toward the gully.

Jolie said, “Well, it will not matter if the Hound does not—”

Ray’s eyes widened. “It’s coming back!”

“What do we do?” Jolie asked, tensing again.

Juggling the jar and saltpeter tin, Ray opened the haversack. “Hurry! Look for even the tiniest piece. A few crushed leaves. Anything!”

As Jolie dug through the satchel, Ray watched for the Hound. He saw flashes of white, still at some distance, winding through the forest as the Hoarhound prowled.

“A leaf!” Jolie said.

“Give it here so I can light it.” Ray tried to pass the jar and tin of saltpeter to Jolie while taking the sage leaf, but in the scramble, the leaf dropped.

“Catch it!” Ray hissed.

Jolie reached, but the sage flittered just past her fingertips. “I missed it!”

Ray heard the frost-crackled steps of the Hound coming nearer. He looked down at the leaf of sage, drifting to the ground. He knew the Hound would spot them without the charm. All it would take was one glance up. He had to get the leaf.

Ray shoved the haversack, the jar, and the tin into Jolie’s arms.

“It is gone!” Jolie whispered urgently. “You cannot get down and back in time.”

“Yes, I can.”

He closed his eyes. He forced aside the thought of the Hound, the thought of the danger he and Jolie were in, the need to reach Sally. He leaned forward and dove through the branches.

He heard Jolie gasp, but he let the sound blend with the rushing of wind in his ears. He focused on the aspen, the forest, the mountains. He fell.

Ray sensed that he was about to hit a branch and opened his eyes. He waved his arms and felt the feathers catch the air and lift him up in time. Flapping his crow wings, Ray circled the trunk, spying the Hoarhound sniffing at the ground and edging closer to their tree.

He had only moments. He dove for the sage leaf and snapped it in his beak just before it touched the earth. Holding it tightly, Ray beat his wings to rise back up to Jolie. As he reached her perch in the cleft of the trunk, he transformed back.

He had to grab the trunk tightly as a swell of dizziness struck him. “Take the leaf,” he gasped, holding it out to Jolie.

“I cannot light it,” she said.

Like before when he had taken crow form, he felt nauseous and exhausted and could barely lift his head from where it rested against the rough bark. “Hand me the saltpeter,” he murmured.

Leaning heavily against the tree, Ray shook a sprinkle of the saltpeter into his palm and blew on it to ignite the flame. Jolie shoved the leaf into the flame and, seeing fire brighten the edge of the sage, she dropped it into the jar. A moment later, smoke was drifting from the mouth of the jar, surrounding them and slowly settling along the aspen trunk toward the ground.

Ray held to the trunk, his eyelids threatening to close. The Hound was standing at the roots of their tree, sniffing. It backed away a few steps. Then slowly the Hound lifted its gaze until the mechanical eyes stopped at the cleft in the tree where Ray and Jolie sat.

Time seemed frozen. Ray realized it might be the aftereffects of taking crow form, but there was something else to the moment. Jolie was at his back, one arm wrapped around him to keep him from falling from the tree, the other holding the jar, where thin wisps of smoke surrounded them. Below, the Hoarhound stared at them. Ray could read nothing from the mechanical monster’s expression to know whether they were about to be attacked.

Then it sniffed, its eyes slowly moving from Ray and Jolie, scanning to the uppermost branches and then down, past the two of them and back to the ground.

The Hound circled around and then disappeared into the forest, jogging toward the gully.

“Is it gone?” Jolie asked.

“We’d better wait,” Ray said.

Jolie smiled with amazement. “You did it, Ray! You flew. You were a crow!”

“It tires me,” he said.

“You do not look as bad as last time,” Jolie said. “Remember how long you slept?”

Ray realized he was feeling steadier already. He thought he might be able to climb down the tree in a few moments. He realized also how near Jolie was to him.

“You can … uh, let go of me now,” he said.

“Oh,” Jolie murmured, backing away from him and grabbing
the trunk on the other side of the cleft. She looked around at the forest below. “Can you tell if the Hound is gone?”

Glad to turn his attention elsewhere, Ray lifted his hand. “I feel it less. It’s leaving.”

“Good,” Jolie breathed.

“No,” Ray said. “That’s not good. The Hound is ahead of us now.”

Jolie’s eyes widened as she realized what this meant. “Sally,” she said.

S
ALLY LIMPED THROUGH THE DARK FOREST BACK TO THE
waterfall. She had called Quorl’s name so many times her voice was hoarse. Kneeling down at the edge of the pool below the falls, she drank the cold, clear water until it filled her stomach enough to drive away the knots of hunger.