Deepwood: Karavans # 2 Read online

  Brodhi had said the deepwood was now but a halfmile away.

  A chill pimpled her flesh. Bethid rubbed her upper arms vigorously. This was utter devastation, the tents left whole by the Hecari blown down, blown apart, tattered by and scattered on the wind. Oilcloth was gone, save portions that had been caught under something heavy, as had happened with the couriers’ common tent, weighted by the senseless bodies of Alorn and Timmon.

  She flicked a brief investigatory glance at both young men, judged them steady enough, then rose and began to peel back the puddled oilcloth that had swaddled them to see if anything remained. Sleeping pallets were gone, as were belongings. None of their rich blue courier cloaks remained, nor the silver badges of their office. She found two of the iron hooks that had hung from the Mother Rib of the tent, providing storage for cloaks and clothing, but little else. The ground beneath the remains of the tent was wet from the rain, scoured by the wind. Of the wooden pole framework, the scaffolding over which oilcoth had been lashed, only one pole remained in sight.

  Bethid sighed, dropping the corner of heavy fabric. The common tent had stood on the edges of the settlement, and before it, stretching in all directions, was the detritus of lives altered forever. Here and there a woman knelt in the storm-purged place where a tent had stood, grasping children to her. Men walked through the lightning-scorched field of debris, searching out the footpaths, the landmarks, in hope of tracking belongings. Little was left to find.

  Her mouth twisted grimly. We meant to start a rebellion, to fight the Hecari… now we’ve something else to deal with. She glanced sharply at her fellow couriers, still nursing their wounds. They had, with her, with Mikal, even Brodhi, discussed the possibility of a Sancorran revolt begun very quietly, very slowly, by careful, subtle couriers. Could they begin again? Could they continue to lay plans to take back Sancorra from the enemy?

  But Alisanos had moved. Sancorra now had an enemy far less predictable than the Hecari.

  “Mother of Moons,” Bethid muttered, “there has to be a way. There must be.” But she knew that those who had survived both Hecari and the incursions of Alisanos would not now be willing to consider rebellion. She frowned, pondering. And then, abruptly, an idea unfolded before her. For a moment Bethid could not believe it herself, but with further consideration, layer by layer, thought by thought, a plan knitted itself together. “Stay here,” she told her fellow couriers, gesturing with her hand. “No need to move; I’ll see about more water, and food.”

  Bethid did not wait for any protests from Timmon and Alorn, though she wasn’t certain any would come. She strode quickly across the settlement grounds, intent on finding Mikal. And Jorda—he was a natural leader, and could accomplish things she might not be able to, being small, slight, and a woman.

  There was also Brodhi to find. The plan required Brodhi.

  SHE RAN. SHE fell numerous times, tripped by tangled vines, exposed roots, thick ground cover, sharp-edged grass. Her legs and arms stung; her face burned. Blood was in her mouth. She spat, spat again, then rubbed haphazardly at her chin even as she ran. Once again she fell; once again she thrust her body upward, forced her body to keep moving, to ignore all physical insults. Cuts, scrapes, bruises … all these would heal. Gillan might not, were he injured. And she feared he might be, recalling his scream. It rang in her memory, blotting out all other thought.

  “Audrun!”

  The guide. She clamped her teeth together. She could not spare an answer. Dared not; it would take time, and he would find her, would very likely insist she return to the dreya ring. She could not do so. Not with Gillan, her firstborn, in danger. Let the guide tend the infant while she tended her eldest.

  “Audrun!”

  Ah, Mother, but it was tempting to slow, to halt, to answer his summons. But the infant—no, she had a name: Sarith—was safe; Rhuan had said so, had promised it, upon entry into the ring. Gillan was not.

  On and on. The deepwood continued to delay her, as if it were alive, mocking her, tricking her. No other scream had sounded. She depended on memory, on instinct, to find the direction. But overhead, above the thick canopy of wide tree crowns, two suns burned, not one. Could she rely on two alien suns in place of the single one she knew? Alisanos was ever changing, the guide had said; was it possible, was it probable, she would only accomplish getting herself lost?

  Or were such doubts themselves products of the deepwood?

  She opened her mouth and shouted. “Gillan!”

  If he heard her … if he heard her, he could answer, and guide her.

  “Gilllaaaaann!”

  HE COULD NOT help but wonder if he still had a leg. He could not see through the layers of steam and smoke. But instinct and strength of will seasoned by sheer panic lent him the physical ability to quit the liquefied hole into which he had stepped, plunging foot to knee through crust. Without thinking, Gillan lurched upward and sideways all of a piece, aware of heated surface beneath grasping hands; aware also that he was blind amidst the choking, heavy layers of sulfur, could barely breathe, and could yet put himself into more danger. But the pain of his leg, so acute, provided a need, an overwhelming motivation so great as to make movement possible. Between one moment and the next he found himself lunging away, rolling aside, the hot crust beneath him somehow supporting his body, giving purchase to his clawing hands. Coughing, choking, eyes streaming with tears, he raised himself up on trembling arms. In a scrabbling, ungainly motion with his weight taken onto his right hip, he managed to move, to dig in with his fingers and thrust, to hook himself forward with elbows, to lift and drag his body, using the good right knee to both steady him and provide forward momentum.

  He wept, he gasped, he coughed, but nonetheless he moved.

  And moved.

  And moved.

  —awayawayaway— It drove him onward. —away-away— Still he dragged himself, thrust himself forward, pushed and pulled himself forward, with knee and hands. “Away—away—away—”

  Oh, Mother—oh, Mother, but he hurt!

  He crawled, he pulled, he thrust himself onward, dragged himself away. And when at last the sulfur fumes began to thin, when his eyes burned less, when he breathed clean air, he mumbled a prayer to the Mother of Moons. Of gratitude. Of amazement that he had survived; that he had somehow not lost all of himself in the burning liquid.

  Gillan wept still. But now they were tears of pain, not of sulfur irritation; tears of disbelief, of confusion, of an awareness that he was hurt very badly. He dragged and hooked and hitched; he pushed himself onto cooler ground, onto reddish-black cinders, and farther, farther, until his hands touched grass. Until his body sensed shade. Until the trees drooped down, nearly touching the ground.

  In the grass, half-blinded, head filled by the remains of sulfur fumes, the pain of his leg was so bad he vomited. He brought up everything he’d eaten until nothing was left but bile. That he brought up also, until his body was empty. He wiped a shaking forearm across his mouth, then, lizardlike, he turned half of his body aside while his legs remained in one place, distancing himself as best he could from the vomit. Sweat ran from his face. He felt hot, he felt cold. He began to tremble, to feel weak, to be aware of the world drifting away from him. He wanted to vomit again, to void his bowels and bladder. His entire body was in some form of revolt. And then at last came the blackness, the release; he slid faster and faster into the nothingness of extremity, deaf and blind to the world, thinking again and again the name, saying Mother of Moons, asking without speaking that she deliver him from the hell of his ruined leg, from the evils of Alisanos.

  THE WOMAN LEFT trembling leaves and crushed vegetation in her wake as she ran from the dreya ring. Rhuan, poised at the edge, entwined boughs hanging around him, cursed her name in several different languages, even while understanding very well why she ran, why she ignored him.

  It was dangerous. Much too dangerous for her to be alone in the deepwood. She risked more than her son’s life; she risked her own.

&nb
sp; He had carried the child while in flight before. But that had been to escape. This would be to track, to find, to grasp, to force a terrified mother back to such safety as the dreya offered. He could not afford the encumbrance of the baby. But he also could not afford to place that baby in danger by neglecting its welfare.

  He turned and strode rapidly to the queen’s tree. There he knelt and placed the swaddled, sleeping infant at the base of the huge, plated, tricolored trunk. But he did not immediately place his palms against the tree. Instead, he drew a throwing knife from his baldric and cut into the ball of each fingertip. Bleeding, he replaced the knife. He touched the eleven blessing points: the middle of his forehead, the bridge of his nose between the eyebrows, each eyelid, the faint hollow between mouth and nose, the highest point of each cheekbone, his upper lip, lower lip, point of his chin, and lastly the notch that joined his collarbones. Then once again he pressed his palms and his brow against the tree. Once again he breathed against wood. Again, and at last, he appealed to the dreya queen. It was not his safety he asked for, neither was it that of the woman who tried to answer her eldest’s need, but for the infant, the baby, the newborn named Sarith.

  Come to her. Depart your tree. Tend her as is needed. Protect her. Let no one and nothing come into the ring to harm her. I entrust her to you; here, in the deepwood, she is as much mine as she is the woman’s who bore her. We are both of Alisanos, this child and I… and also both human, to some degree. You understand that weakness. You comprehend the challenges facing us both, this child and me. Succor her. Shelter her. She is but a newly sprouted seedling bursting free of her shell. Let her grow to be a sapling. Keep her safe until her mother returns. Until I do. Rhuan drew a long breath. For the first time since childhood, he invoked his father’s name. I am Alario’s get. I am dioscuri. I ask your protection for the human seedling.

  Chapter 7

  BETHID WENT DIRECTLY to the hand-reader’s wagon in the denuded grove. There she found, as hoped, Jorda and Mikal. They stood outside, talking quietly near the folding steps. Large men both, weathered men, each responsible for his own business and thus accustomed to leading, yet markedly gentle in certain circumstances. That they were concerned about Ilona was clear as they spoke, brows furrowed over respective noses.

  Her question was immediate, pushing aside other concerns. “How is she?”

  Jorda rubbed a scarred hand over his head, absently smoothing hair the wind had torn from its single ruddy braid. “It’s no kind of sleep I’ve ever seen.”

  Bethid pondered that a moment. “Well, she does have a broken arm. She may be getting a fever.”

  “I’ve seen fevers,” Mikal put in. “I think we all have. This is like … it’s like—”

  “—her body’s present, but she isn’t,” Jorda finished.

  Bethid half-shrugged—couldn’t they see it? “She’s a diviner. They aren’t like other people.”

  Jorda and Mikal exchanged glances, brows raised in consideration. Slowly, Jorda nodded. “It could be.”

  Mikal looked at him. “You know her best, of us.”

  “I do.” The karavan-master pushed again at loosened hair. “But she’s never been ill a single day, in all her time with me. Nor has she broken any bones.”

  “She’s a diviner.” Bethid believed it explained everything; or at least enough for the moment. “Look, I’ll stay with her tonight, of course—but there’s something we should discuss.” Now she had their attention and continued crisply, counting points off in her mind. “The Hecari burned one tent in ten. The storm burned none. If we set everyone to searching in all directions, we may be able to find things carried away by the wind, things that are still useable. Oilcloth, poles, wagon canopies, bedding, clothing, food storage—even personal belongings. We have the wagons, too. Yes, things are damaged, and some can’t ever be repaired, no doubt, but there should be enough material for us to rig makeshift shelters. We need also to set people looking for the livestock. The river provides water and fish aplenty, but we require more than that.” Her expansive gesture indicated the settlement as a whole. “The karavaners planned to begin again somewhere out of Sancorra. They carry seed for crops. Grain. Herbs. Spices, flour, tubers, any number of other supplies. There is enough, if the Mother is generous, for us to rebuild the settlement. The rainy season is coming. We’ll have a place to live for the time being, shelter and provender, and time to think. But we need to do this together. It must be communal, not family by family, person by person.”

  Mikal was frowning. “We call it a settlement, but it isn’t. It’s just a place people pass through. I think few of them will want to remain here, no matter how temporarily, after what’s happened.”

  Bethid shook her head vigorously, ear-hoops swinging. “No, no, that’s not true. You live here, Mikal. You aren’t just passing through. And how many tents were here for more than a few months? How many karavaners stayed behind for whatever reason as their karavans left? Mikal, you have regular custom, people you see—you saw—every day in your ale tent. This is where karavan-masters, like Jorda—” She nodded in his direction, “—meet to gather their people. There’s good water and grass, rich soil for crops, and safety in numbers. And in truth, many won’t be able to go anywhere else. Not if they’ve lost everything but themselves.” She scrubbed two-handedly at her short-cropped hair, now dry, splayed fingers shedding flakes of dirt and sand. “They’ll need duties, these folk. Something to think about, something to do, and they’ll require a few like you and Jorda to provide guidance and organization. Or things will only grow worse.”

  “Beth, you’re talking about a real settlement,” Mikal observed, scratching gently beneath his eye patch.

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Precisely. A place to put down roots.” She briefly studied their expressions, gauged the interest in their eyes. “Alisanos has moved, do you see? Brodhi told me a portion of the deepwood is but a half-mile away, in that direction.” She pointed. “Yes, we must send people out to recover what the storm took. But no one should go very far until we know how much danger we’re in from Alisanos. We don’t know where the borders are anymore.”

  Jorda understood her intent at once. “Someone should scout those borders.”

  “Exactly,” Bethid agreed. “Alisanos didn’t awaken for forty years, and everyone in nearly two generations knew where the deepwood was and how to avoid it—well, for the most part; some were lost, of course. Now, no one knows where it is. We need to map the borderland between the deepwood and safety. We need to make maps, and abide by them.”

  “Rhuan and Darmuth,” Jorda declared immediately. “They’ll be best at scouting and making maps. Rhuan says he is sensitive to the deepwood; he’ll know how close we can or can’t get. But for immediate concerns, we need only to find exactly where the deepwood begins and ends in the areas closest to the settlement. They need not map the entire perimeter. Others may do that later.” He lifted heavy shoulders, lines deepening around his eyes. “For all we know, Alisanos reaches into multiple provinces.”

  Bethid nodded. “But if nothing else, Alisanos is a forest, which means it’s visible. Just none of us knows how close we can go without being swallowed. In the meantime, we need shelter, meat, and crops.” She looked searchingly at each man. “It may be that no supply karavans can come here anymore, if by some chance Alisanos surrounds us. There may be no way in, no way out. If that’s true, we must find a way to survive on our own, on what may now be an island.”

  A tense silence ensued as the men grimly contemplated the possibility of being surrounded by the deepwood. Then Mikal raised a belaying hand. “Wait, Beth. For the moment, let’s say we are not surrounded—though that is a harrowing thought! You’re forgetting another danger. The Hecari. They came for a decimation once. They may do it again. Especially if this truly becomes a settlement. Yes, ordinarily there would be safety in numbers, as you said … but numbers is exactly what led the Hecari to cull one in ten here.”

  Bethid put a finger into t
he air. “I have an idea about that. The Hecari. If we’re not, the Mother be kind, an island in the midst of the deepwood.” When she offered nothing further, both men looked at her more sharply. “It concerns Brodhi,” she explained, “and whether he’ll agree.”

  Mikal scoffed. “If it requires aiding anyone, we cannot pin hopes on him.”

  “Only indirectly,” Bethid replied. “Mostly it requires him to fulfill his vows as a courier, and that I believe he will do.” She nodded at them both, heart lifting; it was a plan that could work. “We’ve an hour or more before sundown. Let me find Brodhi, talk to him, and then I’ll return to see Ilona safely through the night.”

  “Wait,” Jorda said as Bethid turned to depart. “Did you find your fellow couriers?”

  She paused. “Yes, they’re both well. Or will be, when the bumps and bruises heal.” Then her thoughts skipped ahead. She looked thoughtfully at Mikal. “We have plenty to do for months, I daresay, in rebuilding, planting, mapping—but what we were discussing before the storm is still an issue, providing the deepwood doesn’t surround us. Perhaps you might mention to Jorda what we talked about, with regard to Sancorra and the Hecari. After all, a karavan-master is in his own way a courier, and I know we can trust him. I suspect we may need him.”

  STANDING STIFFLY ATOP the ridge of stone free of soil, of creeping vine and cutting grass, Ellica set trembling hands to her head, fingers spread across the crown of her skull. Was it human, the scream? Did it issue from a human mouth? It was not the shrill, piercing cry of a child. It was an older voice.