Cordimancy (31 page)

Now it was Oji’s turn to sigh. “Another day, but not another time to face the general,” he said. He shook his head regretfully. “He never planned to bring ahu or children into town, I think. He had barges waiting on the other side, half a league below the ferry. They loaded up and launched two hours ago, at least.”

Toril’s mouth opened.

Paka looked back, scanning the expressions on his younger companions to confirm he’d heard right, then cursed softly.

Shivi eased her burden off and passed it to her husband. “We missed the children?” she surmised, scanning faces.

“We could catch them with horses,” Malena suggested, nodding at the pair that stood behind Paka.

Corim shook his head. “Below Two Forks, the road jogs back south, then east to Kapimu’s Crossing. It’s forty leagues before it meets the river again, while the water runs twenty. If I remember right, the current’s fast all the way there; the general will probably float past by noon.”

“One rider with two horses to spell each other could make it,” Malena said.

“And do what?” asked Shivi gently.

Malena bit her lip.

“We’re all exhausted,” Paka said. “Runnin’ on little food and less sleep, and we have no weapon to defeat all of Gorumim’s men plus the ahu. Even Oji couldn’t do that. Racing one person ahead doesn’t help a rescue.”

Toril sighed. “I can’t see any way to catch them as a group,” he said. “The river’s out, the road meanders, and cutting straight through is no short cut; Umora territory is hilly and thick with forest. If we miss them at Kapimu—and we will—it’s eight or nine days journey till we’re out on the lowlands, and maybe two more before the river’s close again. The horses will be spent long before that; we’ve already seen how five people can wear out a pair. Besides, once we reach the plains, Gorumim will be close enough to the capital to surround himself with as many troops as he likes.”

Nobody said anything.

Malena felt her eyes welling. Tupa was beyond her reach, and receding every moment. Was this her punishment for hiding like a coward in the stable, instead of confronting the mayhem in Noemi? Could The Five be that cruel?

“No!” she wanted to scream. But her tongue was bound.

Oji cleared his throat in the awkward silence.

“I bring good news, too,” he whispered. And then he turned around to reveal the bundle tied to his shoulders. Malena had assumed he was toting gear of some kind, but she found herself gazing at brown eyes, charcoal lashes, a young boy’s haunted, hungry expression.

She drew in her breath, reached out a finger to caress a bruised cheek.

Shivi, who had continued up the path, clapped her hands in delight. Oji chuckled in pleasure at her reaction and dabbed at his eyes.

Paka walked around Malena and began to unknot the papoose-style bindings that the warrior had used to sling the passenger behind his shoulders. “Who’s this?” he murmured, brightly, to the boy. “Do you have a name?”

The boy raised an arm and ducked, as if expecting a blow.

“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Shivi said, touching his fist with one of her fingers. “You’re safe. You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

She began stroking his hair, humming a quiet melody. Her fingers touched his eyebrows, then his jaw, then returned to his arm and fist.

The tension melted. The boy’s jutting lower lip stopped quivering. He sighed.

Paka lifted him off Oji’s shoulders and transferred him to his wife’s waiting arms. Shivi immediately sat down cross-legged in the dirt, and cradled the boy as she continued to sing. Malena had a sudden vision of Shivi as a much younger woman, doing this same thing with children of her own. She looked up and saw Paka gazing with adoration at his wife, and wished she could freeze that image in her memory forever.

“Where did you find him?” Malena asked.

“Across the river,” Oji said. “Hidden in the rushes where they loaded barges.”

“Seems a bit small to hide himself,” Paka observed. “Not long ago that he was crawling.”

“One of the older ones must have done it. He was so weak when I found him that I feared him dead. Someone was desperate.”

“He looks much better than that now.”

Oji looked embarrassed. “You will think I did a barbaric thing,” he said.

“What?” Paka asked.

Oji looked from face to face. “I felt a heartbeat,” he said, “but he didn’t even blink when Hika face-licked him. I was desperate. I had no food.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat.

Shivi looked up. “What did you do?” she asked, her voice devoid of censure.

Oji held up his thumb. The ball had been split—cut lengthwise by a slash of a knife. But it was not bloody. “I made him suck my thumb,” he said, his tone almost plaintive. “After I walked in aiki.”

The group considered this in silence. Malena was partly revolted; there was much similarity to blood magic in what the little warrior had done. Civilized people would never eat blood. And if she forced herself to be honest, she also had to admit there was a certain racial discomfort to it as well. It wasn’t human blood this child had swallowed. It was osipi blood. Yolk-sucker blood. Aiki blood.

And yet... And yet...

“It was the only way I thought of to save him,” Oji said, his eyes downcast.

Paka put his arm around the young warrior. “We knew it might cost blood to rescue the children,” he said softly. “Five grant that this’ll be the full tally.”

Malena watched Shivi’s fingers continue to glide as she rocked and sang. The toddler’s gaze fastened on the older woman. His bruise was receding; the split in his upper lip looked less swollen.

“How did you find him?”

“Hika. Your dog has a sixth sense. After Gorumim and his men left, I was going to hurry to bring you news, but she had to see one spot on the shore.”

Toril cleared his throat and swiped beneath an eyelid, and Malena realized that he was crying. In fact, come to think of it, he’d stood motionless—almost frozen—since the moment when Oji showed them what he’d brought. Dusk and shadow hid the moisture on his cheeks, but the expression of catharsis on his face was obvious. She heard him draw an uneven breath.

This was the man she’d been afraid to hug?

She touched his arm.

“It hasn’t all been a waste,” she whispered. “Whatever else happens, that much is true.”

He nodded.

“So what do we do with this little man?” Oji asked. “And what about the other children? I don’t see...” He trailed off, his face flooding with concern.

Hika whined.

“What is it?” Malena asked.

“I smell my people,” he whispered.

41

the rift ~ Toril

Toril
felt his face blanch.

“Where? How close?”

“Quiet!” Oji hissed. When he saw that he’d made his point, he puffed softly. “The breeze isn’t steady, but town is upwind. So somewhere between us and Two Forks, I guess. They won’t have smelled us, yet. And they’re not close. A few bowshots, anyway.”

Heads swiveled to study the road.

“If they search at random, they probably don’t know we’re here,” Oji continued. “But if they scout farther this way, they’ll see signs that we talked, and once they smell Malena and me and the dog together, they’ll know us.”

“I thought the ahu went downriver, to avoid being seen in town,” Malena whispered.

Toril heard a wobble in her voice. He reached out to touch her shoulder, hesitated, then dropped his hand.

“If I could sneak across, so could some of my clan brothers,” Oji said. “We know Gorumim wants
you
dead, especially. He couldn’t use ahu in town, but he could send them to seek you out here.”

Silence stretched out.

“Stand and fight?” Corim finally asked.

“No,” said Paka. “We can’t risk one of them runnin’ back to alert the others. And we have the child.”

Toril felt his eyes drawn to the staff he’d been holding. A swirl of amber was coalescing above his hand. He stared, then shook his head.

“We ride,” he said. “Malena and I. Corim takes the boy on the other horse. I don’t think they’ll attack Shivi and Paka. Oji can outrun them.”

Corim shook his head. “They won’t care about me. Besides, I live here, and the cart gives me a good cover story for being out late. I’ll walk my cart back and see if I can get them to challenge me. Maybe I can send them off in the wrong direction.”

“The boy needs food and rest and a safe bed,” Shivi murmured. She nodded at the toddler, who had fallen asleep in her arms. “Not a mad dash into the wilderness.”

More silence followed. Malena opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Toril reluctantly returned his eyes to the words glowing from the staff. They weren’t fading.

“Corim,” he said, “Could you care for the boy if we got him safely back to town?”

“Of course.”

“Pick a place where Oji can find you. Walk back like you said, then find a way to meet up with him. Oji will sneak past the scouts and carry the boy to wherever you need. The rest of us ride into the mountains.” Toril glanced at Oji. “Does that work?”

Oji nodded. “Is there an unknown path? I remember only one that leaves the main road. It is the path to the timber camps—and it fades quickly.”

Toril squared his shoulders and took a deep breath.

“Cut across,” he read aloud, feeling a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Was he really saying what he’d just heard?

Shivi stopped stroking the boy and looked up, her eyebrows raised.

Paka coughed. “Across the
Blood Rift
?”

Toril nodded.

“That’s crazy talk,” Corim said. “You can’t go that way.”

“Nobody’s gone deep into the Rift and lived to tell about it in a thousand years,” Shivi added. Her voice was husky.

Oji cocked his head sideways, eyebrows furrowed.

“It’s the only way to catch Gorumim,” Toril said, his mouth working reluctantly. “He’s got hours of head start on the river. Even if we find a boat ourselves, we still can’t catch him before he reaches the capital, where he’s at his strongest and we know nobody. If we follow over land, we fall farther behind. But if we cross the Rift, we have less than thirty leagues to cover while the river runs two hundred.”

“Thirty leagues that can’t be navigated,” Corim said. “They say you lose all sense of direction. Can’t tell night from day. That you wander until you die of hunger or thirst, or until the
pishachas
take you.”

“The Rift is fruit of the most evil magic,” Shivi said. “A darkness broods there, and the vapors never lift. I saw the edge once, from a distance, when I was a girl. I have never forgotten.”

An awkward silence descended.

“Least the ahu wouldn’t follow, sweetheart,” Paka said. When Shivi glared at him, he chuckled darkly and shrugged.

Nobody felt like commenting.

Toril sighed and nodded to his staff. “When I took this, I saw writing. Glyphs that swirled and glowed with some sort of magical light. I pointed them out to my father; he couldn’t see anything. When we found the rock sign coming out of the valley, I saw words again—‘
Choose another path
’. That’s why I put us in the river.”

Paka eyed him.

Malena studied his face. “And now?”

“I don’t suppose you see anything?” Toril asked, without hope. At shaking heads, he shrugged. “It says to cross.”

The distant hoot of an owl broke the nervous hush. Oji glanced up. “I think that bird has feet, not wings,” he hissed. “The path we take, we need to choose quickly.”

Malena lifted her chin. She looked at Toril. “Whatever the Rift holds, it cannot be worse than what the children are facing. I will go.”

Paka searched Malena’s face, then Toril’s. Then he reached out and stroked his wife’s shoulder lightly. “I never had the chance to be brave for the woman I love,” he said softly. “Now seems like as good a time as any.”

Hours
later, Toril jerked awake as the steady gait of the horse tapered off. He yawned, feeling the muscles in his neck tremble, and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Why was the horse stopping?

The air was chilled and thin, but weariness clung like an overpowering fog, fuzzing his thoughts.

Malena’s shoulders straightened in front of him; she was rousing.

All was quiet.

His eyelids began to droop again…

Last night he’d floated a river. Before that, it had been rapid marches, a fight with wolves, a midnight ordeal of names... How had he endured it? Before that, back-to-back all-night rides. In between, moments of battle and recrimination and ceaseless worry. He remembered being anxious as he mounted the horse and left Two Forks behind—afraid of pursuit. But they’d seen nothing, heard nothing. And sleep was so insistent…

Again he shook his head, and forced himself to look around.

The moon was up, casting shadows. Trees were sparse and stunted; they must be near the timberline.

Behind, the horse carrying Paka and Shivi plodded to a stop as well. The older couple both slumped, chins on chests.

“Stonecaster!” hissed a voice to one side of the trail.

Malena twitched in surprise.

Toril blinked as clarity seeped back, then sighed with relief.

“You made it,” he said.

“Of course,” Oji said, sounding a bit breathless. “But it’s been a long, long run, and I’m a bit footsore.”

Shivi stirred. “How is the little one?” she rasped.

“I left him safe, back at the house of the stonecaster’s friend. He’s sound asleep. I thought maybe Hika would come here, with us, but she stayed behind to guard him. You should have heard her growl when those big dogs trotted over for a sniff. They backed off quick. She’s found herself a new little man.” There was laughter in Oji’s voice.

Toril smiled at the thought.

Malena shifted, probably trying to alleviate the same backache and sore thighs that Toril felt. “Any idea whether the ahu are following?” she asked.

“They’re following,” Oji said. “Hika made noise as I ran through the woods, and Corim and his cart were also loud. I think it distracted them, at first. But the scouts must have found where we met, because I saw them run back to town to report. Maybe they were sending a message by shimsal. That gave you a bit of a lead. Not much, though. When I snuck past them half an hour ago, they were near the stream.”

Toril felt his heart quicken. He vaguely remembered splashing a while back. Had the moon been out then?

“We must be getting close,” he said, a yawn slurring the end of his words despite his unease.

“We’re here,” Oji responded. He gestured.

Toril realized that the massive boulder beside his friend had contours too straight to be natural. He squinted. Were those glyphs carved on the rock’s face?

“I don’t know the symbols,” said Oji, “but I guess this marks where the ancient road forked.” He kicked at the ground with his foot. “I think these must be paving stones. They north-run, toward the wall.”

“Wall?” Malena said.

Toril swiveled and squinted again. A band of gray stretched between two cliffs, out beyond the trees. The ground between shone barren and lifeless in the moonlight.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Was he actually going to go through with this?

Without warning, Oji flickered sideways—a movement too fast for the eye to follow. The shaft of an arrow shattered against the rock where he’d been standing.

“Run!” he shouted, as he blurred toward the trees behind Paka and Shivi’s horse. “I’ll try to slow them.”

For a moment, Toril sat transfixed, his mind sluggish. Then Shivi and Paka surged past, and he understood. He slapped the horse hard on the rump and dug with his heels. Without spurs, it was the best he could do.

The horse lurched forward, muscles rolling. Riding bareback, the motion almost unseated both of them—but Malena hunched down and grabbed fistfuls of mane, and Toril tightened his knees and clung to her waist. Somehow, they stayed upright.

“Go!” he heard Malena gasp in the horse’s flattened ear. “Go!” Her fear was palpable.

Something hummed overhead. He heard a thunk on the ground between the pounding rhythm of haunches and lungs. Arrows. Were the ahu firing as they ran? How much would that hurt their accuracy?

They picked up speed. The other horse was a mottle of shadow off Malena’s shoulder. He felt gravel strike his forehead, thrown by flying hooves.

A blood-curdling cry floated out of the darkness behind them.

Could an osipi really out-sprint a horse? How about one that was tired, and that carried two riders? Should he prepare to fight?

More arrows. He longed to look back, but his balance was too fragile. A bush flashed by. Boulders. Shadows.

Ahead, the wall now stretched into darkness on either side. Instead of standing solid, it seemed to writhe in the moonlight, and he realized with dread that it consisted not of stone or brick, but of billowing haze. He’d half-expected a gate or portal of some kind, but there was nothing—just faceless emptiness. Despite the danger behind, he felt his skin crawl. Were they fleeing into something worse?

Their horse faltered, then dropped into a canter and arced right, wanting to parallel the unnatural border.

Toril cursed and yanked on the reins, but the horse continued to shy. Beside them, Shivi and Paka were having similar trouble.

So close! Another twenty or thirty paces…

Malena bent to the horse’s ear, but it shook its head and balked.

Toril threw himself to the ground, stumbling and twisting an ankle as he landed. He hadn’t remembered he was clutching his staff; it clattered out of his hands.

A handful of shapes sped toward them across the rockscape as he stooped to pick it up. He saw one, moving impossibly fast, swerve to intersect the others.

Heart pounding, he whirled and prodded the horse. It reared.

Malena cried out. He caught her as she half-vaulted, half-fell into his arms.

An arrow slapped into the shoulder of the older couple’s horse. It screamed in pain, then plunged toward the mist, apparently now clear about which danger it preferred.

Toril felt pain blossom at his ribs. He sensed a shaft impeding the motion of his arm, but there was no time to look.

He grabbed his wife’s hand and ran.

Two
steps in, the darkness swallowed the moon and muffled the sounds at their backs. In four, Toril could no longer see Malena beside him. In twenty, they stumbled into the horse. It flinched; a hoof whistled past Toril’s ear.

He reached out a hand and stroked its flank. It was breathing hard, and quivering.

“That you, Toril?” came Paka’s voice. He sounded far away, distorted.

“Yes.” Toril felt along the horse until his hand touched a knee. “Malena’s with me.” He inhaled carefully, wincing at the pinch in his side. His lungs worked, although the atmosphere was laden with both the acridness of smoke and the must and moisture of fog; it was like a tangible breath of decay. The arrow was no longer in his wound; perhaps it had broken off or fallen out as he ran. Was that a trickle of blood itching at his waistband?

A clatter and muffled curse sounded nearby. He felt Malena startle. Without releasing his hand, she grabbed his shoulder as well.

Shivi coughed.

The same distortion that gave Paka’s voice such an odd timbre made the noise hard to locate. Toril breathed as much as the fumes permitted.

“Oji?”