The Fire Sisters (Brilliant Darkness 3) (4 page)

“What do you mean?” Bear asks. "What do they do?"

“I don’t understand how it works. Just… don’t let them touch you.”

My shoulders twitch. 
As if taking our children wasn’t bad enough. E
very time I learn something new about the Sisters, they sound more sinister. Is this control thing how they kept the children silent? How do they do it?

We continue on the path, moving past the Myuna. At first, the stream we follow seems to be winding back toward the hills that Koolkuna is settled against, but then it turns away, heading in what feels like a slight downhill direction. I’ve been this way before, weeks and weeks ago, with Kadee.

The soft creaking of branches and the twittering of birds on either side tells me that trees line the path. After a few minutes, the air around us brightens as if we’ve entered a clearing.

Bear asks, “What
is
this place?”

“The remains of a village.” Amarina's high voice takes flight. “It has not been inhabited in many generations, but we can guess what some of the structures were used for. Those were homes. That was a kind of meeting place.”

“One of them is full of old books. Kadee said it’s called a library.” I can easily recall the musty, mysterious odor of the place. It swallowed the sound from outside, making it as still and peaceful as the caves at home. I’ve been meaning to ask her to bring me back here, but I haven’t had a chance.

“Books?” Conda says.

“They’re full of stories and information. You can read them, if you learn how to.”
Most
people, anyway.

Bear whistles. “I can’t believe this place hasn’t collapsed yet. It had to have been here at least since the fleshies came.”

“The forest is doing its best to reclaim it,” Amarina agrees.

I hope that’s not true.

We leave the silent reminder of our world’s past behind. The stream continues to guide us, but it sounds as if it’s shrinking. The water has started to trickle instead of rush. We follow it for a time before it takes a sharp left. A
 damp, earthy smell fills the air, and
trees close in on either side of us. W
e’re plunged into darkness.

We must be on the hunting trail. It’s narrower and bumpier than the wide path. Rocks and roots jump in front of my feet, tripping me and twisting my ankles. Even with my hand in Peree’s, I have to slow down. As the group stretches out along the trail, we end up in the back.

The forest muffles our voices. No one speaks much anyway; we’re all listening for the Sisters and the children now. The forest feels like it’s watching us—I’m glad I’m not alone out here.

“Peree, can you come up front?” Kai says. “We’re losing the light, and we need to watch for signs of the Sisters. I know how good your eyes are from when we’ve shot together.”

My eyebrow darts up. It’s not
what
Kai said—Peree does have good eyesight and probably should be up front—it’s
how
she said it. She's definitely flirting.

Peree shifts his hand around mine, but he doesn’t release it.

“Go ahead,” I say.

“Come with me?” he whispers.

“So I can help look for the Sisters?” I joke. “Go. We can’t stay together every second.”

“Call me if you need me," he says, sounding reluctant. He walks to the front of the group, his pack or bow thumping with each step.

As soon as he’s gone, my ankle turns on a rock, and I stumble and sigh. Not only can I not watch for the Sisters, I can’t even watch where I’m going. I take a long breath, determined not to get frustrated. I knew this wouldn’t be easy.

Trouble is, I don’t know an inch of this forest. At home, the paths and walkways, the copses of trees and clearings, and the ebb and flow of the ground were as familiar as the contours of my own body. I avoided most hazards, if not with ease, then at least without a lot of thought.

Here, every solid tree trunk, low-hanging branch, ankle-biting root, and clawing bush will be lying in wait for me. My prediction? I’ll be sweaty, sore, and bleeding from at least three places in no time.

I finger Aloe’s cane, trying to remember the long-ago day when she taught
me
to use one. That was before Rabbit made fun of me for whacking Calli with it by accident, and I refused to touch the thing again.

Aloe placed both of our hands on the shaft of the cane, sliding and tapping it in front of us. I practice now, sweeping the stick and paying attention to what I can feel and hear with it: the thump when it hits a nearby tree stump, the swishing sound of a clump of vegetation, the push of the ground as it rises and falls in front of me.

I run into all kinds of problems at first, from dropping the stick to stumbling painfully into missed obstacles, but I start to get the hang of it. And to my surprise, I like it. The stick helps me move faster and gives me unexpected confidence. I might hate depending on it, but I’d detest
 
relying on other people to guide me the entire time.

I realize someone is walking beside me now. Amarina, I think, from the light footsteps.

“It might be easier when we reach the river Restless,” she says. “More open ground there.”

I smile. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that.”

She doesn’t rush to assure me how great I’m doing, like some might. I appreciate compliments when I deserve them, but the number of times I’ve stumbled, tripped, and run into things doesn’t exactly qualify me for a lot of praise. I’m collecting bruises as if they’re things of value. I like Amarina already for her silent honesty.

“I remember you from when I was in Koolkuna before,” I say. "The garden.” In fact, she still smells of soil and something like sweet basil. Maybe tending the plants is her responsibility when she’s not tracking or hunting. “And didn’t we hang laundry together, too?”

“You didn’t look like you were very fond of being in the trees.”

“I wasn’t,” I admit. “I’d rather be tripping around down here than sick to my stomach up there.”

“I didn’t care for being in the trees when I was a girl, but I learned to appreciate them.”

I pause to tug the tip of the stick out of a patch of soft ground where I accidentally stuck it. “How?”

“I was trapped by a group of
runa
once.”

Runa
is the
anuna’s
word for the sick ones. It’s an indication of the direness of our situation that no one has even mentioned what we’ll do when our sacks of pure water from the Myuna runs out, and we have to drink the poisoned water. I’m not going to worry about it now, either.

“They were starving," she says, "and I was small and frightened. I didn’t have a weapon with me, and I’d been taught never to use one against the
runa
if I could help it.”

“What did you do?”

“I climbed a tree and screamed. Very loud.” We both laugh. “My brother found me. He chased them away and brought me home. But I learned to like the treetops after that, and to carry a knife or spear. I was teaching my own daughter to be comfortable with weapons so she could defend herself against the
runa
.”

“Your daughter… was she… is she . . .?”

“The Fire Sisters took her, with the other children.” She tells me this in a matter-of-fact tone. “Her name is Ellin, and she is seven years old. Her name means
to move
. She never stopped wiggling inside of me… or outside of me, either.” She pauses. “I will find her. I won’t stop looking until I do.”

It’s not only matter-of-factness I hear in Amarina’s voice. There’s pure determination, too. My instinct is to reassure her we’ll find the children and bring them home, but from our short conversation, I can already tell she won’t appreciate lies to make her feel better.

“I’ll do my best to help,” I say instead.

“Hold up,” Peree calls from ahead. “Don’t move.”

I stop to listen. Is it the Sisters? There’s no breeze this evening, and the sun is almost completely gone now, thrusting the forest into gloom. 
The trees seem to hold their breath.

“What?” Moray asks.

“A footprint,” Kai says. “Too small to be an adult’s. Watch where you walk; there may be others.”

Amarina moves ahead, probably to see the track. I step to the side, then stay where I am, afraid I’ll step on something important.

“It does look like the footprint of a
guru
,” Amarina agrees. “And here’s another.”

The others spread out around me, their feet rustling. I needn’t have bothered being cautious. The one set of prints is all they find. If it had been the Sisters and the children, there should have been more, shouldn’t there?

“Maybe one of the children got away,” Conda says.

“It might have been a wanderer,” Derain says. “They come our way, although not often.”

Something moves through the dark wall of trees behind me. A sudden stench wrinkles my nose—beyond unwashed, it’s putrid. Panting and a few low groans come to my ears. I scramble forward, away from the forest.

The sick ones are coming.

The others must see or hear them, too, because the group constricts, huddling together on the trail. Our collective breathing quickens. Peree pushes in behind me and lays a hand on my shoulder; I barely catch his distinctive scent under the carrion odor of the sick ones.

“How many?” I ask.

“A lot. More than us,” he answers.

“What are they doing?”

“Looking foul and smelling worse,” Moray says from my right.

There’s bravado in his words, but revulsion crawls through his voice. Every Groundling was raised to fear the Scourge. This may be the first time he's seen the sick ones since coming to Koolkuna and drinking the pure water. At least we all should still be protected.

“Let’s take a few out, boys.” They shift around, probably to get in a better position to wield their spears.

“No.” Derain is quiet but firm. “We do not kill the
runa
unless we have no other choice.”

“The fleshies are surrounding us. That’s them giving us no choice,” Moray says.

“They are not threatening us. They are hungry,” Amarina says. “We can each spare a little food for them.”

“I’m not giving them my
food
,” Cuda says.

I feel for the brothers in a way. Feeding the Scourge still feels bizarre and wrong on some basic level, but it’s no longer new to me. I’ve fed them several times now.

I shrug my pack off. “I will.”

“Put your spear down, Moray,” Peree says. “You don’t need it. Look—they’re just standing there. They aren’t attacking us.”

“So we… what? Feed ‘em and hope they go away? No way,” Moray says. “I don’t care if I changed or they changed or the whole damn world changed, a fleshie’s still a fleshie as far as I’m concerned.”

He grunts, and a moment later, there’s a wet-sounding impact. One of the sick ones screams. Cuda or Conda must have thrown his spear, too, because another sick one wails right after the first. The other creatures cry out.

“Do… not… hurt… us,” a feeble female voice says from a few paces away. “We… will… go.”

I grimace. As always, hearing them speak drives home how human they still must be. I yank out my food bag and step toward them.

“Fenn, that’s too close! Come back.” Panic strangles Bear’s voice.

“I’m fine."

I hold out a loaf of bread to the sick ones. Their fetor at this distance is almost unbearable. How can they live like this? Can they live any
other
way? The bread is taken, delicately, from my hand.

“I’m sorry it’s not more,” I say.

“I don’t believe this,” Cuda mutters.

Amarina speaks from beside me. “Remember that your meat must be cooked. You will become ill if it is not.”

Kadee told us the sick ones eat raw meat—including human flesh if they’re desperate—because the poison causes them to lose the ability to care for themselves. Can they even start a cooking fire? Do they remember that vital skill?

Someone else moves to my other side. I assume it’s Peree or Derain, but when she speaks, murmuring to the sick ones, I realize it’s Kai.

I turn to her, curious.

“What?” she asks me. It’s a challenge, not a question.

I go back to the group, and Amarina and Kai follow a minute later.

The sick ones tear noisily into the bread and meat. If they notice or care about the dying of their number, I don’t hear any sign of it. They don’t move to attack us, either, something that must be confounding the brothers. The rest of us, at least, have experienced it before.

What we gave the sick ones couldn’t be enough to feed a large group of them. Where will they find more food? Where will they spend the night? How do they really live? Fear and pity tangle in my gut.

“Will they go soon?” Bear still sounds shaken.

“They would have gone if we had asked them to,” Derain says. “
Lorinyas,
in Koolkuna, we do not kill the
runa
unless we must, as I told you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time one is chasing
you
down,” Moray says. “Let’s go get our spears, Cuda.”

There’s a repugnant tearing sound and another moan before the brothers return. We back away and hurry down the night-draped trail, leaving the sick ones behind.

I refill my water sack and throw down my bedroll. Peree lays his out beside me; I catch the familiar scent of our home as he spreads it out. Groping around in my sack of food, I find more dried meat and hard bread. Not appetizing, but edible. I take a few bites, a couple of long drinks of water, and slip inside the folds of my bedroll. Even though I haven’t had a full meal today, I don’t have much appetite.

I’m not crazy about the idea of sleeping beside the stream. Running water, even a small brook like this one, is noisy. The water jabbers, changing constantly, like it’s having a private conversation of its own. Or like it’s whispering. Maybe talking about us. The longer I listen, the more sinister it sounds. 
I can’t hear much else over it.