The Gatherer (Brilliant Darkness 2.5) (2 page)

I laugh. "You are not the first to think so."

The pale paint makes us seem bloodless, like corpses, and thus fearsome, which doesn't hurt our purposes.

"Wirrim sometimes tells us stories about ghosts around the fire in the
allawah
at night." Her voice swoops, swallow-like, as if she might cry.

"Tell me your favorite," I say to distract her. "The Sisters are fond of stories."

"I don't want to."

That she is able to defy me, even in a small way, is a testament to her mettle. After a minute, her voice steadies.

"Where did that feather come from?” she asks. “I've never seen one so bright."

"You will see more soon. We keep a cage of colorful birds in the Cloister. The Sisters all wear one of their feathers to remind us of our shared history."

I tell her the story of the bird whose bright feather became a spear, giving my Sisters of long ago the weapon they needed to fight the tyranny and cruelty of men. Our mothers established the Cloister, vowing never to be controlled by others again, and my Sisters and I maintain that vow. The Teachers will be pleased that I began the education of this one early.

The story ends, and I listen to the child breathe in the silence, broken only by the low calls of the owls. When the moon is almost above us, she asks the questions I've been expecting.

"Why did you take me away?"

I glance at her. Her features are murky in the dark, but a bit of starlight is reflected in her eyes.

"Because we need you."

"What for?"

"To grow powerful and strong like a Fire Sister."

I hear her sniffle. She must feel anything but powerful right now.

"When can I go home to Koolkuna?" she asks.

Her question is simple. The answer is, too. Why do I hesitate to tell her?

"You will not return."

If I did not hear her quiet gasps, I would not know she was crying.

Silently, I slice my ropes, abandoning them to the tree branch. I dip the tip of my knife into the pouch of venom, crouch beside the girl’s head, cover her mouth, and carefully sting her neck again.

Her eyes fly open with the pain. I would not sting her if I did not have to, but I cannot risk her crying out or alerting our pursuers that we are here. For pursuers they must be.

"Follow," I whisper.

I shoulder my pack and begin picking my way across the tree branches, making as little noise as possible. She trails me, as she was told, although she's not as careful when placing her feet. I take her hand to lead her, cautioning her to be quiet.

A slice of thin, waxy moonlight reveals enough of the treetops for us to make progress, but only slivers of light slip through to the ground. These men likely aren't accustomed to traveling at night; they cannot possibly move as fast as we.

Still, I am cross. I do not know how they tracked me from the ground—few can. But they are here now, and I must find a way to keep them behind us.

I tug the girl quickly through the branches, sometimes pulling her onto my back. It is dark, and a few of the gaps are wider than I'm comfortable with, but I have no other choice. The men cannot be allowed to overtake us.

From time to time I hear them, well behind us now. Once, in a stronger shaft of light, I see them. Three men from the village, armed with bows and spears. One has the same black hair and easy athleticism as the girl. He slashes through the undergrowth with a wickedly curved knife. Is this her father? I have heard men don't give up their possessions easily.

Mid-dark falls. We're enough ahead of our pursuers that I no longer hear them, but the forest is thinning as it approaches the Restless, and finding pathways through the branches has become increasingly difficult.

The water gibbers ahead, yet we cannot reach it. I don't dare move to the ground with the men nearby. We must wait them out. With any luck, they'll think we've gone on along the river. I can watch where they go and then take a different route.

I find the saddle of a tree wide enough to rest comfortably in and with thick vegetation to conceal the girl and me. Settling onto my heels, I pat the space and whisper to her to sit. We wait.

The moon skates too slowly across the sky. Finally a mockingbird calls, then another, and another. Water birds squawk. Frogs discuss the dawn. And leaving no doubt where
they
are, the three men crash noisily toward us.

They stop to confer, sounding like chittering ground animals. I could have searched the river and been back again in the amount of time they take.

The people of Koolkuna speak the common tongue, but they also share another language—rare but not unheard of in the more remote parts of the land. The Teachers speculated that these communities spoke both languages before the Fall of Civilization many years ago. When they scattered, driven into the wilds by the initial, deadly waves of wailers, they brought both with them.

I glance at the girl in the early light. Recognition burns in her eyes as she listens to the men speak. She will learn that to be a daughter of the Fire Sisters is an honor, a privilege. That is what we give the girls: pride in being a warrior, pride in being a woman. It is a gift.

The men finally slink off toward the river, disappearing into the black. They move methodically back and forth between the trees and the Restless, searching. We stay in place. The girl falls asleep. I pull a blanket from my pack and wrap it around her, tucking the ends under her body.

Fog drifts over the hill from the Restless, like the great banks of billowing clouds that steal up the mountainside from the Shivering Sea to the Cloister in the winter. The moisture sizzles when it reaches the Eternal Flames, the wall of undying fire that protects one end of our home.

The men find nothing, of course. They settle a distance away from where we perch, and eventually they are quiet, probably asleep.
Fools
. They should flush us out while they can.

I rouse the girl, whispering to her. We sit, ready to slip down to the branch below. But before we can escape, one of the men speaks in the common tongue. His voice comes from a distance, sounding plaintive, almost unearthly. He seems to speak to the mist. I shiver.

"Daughter, I hope you are near and can hear me.” His voice wavers, as the girl’s did earlier. “I miss you.”

She freezes beside me.

The emotion in his words surprises me. He does not sound angry to have lost a possession. He sounds lonely, bereft, frightened.

"If you can hear me, Kaiya, if you are listening, I will not stop looking until I find you. I love you."

Tears drip down the girl's dirty cheeks now, leaving reflective trails of the moon. I watch, strangely fascinated. I have not shed tears since I was a young girl, living in fear of the Teachers, before I understood the power they offered me.

Her muscles are rigid. It's clear from her face she wants to go to him. I bite my lip.

Can a man truly love his daughter?
No
. It's not possible. Our Teachers taught us men have few feelings, and those they do have are reserved for themselves, not others.

My eyes narrow. It must be a trick. This man is clever, cunning, deceptive. He hopes to turn my thoughts away from my duty. He preys on what he believes are my feminine weaknesses: sympathy and compassion.

Has he not heard of the power of the sting and the invincibility of the Fire Sisters? If not, then he will learn.

I bid the child to follow as I steal from branch to branch to the ground and into the swirling mist, away from the forest and away from this dangerous man.

She follows without prompting, her dark hair stark against the chalky mist. Her nose runs and her cheeks are streaked with tears, but her expression is blank once more. The sting is at work.

I hear no sounds of a chase, so after a while I stop listening behind me, instead casting my senses ahead into the shifting haze. The ground is muddy and uneven, difficult to maneuver in the low light. T
he girl slips and slides behind me, 
yet I have no trouble keeping my feet. 

When Adar and I were old enough and skilled enough to leave the children's compound, we went to live with a few other Initiates under the tutelage of Grimma, the Cloister's legendary training mistress. She helped perfect our prowess in combat and taught us ways of moving stealthily through the trees. The Sisters are phantoms of the forest, she would tell us. I took her training to heart.

Male voices and the sound of a woman crying echo ahead. I pause to listen, holding the girl close behind me.

"Shut
up
," one of the men says. "If there
is
any game out here, we aren't gonna hear it over your racket."

"And if we don't eat today, you don't eat today," a second man says. "You were supposed to do our cooking and washing and keep us warm at night. Instead all you do is snivel and cry. Waste of flesh."

A slap rings out, but it doesn't stop the howling. My teeth clench. I have encountered men who sound like these before. They are often wanderers with no home—and no purpose.

I tell the girl to sit inside the protective curls of fog where we stand. "Remain here, and be silent."

Dipping the point of my blade in the venom sack, I slide closer.

"Stop that noise!" Disgust taints the second man’s voice. "You kick off more than the moaners! Make us some breakfast, woman, and if you cry in it, you're gonna regret it."

The mist thins suddenly, enough for me to see the three clearly . . . and for them to see me.

Alarm seizes the two men’s faces as they scramble for their weapons—a stout club for each. They are bony, dirty, and in threadbare clothes. One is small enough to be mistaken for a child. He squints at me as if nearsighted and backs away a few feet. The taller one shoots a questioning glance at the other but does not budge. His grip tightens on his club. He is missing the thumb on that hand; it will make his swing weaker.

The woman shrinks away from all of us. Her hair—loose and long, brown and bedraggled—droops around her face. Her pale flesh is a map of bruises.

"What do you want?" The thumbless man sneers. His teeth are blackened.

"Let the woman go." I flick the venom-wet tip of my knife toward her, allowing him a good look at my weapon and how I handle it.

"She's ours," he says.

The small man hisses and tugs on the other’s sleeve. He is ignored.

I hold my blade loosely, but if my stare were a spear, the thumbless one would be missing his eyes by now. I tamp down my fury.

"Women do not belong to men," I say, "any more than the sun belongs to the inferior moon."

"
This
one does.” He steps over and grabs the woman by the hair. As he does, his gaze finally falls where all men’s eventually do: my body. His tongue snakes out of his mouth, licking cracked and bleeding lips. "And you will, too, sweeting."

The small man yanks desperately on the other man's arm now. Sweat beads on his brow. "Don't you know that paint and the colored feather, cocklebrain? She's a
Fire Sister
."

The other’s eyes fly open as he takes me in again. His maimed hand twitches uncertainly.

"We didn't know she was one of yours," the little one says to me, his voice respectful. His head dips low.

"Weren't worth a loaf anyway," the tall one mutters.

"She is not my Sister," I say. "But she is a woman, which makes her more valuable than both of you together. Now release her and drop your weapons."

The little man complies instantly. Frowning, his partner follows after a moment. They huddle together, eyes on me. I sidle closer.

"What are you gonna do?" the small one asks breathlessly. His eyes skitter everywhere except to my knife.

Let them be afraid for their worthless lives.

Gripping the taller man's shoulder, I bring the blade to his neck. I only mean to sting him so he cannot follow the girl and me, but the dullard lashes out, knocking my hand away. He pushes me hard, and I stumble back.

The small man loses no time sprinting into the forest; the thumbless one scrambles for his club. He swings it wildly at me as the woman shrieks and crawls away. It might be the last thing he ever does.

I spin under his arm, drop to one knee, and knock his feet neatly out from under him. He falls on his back, and I pounce, jabbing my blade into the vein at his neck with practiced precision.

His body becomes rigid. Hovering over him, I hold his frightened gaze. Does he see
me
now? Me. A Fire Sister. Powerful, indomitable. Not a piece of flesh he can use or discard at his pleasure.

When I'm sure he does, I stand. The sting keeps him still. The woman abruptly stops her noise, and the little man is gone into the mist-wrapped trees.

"Sit there," I tell my victim, pointing to a nearby trunk. "Don't move until dawn tomorrow."

Let
his
belly be empty and see how it feels. Let
him
fear who or what may find him here, unable to move. The corners of my mouth lift as I think of him soiling himself, listening for wailers while the sun and moon take their leisurely strolls across the sky. The man's face contorts with fear, but he crawls to the tree without hesitation.

I turn to the woman, who flinches.

"Go where you will," I say gently.

Breathing hard, eyes still sparking with fear, she scuttles away. If she had shown the slightest hint of courage, I might have taken her with me to the Cloister. But it would have been cruel; this one was no Sister. She would have been sent away again in a matter of weeks. Perhaps she has people nearby she can join. At least she is free from
this
 filth.