The Tinkerer's Daughter (13 page)

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Robie’s father was going to do all that, just to get me out? I was shocked just to learn that he was on my side. I glanced at Analyn and she shot me a wink.

The offer was too much to refuse, even for the sheriff. He settled into his chair and shook his head. He looked at me. “You better be worth all this trouble, girl.”

A short while later Shem called his deputy into the building and told him to fetch us some food. When he returned, the peacekeeper sent everyone home. “I’ll take the night watch, Wil,” he said.

“Are you sure? I can handle her.” The deputy was anxious to prove himself.

“Not this time. I need you up bright and early for crowd control.”

“Yes, sir.”

I had a lot of time to think things over that afternoon, and I had a lot to think about. After listening to Analyn’s conversation with Peacekeeper Shem, I began to realize just how dire my situation was. I’d known that I might be killed, of course. I had just refused to believe it. I kept telling myself that deep down inside, everyone is a good person. After hearing Analyn’s description of Judge Brooks, I had to wonder. Could a person really be that soulless and mean? Would he sentence me to die just because I was Tal’mar?

Who was I kidding? Half the people in town were ready to do that. They had asked Shem to hang me. They had yelled at me and threatened me. They didn’t even know me. Tinker had been right about the way they would treat me; the way they would hate me. They didn’t have any justifiable reason for any of it. Something bad had happened, and it was easier to blame me than it was to find out what was really going on.

I remembered the way Analyn had acted the first time she saw my ears. This was not that different. Except that she had thought about it, and then apologized. If the townsfolk got their way, I wouldn’t be alive to accept any apologies later.

After deputy Wil went home, darkness fell across the town and I started to feel anxious. About an hour later, I heard a knock on the door. I remember thinking that it was too early for Analyn to be back. Shem opened the door and Deputy Wil burst in.

“We’re under attack,” he said.

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“It’s the Kanters. They came up the river in flatboats and they’re burning and killing everything in their path!”

“Kanters? Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. There’s a steady stream of evacuees coming into town right now. They’re all raving about tattooed giants.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would the Kanters be attacking us? They don’t even have the brains to build a fence, much less a boat…”

“Maybe they’re smarter than we thought.”

“How long till they get here?”

“Two hours. Maybe less.”

“Sound the alarm. We need every able-bodied man we can find.” Shem shot me a glance and then disappeared out the door.

I had read about Kanters, and I should have recognized the one I had seen staring through my window for what he was. I could have kicked myself as I realized it now. There may have been a small party of them that came in advance of the attack. They probably grouped up and camped near the Coopers’ farm. That was why they slaughtered the cow.

I shuddered as I thought of that night. What if Tinker had gone out there? What if he’d gone after the man, only to find a giant waiting for him? Surely we would have both died that night.

It seemed that the humans had underestimated the Kanters. According to everything I’d read about them, they weren’t smart enough to make the simplest of weapons. Apparently they were smarter than they’d been given credit. Perhaps they’d just been waiting for the right time. The Kanters must have been planning this for a long time, I realized. I wondered how many more wells had been poisoned ahead of their advance.

As I sat there in my cell, it slowly dawned on me how much danger I might be in. Locked in there and alone, I was a sitting duck. If the Kanters broke through the town’s defenses, it would only be a matter of time until they found me. Unless I got lucky and the building caught fire. Then I’d just be burned alive. From what I’d read, that was better than being captured by the Kanters.

The history books had claimed the Kanters were cannibals. I’d taken that with a grain of salt, until now. I had seen the scout. I had seen his teeth.

Another thought occurred to me as all this flashed through my mind. The Kanters knew about our valley. If they were working north, they would almost certainly go there to steal supplies. If they found Tinker, the Kanters would kill him… and possibly eat him. I felt panic rising inside me.

I settled down on the cot and tried to calm myself. If I was going to get out of there, I’d need to use my head. I took a deep breath and surveyed my surroundings. At first glance, the jail seemed very well built. The outside walls were stone and the roof was timber. The two cells were iron cages that extended into the walls and floor, making it impossible to move or detach individual bars.

Fortunately, I had a unique ability that allowed me to find and exploit weaknesses no human would ever see. I steadied my breathing and then reached out with my mind, using my powers to study the cage around me. The iron bars extended into the stone in the back wall, but they were only secured by bolts on the outside of the building. There were no bars inside the stone.

I also learned that though the back wall was built of stone, it was constructed around a timber frame. I suspected that if I could cause the timbers to warp enough, they just might break the stones loose.

I closed my eyes and went into a meditative state. In my mind’s eye, I reached out to the wood. I touched it, felt it, and examined it. There was very little moisture inside the wall. That was going to make it harder. I decided that my best chance was to cause the timbers to pull away from each other, straining against the masonry. In that manner, the aging structure might give.

I pushed and pulled, warping the boards out in both directions. I heard the timbers creaking, and cracking sounds came from the wall. I opened my eyes and stepped back, and saw that the wall was actually moving. It seemed to be ready to topple, but it wasn’t clear which way it might fall. If it fell into the jail, I would be crushed!

I closed my eyes again, and forced myself to concentrate. There was one post at the center of the wall. I compressed the outside layer of fibers, causing it to bend outward. I was trying to use gravity to help pull at the weight of the wall, to make sure it would topple outward. It moved slightly in that direction, but not far enough.

I ran up to it and pushed, straining against the cold stone with everything I had. It didn’t budge. I was about to give up, when I heard a loud groan inside, and it started to move. The timbers and posts inside the wall snapped like old dry toothpicks as the entire wall collapsed into the street.

I caught a few perplexed looks as I crawled over the rubble, but everyone was too busy to take much note of me. The women were gathering up their children and running for the safety of their homes. Unorganized groups of men were racing towards the edge of town carrying rusted old swords and muskets. I joined them, hoping they would be too distracted to realize who I was. I guess the last thing they were looking for was a Tal’mar, because no one even gave me a second glance.

When I reached the edge of town I saw that they had formed a defensive line at the river. The stronger men were busy piling stones and logs along the river banks to build a defensible wall. The younger boys were frantically loading muskets and getting the weapons ready for battle. I saw Robie there, and paused for a moment to watch him.

He took one of Tinker’s small explosive balls and jammed it down the barrel of a musket. Then he grabbed a metal ball and jammed it down on top. He used a long wooden rod to hammer them tightly into place. Then he set the gun aside and started loading another. That was when he saw me.

“Breeze!” he shouted. He ran over and threw his arms around me.

“Robie,” I said awkwardly.

He squeezed me and stepped back, his face reddening. “I’m… I just wanted to say thanks. For saving me, I mean.”

I smiled. “You’re welcome.”

He held out a musket. “Here, you wanna help me load?”

“I can’t,” I said. “I have to find Tinker.”

“Oh. Well be careful.”

“Thanks, I will.”

I wandered into the line of men and, before anyone could grab me, I ran across the bridge. “Girl, get back here!” someone shouted.

“Stop her,” someone else yelled. “They’ll kill you!”

I stopped and turned around, just long enough to shout, “So will you!” Then I turned and ran for all I was worth.

There are a few unique things about Tal’mar which separate them from humans. Obviously, there are the physical differences that I have already described. Then there is the use of what humans call magic. To Tal’mar, using magic is no more “magical” than using your legs to walk. It’s simply part of us. That’s why, even though I didn’t have any training, I still managed to learn to use my abilities. They came as naturally to me as breathing. Communicating with trees, healing Tinker’s leg, and bending the wood on our airplane were all part of this very natural and simple process.

That’s why, out there in the windswept fields and under the light of the waning crescent moon, I was able to see the enemy front advancing towards me. I had never observed this phenomenon before because I had never been outside in the woods at night. Most Tal’mar children would have known this almost from birth. Like most things, I had to discover this ability by accident.

In retrospect, I remember that I had been able to see my way around Tinker’s house when I awoke in the night and made my way to his loft, but in that half-wakened state I didn’t even notice the subtle changes in my vision. Now as I stood alone in that field, facing the front line of an advancing army, I fully realized what my eyes could do. Somehow my vision had adjusted to the shifting light, allowing me to see the body heat of the approaching enemies.

They had taken great pains to paint the steel on their swords and spears, to darken the colors of their clothing and skin, and yet I still saw them. I could see the heat emanating from their bodies. On that cool night, it was like a wall of fire moving towards me.

“Hide,”
said the voices of the trees. “
Come up into our branches.”

I obeyed. I turned to my left and went tearing up into the mountains. As I ran the, trees reached down to scoop me up in their branches. You might think I would have been scratched and bruised, but I was not. The trees touched me as gently as a mother cradling her infant.

I continued to run, even as the trees lifted me higher into the air. Incredibly, I found I could not miss a step. I hurtled forward without giving a thought to where my feet would land, but always there was a foothold. The branches moved and twisted, swung around to build a path for me as I raced along the mountainside. The land flew by beneath me, and to my breathless wonder, I became one with the trees.

To my right, I saw that great wall of heat pushing ever forward. Now that I understood what it was, I focused on looking for other signs of heat around me. I saw a handful of Kanter scouts moving through the trees here and there, but I passed by overhead without a sound. It wasn’t long until I reached Tinker’s little valley. Nothing could have prepared me for the horrors I found there.

The cottage was on fire. Three giant Kantrayan men were ambling about the yard, barking out in some crude language. Past them, up the hill beyond the barn, I saw Tinker’s familiar body shape as a dim red glow. He held Cinder in his arms, and Analyn trader was kneeling in the bushes next to him.

A man’s body lay strewn across the path in front of the barn. It was Daran trader. He still clutched an old sword in his hand. I could tell even from that distance that there wasn’t much life left in him. Obviously, he had confronted the Kanters, probably trying to distract them so Tinker and Analyn could escape. His heroic act very well might have cost him his life.

I spoke to the trees, my thoughts a rising wave of emotion and panic. I told them about the men in the clearing, that they were evil and that I had to save my friends. The trees quickly grasped the meaning of my thoughts, but their response was not altogether clear. Some told me to run, others to hide, but none offered a realistic solution to the problem.

Frustrated, I started making my way up the hillside and around to Tinker’s position. My arrival was announced by little more than the sound of a breeze through the branches (if you’ll pardon the pun). I came up near them, overhead, and whispered down, “Tinker!”

Analyn clutched at her heart and nearly screamed. Even the sound of her gasp was too much. I glanced up to see the Kanters staring in our direction. I commanded the tree I was in to bend its branch low, and I motioned for Analyn and Tinker to follow me into the trees. They did so awkwardly climbing among the branches and creating more than a bit of noise.

The branch returned to its normal position just as the Kanters appeared below us. They stomped around, grunting and thrashing around in the darkness. I quietly motioned for Tinker and Analyn to follow me. We disappeared into the treetops and didn’t stop until we were halfway up the mountain. There, the trees gently settled us to the ground.

“My husband’s down there,” Analyn said. “He’s dying!”

“Stay here!” I said. I went back up into the branches and disappeared, leaving the two of them safe but mystified. After all, they had been planning on
rescuing me
. My arrival must have been quite a shock to them.

By the time I got back down to the barn, I knew what I had to do. I dropped to the ground and crept up to the containers and barrels of junk behind the barn. I hid myself there in the shadows, and then asked the trees to start making noise. One of them shook, and dropped a few branches.

All three Kanters shouted and went running. Another tree, a bit further down the hillside did exactly what the first had done. The Kanters took off in that direction, hot on the trail of what they thought to be the escaping humans.