by Lisa Maxwell
Chapter 4
The trail into the pass was beginning to seem like a highway. Is had to rethink her strategy. Not only would the troopers know this route but anyone coming out of the Boundary would probably take this path too. The thought of meeting a party of Blueskins affirmed her decision to turn aside.
The only other place that looked slightly passable was a high saddle between two snow-covered peaks, so she set a new course of landmarks to steer her in that direction.
Halfway through the morning it began to rain, just a drizzle, but the mist that came with it obscured the surrounding mountains. In time, plodding through the gray, featureless landscape had a stupefying effect on Is. Huddled into herself she may have missed some warning signs. The first she knew of trouble was when Lark's head came up and he stopped in his tracks. From his body posture Is guessed he was hearing other horses. Any moment he would whinny and give them away. Abruptly she turned him back the way they had come and set off in a trot.
That might have worked ... if the other horse hadn't whinnied first. Is heard the high tones, distant and questioning, dampened by the fog. Before she could do anything, Lark's neigh rang out, impossibly loud in the hushed damp land. For long seconds it rolled away into the distance like thunder reverberating off the hillsides.
Is kicked Lark into a gallop. If he was running maybe he wouldn't whinny. Maybe the echoes would confuse pursuit. Things were moving too fast for any real planning but she knew they would have to get off the ridge they were on and down into the forest to hide. Before she could act, riders burst from the trees below and slightly ahead on the left. They were traveling at a quick trot in the same general direction Is was galloping. In an instant she would catch up to them. She pulled Lark back and tried to turn him before it registered that the riders hadn't seen her.
There were five of them, not government men. She clearly saw the telltale bluish cast of their skin.
Lark's hooves clattered on the rocky ground as he tried to obey Is's command to check his speed and turn. If even one of the Blueskins looked up, they'd be on her in heartbeats. In the interminable seconds it took Lark to sit back on his hindquarters and turn, none of them looked up. They were all staring straight ahead and trotting as though they had somewhere to go. As Is sent Lark plunging down the other side of the ridge, her last impression was of the blue-skinned riders, bare from their waists up, on weedy thin horses hardly bigger than ponies. But those small scrappy horses would be quicker and more maneuverable than her massive war horse on this steep rocky terrain.
Her mind registered all that in a flash while her body dealt with trying to slow Lark before they plunged into the trees, but he could not obey her. He was skidding hock-deep in a landslide of mud, rocks, and loose debris. The rocks hit the trees first. One airborne fist-sized stone bit a chunk out of a pine with a sound like a dull explosion. Then more rocks and mud arrived, rattling the trees like a hurricane and making a noise Is couldn't have screamed over. The Blueskins on the other side of the ridge would surely hear that. But she had more immediate problems. If they hit a tree at the speed they were going, Lark could break his neck. There was no time for further imagination. The first branch hit her - just a little offhand slap across the ribs - that nearly knocked her off Lark, a reminder that she could get hurt too.
She felt something snag Lark's hind leg just long enough to reorient him sideways on the slide. If he lost his footing now he'd roll. Instinctively, Is dropped off his uphill side and landed on her feet but only for an instant. The mud was cold and wet and full of hard rocks, moving very fast. For a little piece of eternity she had enough of her own problems not to worry about Lark. Then her hands caught hold of a root and she anchored herself against the worst of the slide in time to see Lark lose his footing and roll. For an awful moment his legs thrashed wildly in the air before he flipped all the way over. He got his feet under him just in time to broadside a tree. He hung there a moment, two legs on either side of the trunk, while the worst of the slide went by. Then the tree began to bend, slowly, until it stopped at about forty-five degrees.
Is slide-skittered down to him, starting a little spill of her own. The slope was wiped bare of anything large and loose, so she was mostly skiing on raw clay. Lark heaved himself upright and stepped free of the tree. Is had time to note that he seemed steady on all his legs before she was consumed with stopping herself from sliding under him.
Most horses would have been spooked out of their wits. He greeted her like a long-lost friend, snuffling her all over as though reassuring himself of something. His pupils were big and Is could see the muscle in his left hind leg trembling. She put her arms around his neck, suddenly shaking so badly she couldn't stand without his support. She clung there a moment trying to get control of herself. This was no time to go to pieces with Blueskins behind them, and more must be ahead. The horse that whinnied had been ahead of them. And Lark might be hurt. That thought galvanized her into action.
She went over Lark with her hands. He was covered with red clay and she couldn't see anything. If he was scraped or cut, at least it wasn't bad enough to bleed through the coating of mud. If nothing else he was bound to have some pretty sore muscles.
Her own hands were scraped raw and would be sore too once the adrenaline settled out of her system.
Lark's saddle was probably all scraped up under the mud that covered it, but she'd have to find out about that later. The packs that held her gear seemed intact. The reins had broken and the headstall had been pulled off one ear. Is righted that and led Lark by the piece of rein still dangling from one side of the bit. He seemed willing enough to move. She'd have to get him on level ground to be sure he was really okay ... get him to a stream . . . wash him down . . . check out the tack.
The thought she’d been avoiding finally surfaced. Why hadn't the Blueskins come? They had to have heard all that noise. Had they thought it was a landslide and not wanted to be anywhere near it? Had they not heard it? Mountains could play tricks with sound. Suddenly Is had to stop. Her legs just wouldn't go any farther. Everything
could have been all over as quick as that! Lark could have been terribly hurt and she'd have no way to help him. Was it really worth the risk of breaking his neck to try to save him from the Alliance?
What if the Blueskins caught her? They'd rape her and beat her and stab her like her mother. She could see the blood. She would never forget the smell of it, or her mother's cries and the harsh grunts of the men. Never! Any sort of death was preferable to that.
She could go back and turn herself in. She didn't know what the Alliance would do. Punish her? Retrain her? The horror of the years in the government schools filled her and she knew she could never go back to that. Death was better.
She had not really understood what it would be like to be pursued. Somewhere deep inside she had believed that since she was saving Lark's life she would be lucky. Everything would work out because she was doing the right thing for the horse.
She leaned against Lark's neck and considered what would happen if the government caught them. They would take good care of Lark, until they sent him out to die.
If the Blueskins caught them, they might try to take good care of Lark, but he would not do well on the harsh, sparse diets that barely sustained their small mountain ponies. Is had no idea how the Blueskins felt about their animals. Were they just creatures of utility to be abandoned when they were sick or hurt? She had no guarantee they wouldn't kill Lark and eat him.
She started to walk again. The Blueskins must be well gone by now. But the initial whinny had come from the other direction. It couldn't have been one of the ponies in the band she had seen. There must be more Blueskins up there. She turned downhill.
There might be a stream at the bottom to wash Lark and she needed to repair the bridle. Is had reached her decision. She would not be captured even at the risk of both of their lives.
A cold rain began to fall. The mud sloughed off her and Lark a
nd ran down their legs in brown rivulets. As much as Is feared stopping, moving on was impossible. It was getting dark. The ground was slippery and the exposed rocks were beginning to ice so that if she stepped on one she slid and nearly fell. She found a spot that seemed protected by big trees and pitched her tarp.
Soon she discovered that sitting around in the miserable damp was worse than walking, soaked through, had been. The cold made Is hungry, and once she had mended the reins, she had little to think about but her hunger and how hopeless her situation really was. She ate sparingly from dry rations, longing for hot food and a warm, dry place to be. The night was long and miserable. Her mind drifted back to the first days in the government school.
. . . She was following the boy with red hair. She had never seen hair that color. His skin was mottled with red spots too, like a hound her father had kept. She had tried not to stare when he'd been introduced to her. Jacob was his name. Even his eyelashes were red.
He was fifteen and he was in charge of her. Someone had to be in charge of her. She had no idea how to get around in the world in which she found herself. She was used to a rough cabin that offered peace and quiet, where meals were cooked in a stove heated by burning wood.
The cafeteria was bigger than the inside of their house and barn put together. And the noise! So many people making so much noise just to eat! She followed the boy inside. People stared at her and stopped talking.
The food tasted bad, soft and overcooked. The noise and hostility and strangeness kept Is from being able to eat anyway. Where she came from you didn't take what you couldn't finish. But some angry-looking women shoveled the food onto her plate – plop, plop – and Is had been afraid to protest.
After Jacob saw she wasn't going to eat it, he reached over and switched his empty plate for hers and ate her food too. She'd thought he was doing her a favor. Later she learned he was breaking the rules by having two lunches. But that day she'd been too naive to know she could have sold it to him in return for protection, information, or something else of value. Instead, she'd just let him take it and people had seen and thought she was stupid.
Jacob was supposed to show her around so she'd know where the rooms were when someone told her to go to one of them. Is followed him and tried to remember, but mostly she was lost. The buildings were so big and most of the rooms didn't have windows. There was no way to find her direction from the sun and the plants and the wind. She felt intimidated, but the atmosphere was so hostile she could not allow herself to show it.
One of the rooms Jacob showed her was a library. Stepping through the door, Is was suddenly surrounded by books from wall to wall. Books from floor to ceiling. Books so high up there were ladders and walkways to reach them. Books like the ones her parents had told her about, but that she had never gotten to see. Books that a farmer would never get to read because farmers couldn't read. Farmers weren't allowed to learn to read.
Is's parents had wished that she could have a better station in life than theirs. Is hadn't cared. She'd been completely content. Yet she had understood how much her parents revered books and education. Now it seemed their dreams for her were possible. She might learn to read.
A whole world opened up before her. She walked slowly into the room, not even aware of having done so, drawn by something too strong to name. Being here meant more to her than anything she could remember since the death of her parents.
"Isadora! Isadora, pssst." She didn't hear Jacob's urgent whisper before the two men who sat reading in the room raised their heads and stared at her. She would never forget the look of cold contempt in their eyes. Even in the cafeteria the hostility had been minor compared to this. She froze.
"What dare you in here, student?" It wasn't a question. It was a denouncement.
Is could not answer. What had drawn her into the library was directly opposite to what she faced now. She could not explain the fascination she had felt. She had wanted to know how it felt to look inside a book and learn something just by seeing. How would it feel not to have to put your hands into it, or lift with your back, or get covered in its smell, or feel it through your whole body. How did it feel to learn just through your eyes? Just sitting still?
After long seconds the man turned his angry gaze on Jacob who had stayed at the door behind her. "Explain."
No one had ever used that tone of voice with Is before. Her father at his angriest, at some thoughtless or harmful mistake, might have demanded an explanation from her. But he would listen to it. She knew these men would not. They were not simply asking why she had come into a room she had not known she should not have entered. Instead, they seemed intent upon showing her how stupid and ugly and worthless she was. Evidently Jacob understood this too because he did not respond.
"Your name, student."
"Jacob Onry, sir."
Is heard the fear in Jacob's voice. But there was something else there too. Something conniving, dishonest, and just plain wrong. The man fixed his eyes on her.
"Your name, student."
Is understood with all her heart the injustice of what this man was trying to do to her. She understood how reprehensible it was of Jacob to allow this man to do that to him. For one blinding instant she understood the wickedness of the whole place.
"Isadora Drey," she answered, and it came out like a challenge. I am my parents’ child. They were better people than you, and I am better than you. But that small act of defiance was before, before they'd had her long enough.
She rubbed her face as though she could scrub away the memory. Why should she think about that now? She had never been able to reconcile her inner knowing – something she seemed to have learned from her parents – with what was expected of her at the school.
She had sensed something terribly wrong. But her child's sense of correctness had been pitted against all the people at the school. All the adults Is should have trusted and honored, and all the older, wiser students couldn't all be wrong. So Is had come to doubt herself. She had tried to do what she thought her parents would want her to do, to behave by the rules of her new home. When that had proven impossible, she had learned to do what was necessary to survive.
Eventually, despite the cold and wet she dozed. But her sleep was filled with strange dreams, inspired by the ceaseless wind and her old confusion was with her more relentlessly than it had been in years.
By morning the rain had stopped. The sky had been washed to the palest of blues as though color had bled from it with the rain. Everything had a washed-clean feeling to it. Lark’s coat was soft as a newborn foal’s after its rain bath, soft as Is's own hair. She was glad to see that he moved freely, without favoring any leg. In spite of their situation her spirits rose.
She draped yesterday's wet clothes over Lark's rump and shoulders, tucking the ends under the saddle so they wouldn't blow off as they walked. It was the only way the clothes were ever going to get dry. He looked like a peasant's clothesline, her proud war horse, but there wasn't anyone to see him. She hoped.
The wind continued all morning. Wispy clouds scudded overhead and by afternoon the mountaintops were shrouded again.
So far they had seen nothing unnatural and not even any of the larger natural predators had appeared. Is hoped it would stay that way. Whenever she heard a meadowlark call she thought it was good luck.
It was hard to guess how much land they covered. The saddle, which had seemed to be only over the next ridge, now seemed farther away as a stretch of open land came into view.
They kept going and days began to blend into each other. As they gained altitude there was very little grazing and Lark was losing weight noticeably. Is promised him a rest in the first good pastureland they came to once they'd crossed the saddle.
The day they finally crested the ridge was hot and sunny. The sky, bleached almost to white, offered no shielding from the sun. There was a silence and stillness to the air as though it was too tired from the heat and altitude to carry any sound. Even Lark's hoove
s on the rocky ground and the saddle leather's soft squeaking seemed distant.
Is found herself staring into space, thinking nothing, immersed in each plodding step of the toiling horse. They were almost in the midst of the riders before Is saw them.
Blueskins. A dozen of them with their backs to her in a rough half circle. And facing them, four government riders, their sleek proud animals dominating the Blueskins' scruffy ponies.
Is should have already whirled Lark around and galloped away as fast as she could, but her mind was taking in all sorts of conflicting observations. All she managed was to jerk Lark to a halt. And even that was odd. He should have seen the horses first. His head should have come up. He should have whinnied.
They were close enough that one of the other horses should have seen him. No doubt they would at any moment. I should be galloping away, Is thought. Why are Alliance troopers talking to Blueskins? I should be galloping away. The riders were so much at ease that even their horses were dozing. Several of the Blueskins' ponies had their hind legs cocked, resting. Their tails swished leisurely. The government horses were every bit as relaxed. One rider had swung a leg over the front of his saddle and was leaning his elbow on his knee. He must have felt very much at ease with these Blueskin "enemies" to sit that way.
All of this information went into Is's mind in an instant. What she did next made no more sense to her wildly yammering nerves, which were screaming at her to turn and run, than the scene in front of her did. She turned Lark right and walked him forward. Her course would take her in a big circle around the riders, but she would be out in the open all the time. There was no cover.
Lark went without the slightest hesitation. He didn't even try to turn his head to look at the other horses. Is didn't look at the riders again either, pretending that if she didn't see them they couldn't see her. It was a child's game, totally irrational, and likely to get her killed. She was so tense with listening for the first shout of discovery her head ached. When she finally did look back she had gone farther than she'd realized. There were no riders in sight.
For a moment Is was relieved. Then she began to question if she had really seen them. The whole thing seemed so impossible. But each horse and each rider was etched in her mind's eye. Details she had not been conscious of seeing came back to her – the long, cruel-looking shanks on the Blueskins' bits, their animal-skin saddle pads, their long braided hair, the paint pony with the scraggly tail. Then the visions of her mother came, as real and detailed as the riders. Is was suddenly in no mood to question anything. She sent Lark into a trot, the fastest pace she dared on the steep shaley slope.
When darkness came Is could not bring herself to stop. It was not just the riders behind her that kept her going. She could not face being still with herself, trapped in a tent, cut off from her horse and from movement. The questions she was trying desperately not to ask herself would overcome her. They'd ask themselves if her mind was not busy with riding.
The horse could see well enough in the dark and there was no grazing, or water here to rest him anyway. It would be better to get down to cover before daylight, she rationalized.
She let Lark pick the way. As long as they kept going downhill they couldn't go too wrong.
Eventually he brought them to a little stream. Is took his bridle off, lay flat out on the ground and fell asleep while he grazed. When she woke, Lark was standing nearby with his head hanging above her. Smiling, she turned over and slept some more.
Later the birds woke her. Lark had moved away to graze. Is could hear the rhythmic tearing of grass, the occasional swish of his tail or stomp of his foot as the insects found him. She could have stayed there, in that dream place with only the horse she loved, the land, and no great need to do anything. But there were also Blueskins, government troopers, and winter coming. She stretched and picked up Lark's bridle.