“Forsaken,” it agreed.
“Is it alone?”
“Quite alone.”
“Now, the important question… is it delicious?”
The girl lay frozen in wide-eyed horror. She could not move. She could not speak.
There was a sharp chirring sound and a brown shape rose up out of the earth. “Bad! Go away!” it scolded the silver-eyed tannim.
“Run away, furry one,” the talkative jackal advised. “This creature is too old to be one of your foundlings.”
The hyrax-not-hyrax shook dirt out of its fur and rose on its hind feet, scolding the jackals in its own language.
“Shqit! You make too much noise,” the tann hissed.
An owl called again, its call longer and louder. A white shape swept overhead. Sparks of silver danced in the mist, strands of fog moving like twisting veils.
The quiet jackal snarled and lunged at the furry creature, but the other tann knocked him aside. “No time for that! The mist is fading!” The silver-eyed predators raced away into the night.
The furry creature waddled closer, then reached out to pat the girl’s cheek. It crooned at her, and she felt strangely comforted. “Small,” it said, its paw soft against her face. How carefully it kept its long digging claws from her skin!
“I’m alone. Can you help me?” she asked. In the way of dreams, she did not question the fact that her father’s stories were coming to life before her.
“Too old,” it told her sadly. “Too old.”
“Please,” she said.
It gazed at her, its brown eyes wise. “Not good, nameless in wilderness. Can be lost in mist. Find name. Be safe.”
“I’ll never be safe. The Overpowerer has forsaken me,” she whispered.
The pazir chirred softly and patted her cheek again.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?”
“Thus, thus,” it agreed. “Dream. Only dream. Now shut eyes.”
The girl shut her eyes obediently, and did not open them again until the morning light was shining on her face. By the time she woke, she had almost forgotten her dream of mist.
Bet.
Two weeks later.
The Avenger of Blood threw back his cloak and strode away down the valley, leaving the shepherd boy trembling behind him.
The Avenger was not a man to track by faint footprints and broken plants, not he. Why should he put himself to such trouble when every ravine and ridge in these cursed hills was infested with sheep and the ones who tended them? Taliyah may have ceased to enter the villages, but she had not escaped the shepherds’ eyes.
It was certain: she was still travelling northward. And not four days north along the Shilo road lay the Dawn Refuge. Little fool. Did she not know that the Avenger would seek her there?
He would find her. He would make her understand what she had done. And then he would kill her, choke her, make her gasp for breath as her cousin had gasped when he lay abandoned in the dirt, wallowing in his blood.
**
Breathing so shallowly that her chest scarcely moved, the girl crouched between the thornbushes and peered toward the camp perched on the side of a steep rocky hill. Even from here she could taste roast game in the air. She had spotted the bandits’ lookout kneeling in the shadow of one of the great boulders that crowned the ridge, and counted at least three more men around the campfire. Her place was a good one for watching.
It would not, however, be a good place to run from if anyone should see her. The ridge was a turmoil of rock and thorns and stunted trees; at her right hand, the hill fell away so steeply that if she slipped she would fall to the bottom without stopping. The valley between the hills was only a few steps wide; the facing hill was almost as steep as this one. It would take long moments for her to climb it—long moments while anyone with a sling or a bow would have her in range.
Time to decide. She reached down for another handful of dirt and rubbed it over her face, then checked her clothes. Her two layers of over-large tunics were miserably warm now at the end of the dry season, but she couldn’t take them off. Her hair hung raggedly around her ears, a rough approximation of a young boy’s cut.
She slithered backward through the thornbushes and rolled behind a friendly boulder.
I can still choose another way. It was foolish, this thing she was planning. But the meat smelled good, and she was tired of hiding alone in the wilderness. She was tired of lying awake at night, waiting for jackals or their strange silver-eyed brethren to come loping out of the dark.
She could not enter the Refuge, though the city lay only a day away past the Mountain of Cutters. During her long days on the road she had remembered: the Refuge was only for those who had killed by accident, without intent. And while she had made no plan, had used no knife, she had caught up the potsherd and struck as hard as she could. And then she had run away. She had not tried to save her cousin, nor even truly wished that she might do so. And why had she struck him down? Because he disgusted her, because he frightened her?
Surely she was guilty in the eyes of the Overpowerer, and did not deserve to enter his Refuge.
And so she was here, watching a band of robbers in the wilderness. Yet surely these, of all men, would not give her over to the Avenger.
She stood slowly, watching the lookout. Then she began to walk.
Her much-mended sandals were flapping loose again, she noted absently. Perhaps she would throw them away, go barefoot as she’d done as a child. She was homeless now and had no reason to be proud.
She knew when the lookout saw her, for he slid back around his boulder. A handful of gravel tumbled from the ridge to the camp—a clever signal.
She stopped as the camp came into full view. “Peace to you,” she called in a voice that squeaked. Foolish! Do better, she scolded herself. “And the Overpowerer bless you.” That might be too polite, but she needed to say something—something other than “give me meat lest I die.”
There was a faint murmuring from the camp, accompanied by a shuffling noise. Then a young man her own age hurled himself up the ridge, bounding up the steep path like a mountain goat. He was handsome, with thick hair hanging heavy like a lion’s mane, and a reckless light in his eyes.
She disliked him at once.
“Behold!” he exclaimed. “It’s a little smooth-faced boy.” He skipped forward, setting the broken blue strings on his hem flapping. “No need to fear!” He reached out to poke her chin.
She jerked back and glared at him, opening her mouth to scold—but she remembered herself in time. “I’m a son of fourteen years, not a child!” She was seventeen, but no man of seventeen had such a delicate face.
“Truly, a warrior grown to manhood,” he laughed, poking her again. She smacked his hand and he drew back. “If you’re a man you must learn to hit like one!”
“Cease, Vine,” growled the lookout from just behind her. She gave a little hiss and stepped away from him. She had never seen him move. “You make enough noise to scare the birds from every bush.”
“What does it matter? We have their brothers on the spit already,” Vine answered. He turned back to her. “This is Thorn. A most honey-mouthed fellow. Remind me to tell you his story—he certainly won’t!”
“Why should you tell him anything?” grunted the lookout. He was a thickset man, with a broad nose and a permanent scowl made worse by a pair of eyebrows seemingly at war with one another. “Don’t you know there are robbers in these hills, boy? Go home to your mother before I take a rod to you!”
“Most pleasant—didn’t I tell you?” Vine asked. “Join us! We love company!” And before she could duck away, he had his arm around her and was propelling her roughly down the hill to the camp.
She stumbled and fell to her knees, but twisted upright before Vine could touch her again. Ayeh! The ledge on which the tiny fire was kindled was even narrower than she’d thought, and it was already crowded with men. At first, she thought there were a dozen—then she sorted them out into four,
plus Thorn up above. It was still enough to crowd the ledge, for one of the men was large enough for three. He towered head and shoulders over the others, his long beard braided and thrown over his shoulder like a shawl. He wore a garment sewn of enough sackcloth to make a tent, and streaks of ashes darkened his face.
The girl wondered who the giant mourned for. “Peace to you all,” she said, knowing that she was repeating herself. But what else could she do?
“No war, at least,” answered one of the men, a wiry fellow with a long nose and cheekbones that might have been carved of stone. He wore a scratched leather cuirass and a bronze band around his arm. “You’re too small to be an enemy.” The girl wondered if he was making a joke, but his distant expression made it seem merely a statement of fact.
“And he’s got nothing in his pockets,” Vine chuckled, tugging at her tunic. The girl suppressed a gasp and managed not to check—for he was right. She didn’t have anything in her pockets.
The man with the long nose sighed and glanced at the giant, who grabbed Vine and whacked him on the back of the head. Vine yelped, then yelped again as the enormous man gave him a not-ungentle shove toward the side of the hill. The girl saw how the giant obeyed the other man’s look and wondered, Is the long-nosed man the leader, then?
The leader stepped away from the scuffle and looked her up and down. “You’ve run away from your master, boy?”
“From my mistress—thus, lord.” Which was true enough. Her father’s second wife had always been more a mistress than a mother to her.
“Eh.” It was a strange look he was giving her—rather like a man looking over a calf he was thinking of buying. “You seek the Refuge?”
She licked her lips. “I—thought of it. But what would I do there?”
“Ayeh.” He shook his head. “You can sleep here tonight, at least. I’m Cypress, and these are my men.” He waved around the camp, but didn’t introduce the rest. She wasn’t sure why not. Vine, Thorn, Cypress—there was no need to hide names that were so obviously false.
Vine seemed to agree with her. “So! Here is Cedar—the very short fellow.” He was waving at the giant, so this was probably meant to be funny. The girl eyed the man warily. He did seem as tall as a cedar tree. “And that’s Fig, there. He once killed a man who asked him for a drink of water, so I’d be careful if I were you.” From his tone, she wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not—the compact young man didn’t look like a killer—but this band, hovering at the edge of the Refuge’s pastureland, must surely be made up of criminals.
Fig grunted. “And now that you’ve finished telling him all that, are you going to fetch the wood?” His soft drawl didn’t match his closed expression. He was the shortest of the band, and—perhaps with the exception of Vine—the youngest. Alone of all the men, his face and hands were clean.
“Time enough tomorrow,” said Vine with a wave of his hand. “We must entertain our new friend! And since I’m the only one of us who is actually entertaining, that means I’m needed most right here.” Vine sat down and began pulling pigeons off the spit. There was only half a bird for each man, but then Fig produced a stack of bread wafers and a cracked jar of honey. The bread was hard, but the girl was too hungry to care.
“It’s not a proper entertainment without wine, but alas, mine is all gone, and Cedar won’t share his beer, the dog,” Vine said merrily, tearing the last of the birds apart with his long fingers.
“No one wants t’ hear you sing, lad,” the giant rumbled. He had crunched down his meat in three bites and was now engaged in picking fragments of bone out of his beard. The girl tried not to watch, lest she give herself away. A young boy would not be horrified by their table manners.
Vine’s eyes flashed. “I’ll tell a story!” The girl gnawed her wafer of bread and wondered why these dangerous-looking men let the youth rattle on this way. “The Defeat of King Og! Now King Og, you know, was a giant, and giants are all exceptionally stupid.” He stopped to grin at her.
Her eyes widened, and she stared at her bread to avoid glancing at the massive Cedar. I shouldn’t be wondering why they let him talk—I should be wondering why they let him live.
Vine must have thought that he was scaring her, because he leaned closer until she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Not afraid of giants, are you? You should be—they burn their pretty children to the gods, so only the ugly ones are left. Smooth-faced little thing like you would have been ashes long ago.”
She swallowed a sharp retort. A soft answer turns away wrath. Still, would a boy have let Vine talk to him this way?
She put out her hand and gave him a shove, smearing crumbs across his chest. “If I would, so would you. Have some honey—maybe it will sweeten your tale a little.”
Cypress smiled slightly. “Good counsel. Or perhaps we should let someone else tell the tale. Tell us about Og’s last battle, Cedar.” He pulled a chunk of gristle from the pigeon bones and swallowed it down. Vine opened his mouth as if to protest, but the leader stopped him with a single dart of his eyes.
“Y’ make it sound like I was there,” Cedar rumbled. “I wasn’t there.”
“You say that about the battle of Akhsap, and I fought you there,” the leader reminded him, his smile becoming more genuine.
“Thunderer’s spear, am I a son of a hundred years that I should ha’ fought beside Og? Simply because he was no’ one of you Yeshurni y’ think I know—” The giant shook a warning finger at Cypress. The girl couldn’t help but notice that the hand he waved had six fingers. Is he an Anaki giant? Is that why he sounds so different?
“Are you saying there’s a battle that you don’t know all about?” Vine mocked, tossing the last of the pigeon bones into the flames. They crackled as the grease caught fire.
Cedar drew himself up—and up, and up. “If I speak one word o’ Og’s battle, may the gods sm—”
“Don’t!” the girl cried, horrified that anyone, let alone a criminal, would call down the attention of the divine upon himself—then clamped a hand over her mouth. Had they noticed how her voice had squeaked? Her eyes flickered from face to face.
“Not afraid of giants, but afraid of other men’s gods?” Vine laughed. “Don’t fret. The gods won’t trouble with you. They never trouble with anyone.”
She inched away from him, in case he should be struck by fire from heaven, then spotted Cypress’ thoughtful frown. I should move back—lightning might be better than discovery. What would a group of criminals do with a seventeen-year-old girl?
“Look how he shrinks, as if he would melt from view!” laughed Vine. “He needs a name, if he’s to stay with us. Let’s call him Dew!”
“No!” she protested, horrified. That was almost her real name. “That’s a girl’s name!”
Cypress laughed, showing white teeth. She wondered why he found that so funny, and hoped it wasn’t because he had recognized what she was. Surely he would confront her if he had?
“Manna,” Fig suggested, drawn into the conversation in spite of himself. He had been so quiet, the girl had almost forgotten that he was there.
“Why not Snow?” Cypress suggested, with a sour twist of his thin lips.
No one argued.
**
Later, Snow crouched against the side of the hill and watched Fig carefully smothering the fire. Every move he made was efficient; he didn’t stir up a single spark. The thin trickle of smoke cut off completely, leaving only an acrid tang in the air.
The careful young man stood up and glanced at her. Lie down, he advised her with a gesture, then lay down himself. She smiled thankfully at him, then reached up to rub the smile from her face, hoping that he hadn’t seen. He was so tidy and—un-alarming. Not like the rest of the band—reckless Vine, massive Cedar, keen-eyed Cypress. Yet even a bed among blood criminals seemed infinitely better than lying alone under the mist-bringing moon.
She blinked wearily but didn’t lie down yet. Vine had tried to give her a place between him and the edge of the
hill; although he’d been lying quietly for a while now with his arm thrown over his eyes, she wasn’t sure he was asleep. Given his sense of humor, he might decide to push her off the ledge. She would wait.
Now all four of the others were going to sleep, leaving her alone in the cooling air.
All four. Where was Thorn? He went back to the lookout post, she remembered. He hadn’t come down for supper. Had it been his share of the food that she was eating? Snow looked up at the boulders, immobile silhouettes against the stars.
There were some rounds of bread left, though Fig had packed the honey jar carefully away. Snow gathered them in a fold of her cloak and went to climb the hill on hands and knees.
“I brought you some bread,” she told the darkness. I’m alone in the dark with a murderer, she thought in her heart, and held out the bread. She hardly saw the man as he whisked the wafers out of her hands. A hungry murderer.
“You make as much sound as an avalanche,” came the grumpy whisper, then the sound of gnawing.
Was it wrong of her to prefer the company of someone who was honestly unfriendly rather than someone who pretended to be friendly but was not? Snow bowed her head. She should go back and lie beside Vine…
“Why did you run from your mistress? I suppose you’re afraid of work,” Thorn said sourly.
Snow didn’t answer for a moment. She hadn’t expected him to speak to her. “It wasn’t the work. I’ve always worked.” She preferred working hours to free ones—when her hands were busy, no one troubled her. And though she owned not a stick of furniture nor a single pot, everything in her father’s house seemed to be more hers the more she cared for it. She was the one who knew just where to put the bread in the oven, that it should be neither burned nor raw. She was the one who knew where the goat liked to hide her babies, who knew just what her father liked to eat… She caught her breath, her kidneys aching with sorrow.
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