by test
ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 26
She couldn’t share his warrior joy. They were only two against this unknown. Brady and other men didn’t appreciate how dangerous the world could be when one was outnumbered by beings stronger and more vicious than oneself.
“The tide should cover our tracks except those leading from the trees.”
“And the ones we make going back.” She shifted slightly away from him as he joined her in peering over the boulders toward the trees. He smelled of sun and salt. His body nearly hummed with excitement, but she shivered despite the warm sun.
“The fire has to be for cooking, don’t you think? Even in the shadows of the cliff, it isn’t cold enough to need one for warmth.”
“That makes sense,” she answered.
“I’ve never seen Savages build fires, have you?” Brady pulled out his gun and checked the bullets.
Even the mention of Savages made her stomach clench. She hoped she hid any outward reaction. Would his small gun stop a full grown beast?
“It gets cold in the mountains. They’ll build fire for warmth, but they do no cooking.”
“So, it’s probably humans. A small group, but we still have to be careful. The Parlanians were every bit as cruel as Savages.”
She heard the disgust in his voice and it gave her some comfort. He wouldn’t easily trust strangers or lead them into danger. “If we’re going to be up all night scouting or maybe running for our lives, we better get some sleep now. Do you want first watch or first nap?”
Where would they run if they had to flee? “I’ll take first watch.”
“Wake me in a few hours.” He shook out one of the blankets in the shadow of a boulder and rolled the other for a pillow. In the way of a veteran warrior, he fell asleep almost instantly.
She watched the thin plume of smoke and tried to plan a path of approach. The nearby crashing of the waves and the screech of the white sea birds again gave her the feeling she and Brady were the only other living things in the world. But there was the smoke.
Brady slept with nary a twitch or blink of long lashes, his trust in her complete. Little did he know of her terror. She looked back at the trees. What horror lurked out there?
* * * *
Bab put one last stick on the fire. She would add another when she woke in the middle dark hours to feed Angel. The baby was a healthy eater despite her slight build.
It had taken her a night and half of this day to find the shallow cave Rena described.
She’d started a fire to drive the chill away and comfort her own loneliness and fears.
Rena wouldn’t join her until she delivered her own child. If Rena could escape at all.
Had the others believed Rena’s story of taking her heavily pregnant friend to the sea to bathe?
Did they search the seashore for Bab’s body? It happened often enough, someone lost as they bathed or played in the salty waters. None were ever saved if they wandered in above their heads. And sometimes the unseen fingers beneath the waves reached out from the deep and grabbed a victim, pulling them under and out to their death.
Jak was sure to blame Rena for Bab’s drowning, but hopefully her condition would protect her from a beating.
Angel’s tiny, sweet mouth hung open as she slept. One tiny drop of milk clung to her lower lip. Six times each day Bab put the infant to her breast. For a little while, the breast milk could give the child all she needed to thrive. It was herself Bab worried about. If she didn’t eat enough she wouldn’t make enough milk for Angel.
ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 27
Tomorrow she would scout the shoreline. Some of the green plant life that floated on the vicious water was edible if not tasty. She would mix it with her small bag of grain to stretch out her supply. She would scout for nuts left from last fall and might last as long as half a moon turn on what she carried with her.
After one desperate winter, Jak and Hop had caught little fishes from the sea and made everyone eat them. Some couldn’t stomach the greasy, foul-tasting things and a few old people starved before spring relieved the famine. She would lower herself to such horrid actions if she must to save Angel.
She moved her little clay bowl closer to the licks of flame. The oats would simmer and cook slowly over night. On her journey, she’d gathered a handful of sour berries for flavoring in place of honey.
She settled back in her sleeping hide with Angel in her arms. She missed her comfortable home and the pallet she’d built for herself out of sticks and vines. Only she and Lena had such nice beds and a real table in their homes. Some of the older females and the two biggest males never thought to build something with their hands. Someday she would make even finer things for Angel.
The day abandoned the cave quickly when the sun set. She took up the book Lena had insisted she bring along. If tell open to her favorite picture of the full grown pretty people. It gave her courage to face the morrow.
“I promise, my little, little child, you will grow up to be as perfect as them. I promise with my life.”
* * * *
Brady led Cara close to the sea so the waves occasionally touched their boots. The tide was coming in and would soon wipe out their tracks. He hoped anyone backtracking them from their campsite would assume they came from the north. No one was likely to think they came over the falls. They probably should have waited a few hours longer, but watching Cara sleep had been torturous. Though it was a good method of keeping himself awake. He could sit for hours and watch her, damn it. Being so constantly close to her was going to kill him.
His stomach growled and reminded him of their missed meal.
Cara snorted softly. “Your belly will give us away at a hundred paces.”
“I’m so hungry I might have to rob them even if there’re thirty Savages in that camp.”
“There’s plenty of grass between here and there. You Realm men eat as much as a horse so maybe you should see if you have a taste for their fare.”
“You eat as much as I do.” He stopped and checked behind them. The rocks they’d spent the day hiding behind stood out as dark lumps against the white sand. “Let’s head inland.
If we’re spotted or even if we’re not, we’ll retreat back along the same path.”
He unhooked the thin leather thong that secured his pistol in its holder. He would now be able to pull it quickly should he need to do so. He took his knife in his left hand should they stumble upon trouble they wished to settle quietly.
The strip of land between the cliff and the sea was little more than half a mile at this point. The roar dropped to an uneven murmur but it was enough to cover whatever sounds they might make slipping through the sparse undergrowth. Short bushes and a few saplings struggled for survival beneath the dense canopy of the older trees.
One moon held forth already but the other was not yet risen. But the new spring leaves blocked out the silver light except for small spots and spangles speckling the ground. The stone wall loomed in front of them as a blackness darker than the night.
ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 28
Cara tugged on his shirt and pointed at the ground. A stray shaft of moonlight fell on an indistinct footprint, a track made by a bare foot, not a boot. He took his gun out and continued in the direction of the smoke with even more care. Stopping to listen often, he heard no rumbling of voices or movement.
The never ending sea breeze swirled against the cliffs in fits and puffs. When he caught the faint scent of burning wood, it was impossible to guess how close they were to their prey.
Cara touched his arm and then drifted away to the left. He continued forward, slowing so he didn’t brush any of the spindly plants or crunch the carpet of last year’s needles. Wood smoke filled his nostrils and finally he saw a bit of brightness between the trunks of a few trees.
Cara edged silently back to his side and gestured toward the firelight. He touched her hand in acknowledgement. Her skin was cold and was that trembling in her fingers? Her sword g
linted in her hand.
They slithered forward one tree at a time. The fire sat against the cliff face and was very tiny. Boulders on two sides of it would have prevented the glow from being spotted from any great distance. The rock face slanted out into an overhang, forming a shelter that wasn’t quite a cave. A single thin log crackled on the fire and threw a small circle of light. A lone figure reclined on the far side of the flames in a pile of hides. A large hide bag sat tight against the cliff way, and a crudely made clay bowl sat almost in the embers. A small noise came from the bundled figure. It sounded like a small cat.
A miniature, pale arm swung outward and it mewed again. A baby? He squatted behind a thick cedar and tugged Cara down beside him. The night was as still as it could be with the distant whisper of the sea and an even fainter purr from the falls to the south.
He leaned close to Cara and spoke directly into her ear. Tension sat on her posture like a physical burden. Why? “There’s a baby.”
She nodded, but nothing about her relaxed. They waited long after the second moon rose and the single log burned down to bright embers and one tiny finger of flame.
The baby cried and waved its thin arms free of the hides again. Its shrill complaint rose steadily until the adult sat up. Why would a young woman be out here on her own with an infant? There must be other people about. Where was the father? Gone from camp, hunting and soon to return? But there was only the one pile of sleeping hides. Nothing stirred in their surroundings except the relentless sigh of the wind and the voices of distant waters.
Cara gasped and gripped his arm with a tight clench. He spun, expecting someone approaching. But she stared at the camp with an expression of horror. He followed her gaze with his.
The mother tossed a few bits of kindling on the smoldering log so the fire flared up and lit the area. The hides covering her and the child fell away. The woman’s breasts were swollen and full on her broad, bare chest. Blonde hair fell in tangles around her shoulders. She made soft, gentle sounds to the baby and put it to her brown nipple. Only when she lifted her gaze to the fire did Brady understand Cara’s shock. The mother, so gentle and caring of the infant, was a Savage.
ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 29
Chapter Five
Cara led the way back to the beach. Brady stopped and picked up some sticks of wood along the way. How could he think of food? Damn Realm men and their endless obsession with eating. Her stomach churned with an empty sourness. Seeing a Savage when her traitorous mind and body was finding a level of comfort and contentment with Brady wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that her peace had been shattered and she was once again walking the edge of panic.
When they neared the waters, Brady took over the lead and stopped almost immediately beside a short tumble of boulders. He dropped his armful of wood and shrugged off his packs.
She dropped their blankets beside the wood.
“You start the fire and I’ll see about catching us some dinner. Again. We’re far enough north so our smoke shouldn’t drift to her.” He took their cooking shell out of his pack and kicked off his boots.
He splashed into a tidal pool. The moonlight sparkled on the little waves he stirred with his hunting. Both moons now beamed down on them but she didn’t find the light cheery in any way. Instead the night was now filled with a creepiness that made her heart race.
She fumbled through Brady’s pack and found the oil cloth protecting his matches. Only a dozen or so remained, but they could use the flint to strike a spark if they must. She retreated to the coarse grass further up the beach and gathered a handful to use as tinder. Coaxing the wood to catch took her attention, and the mundane chore settled her stomach and nerves.
It unnerved her to see the subhuman creature acting so motherly to its infant. She didn’t want to see any soft emotions in the barbaric beast. Nothing would give her more satisfaction than to run her sword through the Savage bitch and make the world that little bit safer. And the baby? Damn. Not even her need for revenge rendered her heartless enough to kill an infant.
There was nothing to fear. Not immediately. A single female was no threat to the two of them without the element of surprise. The Savage seemed fully occupied caring for its little one.
Cara’s stomach lurched again as she recalled the sight of the baby taking its mother’s nipple so eagerly. Another generation of animals.
Brady startled her from her thoughts when he flopped down beside her. Though he’d rolled his pants, they were wet up to his knees. Water beaded on the sparse, dark hair covering his calves and sand stuck to his feet.
He poured fresh water from the water bag so it covered the crabs. He nudged the shell close to the small fire. “Finally we’ll get to eat.”
“Can’t you think of anything but your damned stomach?”
His gaze turned wary. “Aren’t you hungry?”
What a dunderhead! “How can you even think of eating after seeing … that?”
“That?” He turned his gaze back to the simmering crabs and shrugged. “We saw a lone female Savage and her baby.”
“A dirty Savage nursing the next generation of animals.”
His brow crinkled but he kept his gaze on the crabs. “Did you look close at the female?
She looked … cleaner somehow. Did you notice her gentle way with the baby? She acted like any human mother.”
ONE GOOD WOMAN SUSAN KELLEY 30
“What are you talking about?” Even the lowliest of animals cared for their young. Such behavior didn’t indicate human tendencies. “We should go back and….”
“And what?” Brady looked at her with his eyes ablaze. “Kill her? Are we going to kill the baby too? I mean are you? Because I can tell you I won’t. If we kill only her, are you going to take care of the baby or let it starve?”
Her arms lifted unwillingly to cover her flat chest. They were nearly starving themselves.
Even if she were so inclined, she wouldn’t be able to take care of a baby of any kind.
“We have no way of knowing where the female came from, but there has to be at least one male around. Maybe there’s an entire pack of them.”
“So what do you think we should do?” Her nerves untwisted from the tight knot seeing the Savage had caused. They weren’t going to confront it tonight or even the next morning.
How did an encounter with one Savage distress her so? Thank goodness there was no one here to notice except Brady and he seemed oblivious of her anxiety.
Brady tugged the shell away from the fire and tipped it to drain off the water. He pulled his knife and speared one of the boiled creatures. He frowned at it with hunger and dreary acceptance.
“I think we should eat our dinner and then make our way back to the trees. At first light, we’ll follow this female’s back trail and see what we find. How far could she have traveled with a baby? It looked not a month old.”
How far indeed? He made sense. How often had Juston Steele reminded her to act with logic instead of heated emotion?
“We could come upon a party hunting for the female.” How many different packs hid in these mountains? Would there be a human settlement also or had this band of Savages killed off all their civilized relatives?
He tossed the remains of his first crab toward the waves. “Eat something. We might have to skip food tomorrow.”
Again he was right. Once the first bite of meat crossed her tongue, her stomach remembered how long the hours had been since her last meal. And her belly didn’t care it was crab again.
They ate in silence until all the crabs were gone. Brady brushed the dried sand from his feet and pulled his boots on with a sigh.
“So do you agree? Make our way north and see what we can find?”
She paused in cleaning her knife. Warmth spread in her chest where a cold hand had been lingering since first seeing the smoke hours ago. Brady constantly surprised her with his kind, generous nature. He possessed the confidence that made him a good leader without being overbearing or bossy.
“It sounds like a good plan.”
“Could be dangerous.” He grinned. “We might have to confront something tougher than women and babies.”
Her mouth curved without her permission. How did he make it do that? “I’ve heard there’s nothing more dangerous than babies.”
“We’re in agreement there. But there’s also nothing more important. We’ll see what we can see and then figure out what to do about it.”
“Guess our search of the cliff front is on hold.” It seemed like they’d been marooned for months instead of days.
He shrugged. “We might stumble on something. It’ll be daylight soon. Let’s go.”
He kicked sand over the cooking fire and stuffed their cooking shell into his pack.