Night Quest

by Susan Krinard

  “She does not seem to be injured,” Artemis said without looking up. “Perhaps we can get her to drink a little water.”

  Garret knelt on the other side of the blanket. Beth opened her eyes and blinked several times.

  “How are you feeling, Beth?” Garret asked, smoothing matted hair away from the girl’s face. “Does anything hurt?”

  “Pericles?” she said.

  “He’s...away,” Garret said. He rummaged through his pack, pulled out the first aid kit and gave Beth a brief but thorough examination. Except for a few shallow scratches and a bruise or two, she seemed unharmed.

  When he was finished, Artemis propped Beth’s head up and coaxed her into drinking a little water. Garret removed his coat and laid it over the blanket for extra warmth. Within minutes, the girl was deeply asleep.

  “She’s exhausted,” he said, gesturing for Artemis to join him a little distance away. “She’s probably in a state of shock.”

  “What else can we do for her?”

  “Until we know what the rogues did to her...”

  “We do not know that they did anything.”

  “She’s in very poor condition.”

  “She cannot have been hurt if she has so little fear of Opiri.”

  Artemis was right, Garret thought. Beth was dirty and underfed, but the rogues hadn’t harmed her. That was important.

  That gave him hope for Timon.

  “Garret?” Artemis reached out as if to touch him, dropping her arm only at the last minute. “They will both be all right. We will make sure of it.”

  We. He looked into her eyes, but all he could see was her usual honesty.

  “You were very good with Beth,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “You entrusted her to me, and yet you are surprised?”

  Her voice was pinched, and he realized he’d hurt her again, even though she would never admit it.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not surprised. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

  “You must rest,” she said, turning away. “I will look for Pericles. Try not to shoot me when I return.”

  If there had been any humor in her voice, Garret might have laughed.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Artemis found Garret sitting beside the girl, watching her quietly. He glanced up as she approached, shooting to his feet when he saw Pericles walking freely behind her. His gaze swept from her bow in its case to the rifle propped against the tree.

  “It is all right,” Artemis said quickly. “He means no harm.”

  “I want to help,” Pericles said, moving to her side. “Is Beth all—”

  “Stay back,” Garret snapped as the young Freeblood took a hesitant step toward the little girl. He looked Pericles up and down. “How did you survive when we left you in the south?”

  “I don’t know.” Pericles wet his lips. “You must have saved me with your blood.”

  “Where is my son?”

  Artemis couldn’t feel Garret’s anger, but she knew him too well to mistake his mood. “There was a misunderstanding,” she said calmly. “When we questioned Pericles before, he thought you were asking about Beth.”

  “So she was the one he stole,” Garret said. “That makes it so much better.” He took a step toward Pericles.

  “What was he doing with her out there after the battle? How did he survive that?”

  Pericles edged behind Artemis. “The Freebloods who died are the same ones who left me for dead. After you saved me, I tracked them here to make sure that Beth was all right.”

  “Then you saw the battle,” Garret said. “Who were the humans?”

  “Militiamen. They found the pack south of here and followed them until the Opiri turned to fight.”

  “But you weren’t part of the fighting?”

  “I was only in the area because of Beth.”

  “Pericles had the task of caring for Beth, until the pack leader turned on him,” Artemis said.

  “It’s true,” Pericles said meekly. “I tried to keep her clean, get her enough to eat. But when I tried to get her away they—”

  “You were with a pack of rogue kidnappers, and you tried to help her escape?” Garret asked, disbelief in his voice.

  “Is that so astonishing to you,” Artemis asked, “when I was willing to help you find your son? Is it so impossible to believe that there might be more than one Opir capable of such concern?”

  Garret looked at her as if her words genuinely surprised him. “What makes you believe him?” he asked.

  “What made you believe me when I promised to go with you?” Artemis said.

  “I’m sorry about your son,” Pericles said, shuffling from foot to foot like a hare torn between lying still and leaping away from the fox lurking nearby.

  “Sorry?” Garret said, clenching his fists. “It was a pack just like yours who took him.” His eyes widened. “My God.” He sank into a crouch beside Beth. “My son and Beth.”

  “Yes,” Artemis said, her heart aching for him in spite of all her efforts to remain detached. “Pericles told me they are taking children, Garret. Not only Beth and Timon, but many others.”

  Garret dragged his hand across his face, and then fixed his stare on Pericles. “Why?” he asked. “Where are they taking them?”

  “To the north, as he said before,” Artemis said. “He knows nothing else.”

  “Pericles?” Beth whispered, beginning to sit up.

  “I am here,” he said, venturing out from behind Artemis.

  Garret didn’t move.

  “At least let me give her something to eat,” Pericles said. He reached inside his torn shirt, and Garret tensed.

  Artemis held out her hand. Pericles gave her a packet of waxed paper and a small pouch. “It isn’t much,” he said, “but it’s all I could find.”

  “Nutrition bars,” Artemis said, looking inside the packet. She opened the pouch. “Seeds, nuts and dried fruits.”

  “Can I see her now?” Pericles asked.

  After a long hesitation, Garret stepped out of his way, and Pericles crouched beside the girl. She reached for his hand and clung to it tightly.

  “I am sorry I wasn’t here to help you earlier, Beth,” Pericles said, squeezing her fingers very gently.

  Freeblood and human child began to speak in low voices, though Beth’s words were brief and strained. Garret stared at them, one contradictory emotion after another sliding across his face in rapid succession.

  “She obviously trusts him,” Artemis said, when she and Garret stepped aside to talk. “Are you prepared to trust me again?”

  He looked from her to Pericles. “When we helped him, you called him ‘brother.’ I know you believe in a new future for your kind. How can you be objective?”

  “Is it so difficult for you to imagine that what you see here is no more or less than the truth?” she asked. “Or will you deny that such relationships are possible?”

  Chapter 8

  Artemis had intended simply to make him see reason, but her question had the unexpected effect of forcing her to relive that moment when she had believed there could be more between an Opir and a human than blood and sexual desire.

  Joy. Happiness.

  And then she remembered that other face...

  “Are you basing that question on our relationship?” Garret asked softly.

  She couldn’t bring herself to speak of what she suspected of Garret and Roxana. “Pericles believes as I do, Garret,” she said. “He shares my hope for a better future.”

  Garret sighed. “I trust you,” he said. “Where did the rogues find Beth?”

  “A human colony on the coast. A place called Coos Bay.”

  Unsealing the outer pocket of his pack, Garre
t removed the map and spread it across his thigh. “That’s over two hundred miles southwest of here,” he said.

  Artemis knew what he was thinking—how far a southward journey would put him behind in his search for Timon—but he didn’t say it aloud. He folded the map and returned it carefully to the pack.

  “Did you look at the bodies?” he asked, getting to his feet.

  “I found Pericles before I had the opportunity,” she said.

  “I want to get a better idea of what happened,” he said. “I’m going out there.”

  “You are nearly night-blind,” she protested.

  “There’s still a little moonlight,” he said, “and I’ve done well enough so far. While I’m gone, try to find out everything Pericles knows about these children.”

  “I believe he has told me—”

  “Artemis,” he said, meeting her gaze, “if he knows anything he hasn’t told you, we have to get it out of him—everything he’s seen and heard regarding these abductions.”

  Neither of them moved. They stood half in, half out of the small circle of lantern light as if nothing else existed beyond them.

  “There was still no sign of Citadel patrols when I found Pericles,” Artemis said when the silence had stretched too long. “Nevertheless, this battle may have attracted attention. Please, be careful.”

  “I will be.” He smiled, and she was glad that he couldn’t feel her fear for him. As long as he didn’t try to touch her...

  He didn’t, though his hand rose to the level of his waist before he dropped it again. He stepped outside the light and grabbed his rifle. Pericles’s head snapped up in alarm. Garret ignored him and strode into the woods.

  Pericles scrambled to his feet. “Where is he going?” he asked.

  “To examine the battle site,” Artemis said. “Beth is well?”

  “Sleeping.” He hunched his shoulders. “The human hates me.”

  “He’s afraid for his son,” she said. “But the better I know you, the easier it will be for him to understand.”

  “Understand what?” Pericles asked, a little shaky as he sat down again. “That I wasn’t lying when I said I cared about Beth?”

  “And that Freebloods are not all barbarians. You are proof that my mentor’s goals are possible.”

  “No one in my pack cared about what happened to the others, or to the humans they met.”

  “Perhaps they were not as strong as you are, Pericles.”

  He laughed. “Strong?”

  “There are different kinds of strength.” She sat down beside him. “You have only been Opir for a few years. It is easier for the youngest, who still remember their old lives, to accept a new way.”

  Pericles brought his legs to his chest and draped his narrow wrists over his knees. “I’m still not used to this. Maybe I’ll never be.”

  “You are not alone,” she said. “Not as long as you are with me.”

  “I know.” He gnawed on his lower lip. “What about Garret? Does he know about what you did in Oceanus?”

  “He does not,” she said. “I wish to explain it myself, when the time is right.”

  “I won’t say anything,” Pericles said quickly, eager to please. “If you trust the human, so do I.”

  And so, Artemis thought, two who might be enemies were relying entirely on her to keep the peace. It seemed ironic after what had happened in Oceanus, where she had failed so miserably. She got up to pace, listening intently for Garret’s return.

  “You’re really afraid for him, aren’t you?” Pericles asked.

  “Garret can take care of himself.”

  “Even that weapon wouldn’t be enough if he came up against a patrol.”

  She rounded on him. “Did you see one and neglect to tell me?”

  “No!” he said hastily. “I haven’t seen any patrols.” His gaze tracked her as she strode back and forth. “Have you...taken his blood?”

  “Yes,” she said curtly. “But only out of necessity.”

  “You didn’t...force him?”

  “Does it seem to you that such a thing would have been necessary?”

  Pericles shook his head. “Why did you decide to help him find his son?”

  “Garret saved my life from humans in the south. I owe him a debt.”

  “Oh.” Pericles hugged his knees. “What are we going to do now? I want to make sure Beth is okay.”

  “As do we,” Artemis said. “But you have not explained the circumstances of her abduction, or how you know that other children are being taken to the north.” She sat beside him again. “Why is this being done?”

  “I don’t know.” He clasped his hands together. “I only heard—”

  He broke off as the sound of Garret’s quiet footsteps announced his return. Still gripping the rifle, he dropped into a crouch beside Pericles and Artemis. His face was calm, his expression flat.

  He must have seen ugly things out in the field, Artemis thought, but he had left emotion behind and become all unwavering purpose again. He barely seemed to notice her.

  But he was safe.

  “Heard what?” he asked, staring at Pericles.

  The young Freeblood leaned away from Garret. “Our leader—Chares—wanted to find more children to deliver, to prove that our pack was better than the others who were doing the same thing.”

  “Other packs,” Garret said in a monotone. “To whom were you supposed to deliver the children?”

  “To a Bloodlord. Maybe a Bloodmaster. But someone very powerful. I heard that he might be in Canada, in the mountains. British Columbia, I think.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention this until now?” Garret said, his fingers tightening around the barrel of the rifle.

  “I’m sorry,” Pericles whispered, his gaze darting between Garret and Artemis. “I was afraid.”

  “What were you getting out of this, you and the other child-stealers?”

  “Chares never said,” Pericles said meekly. “He didn’t know what this Bloodlord wanted with the children. But we were supposed to keep Beth well and untouched until we reached this place in the north. There must have been some kind of reward.”

  “What else?”

  Pericles looked at Artemis as if for reassurance. “There’s a reason why the pack took Beth, and didn’t want any of the other children from that particular colony.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your son...he isn’t a full human, is he?”

  Artemis cast Garret a startled glance. He swung the rifle around, butting the muzzle up against Pericles’s chest. The young Freeblood stopped breathing.

  “How did you know?” Garret asked in a soft and very dangerous voice.

  “Because the pack wouldn’t have taken him otherwise. The Bloodlord in the north doesn’t seem to...want normal human children.”

  The scent of Garret’s hostility grew stronger, laced with a tinge of fear. Artemis curled her fingers around the rifle’s barrel and pulled it away from Pericles’s chest.

  “If they do not want human children,” she said to the young exile, “what do they want?”

  “Mixed-bloods, like Darketans.”

  “Daysiders?” Garret said, using the human word.

  “But Darketans aren’t of mixed blood,” Artemis protested. “They’re mutations of normal Opiri, which is why they can walk in daylight.”

  Garret cast her an indecipherable look. “Beth is Darketan?” he asked Pericles, lowering his rifle.

  “That’s what the colonists told Chares.”

  “But you said she came from a human colony!” Artemis said. “What would an Opir mutation be doing there? Was she a prisoner?”

  “Not a prisoner,” Pericles said, breathing steadily again. “She looks human, and Dar
ketans don’t require blood until they’re older, but...” His voice dropped very low. “The pack didn’t have to raid the colony to get her. Some humans there sold her to us.”

  Garret’s face went pale. “My God,” he said. “Humans selling children.”

  “Opir children,” Artemis said, thinking aloud. “I do not understand. It is true that Darketans do not have all the privileges of full Opiri in the Citadels. But Beth is far too young to have escaped a Citadel and found her way to this colony by herself.”

  “There’s a far more likely explanation,” Garret said, “but it may not be easy for you to accept.”

  “What is that?” Artemis asked with a twinge of alarm.

  “What you said about Darketans being mutations...it isn’t true. They’re as much mixed-blood as the dhampires who work for the human Enclaves.”

  “You are wrong,” Artemis said, shocked by his suggestion.

  “The rulers of the Citadels have led you to believe a lie. We in the colonies only recently learned the truth when a high-ranked Bloodlord from Erebus chose to join us. He told us that Darketans are taken early from their mothers, trained as soldiers and forced to serve as daytime spies for the Citadels. It’s possible that Beth was sent out of the Citadel to avoid that fate. But it’s far more likely that her mother and father escaped, and sought refuge in the colony.”

  “Opiri...seeking refuge in a human colony?”

  “Only the mother would have been Opir. The father was human. It’s the opposite with dhampires—their fathers are Opiri and their mothers are human.”

  “But this is impossible,” Artemis whispered. “All humans in the Citadels are serfs. No female Opir would permit... Any such child would be destroyed by command of the High Council!”

  “They aren’t,” Garret said. “The Citadels don’t dare admit it, even to their own citizens.”

  Artemis jumped to her feet. “I do not concede that what you say is true. We would know. Humans would sow dissension in the Citadels by spreading such rumors.”

  “What bothers you most, Artemis?” Garret asked, his expression grim and sad. “That this might be a lie created to undermine Opir society, or that female Opiri might allow themselves to be impregnated by male humans?”