Deepwood: Karavans # 2

by Jennifer Roberson

  But she was also lost. She knew it, and mourned.

  BRODHI FOUND THE couriers’ common tent collapsed, poles scattered, oilcloth tattered, but nonetheless present when so little else throughout the wind-wracked settlement was. Suspicion formed; weight of some kind had pinned down the oilcoth. He began to unwrap the tumbled fabric until he saw booted feet, outflung arms, mouths bloodied, and faces crusted with grime, dirt, blood, and sand. Alorn. Timmon. Fellow couriers, if not precisely companions. Brodhi had none of those, save for Ferize.

  He peeled back the oilcoth until both forms were free of encumbrance. Brodhi did then what any human would do, but that an Alisani—not Shoia but Alisani—would also do: he checked the sprawled bodies for signs of life.

  Neither man was dead. Neither man was conscious, but life yet quickened in them. Brodhi, squatting between the sprawled couriers, looked from one to the other. Eyes were closed, hair tangled, faces bruised and scraped, dusted with ash and soil. Well, he could leave them as they were, to come to themselves on their own, or he could take pains to make them more comfortable. For a moment Brodhi flirted with the attractive impulse to rise and walk away, putting them from his mind, but he remained upon his journey, was still to be tested, and he had, as always, absolutely no idea which occurences were tests, and which were mere coincidence.

  In the wake of the storm, of Alisanos becoming active and uprooting itself in order to change locations, anything was possible but Brodhi believed it was far more likely that, in the wake of the deepwood’s shifting, his actions and worth might be of more immediate interest, and thus were being considered by his people, by the primaries, who held the governance of his future in their hands. Ferize, in the guise of a young girl, had made it clear that he was to be seen as someone who cared for humans, to know their names, their habits, to understand them. He did not wish to. His interest, ambition, his needs lay elsewhere. But this journey, frustrating as it might be, was part and parcel of his rite of passage. He would not become what he wished to be if he did not complete the journey, did he not, in some way, become what the primaries demanded he become, were he to ascend. It was not for him to know what the journey entailed. Not until the culmination, the completion of his journey, was achieved, and his future settled.

  Time, as the humans reckoned it, ran very differently in Alisanos. Here it was named as hours, days, weeks, months, years; there it was what it was, simple continuation. The suns of Alisanos, and its place upon the world, gave it day and night, daylight and darkness, but the rhythms of his body were not predicated on such things as dark or light, night or day, or even of time passing. Five years, the primaries had decreed; five human years. Brodhi was not entirely certain how those years were counted, other than being some conglomeration of hours, days, weeks, but he would know, he was told, when the time was up. When the journey was ended. Either because he had completed it, or because the primaries despaired that he ever would and ended it for him. He would be declared a neuter, unfit for godhood of any ilk; unfit, too, for the human world.

  Unfair, he felt, that he, so patently prepared, so deserving to take his place among the primaries, to ascend to godhood, was nonetheless forced to undertake the journey. Such things belonged to Rhuan, his cousin, his kin-in-kind, who expressed a desire to become human himself. To not become a god. To not take a place among the primaries.

  Brodhi could not blame Rhuan’s human mother for that. His own mother had been human as well. Discussions among the primaries were ongoing as to whether it was the human element, the human blood, that had caused the seeds of Alario and Karadath to kindle into dioscuri in the wombs of two unrelated women when none had been born to either brother for hundreds of years by human reckoning, but as far as Brodhi knew no decision had been reached. And so the weakness he despised in Rhuan was present in himself: the blood, the bone, of humans. He was not just the legacy of primaries, who were wholly divine.

  Sighing, Brodhi worked his hands beneath Alorn’s shoulders and pulled him from the confining folds of oilcloth. He settled him a small distance away, beneath the brilliant sun, then retrieved Timmon as well. Side by side, they lay in silence, senseless.

  “Are they alive?” Bethid’s voice, much perturbed, as she arrived. She swooped down to kneel beside the two men. “Oh, Mother, tell me they’re alive!”

  “The Mother can’t, or won’t,” Brodhi said dryly, “but I can. Yes, they’re alive. Both of them. And not likely to die, from what I can tell.”

  She put her hand against Alorn’s throat, waited, then nodded once. She moved then to Timmon’s body and did the same.

  “I don’t lie,” Brodhi observed. “Not even in the interest of tact.”

  Bethid, still kneeling beside Timmon, scowled up at Brodhi. “Pardon me for caring enough to want to find out for myself.” Then her expression altered. “Did you pull them away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth twisted. “And made sure they were alive.”

  “Yes.”

  “So perhaps you do care, and I do you a disservice.” Bethid stood, knocking mud from the knees of her woven trews. “I’m going to find them water. Could you could fetch something to eat?”

  “You do me no disservice.” Brodhi glanced across the settlement. “I suspect fetching food means I must hunt.” He gestured. “Little is left here of food storage and meals.”

  “Mikal found some spirits,” Bethid pointed out. “You might go to the remains of his ale tent. Something edible may be left.”

  Brodhi shrugged. “But we will all need fresh meat soon enough. One might as well hunt.”

  She nodded, eyes narrowed, studying him thoughtfully. “One might. Or one may merely want nothing to do with tending injured humans.”

  He gifted her with a slight, dry smile. “One might not.”

  But she knew he was correct—fresh meat was a necessity—and waved him away. Brodhi found that dismissal more than a little irritating, but his choice was either to depart or to aid her with Alorn and Timmon, work that was, he felt, best left to her. Hunting would take him away from the remains of the settlement, putting distance between himself and human grief, human anger, human despair. Such things sat ill with him.

  And then he remembered, startled by realization. “Our horses.”

  Bethid, walking away, stopped. Her eyes widened as she turned back. “Oh, Mother—how could we forget? How could I forget?”

  This time he waved dismissal at her. “Fetch them water, Beth. I’ll look to the horses.”

  They were couriers. Horses were necessary for their duties. But also helpful for hunting.

  TO RHUAN’S RELIEF, Audrun stopped asking questions. She lost herself in tending the infant, wrapping muslin between and around her legs, criss-crossing it and tying it in place with a long piece of cloth. He left her to that tending, to a mother’s joy—though he had, in the creche, changed many clouts himself—and set about giving thanks to the dreya, asking their support. This was their home, this ring; one did not remain within without permission, if one had manners at all. Unlike the human hell, where no good dwelled, not all of Alisanos was poisonous to humans, dangerous to others. Dreyas, unlike various demons, devils, and beasts, were not murderers, did not feed upon flesh. They took strength from the soil and suns. Born in and of Alisanos, they were nonetheless benevolent.

  Rhuan, taking a step to the queen tree, grinned. Rather like me.

  “What are you doing?”

  Questions again.

  He turned, standing at the foot of a tall, pale, widecrowned, thick-trunked tree entangled on either side with the silvery branches of others. In the ring, dreya shared hearts and souls and blood; the latter humans called sap. “I intend to ask for protection tonight, so we may rest without concern for our lives.”

  Audrun blinked. “They can protect us? The trees?”

  “The dreya, yes. A ring is sacrosanct.”

  She was astonished. “And demons respect that?”

  “Well,” he sai
d, “not always. But mostly. Sometimes.” He shrugged, placing a hand against the trunk that was formed of thousands upon thousands of small, thin, silken scalelike plates of silver-hued bark. Each trunk bore a narrow cleft from ground to lowest branch. “Occasionally.”

  “That,” Audrun mused absently, stroking her daughter’s pale-fuzzed head, “is not particularly reassuring.”

  “They chose to admit us.”

  She looked up again, brows arching in startlement. “They could have kept us out?”

  “Oh, most certainly. They allowed us to enter. In a way, they’ve granted us sanctuary … but I owe them gratitude, devotions, and my name. Your name.” He smiled. “And Sarith’s.”

  “It matters to them, our names?”

  “Names define us, Audrun. Among other things.” He turned then, turned away from her to face the tree. He placed both hands on the patterned trunk, and leaned in to rest his forehead against the wood as well. With eyes closed, he exhaled through his mouth and let the breath gust against the smooth trunk. In the tongue the dreya queen would know, he told her his name, the name of the woman, the name of the child; asked safety for the night; explained their need, and what brought them here. Then he offered her and her sisters all the respect of his soul, trained into him from infancy. He honored the ring, honored the dreya.

  He might have used his sire’s name, but he did not. Alario had many sons, though only Rhuan remained of his dioscuri-born. The others were ascended, or neuters, or dead. And he, well, he would choose to be none of those things, but human. To live among the humans in the human world.

  He wondered if his sire knew that. Alario might, if Darmuth had said anything after the Hearing. He was enjoined from such, but demons were not always dependable. And they could be tricked by beings who were gods.

  Rhuan told the queen: My mother was human, born into and reared by that world. Alisanos took her, as did a god—but her sap has quickened in me. The heat of Alisanos runs in my veins; I answer to the suns. But I answer also to the heartwood of my mother dwelling within me, the soul and the bone; and to the pull of the human world, the human people. This woman is one of them. She has young saplings in her world, growing straight and strong. She has a new-sprouted one here, stalked by that which, and by those who, would kill them both. When the suns rise tomorrow, it will be my task to protect the mother and daughter. Tonight, will you honor us with your protection?

  From without, from a distance, came a scream.

  Audrun shot to her feet, clasping the baby. “That’s Gillan!” she cried. “That’s Gillan!”

  PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.

  —painpainpain—

  He was stripped of self, of self-control, of all humanity save that which screamed in pain. He was nameless, mindless, engulfed in agony. He could not speak, could not pray, could not beg, could not petition the gods, the Mother, for release. He could only scream.

  His leg was afire.

  To the bone, it burned.

  Around him, heat turned stone to liquid. Heat bubbled up. Heat wreathed the world in steam. Beneath him, his body was poised to fall, to follow his leg into indescribable agony. If he fell, if he followed, would the pain cease?

  —painpainpain—

  Gillan screamed again.

  ELLICA, POISED STIFFLY upon the rock, heard the screaming. It harrowed her to the bone. It set the hairs on her flesh rising, her scalp prickling. Not close, not close. Was it human? Demon? Prey?

  Was it something dying?

  Someone dying?

  INDECISION LOCKED AUDRUN’S joints, held her transfixed in place. She could not move. She could only clasp the child, only stare at the man, only fasten every nerve upon the comprehension that her son was in pain. Her son was screaming. Her firstborn, the eldest of the siblings to the infant named Sarith, was not only in Alisanos, but in agony.

  She knew his scream.

  Ah, Mother… O, Mother of Moons … Mother Mother-Mother…

  She was torn, torn, torn. A baby here. A son there.

  A baby, safe within a ring; Rhuan had told her so. And a son in pain.

  “I have to,” she gasped. “I must.”

  “Audrun—”

  Her body insisted, and her heart, and her soul. “I have to go.” She thrust the child into his arms. “Take her. Take her. Keep her safe.”

  “Audrun!”

  “That’s Gillan!” she cried. “That’s my son.”

  “Audrun, no!”

  She entrusted him with what was precious to her. She left the child, left the man, left the dreya ring. She ran.

  Mother, she prayed, O Sweet Mother, save my son.

  Chapter 6

  WHEN DAVYN FIRST saw the smudge of trees along the horizon, his pulse quickened. He thought he recalled the guide shouting at them through the storm, saying something about a forest providing some shelter for them; was it here the Shoia had carried the smallest of the children, searching for safety? He had seen nothing of a forest as he’d stood upon the chest inside the wagon, but the land was not entirely flat.

  Davyn broke into a jog. If the guide had gotten Torvic and Megritte to the forest, he may have done the same for Ellica and Gillan, and possibly even Audrun. Perhaps only he had been caught in the worst of the storm and the rest were safe.

  Fear began to recede. Apprehension still rode him, but the idea that the others were safe became fixed in his mind. For some distance hope and the beginnings of relief carried him easily, but then his body began to flag. He dropped to a walk, stretching strides to cover more ground, but before long that, too, seemed to require too much strength, more endurance than he had. Davyn, panting, stopped, gulped water, caught his breath, then forced himself into a jog once again. He would go in spurts, as a man rode a horse crosscountry: walk, trot, gallop; walk, trot, gallop. It didn’t spend the horse unnecessarily, but steady changes of pace covered ground.

  Possibly, possibly, all were safe. Possibly they were together somewhere in that forest, praying to the Mother for his safety.

  That made Davyn grin. All his worry for naught; only he had been in danger while the others took shelter from the worst of the terrible storm. And he had survived. He was uninjured. They would be together again, a family again, and though the oxen were dead and the wagon canopy destroyed, the wagon itself was whole—or would be, when he changed the cracked axle for the new one—and they could walk back to the settlement. There they might be able to find a team of mules or horses to borrow long enough to pull the wagon back to the tent village. Audrun, Ellica, and the youngest could remain there with others while he and Gillan took the team to the wagon, repaired it, and returned to the settlement. He thought it likely that their journey to Atalanda would be delayed a good three or four weeks, but the baby wasn’t due for another four months. They had time. Plenty of time.

  In a much better frame of mind, Davyn jogged onward toward the forest, the thick, massive canopy of trees growing closer, clearer, larger along the horizon.

  TORVIC HISSED AT Megrite, “Be quiet.” And when the fear in her eyes told him she might very well cry out in reaction to the terrible scream, he pressed both his hands over her mouth. “No, Meggie. Be quiet.” He glanced over his shoulder, saw rainwater dripping from leaves, drooping tree limbs. But there was no sound—no sound at all. In the wake of the high-pitched scream, everything had stilled. The world seemed to have simply stopped.

  Megritte reached up and tried to peel his fingers from her mouth. He leaned very close, very close, and whispered to her, “We need to hide. Go back in the rocks, Meggie. Go back where we were.”

  She climbed unsteadily up into the crevice. There was, once again, just enough room for him. Torvic gathered in folds of fabric, pulling the blankets and oilcloth up again, this time not as shelter but as shield. Hunched next to him, Megritte pressed close. “We have to find Mam and Da. You said.”

  Sound began again. Chirps and chitters, clicking. A breeze ran through the trees, pushing leaves against one another in a hissi
ng susurration. The gloom intensified, as if the sun—the suns—were sliding below the treetops.

  “Torvic, we have to go. You said.”

  “Not now.” It came out trembling. Torvic pressed his lips together and tried again, whispering. “Not now, Meggie. Later.”

  The tears had stopped, but her voice sounded pinched. “What made that noise?”

  “I don’t know.” The stone beneath his buttocks was chill. He scooted closer to his sister. “We’ll wait a bit, Meggie. Then we’ll go look for Mam and Da.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  TIMMON AND ALORN, conscious again, were wind-battered, filthy, scraped, and bruised, but otherwise whole. Bethid handed around the waterskin she’d found and told them to stay put; there was no reason they should do anything other than sit still and catch their breath. Both young men were pale and shaken, and dark-haired, brown-eyed Alorn nursed a long cut above one eyebrow while Timmon, lanky and long-limbed, with blue eyes and light brown hair, pressed a portion of his tunic against his swollen bottom lip to stem the bleeding. In the meantime, those tent dwellers who had fled the settlement began to return, straggling in. Bethid, seeing their shocked expressions, hearing despairing voices, was glad she had a task in looking after her fellow couriers. Others, those who had wisely followed instructions given out by her and Mikal as the storm swept down, now discovered that nothing in the world was left to them save their lives and the clothing on their bodies.

  Too much, Bethid knew; simply too much for anyone to wholly grasp, to assimilate. But only days before a party of brutal Hecari warriors had arrived at the tent village, methodically killing one person in ten: men, women, children. They had also set fire to as many tents, culling dwelling places as well. In the days afterward, bodies were buried following various rites and rituals to see the dead safely across the river into a better afterworld, and burned tents were searched for what might have survived the decimation. On the heels of that had come Alisanos, swallowing acre after acre, mile after mile, its power made visible and tangible by the terrible storm.