The Winter Boy

by Sally Wiener Grotta

“Watch yourself!” Hester warned, pointing to blood on the sharp ragged edges of the hole. “Wait a moment.” She retrieved a small burlap bag from a nearby shelf and wrapped it around Rishana’s hand and wrist.

  Rishana probed the box. Nothing. “Whatever they were looking for, they got it.” She sat back on her haunches, shaking her head. “Is it possible? Could this be from the Before Times? From the civilization destroyed by the Great Chaos?”

  When Dara and Peren rounded the corner, Peren said, “Well, that’s something of a relief. At least we can now assume that their knowledge is almost as limited as ours.” The other three stared at her, and she shrugged. “Don’t you see? Somehow, they found the secret to opening that hollow wall. But they still had to use an axe to get at whatever was inside that box.”

  “Small consolation.” Dara bent down to look inside the box. “Particularly when I think about Kiv getting her hands on—” Standing, she faced Peren. “Can we even begin to guess what she’s unearthed here?”

  “We still don’t know for certain if Kiv is involved,” Hester reminded them.

  “Oh, she’s involved. You can be sure of that,” Dara said.

  “We’re fencing with shadows. We need facts.” Rishana took off once more for the rear entrance, with Hester, Dara and Peren close behind.

  Opening the oversized double doorway at the back of the storehouse, Rishana stopped and held her arms out to keep the others from walking any farther. She crouched down and stared at the ground. Two muddy paths cut through the melting snow. The left one led around to the front of the storehouse and the other headed outward, toward the mountains. “That’s strange,” she said.

  Dara leaned down next to her and looked in the same direction. “What?”

  “See the footprints and the roughness of older indents there?” Rishana pointed to the left.

  Dara sighted along Rishana’s arm. “Yes.”

  “Now look over here. What do you see?” Rishana gestured to the area in front of the door and to the right.

  “Nothing.”

  “Exactly.” Rishana stood and turned to the other Alleshi behind her. “What path anywhere in this Valley is that smooth in all this mud?” Pulling an overcoat, gloves and hat from the rack at the side of the door, Rishana came to a decision. “I’ll be right back. Don’t let anyone walk around out here.”

  Peren watched Rishana’s every move. “Where are you going?”

  “To get my Winter Boy.”

  “You want to bring him here?!” Hester asked, aghast at the idea that a boy in Season would even see the storehouse before the Service Days began.

  “Rishana’s right,” Dara told her. “Mistral’s one of our best trackers, and he’s trained his son.”

  “But he’s a boy in Season,” Hester objected.

  “In a few weeks, his Season will be over, and he’ll be an Alleman,” Dara said.

  “But we can’t wait weeks. We need him now,” Peren acknowledged. “Go. Bring him quickly, but be careful what you tell him.”

  “Of course.” Rishana didn’t bother to hide her annoyance. No one had the right to tell her what to say to her Winter Boy.

  Chapter 68

  When Dov heard the front door close, he immediately put down his book and hurried out of his room. Tayar was flushed and out of breath. Her eyes were darting, and her lips pulled into a thin, tight line. Though she was usually so particular about tracking dirt into the house, she still had on her muddy boots and someone else’s damp black coat.

  “Tayar, are you all right? What’s happened?”

  “Come with me. Now.” She pulled him out the door into the vestibule. “I’ll tell you what I can on the way.”

  “The way where?”

  “Please, just get your things and let’s go. Now!”

  He quickly stepped into his boots, closing only every other hook. Then he slipped on his coat, grabbed his hat and gloves, and followed Tayar outside. “Who’s Caith?” he asked.

  Tayar walked at a brisk pace. “My friend. An Allesha. The caretaker of our storehouse. She’s dead.” Her words came in spurts, punctuated with gasps for air.

  Hearing a tremor in her voice, Dov said, “You’re scared.”

  Tayar shook her head in a denial Dov didn’t quite believe. Not that she was lying. More that she was struggling to keep her fears at bay by not admitting to them.

  “I need you to read some tracks, Dov, before they’re gone.”

  “You think she was killed.”

  “What?” Tayar grabbed his forearm. “Why would you assume that?”

  “Well, a woman is dead, and you need me to track.”

  She shook her head and released his arm. “The tracks may not be related to her death.”

  “Then why?”

  “Dov, please, no more questions right now. I’ll try to answer after. Not now.”

  Though the rain had stopped for the moment, the air was heavy with a chill dampness that threatened another downpour. Dov followed Tayar along twisting paths he didn’t know, until they arrived at the largest building he’d ever seen. It spanned as much land as some villages and was as tall as the tallest trees.

  Stopping on a small knoll overlooking the building, she took two deep breaths before speaking. “This is our storehouse. Over there is the main entrance. Each side has one set of large receiving doors and a handful of entryways. The receiving doors farthest from us face the mountains. We tend to use them when we accept offerings and when we give supplies to those from beyond The Valley.”

  He couldn’t believe he was actually at the fabled Alleshine storehouse. What’s more, soon he’d be an Alleman, with access to all its wonders. “You want me to start at the far doors, don’t you?”

  “Please, no more questions; I don’t want to influence what you see. All I can say is I believe someone was here within the past day, probably between sundown yesterday and this morning. Tell me what you can from the tracks.”

  “Well, the path we’re on is a mess, but you know that already,” he said.

  “Dov, describe everything you see, even if you think it’s obvious.”

  Taking off his glove, he crouched low, while peering down the path. He pushed his sleeve up and probed three small puddles. “The earth is rain soaked; the puddles are of varying depths. So I’m assuming a lot of people come and go along this way.” He wiped his hand on his trouser leg and stood. “Two, maybe three people ran through here recently, probably within the last hour or two.” He looked pointedly at her boots. “Including you.”

  They approached the building, walking along the left side of the path rather than on it, sometimes having to circle trees, bushes and rocks, often trudging through knee-deep piles of old shoveled snow. Dov stopped frequently to look closer at the mud and puddles. Every once in a while, he touched a track or probed pooled water. Tayar knew enough to stay behind him.

  They circled toward the back of the storehouse, with pauses at the massive doors on the front and side of the building. At the rear receiving entrance, he saw what he supposed had bothered her. “That’s unnatural,” he said, pointing to the area beyond the door. “Doesn’t anyone use that path?”

  “Tell me what you see.”

  Dov crouched down beside the path and studied it. “It’s too flat. The rainwater spreads too evenly. Was it groomed recently?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Either that or someone was trying to hide their tracks.” Standing, Dov stared at the building before him. The large double doors were enormous, but were dwarfed by the colossal wall. He scanned the area around him, then set off uphill, walking beside the smoothed-over path. In the manner of most trails in The Valley, it curved with the terrain, passing a handful of Alleshine homes at some distance. Dov saw a boy and his Allesha walking toward a barn, though he doubted they could see him through the trees. Not that they were looking at anything other than each other.

  From time to time, Dov probed the ice-cold muddy water with his bare hand. At one
curve, he stood, blowing on his hand to warm it. “Whatever they dragged to smooth the ground wasn’t heavy enough. There are hoof prints under the water, recent ones, horses or mules, weighed down by heavy burdens. Heavier than whatever was dragged to erase their passage. I can feel the hoof prints under the puddles.”

  “Can you show me?” Tayar took off her glove.

  Dov removed his second glove, so one hand could probe under the frigid water, while the other gently guided her. “Here. Do you feel that? It was formed at night, when the beast was so burdened it broke through the deeper ice.” He moved their hands along the edge of the hoof print, then up to the higher smoothed earth that surrounded it. “They should have stood on it.”

  They straightened up, drying their hands on their pants and quickly putting on their gloves to warm their fingers.

  “Stood on what?” she asked.

  “The log. At least that’s what I think it was. They dragged a log or two behind them, trying to erase obvious signs of their passage.” Around a deeper bend, the path wound through a dense cluster of trees and low bushes that opened onto a small copse. Behind a bench were two muddy logs. “There!” Dov exclaimed, pointing. “If I hadn’t been looking for them, I might have thought they had fallen naturally. But only at first glance.” He turned toward Tayar. “That’s what this is about: our first glance. They wanted to slow us down, give them time to get away before we saw through their subterfuge. I don’t believe they expected to really fool us.”

  The glade was covered with recent hoof and boot prints. Because of the thick canopy of branches overhead, the ground wasn’t as wet as the paths had been. Dov took long strides, careful to not step on any tracks, making his way to just behind the bench. He sat on the back of the bench, with his feet on the seat. Just as carefully, Tayar skirted the active area and climbed up to perch beside him.

  Dov studied the ground in silence; he felt that his Allesha watched him with the same kind of scrutiny. Was this a test? Were other boys in The Valley going through similar field trials? Dov glanced at Tayar as naturally as he could, incorporating it into a visual sweep of their surroundings. How rigidly she sat, rubbing her hands repeatedly against her thighs. No, her fear was real, as was her urgent need to discover everything she could about the people and beasts who came this way last night. An Allesha had been killed, and Tayar needed his help.

  “How many do you think?” she asked.

  He stood and walked around the periphery, leaning down to look more closely at various prints. “Could be as many as thirteen. Mostly men, I believe. But three people took smaller, more hesitant steps, as though they were older or untrained. Women, probably.” He pointed at the area in front of the bench. “Those three sat there to rest.” Leaping over the path, to land neatly on a rock, he kneeled down. “But one left the group and headed downhill.”

  She stared where he pointed — toward the center of The Valley.

  “And it looks like about nine beasts.” He considered the size and stride of the hooves. “Large horses.”

  “What can you tell about the tracks that left the group?”

  Dov followed the lone set of footprints away from the grove toward the houses on the lower slope. But they became lost among many in a frequently traveled path not far from the copse. He returned to Tayar, who knew enough to stay still rather than add her steps to the ones he had to read.

  “Definitely a woman, or a small man.” He climbed over the back of the bench and sat next to her. “She limps, leaning on her right foot more heavily than the left.”

  “How long ago were they here?” Tayar gestured toward the center of the glade.

  “With all the rain, that’s difficult to say. But given the hoof prints under the smoothed area back there, it had to be at night, late enough for the deeper ground to be frozen.” He looked out beyond the grove. “The later the better, if they wanted to avoid running into people from those houses. They stopped here for longer than it took to discard those.” He gestured toward the logs behind the bench. “Some of the men’s prints are heavier near the animals. I think they rearranged whatever the horses were carrying… guns?” he guessed, looking at her for confirmation.

  At first, she didn’t answer, then reluctantly nodded.

  “A large load of them from the tracks.”

  “Two hundred.”

  “Skies!”

  “Dov, can you be more specific about when this happened?”

  He paused, while trying to think out the timing. “I’d say about ten to fourteen hours ago.”

  Tayar started running back toward the storehouse, though she still kept off the path.

  “What now?” Dov called.

  “We’ll need supplies. Come.”

  Chapter 69

  Hester was at a storehouse side door filling her lungs with fresh air to rid herself of the taste of death when Meika returned. The younger woman had her four mountain ponies in tow, which she secured in the corral.

  “Why in heaven’s name did you bring those beasts?” Hester asked, as they walked to Caith’s bedroom, where Peren and Dara had retreated. While Hester understood the need for such animals in The Valley, she had never gotten over her dislike of their messy, unsanitary ways. Why any Allesha would choose to keep such creatures rather than leave that duty to the Battais was a mystery to her.

  “How did you plan to follow them… on foot?” Meika countered, though with more irony than irritation.

  Hester had been so engrossed in examining Caith’s body that she hadn’t considered what they would do next. Of course, someone would have to go after the renegades and retrieve those rifles, one way or another.

  On entering the room, Meika informed the others, “I’ve brought my ponies.”

  “Good.” Dara stood and headed for the door. “Let’s start packing.”

  Hester stared at Dara in amazement. “Do you really think you’re the one to go after Kiv? Do you want to stop her or goad her even further?”

  Peren started to rise from her chair, but collapsed back again, suddenly shriveled by the day’s events. “Hester’s right, Dara.” Her voice was so low and indistinct it barely traveled to the doorway.

  Hester walked toward Peren and looked into her face, while feeling her wrist pulse. But Peren shooed her away. “I know. I’ll rest while you get ready.”

  “Me?”

  “Who else is there?” Peren asked.

  Hester wanted to protest, but Peren was right. No one else in their circle had even the slightest hope of talking Kiv into returning. Not that Hester felt Kiv would listen to her, either, but she had to try. Too many lives were at stake. Damn, she could already feel the ache in her back and hips from having to sit astride one of those nasty animals for untold hours.

  Another downpour opened up as Dov and Tayar dashed into the storehouse. As far as Dov could see, rows and rows of enormous, roof-scraping shelves were filled with everything he could imagine, and then some. Stunned, he gawked like a child who had never seen a treeless sky, especially up at the top shelves that reached the impossibly high roof far above their heads.

  Tayar nimbly scampered up and down ladders, filling his arms with food and packs and supplies. But when she piled a bottle onto the load he carried, he was suddenly unbalanced, forcing him to drop everything lest he careen into a pool.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Dov didn’t mask his annoyance as he bent to pick up the scattered goods.

  “Leave it. I’ll be right back.”

  Soon, Dov heard the clacking of metal wheels as Tayar pushed a large cart toward him. “Here, we can use this,” she said, tossing stuff from the floor onto the cart.

  “You can’t be serious about following them. Do you have any idea what it’s like in those mountains? All the rain down here is ice and snow up there. Bet it’s a damn blizzard in some spots.”

  “I hope so. If not, we’ll never catch them.”

  Dov picked up the last of the spilled supplies and dumped them onto the c
art. “How do you expect us to be able to carry all we’ll need for weather like that?”

  “On my ponies,” an Allesha answered from the other side of the pool. Straight, chestnut-colored hair framed the most delicate features he had ever seen, like a finely carved doll you’d be afraid to give a child. Though obviously an old woman, probably at least his grandfather’s age, she moved with the grace and ease of one much younger. She was tiny, but had a sure, strong presence. Definitely a woman who was used to being deferred to.

  “Perfect!” Tayar said as she continued to put more packages from the shelves onto the cart.

  Dov grabbed Tayar’s hands to stop her. “How many ponies do you have?” he asked the strange Allesha.

  “Four,” she answered as she walked toward them.

  “And how many people are going?”

  “We’ll need you for your tracking skills. So your Allesha should come. Of course me, to handle my ponies. And another. A Healer Allesha.”

  Le’a and a large woman with an improbable mop of reddish-grey hair came around the corner. “That’s me,” said the big one. “But are we sure it’s necessary? Tell us, boy, what did you learn from the tracks?”

  Swallowing his pride, Dov ignored the belittling title. What else could this stranger, an Allesha, call him? But now that he looked at her, he realized she wasn’t a stranger. He had seen her before, on the path from the Battai’s to the caravan tradegrounds. Tedrac’s Allesha. “I’d say about thirteen people left this building and headed toward the mountain. Three were old or women. “

  “Three women?!” the small one gasped.

  Dov nodded. “But one of the women returned to The Valley when they headed up the near mountain.”

  “She has a short stride and a limp that favors her left leg,” Tayar added.

  “A limp?” Le’a seemed genuinely puzzled and looked to Tedrac’s Allesha to identify who it might be. But the Healer had turned inward and didn’t respond.

  “They had about nine horses, packing very heavy burdens.” Dov paused only briefly. “The guns you’re missing, I’d guess.”