Cadell snorted, all his polite apparently used up. “I ain’t no Willum, to suck that one up,” he said. “We ain’t seen no sign of ’em.”
“They’re here,” Dacey said with quiet conviction. “Or they’re coming. And you’d best be thinking how to handle ’em.”
Another dull splat of tobacco juice against the overturned garden earth. “What makes you think so?”
No real curiosity in that voice, but Dacey answered anyway. “Seeings,” he said. “From those still of the seer’s blood, down my way.”
There was a long silence in the darkness. “Don’t reckon I can put any stake in what some South-running folk calls seeings.”
“Maybe not,” Dacey said. “But I’ve come a certain sure long way because of ’em.”
~~~~~
The Vessel’s single successful act of defiance had been to deny the annektehr his true name, and so the Annekteh called him Nekfehr. The Taken. In the end, the name turned into a title, and only served to further intimidate those under Nekfehr’s unwilling command.
They did their best for him, those unTaken soldiers did. They were afraid to do elsewise.
And now, far from home and uneasy with the mountains that filled their sky and denied them the horizon, they had found for Nekfehr signs of a clandestine visitor. Smudges against the hillside, a few damp undersides of last year’s leaves exposed to the air. Two days ago, it had been, and no more sign; no cry of discovery, no spirited but futile attacks.
The humans, it seemed, had not learned all that these mountains had to offer. The magic was here, waiting. Could they but find the suktah they needed, the Annekteh could begin this invasion in full.
Nekfehr’s intention — driven by the Vessel’s quick wit, the answers and thoughtfulness he provided the annektehr in spite of himself — had been to find a substantial growth of suktah before revealing Annekteh presence in the hills. But he was no longer so sure that he could accomplish this task, despite the intensive search along this hollow and others — uninhabited hollows that, generations earlier, had held seer families and stands of suktah. But his plains-born men didn’t know where to look.
Their clandestine visitor was another matter — an incident Nekfehr might have been willing to assign to raccoon as much as to human. Might have been. Had it not been for the feel in the air, a grating sensation of antipathy and intent.
Would that the Annekteh had serious magic to command, other than their own innate abilities and a few insignificant tricks. For then Nekfehr might have been able to pinpoint the origin of such deliberate antipathy.
No matter. He’d find it, sooner or later. And he knew, well enough, what it was.
A seer.
Somewhere, in these hollows full of people who had blinded themselves to magic, there was a seer at work.
The first target.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 3
A bruised sky lowered its clouds on Owlhoot Holler and let loose torrential rains, rains that filled the creek to overflowing with foul water and spilled up into the garden. The plants turned to slimy blackened fronds; an ominous rumble filled the air. Blaine turned her eyes up to the mountain slope, barely able to see through the rain pounding her face, searching for the cause of it — and recoiling when she found it. The trees were sliding right off the hill! They built momentum, crashing to the ground, tangling, rolling —
— rushing down toward the Kendricks homestead.
“Blaine!”
Willum, on the porch, his chubby face contorted in fear. “Blaine!” he shrieked again, terror distorting his voice.
“Willum!” she cried, and ran for him, reaching out to scoop him up as each step forward took her further and further away. Despair grabbed her ankles, tripping her, slowing her. “Willum!”
And the trees came crashing down.
~~~~~
Blaine startled awake, scared by the intensity of the dream — and found her ears full of sound, an extraordinary howl cutting through the night. She lay in the bed she shared with Lenie and shivered, spooked, and still stuck in the twilight between asleep and awake.
As if she’d never heard a critter howl. It wasn’t nothing but a dog or a rare wolf, lonely in the night. Nothing to raise her hackles over.
The uneasiness clung to her; she suddenly realized that she’d heard this very noise four days earlier — on the ridge, right before she found the visitors; the day before Dacey Childers had walked into their yard. Visitors, she suddenly realized, who hadn’t yet shown up to trade anything. All travelers need supplies...
And here it came again. Spirits of Those Before! She felt it vibrate through her body before she actually heard it, a low noise that lifted to a howl, clear and mournful and somehow menacing all at once. The sound shivered across her neck, this time joined by a brief chorus that quickly died and did not repeat.
Blaine slid out of bed and into the chill of a woodstove nearly gone out, leaving her heavily sleeping sister undisturbed. Pulling the door open a crack, she sniffed the cold night air — as if the air would bring her any answers. After a moment, she heard Rand rustling in his loft bed.
She turned to find him watching her, and whispered, “Wolves?”
“No.” Rand shook his head and left it at an angle that told her he was as puzzled as she. “Dogs,” he concluded. “But no one went a’hunting our hills last night. Leastways, no one that checked with Daddy.”
His whispered answer gave her no peace, for it would have been more like Rand to grunt “dogs” and roll over for a few more moments of sleep.
Blaine returned to the bed and patted the footboard in search of her clothes. She quickly donned them, feeding a few logs into the stove before quietly slipping through the door. Rand would assume she was visiting the privy, but...
She had a sudden hankering to know if those strangers were still there.
She drew water and set kindling on the porch, then fed the chickens and left the pail out so Cadell would know that she had done it. If she had some semblance of her chores done, things would go easier when she returned, even if she did delay the disking he had planned for the day.
It was breaking light when she finally did stop at the outhouse, on her way to the springhouse trail and the strangers. The ridge trail was easy to follow despite the shadow the opposite mountain threw, and Blaine climbed up into the sunlight even as it crept down the hill toward her. Clouds bloomed in the sky, hazy and red and proclaiming rain. Worse news for her; if Cadell couldn’t get the garden disked, breaking up the great clods of plowed earth before it rained, she’d be in certain big trouble.
But not enough to make her turn back, not with the thought of the strangers in her head and the echo of the howl still in her ears. She put the rain from her mind and paid attention to her feet; the mountain top was almost half a morning from home if she slacked her pace, and she didn’t have that much time to waste.
When she reached the ridge Blaine turned north, toward the mouth of the hollow, aiming for her favorite rock — a jutting, rough boulder that pushed aside the trees in its lone stance at the top of the world. It was twice Blaine’s height but she knew the hand-holds, and she knew that no one would ever think to look for her there. That alone had been enough to make it a favorite perch, never mind that it was a place to study the maze of mountains that wove and undulated around her own hollow. It was from there that she’d learned the subtle flavors of the seasons, and learned to know from a glance just what kind of mood the mountains were in.
Today she gave the rock only a wistful glance, and used it as a marker to cross over to the downslope on the other side of the ridge, down into Fiddlehead Holler and the side of the hill still blanketed in frost and shadow.
As sudden and eerie as the first time, the early morning howl repeated itself — a crystal clear noise cutting through the peace of the mountain, and through Blaine’s peace of mind. The fine hair on her arms stood up.
Quit your foolishness. It was just from going from o
ut of sun into shadow, that was all. Plain old goosebumps from cold. She continued down off the mountain, her progress somewhat more cautious than before, and the blinder already clutched in her hand. She heard the muted morning noises that meant the strangers were waking, and grew more cautious yet.
Hesitating just within sight of the men, when they were still only fractions of people moving behind bare-branched trees, she realized all at once that she should have simply told her daddy what she’d seen, and borne the consequences.
But she hadn’t, and now here she was.
Steeling herself, she crept in above their camp, heading for the clump of rhododendrons with last year’s limp, dead-looking leaves hanging down and looking like wept tears. Moving with painful slowness, glad for her dull brown clothes and the perpetual dampness of late spring leaf-cover on the ground, she finally got close enough to take a good look. So many of them!
Three times as many as the last time she had been here. And not one of them had come to talk to her daddy, head of the closest homestead to their camp.
Most of the men were just waking. Only a few were up, crouching to stir faded fires into flame. Hunkered in above the slight scoop in the terrain that held the camp, Blaine made herself very still while her gaze skipped over the normal camp activities and settled in on the flurry of movement just below her.
It took a moment to sort out the details, to realize what she saw — that the lump on the ground between four of the strangers was a man, that the funny noise was his choked cry of pain.
That the man was Dacey.
She gasped; she couldn’t help it. Almost immediately she realized the danger she had put herself in with that faint sound — but the strangers were too busy with Dacey to note it. Tied at the wrists and ankles and perched haphazardly against a rotted-out sycamore, he answered their murmured questions with a single shake of his head, sending his untrimmed bangs into his eyes. Blaine winced as one of the men backhanded him, though it clearly wasn’t the first time. The trickle of blood dripping down his chin followed a path already forged, and his face held a storybook of bruises.
Not strangers passing through. Not here for trade. Oh, no.
And definitely not from the mountains, not even distant ones — not with the odd, clipped speech patterns that came to her ears in the fits and starts of their demanded questions, not with those clothes. Dacey wore what she expected to see on a man: rough homespun and leather, and a thick short-waisted wool jacket that gave him reach to his belt knife — now merely a conspicuously empty sheath. The strangers, on the other hand, wore thick, hard leather strapped over their arms and chests, and over padded, finely woven shirts and trousers. Their boots were padded along the shins, almost like a good pair of snake guards — but it was far too early in the season to worry about snakebite.
And they wore long blades, blades of which she’d never before seen the like. Sheathed, heavy-hilted blades far too big ever to be called hunting knives. The kind of blades not meant for anything but killing people. Swords.
The man who had hit Dacey stood apart from the others. He alone was not covered with the hard leather, but wore soft and comfortable-looking clothes topped by a warm cloak. In the hills, only women folk wore cloaks, and only on the fanciest outings — but Blaine wasn’t tempted to think of this man as anything but masculine and dangerous. He stood back from Dacey now, the cloak spread wide by his elbows as he adopted a posture of finality, hands on hips.
“We’re going to get our answers,” he said, no longer speaking in the confidential murmurs of his questioning. “By now I hoped you’d realize that. I’m not particularly interested in torturing it out of you.” His dark eyes were hard. “But I will.”
Blaine frowned at the sound of his voice — smooth and quiet, and not at all in keeping with his attitude or actions. And even though his speech had those unfamiliar clipped patterns, there was still a kind of rhythm to what he was saying, one that made him pleasant to listen to and totally at odds with the words themselves. The man gestured without turning around, and one of the strangers stopped warming his hands by the main campfire and scooped up a pouch, which he presented with a stiff salute.
Dacey tensed; Blaine could see it from her perch, no further away than from the Kendricks’ porch to the barn. Tense, and... Scared. Oh, he was scared. “There ain’t no point in this,” he said, his voice intense...though his face held no hope. “I ain’t got nothing you need to know. I’m here on my own, and nary anyone else knows aught about you.”
“So you’ve said,” the man replied, dark amusement in his eye. “But we’d like to know other things. How did you find us? Why can’t you be made nekfehr?”
Blaine frowned, losing the word in the man’s accent. Hard enough just to think, finding herself so close to such pure meanness, so close to where a man sat hurting — and about to take more of it, she had no doubt of that.
The man hefted the pouch. “And of course I don’t believe that you’ve come after us all by yourself. Not to worry, Dacey Childers. I’ve got a way to show you more fear than you thought a man could handle. Then, I think you’ll do anything — anything — to avoid that fear again. Even if that means telling us your precious secrets.” He fumbled in the pouch, extracting something small, something dark and ugly and — from the way he handled it — sticky.
Blaine loathed the sight of it.
Two of the men knelt to take Dacey’s arms. A third, donning gloves, took the small blot of darkness and grabbed Dacey’s jaw. Blaine watched in shock. They’re going to make him swallow it like a dog worming mix.
Only this was no wormer; she knew it and Dacey knew it. He fought them with every wile he had, tearing cloth and flesh. His mouth clamped shut, his eyes grim and hopeless, he kicked — connecting solidly, and sending the gloved man down the hill on his back. Blaine gave a silent cheer, inner hope cut abruptly short as a hulk of a man joined the fray and simply sat on the prisoner, dealing him a resounding pair of slaps that left him dazed and panting. The gloved man scrambled forward and poked darkness into Dacey’s mouth.
The conflict began anew; Dacey flung his head to first one side and then the other, evading their hands as he sought to spit out the vile lump — and although all three of the others were larger than he, Blaine found herself leaning forward, her hands clenched into fists and her heart crying out for him, hoping, hoping hard —
The leader stepped calmly into the fray and covered Dacey’s nose and mouth with his ample hand.
Dacey fought for air; his back arched, his body bucking, eyes widening...and finally, as Blaine’s lungs ached in sympathy, rolling back in his head.
The man released him. Blaine groaned quietly as the strange pill went down with Dacey’s first whooping gasp for air — though not easily, not to judge by the gagging and choking.
With quick, rough efficiency, ignoring his struggle to draw a clean breath, the men tied Dacey’s hands to his belt and left him. The leader stood before him another moment, waiting, until Dacey regained the wits to look up, bleary-eyed and conquered. The man shook his head, a gesture of false pity. “You should have cooperated,” he said. “We’ll leave you alone, now, and when we come back, I think you’ll be more than willing to talk to us.”
Not wormer. And not poison, not when they still wanted something from him.
Then what?
Dacey sat alone, propped against the sycamore stump, eyes closed and defeat on his face.
She should leave. Now. The strangers were distracted, breaking fast around the campfire. She couldn’t imagine how any of them had the stomach for food after what they’d just done, but they acted like nothing out of sorts had happened. Blaine shuddered, thoroughly chilled in both body and soul.
But...somehow she felt she had witnessed too much of this man’s drama to leave now.
She crept a few feet sideways, a few feet closer to him. A slick patch of leaves skidded out from beneath the hand that held the blinder, and in clutching for solid ground, she lost ho
ld of it. Dacey’s head swiveled; he looked straight at her. She stared back, aghast, exposed, and hating that he knew she had witnessed his futile struggles. He had too much privacy about his ways to take that well. He met her gaze with eyes that had recently held courage and confidence, and now only revealed bleak hopelessness. It was only a moment of silent communication — though she wasn’t at all sure the meaning of it — and then Dacey looked the other way. So his gaze might not give her away, she realized suddenly, and briefly closed her eyes in a sudden wash of helplessness. Helpless to help.
She took up the blinder again.
Beads of sweat broke out on his face, a face that had suddenly gone grey. Blaine watched, appalled, as he began to tremble, as his breathing turned quick and panting, becoming jerky gasps. As his eyes glazed, the pupils huge, he pulled against his bonds, then fought them outright — mindless and random resistance, opposing no one but himself.
Blaine had never heard a man moan in fear before. She found it a terrible sound.
And then the low howl, now almost familiar, tingled through her body, rising slowly to audible sound. Dacey cried out in response, a sudden and harsh noise that sent Blaine tumbling backwards in surprise. She could only watch for a few more horrified seconds, long enough to see the leader lift his head from his meal and give a satisfied nod. Then, as the man looked away again, Blaine ran.
Under the cover of Dacey’s screams, she ran.
She flung herself up the mountain, on all fours more than she was upright, and then slid down the other side with just as much careless haste, a journey that seemed to take forever and left her legs trembling from effort, too tired to catch her when she stumbled at the bottom of the slope behind their farm.
Rand, who had watched her noisy progress with evident surprise, stuck his pitchfork in a wheelbarrow of compost and just looked at her a moment, his dark brows lowered.
“Rand!” Blaine gasped, climbing to her feet again and making it to his side where she clutched his arm for support, unable to spare the breath to tell of her discovery.
Seer's Blood Page 3