The open dairy beckoned her, and frightened her. To be trapped down there while he moved in...a sob escaped her throat, an echo of the very noise she’d made last night during the nightmare that now come flooding back to her. Caught in the dark, cowering from the hand that reached for her —
She broke, scrambling for the dairy, snagging her skirts on the ladder and ignoring the rip of sturdy material. Except — the candle! Halfway down she reversed course and re-emerged, stretching for the warm-wicked object that surely would have given her away. This time she remembered the dairy door, too.
It was barely closed when she heard Blue whine above her.
“Blue, no!” she hissed, but knew it was no good. Something came for her — but she’d been alone, in that nightmare. Not this time. Out she popped again, to take hold of Blue’s collar and jerk him forward with such sudden determination that he tumbled into the dairy with time for little more than a muffled yelp. Then down came the door and darkness closed in on them.
Blue whined again while Blaine huddled at the bottom of the ladder and stared anxiously at a door she could no longer see. In the darkness, he bumped up against her and sought out her hand. “Shhh,” she said, her voice squeaking slightly, “hush yourself or you’ll have us kilt.”
The man reached the cabin door, opening it slowly to walk right in. Boot heels hit the floor above her and stopped. He was looking around... seeing no one. Looking, she knew, at the hinged door in the floor. Did they have dairies in the plains? Would he think to look down here?
Suddenly she knew she couldn’t take the chance. She’d gone to ground like a muskrat to water, and she’d have to keep going. She had to find the deepest, darkest corner of this place.
The unshelved wall — it had looked like Dacey hadn’t completely finished digging there. Blaine groped along the shelf beside the ladder, cringing at the noise from the potato she knocked down. He was by the stove now, on the opposite side of the cabin from her.
There. Her fingers hit dirt, scrabbled against it in her distress. She suddenly realized she was shaking, shaking hard. Stop it, said a harsh inner voice, fighting the rising flood of hysteria in her throat. You just stop it, Blaine Kendricks.
At the top of the wall, she found what she thought she remembered — a narrow crawl space between the floor beam of the cabin and the undisturbed ground. Not a space her sister would have fit into. Maybe, just maybe, she could squeeze herself that flat. Something thudded to the floor above her head and shattered. Footsteps moved toward the dairy.
If it broke every rib in her body, she would squeeze herself that flat.
Another ripping noise, her shirt this time, and the gouge of chunky splintered wood against her skin. For an instant she was stuck at the hips, with her legs hanging down the wall and her elbows digging futilely against the damp and slimy ground. Then her fingertips found and wrapped around an old root, and she pulled — and was through. To her immense relief, once she scraped herself past the floor beam at the crawl space opening, the area opened up a little; she could do more than take a deep breath, she could get up on her elbows as she wriggled to face the door, and even hitch up on her knees a little.
And then Blue whined. He was standing on his hind legs, his nose poking in at her. Above them, footsteps made a thoughtful sort of circle around the dairy door.
“C’mon, Blue,” Blaine whispered. “Come up here with me, then. Hurry up!”
She could only imagine the doubtful expression on his face, but knew it was there, a big wrinkle above his brow and forward-cocked ears. He made a halfhearted effort and slid back to the ground again.
The man fumbled at the leather strap that served as a door pull.
“C’mon, Blue, c’mon —” first panic, then inspiration, struck. “Blue — come and get it. Get it Blue, get it! It’s back here!”
Potent words for a hound. His doubts forgotten, Blue lunged upward, making it halfway through the narrow spot in one good squeeze. No time for pained curses; she snared his collar and pulled. Forced sideways, he popped through into the crawl space, inhaling scent and determined to get whatever Blaine had holed up in here for him.
Dim light created grays and shadows as the door opened. Lying as flat as she could, as far back as she could get — which meant to the next floor beam — Blaine watched the backs of high, dark boots descend the ladder. Blue, confused and determined to get something, scrabbled around to face the dairy, rumbling in his chest.
Blaine surprised him into temporary silence by clamping her hand around his muzzle as the man reached the floor and turned around to face her. He scanned the contents of the shelves as his hands rose to his hips, irritation on his face. Blaine eased all the breath out of her body and imagined herself as thin as a skim of ice on a frosty morning.
Something looked for her, saw her, reached out to her — Blaine shook, hiding the paleness of her face against Blue’s short, slick coat, even if it did mean losing sight of the one who hunted her.
After a moment she heard the man grumble something in disgust; she heard his foot hit the bottom rung of the ladder. He was going to leave, and she would be safe. Dreams were just dreams, and she’d be safe...she clenched her hand, unmindful that it held the dog’s muzzle, wishing hard for those safe arms she suddenly remembered, the ones that took her up and ended the nightmare —
Blue whined and pawed at her hand, his tail thumping once in apology for whatever he had done to make her grip his face.
Blue, no! She tightened her fingers and shook the dog’s muzzle a few quick, fierce times, daring to peek out at the dairy.
He had heard. He had turned back, his head cocked but not certain....
But a sweep of the room must have confirmed his earlier conclusion — nothing bigger than a rat could hide here. Blaine jumped as the man abruptly jerked a shelf over, a violent move that spilled its contents across the floor and completely concealed the growl Blue could not contain. As the shelf creaked, settling unevenly, the man climbed the ladder and slammed the door down.
Darkness again. Footsteps, brisk and decisive, leaving the cabin. Maidie barked, sounding peevish, but after a moment her complaints grew intermittent and then died to a few final grumbles.
Blaine cautiously released Blue’s muzzle, and then had to dodge his tongue. “Quit!” she muttered, as loud as she dared, ducking her head between her arms. Then she had to move quick to grab him again; he was ready to bolt out into the dairy. “Oh, no. We’re staying right here.” Right here, until she felt safe enough to move again.
For now, all she could do was shake. She held the dog tightly, just glad to have something to hold at all.
~~~~~
Dacey reached town after noon, quick-footing it from Pippy’s place but stuck with the long way around. He’d head home much more directly, and beat nightfall easy enough — and if not, he’d run. He wouldn’t leave Blaine to the darkness, not in this strange place with such fears in her recent days.
Town was little more than the river front and a few buildings — one to hold the river merchants’ goods, one for gatherings and social occasions, a few to hold the blacksmith’s forge and the animals he stabled, and one for Annie’s small boarding house and its diner — not to mention a smattering of homesteads built close in to town.
As he’d expected, the street was full of Trade Day traffic. There was a boat in dock, one of the odd new steam ships that weren’t of any use further upstream. There were lots of odd things from downstream, things that were wanted but not always afforded, and other things from which the community just plain turned away. Dacey’s windows had made that trip. So had a number of pistols, loud and awkward weapons that hardly ever aimed true, and that meant a lot of fumbling with powder and ball when it came to taking a second shot.
So far, the hunters of the area had chosen to stay with their bows, snares, and knives. Now, looking at the steam ship with narrowed eyes, Dacey found himself wondering if pistols were used on the plains, and trying to remember if t
he Annekteh camp had had any. It would be one more thing to take Blaine’s endangered community by surprise, if so. But the Annekteh eschewed projectile weapons as a rule, and with luck they’d extended that ban to pistols.
Dacey raised his hand in return to a friendly hail as he walked the half-dried mud of the lane in front of the river, but didn’t pause, his focus on finding his kin.
Or it was, until he saw the high-booted men close to the dock. Dacey stopped in mid-stride, unmindful of the folks who were forced to take a sudden detour him and Mage. For a moment his breath caught in his chest, his sight narrowed to tunnel vision...his body remembered fear, in an instant of reaction he couldn’t suppress. Then he started to breathe again, to think. They were here! How had they —
They’d come down the treacherous river, obviously. He forced a deep breath, dropped a hand to Mage’s head as the dog tensed and growled, deep in his chest. “With me,” he reminded the dog softly. Down the river. They’d probably simply Taken a few of Blaine’s kin and neighbors to figure out how to get to the seers’ new territory — and to Dacey —
He wondered if they’d lost any men to the dangerous waters along the way — and how many were here now. The two he saw moved from trade-goods loaded to tables with river merchandise, ducking into buildings along the way. The plainsmen remained casual and natural; they even appeared to be polite.
Dacey narrowed his gaze, ever more wary...not trusting the innocuous nature of their activity as they worked independently of one another, nodding to this man, brushing up against that one, smiling and ducking their heads at the women. At first baffled, Dacey suddenly saw the pattern of it. Touch, Take, and release. They were not just plainsmen. They were Annekteh Taken. Vessels. Touch, Take, and release, so quick the victims weren’t even sure what had happened. Take and release. Learn about the area. Learn about the seers’ kin. Learn that they had nothing to fear from most of the people here — except, of course, for the one for whom they were looking.
Him.
He started walking again, slowly — watching — Mage matching his pace. One of the men drifted closer to him, one further away. Carefully, he fell in behind the closer one. He shadowed the man, ignoring the greeting from his cousin Jimsy, playing a fine line between being noticed by everyone else for his odd behavior and being noticed by the Annekteh, period. Eventually he was behind his quarry, close enough to hear the man’s meaningless remarks and salutations.
He hadn’t really understood his own intent until that point, when he discovered his hand was tight around the handle of his knife. Spirits, there had to be another way. There had to be. From behind, like an unsuspecting animal? The man before him was Taken, was just an innocent tool.
But warning meant the annektehr inside him could escape. Back to the fold in the North — or into someone else here, mostly likely, someone he’d know...maybe someone he loved.
No, it had to be nekfehr death...that which the Annekteh dreaded above all, the death of the annektehr along with the Vessel. Hating himself, hating that he was the kind of man who could even consider such action, Dacey targeted the man’s heart from the back as though he were a deer walking into arrow range. Three swift, bold strides, and his arm was around the man’s neck, pulling him into the rapid thrust of the knife at his back, through the ribs, driving up —
Dacey held the Vessel close while the man gave a spastic jerk, and another, and — with a sudden sobbing exhalation, deflated. It wasn’t until he hit the ground and quivered at Dacey’s feet that the handful of people around them began to realize there was a problem, and even then they couldn’t quite fathom it.
“Dacey, what —”
“Spirits, Dacey, what have you —”
Dacey ignored their gasps — Jimsy’s protests, the hand that reached for him — and aimed himself at the other Annekteh. The man — no, the Vessel, the enemy — must realize that something had happened to his annektehr partner, but wasn’t ready to give himself away. Instead, he was closing in on Dacey’s Uncle Sy. Touch — Dacey was running — Take — Dacey yelled a warning —
No, there was no Take!
The Vessel’s eyes widened at his failure, and as Sy jerked away and scowled at what he thought was simple over-familiarity, the man dipped his hand into his side pouch and slapped Sy on the arm.
Dacey plowed into them both, ending up on top of them; someone running up hard on Dacey’s heels overshot them all. There was too much shouting for Dacey to hear what the Vessel cursed at him, and he ignored all the hands that plucked at him. He clenched his hands together and drew back to bring their combined strength against the side of the Vessel’s face.
Then Dacey was outnumbered, and virtually lifted off his enemy. He struggled to find his feet while being tugged at from half a dozen directions, and flabbergasted exclamations hammered him. You done broke his jaw, Dacey! Are you crazy, man? Dacey! Stop!
“Sy!” It was the clearest voice, and it held shock and distress that cut through the clamor. “Sy, what’s wrong?”
Sudden silence, and the various grips on Dacey’s clothes and arms slowly eased. The Vessel lay unconscious before him; just to the side, his cousin Jimsy bent over Uncle Sy. Sy’s lips were blueish; his face grey.
“What ails him, Jim?” It was Dalkin Fleming’s demanding voice, nearly in Dacey’s ear. He should have known it was Dalkin when he got lifted right off that Vessel; few could match the blacksmith’s casual strength.
“I — he’s dead! I think he’s dead!”
Not fast enough. I wasn’t fast enough. Not quick enough with his warning. Dacey stared at his uncle’s body. I didn’t have no seeings for you, Sy.
Jimsy had something in his hands, turning it over for examination and holding it far from his face to accommodate his notoriously blurry close-vision. “A dart,” he said. “D’ye suppose — that fella —” He looked at the Vessel, and then down at his uncle, and his face twitched in a battle between grief and fury.
“What’s going on, Dacey?” Dalkin growled. He grabbed Dacey’s shirt at the shoulder and yanked him around so they were face to face, then shouted, “What’s going on here?”
Dacey looked back at him, eyes narrowed, face quiet. At the edge of the crowded confrontation, Mage growled. After a moment, the blacksmith released him and stepped back.
“Dacey,” Jimsy said, a single word of intense demand. He got up from their uncle’s side and joined Dalkin, the two closest faces in a crowd of distressed kinfolk and friends. For the most part they were still too shocked to react, but the tears were beginning.
Dacey took a deep breath. “Annekteh,” he said simply.
Dalkin spat. “Kilt ’em all, Dacey!”
“I ain’t going over that old argument with you — nor anyone. There’s Annekteh up north, and I found ’em. I come here today to get the word out.”
“You found them? Looks more like they found you.” Dalkin glared. “And in finding you, us. You want to go off on your little adventures, you better be sure to keep ’em to yourself.”
“Leave off, Dalk,” Jimsy snapped, fairly bursting with the need to lash out at someone. “If they was kilt, this ’un’d never have got to Sy.”
“Dacey’s plumb on the mark about this kind o’ thing,” Annie said, her elderly voice quivering but clear enough over the noise of the crowd. “It ain’t his fault we been running away from this day.”
“But what’re we gonna do?” That was Susannah, fifteen and easy to rile. “Granny, they’ll Take us all!”
“They’re dead, now — or will be,” Dacey said grimly. He looked at the second man, the Vessel, with the annekfehr trapped inside — only as long as the Vessel was unconscious. He’d have to be killed before he woke. Gran, I think you done told me too much. A heavy weight, Gran’s knowledge, when so few shared it with him. “And now you know to watch. They ain’t much interested in here, not yet — likely won’t be, as we don’t have what they want. They’re settling in at the hollers up north. That’s where the fighting
is. Where the magic’s coming back.”
“That’s where you been,” Jimsy said, understanding coming across his plain, stubble-jawed face as the pitch of his emotions cooled. “Rosabel said you were gone, an’ I counted you as off hunting. But you was a lot further than that, wasn’t you?”
Dacey nodded. “But I was hunting, all right.” He looked down at the Vessel. “Don’t none of you touch him, less’n you’re direct of my granny’s line. An’...you got to kill him afore he wakes.” The man groaned, as if he’d heard and understood; all Dacey wanted was to be away before it was done.
“There was three of ’em,” Dalkin said, his voice holding sudden alarm. “I seen three of ’em come past my place to Annie’s last night.”
Dacey discovered his hand was bloody, wiped it off on his pants. “He’ll know what’s happened.” They all knew, all through the annektehr and the unbodied Annekteh. “I don’t reckon he’ll be easy to find, now. The annektehr may even abandon him. If he’s been Took a long time, there won’t be much left of him.” He gave Dalkin a sharp look. “It ain’t safe to have him around in any case.”
Dalkin nodded slowly. “What of you, Dacey?”
“Going back north,” Dacey said. He looked down at his uncle, a long look that held all the good-bye he would have the chance to give. “Going to try to make sure they don’t get comfortable there.”
His words didn’t seem to surprise anyone. They moved aside for him as he walked away from the spot, and didn’t bother him as he retrieved his knife from the first man’s body and wiped it clean against the shin of the black padded boot.
Blaine was waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 8
Blaine stayed in the dark crawlspace as long as she could, until even hugging Blue’s warmth wasn’t enough to stop her shivering. If only she hadn’t taken off her jacket while she was working in the garden. And if only she’d used the outhouse before she’d come down to get the ham —
Seer's Blood Page 11