Seer's Blood

by Doranna Durgin

  Blaine and Dacey.

  “C’mon, Dacey,” she muttered, fairly dancing in place. But a moment’s panic was enough for her to realize the plainsman didn’t have a bow and Burl would certainly have him down before he could reach either her or Dacey, so she waited until Dacey had his footing and grabbed his hand, pulling him as fast as she dared toward the hall.

  She wanted to run, to sprint her fastest as they crossed that exposed pasture, but Dacey stumbled and she kept herself slow. She looked back to see Burl and his two boys coming over the fence after them; her steps got out of synch with Dacey’s and their hands tore apart. Dacey skidded back, his expression wary, touched by wild fear. Gut-level fear...alone in his darkness. Blaine instantly reversed course, plowing through Mage to snatch up Dacey’s hand again.

  “Almost there,” she said breathlessly, and he followed her after only the merest hesitation.

  They reached the rough log walls of the building just before the first of the boys, and Blaine put both Dacey’s hands on the wall. “Stay put,” she panted, and ran to the corner of hall to peer around the edge.

  Two bodies sprawled near the door; there was no one else in sight. Burl done good. Back to Dacey she went and they both ran, around the corner and to the thick, center-set door of the hall. Thinking hurryhurryhurry and nothing else, Blaine yanked the latch free and pulled the door open.

  Mage erupted with a savage sound.

  “Get down!” Dacey shouted, just as savagely, pushing Blaine to the ground. Most of the air grunted out of her lungs as flung himself on top of her — shielding her — and all she could see was dust and big padded warrior boots. Burl’s wordless yell sounded above the horrible snarls of the dogs. The boots pivoted before her nose, both dogs fell on her head, and a much heavier weight pushed Dacey into her back until the rest of her breath squeezed out and couldn’t find room to return.

  Dacey’s sharp command was the first thing she sorted out, although it didn’t make much sense. “Don’t touch them!” he said firmly as he shoved the dogs away from her head and commanded them to stay. Blaine opened her eyes to a limited view of the dusty earth as Dacey shifted on top of her and finally hoisted up his hands and knees, supporting himself on either side of her ribs. Blaine took the hint and quickly pulled herself out from under him, flipping around to get a good look at where she’d been.

  To her astonishment, both Burl and the unexpected guard were draped over Dacey; his back bowed up against the weight of them. Once he no longer felt her beneath him, he tilted to one side and dumped the bodies to the ground. “Don’t touch them,” he admonished — her? The boys? — again.

  “But — Burl!” the youngest said, and something about the way he said it made Blaine look again at Burl, realize how still he was.

  How dead he was.

  “What happened?” she blurted, crawling to them, unable to keep from reaching out to Burl — although she stopped herself before she actually touched him. “What happened?”

  “Nekfehr,” he said. “I don’t know if he’s dead. So don’t touch until I’m sure.”

  “Nekfehr,” Blaine said blankly, and then realized what he was saying. Taken. The guard had been Taken. The guard had touched Burl. And Burl had almost landed on — she shuddered — me.

  “Blaine, bring me Mage.” Dacey’s voice brooked no hesitation.

  “He’s safe,” Blaine said, reaching for Mage’s collar and to draw the dog over to Dacey.

  His hand met hers on the collar, tightened briefly over it. Under his hand, Mage snuffled at Burl in a disinterested way; Dacey felt Burl’s arm, followed it to his chest, let his hand rest there. “He’s dead. It’s safe.”

  “The guard behind the door,” the smaller boy said, looking — and sounding — far too young to be part of this. “Burl saw you go down and he come right into it all, and him with just his knife.”

  “If Burl hadn’t died he’d have been Taken,” Dacey said quietly. “Which do you boys think he’d’ve chose?”

  Neither of them answered. They didn’t have to.

  “All right,” Dacey said. “Burl done himself proud. Now we got to carry on. We got three bodies that need to be drug off and one to put careful in the barn.”

  He climbed to his feet, moving slow — like he still, somehow, carried Burl’s weight. After a moment, the oldest boy wiped his nose with the back of his hand and exchanged a newly determined glance with his partner. Together, wordlessly, they began moving the bodies.

  “The wards?” Dacey asked.

  Blaine barely heard him. Still on her hands and knees, she stared at Burl; he’d had so much strength in him that she hadn’t considered he’d be the first of them to go. There’s no sense to it, she realized. Just chance. Any one of them could be next.

  “Blaine?” It was a tentative voice, one that should have been familiar — if it hadn’t been so changed. She looked up into the pale and haggard face of her sister Lenie. “Blaine, is that...how can it be you?”

  “Lenie!” Blaine lunged to her feet and grabbed her sister in a hug. After a startled moment, Lenie hugged her back, but there was no strength or conviction to her embrace. Blaine hardly noticed; she caught sight of her mother and tore away from Lenie to rush into the hall. “Mommy!” she cried, and would have thrown herself at the woman, had she not seen the strange wariness in those eyes. “It’s me, Mommy, it really is!”

  The woman who stared back at her was hardly the mother she’d left. That woman had been tired but striving anyway. This one was lank-haired, skinnier than her wayward daughter — doing as she did because someone else held her to it, and not because she had any drive of her own. Blaine saw no hope in those empty eyes, and she stopped short of the hug she’d been aiming, her hand trembling as it reached for the side of her mother’s face.

  “Blaine,” Dacey said sharply from the doorway.

  Hastily, Blaine dug into her pocket for the wards, settling for a quick touch on her uncomprehending mother’s arm. “You watch,” she said. “I really am here. And them Annekteh are gonna rue it.” She turned, quick, jaw set —

  And left her family. Again.

  “Here,” she said to Dacey, taking his hand and turning it palm up so she could empty the leather pouch into it. In return he held out his other hand, offering her the hunting knife and hand both.

  “Do it,” he said.

  Blaine just gave him a startled look. Dacey had told her about this, about how the wards needed to be immersed before they were placed, an act which bound them and made them seek out one another. Immersed in anything but water — which left nothing when it evaporated. Preferably in blood, the living substance of which lent strength to the wards.

  He had told her about it, prepared her to handle it herself. But he now obviously intended for her to cut him, and she had never even considered such a thing.

  “Blaine, I don’t aim to lose any fingers trying it myself. Now do it, before the Annekteh get here!”

  Galvanized, Blaine snatched the blade and pressed it across her arm, cutting deeply enough that the blood welled freely, running into her palm and spatting through her closed fingers onto the ground. She upended her cupped hand on Dacey’s own, which was still waiting to feel the knife. “I couldn’t do that to you,” she said, her voice as pale as her face. She took his other hand and tipped the teeth into the little pool of blood.

  His expression went from surprise to understanding to frowning regret, but he said nothing. Finding the tiny grey lumps with his finger, he stirred them around to make sure each was completely covered with her blood. “Take me around the building.”

  She did so without hesitation, still dripping blood. Moving quickly but without fumbling, Dacey felt out the end joints of the logs and deliberately pushed the wards, one at each corner, back into the dovetailing. Blaine winced. She’d been planning to put them on the ground, and she suddenly realized how easy it would have been to scuff them aside — even a strong wind might have done it. Their nerve-wracking run across
the field together had not been for nothing, that was certain. If only he wasn’t...

  No, that wasn’t even worth thinking. Even blind, he was the best chance they had.

  “Southeast,” Dacey muttered over the last ward, naming it as he had named the others. Blaine led him back to the doorway, and put his hand on the doorjamb in a quick, silent explanation of their position. From the crowded room within, Lenie watched her, standing right up front. Lottie was nowhere to be seen. Blaine wanted to find the words to tell her sister things would be all right, but she just stared, her throat on the edge of speech and no words to fill it.

  Unaware of her distress, Dacey stepped away from her, just inside the doorway — but when Mage tried to follow, he gently but firmly pushed the dog back out. “Listen,” he said to Blaine — that voice that meant he knew, that he needed her to hear him — “Take those boys and follow the path behind the hall. When you get there,” and she had no need to ask where there was, “hang back. Watch. See who’s touched by who, and let Trey know. Them that’s fighting won’t have the concentration to do it, Blaine — you got to keep track, the best you can.”

  Blaine’s mouth was open, her mind blank. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave her family, or Dacey — or the safety of this hall. But he was right, and she knew it. The boys needed all the help they could get, even if it was just her.

  Dacey dropped his hand to Mage’s head. “Take Mage,” he said, more words with intensity behind them.

  Blaine forged right over it. “Dacey, not Mage! He’s your —”

  “Take him!” Dacey repeated sharply, hesitating, his head held at an angle that let her know he was thinking about all those behind him, choosing his words. “And watch him — watch him close.” With that he took possession of her still dripping hand and closed his own fist over it, holding it in the air above her head.

  “Seek,” he commanded in a perfectly ordinary tone of voice which in no way prepared Blaine for the sizzle of energy that raced around the outside of the log hall, flaring at each concealed tooth and ending at her own fist with a soundless blast that knocked her back and almost knocked her down.

  “Dacey,” she pleaded, staggering back to regain her balance. But it was done; Blue and Mage were outside the warded building, and although there was no longer any sign of the energy, she knew its protection could be broken only from the inside.

  Dacey shook his head at her, his face resolute. “Go,” he said.

  Blaine stared for a scant moment longer — one last look at her mother, who had joined Lenie, still almost lost in the group crowded behind, but not against, Dacey. At last she saw the realization in Lottie’s eyes, the slow recognition that her girl still lived. At that, Blaine turned away.

  “Blue, Mage,” she commanded, “with me!”

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 20

  Careful to stay away from the open but warded doorway, Dacey leaned gratefully against the wall — solid, supportive, and easily pictured in his mind. Outside, Blaine’s footfalls grew faint, merged with the two boys’, and faded.

  It should have been her in this building — safe, away from Annekteh, and convincing her family that she was still alive. It should have been him out there — not weak from Annekteh drugs, not blind. Not still reeling from his time behind the seer’s wall.

  But he’d done this to himself, as he always did. Pushing into places he hadn’t been asked, rescuing a people who didn’t even know he existed. All for the sake of some seeings, and the fear of facing the feelings he’d had when his stubborn ignorance meant his mother’s death.

  No. For more than that. For the sake of Blaine and her family, for all the others who didn’t deserve life under the Annekteh. He’d done it to himself, but with reason. With purpose.

  He just wished he hadn’t also done it to Blaine.

  The air turned close and stuffy despite the open door. The hall was crowded, no doubt about it — it didn’t take Annekteh-dulled eyes to perceive it. And except for the breathing, they were silent, incredibly silent for a group that included children.

  He knew what they were looking at. Him. The blind outsider who had worked magic in front of their hall.

  “We’re safe from the Annekteh now,” he said, and that, at least, he could announce without question. No one would breach those wards, Annekteh or not. But unliving objects — like arrows — surely could. Unfortunately, in order to close the hall door, someone would have to break the wards. One of those details lost in the panic of the moment.... Better simply to block the thing. Then someone might see out more easily, as well.

  No one seemed to have moved; he found it unnerved him to address a crowd of silent, unseen strangers. But he kept confidence in his voice. “If any one of us leaves, those wards will have to be reset.” It was a process that might take only a single word, if the teeth had not dried completely, or precious moments, if they had. “That includes reaching out for that door. Is there ary a table in here?”

  Silence followed his question, long silence. He drew a deep breath. “I know you don’t have a full understanding of what’s happening. But...I need your help.”

  Finally, he heard a rustle, and then a quiet, hesitant voice. “There’s tables.”

  “We got to block this doorway. Annekteh can’t get in but arrows an’ such can.”

  “Table on end will do it,” offered another voice, one that took on a little confidence. Always helps to give ’em something to do.

  “They’re heavy,” protested yet another voice.

  The first came right back, firmer now. “There’s enough of us here for it.”

  After that, speech died down to grunts of effort and mutters of direction; Dacey stepped aside, moving down the wall, and listened as they dragged the table to the doorway. “Here,” he said. “I’ll tip it on up.”

  Strange how he encountered no one on the way, brushed no arms, felt no swish of skirt. Their retreat had been quick and unanimous. He found the end of the heavy plank table and saw right away why they’d been hesitant; it was huge, with thick, heavy boards. He ran his hands over the age-polished wood, learning the shape of the thing, and searching for the right handholds. Not at all sure he could actually do it, he dipped his knees and lifted, straining against the weight. It moved most grudgingly — until, abruptly, it lightened, raising almost easily under his hands. Someone — or more than one — had come to some sort of decision about him, and pitched in. His smile was more inward than outward as the table rocked into place, but it marked a definite victory.

  “It covers near the whole doorway,” someone declared, and there was no dissent. Dacey ran his hands around the edge of the table and found only a small gap between it and the door frame. He nodded to himself.

  “And what now?” said the first voice that had spoken to him. “Now we just sit and wait, wondering what’s happening in our hills?” The woman stepped close, close enough to touch, for Dacey to feel her breath on his face as she peered at him...challenged him. “Dacey Childers, is that you? The Childers that traded for food? Has my Blaine been with you all this while?”

  “Yes’m,” Dacey allowed. “She’s been a good hand, Missus Kendricks.”

  “And you didn’t see fit to bring her back to me?”

  “What I saw fit,” Dacey said gently, “and what I could do...those were different things. If I’d ’abrought her back, it would’ve put her in the trouble you all were already in. As it is, she’s done helping get rid of them.”

  A dozen voices echoed his words, a wash of hope running through the building. Disbelief clamored on the heels of that hope, until at last they saw he would not try to speak above them and grew silent again.

  “It ain’t won yet — though we got a good start, getting you in here and warded off, safe from Takers. But we’ve got a chance. Our only chance, before more of ’em get here.”

  “How?” Lottie said. “What kind of chance can any of us have, against a Taker?”

  “I been wor
king with your boys, your hunters. They can do it.” They better.

  “Our children?” That was another woman, her voice rising above the gasps of the others.

  “They’re men after today. Best you remember when they come back home.”

  “What if they don’t come back?” Lottie’s voice was hard, accusing...telling him plain she couldn’t afford to lose another.

  He didn’t answer right away, looking for some way to soften the words and finally opting for his characteristically direct manner. “Reckon some of ’em won’t. Blaine told me that you — and they — would have it that way before settling in to the Annekteh. Was she wrong?”

  The question drew another moment of silence. Then, someone’s voice, strong and clear, said, “No. She weren’t wrong. We all feel that way.”

  “We’ve done talked about it,” another agreed, and then there was a general murmur of consensus; it grew into louder conversation, and the whine of a child wanting food, and a general rustle of activity.

  Dacey was glad for the reprieve. Facing these women was almost more difficult than standing up to the Annekteh, and that...that didn’t bear recollection.

  As if his thoughts would give him a choice. Outnumbered. Set upon so sudden, so completely, by the plainsmen searching for the owner of the hound with the wild howl. He warned off the dogs, too late to save Chase from a heavy, flat-bladed sword blow to the face. Mage, ever obedient — crouching at a distance while Dacey rocked from the blows of the plainsmen, one on top of another — rending the air with his angry snarls. Maidie, ever independent, charging in to take Dacey’s part.

  His distraction at her broken body was the last thing he remembered before he awoke in Annekteh hands.