The grimness of her future made her withdraw from conversation to sit brooding, mutely tearing off pieces of bark and tossing them into the river.
Blue fingers? Blurred vision? Hah! She still did not truly know what had happened when she had healed the tuskdog. Why run when she was innocent? What was the definition of a mage anyway? A thought blazed like a fiery arrow in darkness. Perhaps what she needed was a lawyer. Lawyers could argue the points of the law to whoever was the highest authority in these matters. Beth always said if one paid them enough a lawyer would argue against life on his own deathbed.
When she suggested they should find a lawyer Pascolli grunted, put on a sour face and rolled his eyes.
In the end, faced with the likelihood that everyone from the military to the folk from Hull and the farms hereabouts, and probably even their pet dogs, would soon be looking for them, they decided to cross to the opposite bank. There were dangers in the wild country to the north where the mountains of the Grakks met the empire’s border, but the Finder would be worse. They would travel west far enough to avoid Hull and the adjacent fort that overlooked the river and the bridge at Hull. After that they would decide on the next step.
Ellinca found Beth’s list of names. She read down the list, pausing at one of the names. The silver bracelet Mrs. Therber had given her slid down her arm. With one finger she spun the conical beads while she thought, staring at nothing. Absentmindedly she put the list away and reached for the small bag containing the perfume vial to touch its reassuring curve.
“Ow! What?” She looked down, her fingers scrabbling about. Where was it? The bag felt flatter than it should be. She opened it. “No!”
The vial was smashed. In the fight or during the flight through the trees, whichever it was made no difference.
Her mother’s ghost was gone.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and sat with her head in her hands. When at last she could bear it she carefully tipped out the pieces onto her hand. There were chunks of glass and splinters and the stopper with the little gold chain linked to it. She held it to her nose and tried to imagine the perfume as it had been all those months ago. She returned it to the bag. Slowly she lowered her hand until it was just above the water. The pieces of glass glittered like diamonds, painting splashes of pure light on her palm. She watched as they rolled away and tumbled into the water. Gone.
In her mind she saw her mother’s ghost still twirling and twirling, and wondered what she had achieved in all these months. Where had the sense in it gone? Once away from the farm she should have released her. All, human or animal or ghost, had a right to decide their own fate.
“Goodbye,” she whispered. Ellinca knew both sadness and relief – a relief that at last her mother was truly free. She should never have kept her ghost inside the bottle. Ashamed she pressed her fingers over her eyes.
Pascolli said nothing to her for a long while, only carefully examining her face as if to make certain she didn’t need his aid. “Look,” he signed, and pointed.
Barely six yards away a small plump platypus climbed upon a log, river weed draped across its duck-billed mouth and water cascading from its sleek back. Startled by their presence it twitched round, found a clear spot and dived back into the water.
She smiled a little. Her mother had liked swimming. This was a good place to remember her.
“They make good eating,” Pascolli signed.
“Really. Anyway, we don’t have time for hunting.”
It was true. Their food would have to be parceled out to make it last, but for this first meal they could eat what they liked. Besides, some of the fresh stuff would spoil within a few days.
“How did you know about the bludvoik?” she asked. “To cut off his head and all that?”
“Haven’t you heard the nursery rhyme?”
“What?”
“Ring a ring of soldiers, a gathering of bludvoiks, an axeman, an axeman, they all fall down.”
“That’s it? That’s what you based your advice on? To cut off his head?”
“Yes. There’s other stuff too. Other stories.”
“Gods! A nursery rhyme?” She bit into her apple then stopped in mid-chew. She was going about this all wrong, selfishly even. “Pascolli.”
He swallowed and put aside his second sausage sandwich. “Yes?”
“You should go back. They aren’t looking for you. The longer you travel with me the more likely they will see you as my accomplice. If you go back now...who will have seen you with me? No one. No one except for Mr. Jubb, and those two dead soldiers. Unless he volunteers the information, it’s still a secret. Go back. No matter how much I would like you with me, it’s wrong.”
Firmly, he shook his head. “One. You want me here. You need help. I stay. Two. After seeing what the lieutenant did, you really think I would be safe?”
“Um...”
He flurried his hands about to hush her, signing, “No, no, no. By now the Finder has been back to our campsite and found us both gone. That is enough to get me into deep, bad trouble. That’s it. End of discussion. I am coming with you. How can you survive out here by yourself?”
“No, look...”
“I’m sure of this.”
She nibbled on her lower lip, a bad habit when she was thinking. There was nothing else she could think of to say after that, but she was glad she had tried to persuade him to return. She smiled. “I’m...speechless.”
He snorted. “First time.”
That was when she noticed the silence. All the animal noises she had taken for granted had ceased. The river still gurgled merrily, the logs slapped against each other, the trees rustled in the wind, but apart from the distant caws of a disgruntled crow there were no living sounds. The opposite bank of the river was treeless yet there were no stumps or signs that man had logged this part of the forest. The dark brown earth was simply bare of all plant and animal life.
With the trees gone, beyond this she could see the most southern tooth in the long jaw of the Whistling mountain range. Sky-splitter, the Grakks called it. Clouds gathered heavily where its peak bit into the sky. In a cooler climate it would undoubtedly be snow-capped but here trees swarmed up the lower slopes, merging into a gray-green smudge at the top.
One of the Bheulakk airships dawdled up there, a purple speck against the white clouds. Not for the first time she wondered what it would be like to fly. Most likely she would never find out. The Bheulakk had never revealed the secrets of airship manufacture.
Closer still, from somewhere in the expanse of trees, two tendrils of smoke curled up to the blue. Campfires or lightning strikes? There had been no rumble of thunder last night, not that she could recall anyway. It would do them no good to avoid the Finder only to stumble across a roving patrol.
Ellinca found her gaze drawn back to the rawness of the bare earth. “What happened to that land? Nothing grows there.”
Pascolli craned his neck around, silent for a while as he thought.
“They say that is from a battle with a mage, a long time ago. Good thing is we’re safe from anyone spying on us. No one with any sense comes anywhere near this place. Nothing has sprouted over there since the battle.” He turned back.
“Gods... Really? Nothing? A mage did that?”
“You’re not like that.”
“Are you sure? Mages go mad. I may still go mad.” Before he could reply she blurted. “I think I did something to that bludvoik. Killed it maybe? I don’t know! My hand is still colder than it should be and it’s numb in places. You know, maybe I can heal animals... Which, by itself must be a good thing.” She half-glanced at him as if for approval. “But what if I can kill?”
Now that was a conversation stopper. Even Pascolli was struck dumb. It was hard to dismiss her fears when that vast area of sterile earth continued to roll past – like some sort of display laid out to impress them with the truth.
He stood and tossed the remains of his breakfast aside. “Bludvoik
s are always dead. Do not flatter yourself.” He pulled a harmonica from his haversack. “I need to hear some music.”
Without apology he settled himself on a bump on the log and began to play, softly, hesitantly at first before the tempo picked up to become a lively tune. He stopped a moment to sign. “Just don’t do any dancing or we’ll fall off the log.”
Ellinca laughed. It was impossible to stay dreary or worried in the face of such cheerfulness. She began to hum and tap her feet, until soon she found herself singing along, though neither of them dared to be too loud.
Somewhere at the back of her mind a thought occurred to her – not dead. Bludvoiks are undead, which must be sort of in between life and death. How awful that must be.
Chapter 8
Bloodmen
When Pascolli put away the harmonica it was as though he also put away their newfound lightness. Aware again of the possibility of watching eyes, Ellinca fiddled with the straps of her pack and looked across the moving raft of logs. The idea of walking over them had seemed more feasible when she wasn’t about to do it.
“That looks...scary,” she muttered.
“Maybe we should stay on this side?”
“Maybe.”
As if the river were aware of their misgivings, when they drifted ’round the next wide curve it began to broaden, and fifty yards or so in front of them the front edge of the log carpet was breaking up, logs spinning slowly away, gaps widening, the dark, cool water showing between them.
“We need to get to Carstelan.” She straightened her back, having made up her mind at that very moment. “One of the names on Beth’s list is the same man that Mr. Jubb mentioned – Sir Alexander Blissman. Perhaps he can find us a lawyer. And I think we should stick to this side and sneak through Hull after all.” She cocked an eye at Pascolli.
He nodded. With every second they waited the chance of them walking all the way across the logs grew less and less.
“Right, then let’s go back.” She shifted stance, ready to take the first of the three or four leaping steps needed to reach the nearest bank.
Pascolli hissed. Puzzled she looked up at the embankment and saw nothing unusual until, from the jigsaw arrangement of leaves and branches, and shadow and light, she discerned a face. Swirls of brown and blobs of green camouflaged the skin. A man with red-rimmed eyes stared back at her.
He knelt on a thick branch high above. His clothing was also brown and green. Where plain skin showed it gleamed with the shine of taut muscle. From the top of his bald scalp to his long, curled toes he most resembled some savage, hairless monkey. He grinned, showing blood-red teeth filed to a sharp point.
A Bloodman from distant Wurtgard – they were tree-dwellers renowned for their hunting skills and blood-colored teeth. Valued trackers and sometimes, it was whispered, assassins, they were the inventors of fingertalk.
“Oh, my...”
Pascolli hissed again. “He’s a scout!”
She swiveled her head back to the man. Only a slight swaying of the leaves betrayed where he had been. His ululating cry pierced the morning quiet and, in the distance, a horse neighed.
“Hola,” yelled a man. “Hola! We have them!”
Eyes wide, Ellinca spun round.
Pascolli stood frozen behind her.
“Go! To the other side! Horses can’t follow there.”
“There will be arrows. Run fast.”
She gulped when she read the finger talk. Arrows – that hadn’t occurred to her.
In unison they turned and leapt to the next log, and the next and the next. Each time Ellinca prayed her feet would land true, that the log wouldn’t roll. She had time to look up and see that if they ran straight, and if they reached the other side, they would arrive on the very edge of the dead land. She angled her flight farther downriver, enough to only slightly lengthen the crossing but it also meant they would miss the dead land. Pascolli, running alongside her, adjusted his own stride.
It’s not so hard, she told herself, feeling an exhilaration welling up as she found the right rhythm to the jumping. The pack was heavy but bearable. The breeze of their running cooled her skin. With ease she let her leg muscles bunch and release, her ankle turning at just the right angle to allow yet another launch through the air to land in just the right spot on the next log.
She deftly avoided a jagged branch, smiling as Pascolli hooted with joy. They were even jumping in time with each other. Just a few yards more.
A long, strengthening whistling trilled behind her. Something punched into her back. She stumbled and fell forward, to trip, somersault and plunge upside-down into the chill water. It closed over her. She could see the underside of a log, hear a strange echoing knocking as the logs ground against each other like a herd of ancient submerged beasts. The pack dragged her deeper and deeper – green coolness on skin. Her pounding heart and her lungs, so desperately starved of air, ached and urged just one more breath. One. More. Breath. Tendrils of river weed drifted past her open eyes.
She shrugged off the straps of her pack, kicked back and headed for the surface, thrashing arms and legs as fast as she could. There was no gap, no gap in the logs. She clawed at wood. Blood thumped round her skull, became a pain that merged with the ache in her lungs and then became one almighty screaming plea from her body. Breathe! She didn’t want to, but couldn’t stop herself. She opened her lips. No! She clenched them tight again. An arm reached down to her, grabbed her by hair and wrenched her very painfully upward.
Gasping and coughing, with water pouring off her, she re-entered the world.
“Come on,” Pascolli signed. He pulled her to her knees and set off again. A crossbow bolt skidded across the log before her eyes, sprayed splinters up at her face before vanishing. Staggering a little she followed him.
Another wave of whistling sounded. Five or six arrows and crossbow bolts thudded into the logs all around her. She dared not look back. The river bank beckoned. Pascolli had already climbed up the crumbling raw earth. He reached down with one arm, the other firmly wrapped around a dangling tree root. Taking his hand, she scrambled up using roots and small ledges in the earth and sheer willpower.
They collapsed together when she reached the top, both of them sucking in deep lungfuls of air. Her ears strained for that telltale whistle. This time it was she who hauled Pascolli up by the strap of his haversack.
She looked toward the far bank in time to see Finder Hilas Frope bring his horse to a sliding halt in a small clearing where the archers had gathered.
“Hold! Fire again, and I’ll have your tongues!” His words drifted across the river. The men lowered their weapons.
“He must be wanting to stop them losing more arrows?” she said, with some doubt in her voice.
“We are still in range,” Pascolli signed then he shook his head. “Perhaps he wants us alive.”
“Well, he was almost too late then, wasn’t he?” With both hands she wiped away water from her face. “When is he going to realize that if I was a true mage I would have turned them all into pumpkins or something by now?”
“Pumpkins?” Pascolli indicated the dead land that began a few yards away past the weeping foliage of a spindly tree.
Was that steam rising from the earth? After all this time? As if in answer, a few tendrils of some sort of white fog drifted skyward from the blackened soil.
“He’s never going to give up, is he?” Though she didn’t expect an answer, Pascolli shook his head.
Despite the reluctance of the soldiers on the far bank to test their agility on the river logs there was a flurry of movement. Two Bloodmen slithered down the bank.
Due to the logs shifting apart it was already far more dangerous to cross than a few minutes ago. Hesitantly the men jumped from log to log. Before them an opening spread, and she saw the glint of water in the sunlight. The log they were on twisted, swayed. One man dropped to his knees as he unbalanced, the other teetered – at first with both arms out, but then he recovered with the s
ureness of an acrobat. Would they risk swimming or backtrack to where the logs were still packed together?
She narrowed her eyes. “Well, they’re coming, but I guess they haven’t done this before either.” Unwilling to show any sign of despair, she stiffened her shoulders and was brought suddenly aware of the loss of her haversack and all its contents. Something stung in the middle of her back. “Ow.”
Pascolli beckoned. They moved back until a curtain of leaves shielded them from the sight of the men across the river. He touched the back of her jerkin and his fingers came away with watery blood on them.
“We have matching wounds in our backs. That was a crossbow bolt that hit you. It nearly went all the way through.” Never had she seen him look so grim.
“Then my luck is still with me.” She grinned. “We should go before the Bloodmen find their courage.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “Luck?” Like a thin patch of ice melting in hot sun, his face also broke into a grin and he chuckled. “Yes. We go.”
At first there were plentiful shrubs and vines to entangle their feet, clothes and hair, but soon the undergrowth thinned and they ran across leaf litter and dead branches. Weak sunlight was all that could penetrate the tree’s upper foliage. The lesser plant life could not grow here.
It was hard to talk and run at the same time. She found herself talking in short bursts.
“Head-north to-foothills of-Skysplitter. Lose-them-there. Give-me the-pack when-you-tire.”
Pascolli nodded. After all, it was his plan, the one they had decided on at breakfast, when he described what he knew of the land north of the river.
She watched his fingertalk from the corner of her eye, trying not to trip.
“Yes. The others with their armor and horses will have to go to Hull to cross. By then we’ll be gone.”
She hoped it would work. The Bloodmen would be trained fighters. Were these trees like those of Wurtgard? Would they take to the treetops to travel faster? Perhaps there would be caves in the foothills ahead. Would they even reach there before the Bloodmen caught up?
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