by Jeff Wheeler
Lia knew all the rivers within the Bearden Muir. The first one was called the Comb and they passed it, knowing it would be the first boundary that would seriously challenge Dieyre’s men. The second was called the Brent and it was wide and shallow. During the winter, it flooded the lowlands the most, creating little islands that could only be connected by rafts or on horseback. She wanted something wide, something that would make it easier to move quickly. However, its greatest benefit was that it connected to the Belgeneck, the largest river in the Hundred – the one that formed one of the borders to Muirwood. If they could pass the Comb and make it to the Belgeneck, there would be no way that Dieyre could reach them fast enough. Their horses would need rest. A boat did not.
Pen-Ilyn pressed a blood-soaked rag to his nose. “Why did you hit me so hard?” he complained to Lia.
She ignored him.
“It is broken, to be sure. I need a healer.”
“You did not leave me with many choices,” Lia pointed out. She raised her arm. “That way, Colvin. There is the Brent. We made it before dark.” She consulted the orb, asking for the direction of where Dieyre and his men were. They were farther behind.
“You are not used to rowing,” Pen-Ilyn said with his muffled, nasaly voice. “Let me row. I do not have any fight left in me and this boat is my livelihood. Let me steer in these waters. I do not want you breaking it on a rock.”
Colvin nodded, his face slack with exhaustion. “By all means,” he said. “But I will not be as generous as Lia if you betray us again.”
Pen-Ilyn scowled. “I know it is not an idle threat. There is a shortage of honest work these days. A man must feed his family, even if it is a brood as large as mine. Here, let me have the oars.” He settled onto the bench and began rowing. “Ugh, the Bearden Muir. I suppose we will get lost in there.”
Lia studied the flow of the water. They were rowing against the current, which would make things difficult. The snarl of oaks and willows blotted out the fading twilight sky. If she used the orb, it would give them both direction and vision. But it would also make them visible to Dieyre’s riders.
“What are you thinking about?” Colvin asked her, gazing into the gloom.
“Trying to think clearly with so little sleep. We need to deliver Ellowyn to Dahomey. This little boat will not get us that far. Not across the open seas. If we can get to Muirwood, we can warn the Aldermaston about the Blight and the ships in Pry-Ree. That would give other helpers a chance to escape too. We can get provisions there and maybe horses to ride across the land to another port city. Dieyre will be expecting us to go to Muirwood. If he is smart, he will not try and follow us, but instead, get between us and Muirwood. If we try and get through his line, he will collapse on us from both sides.” She shook her head. “There is safety there. And supplies. We cannot make a journey as far as Dahomey without equipping ourselves. It is the closest safehaven we have…if we get there first.”
Colvin touched her arm. “How do we know Muirwood has not already fallen?”
She had been dreading the question. “I think Edmon is there.”
He looked at her pointedly. “Is the Aldermaston?”
Lia looked down at her hands. But he was right. Before risking the journey, they needed to know. She turned her back on Pen-Ilyn and withdrew the orb. Ellowyn nestled next to her on one side. She was afraid of what it would say. Closing her eyes, she thought of the Aldermaston’s stern face.
The Medium soared through her, flooding into her soul. In an instant, she could see it all before her. It was the Gift of Seering. The Abbey stood proud against the fading sunlight. The Aldermaston was crossing the grounds to the kitchen, where Sowe was nursing Edmon on a cot, his face feverish, with bloodstained bandages wrapped around his waist. The Aldermaston stared at the Tor, his eyes fierce and defiant. It was as if she went along his sight and could see from his perspective, could share in his knowledge. The Medium was brooding on him heavily. The Queen Dowager was coming. She would be at Muirwood by dawn. Then he would die.
Lia opened her eyes and saw the spindles pointing towards Muirwood.
“He lives?” Colvin whispered.
Lia’s heart spasmed inside her and tears pricked her eyes. “Yes, but the Queen Dowager is coming and he is not strong enough to defend it. Not by himself.”
“Can we reach Muirwood before dawn?” Colvin asked.
She nodded. “If we reach the Belgeneck, we can follow it to Muirwood. It will be faster than going by land.”
“Then we go by boat,” Colvin said.
Ellowyn squeezed her shoulder. “If I must go to Dahomey, I want you both to go with me. I do not see why the Medium needs me to do it. I have no power. I am nothing.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I will try. If you are both with me, I will do my best not to be afraid.”
Lia turned and gazed at her, seeing the courage in her eyes. “I do not understand it either. Why that Abbey? Why you? I do not know the answers. But I do know that it is what the Medium wills. I know it with certainty.”
“So do I,” Ellowyn said. “I felt it as he was talking to you. I could not understand the language, but I felt it in my heart. I do not know why.”
Colvin’s voice was patient. “It is because of who your ancestors were. The Medium could rely on them when there was a difficult task to be done. I think I can explain it. There is a pattern in the tomes. It has always repeated itself. Before the Blight, there is a warning. A warning to those in danger that their thoughts have become corrupted. When I heard what the Aldermaston told you, that is what came to my mind. This is the warning to Dahomey. And to the rest of the lands. It is the Abbey where the children of all the rulers study. It is the place where king-mastons and queen-mastons are crowned.”
Water sloshed against the hull of the boat. The night sounds churned to life around them, the croak of bullfrogs and the cry of owls, replacing the buzz of mosquitoes and the hiss of cicadas.
Ellowyn’s voice was very small. “In the tomes, what happened to those who gave the warnings? What became of them?”
Colvin turned away, looking deep into the night. He said nothing.
“Please tell me,” she said.
Colvin glanced back at her, pityingly. He shook his head.
“Are they often killed?” Ellowyn asked in a whisper, shrinking. “Like my grandfather?”
He nodded slowly.
She was silent for a while. “It must be important then. If it required someone to give their life.” She breathed heavily. “I think…I could do it.”
Tears stung Lia’s eyes again. She touched Ellowyn’s hands and squeezed them. The other girl clung to Lia, as if she were the only solid thing in her life.
“I think I could do it,” she repeated softly. “If you were there, Colvin.”
Pen-Ilyn rowed against the sluggish water. The darkness was a massive wall in front of them. He guided the boat by sound, going slowly enough to maneuver. Sometimes mud grabbed at the bottom, sometimes tributaries tried to lead them on false paths. The orb would point the way clearly.
Around midnight, the way ahead grew brighter, as if an early dawn was greeting them. But it was not the color of dawn, it was the color of fire.
“What is it?” Pen-Ilyn mumbled, resting his weary arms for a moment, letting the boat drift towards the light.
Lia heard the rush of more water. It was the Belgeneck, the main waterway that would take them to Muirwood. But on the opposite shore, there were torches lining the bank, spread like a curtain across the river as far as could be seen in both directions. Close enough that there was no way to cross without being exposed by the light.
As they approached, the light revealed even more. A fleet of small fishing boats, each loaded with soldiers, rowing down the Belgeneck towards Muirwood. The river was choked with vessels, some large, some small.
“If we enter the river, we will be seen!” Pen-Ilyn whispered harshly. “We must turn back!”
But Lia already knew that there woul
d be no safety that way either. Certainly Dieyre would have sent boats after them, knowing the river ahead was being used to transport soldiers silently through the wetlands.
She looked at Colvin and Ellowyn, saw their faces now in the faint glimmer of torch-light. She had to get them to Dahomey. It was up to her to get them through the Bearden Muir safely. But against an army? Against so many enemies?
Goosebumps went across her arms and she realized she was cold.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE:
Bleeding River
Pen-Ilyn and Colvin hauled the boat out of the river and dragged it up the muddy embankment. Lia came off next and began searching the woods for signs of soldiers. Ellowyn stumbled as she came off, but Colvin caught her before she fell and lifted her away from the mud. Then with heaving muscles, he and Pen-Ilyn hauled the boat into the brush to hide it. The Belgeneck could be seen through the screen of trees ahead, the lights flickering everytime a vessel passed in front of the torches. How many had they seen already, fifty? More?
Lia went back to the boat and found Colvin tugging on his padded shirt and leather jerkin. Pen-Ilyn had stored the clothes with his gear.
Ellowyn shivered with cold, clutching herself, her eyes gazing at the river ahead. “What will we do?” she whispered to Lia.
Pen-Ilyn hocked and spat. “Are you sure this will work?”
Lia was tired and weary. She was not sure of anything. “If I were you,” she said, “I would hide apart from the boat and get some sleep. The army will have passed by dawn and you should be able to row back up the river to the sea. If they are searching for us, they will find your boat easily. Even if I wanted to hide the trail you just gouged into the mud, and I do not, it would not be hard to find. They will look for our bootprints and see that ours go one way and yours another. I doubt they will follow you. They want us. It is the best we can do for you, Pen-Ilyn.”
“And where will you go?” he asked, chaffing his arms and rummaging in his belongings for something to eat.
Lia scowled. “If I told you, you would have information they would want. Best if you know nothing more. Goodbye.”
He looked nettled but said nothing, but he murmured as he gathered his things and started away. “Broke my nose and abandoned me in the middle of the accursed swamp. We will probably all be eaten by snakes before dawn. Or drowned in a bog. Lovely.”
Lia ignored him and led Ellowyn and Colvin into the swamp. The ground was muddy and soft. They had no horses, no way of crossing the fenlands quickly. They had pulled the boat off on the eastern bank of the river. In her mind, she tried to remember the criss-crossing of the rivers in relation to the Abbey. The Belgeneck emptied into the sea due west, after arching away from Muirwood. It had surprised her to learn that Winterrowd was the fishing village at the end of the river.
The insight came to her again through the fog of fatigue. “Colvin, we have been blind,” she muttered. “When the Queen Dowager first came to Muirwood, she said she was on the way to Winterrowd to investigate her husband’s murder. That is not what she was doing. She was hiring boats along the coast to ferry her troops. This was her plan all along.”
He sucked in his breath. “You are right,” he said. “Lure Demont to the north, Dieyre said. Pull him away from the south, leaving Muirwood unprotected. The oldest Abbey of the realm.” He sighed with resentment. “Stay near, Ellowyn. The ground is treacherous. Let me hold your arm.”
“Thank you,” Ellowyn mumbled. They were all exhausted. “How far is it to the Abbey?”
“It is not the distance that is the problem,” Lia said. “It is the obstacles. We are two leagues away, if that. We could easily walk there before dawn if we could cross the river. But it looks like they put torches along the shore to guide the boats in the dark. The river is very wide. You remember crossing it, Colvin? Even with a horse, the current was strong. It is cold and we are tired.”
“But we must cross it,” Colvin said. “The Abbey is on the other side…eventually.”
“Yes, but the Belgeneck floods often and forms a lake at the bend. Those waters are to the north of Muirwood. With all the rain this season, the lake will still be there. We could skirt around the lake on the other side. Two other rivers empty into it, but they are smaller. One has a stone bridge. It is called the Doe Bridge because deer often use it to cross the river. The other river…well, we will be getting wet for that one. But it is not as deep as the Belge and maybe the orb can help us find a shallow ford.”
They walked in silence then, their breath coming out in little plumes of mist from the cold. Colvin broke the silence. “Can we reach the Abbey before dawn?”
“We must,” Lia said, her thoughts as dark as the woods.
* * *
The hunter is patient. The prey is careless. Martin’s words teased her and tortured her. She was so tired. Her legs ached. Her boots were soaked through. Ellowyn’s teeth chattered with cold and she stumbled more and more, but she did not complain. She clutched the cloak with one fist and Colvin’s arm with the other, willing herself to put each foot ahead.
Lia glanced behind and saw the flicker of many torches drawing nearer. They were gaining ground. She had not bothered hiding their trail. There was only one way they could go and deceiving the pursuers would do little to help. If Lia led them away from the river, what then? It would only put their enemies ahead of them instead of behind. No, she would need to hold back and fight soon and she was not looking forward to it. There were six torches. That meant twelve to eighteen men. She sighed. The ones carrying the torches would be her targets. If she shot them down, one at a time, it would cause confusion. By shooting them, no one would want to hold the torches then. It would cause squabbling. If they abandoned the torches, so much the better.
Was that the right way to think? Was she missing something else? Her mind was weary. She had not slept in two days. Her stomach ached with hunger, but they ate as they walked. There was enough water to last, but still she was thirsty.
She remembered Jon Hunter and how he had tried to help them against Almaguer. This was different – almost impossible. There was an army in the Bearden Muir led by Dieyre and the Queen Dowager. What would happen when they reached Muirwood? Would she be strong enough to summon the Abbey defenses? She was so tired. Heartsick. Would she be strong enough to summon the Leerings? She knew the Abbey could defend itself. Had not Maderos once said that an Aldermaston had dropped a mountain on an invading force and left it there? What would it take to summon the defenses? Would she be strong enough to counter the will of Pareigis?
A memory came to her suddenly, unbidden, of the time she had faced the kishion. She was helpless against his skill. He had twisted aside all of her attempts to injure him. It was only after Astrid lay dead that the Medium had commanded her to redeem Muirwood. Blood had been spilled before the power of the Medium was there to save her. Blood spilled. Astrid’s blood.
The thought brushed against her mind.
Blood would redeem the Abbey. That was what was needed. Not her skill in the Medium. Not her devotion to the Aldermaston. It was her blood. Or the Aldermaston’s. A price to be paid for the power to save them all.
Lia cringed from the weight of the thought.
Was it true? Was it her tiredness speaking or was it the Medium? How could she be sure? Ever since her experience in the Bearden Muir with Colvin when she learned about the Medium, it had whispered to her and given her insights and thoughts. It helped her remember the things she learned. The Medium was a close friend to her. Would a friend send her to die?
She swallowed, feeling her heart burn inside of her. Was this what the Medium was asking of her? The thought struck her like lightning. She felt it through her bones. In her mind, the image of Colvin and Ellowyn on a boat crossing a stormy sea. Foam crashed against the hull. She could smell the salt in the air. But just as assuredly as she could see them, she knew that she was not with them. Colvin steadying Ellowyn as the vessel pitched and lunged in the sea. She would not be
journeying to Dochte Abbey with them.
The Gift of Seering struck her like a mountain, the irrespressible weight of the Medium confirming her thought. She would not be going to Dahomey with them.
Pain. The thought brought a wrenching pain inside her heart. Being separated from Colvin would be agony. In her mind’s eye, she remembered as the two of them had stacked stones on Jon Hunter’s body. Instead of that, she saw Colvin and Ellowyn standing there, clutching stones, burying her.
No!
Lia nearly sobbed with the thought, the pain that it caused her. Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them away. This was the Medium’s will for her? To die as a hunter protecting Colvin and Ellowyn? Was this what the Aldermaston had foreseen? The reason she needed to be trained? The reason he had used her?
Each step was terrible. She was cold, wet, miserable. All of the feelings she had experienced in the Bearden Muir a year before came crashing down. Loneliness, despair. Abandonment. The Medium was abandoning her to die. To save the lives of others. To save…
She wrestled with her thoughts. She struggled against them. How could the Medium expect this of her? She was so young…her life unlived. But had she not, once before, offered her life to save Colvin’s? At the fields of Winterrowd, had she not bargained with the Medium to save him? To take her instead? She remembered the moment. She remembered the Medium being satisfied with her offering. Then its powers had come. The power that saved Demont’s men from falling in battle. Not just Colvin, but all of them.
The power to save them all.
Even though her heart was nearly bursting with pain, she summoned thoughts of Muirwood again. The faces, all of them. Pasqua. Sowe. Bryn. Astrid. Prestwich. The Aldermaston. Even Getman and Reome and Tresa. All of the wretcheds she had grown up with. All of them helpless at the Abbey, surrounded by soldiers bent on destroying their master. They had no one to defend them. No one, but a girl who was feeling sorry for herself.