Cordimancy

by Hardman, Daniel

  She trembled, turned her nose into the muscle and dirt at Toril’s shoulder, forced herself not to push at his chest. He’d held her this close, once before, in the stable on the night of her wedding.

  She’d liked it, then.

  Now, she just stood.

  This was a good man. Flawed, perhaps—foolish and impatient. But good. He’d followed her, hadn’t he?

  He’d left a warm stone and a pair of footwraps in her cedar-needle bed.

  He’d stood beside her on the road, when the osipi attacked.

  He’d pulled her out of the river.

  He’d rescued Kinora from an abusive stepfather.

  He’d let her sleep alone...

  But he’d also left her alone, at the wedding feast, and in the stable.

  He’d wanted to abandon the children and go to Sotalio to argue about politics. He’d wanted to count money this morning instead of seeking news from her sister.

  He’d found her half-naked and humiliated, and he’d acquired that one-sided intimacy without her permission, then refused to let her embrace merciful death. He’d taken the choice out of her hands.

  He wanted a wife, an ally, a lover... And he wouldn’t always take no for an answer.

  And the fingers on the nape of her neck were triggering memories that strained every nerve and heart string.

  Standing was the best she could do.

  How long that embrace lasted, Malena couldn’t say. After a while she heard a voice asking about Shivi, and she realized that it was her own, and that Toril was intensely focused on loading potatoes back onto the cart.

  She cleared her throat.

  “I expect that’s her just at the fork in the road,” said Paka, nodding back in the direction he’d travelled. “But these eyes of mine aren’t so great, anymore. Does it look like someone with a basket on her head?”

  Malena squinted, then nodded hesitantly.

  “We split up, but ran into each other again at the edge of town,” Paka explained, stepping around his horse to see more clearly. “She bought the basket somewhere, I suppose. Don’t know what she had in it. We couldn’t talk, but I know she wasn’t far behind me.”

  “Then all of us have made it,” said a young, accented voice. A shadow flickered in a nearby stand of aspen, and Oji emerged, Hika’s black-and-white form trotting at his side. A bundle was tied across his shoulders.

  Toril gave an exclamation of delight and rushed over to clasp his friend’s outstretched forearm. “Well met!” he gushed. “Well met, brother!”

  Hika padded over to Malena and sniffed her knee, tail wagging. She scratched behind the dog’s ears.

  Oji’s eyes crinkled.

  “I bring news,” he said. “Both good and bad.”

  “Let me guess. We’re not going to have much luck confronting Gorumim,” Toril said, his smile fading. “We figured that out when the shimsal took us prisoner.”

  Oji raised his eyebrows. “Prisoner?”

  “Long story,” Malena interjected. “The priest had no luck in Sotalio. Rovin set him up. And we fared no better. Gorumim used Two Forks as a staging area for his attack on Noemi. He has friends here.” She described how they’d been trapped.

  “I haven’t raised a posse, yet,” Corim added dolefully, when she finished. “Even offering to pay triple what soldiers will make while they’re enlisted. Everybody’s too busy making last-minute preparations for war. Folk laughed when I suggested we ride out and meet the general to see what he was up to.”

  Shivi was now close enough to see clearly. She had recognized them as well; she waved a hand in greeting, then used it to steady the basket balanced on her head.

  Paka sighed, heavily. “Least we put one over on the guards,” he said. He dropped the reins he’d been holding and grunted as he stepped stiffly downhill toward his wife. “Toril and Malena aren’t still sittin’ in that cell,” he said over his shoulder. “Gorumim didn’t get everything he wanted. And tomorrow’s another day.”

  Now it was Oji’s turn to sigh. “Another day, but not another time to face the general,” he said. He shook his head regretfully. “He never planned to bring ahu or children into town, I think. He had barges waiting on the other side, half a league below the ferry. They loaded up and launched two hours ago, at least.”

  Toril’s mouth opened.

  Paka looked back, scanning the expressions on his younger companions to confirm he’d heard right, then cursed softly.

  Shivi eased her burden off and passed it to her husband. “We missed the children?” she surmised, scanning faces.

  “We could catch them with horses,” Malena suggested, nodding at the pair that stood behind Paka.

  Corim shook his head. “Below Two Forks, the road jogs back south, then east to Kapimu’s Crossing. It’s forty leagues before it meets the river again, while the water runs twenty. If I remember right, the current’s fast all the way there; the general will probably float past by noon.”

  “One rider with two horses to spell each other could make it,” Malena said.

  “And do what?” asked Shivi gently.

  Malena bit her lip.

  “We’re all exhausted,” Paka said. “Runnin’ on little food and less sleep, and we have no weapon to defeat all of Gorumim’s men plus the ahu. Even Oji couldn’t do that. Racing one person ahead doesn’t help a rescue.”

  Toril sighed. “I can’t see any way to catch them as a group,” he said. “The river’s out, the road meanders, and cutting straight through is no short cut; Umora territory is hilly and thick with forest. If we miss them at Kapimu—and we will—it’s eight or nine days journey till we’re out on the lowlands, and maybe two more before the river’s close again. The horses will be spent long before that; we’ve already seen how five people can wear out a pair. Besides, once we reach the plains, Gorumim will be close enough to the capital to surround himself with as many troops as he likes.”

  Nobody said anything.

  Malena felt her eyes welling. Tupa was beyond her reach, and receding every moment. Was this her punishment for hiding like a coward in the stable, instead of confronting the mayhem in Noemi? Could The Five be that cruel?

  “No!” she wanted to scream. But her tongue was bound.

  Oji cleared his throat in the awkward silence.

  “I bring good news, too,” he whispered. And then he turned around to reveal the bundle tied to his shoulders. Malena had assumed he was toting gear of some kind, but she found herself gazing at brown eyes, charcoal lashes, a young boy’s haunted, hungry expression.

  She drew in her breath, reached out a finger to caress a bruised cheek.

  Shivi, who had continued up the path, clapped her hands in delight. Oji chuckled in pleasure at her reaction and dabbed at his eyes.

  Paka walked around Malena and began to unknot the papoose-style bindings that the warrior had used to sling the passenger behind his shoulders. “Who’s this?” he murmured, brightly, to the boy. “Do you have a name?”

  The boy raised an arm and ducked, as if expecting a blow.

  “Oh, no, sweetheart,” Shivi said, touching his fist with one of her fingers. “You’re safe. You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

  She began stroking his hair, humming a quiet melody. Her fingers touched his eyebrows, then his jaw, then returned to his arm and fist.

  The tension melted. The boy’s jutting lower lip stopped quivering. He sighed.

  Paka lifted him off Oji’s shoulders and transferred him to his wife’s waiting arms. Shivi immediately sat down cross-legged in the dirt, and cradled the boy as she continued to sing. Malena had a sudden vision of Shivi as a much younger woman, doing this same thing with children of her own. She looked up and saw Paka gazing with adoration at his wife, and wished she could freeze that image in her memory forever.

  “Where did you find him?” Malena asked.

  “Across the river,” Oji said. “Hidden in the rushes where they loaded barges.”

  “Seems a bit sma
ll to hide himself,” Paka observed. “Not long ago that he was crawling.”

  “One of the older ones must have done it. He was so weak when I found him that I feared him dead. Someone was desperate.”

  “He looks much better than that now.”

  Oji looked embarrassed. “You will think I did a barbaric thing,” he said.

  “What?” Paka asked.

  Oji looked from face to face. “I felt a heartbeat,” he said, “but he didn’t even blink when Hika face-licked him. I was desperate. I had no food.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat.

  Shivi looked up. “What did you do?” she asked, her voice devoid of censure.

  Oji held up his thumb. The ball had been split—cut lengthwise by a slash of a knife. But it was not bloody. “I made him suck my thumb,” he said, his tone almost plaintive. “After I walked in aiki.”

  The group considered this in silence. Malena was partly revolted; there was much similarity to blood magic in what the little warrior had done. Civilized people would never eat blood. And if she forced herself to be honest, she also had to admit there was a certain racial discomfort to it as well. It wasn’t human blood this child had swallowed. It was osipi blood. Yolk-sucker blood. Aiki blood.

  And yet... And yet...

  “It was the only way I thought of to save him,” Oji said, his eyes downcast.

  Paka put his arm around the young warrior. “We knew it might cost blood to rescue the children,” he said softly. “Five grant that this’ll be the full tally.”

  Malena watched Shivi’s fingers continue to glide as she rocked and sang. The toddler’s gaze fastened on the older woman. His bruise was receding; the split in his upper lip looked less swollen.

  “How did you find him?”

  “Hika. Your dog has a sixth sense. After Gorumim and his men left, I was going to hurry to bring you news, but she had to see one spot on the shore.”

  Toril cleared his throat and swiped beneath an eyelid, and Malena realized that he was crying. In fact, come to think of it, he’d stood motionless—almost frozen—since the moment when Oji showed them what he’d brought. Dusk and shadow hid the moisture on his cheeks, but the expression of catharsis on his face was obvious. She heard him draw an uneven breath.

  This was the man she’d been afraid to hug?

  She touched his arm.

  “It hasn’t all been a waste,” she whispered. “Whatever else happens, that much is true.”

  He nodded.

  “So what do we do with this little man?” Oji asked. “And what about the other children? I don’t see...” He trailed off, his face flooding with concern.

  Hika whined.

  “What is it?” Malena asked.

  “I smell my people,” he whispered.

  41

  the rift ~ Toril

  Toril felt his face blanch.

  “Where? How close?”

  “Quiet!” Oji hissed. When he saw that he’d made his point, he puffed softly. “The breeze isn’t steady, but town is upwind. So somewhere between us and Two Forks, I guess. They won’t have smelled us, yet. And they’re not close. A few bowshots, anyway.”

  Heads swiveled to study the road.

  “If they search at random, they probably don’t know we’re here,” Oji continued. “But if they scout farther this way, they’ll see signs that we talked, and once they smell Malena and me and the dog together, they’ll know us.”

  “I thought the ahu went downriver, to avoid being seen in town,” Malena whispered.

  Toril heard a wobble in her voice. He reached out to touch her shoulder, hesitated, then dropped his hand.

  “If I could sneak across, so could some of my clan brothers,” Oji said. “We know Gorumim wants you dead, especially. He couldn’t use ahu in town, but he could send them to seek you out here.”

  Silence stretched out.

  “Stand and fight?” Corim finally asked.

  “No,” said Paka. “We can’t risk one of them runnin’ back to alert the others. And we have the child.”

  Toril felt his eyes drawn to the staff he’d been holding. A swirl of amber was coalescing above his hand. He stared, then shook his head.

  “We ride,” he said. “Malena and I. Corim takes the boy on the other horse. I don’t think they’ll attack Shivi and Paka. Oji can outrun them.”

  Corim shook his head. “They won’t care about me. Besides, I live here, and the cart gives me a good cover story for being out late. I’ll walk my cart back and see if I can get them to challenge me. Maybe I can send them off in the wrong direction.”

  “The boy needs food and rest and a safe bed,” Shivi murmured. She nodded at the toddler, who had fallen asleep in her arms. “Not a mad dash into the wilderness.”

  More silence followed. Malena opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  Toril reluctantly returned his eyes to the words glowing from the staff. They weren’t fading.

  “Corim,” he said, “Could you care for the boy if we got him safely back to town?”

  “Of course.”

  “Pick a place where Oji can find you. Walk back like you said, then find a way to meet up with him. Oji will sneak past the scouts and carry the boy to wherever you need. The rest of us ride into the mountains.” Toril glanced at Oji. “Does that work?”

  Oji nodded. “Is there an unknown path? I remember only one that leaves the main road. It is the path to the timber camps—and it fades quickly.”

  Toril squared his shoulders and took a deep breath.

  “Cut across,” he read aloud, feeling a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Was he really saying what he’d just heard?

  Shivi stopped stroking the boy and looked up, her eyebrows raised.

  Paka coughed. “Across the Blood Rift?”

  Toril nodded.

  “That’s crazy talk,” Corim said. “You can’t go that way.”

  “Nobody’s gone deep into the Rift and lived to tell about it in a thousand years,” Shivi added. Her voice was husky.

  Oji cocked his head sideways, eyebrows furrowed.

  “It’s the only way to catch Gorumim,” Toril said, his mouth working reluctantly. “He’s got hours of head start on the river. Even if we find a boat ourselves, we still can’t catch him before he reaches the capital, where he’s at his strongest and we know nobody. If we follow over land, we fall farther behind. But if we cross the Rift, we have less than thirty leagues to cover while the river runs two hundred.”

  “Thirty leagues that can’t be navigated,” Corim said. “They say you lose all sense of direction. Can’t tell night from day. That you wander until you die of hunger or thirst, or until the pishachas take you.”

  “The Rift is fruit of the most evil magic,” Shivi said. “A darkness broods there, and the vapors never lift. I saw the edge once, from a distance, when I was a girl. I have never forgotten.”

  An awkward silence descended.

  “Least the ahu wouldn’t follow, sweetheart,” Paka said. When Shivi glared at him, he chuckled darkly and shrugged.

  Nobody felt like commenting.

  Toril sighed and nodded to his staff. “When I took this, I saw writing. Glyphs that swirled and glowed with some sort of magical light. I pointed them out to my father; he couldn’t see anything. When we found the rock sign coming out of the valley, I saw words again—‘Choose another path’. That’s why I put us in the river.”

  Paka eyed him.

  Malena studied his face. “And now?”

  “I don’t suppose you see anything?” Toril asked, without hope. At shaking heads, he shrugged. “It says to cross.”

  The distant hoot of an owl broke the nervous hush. Oji glanced up. “I think that bird has feet, not wings,” he hissed. “The path we take, we need to choose quickly.”

  Malena lifted her chin. She looked at Toril. “Whatever the Rift holds, it cannot be worse than what the children are facing. I will go.”

  Paka searched Malena’s face, then Toril’s
. Then he reached out and stroked his wife’s shoulder lightly. “I never had the chance to be brave for the woman I love,” he said softly. “Now seems like as good a time as any.”

  Hours later, Toril jerked awake as the steady gait of the horse tapered off. He yawned, feeling the muscles in his neck tremble, and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Why was the horse stopping?

  The air was chilled and thin, but weariness clung like an overpowering fog, fuzzing his thoughts.

  Malena’s shoulders straightened in front of him; she was rousing.

  All was quiet.

  His eyelids began to droop again…

  Last night he’d floated a river. Before that, it had been rapid marches, a fight with wolves, a midnight ordeal of names... How had he endured it? Before that, back-to-back all-night rides. In between, moments of battle and recrimination and ceaseless worry. He remembered being anxious as he mounted the horse and left Two Forks behind—afraid of pursuit. But they’d seen nothing, heard nothing. And sleep was so insistent…

  Again he shook his head, and forced himself to look around.

  The moon was up, casting shadows. Trees were sparse and stunted; they must be near the timberline.

  Behind, the horse carrying Paka and Shivi plodded to a stop as well. The older couple both slumped, chins on chests.

  “Stonecaster!” hissed a voice to one side of the trail.

  Malena twitched in surprise.

  Toril blinked as clarity seeped back, then sighed with relief.

  “You made it,” he said.

  “Of course,” Oji said, sounding a bit breathless. “But it’s been a long, long run, and I’m a bit footsore.”

  Shivi stirred. “How is the little one?” she rasped.

  “I left him safe, back at the house of the stonecaster’s friend. He’s sound asleep. I thought maybe Hika would come here, with us, but she stayed behind to guard him. You should have heard her growl when those big dogs trotted over for a sniff. They backed off quick. She’s found herself a new little man.” There was laughter in Oji’s voice.

  Toril smiled at the thought.

  Malena shifted, probably trying to alleviate the same backache and sore thighs that Toril felt. “Any idea whether the ahu are following?” she asked.