A ferryshaft loomed out of the mist ahead, only to take one look at the curbs and flee. The same thing happened again a moment later. Storm remembered something. Tollee’s parents were killed by curbs. She hadn’t responded when he’d told her about the highland curbs that fall. Still… He turned to look at Eyal. “Maybe you should let me do this on my own.”
For the first time, Eyal looked uncertain. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Storm. I’m here. I might as well see my mother and tell her that her children are not entirely dead. “I’ll meet you back at your den in a day or two.” But if you’re waiting for me to thank you for pushing me into this, you’ll be waiting a while.
Eyal inclined his head. “As you wish. Any ferryshaft who can tear the head off a seal is able to take care of himself. But if we don’t see you in a few days, we’ll come looking.”
“Do that,” muttered Storm. When they were gone, he hopped onto a rock, worked his way to a vantage point, and watched the dawn. He watched the mist melt away and the herd wake. Ferryshaft passed beneath his perch without glancing up. He didn’t see any of the ones he was looking for, so he said nothing. It took him half the morning, watching the ebb and flow of the herd, occasionally dozing, before he spotted one of the females that had belonged to So-fet’s clique. He hopped down and followed her at a distance.
It was near noon when he finally approached his mother in the woods beside the river. So-fet was so overcome when she saw him that, for a moment, she could not speak. Storm felt instantly sorry for his failure to contact her earlier. He hurried forward and looped his neck over hers. “Sauny is alive, but she’s crippled.” He had not meant to blurt it out that way, but the words came, and he couldn’t stop them. “She’s with Valla in Syriot…the place with the telshees… She—”
“Shhh…” said his mother, and Storm realized that he was trembling. He felt weak and hated himself for it. “I’m glad you’re alive,” whispered So-felt. “I’m glad you’re both alive. I hoped…but—”
“I should have sent a curb to tell you,” said Storm. “I’m sorry, mother.”
“A curb?”
“Yes, I’ve been with the highland curbs…and the telshees.”
“I see.” So-fet gave him a critical sniff. “You certainly smell like it.”
Storm didn’t want to talk about that. “My friends—my ferryshaft friends—do you know what’s happened to them?”
So-fet spoke carefully. “You mean Kelsy?”
“Kelsy and Tollee.” He thought for a moment. “Leep.” Although he’s one of the ones who didn’t fight.
“I heard that Tollee had taken up with Remy,” said So-fet. “They’re old enough now, and they can both hunt… They’d do better if they joined a female clique, but I think they stand a good chance of surviving the winter even if they don’t.”
“Remy?” echoed Storm. “Kelsy’s Remy?”
“Yes. She and Kelsy had a falling out after Faralee died…and over other things. At least, that’s the rumor. These are your friends, Storm, not mine.”
Yes, but everyone in the herd knows Kelsy.
“Was Itsa hurt in the fighting?” asked Storm with a new sinking feeling.
“No,” said So-felt. “Itsa and Kelsy are still together as far as I know. Remy is carrying his foal, but I don’t think she’s speaking to him. Tollee…”
“Tollee is carrying Mylo’s foal,” said Storm dully. He clamped his mouth shut to keep from saying more.
So-fet watched him. “There were rumors that it was…yours.”
Storm felt a new kind of guilt. “No,” he said softly.
“I offered to help her,” said So-fet, “for your sake, but she seemed to be doing well enough.”
“Tollee is a survivor.” Storm thought for a moment. “Why isn’t Remy speaking to Kelsy?”
So-fet looked uncomfortable. “You know that the creasia meet with our leaders at this time every year, don’t you? Charder goes, often Pathar, sometimes other elders.”
“Yes,” said Storm. He had not actually known that Pathar attended these meetings, although it didn’t surprise him when he thought about it.
“Well,” continued So-fet, “this year, Kelsy went. With Charder, of course, and Pathar, too, I think.”
Storm gaped at her. “He…he went to—”
“Arcove met with him after the battle in the fall. The rumor was that they got along pretty well and that Arcove is grooming Kelsy to be the next herd leader. Creasia have been monitoring the herd since the attacks, although there hasn’t been any fighting. Kelsy was invol—”
“‘Got along pretty well’?” Storm couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Arcove killed Faralee! He maimed Sauny! He sends creasia to slaughter ferryshaft every year—”
So-fet gave a bitter snort. “I’m not sure that’s the way Kelsy sees it. But I wouldn’t know. I’m just a low-ranking, unmated female, Storm.”
Storm felt as though he’d swallowed something vile. I should never have let Eyal talk me into this.
As he turned away, he heard his mother say, almost timidly, “Where will you be sleeping, Storm?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced over his shoulder. “In Syriot by tomorrow.”
So-fet looked stricken, but Storm was too numb to care. “I can’t stay with the herd, mother. Not anymore. I’ll try to come see you now and then.”
He’d expected her to argue with him, but, instead, she said, “Be careful, Storm. We came west in a hurry this year because Pathar and some others thought a Volontaro was coming. Now they’ve changed their minds, but creasia came from all over Leeshwood to stay in the Great Cave for the storm. They’re mostly on the south side of the river right now…but be careful.”
Chapter 5. The Calm Before…
Storm’s anger carried him away from the river at speed, but he hadn’t gone far into the boulders before a sense of bewildered betrayal almost overcame him. He stopped. He couldn’t even decide where he was going. Kelsy. How could he? I thought he and Sauny were friends. I thought he and I were friends! Mylo never trusted him. Tollee tried to tell me. I wouldn’t listen.
He thought of looking for Tollee, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. What if she’s got something even worse to tell me? Storm realized suddenly that he’d been awake for most of a day and a night. He could not recall the last time he’d been above ground at noon. The sun seemed to glare down out of a blinding sky, and he felt exposed with no shadows in which to hide.
I should go sleep somewhere. Perhaps, when I wake, I will know what to do.
This stretch of boulders and cliff were among the most familiar to Storm. He went a little distance north—just enough to be beyond the bulk of the herd. Then he selected a sheep trail and walked until he reached a little cave where he’d used to stash game.
Storm lay down, conscious of how the cave seemed to have shrunk. He wondered whether he’d even be able to use this cave by next year. Not comfortably. Storm thought about the seal. I could never have killed something like that last year. He decided that he would gladly trade access to some hiding places for the size and power to kill a creasia. With that thought in mind, he drifted off to sleep.
Storm woke to the chirp of evening insects. Far out across the plain, the rays of the sinking sun shone golden on dying grasses. The foot of the cliff was already in cool shadow. Something about the light seemed odd to Storm. He scooted to the lip of the cave and squinted upward. The sky looked almost green, and the clouds made odd, tortured patterns overhead. Far away to the north, he could see sheets of rain sweeping the plain, although the sun shone directly behind him.
“Storm!”
He turned towards the shout. Someone was standing at the junction of the sheep trail and the main path. Storm thought he knew who it was. He considered going back into the cave.
“Storm!” The other ferryshaft took a few tentative steps onto the sheep trail.
“Ghosts take you.” Storm started towards his visitor with a gr
owl. Please don’t fall off before I get a chance to push you.
Kelsy backed onto the main trail again as Storm picked his way towards him. “I thought you’d show up when we reached the cliffs,” said Kelsy. He seemed pleased with himself.
Storm stopped a few lengths away, not yet on the main path. He said nothing. He wondered how many ferryshaft had seen him among the boulder mazes and then down by the river. Word of his arrival had obviously traveled. I should have taken better care.
Kelsy’s smile faltered. He watched Storm for a moment and waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, Kelsy said, “Is anyone else with you?”
“If you mean Sauny,” said Storm, “then, no, she’s with the telshees and likely to remain there. Her left foreleg is so badly maimed that she’ll never walk straight again.”
Kelsy winced. He started to say something, but Storm interrupted him.
“Or perhaps you mean Valla? Since you’re looking to replace a mate? They seem to be interchangeable to you. But she’s in Syriot as well. Lucky for you, since I’m sure she’d kill you if she could see you now.”
Kelsy shut his mouth. Storm glared at him. At last, Kelsy said, “What did you hear?”
“I heard that you and Arcove are great pals now!” Storm exploded. “I heard that you’re looking to take over the herd with his blessing! That’s all you ever really wanted, isn’t it? You thought you could get your own herd by defying the creasia, but now it turns out that the easiest way is to serve them.”
Kelsy bristled. “It’s not like that, Storm.”
“No? Well, tell me what it is like, Kelsy. You’re willing to make common cause with Faralee’s killers? Did you love her at all? And Sauny! Was she anything more than a stepping stone to you?”
Kelsy sat down on the trail. “Do I get to talk, or are you just going to shout at me?”
“Talk,” spat Storm.
“Arcove did not send the summer poachers,” said Kelsy. “One of his officers did that without his knowledge. The officer was injured and nearly killed for it.”
“Nearly,” mocked Storm. “My oldest friend, Tracer, was completely killed for it.”
“The officer was demoted,” continued Kelsy, “and the other poacher that we tracked that day by the lake was killed. I do not think those kind of raids will happen again.”
“Just the winter kind,” said Storm bitterly, “with a crowd of onlookers and bodies ripped open in the snow.”
“I am trying to negotiate about that,” said Kelsy, his voice exasperatingly calm.
“Negotiate?” Storm thought of Keesha—the pain and fury in his fathomless blue eyes. He thought of the Battle of Chelby Lake, of Coden, of the countless ferryshaft who had died in the fifteen years since the war. “There is no negotiating with Arcove.”
“He’d like to talk to you,” said Kelsy quietly. “He wanted to talk to you right after the fighting.”
Storm laughed. “And by ‘talk,’ you mean ‘disembowel’?”
Kelsy smiled. “That’s what I thought at first, too. But if he says he wants to talk, then that’s what he wants. If he plans to kill you, he’ll tell you plainly.” Kelsy hesitated. “Storm, it would help to have you at those meetings.”
Storm nearly choked. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. Fighting is not the only way to solve things. There are other ways, better ways.”
“Never,” snarled Storm. “The only way to solve what’s happened between our two species is with a lot of dead cats.”
Kelsy’s ears flattened. “That’s never going to happen, Storm. I do understand how you feel. I think about Faralee every single day. I wake up, and she’s not there, and it hurts, but getting even more ferryshaft killed won’t bring her back! Remy is angry with me for the same reasons you are, but I can’t fix that, either. Yes, I want to lead the herd, and that means I’ve got to think of what’s best for all of them, not what would bring me the most satisfaction.
“Arcove isn’t going away. You can’t kill him. I can’t kill him. But he does seem interested in avoiding future conflict by parlaying with us if we can meet his terms. We could make things better for everyone if we just—”
Storm’s lip curled. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You wouldn’t even be alive if I hadn’t broken all the rules.”
Kelsy looked hurt. “I know that.” He hesitated. “But you can’t run away forever, Storm. They will catch you.”
Storm snorted and took a step back onto the sheep trail. “You’re threatening me? I think we’ve had this conversation before.”
Kelsy shut his eyes. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Storm turned and started back towards the cave. Kelsy called after him, talking fast. “Storm, please listen! There’s a Volontaro coming! I came up here to warn you. We’re all going to the Great Cave. I was hoping… There’s a truce in the cave. We could talk…” His voice was lost to the wind as Storm continued on along the trail.
* * * *
In the Cave of Histories, Valla inched her way up a rock with little attention to the rising water. She had moved around the cave in response to the tides for so many days now that she’d stopped thinking about it. Her favorite was low tide—when she could almost see the oldest writing in the cave near the bottom of the ancient wall. The very oldest writing was never above water, and Valla had begged Ulya until the telshee had agreed to hold her still beneath the surface so that she could view the ancient text herself.
Ulya didn’t like doing it. “You’re not a sea creature, Valla,” she had complained. “I’m afraid you’ll drown. Can’t I just tell you what it says?”
“You don’t know what it says,” countered Valla. “I can hold my breath for a little while.”
The bottom line of text was pure gibberish to the telshees—circles and lines that did not represent any known sounds or words. The oldest writing that could be read was simply a series of names. Then came simple sentences. “I have been Rog.” “I have been Nysi.” “I have been Cathul.” The “have beens” went on for some time, and then became a little more complicated. “I have been Terra, who survived the famine.” “I have been Olla, who swam the deep mountain.” “I have been Solon, who fought with great beasts.”
Then, quite suddenly, the structure of the sentences changed. “I am Mirra. I am awake.” “I am Tosla, who spoke with humans.” “I am Kavith, who saw a hundred shores.” Eventually, they became brief stories—a record of the telshee’s most notable exploits.
Valla was fascinated by the vast spans of time represented on the wall. She was particularly fascinated by the points where the style of the record changed. What made this telshee decide to write something different from the last five generations? Why change “I have been” to “I am”? Some of the stories spoke of creatures unknown to Valla or to any of the telshees now living. What are harpies? What are dragons? What are fauns?
She was having trouble reading today because the afternoon light had been inconstant—with brief sheets of rain and strong gusts of wind. The wind had begun to make a strange whistling in the chinks overhead. Valla was surprised when she looked down and saw that she was standing on the very tip of the rock. It was one of the highest rocks in the cave. She’d never seen it underwater.
She was still puzzling over this when she heard a splash from the entrance. She blinked when she saw Sauny—paddling madly through the water towards her. “Valla, you have to get out of here. Keesha says there’s a storm coming.”
“Keesha?” Valla had never seen the huge telshee stir, though Sauny claimed that he sometimes woke. “You’re swimming!” Valla had not seen Sauny swim since the injury.
“Yes,” exclaimed Sauny impatiently. “The caves are in an uproar—telshees trying to move all the pups and eggs to safe places. I figured they probably forgot about you. Come on!”
Valla leapt into the water and paddled towards her. The wind moaned in the chinks overhead, and the tide was as high as she’d ever seen it. Her skin prickled. �
�Is this a Volontaro, Sauny?”
“I think so.” Sauny was paddling unevenly, but still making good headway. Valla thought that she might actually be faster in the water than on land.
They reached the spot where the rising tunnel should have brought them to dry ground, but there was only more water. They were swimming in complete blackness now, without even the little acriss jellyfish to guide them. The water had begun to heave. Valla had never noticed waves in this part of the caverns before. It made her a little sick. The sounds of their splashing echoed in the dark tunnel, so that Valla wasn’t even sure Sauny was still ahead of her. She bumped suddenly into a wall, lost her bearings, and went under.
Valla kept her head enough to avoid gulping sea water, but when she surfaced again, she was completely disoriented. “Sauny!” She knew her voice sounded panicky. “Saun—!”
“I’m here.” Sauny was right beside her, nudging her forward in the black water. “We’ll be able to stand soon. We’ve just got to keep going until we reach high ground.”
Valla felt her stomach settle a little. This was the old Sauny—the Sauny who followed her brother over sheep trails when she was only a year old, who was confident and quick, who sometimes did the wrong thing, but always did something.
Sure enough, Valla’s hooves brushed the bottom a moment later. They swam-walked for what seemed like an eternity before the water level dropped low enough for running. Sauny couldn’t run, though. Valla had almost forgotten. She adjusted her pace to Sauny’s limp. “Thanks for coming to look for me.”
“If it was me, you would have come,” said Sauny.
Valla smiled in the darkness. “Do you think Storm is alright?” she asked.
Sauny snorted. “He’s with the curbs. I’m sure he’s fine.”
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