“Are you certain we’re close?”
“The caves should be on the other side of that ridge.”
“Show me.”
They left Glenn, Gaven, Artras, and the Wolf behind, circling to the north as they climbed the slope of the ridge. Cutter headed toward a fold in the land, the slope too steep. Shadows lengthened as they moved, Allan attempting to be as silent as Cutter, but the first scattered layer of autumn’s leaves made it nearly impossible.
The darkness deepened as they slipped through the fold and passed into the lee of the ridge. An owl hooted as night sounds settled and nocturnal creatures began to stir. Cutter’s form became ghostlike, seen only as he passed from tree to stone to tree.
Then he paused, Allan slowing until the tracker motioned him forward.
Without sound, Cutter gestured toward the stretch of clearing ahead, toward the ground.
Allan edged forward, confused, until the stench of death hit him.
It wasn’t a clearing so much as a path. Ruts from wagon wheels had been worn into the undergrowth, except for a long stretch where the ruts had been broken. The earth looked churned and pitted, and trees had fallen across the road, their trunks splintered. Scattered among the debris were bodies, covered lightly with fallen leaves. The feathers of carrion crows glistened over a few, one of them letting out a harsh caw, while farther distant a wolf was dragging something deeper into the woods.
Allan lurched forward, but Cutter’s hand clamped down on his shoulder, holding him back. He spun on the tracker, jerking out of his hold, but the tracker leaned in close to his ear. “They’ve been dead for days. And it’s too exposed to check the bodies.”
Allan was ready to check the bodies anyway—what if Morrell were out there?—but he knew Cutter was right. Even if no one was watching, they’d disturb the carrion eaters, and someone might hear their protests as they took flight.
They kept to the trees, slipping by the strangely churned earth and through a forest of splintered boles, as if the trees had exploded from within. They passed the last of the destruction, still following the ruts.
Within twenty paces of the last body, the road vanished. The ruts faded into the undergrowth, the ground undisturbed.
Allan shot a questioning look toward Cutter, but the tracker appeared as baffled as he was. They hesitated a long moment, then Cutter continued.
The slope grew steeper, Allan’s breath coming in heavier and deeper huffs. The undergrowth vanished into rocks and pebbles and knobby tree roots. Allan hauled himself upward using overhanging branches or by grasping the trunks of the thinner trees. He slipped once, banging his knee into jagged granite.
Then it leveled out onto a rough landing, a stone wall obscured by dangling tree roots and vines to one side, before it grew steep again forty paces distant.
Allan bent to catch his breath as the tracker looked around in consternation. He edged toward the rock wall, searching, then turned to stare out into the trees and the surrounding hills, as if trying to get his bearings.
Allan straightened. “Where are they—?”
The point of a blade pressed itself into his back, cutting off his question. His hand twitched toward his own sword, but halted when more pressure was applied. Cutter spun, gaze flicking side to side. Judging by his look, there were at least three people behind Allan.
“We’re right here, Allan.” The familiar voice was close to his ear.
Then the sword dropped from his back, and Allan turned to see Bryce and three others grinning behind him. Two of them were obscured by the shadows and the trees, but the third was Claye.
The last time he’d seen the Dog, he’d been lying feverish on a cot in Logan’s cottage. “Glad to see you made it. Glad to see any of you. Cutter saw what happened to the village. Where is everyone else? Where’s my daughter?”
Bryce motioned toward the rock wall. “In the caves, which I assume you were looking for. The damn mages have covered up the entrances and any tracks leading up here with their illusions. We likely would have been found and rooted out days ago without them. But we shouldn’t discuss this outside. None of the raiders are close at the moment, but I’m certain Paul and Sophia will want to speak to you.”
“And I want to see Morrell.”
“Is it just the two of you?”
“No. Artras, Gaven, and Glenn are waiting at the wagon. We also have a Wolf.” Bryce’s eyebrow rose. “Long story.”
“Claye and Ritter, go with Cutter and retrieve the others. I’ll take you inside, Allan. You can tell us all what happened.”
“After I see Morrell.”
Claye and Ritter stepped to Cutter’s side, then all three headed out into the darkness. Stars were pricking the sky overhead as the sun faded.
“This way.” Bryce paused to give orders to Quinn—Allan recognized him as soon as he stepped from the shadows—and then he walked directly toward the rock wall. “It’s a little disconcerting the first few times you pass through.” He ducked and vanished. It appeared as if he’d slipped through the roots and vines, directly into the rock.
Allan hesitated a moment, then reached out, his hand passing through the stone as if it didn’t exist, his skin tingling slightly. He stepped forward—
Into the entrance of a cave. Bryce waited for him on the far side. When he looked back, he could see out onto the flat area and into the trees beyond, as if the illusion of vines and stone weren’t there.
“Do you want to see your daughter or not?”
The Dog led him down the tunnel, lit from deeper within by torchlight. They rounded a curve and the tunnel opened up into a large cavern stacked on either side with crates, trunks, barrels, and sacks. Four men stood guard as they passed through into another tunnel on the far side, this one descending deeper into the ridge. All four gave them cursory glances, until they recognized Allan. Shock brought two of them to their feet, but none of them said anything, although Allan could see the questions crowding their faces.
“This is the storage area. There’s a second cavern and entrance where we’re keeping the livestock. The raiders attacked us a few months after you left, but they weren’t organized and we fought them off. I don’t think it was their main force. We figured they’d return, so we started moving into these caves.”
“Cutter said they wouldn’t hold everyone, let alone all of these stores.”
“The original caves wouldn’t. But one of the walls collapsed, and we found more extensive caverns below, along with the ruins of some kind of ley node. The Wielders have been ecstatic. Once we knew we could harbor everyone here, we began moving in earnest. We didn’t quite make it before they attacked again. We had enough warning to get nearly everyone in the village up here, along with most of the supplies, but we lost a few in the initial attack and the retreat. We would have lost many more if not for the University mages and the Wielders. They called up the damn earth and used the trees as weapons, while the Wielders used the ley like a shield. They’re more dangerous than I thought.”
They’d entered the far tunnel and were descending down a gentle incline. A second tunnel intersected theirs, the two merging. Ahead, a more intense light flickered against the wall from an opening to the right.
Bryce ducked into the opening. “Most of the villagers are living here or in the cavern farther down the tunnel. But Morrell is here because this is where the ley node is.”
Allan stepped through onto the top of a rockfall, although someone had built steps leading down to the floor below. The room was filled with sheets and blankets rigged up like tents, riddled with walkways, cook fires, and staging areas for eating. Only the center of the room was open, where the stone fingers of stellae emerged from the relatively flat floor and white ley light fountained up inside their rough circle. The rest of the cavern was lit with torches, a few of them apparently created using the ley.
But Allan
skimmed over everything, searching the faces of the crowded room below. Men, women, and children were hunched over fires cooking, mending clothes, scraping hides, conversing around buckets of wash. A few of them had paused to look up as Bryce began to descend the stairs. Some of those pointed, people Allan had lived with in the Hollow for years mingling with the refugees he’d brought from Erenthrall. They’d kept themselves segregated outside the caverns, but here they’d melded into one group. Conversations stalled as word spread, but still Allan didn’t see Morrell. Or Cory or Hernande or any of the leaders of the Hollow.
Then someone screamed, “Da!” and suddenly Morrell was charging through the tents, Kara’s yipping dog at her heels, people shifting out of her way as mothers brought trembling hands to their mouths and fathers clutched their own children closer.
Morrell pounded up the stairs, and a few short ragged breaths later she flung herself into his arms. Allan hugged her tight, down on one knee, his eyes burning as he stroked her hair and mumbled, “I’m back, poppet, I’m back.” Max bounced and cavorted around them, front paws in the air, nose trying to pry in between them. Morrell sobbed into his chest, holding on so tight he could barely breathe, but he didn’t care. For a tiny instant that felt like eternity, she was a child again, his child, his poppet. He drew in the honey scent of her hair, soothed her wracking body, smothered her fears with reassurance and murmured nonsense.
Her sobs quieted and she pulled back. She’d changed in the few months he’d been away. The lines of her face were harsher, more worn. She carried herself with more confidence and her eyes were harder, more serious. He could still see the child she’d been, but it was fading.
She was growing up, faster than he’d thought possible.
“Where’s Kara?” She raised her hands to wipe away her tears. She didn’t use the backs of her hands, like a child; she used her fingers, swiping from the corners of her eyes, down her nose, and across her cheekbones, the gesture decisive and dismissive and heartbreakingly adult. “Is she dead?”
The pang of realizing he was losing the daughter he knew cut across the sudden emptiness in his chest as he remembered what he’d come to the Hollow to do.
He reached down to calm Max’s frantic excitement, then stood. “No. No, she’s not dead. At least I don’t think so.” He glanced out over the room, where nearly everyone was watching them. His gaze picked out Cory immediately, Hernande, Paul, and Sophia standing behind him with Bryce. Janis waited patiently farther back.
His hands were on Morrell’s shoulders and he turned back to look down into her eyes. She’d grown taller as well, he noted. “Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything.”
Footsteps from behind announced the arrival of Artras, Glenn, Gaven, Claye, and Ritter.
“The Wolf?”
“We secured him with the supplies. We didn’t dare move him to where they keep the livestock. The men there are watching him. They’ve also begun unloading what little we had with us from Erenthrall.”
“Then we’d better go down and report what happened to the others.”
They descended the stairs, people surrounding them as they made their way toward the central ley node, where Allan had seen Cory and the others. Most welcomed them back and asked about the others, but Allan said nothing, intent on reaching Cory. He was aware that Artras stepped to one side with Jack’s mother, a wail reaching him a short moment later, but he continued. Someone would have to find Kent’s family as well, let them know he’d died protecting them in Erenthrall. He wondered if any of the members of their own families had died here, in the Hollow, when the raiders attacked. Had Gaven lost someone? Cutter? What would he say to Aaron’s family?
What was he going to say to Cory?
And then the throng before him broke and there he stood, Hernande a step behind and to one side for support.
He halted, five steps away, and focused on Cory, met his gaze without flinching.
“She’s alive, but she’s been captured. And I intend to save her.”
“I’m going with you,” Cory said. It was clear that no one would be able to change his mind.
Allan had no intention of trying. He scanned the rest of those gathered around the fire. He, Artras, Cutter, and Glenn—Gaven had gone off to see his family—had spent the last few hours relating their trip to Erenthrall in between devouring whatever food and drink the others managed to provide for them. The roasted corn had tasted like ambrosia, and the fresh-baked bread with strawberry jam had elicited moans of pleasure from Glenn. They’d subsisted on roasted meat and whatever tubers and nuts they could find while returning. Green vegetables had been nonexistent. Allan couldn’t get enough of them, even the cooked cabbage.
He caught Bryce’s eye, Hernande’s, then Paul’s. “I’ll take whoever I can get, but I don’t think a few men and women are going to be enough. I’m going to need a pack, if not more. These White Cloaks had a guard, like the Dogs back in Erenthrall. It wasn’t a ragged band of ruffians who could barely hold a sword, let alone use it.”
“So you want to take all of the fighting men we have with you? Who will protect the rest of us while you’re gone? Have you forgotten about the raiders?”
Paul’s voice had risen as he spoke, but Sophia quelled him by placing a hand on his leg. “Of course he hasn’t forgotten about the raiders. Have you?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten. And I don’t know how to handle them either.”
“We can’t send anyone off to save some damned Wielder when we need everyone that can fight here to protect us!”
“She’s not some damned Wielder. You didn’t want any of us here in the first place.” Cory turned to Hernande, then Allan. “We should just leave—all of the refugees. We should go find Kara and the others, let the Hollow fend for itself.”
Hernande cleared his throat. “You don’t mean that.”
Cory’s hardened expression fractured. “No. Not really. But it’s Kara.”
Hernande rested a hand on his shoulder. “We know. And we won’t abandon her. I won’t. And neither will Allan.”
Paul rolled his eyes. “It’s all well and good to declare your intentions, but you don’t even know where she is.”
“We know they were headed southward, along that road. I can certainly find that crossing again. We can follow the road.”
“And how do you know they didn’t leave the road an hour after you last saw them? They could be anywhere.”
“The White Cloaks are Wielders, and they’re actively using the ley. They’ll have to be positioned somewhere near an active source, like the node here.”
“So another node. That’s a start. We can use the sands to figure out where they are.”
“It won’t be that easy. The ‘south’ is a large area, and the sands can only view a small portion of it at a time. It could take weeks to find a single node, and there would be no guarantee that it would be the node the White Cloaks are using.”
“Not to mention that the nodes aren’t particularly stable right now. The node you find might be dead by the time you get there, with the ley lines shifting around so much.”
Artras gasped in realization and everyone turned to her. “That’s just it. The White Cloaks wouldn’t choose a node that isn’t stable. They’d be actively working to stabilize it.” She turned to Allan. “Remember Erenthrall? We found signs that someone was manipulating the ley lines, redirecting them. We even saw signs of it before we reached the city, in that town where the old node had been activated. All of the lines were being directed to the southwest. I’d wager they’re all focused on the same location, wherever the White Cloaks have chosen as their new home.”
“Even this node here is directed southward,” Raven added.
“The largest node southwest of Erenthrall is Tumbor.”
Everyone fell silent for a moment.
“The White Cloaks aren’t in Tumbor. The
lines we saw in Erenthrall aren’t flowing in that direction. They’re angled farther west. They must be centered on another node, one of the junctions of the ley system from before the Shattering.”
“So where are the junctions west of Erenthrall and Tumbor?”
Artras stared at him. “I don’t know. None of us do. Only the Primes knew the ley system outside of Erenthrall. Most of us barely knew the ley outside of our own districts.”
“Then we’re back to not knowing where the White Cloaks are.”
Hernande was chewing on the end of his beard, brow creased in thought. “Not necessarily.” He reached into a pocket and withdrew a few pebbles. Allan had no idea where they came from, but they appeared to be simply river stones, picked up because of their color. Hernande placed two of the largest on the flat rock between himself and the fire, pointing to one, then the other. “Erenthrall. Tumbor.” He then placed one farther west and slightly north of Erenthrall. “The Hollow.” He handed one to Artras, who leaned forward and started placing the stone even before he said, “Place this one where you estimate the town with the active node is, the one you found before you reached Erenthrall.”
“Here.” She set the small white stone down northwest of the city-stone, not quite along a straight line between it and the Hollow.
“Good.” Hernande grabbed three of the leftover skewers that had been used to roast some of their dinner over the fire, nothing more than sharpened sticks. He handed two to Artras and the third to Raven. “Place the skewers so they point in the direction of the ley lines from the Hollow, the town, and Erenthrall.”
Raven frowned. “I don’t know if I can do it exactly.”
Hernande waved a hand. “It doesn’t have to be precise.”
Artras had already knelt and placed one of the skewers, starting at Erenthrall. Raven watched her as she placed the second, one end at the town. Then she sat back and Raven set the third down, fussing with it as it tried to roll to one side.
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