“We should turn back,” she whispered urgently as Liam clung to her cloak. “We’ll alert them to our presence and force another attack.”
“I spy our path up ahead,” Petyr said, pointing towards a row of flattened bushes.
“Then let’s circle around, giving the oak a wide birth. There’s no need to pass right under its nose.”
The cry rose up again, so loud this time that they all winced.
“I’ve rescued a creature from the clutches of these monsters before,” he replied, “I won’t leave this one to suffer. Besides, what good is it to hide from a confrontation we know will come? Better to get it over with than to cower in fear.”
Shallah shook her head as Petyr peered through the fern leaves.
“You’re being foolish!” she cried.
“You needn’t follow me, then,” he whispered, over his shoulder. “Stay here with Liam and wait for my return.”
“I’ll not separate us again. We might never find each other.” She took hold of Petyr’s hand. He turned to her. Her features were strained with worry. “Please don’t do this, Petyr,” she said. “I fear for you.”
Petyr softened. He’d forgotten for a moment that his actions might affect the others. “I’ll take no unnecessary risks,” he said.
Shallah’s face went suddenly hard, and she dropped his hand. “The act alone is unnecessary!” she objected heatedly. “Why look for trouble when it can be avoided? You endanger us all with your reckless need for conflict.”
Liam looked on silently as Shallah glared furiously at Petyr. He blinked, stunned by her sudden anger. He tried to take her hand again, but she pulled away.
“I would never put you in harm’s way,” he said steadily. “I hope you know that by now. You can follow me at a distance, keeping well back in the trees. You’ll be out of danger there.”
She nodded sullenly, her face averted. “Why must you always go ahead, you men?” she asked, her voice low. “What is it you expect to find?”
“I seek only to keep us safe,” Petyr responded. He couldn’t understand her sudden despondency. Did she doubt his loyalty to her? “I do this for you,” he said.
Shallah’s smile was sour. “For me,” she repeated in a whisper. She raised her face to his. “Go, then,” she said.
Moving off, Petyr felt a tug in his stomach. It bothered him more than he could admit that he’d upset Shallah so. He was more than relieved when he heard her calling after him.
“Petyr!” she whispered, a note of remorse in her voice. “Do be careful.”
“And you,” he called back softly.
Petyr crept toward the beastly tree. The light from Liam’s eyes continued to brighten his way as the boy watched him from yards off. The animal cried out again and Petyr followed the sound, grateful for the noise, for it allowed him to move more easily through the underbrush.
He could make out the animal’s head but nothing more, for it was facing away from him. He was surprised at its size. He’d never seen these beasts attack a larger creature before, other than himself, and in light of their rejection of Shallah he’d come to think of them as the snatchers of rodents and children. If these oaks were able to hold a fully-grown deer, then they could take whomsoever they chose, axe or no axe.
When Petyr finally found himself under the branches of the oak, Liam looked away, leaving him in the dark. The imprisoned animal was no more than a shifting shadow. Then the light flared again and Petyr caught his breath. Before him, tangled in the roots of the monster, was an enormous buck. Its eyes glowed green and pained as the light hit them, then fell black again. It cried out and Petyr winced despite himself, not at the loudness of the sound, but at its cause. This animal had not gone quietly into the belly of the beast.
A twisting root protruded sickly through its broad red chest, pinning it to the trunk. Another cut through the white patch of fur on its rump. Blood seeped over the roots, hinting at further carnage. As it thumped the ground with its two front hooves in wild-eyed terror, more blood ran down the roots to the forest floor.
Petyr saw instantly he could do nothing for the creature. The very limbs that had injured him were holding him in life. If he cut the animal loose, it would surely die. He leaned forward and stroked the buck between its mighty antlers. It let out another mournful wail.
“I’m sorry,” he said as quietly as he could. “I can’t save you.”
The buck caught Petyr’s eyes and went still. He held the great animal’s head with both hands.
“You will not die alone,” he said.
Liam was glad to be doing something.
It was his job to lead Shallah now, because she couldn’t watch Petyr like he could. She had to trust him to do it right, and he was sure he would. It felt good to be thinking about something. It made it easier not to think about all the things he wasn’t thinking about. There were so many things! He didn’t want to think about the story Petyr had told about Trallee, the one they thought he hadn’t heard. He didn’t want to think about the battle with the oaks, and the horrible images that had filled his mind. He didn’t want to think about anything from before or anything from after.
He didn’t want to think at all. It was best to be doing something.
He lost sight of Petyr for a moment, and his eyes skipped forward. His sight landed on something he couldn’t quite make out. He slowed his step as he tried to see. Shallah tugged on his hand in puzzlement.
He saw the animal caught in the oak’s roots. Its wounds gushed blood so dark it looked black.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
“Liam,” Shallah whispered, shaking him by the shoulder, “we mustn’t stop here.”
The boy didn’t hear. He’d shut his eyes tight and stood rocking in place. He’d seen carnage like this once before. He’d seen wood poking through bodies.
He’d seen blood.
He peeked at the animal again, as Shallah pleaded with him to move on. It was the buck they’d seen on the path, Liam was sure of it. He’d been so afraid of it then. And now …
Liam shook his head as new images filled his mind. It was just the same as during the battle. He was seeing into after again.
He saw the magnificent animal laid out on the forest floor, its lifeblood flowing into the earth.
He saw its eyes fade to dullness.
He saw death.
All the hurt he’d been holding inside, hurt from before, came flooding in. It was almost too much to bear.
Keeping hold of Shallah’s hand, he changed direction and started towards the dying buck.
Shallah’s alarm mounted as they changed course. She couldn’t understand why Liam would run toward his captors. Did they have him under their control? She pleaded with him desperately, pulling at his fingers, but the boy wouldn’t be coerced. As each step drew them nearer to what she saw as certain doom, she became more frantic. Just as she prepared to grab Liam around the middle and haul him away by force, he let go of her hand and continued on alone.
She lunged for him but her arms closed on air and she fell to her knees. All about her the wood was still and she could hear no sound, not of the dying animal, nor of Liam’s retreating footsteps. She cursed her own stupidity. What would become of Liam now? She couldn’t go after him when one trip over a shrub could give them all away.
Still on her knees, she pulled at the weeds growing around her, winding them around her fingers, and waited.
The child was nearly upon him before Petyr sensed his approach. He turned suddenly and was blinded by Liam’s shinning eyes. He looked past the boy for Shallah but couldn’t see her. Had she stayed behind alone?
“What the devil is going on?” he asked the child in a whisper so low it was hardly audible.
Liam made no reply, his sights unwaveringly set on the buck and its wounds.
Petyr watched the jumping beams of light that were Liam’s sight. They followed the contours of the animal’s limbs, lingering first on the stains of blood, and then for a l
onger time on the black rimmed eyes.
Presently, the light began to quiver and fade and Petyr glanced at Liam. He was crying.
Petyr felt a great wave of sympathy for him, for he’d been through such an ordeal these past few days. He reached out to comfort him, then saw with a stab of dread that his mouth was hanging open. He was getting ready to bawl. Petyr clamped his hands over Liam’s mouth, but too late. A high-pitched cry escaped the child’s mouth, startling the buck. It snorted in agitation.
Clutching the boy to his chest, Petyr stared up at the branches, awaiting the dreaded attack. He heard a scuffle from behind and then Shallah landed nearly on top of them both. Liam’s cry had told her she could move at will. She held her dagger at the ready.
“What is it?” she asked, a hand on each of their shoulders.
A sound like the hissing of steam filled the air.
“We’ve awakened it,” Petyr said.
Taking hold of his axe, Petyr got to his feet and Shallah did the same. They stood back to back, holding their weapons aloft, for no owl could harm them now. They’d already been given up.
Released from Petyr’s hold, Liam approached the deer, seemingly unaware of his companions’ alarm.
“Liam, no!” Petyr cried. “Stay back!”
But the boy had ceased paying heed to their warnings. He stroked the buck’s fur, circling the cuts with his fingertips. Then, as Petyr watched, he covered the oozing wounds with his tiny hands. As the hissing took up once more, louder now, the buck jerked in alarm. It calmed only when Liam pressed his cheek against its back, feeling the rise and fall of its breath.
“Petyr, what’s happening?” Shallah asked breathlessly.
Petyr looked up at the tree. It remained still as the puzzling sound continued.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“I’ve heard this sound before,” she said.
“I’ve heard this sound before,”
Suddenly, it became very cold.
Liam was the first to notice it, for the buck shivered beneath his grasp. Opening his eyes, he spied a whiteness like frost rising up from the base of the tree. As he watched, it drew higher, coming level with his gaze, then rose farther still. He couldn’t understand it. How could there be frost without winter?
The tide of ice reached the branches and began to encircle them.
Shallah shivered and a knowing look came across her face.
“It’s freezing over,” she said.
Liam could see his breath wafting before him. He tore his gaze away from the frost and looked at the buck. The light in its eyes was fading, and something was wrong with its fur. It looked less … alive. He didn’t want to think about what that could mean. He looked at his hands. The frost was covering his fingers! He pulled his hands away. The ice had crept up the animal’s legs and was spreading over its torso. Whatever was happening to the oak was happening to the buck as well.
It was going to freeze to death.
The boy sat down heavily before the buck, watching it come to pass. The animal was afraid, he knew. He felt the same fear, the same heart-wrenching sorrow. As the ice closed over the deer’s eyes, Liam felt its ache of death. Sadness welled in his chest. He let out a scream that cut through the cold like a knife.
“Run!” Petyr cried. Shallah pulled Liam away from the buck and turned to flee. But before they’d taken one step, a new sound began.
The monstrous tree was cracking along its icy branches, tiny fissures snaking down to the end of each twisted twig. Liam took a tentative step back as the cracking came to a halt. Then, as Petyr and Liam watched, the mighty oak cracked open along its cuts and exploded in their faces, flattening them to the ground.
Moments later, Liam looked up through dazed eyes as the others stirred beside him. The oak had vanished.
A fine white powder fell through the air.
Chapter Eighteen
Liam was inconsolable for many hours. He wrapped his arms about Shallah’s neck and wouldn’t be parted from her. Shallah and Petyr found the animal’s path and turned onto it. They walked in stunned silence.
It was Petyr who noticed that the buck remained. They’d all gotten to their feet and were dusting the powder from each other when he saw the mound. It was dying but no longer frozen, its eyes staring vacantly. Shallah wished Petyr had left it alone instead of rubbing the cover of white from the body, revealing it again to Liam, who immediately began to shake. The deer’s blood ran still, soaking into the ground beneath it.
Shallah crouched before the creature to close its mournful eyes, for in her blindness she pitied those who were forced to stare into death. But when she touched its lids, a startling thing took place. Her arms jolted as though the buck’s body had jerked violently, when all the while it lay deathly still. Her fingers seemed to fuse with the fur and she couldn’t break away. In her mind’s eye, she saw the buck turn to face her, its eyes locking on hers. It spoke to her without emitting a sound. It simply looked at her and she knew.
She had received the second prophecy.
She nearly fell backwards as her hands were abruptly released. Petyr said it was a terrible shame, but that animals died in the forest every day. Shallah realized he was trying to console Liam. They showed no awareness that anything unusual had taken place.
The buck was now quite dead, but Liam was unwilling to leave its side. Still reeling inwardly, Shallah said quietly, “He’s passed on now. There’s nothing we can do for him. Come away.”
Since then, she couldn’t get any reaction from the child, try as she might. He’d retreated into himself and would not come out.
Not long after, the path began to dip steeply. Shallah’s limp became more pronounced and she admitted she could go no further that day. Petyr found a spot to make camp in a round depression of earth where the decline couldn’t be felt. They took turns sipping from the flasks, taking note of the growing water shortage as though it were a worry from long ago, being remembered.
Once Liam had drifted off and finally released his stealthy hold on her, Shallah went to join Petyr as he stoked the fire. Stepping into the circle of warmth, she breathed in a scent that reminded her of her father’s late-night talks with Jos, and of festival days on the green. The smell of home.
“Is that Isemay Wray’s tobacco?” she inquired. “I didn’t realize you smoked, Petyr.” Pipe smoking had fallen out of fashion in the village in recent years, and had come to be seen as an old man’s habit. Isemay continued to trade regularly with Malcol Klink, Thurstan Turvey and Jos Guerin (without his wife’s knowledge), as well as the occasional curious adolescent boy.
Petyr fingered the pipe in his hands. “I haven’t touched the stuff in years,” he admitted. “Not since I was twelve. I took it up to rile my father, and it worked – I could tell. But he never tried to stop me, never told me it was a man’s hobby, never said a word. So, I lost interest.”
“You hadn’t yet developed your stubborn resolve?” Shallah asked as she sat down by Petyr’s side.
He grinned and lit the pipe by the fire’s flame. “Not quite yet,” he said, between puffs.
His smile changed to a look of astonishment as Shallah took the pipe from his hand and placed it in her own mouth, her girlish curls and freckles contrasting drastically with the manly purse of her lips. She rested her chin in her palm and cocked an eyebrow at Petyr. “What is it, Petyr Fleete?” she remarked. “You think a woman can’t smoke just as well as a man?”
“I-I-I,” Petyr stuttered. “When did you learn to smoke?” he asked finally.
“I took it up one year, mostly to rile Trallee’s womanfolk who’d taken to calling me a witch.” Shallah gave Petyr a sly look. “It worked – I could tell.” She passed the pipe back to Petyr who handled it gingerly, as though by using it she’d turned it to gold, or a serpent.
“Did your father smoke?” he asked.
“No,” she said wistfully. “There wasn’t much about my father that was usual or expected. Smoking would hav
e been much too social for his taste. He might have partaken once or twice with Jos, but not as a rule. I don’t know, perhaps it was the rule itself that irked him.”
“Was he so rebellious?”
She took a deep breath and raised her face to the canopy as the pipe smoke rose above them in swirling wreaths. “Not really. He was more of a dreamer. He lived in dreams, I think, because the reality of his shattered life was too much for him. When he told me fairy stories as a girl, he always seemed to enjoy them more than I, as though he truly believed them. I think, when he left, he really thought he would return and save us all. He wanted to be the hero.” She smiled sadly. “How I wish he were here with us now.”
Shallah heard Petyr take something from the pouch at his belt. She wondered what it could be, but didn’t ask.
“Can I ask … ?” Petyr’s voice was thick with emotion. “What was it like for you during all those years alone in that house? Didn’t you yearn for companionship after your father had gone?”
Shallah had the feeling Petyr was thinking more of his own loss than hers.
“I loved it,” she replied candidly. “I loved being alone, where no one could touch me. I think I thought I deserved it. I would listen in on the talk between husbands and wives – it was all so foreign to me. I wanted none of it. Being alone seemed safer to me.”
“I can understand that,” Petyr said. “After Marion … I tried to shut the world out. But it wasn’t so easy for me. I had my children to care for. There were days when I wished them gone, but in truth I know that without them I would have been lost. You had no one. You must know inner strength far beyond my own.”
“It wasn’t strength, Petyr,” Shallah said. “I was hiding.”
“But you’re here now,” he said.
His words brought them both back to the present. They shared the pipe between them, sitting shoulder to shoulder, as they talked it over.
“Do you think he knows?” Petyr began.
“Liam?” Shallah said. She puffed on the pipe before replying. “I’m not sure.”
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