by Colt, K. J.
There was no mistaking the displeasure in his voice.
Brig was prepared for the question. “She can’t stay among us; I understand that well enough. I figure I’ll search around for any family to claim her. If I can’t find any living, I’ll leave her in one of the woods villages, where folk will surely see that she’s not allowed to starve.”
Rideon said flatly, “I’ve a more practical solution. Drown her.”
Brig didn’t seem to know what to make of that. “You’re jesting,” he said, but he sounded uncertain.
“Not at all. It’d be simple enough. We’ve a convenient stream on hand. No, wait… We wouldn’t want to foul the drinking water, would we? Better yet, break her neck and bury her someplace away from camp.”
Brig sounded dismayed. “I could never do that. Not to a little one.”
A threatening note crept into Rideon’s voice. “Are you refusing to obey your captain’s orders?”
The surrounding outlaws moved back a little, bloodthirsty anticipation in their eyes.
Brig appeared to choose his words carefully. “No,” he responded at length. “Not refusing, just asking for a reason. Why should she die? What harm is she to anyone?”
At his mild response, the tension in the air subsided and Rideon leaned back to study the bald man thoughtfully. “Very well,” he said. “I’m a reasonable man, and I’ve no objection to answering an honest question. The truth is you’ve only yourself to thank for the girl’s fate. She must die because she’s seen too much—things we can’t afford to have become common knowledge. I shouldn’t have to explain the obvious to you. Just imagine. Wouldn’t the Fists love to know where we’re hiding?”
“But she’s so small,” Brig argued. “She slept in my arms most of the journey and could never find her way here again, let alone lead others. Who would listen to such a child anyway?”
Rideon considered me. There was no dislike in his eyes. To either like or dislike me wasn’t worth his effort, any more than he would have troubled himself to bear ill will toward an ant. “You’re certain she couldn’t return, leading our enemies along behind her?” he asked. “Certain enough to risk all our lives on it?”
“I’m sure of it,” Brig said.
I stood by quietly, listening to this exchange but not feeling terribly afraid for my life. I instinctively trusted Brig to protect me. It hardly occurred to me to wonder if or why he would.
Brig continued. “It’s not a far walk to Coldstream, and if I travel all night after dropping her there, I can be back at camp by morning.”
“And leave others to do your duties and take over your watch for you, I suppose?”
Brig had no answer planned for that, but one of his comrades saved him by speaking up. “I’ll stand in for him,” the outlaw said. “It’s only for a day anyway. We done rescued the runt from starving on the road. It’s only fitting we see her through to safety.”
There arose a noise of general agreement at these words.
Rideon looked around him and must have seen the novelty of a generous deed appealed to his followers. The dangerous spark fled from his eyes, and he appeared reconciled to the idea.
“Of course it is fitting. We will do right by the child,” he said, as though the plan had been his own, and he told Brig to make preparations for our journey straightaway.
Now that my fate was decided, I lost interest in the big peoples’ conversation. The other spectators also appeared to grow bored as they realized there would be no physical confrontation between Brig and their captain, and they drifted away.
My belly loudly proclaimed its emptiness and, propelled by my hunger, I wandered from Brig’s side and over to the campfire. The redheaded giant, Dradac, and some others were seated on stumps before the flames. Dradac was occupied with fletching a stack of shaved wooden shafts at his feet. He whistled a cheerful tune as he worked and, observing my longing looks toward the stewpot, soon took pity on me.
“Hungry, little dog?” he asked.
When I nodded eagerly, he spooned up a portion of warm venison stew into a carved wooden bowl.
“Don’t feed the hound, Dradac. It’ll think it can hang around the table,” another outlaw joked as I fell to.
But the giant only laughed and refilled my bowl each time it came up empty until I could hold no more. I was just setting my bowl aside when Brig appeared out of nowhere to collect me, and we left the camp, setting off on a long trek through the forest.
Here my clearest memories of that time come to an end. I recall nothing of the journey to the woods village of Coldstream, nor of Brig setting me down near its sheltering walls and shooing me in the proper direction. All I know is the tale I grew up hearing from the outlaws of how Brig made the return journey alone that night and of how, within two days time, I showed up at their camp again. Everyone said I must have put my nose to the ground like a true hound and traced Brig’s tracks.
Further attempts were made to pry me from my chosen home. But I clung to the leg of Brig, whom I had claimed as mine, and resisted relocation so loudly and vehemently the brigands were moved by my determination—or perhaps merely exhausted by it. “It’s a ferocious little hound you’ve got there, Brig,” one outlaw remarked admiringly.
Eventually Rideon was called in to make his wishes known. I remember huddling against Brig, shivering and half-frozen after my return trek from the woods village. I stared up at the outlaw leader, and Rideon the Red Hand gazed down on me coldly.
He spared us a long suspense, declaring emotionlessly, “The hound may stay. From this day on, she will live and work among us and be treated as one of ours. And, as she cannot remain a hound forever, today I also give her a name, Ilan, after a faithful tracker I once had. That stenched dog could trail a mole through a snowstorm.”
“What changed your mind about the girl?” Brig asked. “Why is she to stay?”
Rideon glared. “Because if we attempt to remove her, she’ll only continue returning to us, thanks to your refusal to dispose of her. Also because morale is low and the child’s spirit appeals to the men. But most of all, because I order it.”
After this there could be no further discussion of the matter. I stayed. Although the decision came from Rideon, the other outlaws appeared generally in agreement that I was to be Brig’s responsibility. After all, it was to him I’d attached myself, so it was only natural he should have the care of me.
During this space of time, all that had previously occurred in my life swiftly came to seem like a distant memory, and plunging into a new world, I lost sight of anything connected with the old.
CHAPTER FOUR
MEMORIES OF MY EARLY DAYS among the band of forest brigands are hazy. Seasons changed, the weather warmed to summer, and then winter stole over the land again. My first winter in Dimmingwood was a hard one. Food was scarce that year, and I was not yet accustomed to living outdoors in such weather. Brig worried aloud over how skinny I grew and seemed to think I would die when I succumbed to my first winter chill. But soon winter’s icy grip was lifted from the province and spring found me alive and thriving.
I set into my new existence with enthusiasm. I loved the woods and the forest creatures, loved the scent of pine and the rustle of the wind in the treetops. This world of leaf and shadow, bramble and stream, quickly became mine. There were no other children here, and only one or two women came and went around the camp, but I never felt lonely.
Brig was my closest companion, and I followed at his heels sunup to sundown, drinking in all I saw. I learned early to tell one tree from another until I knew my way around the wood better than many of the grown men. Soon Brig was training me to track and hunt small game.
My skill in another area was expanding as well. Now that my magical talent had prematurely awakened, it refused to fall dormant again and made itself known in a series of unpleasant ways. My sickness that first winter was more than an ordinary chill. I was alternately hot and cold, shivering and feverish. Too weak to stand, I lay mise
rably on a deerskin pallet in the shelter of the cave for weeks. Weight dropped off me until I was little more than a wraith, and evil dreams plagued me in the night. Not dreams of home or of my mother, but twisted, confused nightmares I could scarcely recall upon waking. I always awoke trembling, with a premonition of doom hanging over me, as if the dreams foreshadowed terrible events to come. Occasionally I visited a strange place while I slept, a world of paths and mists, but when I woke, I could never remember much of what I saw there.
By the end of the first winter month, I began to improve, to Brig’s obvious relief. But I didn’t emerge from the illness unchanged. I regained my strength and my weight, but a strange new effect came about. One moment I would be stirring a pot of stew at the fire. The next, I would become abruptly aware that Brig was angry and fighting with someone, though it was happening at such a distance I couldn’t possibly see or hear anything of the disagreement. I simply felt his anger. Other times, I might be sleeping and would wake suddenly, startled by the sense of a pair of men approaching camp from the south. It usually proved to be just two of our members returning from a long hunt, but it was disturbing that I should know of their coming before they were near enough for our sentries to spot them.
If my mother or anyone else with the magic had been present, I could have spoken to them of this. But as it was, I was surrounded by magickless and there was no one to guide me. I had come into my magic early, and doubtless my parents had thought they had plenty of time ahead to prepare me for this. There was only one person I could go to now.
When I revealed what I was going through to Brig, he seemed disturbed. Frightened even. He knew no way to help me with this problem—and a problem it obviously was in his mind.
“But I’ll take care of you, Ilan,” he assured me, “and between the two of us we’ll find our way through this.”
He made me swear I would never speak of my magical abilities to anyone else and suggested I cease using them. I told him that was impossible. The magic had come to me, and though I might have given it up to please Brig if it were in my power, something told me it would never give me up.
I didn’t understand Brig’s fear of magic. I had little knowledge of the cleansings happening throughout the province and rarely remembered the strange words of the Fist who had chased me into the woods on the night of my parents' deaths. For now, I knew only that Brig appeared anxious and disappointed with me.
Over time, I grew accustomed to my new abilities and developed a limited understanding of what I could and couldn’t do with them. My main talent was sensing other presences around me. At odd moments I was also granted flickering glimpses of people’s emotions, which often helped me guess at their plan or intent before it became clear to others.
In those days I spent nearly every waking moment in the company of the bald, bearded outlaw, and he, as if sensing my need for the stability he offered, didn’t begrudge me his time. If for any reason he was unavailable, Dradac would step into his place as my caretaker.
I was growing and quickly learning to care for myself. As the youngest member of the outlaw band, I often fell into the role of camp drudge, but I considered hauling water, scrubbing crockery, and running messages a small price to pay for the excitement and adventure of living among the brigands. I was a pet to a handful of the men like Brig who had once had children or younger siblings. Even the sterner outlaws were won over by my admiration and fascination with everything they did. They regaled me with exaggerated tales, saved choice bits of food for me, and would bring me little trinkets when they returned from their forays.
And so time ran on, the days so full from dawn to dusk that the passing years felt like moments. I could no longer recall vividly the faces of my parents, except in the rare nightmare, and on the occasions when I thought of the little farm where I’d once lived, my memories were hazy, less real than any dream.
I still possessed my mother’s brooch. Brig had found it on me at some time or other and had thoughtfully stored it away until I was old enough to have it. The circumstances surrounding that trinket were still confused in my mind, but I always regarded it with a touch of reverence. It was a treasure from a past I only dimly recalled, to be pulled out occasionally and wondered at, then tucked safely away again. Once I had examined it closely enough to find it had tiny writing engraved across the back. But I could neither write nor read and knew no one who could, so the meaning of the letters on the brooch remained a mystery.
My thirteenth winter saw my body changing. I was taller now, and my tunics grew tight over my breasts, which had begun to swell alarmingly. I knew this was natural at my age but was uncomfortable with the change and longed for everything to go back to the way it had been last year. Occasionally I would steal peeks at myself in the now-battered copper platter Rideon still used as a shaving mirror, but these glimpses always ended in disappointment. I don’t know what I hoped to see, but what I found was a plain, skinny girl, whose legs looked too long for her body. My pale face was narrow, my nose too long and sharp for beauty. My pointed ears stuck out unattractively from my head. But at least no one ever commented on the silvery hair or pale skin I had inherited from my mother’s people. Skeltai ancestry was common this close to the Provincial border and wasn’t necessarily accompanied by the gift of magic. Besides, our band already had a giant in our midst and a man who was rumored to be half goblin, so I fit into the menagerie surprisingly well.
That winter stretched long and bitter, and when it released the land from its icy grip and the warmth of spring stole into the air, our camp reawakened in a fresh bustle of activity. Travelers and merchant caravans were on the move again, and the brigands were eager to plunder the goods and coin they had seen little of during the frozen season.
Our band had swollen in size, and there were now several dozen of us divided over two camps, Red Rock Cave and Molehill. Our numbers shifted constantly as Rideon was forever sending groups on forays to the edges of Dimmingwood. Occasionally they didn’t return, but there were always more to fill their places. The band of Rideon the Red Hand had established a name, and we had a constant flow of thieves eager to join our ranks.
I asked Dradac one day, “Why do people flock to Rideon? He certainly bears no affection for them. He would allow any of us to die without hesitation if it were profitable for him.”
Dradac didn’t look up from the chunk of wood he whittled. “Deep thoughts for such a sunny day, little hound,” he answered. “In my experience, outlaws are less interested in being valued than in being led well. Rideon’s sharp wits are all that stand between us and the hangman’s noose, and the rest of the band know it. Besides, even thieves and killers like a hero, and it takes something powerful to inspire us in these plague-cursed times.”
“Plague’s long over,” I murmured absently.
“Aye, I know that. But its shadow hangs on. You can see it in the eyes of the man who lost all his sons in that single plague year, and it left its mark in the new graves spread across the province. I still smell the fear on the wind, mingled with the smoke from the fires…”
His voice trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. The occasional accused sorcerer was still found once in awhile and put to the penalty of the law. They burned them these days. No one was going to risk another plague. I didn’t know what Dradac’s views on magic were, and I wasn’t about to ask him, but I was ever mindful of Brig’s advice to keep my ability to myself.
I looked out over the spreading treetops below. Perched high in the thick boughs of a tree a few miles beyond the perimeter of Red Rock, we were on morning watch. Or rather, Dradac was on watch and I sat with him, pretending the task was mine too.
When a shrill birdcall split the air, I was so lost in my thoughts that I started and nearly fell from my precarious perch. The bad imitation of a crested redbird was a familiar signal, one that meant trespassers were approaching the perimeters of the camp.
Dradac winced. “That’s Seirdric. I’d know that strangled wa
rble anywhere. Come on.”
“What do you think it is?” I demanded, scrambling down the tree after him and following as he slipped into the underbrush.
“Probably only innocent travelers blundering through the forest. Looks like you’ll have an opportunity to see a bit of action today.”
I kept my thoughts to myself, reluctant to remind him Brig preferred to keep me far away from “action.” Torn between eagerness and unease at witnessing whatever was to come, my nerves fluttered skittishly. But excitement won out. I had waited a long time to be considered old enough for this sort of thing. I wondered if Dradac would kill anyone. Then I wondered if I might kill anyone. I had a sturdy staff with me just in case.
Following our man’s call, Dradac moved swiftly and silently through the forest so that I had difficulty keeping pace with him. It was easy to locate our quarry as we drew near. They made a great deal of noise, crashing clumsily through the underbrush and conversing in loud, angry tones. We heard them long before we caught sight of them.
“You had better know what you’re about, you impudent scoundrel. I’ve paid dear coin for safe escort to the abbey, and if I find you’ve gone and lost us in this gloomy wood—”
“You’ll stutter, puff up your fat jowls, and do nothing at all. You cannot frighten me, priest, so save your breath and your threats for someone else.”
“Why y…you mother-forsaken blackheart! How d…d…dare you?” In his indignation, the priest was so overcome by his impediment he had difficulty spitting out the words.
His companion ignored his complaint. “I’ve told you before, Honored One, you’ve nothing to fear. I know this wood like the back of my hand. It’s but a shorter path I lead you on.”
“I should have been content to r…remain on the road,” the priest replied sullenly. “But now that it’s too late to turn back, at least lead us on with a little more speed. I’d as soon be out of this forest by nightfall. They say these woods are crawling with murderous brigands.”