They can’t have killed him. He wouldn’t have come alone.
And he knew at once that was true. Of course he wouldn’t have. He was Dallen. Dallen, who had as much experience with these bastards as Mags did and knew to expect the unexpected from them. Dallen would never have just rushed after Mags, not without help.
If it was the hit on the head that took your Mindspeech, he might have “lost” you right away anyway.
That was possibly true . . . he still wasn’t entirely certain how his bond with Dallen worked . . . but it did stand to reason that if he couldn’t sense Dallen, then Dallen couldn’t sense him, either.
You don’t know that your Mindspeech is gone forever until you see a Mindhealer.
That was true, too.
And it was all enough to get him to crawl, aching and weary, to the vines, part them a little, and look cautiously out.
Cautiously, because it occurred to him that it would be just his luck to find himself staring at the backs—or worse, the faces—of his kidnappers.
But there was nothing to be seen out there but the dangerously high waters of that stream—not so much a stream as a small river, raging at both banks and full of big branches and debris—the steeply sloping bank covered in vines, and the nearly identical bank on the other side.
He crawled carefully out into the sunlight. At least the rain had done him one favor. He wasn’t filthy and stinking anymore. In fact, he and the blanket were remarkably clean. He pulled the still-damp blanket out after him, spread it out in the sunlight, and considered his options.
There was one thing he remembered about Karse. It was south of Valdemar. So if he went north, it stood to reason that eventually he’d get across the Border. He wished he had some idea of how long his captors had held him, but by the look of things around him, it was really autumn now. He had been correct, although some trees were still green, many had begun to turn, so there had already been one good frost. That was both good and bad. Good, because as he remembered from his scrounging when he was a mine-slavey, next to all the young plants of spring, fall was the time of the most abundant wild food. He probably should avoid berries unless he actually recognized them, but there would be nuts and seeds, for sure. But fall was bad, because winter was coming, and the only thing he had between himself and winter’s cold was a single blanket.
I did all right with as much in the mine, he reminded himself. As long as I find myself shelter every night, I’ll do all right.
He was woefully lacking in everything else, though. Short of navigating by the sun, he had no idea how to keep himself going in the right direction. He hadn’t yet taken any of the wilderness survival classes at the Collegium, nor the classes in how to find directions, nor the ones where you memorized detailed maps. He didn’t have a knife, a bow, or any other sort of weapon.
Well, time to fix that.
All his crying had at least done one thing; his stomach was so upset now he wasn’t the least bit hungry. Thirsty, though . . .
He made his way with some difficulty down to the river, clambered over the rocks, and scooped up handfuls of the icy water, splashing some over his sore eyes after he’d drunk. He looked with longing at the flashing silver forms farther away. He had more chance of flying home than he did of catching those fish. Even if he’d had fishing line and a hook, he didn’t know how to fish.
But he filled his pocket with river pebbles that were as close to round as he could get, and then experimentally pulled up some of the smaller tendrils of vine. After he stripped the leaves away, he found to his relief that the stems shredded into tough, flexible threads. He could work with this.
A candlemark or so later, his skills at weaving horsehair had yielded him a sling, a stick with a formidable, triangle-shaped rock bound into the fork at one end, and a few armlengths of cord. He used part of the cord to bind his blanket around his body and then formed a kind of sling out of it at the back by knotting opposite corners over his chest. Now his hands were free, he had a way to carry things, and he had two weapons, both of which he knew how to use, and use well.
Fortunately, the stream was coming from the direction he wanted to be going—north. He tried not to think too hard about what he would have to do if he was forced to leave his source of water.
Deal with that when it happened.
As he walked, he turned over rocks ahead of him. Almost at once he was rewarded with a redbug, a little crustacean that had pinchers on the front and a most delicious tail. Those had been great prizes back at the mine, and he refused to think about how good it would taste tossed in a fire for a moment. He didn’t have a fire, and he’d eaten them raw before. He pounced, and a moment later he was sucking out the meat and the guts, then cracking the claws between his teeth to get the little meat that was in them as well.
He had to stop at noon, afraid he would lose his bearings with the sun overhead, but by then he had caught and eaten a half dozen more redbugs and a handful of cress. His stomach was less than pleased with this meager fare, but he’d lived on less at the mine, and he kept telling himself as much. He was on sharp lookout for cattails. If he could find cattails, he could sleep with a full stomach.
While he waited for the sun to move on, he scanned the bank above him, looking for anything that looked like one of the nut-bearing trees he was familiar with—or, indeed, anything else that might be of use.
Then, while he was at it, he looked for the signs of humans.
Not that he was going to approach any Karsites—but if he got a chance, he’d steal from them.
In order, what he needed as much as food were something to use for a knife, something to carry water, and a way to make and carry fire. He could do without fire for a while; there were a lot of things he could and would eat raw, and the blanket and a little shelter would keep him warm at night for now. He could do without carrying water as long as he didn’t stray from the river.
But he was already feeling the lack of a knife. He knew in theory he could make a knife by fracturing a flint rock—but what did flint look like? He had no idea.
While he waited, he caught and ate a few more redbugs. Each one helped ease the hunger pains in his stomach. And he made some more cord from the ubiquitous vines. He tried tasting the leaves to see if they were edible, but, sadly, they were too bitter to choke down.
He resolved to stop as soon as he saw any place that would serve as shelter for the night. It would be much better to stop early and have shelter; he could use the extra time to hunt for more food. At least when it came to food, he was not as completely in the dark as someone who had grown up in a city would be.
But right now, he would cheerfully have murdered someone for a knife, a fire-starter, a little iron pot, and a waterskin.
As he worked his way along the riverside, he took anything he saw that looked potentially useful. A few more stones for his sling. Some clamshells, and he wished that he knew how to find live clams. He hesitated over the skeletal remains of a very large fish and finally took some of the rib bones. About midafternoon, he spotted another cave, a real one this time, and that decided him. It was time to stop and make camp.
It wasn’t so much a cave as a washed out area beneath a rock overhang—not sheltered enough for an animal to make a den, but the fact that the dirt in the back was dry proved it would keep off another storm. He left everything he had gathered in the cave and went down to the river to forage for food in good earnest.
The redbugs were thick here. He actually managed to eat enough to fill his stomach. There was still plenty of light, so he marked the overhang with his blanket spread out and went up the slope, checking back to make sure he could see it as he went.
And just as he was about to turn back, his diligence was rewarded with a hickory tree.
It was the squirrels that told him it was there; they had been busily foraging among the leaves for the nuts, and chattered at him angrily for disturbing them. He went to his hands and knees as soon as he realized what he had found
, and by the time he was weary, the front of his shirt bulged with his bounty.
Careful not to lose a single one, he made his way back down to his shelter, cached the nuts, and gathered more of the vines. This time he knotted the strands into a very fine-meshed net bag to hold the nuts; by the time it was finished, it was almost dark. He went down to the river for a final drink, then came back, secured all of his treasures behind him, wrapped up in his blanket, and lay down as far in the rear of the shelter as he could get.
It was a good thing he took that precaution too.
Some time during the night, another storm rolled in. This one wasn’t as intense or nearly as long as the first, but it did have a great deal of lightning, and it woke him up out of a sound sleep.
It was just as cold as the other storm, too. He wondered, as he watched the river rage below him, if this sort of weather was normal for autumn here. Dallen would have known, probably. The mere thought made him ache for the sound of Dallen’s Mindvoice in the back of his head.
But the place he was in now looked as if it had been washed out. That argued for the river coming all the way up here at least now and again. So these sorts of storms probably were the norm.
On the other hand, the hillsides hadn’t been scoured bare, so floods probably weren’t usual . He did resolve to keep an eye on the water level from now on, however, because a storm he wouldn’t even see a hint of upstream could send a torrent racing toward him.
Finally, exhaustion and a full stomach sent him back into sleep again, despite the lightning and thunder.
* * *
By the third day, and a happy accident, he realized he had his knife. In reaching back into the blanket-pouch for cattail root, he cut himself on one of the clamshells. He had cursed at first, then, suddenly realizing what had happened, he had actually laughed aloud. He made a point of collecting every shell big enough to be useful after that, especially the broken ones. With a knife, he could cut strips from his shirt hem to use to make a better pocket for his sling. With a knife, he could peel the cattail roots and not have to chew the root, bark and all, and spit out what he couldn’t eat. With a knife, he could sharpen sticks to a good point for crude spears.
He was very, very glad he had those crude spears when he heard voices on the afternoon of the fourth day.
They were speaking Karsite, and they were coming from somewhere above him.
He had already found his shelter for the night; or, rather, he had dug it for himself. He had found an enormous, downed tree, and he had patiently enlarged a hollow under it and lined it with dead leaves. He had just finished peeling his dinner of cattail roots and was about to go down to the water to see if he could augment them with redbugs, when he heard the voices.
“Make camp here,” ordered one. “You and you, go down to the river and bring up enough water to hold us through the night. You and you, dig the latrine pit. I don’t want anyone out of camp after dark. Nobody goes outside the perimeter.”
Quickly, he gathered everything up and tucked himself back in under the log, pulling the weeds up and toward him to conceal the opening. Just in time, too. Shortly, a couple of men in identical brown tunics came blundering down the hill, hung all over with what looked like waterskins, like pods hanging off a tree. He peered longingly at them. Oh, what he would have given for a chance to snatch one!
No such luck. It was broad daylight, and there were two of them. Even if he’d had the skills of a thief in a tale, that would have been suicidal.
They filled their skins in the river, complaining about the cold and wet, and lumbered back up the slope, grumbling loudly the entire time about how heavy the water weighed. Evidently their captain heard them. “Quit your bellyaching and move, or I’ll make you march with them all day tomorrow!”
After that, no one came down to the river, and from upslope came the sounds of men making camp. Or at least, that was what Mags assumed the sounds meant. Wood chopping, digging, hammering, the voice barking orders, the sound of a couple of mules—mules and not horses, as he heard one of them bray, startlingly loud in the absence of other animal sounds. The men were sent back down for water again, which made sense now that he knew about the mules, since the mules would need as much water as a couple of men. They had probably used up a goodly share of the water from the first run setting up a watering trough for the mules and taking care of cooking and washing needs. This would be the water that would hold them through the night. Then, as the sun began to set and the valley filled with shadows, there was the sound of at least one fire, the smell of woodsmoke and cooking, and men talking. It was impossible to hear what they were saying over the rushing river below him, but the cooking smells nearly drove Mags mad. It seemed a punishment designed specifically to torment him, to be cramped in his damp little cave, chewing on a raw cattail root, while above him were men warming themselves at a crackling fire and eating cooked food.
He reminded himself of all the times he’d smelled the good dinners the Pieters were eating while he and the other kiddies huddled over their watery soup and single piece of bread. And he had food. He’d filled up on redbugs before he stopped, and he still had lots of hickory nuts and cattail roots. He muffled a nut in his blanket, cracked it between two stones, and ate it slowly, reminding himself to enjoy the rich taste. He peeled and ate another root, then another nut. He concentrated on how good they tasted, the rich taste of the nut, the slightly sweet crunch of the root, and how much more satisfying they were than soup that had barely one sad shred of cabbage in every four spoonfuls. It helped; in fact, it helped tremendously.
He didn’t dare sleep, however. Despite the officer’s order that no one was to leave the camp after dark, he didn’t dare take the chance that someone would, anyway. So instead of sleeping, he dozed as lightly as he could, listening for the sound of clumsy footfalls coming down the hill over the sound of the river.
He was startled awake by the blat of an inexpertly sounded horn at dawn, and he spent the next couple of candlemarks listening intently. Four men came blundering down the slope this time, laden with waterskins. Halfway up, he heard someone curse. Someone else said, “Leave it. It’s probably bust in the fall.”
His heart leaped. Was there a chance, was there even a chance—
He maintained his silent vigil, however. If it was a waterskin that the man had dropped, it might very well have broken in the fall, and he had no way of mending it. Or the captain might send someone down after it anyway. Or it might not have been a waterskin after all.
So he peeled a root and ate it, slowly, taking tiny bites. Peeled another and ate it. Ignored the smell of hot food as best he could, although the smell of cooking meat was extremely hard to take. Listened as hard as he could and watched through his curtain of weeds.
Finally he heard what he had been hoping for: the jingle of harness, the rattle of wheels on rock, and the tramp of feet. And all of it going downstream, away from him.
Had this been the same group that had stopped his kidnappers?
He was pretty certain they were just patrolling, not looking for him specifically. His kidnappers had kept him carefully concealed, after all, so unless for some reason he’d been taken on the orders of someone high up in the chain of Karsite authority, no one in Karse knew he was here. So these fellows might be looking for interlopers, bandits, and troublemakers, but not specifically him.
He’d been very, very careful about the traces he had left behind. He’d tossed everything he couldn’t eat into the river to be carried away and scattered. When he pulled up cattails, he was generally using the fibrous leaves to make twisted cordage while he walked, the redbug shells from the bugs he ate vanished into the river immediately, and so did the cattail peelings. There was nothing in the places where he’d slept to show that it hadn’t been an animal that had denned there. He didn’t leave tool marks on anything, because he didn’t have tools. He’d walked on rock to avoid leaving human footprints.
He didn’t think they’d find any t
race of him.
And even if they did, they were not the ones hunting him. They had come from the opposite direction of his kidnappers. He just had to hope his kidnappers didn’t meet up with them.
He hoped, even if they did find something, they would assume he was a native Karsite, a hunter or a vagabond. It wasn’t as if they had any way of telling the nationality of whoever had left some broken nutshells.
He waited a good long time before moving out of his shelter, and when he did, it was cautiously. With a careful eye uphill, just in case someone came back, he crept down to the river until he found the spot where the men had been filling their skins. He looked upslope. Their path was painfully obvious, with torn up weeds, bare patches where they had dug their feet into the soil, and everything trampled. Slowly, telling himself not to hope, he worked his way up the slope, examining their path for a couple of arm lengths past the trampled area, looking for whatever they had dropped.
And his heart leaped when he spotted it—a round, brown shape caught in the middle of a scraggly bush, hidden from above by the leaves but visible from below. They’d have had to get down here to spot it. No wonder they hadn’t wanted to go back.
Scarcely daring to believe his luck, he worked his way into the thorny tangle, suffering his fair share of scratches on the way in before his hand closed around it. And he shed a bit of blood on the way out, too. But when he drew it out, he could have shouted for joy.
Not a waterskin, but a water gourd, which was probably why they hadn’t bothered to go after it. Gourds were easily grown, easily replaced, and cheap. This one wasn’t broken, and the stopper was still rammed securely in the neck. It was obvious what had happened—the carrying-strap had snapped. A Sun-In-Glory had been inked with a stamp onto the side, meaning it was Karsite army issue and not someone’s personal property—probably part of the equipage for the mules. Another reason why they wouldn’t care. If they had lost someone’s personal waterskin, there would have been words at the very least, but losing a bit of the army equipment was unlikely to generate any repercussions.
Redoubt: Book Four of the Collegium Chronicles (A Valdemar Novel) Page 21