“So, mistress, do we return?” Claid’s question interrupted her thoughts.
“We go on.” She got to her feet, and Claid helped her reposition her pack. She checked the sun’s path toward the hills hunched together like humpbacked giants, heads shaggy with clumps of brush. “It’s getting late. We’ll be lucky to get past the first hill by nightfall.”
Kyla stared upward into the gathering darkness. Scarcely enough light remained to show the path. Her shoulders ached, her feet hurt, and her tired legs complained at every step. Claid had chattered nonsense most of the afternoon. She’d heard only snatches, her mind busy pondering her future.
She’d not brought enough food, but she hoped to find some along the way. In her pack she had the bag of gold disks she’d taken in trade for her parents’ house. They could be bartered for food, but she didn’t want to use them unless the need was extreme.
Beyond the hills, they would have to cross the moors and climb down the cliffs to the coast, then follow the coast to where it widened and fishing villages nestled beneath the overhanging cliffs. A journey of three days, Kyla reckoned.
They climbed for some time in the growing darkness, with Claid leading the way. “Mistress,” he said, falling back beside her, “I see a hollow that might make a good camping place. Should I go ahead to make certain it’s safe?”
She nodded, wondering how he could see anything off the trail in the waning light. He bounded away, seemingly as fresh as when they’d set out. What is he? her tired mind repeated.
He was back before she’d gone ten steps. “It’s safe, mistress. It was the burrow of a wooleree, but it’s been abandoned for some time.”
“Are you certain?” Woolerees were shy and nonaggressive but did not hesitate to use their long claws and dorsal spines to protect their dens and their young. They’d been known to disembowel large predators and walk away unharmed.
In her weariness she accepted Claid’s assurance and let him help her up the steep slope. When they reached the hollow, she shrugged off her pack and used it as a backrest, relaxing against it while Claid went about building a fire. Any guilt she might have felt for leaving the work of setting up camp to him was assuaged by his cheerful competence.
When the fire settled into a merry blaze, he brought the last of the bread they’d packed, divided it with her, and hunkered beside her in the small den to eat his half.
After she’d eaten and drunk water from her canteen, she wrapped herself in her woolen cloak and curled up on the mat of dried leaves and grasses that lined the den. Her nose twitched at the musky scent of old wooleree scat. She sneezed—and sneezed again.
“Beware, mistress,” Claid shook a finger in her face. “A sneeze warns of trouble, and three sneezes in succession summon woe.”
Kyla’s nose wrinkled. “That’s just a … just a … a … aachooo! … a silly superstition.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “Anyway, trouble has already found us.”
“Shhh. It has only brushed past us on its way elsewhere. Now that you’ve attracted its notice, it may decide to stay.”
Kyla opened her eyes and lifted her head to peer at Claid, expecting to see him grinning at her. His face was solemn. “You sound like the foolish villagers,” she said. “I thought I’d left that kind of nonsense behind.”
“It isn’t nonsense,” he insisted. “Few know the harbingers of trouble better than I.”
She couldn’t keep from laughing. “I don’t doubt that,” she said. “You know your own kind.”
He squatted back on his heels and regarded her with eyes large and dark as an owl’s. “My kind, mistress? Have you determined what I am?”
“No.” Why, when she was tired and wanted only to sleep, had Claid become so argumentative? “What are you? Isn’t it time you explained yourself?”
“Wise indeed the one who can explain himself,” he answered maddeningly. “I am whatever you make me.”
She sighed and lay back, her eyes closed. “This is pointless, Claid,” she said, too tired to think through the implications of his remark. “If you were of my making, you wouldn’t have got me sent into exile.”
He did not reply, and she drifted off to sleep vaguely surprised that he’d let her have the last word.
It was dark when she awoke, but a nearby arborbird proclaimed in song its confidence in dawn’s impending arrival. Shivering, she crawled from the den and cast a longing glance at the cold ashes of last night’s fire, faintly visible in the light of a large crescent moon.
Force of habit rather than obligation drove her, despite the cold, to change into her light shift and head for the crest of the hill. She didn’t wake Claid, not wanting to windspeak in his presence. He would distract her, break her concentration.
Studded with shrubs and bushes, the hilltop offered no bare expanse where the wind could have free play. She thrashed down a circle of sharp-bladed grass and uprooted a small bush to create a spot for her rendezvous. By the time she finished, the sun’s rim had climbed above the farthest hills and sent a shaft of gold into her clearing. A sudden movement beyond the stream of light caught her attention.
Claid stood leering at her.
Or did he? She blinked. Where he’d stood she saw only a bush about his height. The vision could have been a trick of the light—or some new trick of Claid’s.
If it was Claid, she would not give him the satisfaction of deterring her from her purpose. She dropped to her knees and with arms uplifted sent her crooning call to the wind.
It swooped down on her, buffeting her with angry blue gusts.
“What have I done?” she asked in song.
The force of its attack increased. The stinging blasts brought tears to her eyes. The wind pressed her shift to her body. Her hair whipped around her face, blew into her eyes and mouth, stopped her singing.
Huddled on the ground, teeth chattering with cold, she endured the wind’s anger until the blue lightened and the flurries spent themselves. Still the wind refused to turn playful or passionate. In short impatient bursts it huffed the news. Kyla strained to understand the rush of tidings bombarding her.
“Cows strayed from … hunters driving … ferebeasts … stampede … fire in … village … early snow … avalanche … black dog … near Nine Falls … bloody tracks in snow … wooleree … trapper killed … mindstealers … horde … pouring into valley …”
Kyla sat up. “A horde of mindstealers? Did you say ‘horde’? Coming into the valley? Tell me again.”
The icy blue wind refused to repeat its tale or make further mention of mindstealers. The rest of its chatter was of no consequence. Chilled, miserable, consumed with anxiety, Kyla stumbled back to the den.
Claid sat cross-legged in the entrance reading a book from his pack. He looked up at the clatter of her hasty descent. He jumped to his feet, his face registering alarm. He seemed older and taller, a lad of nine or ten rather than a child of five or six. “Mistress! What is it? You look—”
“Turn your head while I dress. Or go back to reading. We have to return to the village.”
“Return? Why?”
“Mindstealers are coming into the valley. If I understood the wind’s mutterings.” She pulled warm clothing from her pack, dragged her boots from the den. “I have to warn the villagers. I think I heard ‘a horde of mindstealers.’ Can’t risk their lives on the chance I heard wrong.”
Paying no heed to Claid, she stripped off the shift, dressed in her travel clothes, and reordered her pack. Into the top of it she stuffed her heavy cloak. Wearing it could slow her down.
“The townspeople won’t believe you, mistress,” Claid warned. “They don’t deserve your concern.”
“They’ll have to believe me. Help me get this pack on. A horde of mindstealers! If that’s true, the whole village is in danger.”
Claid slipped the book he’d been reading into his sack, shouldered the heavy bundle, and followed Kyla down the slope to the trail. “You’ll get us killed, mistress,” h
e wailed. “For those ungrateful wretches.”
“No one deserves to be abandoned to mindstealers,” Kyla snapped. “Go back to Alair if you’re afraid.”
“No, mistress.” Claid caught up with her and trotted beside her, bundle of books slung over one shoulder. “He ordered me to stay with you. I’ll share whatever fate befalls you.”
Kyla grimaced but did not slow her pace. Guilt washed over her at the thought that she might be leading Claid as well as herself into the mindstealers’ clutches, but she saw no help for it. Her duty as a windspeaker was clear.
“I told you trouble would find us,” Claid moaned.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CLAID
Kyla halted her descent and stared. Yesterday Noster Valley had been a tapestry of green and gold, with farmers harvesting vegetables from green-leafed stalks while golden heads of grain swayed and shimmered, waiting to be threshed. Today the tapestry was shredded as if by giant scissors. She gasped at the chaos—the total ruin of all crops not yet harvested. No storm had wreaked such havoc on this clear autumn day.
A rumble like distant thunder drew her gaze to the western edge of the valley. A mass of dark blotches winked in and out of a cloud of dust, blocking her view of Waddams. She caught Claid’s arm and pointed. “That can’t be the horde of mindstealers.”
He peered in the direction she indicated and shook his head. “No, mistress. Those are ferebeasts. They’ve run through the valley and trapped themselves between the town, the cliffs, the river, and the mindstealers.”
Squinting, shading her eyes with one hand, Kyla focused on the swarming black dots. “You’re right.” She remembered the wind’s other snatch of important news, swallowed up till now by her concern about the mindstealers. “A stampede of ferebeasts! Blocking our route into Waddams.”
“And look to the east.” He pointed toward the opposite end of the valley where the Damin River wound away from Weaversville in the eastern corner of Noster Valley and meandered westward toward Waddams. She could barely make out a moving black line snaking along the riverbank. “Those are your mindstealers,” Claid said. “They’re marching on Waddams, no doubt about it.”
“Ferebeasts or no, we have to get there first,” Kyla said grimly. “We’d better stow our packs so we can run faster.” She shrugged hers off and glanced around for a place to hide it.
“I won’t leave the books, mistress,” Claid said stubbornly. “They won’t slow me down, I promise.”
Kyla didn’t argue. She spotted a tree with a large hole in its trunk. Standing on tiptoe, she thrust her pack between the branches and poked it down into the hollow.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s run.”
A steady yellow wind greeted her as she reached the valley. It swept behind her, pushing her along. Had its former cold fury been because she was leaving Waddams? She sang a quick song of thanks for its help as she ran. Claid kept pace with her despite his heavy bundle of books.
With the aid of the wind, she sped through the ravaged fields. Around noon she and Claid crossed Sar Bridge and neared the edge of the milling herd of ferebeasts.
The earth trembled beneath the pounding hooves. A forest of curving horns flashed in the midday sun. Kyla choked on the dust-filled air and the heavy scent of musk. With a helpless, sick feeling, she stared at the sea of beasts.
The males stood as tall as she at their heavily muscled shoulders. Broader at the withers, the sleek body narrowed to the haunches, above which whipped a wickedly barbed tail. At the opposite end a long head jutted out on a sinewy neck. The glittering eyes sported a perpetual look of rage. Above tufted ears, sharp horns curved up, back, and forward like grappling hooks; no less formidable were the powerful jaws with large teeth.
The smaller females had straighter horns and lacked the barbed tails, but they, like the males, could deliver deadly kicks with their cloven hooves, and they had the same crushing jaws.
Hundreds of these animals charged toward the steep slopes, wheeled around at the river’s edge, and dashed back to the rear of the herd in mindless circling.
“How can we get through?” Kyla shouted to make herself heard.
“I don’t know, mistress,” Claid answered. “You came with such haste, I thought you must have a plan.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, she turned back to the herd in time to see an enormous buck charge directly at them.
Kyla screamed. Claid dropped his bag of books and jumped in front of her. The ferebeast thundered nearer. Claid ran forward and vaulted over the creature’s horns, landing on its back. He grabbed the barbed tail as it lashed at him and gave a twist that sent the animal into a skidding turn just before it reached Kyla. The buck arched its long neck, bellowed, and aimed its horns at the annoyance on its back. Holding the tail with one hand, Claid turned enough to catch a horn in his other. With a mighty tug he pulled both hands together. The ferebeast toppled. Claid leaped free and dashed back to Kyla. He caught up the pack of books and slung it over his shoulder as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Kyla stared open-mouthed at the fallen, writhing ferebeast. “You broke its back,” she said, awed by Claid’s inhuman strength and horrified by the animal’s agonized moans. “Can’t you put it out of its misery?”
“It would have crippled you without a thought.”
“It’s a mindless beast. You aren’t.”
He shrugged, walked nearer the shivering animal, and kicked its head in what appeared to be another act of wanton cruelty. With a final shudder the beast fell still. Its labored breathing ceased; its eyes glazed.
“If you can do that,” she yelled, “you can find a way to get us through.”
He cocked his head. “Is that an order, mistress?”
Kyla stamped her foot. “Yes, it is.”
Again he lowered the pack of books and placed it at her feet. “Wait here. Guard these.”
He turned and strode into the midst of the galloping beasts. He’d grown taller; she could follow his progress as the packed bodies parted to let him through, then closed behind him to form a solid phalanx of moving flesh.
Could he survive that awesome medley of hooves and horns and teeth and tail-barbs?
He could. He wasn’t human. That was clear in the way he’d mastered the ferebeast and killed it. She had not sent him to his death.
Fists clenched, nails digging into her palms, she waited and watched the seething mass and wished she could also see the winding column of mindstealers. She worried that even if Claid could find a way through the ferebeast herd, she would not be in time to save Waddams.
A change in the rhythmic pattern of drumming hooves alerted her to Claid’s return. Snorting and bellowing preceded his emergence from the throng leading two young bucks by the horns. Heads lowered, tails lashing but not trying to strike with the barbed end, the animals followed Claid. The rest of the herd trumpeted its displeasure but continued its frantic circling with no attempt to challenge Claid.
He halted before her and jerked down on the horns of the two ferebeasts. Both animals sank grudgingly to their knees.
“If my mistress would be pleased to mount,” Claid said with a flourish, “these beasts will carry us through the herd and into the village.”
“Ride? Ride a ferebeast? Claid, that’s impossible.”
“I assure you, these two are tractable.” He bowed his head and said modestly, “I have a way with animals.”
“But can you control mine when I’ve mounted him and you’re no longer holding him by the horns?”
“There is some risk, but if I ride by your side, I believe I can control your beast as well as mine. If you won’t take the risk, you’ll have to find your own way through the herd.”
Kyla walked to one of the bucks. With trembling knees and her stomach knotted with fear, she climbed onto the back of the kneeling beast and cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at the barbed tail. The tail lay in the dust, and though the animal gave a low, menacing grumble when she mo
unted, it made no threatening move.
Claid pulled up the animal’s head. “Lean forward and hold on to the horns, mistress. Don’t let go.”
Gritting her teeth, Kyla followed his instructions. The ferebeast lumbered to its feet. Its back was bony and rough. She sat far forward, on the massive shoulders. To maintain her hold on the horns she had to lean toward them at an awkward angle. When Claid released her mount, she held her breath, sure she would be tossed off and trampled. The animal stood quietly while Claid picked up his sack of books and held it in one hand as he vaulted onto the back of the other beast. He settled the books in front of him and leaned over them to grasp his mount’s horns. Digging his heels into its shoulders, he urged it into motion.
Kyla’s ferebeast mimicked the movements of its fellow, and, walking sedately side by side, the two animals headed directly into the herd.
Racing beasts veered and shifted to allow their passage. Like the calm eye in the center of a cyclone, they plodded in an island of safety ringed by galloping, head-tossing, tail-flicking creatures. The thunder of the hooves deafened Kyla; it pounded in her blood. The shrill trumpeting sent spears of pain through her head. She hung on to her mount in terror, sure they would be crushed beneath the surging mass. Only Claid’s serene presence at her side kept her panic in check.
At last the wall of rushing bodies parted before them to reveal the houses and streets of the village. Claid shouted an order to halt, and her ferebeast slowed and stopped beside his. A moment later he was helping her dismount. Her backside ached, her thighs burned where the rough hide had chafed her skin. Yet she’d done it! She’d ridden a ferebeast.
The freed pair wheeled and galloped back to the herd. Trembling, not trusting herself to speak, Kyla stumbled forward to a barrier of wagons and furniture thrown up across the street to keep the ferebeasts from stampeding through the town. With Claid’s help she moved some of the obstructing items and clambered over the rest.
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