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  Sometimes a soaring cliff forced them inland, but they didn’t dare go too deep into the forest. If the breeze was from the west, they would smell the smoke from the cook fires, but if not, it would be too easy to walk past a village and never know it was there.

  By the end of each day, all he wanted to do was make a fire and curl up beside it. He had to force himself to make conversation with Urkiat. Mostly, he took refuge in trying to learn a few phrases in the Zherosi tongue. They both shied away from personal matters—and never discussed their confrontation over the young raider.

  On the fourth afternoon of their journey down the coast, the sound of singing drew them up a shallow stream. The voices died when the feasting villagers spied them.

  Darak called out the traditional greeting. “I am Darak, son of Reinek and Cluran, of the Oak Tribe.”

  “I am Urkiat, son of Koth and Lidia, of the Holly Tribe.”

  “We are travelers, seeking your hospitality.”

  A heavyset man with three eagle feathers in his hair rose. Girn had attended the Gatherings for years and the few times he’d spoken at the convocation of chiefs, his words had always been thoughtful and sensible.

  “Darak and Urkiat, you are welcome to our village.”

  “Your welcome warms us at the Ripening.”

  Formalities dispensed with, Girn strode across the circle. His smile dimmed a bit when he recognized Urkiat—clearly, he remembered his outburst at the Gathering—but he clasped his arms firmly, sealing the welcome before his kinfolk.

  “I had not expected to see you after the Gathering,” Girn said. “What brings you to our village?”

  Darak lowered his voice. “Bad times, I fear.”

  Girn nodded slowly. “Come to my hut. We can talk there.”

  Two young men trotted forward to relieve them of their packs. An older woman hurried toward one of the huts. They turned out to be members of Girn’s family. His sons dropped the packs and after polite greetings, immediately left. His wife lingered long enough to pour cups of berry wine. Then she, too, departed.

  As soon as the ritual toast had been drunk, Darak set his cup down. “Forgive me for spoiling the Ripening with ill tidings.”

  Girn waved away his words. “Tell me your news, Memory-Keeper.”

  That was another reason he liked Girn. Unlike so many of the chiefs, he never used the ridiculous title Spirit-Hunter when he addressed him. Without mentioning their encounter with the raider, Darak told him of the attacks along the river and the losses sustained by the villages.

  “Merciful gods. So many?” For a long moment, Girn stared into the fire pit. Then his head jerked up. “And your family, Memory-Keeper?”

  “My son.” Darak cleared his throat; even after repeating the story so many times, the words still came with difficulty. “They stole my son.”

  Another man might have cursed or lamented or gripped his arm in fellowship. Girn simply asked, “What can I do?”

  “We need a boat. Small enough for two men to handle.”

  “You’re going after him.”

  Darak nodded.

  “You’ll make better time in a currach. My men will take you to Foroth’s village.”

  “Oak-Chief, you don’t have to—”

  “You should reach Illait’s village in ten days if the weather holds. He can advise you about the best route to take after that. We don’t hear much from the villages in the far south.”

  “The raiders have never attacked you?” Darak asked.

  “Nay. Until now, the farthest north they’ve ventured is Illait’s village. After that attack, I ordered our huts torn down and rebuilt here where they would be hidden from the sea. But if the raiders are striking as far north as your village, I’d best mount a watch on the beach as well. Better to lose a little sleep than—” Girn broke off abruptly. “Well. You’ll be tired after your journey. If you’d like, I’ll have the women bring food here.”

  It would be rude to absent themselves from the feast, especially after Girn’s generous offer of help. “Urkiat and I would be honored to share the Ripening with your folk.”

  Girn’s smile told him it was the correct answer. After another toast, they joined the circle of celebrants. Round-eyed children watched every bite of roast venison and fish as if shocked to discover that the great Spirit-Hunter ate real food. One, bolder than the others, darted close enough to toss a handful of rowan blossoms on his head. His mother scolded, but the other women nodded their approval when he smiled. A few of the men questioned him about the reason for his visit, but subsided when Girn shifted the conversation to crops and the weather.

  As the shadows lengthened, the Memory-Keeper rose to recite the legend of the rowan-woman and alder-man. Darak kept his smile carefully in place, but hearing the tale told by another only reminded him that he was far from home.

  When the Memory-Keeper concluded his recitation, he motioned for silence. “Darak Spirit-Hunter.”

  Darak restrained a wince.

  “Your presence honors our village and heightens the joy of this Ripening. Would it be too much to ask you to share a tale with us?”

  Oh, gods. He should have known.

  “It would give us great joy to hear from your own lips the tale of your magnificent quest.”

  “I do not tell that tale. Ever.”

  Silence fell around the circle. The Memory-Keeper’s smile disappeared. Even Girn looked uncomfortable.

  “Forgive me,” he managed. “I did not mean to be rude. But that story . . . it’s not just a legend about things that happened long ago. Those . . . things . . . happened to me. To my wife. To my brother.” He realized he was rubbing the stumps of his fingers and clenched his hands together. “I do not tell that tale,” he said, his voice softer now and under control. “I cannot.”

  He knew he should offer another tale, but each one conjured memories of other feast days. It was hard enough to be away from home when he should be sharing this day with Griane, but to celebrate it with strangers when his son . . .

  Lost. Lost like Tinnean.

  With an effort, he quelled the rush of fear. Later, when he was alone, he could confront it. If he had no heart for this celebration, he could at least avoid ruining it for his hosts.

  He stared down at his hands. A rowan petal lay on his knee. He picked it up and rubbed it gently between his thumb and little fingers. Then he looked around the circle of expectant faces and cleared his throat.

  “With your permission, I will tell another tale. It’s one that rightly belongs to my wife, but it’s a good tale for the Ripening, and I don’t think she’d mind if I told it.”

  He rose and took a deep breath to steady himself. “You’ll have heard how Griane the Healer led the Holly-Lord back to the grove of the First Forest. But the tale barely mentions her adventures in the Summerlands and that is a wonderful story. For in the Summerlands, Griane met the Trees-Who-Walk. One of them was a rowan-woman. Just like the one in the legend. This is how it happened.”

  He conjured Griane as he spoke, recalling the emotions that had flitted across her expressive face when she first told him the story: fear, awe, wonder, joy. He was surprised to feel those emotions now and find them reflected in the faces of his listeners. When he described the thunder of the tree-folk’s feet as they pursued her, the children gasped. When he told how they used their own shoots and leaves to create a raft to carry her back to the First Forest, the men nodded thoughtfully. And when he described her farewell to Rowan, many women wiped their damp eyes.

  “And she stood on the bank of the river and watched the raft grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared behind the wall of mist. And still she waved, for she was alone and frightened. But then she smelled the sweet fragrance of the rowan sprig and realized she carried Rowan’s love with her. Griane still has those blossoms, though they are no longer soft and white like this one. And every year at the Ripening, she looks at them and remembers the kindness of the tree-folk and the tear Rowan wept when th
ey parted.”

  A sigh eased its way around the circle. A little girl shouted, “Tell it again!” and the laughter warmed him. He bowed and excused himself, suddenly tired. Instead of returning to Girn’s hut, he sought the privacy of the beach.

  He sat by the water’s edge, content to watch Bel sink into the sea, trailing a shimmering streak of orange behind him. When he heard the crunch of pebbles, he took a deep, calming breath.

  “Are you all right?”

  It was Urkiat, of course. Darak nodded without turning, hoping Urkiat would leave him alone. Instead, more pebbles crunched as he strode forward. “The Memory-Keeper shouldn’t have made you speak.”

  “He didn’t know what had happened.”

  “You should have told them.”

  “And spoil their celebration?” Darak shook his head.

  Urkiat scuffed at the pebbles. “Doesn’t it bother you? Their complacency? Their happiness?”

  “Resenting other folks’ happiness only adds to your misery.”

  But he understood. When he’d first looked around that circle of happy faces, he had resented every father who sat beside his son, every husband with his arm casually flung around his wife’s shoulders.

  “Sometimes I hate them,” Urkiat said. “All those who don’t know what it’s like. Who’d rather live in ignorance than face the truth.”

  “And what is the truth?”

  “That there’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere safe. They’re like a plague. A hailstorm that flattens the barley or lightning that strikes a tree. They won’t be satisfied until they’ve destroyed us.”

  “Sooner or later, balance will be restored.”

  Urkiat spat.

  “We’ve survived plague and hailstorms and lightning strikes,” Darak reminded him. “We survived the Long Winter when the world teetered on the brink of extinction. We’ll survive the Zherosi, too. Somehow.”

  “It took only a handful of people to restore the world after Morgath destroyed the One Tree. It’ll take every child of the Oak and Holly to destroy the Zherosi.”

  A seabird cried overhead like a mother keening for a lost child.

  Darak rose. “We’d best go back.”

  “I’m sorry. You wanted to enjoy the peace of the evening, and I’ve ruined it. I just . . . I thought I could help. Share your worries. Or talk about . . . things. I didn’t want you to feel alone.”

  Darak considered reminding him that he had been a hunter for the first half of his life. He liked being alone. He still hungered for the quiet of the forest, the peace. And then the sudden rush of excitement when you saw the prey, the muscles tensing in your arms as you drew the bow, the moment just before you released when the world seemed to go absolutely still. And that perfect moment when your arrow found its target and the blood pounded in your ears and every fiber of your being sang.

  Urkiat was watching him, his face strained.

  “Thank you for your concern,” Darak said, wishing he sounded less stiff and formal. He still didn’t know what to make of Urkiat. He could kill with dispassion and then suddenly erupt in anger over an imagined slight. One moment, he seemed as world-weary as an old man and the next, he behaved like an awkward boy. Now he was watching him like a dog that had been beaten by its master.

  “I was proud when you agreed to let me come with you.” Urkiat’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Proud to think you needed me.”

  “I did. I do.”

  Urkiat nodded eagerly.

  Gods, he was tired. All he wanted to do was sleep. But Urkiat was his only ally, and he needed to be able to count on him. “It’s hard. Being away from my family. Worrying about my son. Sharing this day with strangers.”

  Wasn’t this obvious? Why should he have to explain it? But Urkiat kept nodding, hungry for the words, so he forced himself to continue. “I should have expected the Memory-Keeper to ask for a tale. It’s customary. But to have asked for that one . . .”

  “You’ve never told the tale? I thought you just said that. To shut him up.”

  “Nay.”

  “Not even to Griane?”

  “I’ve told her . . . most of it.” He frowned and steered the conversation away from Griane. “Sometimes, the children ask me things. ‘What did you eat?’ ‘Were you scared when you met the Trickster?’ ‘Did you cry when he cut off your fingers?’ ”

  “They ask that?”

  “Those are the things they wonder about.”

  “And you don’t mind?”

  “It’s . . . different with children. I remember what it was like to feel small in a big world, to feel clumsy and stupid and scared. If Darak Spirit-Hunter can admit to being afraid, they know it’s all right for them to feel afraid, too.”

  “So you always answer them?”

  “I’m their teacher. I owe them honesty.”

  Urkiat hesitated. “Did you . . . ?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bel’s blazing ballocks, man. What?”

  Half-ashamed, half-eager, Urkiat asked, “Did you cry? When he cut off your fingers?”

  Darak’s hands closed into fists. “Nay. I screamed.”

  Chapter 14

  NEW GUARDS BROUGHT him water and dried fruit in the morning. Keirith wondered if the others had been killed or simply relieved of their duties. He called on his lessons with the Tree-Father, seeking stillness and calm, but ended up pacing his tiny prison. Windowless and dark, it was like a small cairn; he shuddered every time he went inside.

  He shuddered now as he heard footsteps. Half the morning had fled while he waited. If that was a ploy by the Pajhit to frighten him, it had succeeded.

  One of his guards gestured for him to come out. The Pajhit barely glanced at him before starting down the corridor.

  “Where are we going?”

  The Pajhit ignored him.

  Watch, Keirith. Watch. Observe. Remember.

  Instead of leading him up the stairs to the interrogation chamber, the Pajhit turned left into another corridor. More than a dozen small chambers lined both sides. Pale light streamed through the doorways on the right, illuminating piles of fleece, but whoever slept on them was gone. Slaves, perhaps? Or guards?

  The Pajhit turned left again, leading him away from the bright spill of light ahead that hinted at an entrance to the fortress. In less than ten steps, the tantalizing glimpse of freedom vanished. Their little procession turned right and right again before the corridor came to an abrupt end.

  Against the wall to his left, narrow stone stairs led to the level above. Opposite them, an old man stood before a wooden door. Unlike the scantily clad Zherosi Keirith had seen so far, he wore a long-sleeved tunic, creased leather breeches, and stout boots that rose to mid-calf.

  “You will go with the Qepo now.”

  He searched the Pajhit’s face for some hint of what might await him, but the priest simply mounted the stairs, leaving him with the two guards and the Qepo.

  Keirith forced himself to breathe deeply, pretending the air was fresh and forest-clean instead of thick with stale air and smoke from the torches, thicker still with the stink of his fear. The old man said something, but only when he pointed at the wall did Keirith spot the clothes hanging from several bronze hooks embedded in the chinks between the stones.

  He pulled the tunic over his head. The stiff leather hampered his movements, but at least it offered some protection from the chill, as did the breeches he pulled over his loincloth. The Qepo knelt and held up a boot. Bracing himself against the wall, Keirith lifted his foot, the creak of leather disturbing the silence. The old man tucked the breeches into the boots and laced them tightly. That done, he rose, holding out something that looked like an enormous stuffed hand. The Qepo slipped it over his fingers and tucked the sleeves of his tunic into it, weaving the leather thongs around his wrist. His hand and forearm looked as thick as a bear’s and felt just as unwieldy.

  After the Qepo secured the second bear paw, he straightened. His gnar
led fingers sketched a spiral on the wooden door. The guards made the same sign over their chests. Their uneasy expressions only added to his fear.

  The door swung open with a dull creak. The Qepo stepped inside, gesturing for Keirith to follow.

  Maker, guide me.

  The open-air pit was no larger than his family’s hut. The square of light illuminated a tangle of vines in the center. A single torch guttered in the draft of the open door, casting eerie shadows on the stone walls that rose up four or five times his height. Except one, he quickly realized. The Pajhit leaned over that one, flanked by the Zheron and the older priestess—the Motixa?

  The Qepo backed away. The door closed behind him with another protesting creak. Bewildered, Keirith raised his head and called, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Speak to them,” the Pajhit replied.

  As he examined the pit again, the vines shifted with an almost imperceptible rustle. Startled, he peered at them, searching for the animal underneath.

  One of the vines reared up. That’s when Keirith realized that they weren’t vines at all. They were snakes. Dozens of snakes.

  As the boy flattened himself against the wall, Xevhan whispered, “Not a very promising start.”

  Malaq ignored him, concentrating on the boy whose eyes darted around the walls—seeking handholds, perhaps?—before settling on the adders.

  “Well?” Xevhan asked. “What do we do now?”

  “We wait,” Malaq replied.

  The boy slid down the wall. He sat in the pit, legs splayed in front of him, staring at the adders. Then his head fell back and he closed his eyes.

  “Praying?” Xevhan speculated. “Or simply committing his spirit to his gods?”

  Malaq resisted the urge to snap at him. Already, he regretted his decision to choose this test. Distasteful as it might have been to enter the boy’s spirit without permission, he could have learned more about him and his gift. Once the boy failed, he would have to be sacrificed.