Kerowyn's Ride

through heaps of soggy leaves, shivering with the cold rain that kept trickling down the back of her neck. As long as I keep going in a straight line, I’ll come to something I recognize. I have to find the place eventually. Either I’ll run into the cliff, or I’ll run into the path, or I’ll find the stream. If I don’t do any of those things, I’ll get to the road. I have to cross either the stream, the road or the path. There’s no other way off Tower lands.

Or so she thought. Until she stopped to ease her bruises, side aching so much she wanted to cry, and rested a while leaning up against a tree trunk. And when she felt a little less tired, and started to mark the trunk, she happened to look at the other side, first.

And saw her own six-armed star chipped carefully into the bark as Tarma had taught her; the least amount of damage to the tree that she could manage and still have the mark visible. It was still so fresh that the wind hadn’t disturbed the fragments of bark still clinging to the tree.

She looked around in a panic, sure she couldn’t possibly have touched that tree. The place was in no way familiar. But the mark was indisputably there.

She clung to the rough bark, suddenly faint and dizzy. But this isn’t possible—I know I’d have seen that huge pig-shaped rock, or the little cave under it! And the tree with the hawk’s nest in the fork! And there’s no way I could forget that clump of holly, it’s the only green thing I’ve seen all afternoon!

Nevertheless, it was her unique marking. In a place she’d never seen.

She closed her eyes, the dizziness and nausea increasing. She fought them down, telling herself not to panic.

But when she opened her eyes again, fear clutched her heart and made it pound painfully in her temples, for her sight was darkening, too.

Then she realized that it was not her eyesight dimming—the sun was setting, dusk closing in rapidly, and she was nowhere nearer to getting home than she had been from the moment Tarma left them.

Tarma—she can’t mean to leave us out here all night—we’re both hurt, and we haven’t eaten all day. She’ll come and get us. She’ll come and get me, surely—none of what happened was my fault. I followed the rules.

For one moment, she let herself believe that. Then, as she thought about how angry her teacher had been beneath that mask of indifference, she knew with a sinking heart that there would be no rescue tonight. We aren’t children. One night in the forest isn’t going to kill either of us. We’ll just wish we were dead. And even if I followed the rules, I didn’t make sure he did. When I saw he wasn’t going to measure up, I should have forfeited the game by turning around and going home.

She heard a thrashing sound behind her, then, the noise of someone forcing his way through undergrowth rather than looking for paths. She knew what it was before she turned. No animal would ever make that much noise, and no animal in the forest limped on two legs.

It’s a good thing we’re not really in enemy territory—they’d have heard him a long time ago. She moved to the other side of the tree and put her back up against it to watch the dim shape grow more distinct as it neared. Finally it was close enough to make out clearly.

She put her knife away and watched Daren stumble toward her, shivering visibly inside his soggy woolen cloak—no longer a handsome russet, it was mud-stained and snagged in too many places to count. And Daren looked much the worse for wear.

He didn’t act as if he saw her. He didn’t act as if he saw anything.

“Hey,” she said wearily, as he started to blunder past her. He stopped dead in his tracks, and blinked as if he was surprised to see her.

Maybe he was. The more Kero thought about it, the more certain she became that her grandmother had a hand in this confusion of what should have been familiar territory. Hadn’t she read in one of Tarma’s books on warfare about a spell that fogged the enemy’s mind, and made him unable to recognize his surroundings?

“K-k-kero?” Daren said, stuttering from the cold. “Are y-y-you still lost, t-t-too?”

“I guess so,” she replied reluctantly. Full dark was descending, and with it, more rain. Harder and colder, both. Somebody needed to make a decision here, and it didn’t look as if Daren was up to remembering his own name.

We need to get out of this, and we need to find someplace to hole up for the night, otherwise we’re going to wander around until we drop. The only place at all close was that enormous rock she’d noticed earlier; the size of the Keep stables, and right now that little hollow place under it was the closest thing they were going to get to real shelter.

“Look,” she said, grabbing him by the elbow and pointing at the stone outcropping. “There’s just enough room under that rock that we can both squeeze in out of the rain. Right now even if I knew where I was, I wouldn’t be able to find my way back. In a candlemark you won’t be able to find your hand at the end of your arm.”