Moonrise

Meaning, Baj supposed, everything. 'I… killed one. A scout. The other ran back. I think it slowed them a little.'

Nancy shook her head as if she'd meant none of that, and stepped through a tangle to stare at him, poke and pat his arms and chest, then stand back. 'Ease your bow,' she said. 'Do Sunrisers have to be told to do everything?' And she was away, running.

* * *

'How far?' Baj, gone to one knee under a young alder, tried to take a breath that didn't catch at his side. 'How far does these people's territory run?'

Richard, seeming weary at last, sat panting in rough grass. 'Certainly not much farther… Not much farther.'

'You say,' Nancy said. Errol curled beside her, she lay dappled by early evening shadows in a sapling's shade, her head resting on her pack. 'Those villages could own another hundred Warm-time miles.'

'Surely not,' Baj said.

Drums ticked and tapped as if to contradict him – and sounded a little nearer. He drew in the deepest breath he could, and felt the catch in his side fading. 'We need to move.'

Richard nodded, heaved up to his feet, shrugged his big pack to settle it, and lumbered away through the trees.

'Where,' Nancy said, '- is these mountains' Jesus and His mercy?' She rolled to her feet, took up her pack, and trotted out. Errol, coming awake, scrambled beside Baj to follow.

As they ran through the alder grove and out along a grassy lead – no true creek – Baj, glancing aside at Errol's face, saw only the usual alert and vacant abstraction. The same expression, surely, he'd worn as he came out of the woods, returning to where the woman waited, tied to her tree.

… They ran, rested again, and ran – but slower and slower as evening shadows lengthened. Baj no longer felt his legs; they moved beneath him, but separate as wagon wheels or a horse's hooves might be. He had more and more difficulty avoiding large stones and fallen branches, or the hook and hold of thornbushes in his way – and no longer stepped quite straight, but shambled a little to one side, then the other.

The Persons' blood was failing them as well. Richard's tongue, revealed a surprising purple, lolled a little as he padded on. Nancy, panting just behind, stumbled now and then, no longer sure-footed, with Errol pacing slower beside her. They had little run left in them.

'Night.' Nancy used a breath to say it – and the four of them labored on as if sheltering darkness waited just ahead, past this water lead, past more alders. Past whatever lay along their way.

'… Night,' Nancy had said, but there was still light enough to see they'd left a mountain behind, still light enough for the next mountain's long shadow to show against its green, when they noticed – Baj first – that only the wind and the day's last bird-calls sounded.

There was no sound of drumming.

They went on, regardless – flight seeming an end in itself – stumbled along for a little way, then slowed, walked… and stopped to stand stupid as spotted cattle.

'I suppose,' Richard said, '- they might be coming on, silent.'

But the Robins weren't. The continuous pressure of chase at their backs was gone. No one hunted them anymore.

Baj and the others dropped as if melting to the grass, tugged blankets around them, and lay cramped with aching muscles until sleep came to keep them company into nightfall… Errol, huddled close at Baj's back, whimpered in a dream.

CHAPTER 14

'Is there no breakfast?'

Baj jerked awake to a chilly dawn, fumbled for his rapier's hilt – and found it as he blinked sleep from his eyes.

There was an old woman sitting on the summer grass, staring at him… at the others as they woke. Someone had beaten her, broken her nose and left blood on her face.

'Breakfast.'

Then Baj saw it was Boston-Patience, sitting cross-legged and barefoot in a dirty blue coat, grimy white blouse, and worn blue trousers. She held her scimitar across her lap – but now looked too frail, too damaged to use it. Her left arm was strapped in a sling.

'Lady,' Richard heaved himself up to stand, '- what happened to your boots?'

'My boots? What of my nose, Richard?' She sounded as if she had a snow-season cold.

'Who hurt you?' Nancy left her blanket, went to touch the woman's face – but Patience pushed her hand away.

'I hurt myself first, by dreaming in the air. Later, children threw rocks while I was a guest in a Robin's nest.' She leaned a little to her right as she sat, used her sheathed scimitar for support. Her left arm and shoulder seemed strapped firm. 'I asked about breakfast – and by the way, the tribesmen no longer follow… which is just as well, since they would have caught the four of you snoring.'

'We have cold venison,' Baj said.

'I'll take some… And how do you do, Baj-who-was-Bajazet? You certainly do quickly. I don't think I've ever seen such scurrying away below me, as you four fleeing. The Robins couldn't keep up, and I couldn't keep up – still unsteady Walking-in-air.'

'We have no more salt,' Nancy said, and handed the woman a strip of smoked deer.

'I will do without,' Patience said, then crammed, chewed, and swallowed. 'I do need a bath of water to get the stink and dried blood off me – and you, girl, need the same. You smell like a wet dog and worse; do you have your bloodies?' She bit into the meat, tore more free.

'No, I don't,' Nancy said. But Patience paid no attention, only chewed, swallowed, and bit off more.

'This is still Robin country,' Richard said, 'and will be, well past the Map Gap-Cumberland.'

'Yes,' Patience swallowed venison, '- but belonging to a different village than the two that chased you, and unlikely to obey their drums.' She took another bite, spoke with meat in her mouth. 'Did those chase wrongly? Some chief's wife was killed…'

'They didn't chase wrongly,' Baj said.

Patience looked at him, the last bit of deer dangling from her fingers. 'So – are we speaking of stupidity? Or of something that couldn't be avoided.'

'… It might have been avoided,' Richard said.

'Mmm.' She ate the last bite, munching it slowly, savoring. 'Our weasel boy?'

Errol was peeing against a small spruce, and paid no attention.

'My fault,' Richard said.

Nancy said it almost with him. 'My fault – and we thought… we thought if so, it might save trouble.'

'Save trouble?' Patience looked at Baj. 'Not your fault, too?'

'We were all careless.'

' 'Careless… ' Is there more meat?' Patience took a smaller piece from Nancy, sniffed it for soundness. 'Well, none of you have been the fool I've acted.' She reached up to tap her bandaged shoulder. '- And I must tell you, if we continue this stupid in the north, we'll die of it.' She ate the meat… then looked odd, bruised face draining of color so its dried blood seemed black. She suddenly slumped back to lie stretched out in the grass amid delicate dawn ladies-slippers, beneath a sheltering chestnut oak.

Nancy went to kneel beside her, but Patience shook her head, warded her away… and lay silent for a while,