A RIVER OF FIRE
“The poison of the Jinx bat stops both heart and breath,” the old man said as he leaned over Brant’s body, ear to the boy’s chest.
Tylar stood to the side. They gathered in a glade, not far from the Huntress’s castillion, but the forest lay dense around them, keeping them well cloaked and hidden. He was relieved to find Lorr and Malthumalbaen already here, somehow escaped.
And with their weapons.
Tylar strapped on his swords, belting Rivenscryr to one hip, the knight’s sword to the other. He straightened, aching and sore, near to crippled from their mad flight. He had already wrapped his hand and bound the ache of his broken rib. Still, he limped carefully toward the boy on the litter.
They had already broken the poisoned arrowhead, pulled the shaft, and packed the wound with healing firebalm. But there was a greater concern.
Dart knelt on Brant’s far side, shadowed by Lorr and the giant. All their faces were grim. Krevan and Calla checked their glade’s periphery, eyeing the motley-dressed young hunters, some who probably hadn’t seen ten summers.
Rogger stood off to the side, talking earnestly with Harp, the leader of the band, if only by sheer height. Tylar recognized that the boy was probably younger than Brant.
The only elder here worked on Brant.
“Lucky for us,” the old man said as he straightened, “our giant jungle bat likes its meat fresh after it has laid up its prey. Its venom slows rot and decay, holds it at bay for a time. But that time’s about run out.”
He snapped a finger at one of the boys, who hurried forward with two hollowed stems of a whiskerpine. The lad had been packing the stems with a downy powder.
The man accepted the pipes and leaned over Brant.
He had introduced himself as Sheershym, one-time scholar and master at the school here. No longer. He still wore a master’s robes, but they were shabby and stained. Stubble covered his bald pate, obscuring the tattoos of his mastered disciplines. It was rare to find a master who didn’t keep his head shaved proudly. Tylar read one of his sigils, designating skill in the healing arts, but the mark looked nearly faded. The freshest tattoos concentrated on histories, scholariums, and alchemies of mnelopy, the study of dreams and memory, fitting for one who delved into the deep past of Myrillia.
Not so useful for healing.
Still, he seemed to know what he was doing.
The man placed the end of each stem into one of Brant’s nostrils. He nodded to Dart. “Lass, would you mind covering his mouth and pinching his nose closed around the pipes?”
She nodded and did as he instructed, her face pale with worry.
Sheershym bent and slipped the other ends of the pipe into his own mouth. He exhaled sharply through the stems, blowing the powder deep and puffing up Brant’s thin chest with his own breath. He held that pose for a long moment, face reddening. Then he straightened, drawing the pipes out Brant’s nose.
Brant’s chest sighed down.
The master waved Dart back. “Now we’ll see. That’s all we can do.”
They all stared.
Brant still lay unmoving, but slowly his body seemed to relax, muscles sagging, as if he had been slightly clenched, holding death away by stubborn will.
“Is he-?” Dart began to tearfully inquire.
The master held up a hand.
Brant’s chest suddenly swelled and collapsed with a contented sigh.
Malthumalbaen let out a whoop that scattered a pair of skipperwings from their canopy nest. The resulting frowns quickly silenced him, but they failed to dim the relief shining from his eyes.
“What manner of alchemy was that?” Rogger asked, stepping to them with Harp.
The boy answered for the master. “Dreamsmoke, from the Farallon lotus petal.”
Sheershym nodded. “When smoked in water pipes, it brings a sense of peace and giddiness, but in its purest alchemy it also bears great healing Grace. We’ll have to carry the boy from here. The smoke will have him dozing for a good three bells. He’ll rise from his bed with no worse than a pounding in his head.”
“Better that than rising from his grave,” Rogger mumbled.
Sheershym stood with a groan, supporting his old back, and rolled an eye at Rogger. “It is said there were once alchemies even for that. Hidden in a tome, scribed on leathered human skin. The Nekralikos Arcanum. Written by the tongueless one himself.” He shrugged. “But who can say if it’s true? If you look long enough into the past, memory becomes dream.”
“Or so says Daronicus,” Rogger said.
Sheershym’s left eyebrow rose in surprise. “You know Harshon Daronicus?”
Rogger shrugged. “I’ve read his work in its original Littick. A long time ago. Another life.”
“Truly? Where-?”
“Master Sheershym,” Harp said, interrupting, “perhaps we can leave this talk until we’re beyond the burn.”
He nodded. “Certainly. We should be off. The Huntress will be upon our heels like a ravening dog at any moment.”
They quickly broke down the small camp. Krevan carried one end of the litter and the giant the other. Several boys vanished into the forest to either side, barely stirring a leaf.
“They’ll clear our back trail,” Harp said. “And lay false ones.”
Tylar walked with the boy and the master near the front of the band as it snaked through the woods. “How long have you been hiding out here?”
“Since the winnowing,” the master said grimly. “Beginning of the last full shine of the lesser moon. Some forty days.”
Tylar pictured the mass of skilled hunters that had circled the Grove and ambushed them. He remembered the unerring flight of their arrows. “And you’ve dodged capture all this time? How?”
“Not without losses,” Harp said grimly. “Especially when her hunters started poisoning their arrows. Her madness grows worse with each setting sun.”
“What happened here?”
The boy haltingly told the story of Saysh Mal, of the Huntress’s ravening, of her slaughter, how she began with only a hundred hunters, bound and burned to her, then spread her wickedness.
“Wells were poisoned with her blood, binding all to her will,” Harp said. “Her corruption spread. Mothers and fathers shaved the stakes used against their own children. Those weak of limb were cut down. What you saw back in the Grove is only the barest glimpse of what lies rotting under the canopy.”
“Only the strongest were allowed to live and serve her,” Sheershym finished.
Tylar’s voice was driven soft by the horrors described. “How did you all escape such slaughter?”
“We fled. Three score of us. The master had old maps of the hinterlands. We sought to flee Saysh Mal, to escape into the hinter.” He made a quiet scoffing sound and shook his head.
“A sorry state when the hinterlands offer better succor than your own settled realm.”
“And still we wouldn’t have lived. Not without her help.”
“Whose help?”
Harp waved a dismissive hand, done with reliving the nightmare. “You’ll see soon enough. Best save your breath.”
Tylar didn’t argue. He was finding it harder to match even the elder’s pace. His side throbbed, shortening his breaths, and his knee remained locked up painfully. He could barely move it.
“How long have you been crippled up?” Sheershym asked him, nodding toward his gait.
Tylar shook his head. Now it was his turn to prefer silence. He didn’t understand the growing ruin of his body. Why had he failed to summon the naethryn back on the balcony? Had it become permanently imprisoned? Was the
