The Children of the Sky

must be a cloud, but it doesn’t move.

Her motley crews had raised sails on at least three of the rafts—though at the moment there was scarcely a breeze and the Fell’s slow current was steadily moving them along. They were drifting through the area where she and Pilgrim had intended to hide. That plan would have worked, too; there were stumpy trees and a canopy of leaves.

Johanna gave a little wave at the mystery disappearing behind her. I will be back, Pilgrim. I promise I will find what became of you.

Chapter 20

For Ravna, time was shattered, cause and effect broken into rubble enough for days. The smaller pieces were isolated snatches of sound and sight and smell: Pain. A bumpy ride. Suffocating in offal-smelling darkness. Gentle hands. Jefri’s voice, angry and loud.

Other fragments were twilight bright. In one small shard, she was surrounded by warm, furry bodies. Amdi. He was talking to her, quiet, urgent words. In another—maybe the same one—a pack with ragged low-sound ears beat Amdi aside and nipped at Ravna the way a carnivore might tease its food.

Shattered days and shattered nights. A pack sat with her in most of these longer pieces of time. It had perfectly matched blazes on two of its snouts. Screwfloss? The pack fed her, turned her head when she choked on vomit, cleaned her as she soiled herself. He was not always nice. Many times, he hurt her face with a wet cloth. And he fell into jaw-snapping rages. “I’m just the prisoner’s asswipe!” he once said. That was funny, but he also complained that she was delirious. “You’re repeating what I say,” he hissed at her, a head close by her throat. “‘Prisoner’s asswipe, prisoner’s asswipe.’ Can’t you just shut up?”

The longest pieces of time were in bright daylight. She was wrapped in warm blankets, trussed to the top of a slowly moving wagon. When her eyes were open, she saw variously: snowbound forest, Screwfloss driving the wagon, Gannon Jorkenrud. Jefri, walking behind the wagon behind hers. Jefri looked so gaunt.

There were other packs. Sometimes they paced along with her wagon, and more than one shard began: “So. Will she die soon?” This from the pack with the ragged ears. The creature was a sixsome, each member as heavy as Amdi’s biggest, but more muscular-looking. Its Samnorsk was crude, a patchwork of several human voices.

And Screwfloss replying: “Quite soon, my lord Chitiratifor. You can see the injury to her snout. Day by day, she weakens.”

The two packs spoke softly. No human but Ravna could hear them. “Don’t take shortcuts, Screwfloss.” Parts of the creature were looking beyond where Ravna could see. “This must be a natural death.”

Maybe Amdi came to chat, but Ravna only remembered Screwfloss chasing him off.

One other pack visited Screwfloss. This was a lean, small-bodied fivesome. It spoke no Samnorsk, but it seemed to be interrogating Screwfloss about Ravna’s upcoming death. The parts she could see up close had pale, unfriendly eyes. There was deadly anger in its Tinish gobbling.

Then came the longest single fragment of time. It began with another visit from Raggedy Ears. The pack walked quietly along with the wagon for some minutes, just watching Ravna. “She is not dead yet, Screwfloss.”

“Sigh. Quite so, my lord Chitiratifor.”

“Her breathing is different. Her eyes move. She is not weakening day by day, like you say.” The raggedy- eared pack emitted an angry hiss. “Humans should be easy to kill, Screwfloss!”

“But you said no shortcuts, my lord. Yes, the two-legs may survive after all—but take a look at her crushed- in snout. She will never have more mind than a singleton.”

“That may not be dead enough.” Chitiratifor looked away, watching something—someone?—beyond the front wagon. Finally he said, “I’ll get back to you, Screwfloss.” And he walked on ahead.

They rolled on for another minute or two, then Screwfloss gave her a little jab in the back. “Getting better, are you?” he said.

Ravna didn’t reply. She remained still and lifeless throughout the rest of the afternoon, watching all that she could without moving her head. They were in a deep valley, and she had occasional glimpses of a white-foaming river paralleling their course. She could hear a wagon ahead of her. She could see a wagon behind her; it was the enclosed fodder carrier that figured in some of her most incoherent memories. Behind the fodder wagon walked Amdi and Jefri and Gannon. In times past, Jef and Gannon had been—perhaps not friends—but at least fellow delinquents. Now they scarcely spoke. When Gannon wasn’t watching him, sometimes Jefri’s hands tightened into fists.

Sunlight had left the forest canopy. She caught glimpses of brilliant snows on valley walls above that. This was far sunnier than … before. As the afternoon slid toward twilight, she heard the low hooting of a Tinish alarm. The wagons drove off the path, through the snow into the deepest shade. Chitiratifor came racing back along the path, unlimbering telescopes as he ran. He settled in the snow, angling the telescopes through a break in the tree cover. The wagoneers hustled ’round to their kherhogs and tried to quiet the animals. For several moments, everyone was silent, watchful. The only motion was the slow rising of Chitiratifor’s telescopes. He was tracking something, and it was coming this way.

And then, finally, Ravna heard it: the purring buzz of steam induction engines. Scrupilo and Eyes Above 2. The airship’s sound grew over the next minute … and then faded to silence in the minute after. Chitiratifor set down his telescopes and started to get up. Some pack outside of Ravna’s view emitted a preemptory hiss, and Chitiratifor dropped back to a prone position. Everyone remained quiet for several minutes more. Then Chitiratifor came to his feet and irritably waved for the wagoneers to get back on the road.

As they drove into the deepening twilight, Ravna thought back over the afternoon. She could remember it all as a continuous stream of time, logically binding cause with effect.

It might be too late, but her life had resumed.

•  •  •

Pretending to be comatose might have been the safest plan, but Ravna soon realized that was flatly impossible. The smell that drenched her memories—that smell was her clothes, her self. Without Screwfloss, she would surely have oozing sores. For all his apparent anger at her, he had done miracles with a few damp rags and perhaps one change of clothes. But now that she was coherent, she couldn’t go on like that. So be a broken singleton, and hope that that is dead enough.

When they stopped for the night, she let Screwfloss set her on the ground by the wagon. She let him rewrap her blankets. But when he brought food and tried to tease it into her mouth, she wriggled her hands out from the blankets, reached for the bowl. Screwfloss held back for a moment, then he let her take the bowl. He watched her with almost ferocious intensity as she sipped from it, but he didn’t say a word.

This evening was Ravna’s first good look at her captors. She counted at least four packs spread out around a banked fire. Amdi and Jefri and Gannon seemed to be doing most of the scutwork. They had their own small campfire, whence Screwfloss had brought her food. Even in the dim light, Jef looked as awful as she remembered. He was doing his best not to glance in her direction. Amdi was less successful at that, but he had more heads to account for. And Gannon? Gannon Jorkenrud did not look like a happy camper, but he was eating heartily.

These three might not be prisoners, but they were very junior members of the kidnap gang. Now that she had recovered her mind, Ravna had a million theories. Jefri had betrayed her in the past … but this had to be different. And Gannon? Another covert ally? That was much harder to believe.

The syrup-grain didn’t quite make her sick, but now … Ravna struggled to get her feet under her. “Gotta go,” she said to Screwfloss. The pack hesitated, but this time very briefly. Then he brought over Jo’s old boots and helped her put them on. As she stood up and he chivvied her into the bushes, she heard Gannon laugh.

It wasn’t hard to act like a brain-damaged singleton. Even her staggering progress would have been impossible without Screwfloss’ support. When they finally stopped, she collapsed into a squat. Screwfloss steadied her for a moment, then all of him stepped back. It might be too dark for any pack to see, but Ravna noticed a wave of palpable joy spread across Screwfloss. He was no longer the prisoner’s asswipe. And maybe his joy was for more