plan!”
The others had trickled up around the firelit debate, looking more mulish than their mules.
“We should round up our weapons,” said Ash.
“We should,” agreed Sumac, “but we’re too many to hide and too few to make a stand.”
“I’m thinking,” said Fawn, “that those muleteers could have been mind-slaved.” She looked around at the array of faces, some blank, and explained, “That scares me way more than mud-men. I talked to folks at Glassforge and in Raintree who went through it. It’s like you still have your wits, you keep all your know-how, but suddenly you want to do whatever the malice wants of you. If it wants you to attack your friends, or eat your own children, it seems like a fine idea at the time. And you remember, after. The most important thing, whatever else we do, is to keep everyone out of range of that malice.”
Sumac bit her knuckles, seemed to gather herself, and spoke in the most no-nonsense voice Fawn had yet heard from her. A patrol leader’s voice, for sure. “All right. This is what we’re doing. The wounded can’t run or be carried. They’ll have to be hid in the rocks on the valley side no matter what. Lie up till rescue can get to them. That’ll be Barr, Arkady, and Rase.”
“I can fight,” Rase quavered. To Fawn, he looked as if he could barely stand.
“Good,” said Sumac heartlessly, “because if you get found, you’ll have to. My best guess is that the malice lair lies to our east. So that leaves west. Happens there’s a Lakewalker camp almost due west of here at Laurel Gap. So we set the animals loose, pull together what food and weapons we can carry-and ropes, we’ll want ropes-and skedaddle west over the ridges on foot. Tonight.” Her voice slowed. “It might be best to leave Plum with Arkady.”
“No!” Vio wailed.
“Your decision,” said Sumac. “You have one hour to think about what this retreat’ll put her through. And who’s going to carry her fifty, sixty miles over mountains at a run.” She turned on her heel, taking in the rest of the stunned company. “We want to make sure we have all the bows and arrows into the hands of folks who can use them.”
“Tavia’s bow was broken when her horse fell on it,” Fawn said.
“Neeta got back her quiver.”
Sumac nodded. “Remo can take Barr’s bow. Neeta can have mine. Whit, you have yours.”
Putting the distance weapons, Fawn noticed, solely into the hands of people who could ground-veil or were shielded, and did not risk mind slaving.
“We can fight those things!” said Finch. “We drove them off once!”
“Speak for yourself, boy,” growled Bo. “Looked to me like they just left ’cause they got bored.”
“But we can’t fight their master,” said Sumac. “This wants the Laurel Gap patrol. Blight, this wants every Lakewalker camp in the hinterland!”
“I have Dag’s primed knife,” said Fawn quietly. “He dropped it to me. Last thing.”
Sumac’s eyebrows rose. “Well,” she said. “That gives you two good reasons to stick tight to me.”
Fawn swallowed. “Dag might come back. Looking for us. Or maybe Tavia.”
“Then they’ll be able to join up with Arkady’s group,” suggested Sumac. “Hide out till we can send help.” Fawn thought Sumac drew more consolation from this notion than she did.
Arkady looked up, squinting, and said in an underwater groan, “Needle. Dressings. Splints.”
Calla and Fawn hurried back to his side, Fawn rooting in the medicine pack.
“You all right? ” said Sumac, in what was for Sumac an amazingly diffident voice.
“I’ll do. Just don’t bring me another like this for the next three days, eh? ” He grimaced at her.
“In case you didn’t hear, we’re going to tuck up your medicine tent back in the rocks. Your job will be to all stay alive till we send a patrol to dig you out of your burrow again.”
He nodded. Not sorry, Fawn guessed, that it would be Sumac’s duty to run away from this place as fast as she could drive her farmer flock.
Sumac packed off the splinted Barr on a sapling-and-blanket stretcher carried by Remo and Whit, with Arkady leading his packhorse bearing the medicine-tent supplies and Rase staggering along after. Vio didn’t send Plum with them. Again, Fawn noticed, no one without either ground veiling or a shield would know just where they’d gone to earth, and so could not betray them even under a malice’s persuasion.
The company scattered to gather its gear.
20
Two hours after sunset, the lopsided moon rose to bathe the easternfacing ridge in milk and ink. Under normal conditions, Dag would have found it as good as daylight. Not tonight. Staggering along with his only hand full of walking stick, trying to peer over the squirming burden of Owlet tied to his chest, ankle screaming at every step, it took Dag twice as long to reach the crest as he’d planned. He could sense Tavia’s growing impatience.
“Maybe I should take the tad,” she said as they made the top and Dag stood gasping and bent.
He waved an acknowledging hand. “A minute.” He stared out over the valley, seeking, beyond the silver ribbon of river, the fainter line of the Trace. Nothing moved along the road. No curls of luminous smoke rose from the woods to the north, either. He dared to open his groundsense, reaching, but it was well over two miles to the valley floor, beyond his range even at his best. Fawn’s still alive, his marriage cord told him, but where?
The cool damp of this black-white-gray world, falsely serene, felt clammy on his sweating face. Something unexpected pricked his senses, not below, but north along the ridge. Faint, thready…
“Tavia, open and check along the ridge to our right. Maybe half a mile.”
“That’s right at the edge of my-wait. A patroller? Not one of ours…? ”
“No ground I recognize. Hurt, I think.”
She nodded; they began to pick their way between scrubby bushes, around jutting rocks, through weeds. Plants bruised by their passage gave up a sharp green smell in the dark. The trees rose around them as they descended, making the shadows more treacherous, though they did give Tavia handholds. Dag found that anchoring his hook on a passing sapling proved more pain than it was worth. His left arm was wrenched and sore, his stump swollen and uncomfortable in the wooden cuff, but he hardly dared remove his arm harness for fear he wouldn’t be able to get it back on.
Tavia forged ahead; he caught up to find her crouched and peering over a twenty-foot drop. A huddled man- shape lay at its foot.
A dry, hoarse voice rose from below. “Someone… up there?
Help!”
“We see you,” Tavia called. “We’re coming down.”
“I think my back is broken,” the voice returned.
“Don’t try to move!”
“I can’t… blighted move!”
They crept along the outcrop till Tavia found a steep scramble down.
Dag was forced to go a little farther and then work his way back.
A patroller, yes, Dag saw as he limped near. Spare of build, middle height; a few threads of silver gleamed in his dark hair, mostly undone from its braid and scrambled around his head. He lay faceup, legs limp, hands clenched. A marriage cord, frayed and faded, circled his left wrist. His lips were dry, cracked, and bleeding. His ripped shirt was stained with dark, dried blood; already Dag recognized the pattern of mud-bat clawings. And he was right about his back. At least two vertebrae fractured, about halfway down.
“Water,” he whispered to Tavia as she bent over him. “Oh, please…” The man’s patting hand found a leather water bottle at his side, empty and flaccid, and thrust it toward Tavia.
“Dag? ” she said uncertainly.
“Yes. He’s dangerously parched. Careful getting it off.”
She unwound the strap from his neck, untangled it from his hair, and sped away. Dag lowered himself with a grunt. Sleepy Owlet whimpered protest; Dag off-loaded the child and rolled him to the side, where he curled up in
