“Huh? ” said Berry.
“It’s made to bust open from inside by the groundwork when it comes in contact with a malice. If it doesn’t crack apart while I’m fooling with it, that means the priming is still sound.” But Fawn ruined her confident-sounding claim by adding, “I think.”
“And just who,” said Whit warily, “do you picture doing this shooting?”
“It would have to be you.”
A fraught silence. From two directions.
“You’ve had way more practice ’n me,” Fawn forged on, “and besides, my shoulder’s hurt.” Hot and aching from the mud-bat’s clawing. She would deal with that later. “Best to be as close as we can get, in case you only get one shot. But all the bone bolt has to do is fly more or less straight and hit anywhere, and go a little ways into the malice’s fake skin. I didn’t shove Dag’s old primed knife point more’n an inch into the Glassforge malice”-she suppressed a shudder of memory-“and it worked just fine.”
“That’s taking an awful risk with our only primed knife,” said Whit.
“Yes, but if we sit hiding out here with it, it’s just as useless as if it’s busted. Better to try something fast. Before the malice flies somewhere out of reach. Before it starts snacking on our folks. Everything I’ve learned about malices says it’s better to get them sooner than later. Like putting out a fire.”
Into the continuing silence Fawn added desperately, “And if it fails, well, it was only Crane.”
“That,” said Berry, after a cool pause, “is a real good point.”
Whit sighed, partly agreement, and partly… well.
They would shortly lose what little light they had as the moon advanced over the ridge. Fawn held the bolt in the patch of moonlight and picked apart the threads winding the vanes, laying the feathers out carefully, one, two, three. She then drew her steel knife from her belt. One of Dag’s earliest gifts to her; he’d insisted she wear it at all times, and kept it razor-sharp for her.
She balanced and rebalanced the sharing knife in her hands, turning it over and around. Set the steel to a knobby bit on the hilt. Pressed.
The bit flew off with a faint snap.
Everyone held their breaths. But the bone blade stayed intact.
Fawn swallowed, set her steel to lift a longer sliver, and leaned into her next cut.
21
The scent of a campfire, drifting in the chill dawn air, warned Fawn, Whit, and Berry to get off the Trace and take to the woods once more.
Sumac was right about smoke smell carrying, Fawn thought, then wondered if Dag’s niece was still alive. Earlier they’d discovered where the remains of the company, herded by the malice’s mud-creatures, had tromped back onto the road, right enough, but if the patrollers were still around they’d left no mark. Following the slight acrid whiff upwind, they came to what was plainly a long-established stopping place along a creek- and found their quarry. No, not our quarry; our bait.
Prior travelers had stripped the woods of burnable deadfall near the big clearing, but Berry, scouting ahead, found a pile of old rotting logs, too damp and punky and moss-grown to burn, shaded by huge old mountain-laurel bushes and a spreading white pine; by the time they crept beneath to take stock, color was seeping back into Fawn’s vision as the last stars were swallowed by the steely sky. The day would turn hot and fine once the sun rose above the eastern ridge, but right now all was a shadowless damp. And an eerie quiet. A whimper from Plum, quickly muffled by her mama, came faintly to their ears, and Fawn was reminded that sounds carried both ways.
More than their captured company huddled around the fire; maybe a dozen tea caravan muleteers and a few other unlucky Trace travelers were also collected, sitting or lying down in sodden exhaustion, or snoring.
In the meadow opening out beyond, mules munched and crunched, big gray shapes moving through the wet grass. They seemed to have their harnesses off, so evidently the muleteers had retained enough of their wits to care for their animals. Fawn wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“See that malice anywheres?” whispered Whit.
Fawn peered over the mossy log. Balanced on a dead tree branch on the other side of the clearing, what seemed a tall cloaked figure moved, and she caught her breath, but then she spotted another, draped from a lower branch like dirty washing, and realized they were only a pair of mud-bats. The one above shuffled in an irritated way, then swung to hang head down; the one beneath whined uncomfortably, and clawed its way back upright. Neither seemed to like its new position any better.
A couple of big, naked shapes sat cross-legged at the far edge of the circle of captives, and Fawn realized they were ordinary mud-men- new made, or seized from the other malice? Their lumpish forms made her think maybe they were spoils of the earlier clash, the one that-it was hard not to think of it as our malice-had been fleeing.
Berry followed her gaze, gripped her arm. Breathed, “Can they sense us? ”
“I guess not,” Fawn breathed back, when none of the dozing creatures roused in suspicion.
Dag had said their shields didn’t make their grounds as invisible as that of a fully veiled patroller. Were these early creations lacking groundsense, or did the smudged grounds simply not catch their interest? Maybe we look like rocks. Fawn tried to crouch as still and rocklike as possible, to keep up the illusion.
“When d’you think the malice will come back?” whispered Whit into Fawn’s ear; she had to strain to make out the words. At least she didn’t have to warn him to keep his voice down.
She also made her reply as voiceless as she could. “Not sure. If it’s past the stage of ground-ripping everybody on sight, and it seems this one is, next thing a malice does is try to gather forces to make attacks. ’Cept there’s nothing around here to attack. It’ll have to march everyone forty miles up the road to even reach the next village.” She hesitated.
“The Glassforge malice started to dig a mine, pretty early on, but that might have been ’cause it ate-ground- ripped-a miner. If this one’s been eating muleteers and traveling folks, it may just want to traipse away up the Trace.”
“Huh.” Whit settled in tighter to the earth.
They might have a long wait till their ambush. That would be bad.
Fawn could feel her nervous energy leaching away in exhaustion. This was a well-watered country, so they hadn’t gone thirsty in the night, but no one had eaten since noon yesterday. Or slept. A wave of nausea swept her, but it wasn’t as bad as the sick chill from being reminded of what she risked. Oh gods, if the baby made her throw up, could she do so in utter silence? Don’t think about it, it just makes it worse. She swallowed and breathed through her mouth.
To distract herself, she counted heads. All their company seemed still to be here, and together, except, disturbingly, Calla and Indigo. An ice lump formed under her breastbone as she realized that the four bodies in a huddled heap near the road weren’t sleeping. But all were strangers.
Had the muleteers redeemed their comrades for burial, or were the mud-men just saving the corpses for breakfast? She swallowed again, harder. If the mud-men were properly frugal, they ought to consume the oldest meat first, before starting on a more tender morsel like, say, Plum. Only if the malice has ground-ripped a good farmwife, I suppose. And, It might still get that chance.
Whit shifted uncomfortably, readjusted the lie of his crossbow.
Touched the cord of the sharing-knife sheath, now hung around his neck.
“If it flies around, how do we lure it close enough to get a good shot? ”
“I figure our shields will puzzle it, if it sees us. It’ll fly closer to look. Then we get it. You get it,” Fawn corrected herself.
“Maybe you two better draw back.”
Berry shook her head. “Somebody might have to keep attackers off you till you get your shot.” Her hand tightened around a long, stout stick, which Fawn had no doubt the riverwoman knew how to use.
Fawn felt less useful. If Whit’s first shot missed, but fell without breaking, she might be able to scurry and
