“That is strange,” she says. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the more they’re around you, the more they feel things through their senses of awareness that you would feel in your world.”
“That’s what I think. I just can’t figure out if it’s good or bad.”
“It’s neither. It’s just the way it is.” She suddenly snaps her face up to the clouds. “Aven needs to stay with the Keepers for a while.” She springs from the ground, looks down the hill at the meadow, and cups her hands around her mouth. “Darkness is coming!”
As I jump to my feet, the Keepers guide the children towards the back entrance of Home. Kyra lifts Aven out of the swing and then briskly carries her towards the door. Looking up at Sash and me, Aven waves her hand.
After Sash and I return her wave, I start to sprint down the hill in the opposite direction. When Sash doesn’t catch up to me as she usually would, I stop and look behind me. With her feet planted to the ground and her eyes glued to the meadow, she doesn’t move until Aven is safely inside Home.
Chapter 12
In a desolate part of the northeast Barrens, the woman stands in a bitter storm. Rain stings her head, bleeds down her body, and splashes to the mud at her feet. A canister that once belonged to Travelers of the Delta hangs from a rope looped over one of her shoulders. Her spear is planted in the mire at her side, close at hand should peril befall her.
Studying the top of a rocky hill in front of her, the woman is well aware that a group of her kind lurks behind the ridge. Not wanting them to view her as a threat, she waits for them to make the first move.
A few steps behind her stands a female Murkovin, a newly appointed commander as those entrusted with overseeing new camps are called. Soon after the former Watcher had left the Delta for the last time, the female had joined their ranks. Possessing great skill at blending her light and expertise with a weapon, the female commander had gained the woman’s trust over many morrows of loyalty.
When a male Murkovin climbs over the top of the hill in front of her, the woman doesn’t move. With a worn, wooden spear in the clutch of his hands, he leaps onto a boulder. A second Murkovin, this one female, steps to the side of the rock the first creature stands on. From the corner of her eye, the woman spots a man creep around the base of the hill on her left. On her right, a muscular female jumps out of a shallow gully. The woman focuses her eyes again on the top of the hill. From behind the crest, several children peek over the jagged rocks.
“We mean you no harm,” the woman calls out over the wail of the storm.
“This is our territory!” the Murkovin on the boulder shouts. “What have you done to our tree?”
“We bring you a better way to take sap,” the woman tells him.
The woman lifts her spear out of the mud and points it behind her. The beast’s eyes follow the line of her weapon to a large sustaining tree with its upper limbs all bound by rope. Long before the woman found the tree, the lower limbs had been ripped from the trunk. Like many trees of the Barrens, the bark is riddled with scars from countless jabs of spears.
In a clan like this, the woman knows, one Murkovin at a time will drink from the tree while the others defend against the violent upper branches. During each Darkness, they typically fill a few crudely-made wooden containers to store sap for a later time.
The woman has now embedded four steel stakes in the bark. They were designed to look like Hunters’ stakes, but the blunt ends were left open when they were crafted in the Desert. With tubes running from the hollow ends to a transport, she can provide them with a greater supply of sap than they’ve ever known.
“Each Darkness,” the woman explains, “the transport will fill with sap. Since the limbs are bound, you no longer need to fight the tree. You’ll have a large supply of sap for when you need it, even during long periods of light.”
The man on the boulder aims his eyes at the woman. “Why have you done this?”
“We want to bring peace to the Barrens,” she replies, sinking the tip of her spear into the ground at her side. “It starts by ending the fight for sap.”
The woman removes the canister from her shoulder and throws it up the hill. Dull glints reflect from the worn steel when it splashes to the wet ground in front of the boulder.
“That will quench your thirst until Darkness passes,” the woman says.
The man springs from the rock and lands in a crouch. After grabbing the canister with one hand, he drops his spear to the mud. Never taking his eyes off the woman, he unscrews the cap and swigs down one long drink. As he extends his hand with the canister to the female behind him, he grabs his weapon with his other hand. The female takes a few small sips, steps backwards to the top of the hill, and hands the canister to one of the children.
They only had a little each before giving it to the children, the woman thinks. This is the kind of clan I need.
The commander behind the woman removes two flasks from her belt. She tosses one to the creature on their right and the other to the Murkovin on their left. They both snatch the metal containers out of the air. While they drink from the flasks, the woman raises her eyes to the turbulent clouds overhead. The dark billows gradually grind to a halt as rays of gray
