the smell. But I dislike these woods. The signs are odd.'
'Odd…?' But she lapsed out again.
Panting, but glad to run freely for miles without limit, Sunbright reached the knot of pines atop the hill. Crouching, he wove his head back and forth until he found what he wanted: a blowdown. One of the taller trees had toppled in a strong storm. Circling the crater left when the roots ripped out, Sunbright tracked along the high trunk until he found a slot they could slide under. Laying Knucklebones gently on fallen brown needles-how he loved their smell! — he plied the war-hammer to break off brittle branches, then laid them butt up against the trunk. In minutes he'd cleared a space big enough to prop Knucklebones against the tree. Turning outside, he broke and laid more branches, and heaped pine needles across the top, but carefully, so as not to dig up deeper needles with their darker color.
He slipped inside, found that the lean-to let him sit up. He piled more needles around Knucklebones for warmth, for she was still groggy. A strut-shaped lump had formed across her forehead, turning a livid purple.
'Stay here and keep quiet,' he instructed. 'I'll fetch us food.' The handful of rations he'd picked from Candlemas's tray had been lost when his haversack was torn in the tree.
Knucklebones started to protest, but slipped into unconsciousness again. When she awoke, Sunbright was hunkered close. Sun slanted through the brown roof at a low angle. She'd slept most of the afternoon away. In the meantime, Sunbright had been busy. He had a brace of dead rabbits and a porcupine, an ingeniously folded box of birch bark that held water, two long, slim staves, and various rocks of different colors. He was industriously slicing a rabbit with his belt knife against a slab of bark, eating every other slice.
The barbarian extended a red hand with a thin strip. Wordlessly the thief took it, though she made a face.
'Can you eat it raw?' he asked.
'I've eaten sewer rats,' she replied. 'But we always cooked them.'
'I won't risk a fire yet. I don't like the looks of these woods.'
'What about them?'
Knucklebones was uneasy. She'd never been on the ground in her life, never even known anyone who'd been there-except Sunbright. The earth felt curiously alive under her rump, and the wind hissed incessantly in the trees overhead, talking in its own secret language, speeches alien to her city bred ways. And though she'd been unconscious, she knew they'd come miles. Back in Karsus, she'd known every inch of open space, both above and below the streets, had visited the insides of hundreds of buildings, illicitly or not. But this world was so wide. How much farther could they go? How could any one person ever know it all?
'I'm glad-' she stopped as he looked up, 'glad I'm with someone who knows the forest.'
The barbarian worked off the rabbit's skin, began to gently scrape the inside.
'I don't know the forest well,' he told her. 'The taiga and the high sierra, those are the places my tribe visits on our yearly round. This forest is similar to one I knew up north. Though many things are different, I think we can win through.'
'How did you catch those animals?'
'Snares. I used wire from the wreckage across a rabbit trail, then set them again. The porcupine I knocked down with a stick and clubbed. They're so easy to catch my tribe considers it unsporting. But they're good eating when you need it, and we can use the quills later. I've got materials for a simple bow, but I'll need a few hours to assemble one. The arrows will only be good for short range. There are fish in a stream farther down we can gig, or else drop snakeroot in the water to bring them to the surface. But I can't decide if we should stay on the ground or move into a tree for the night. There's bear scat around, but I think it's black bear, not brown. Black bears are harmless, while browns will attack if provoked. No sign of panthers, but this forest is… troubled.'
'Troubled?'
She remembered his muttering about signs, reflected that for someone who claimed to not know the forest, he knew quite a bit.
'Look,' he said and inverted the rabbit skin to show her the eyeless head. The ears looked long and silky and normal, until she noticed a second smaller pair. He showed her a beetle an inch long. When he parted the carapace, the wings were crumpled. 'I've never seen or heard of a four-eared rabbit. And beetles are the harbingers of the earth. They're so common, any corruption suggests dangers or sickness hereabouts.'
Knucklebones muttered, 'It's not the Dire Woods, is it?'
'What?' Sunbright froze. 'What's that?'
The thief shook her head as if in dismissal, said, 'An old story. Karsus, when he was first fooling with his heavy magic, conjured up such a huge amount that it began, I don't know… sucking all the magic from the city, so much the whole enclave tilted in the sky and was in danger of falling. This was years ago.
'Karsus levitated the heavy magic and sent a Tolodine's gust of wind to blow it off the city. It fell, and the city came upright, saved, but after that Huntsmen warned that a reach of High Forest had been struck by the magic. It rolled downhill, scattered all over, and poisoned the place. They called it the Dire Woods after that. Wulgreth, a renegade wizard living there, was turned undead because the magic… did something. I don't know what.'
'It severed his link to life,' Sunbright judged. 'These mages extend their lives unnaturally with magic. A dash of corrupt magic like that could remove the life, yet leave the body living-undead.'
He shuddered with a barbarian's fear of zombies and liches. But logic prevailed. 'True,' he mumbled, nodding. 'It could be true. It explains the signs. We're not in the Dire Woods, but they're not far. These corrupted animals have strayed from it, or else the bad magic leaked out. How's your head?'
'What? Oh.'
Knucklebones touched her forehead, swollen far out by a bruise. She flinched at the pain, tried to rise, but fell back, dizzy. 'I wouldn't have this,' she accused, 'if you hadn't let go of those damaged wings. But we should move.'
'I know,' he said, smiling, 'and I'm sorry, but we won't move yet. Rest.'
Darkness had fallen. Sunbright worked by feel to wrap the game in their skins and lay everything where he could find it in the darkness. 'Sleep,' he whispered, 'I'll guard.'
She didn't argue, only laid down gratefully as he slid the curtaining branch up and scooted out. Lapsing into glorious sleep, she reflected that, even if she were trapped on the ground, it was nice to have someone watch over her for a change.
They camped in that spot for several days, Sunbright catching game and fish, repairing their meager possessions, explaining the way of the forest to Knucklebones. Everything was new to her, and frightening, but they were content to relax and not be hunted.
Too good to last.
Knucklebones came wide awake in their lean-to when, late at night, something smashed its head into her sanctuary.
Knife in hand, the thief rolled out of danger even before she knew what was attacking. Something with a long neck and clashing jaws crashed through the lean-to, scattering pine needles and breaking branches. A pointed snout full of dagger teeth nipped at her heels as she dived like a rabbit for the end of the shelter. Where Sunbright had stopped breaking branches, some were snapped off against the ground while others stuck out whole. Into this tangle of jackstraws the young thief vaulted, until she'd left the raspy-voiced monster behind.
What was it? And where was Sunbright?
She heard him shout, the mad, barbaric hollering he made in battle. Was he fighting the toothy beast, or something else? His voice came from the wrong direction, so there were more fiends. Or worse. Flickers of torchlight came and went, so people attacked too.
Wriggling on elbows and knees, Knucklebones followed the tree trunk until she came to a hollow and slithered under. A canopy of brown branches hid her. Readying her knife for a quick thrust, keeping a branch as a screen, she peeked up and out.
The scene was like nothing she'd ever seen in Karsus.
Hunched and brutal men in ragged skins encircled Sunbright. With them were-Knucklebones didn't know what. The beasts were lizards, clearly, with black eyes and shining white teeth like a shark's, and hairless, dappled hides. They were taller than a man, like giant birds without feathers. Saddles with high cantles were strapped about them and they had reins around their snouts. She noted the men wore the hairless skins of the same beasts, seeing
