Effie didn't have the energy to pull herself up and look around. The sky seemed nice and blue, and she could see that some of the trees were oaks and water chestnuts waiting to bud.
"Waker pulled you from the water. You'd been gone forever and we thought…I thought…" Chedd looked down. Tears squeezed from his eyes and he wiped them away with his shirtsleeve. "I had to hang on to the boat, Eff—I couldn't come and get you because of these." Rolling on his side, he brought his feet all the way up to her face so she could physically see his ankle chains. "I'm a good swimmer. I could have done it."
She believed him.
"Anyhows. No one knew where you were. Waker was in a state, diving and coming up. Waker's da tells him to hold on a mo' while he thinks. Waker's da's face gets all white and goosey and he points to a piece of water and says, She's down there. You should have seen Waker dive, like an otter after fish. He was down a long time, Eff. Me and his da started getting afraid. His da turned the boat and held it while I got in. Then he got in himself. And only then, when we were both sitting steady, did Waker break the surface with you."
Chedd wanted to tell her how she looked, but she stopped him; Effie did not want to know. Realizinpshe would soon need to pee, she asked him to help her to her feet. Gallantly, he squatted beside her and wrapped a thick arm around her waist. As she came to standing a wave of dizziness hit her. One hand ewe out for Chedd, who took it like a rock. The other hand went up for her lore.
But her lore wasn't there.
The pike had taken it.
TWENTY-ONE Alone and Armed in the Darkness
Traggis Mole's cronies were waiting for them when they returned from the overnight hunt. It was late afternoon and the light was deeply golden. Due to some subtle seasonal shift, the sun was perfectly aligned with the Rift in the west. Red radiance poured along the fissure, casting shadows that had no end.
Addie Gunn and Raif were dead tired. Both had stayed up late in the night hunting deer and then woke before dawn to try for more. Stillborn on the other hand had fallen asleep at sunset and stayed asleep until breakfast, when the smell of Addie roasting goat's heart had finally roused him. He'd been lively all day, even though he was the one hauling the majority of game. A full-grown doe was balanced, yokelike, across his shoulders. An impromptu sled made from lashed willow poles that held the snagcat pelt, various cuts of snagcat meat and a partially butchered fawn, was being pulled on a leash attached to his waist. Addie carried the butchered goat and its pelt in a game sack slung over his shoulder, and Raif carried a mixed bag of ribs, spines, pelvises and longbones that could be boiled and scraped for meat, marrow and fat. All three of them smelled like blood, but Raif found he did not much dislike it. It reminded him of longhunts with with Da and Drey.
"At least he sent the pretty ones" was all Stillborn said as they approached the eastern ledge.
Two Maimed Men awaiting them on the rimrock were armed with thick spears of blackened and case-hardened iron. One wore an armored cloak; a half-circle of boiled and pleated leather mounted with coin-sized metal rings that had to weigh at least twenty pounds. The other man wore chainmail that had rusted around the armpits and a wool kilt over wool pants. Both men appeared whole, but Raif knew better than to be fooled by that. Everyone in the Rift was missing something, and experience had taught him that imperfections that did not immediately meet the eye were usually the worst kind.
Some instinct, perhaps fear or simple habit, made Raif stretch out a hand to read the air. The headwind was light and from the north. Updrafts rising from the Rift were fitful and without force.
Shucking off the bag of bones and letting it drop onto the green granite of the ledge, he said to Addie and Stillborn." Take the meat. Go on ahead."
The little cragsman shook his head and was about to tell Raif exactly what he thought of that idea when Stillborn also shook his head. A single, curt shake aimed at silencing Addie Gunn.
"Come on," Stillborn said, somehow managing to clap Addie on the shoulder while still balancing the deer. "Lets make sure our Rift Brothers get the meat."
Addie hesitated. He knew how important the meat was, knew also that the Maimed Men needed to see with their own eyes who had brought it. Finally he asked Raif in a whisper, "Will you be all right, lad?"
Raif stared at the man with the armored cloak as he said, "I'll be fine. If you want to do me a favor find me arrows. Two dozen with feather fletchings."
The cragsman nodded. "If you're not back by midnight we'll come looking." Bending at the knee, he picked up Raif's sack. It was still dripping blood.
As Addie and Stillborn walked ahead, Raif let his right hand come to rest on the crossguard of his borrowed sword. It was a small thing, but it drew the attention of Mole's men away from Addie and Stillborn and to himself.
"You're coming with us to see the chief," said the man wearing the armored cloak. Now that he spoke, Raif saw he was missing front teeth. When Raif failed to move, he thrust out his spear. "Get walking."
He thought they would lead him down to Traggis Mole's cave but they led him up to the high cliffs instead. Ancient crumbling steps cut deep into the rock wound up through the city and out onto the head-cliffs where the Maimed Men maintained their watch. The cliffs bulged above the city like wasps' nests, round-walled and tapering, connected to each other by a series of gangplanks known as the Cloud Walk. Raif had not been up here before and he saw that the rock was older and softer than the ledgerock below. Birds had made and abandoned nests in the potholes, and dwarfed pines had grown and died, leaving skeletons that rattled in the wind.
Both men were well-accustomed to the Cloud Walk and navigated the wood-and-rope walkways with ease. Raif tried not to look down, did look down and began to sway.
"We got a spinner," commented the armored cloak man without rancor. Neither he nor the chainmail man raised a hand to help.
Raif closed his fist around the guiderope. Two ropes suspended at waist height and a foot-wide plank of wood were all that was preventing him from crashing to the rimrock ninety feet below. Wind set the ropes swaying, and the weight of three men on the plank made the wood creak and bow. It would be easy to kill him. A near forceless movement of the hand would be all it would take. Raif tried to calm himself, but the world was tipping, and he was unsure what to do with his body to counter it.
"Walk."
It was both an order and advice. He had been holding too long on to the rope and had begun to lean into it—into thin air. Blinking as if that could somehow help, Raif rocked his weight onto his other foot and eased his hand from the rope. Giddy nausea filled his head. It felt as if his brain had detached itself from his spinal cord and was spinning like a top in his skull. Drunkenly, he took a step forward. More spinning. Seen from above, the city on the edge of the abyss looked like a chunk of driftwood riddled with wormholes. After thinking that bit of nonsense he took another step, followed by another one. Walking.
Two more gangways, a short tunnel, and a drawbridge had to be navigated before they reached the western watch. Raif developed a technique he called "looking at the stray hair hanging down in front of my eye." To know its name was to know how it worked. At some point during the second gangway he realized what Traggis Mole was up to. Yet the knowledge that it was the Robber Chief's intent to throw him off guard and render him weak at the knees was strangely worthless. It didn't make the gangways any easier.