They rode undisturbed that day, stopping briefly to grain and water the mules and snatch a bite for themselves, starting on again with less than an hour lost. They reached Yaril’s spring about an hour after sundown. She had a small sly fire going and was prowling about in catshape, driving off anything on four legs or two that might want to investigate the camp too closely. No one said much, aloud at least; what the changers were saying to each other, they kept to themselves and did not break the silence about the fire. Brann rolled into her blankets after she ate and helped clean up the camp; as far as Danny Blue could tell she didn’t move until she woke with the dawn. He had more difficulty getting to sleep, his muscles were sore and complaining, his mental and physical turmoil kept his mind turning over long after he was bored with every thought that climbed about his head, but he had two disciplines to call on and eventually bludgeoned his mind into stillness and his body into sleep.
The days passed because they had to pass, but there was little to mark one from another; they rode uphill and downhill and across the smuggler bridges with never a smell of Settsimaksimin. Even the weather was fine, nights cool, days warm with just enough of a breeze to take the curse off the heat and not a sign of rain. Now and then they saw a stag or a herd of does with their springborn fawns; now and then, on the edges of night and morning brown bears prowled about them but never came close enough to threaten them. Blue gessiks hopped about among the roots and shriveled weeds, broad beaks poking through the mat of dead needles for pinenuts and borer worms; their raucous cried echoed from hillside to hillside as they whirled into noisy bluff battles over indistinguishable patches of earth. Gray gwichies chattered at each other or shook gwichie babies out of pouches close to being too small for them and sent them running along whippy tarplum branches for late hatching nestlets or lingering fruit.
On the fifth day or it might have been the sixth, shortly after dawn when shadows were long and thin and glittered with dew, they dropped through an oak forest to the grassy foothills along the side of Forkker Vale.
Jaril and Yaril rode first, Jaril in the saddle, Yaril behind him, clinging to him. Their new dependence on the sun for sustenance had wrought several changes in how they ran their lives. In a way, they were like large lizards, they got a few degrees more sluggish when the sun went down unless they took steps, to avoid it. They were still adjusting to the change in their circumstances; staying with Braun on this trek, with its demands on them and the dangers that lay ahead of them wasn’t helping them all that much.
Down on the floor of the Vale a line of men walked steadily across the first of the grainfields, scythes swinging in smooth arcs, laying stalkfans flat beside them, a line of women followed, tieing the stalks into sheaves, herds of children followed the women, some gathering sheaves into piles, others loading those piles onto mulecarts and taking them down along the Vale to the storesheds and drying racks at the threshing floor. The men were singing to themselves, a deep thoated hooming that rose out of the rhythm of the sweep, hypnotic powerful magical sound. The women had their own songs with a quicker sharper rhythm, a greater commensality. The children laughed and sang and played a dozen different games as they worked, counting games and last one out and dollymaker as they gathered and piled the sheaves, jump the moon and one foot over and catch as they swung the sheaves around, tossed them to each other then onto the stakecarts, running tag and sprints beside the mules. It was early morning, cool and pleasant, boys and girls alike were brimming with energy. It was the last golden burst of exuberance before winter shut down on them. Or it was before the strangers appeared.
As Brann, the changers and Danny Blue rode past them on the rutted track, the Forkker folk looked round at them but no one spoke to them, no one asked what they were doing there or where they were going. And the children were careful to avoid them.
Ahzurdan’s memories prodded Danny Blue until he heeled his mule to a quicker trot and caught up with Brann. “Trouble?”
“Maybe.” She scratched at her chin. “It could be local courtesy not to notice folk coming from the direction of Haven. I don’t believe a word of that. Jay.” He looked over his shoulder, dusty and rather tired, the sun hadn’t been up long enough to kick him into full alertness. “Could you or Yaro put on wings and take a look at what’s ahead of us?”
“Shift here?”
“Why not. A little healthy fear might prove useful.”
Yaril stretched, patted a yawn, yawned again and slid off the mule; she ran delicate hands through her ash blond hair, shivered like a nervous pony, then she was an eagle powering into a rising spiral.
They started on, moving at a slow walk. A mulecart rattled past them, the children silent, subdued, wide frightened eyes sliding around to the strangers, flicking swiftly away.
Danny Blue watched the cart jolt away from them, the mule urged to a reluctant canter, the sheaves jiggling and shivering. Several fell off. ‘Ay° boys ran back, scooped them up and tossed them onto the cart. A swift sly ferret’s look at the strangers, then they scooted ahead until they were trotting beside the mule, switching his flanks to keep him at the faster pace. “They’ve been warned about us,” he said.
“Looks like it. Jay?”
“Yaro is looking over the village. It’s pretty well empty. Those houses are built like forts, an army could be hiding inside them. Each house has several courtyards, they’re as empty as the streets, Yaro says that about confirms trouble ahead, at this hour there should be people everywhere, not just in the fields. She thinks maybe we should circle round the village, she says she saw shadows behind several of the windows, the streets, well, they aren’t really streets, just openspaces between housewalls, they’re narrow and crooked with a lot of blind ends, it’s a maze there, if we got into it, who knows what’d happen. There’s problems with circling too, orchards and vineyards and a lot of clutter before we’d get to the trees, makes her nervous, she says. Ah. Soldiers in the trees, left side… um… right side. Not many. She says she counts four on the left, six on the right, Kori said there were a doubletwelve in Owlyn Vale, there won’t be fewer here, that leaves what? about fourteen, fifteen in the village. She says it won’t be that difficult for her and me to take all of them out if we could use Dan’s stunner. Question is will the Forkker folk mix in this business? If they do, things could get sticky, there are too many of them, they can swamp us given we have a modicum of bad luck. What do you think?” Jaril opened his eyes, looked from Brann to Danny Blue, raised his brows.
Danny Blue thumbed the zipper back, squeezed out the stunner; he checked the charge, nodded with satisfaction, tossed the heavy black handful to Jaril. “Chained God topped off the batteries, but don’t waste the juice, Jay, I’d like to have some punch left when we get to where we’re going.”
Jaril,caught the stunner. “Gotcha. Braun?”
“Yarn read Kori back when… Jay, was that her or you asking about the Forkkers? You? What does she
“Um… she thinks they’re in a bind. They don’t like Maksim or his soldiers, but they don’t want him landing on their backs either, especially not over a bunch of foreigners. She says if we go through fast and they don’t see much happening, they’ll keep quiet. She says she’s changed her mind about going round the village now that she thinks about it. She says thinking about it, we’ve got to put all the soldiers out, we don’t want them stirring up the Forkkers and setting them after us. She says Brann, she can read a couple Forkkers to make sure, if you want. And Dan, she says, whatever, it’s up to you. The stunner’s yours.”