Dänvârfij was relieved that Eywodan had found them an option so quickly. Again she glanced toward the barge some fifty or more paces beyond the river’s mouth. The crack of a reed switch and the bray of a mule carried through the night. The dim shape of a man aboard the barge poled the vessel away from the shore.
When she turned back, Eywodan was watching her, not the barge. She silently admonished herself for becoming distracted.
“I can go alone,” he said. “One of us among the humans would be less remembered. I will ask about the Cloud Queen on the pretense of trying to catch companions I failed to meet up with on the isle.”
A half-truth was the easiest lie to make believable. He was trying to be courteous about noticing her wandering focus. He was also right. One overly tall, tan-skinned elf with amber eyes would attract enough attention.
“I will wait in the shadows,” she said, “by the river.”
His brow wrinkled slightly. She grew wary that he was on the verge of asking her what was wrong. Instead he turned away to head along the waterfront. Once Eywodan was halfway to the house, inn, tavern—whatever the Kettle and Drum might be—Dänvârfij walked off the pier, heading the other, shorter way to the narrow river.
She ignored the stone-and-timber bridge over its mouth and stepped downslope, listening to the river gurgle softly into the ocean. Upstream, the barge was the only thing she could make out in the dark, as if the mules were not there and the vessel powered itself against the current....
Like the river vessels of her people.
Raised from living wood, they could propel themselves against the current or anywhere upon water that they and their small crews wished to go. But this had not made her last barge ride easy, let alone a comfortable homecoming.
Not with Osha there as well.
She could not keep her mind from slipping back....
Dänvârfij had kept watch on Osha’s every movement during the voyage home. The an’Cróan soldiers were always near, awaiting orders, though Osha gave her no reason to call upon them. Neither had he given her anything else, not a word more than he cared to for any attempt to question him. Even those were not true answers, always laden with grief that she felt as well and always within a finger’s breadth short of a threat.
Or worse than that, if, thinking she could force more out of him, she stepped in his way.
She made that mistake only once when Osha was on deck, and she had tried to get more from him concerning the journal. He had turned on her that time, and foolishly she had not backed away. Two nearby soldiers tensed, and one tentatively reached over his shoulder for an arrow.
Osha’s eyes shifted to that soldier. “Do so, if you wish,” he whispered.
The soldier hesitated, looking to Dänvârfij in that moment of uncertainty.
“Do it!” Osha barked.
Silence took the whole deck. The only thing Dänvârfij heard was the wind in the sails and the rushing water around the hull.
“But be certain in your heart,” Osha went on to the soldier, though he turned his gaze back to Dänvârfij. “Certain of whatever she told you about me. If so, then act!”
All of the crew froze in place. Not a creak of the deck or a rope broke the sounds of wind and wave. They were all watching now, watching as one of the Anmaglâhk faced down another, with two soldiers ready to strike that one by the other’s command.
Dänvârfij heard the sharp, quick breaths of the second soldier. That one reached out slowly and pulled down the first one’s hand reaching for the arrow. Osha never took his eyes off her.
“Move,” he said flatly.
She did so, and he walked off, heading below.
Dänvârfij frequently communicated with Most Aged Father, and he admonished her to never let Osha out of her sight. At her questions concerning what to do after that moment on deck, he said nothing at first. It was as if “Father” was as uncertain as she was.
Then he cautioned her not to create an altercation ... in front of the people.
When they reached their home port of Ghoivne Ajhâjhe—Edge of the Deep—nothing had changed, though there was no altercation with Osha over boarding the waiting river barge. A nearly silent eight-day journey followed as the living vessel propelled them up the Hâjh—the “Spine”—River, which ran through the territory. Only the unintelligible whispers of the three barge attendants and the sound of the rippling water spoke to Dänvârfij.
Osha never said a word, even whenever the young barge master brought meals to where he sat alone at the vessel’s front.
When they neared Crijheäiche—Origin-Heart—the large enclave that served as the center of all Anmaglâhk activity, in spite of everything Dänvârfij could not hold back her relief. Her first hint that they drew near was when curtained doorways began appearing in some trees. Soon every other oak, cedar, and fir was larger than the last, and the spaces in between broadened. As Crijheäiche came into view, she stood up on the back of the barge, but she did not approach Osha.
Five long docks with other barges and small boats moored along them appeared on the shore ahead. It had been so long since she had been home—not since she had left this place with Hkuan’duv.
Where the docks met land, no trees blocked her view, and the scents and sights of Crijheäiche filled her awareness. Curtained doorways in trees were unusually large here, and trunks bulged to what some would have thought an impossible size at their bases. Market stalls of planked wood, shaped flora, and colored fabrics lined the way into the enclave settlement. Inside these, occupants were busy with all forms of endeavor. Fishermen nearer the docks provided fresh catches, and as the barge slowly pulled into a stop, a wild tangle of aromas filled her head. Beneath the scent of baked and roasted foods were rich spices and herbs.
For all the industry here, everything was still woven into the natural world. Yet Dänvârfij’s relief at returning home waned when she saw what else awaited her.
As Osha rose upon the barge’s forward end, four anmaglâhk stood on the riverbank entrance into Crijheäiche. Their long hair of sandy to white blond blew free in the breeze. None had their cloaks tied up, but even here, Dänvârfij knew they all wore weapons carefully hidden from sight: stilettos up their sleeves ... garrote wires inside their tunics.
One stepped toward Osha.
Dänvârfij quickly raised a hand and shook her head to warn that one off. She hurried out, even stepping once into the water’s edge with a splash to get ahead. With a glance back at Osha, who did not even look at her, she led the way slowly while waiting to hear his footfalls. Even when she did, it was difficult not to rush, to have done with all of this.
The strange sight of her, of Osha, and of four other anmaglâhk escorting them turned too many eyes their way. The market’s buzz dulled in their passing, and Dänvârfij second-guessed how all of this was being handled.
Father had said to hurry, but perhaps it would have been better to have arrived at night, with far fewer present to watch. Even in Osha’s defiant but willing compliance, he looked like a prisoner before the eyes of the people.
But Father had given the orders, and he knew best. Perhaps he wished to cast doubts upon Osha before any of the story leaked out concerning what had happened.
As Dänvârfij strode through Crijheäiche’s inland outskirts toward Most Aged Father’s dwelling place of countless years, she fixed on nothing but that massive oak itself.
Sitting amid a wide mossy clearing, it was ringed by other domicile oaks beyond a stone’s throw away. Those places, reserved for anmaglâhk and other temporary visitors to the enclave, would have been considered huge by common standards. They were minuscule compared to the one at the clearing’s center.