“What about-Dag’s-someone at Hickory Lake once told me that because farmers couldn’t veil their grounds, it was like they were walking around naked, to Lakewalker eyes. What is this doing for that? And don’t be polite,” she added sharply. “Tell me the truth.”
“In ground veiling”-Barr held up his hand and turned it edge on-“it’s like the Lakewalker’s ground slowly gets thinner and thinner till it vanishes. From the inside, it looks like the world’s ground does the same, like going back to being a child when you couldn’t sense at all. With this, your ground’s density is all still there, but it’s like I’m seeing it under moving water. I can’t make out the details. If you see? ”
Well, being dressed in thin cloth was better than parading around stark. Fawn nodded satisfaction. She wrapped her hand around the walnut.
What an extraordinary birthday present this is turning out to be. “Should I keep it on? ” she asked Dag.
“Yes, I want to see how long that involution will hold up. Sharing knives may last a lifetime, but lesser work fades sooner.”
“That’s going to hold awhile, I wager,” said Arkady.
Fawn slipped the walnut pendant inside her blouse. “I wonder how one would work on Calla or Indigo? Like on a farmer, or like on a Lakewalker?”
Dag’s eyes narrowed. “Huh. Good question, Spark.” His gaze strayed to her middle. “If they’re starting to trust me enough… I’ll ask them to let me try. Later. Not now. It’s going to take me some days to recover from this.”
“Talk to Calla before you offer such a shield to Sage,” advised Arkady.
“I wouldn’t want her to take it amiss. I’ve just about got her taking food from my hand, so to speak, but she’s still nervy.” He paused. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve instructed a beginner. I’ll give her this-at least she doesn’t have any bad training for me to undo.”
Dag nodded understanding. A sly smile slipped over his mouth and vanished, by which Fawn guessed he was pleased that Arkady was taking his new student seriously.
–-
Over the next days, the swampy alligator country fell behind. Villages grew poorer and farther apart and the road surface deteriorated, with fewer bridges and worse fords. In places with softer soil, the way was beaten down into a broad track between earthen walls that rose higher than their heads. Farms were replaced by piney woods. In the growing heat, the trees breathed a delicious and oddly northern smell that made Dag smile for no reason Fawn could see, but she was glad of it nonetheless.
Local traffic thinned out. Their only company on the road became others sharing the long haul. More folks were headed north than south, what with the rivers disgorging their travelers onto the Trace at Graymouth. They passed gangs of flatboat men walking home, and were passed by speedier horse pack trains, including some Lakewalker kin carrying trade between camps. They played leapfrog with that tea caravan for days, and, when Fawn, Dag, and Barr proved conversant in river talk, ended up getting to know some of the muleteers by name.
The last village before the Barrens going north, or the first after coming south, guarded a rope-cranked ferry, a smaller version of those Fawn had seen up on the Grace. The crowd trying to cross at the riverbank held them up for half a day. On the other side, the road climbed again. The piney woods grew more ragged and sad, then thinned out into scrubland inhabited only by mice, hawks, rabbits, and wild pigs.
The shadeless stretches turned headache-hot. Roadside camping spots with both water and grazing became harder to find, as prior travelers’ beasts of burden had eaten the scanty fodder far back from the road.
Two days into the Barrens and their novelty had worn off for Fawn, to be replaced by her nausea of pregnancy. This lasted till she fled from the campfire one morning to retch in the bushes, and Arkady, with an incredibly smug smirk, produced a bottle of that Lakewalker stomach medicine from his pack. He only made Dag grovel a little for it. In the evenings Arkady took Dag aside for maker ground-projection and sensitivity drills, and Dag retaliated by making Barr and Arkady do patroller ground-veiling drills. The results of the latter left Dag frowning.
One evening, they camped with some friendly flatboat boys who knew the Clearcreeks, and exchanged much river gossip including garbled accounts of the gruesome events at Crooked Elbow, which Dag, Fawn, and Barr tried to amend. Dag treated a flatboat boy’s sore foot and seized the chance for his beginner lecture on Lakewalkers; Fawn wasn’t sure which of these left Arkady rubbing his forehead. But at least it was a thoughtful rub.
The lack of grazing proved worse than the company had anticipated, and the feed grain they’d so prudently packed along from the Tanner farm ran low, then out. But late one afternoon Ash, whose turn it was to scout ahead, came cantering back all excited. The fertile valley he described seemed too good to be true, but a few miles farther on, at a dip where a river ran between high rocky walls and around a bend, they found a broad sweep of meadow, flecked by wildflowers, that glowed like green glass in the leveling light. Dozens of dogwoods lit up the woods like white flower fountains. New leaves, Fawn realized, weren’t just pale green, but shades of bronze and copper red. Both people and animals greeted the sight with the same joyful sigh.
This bliss lasted till Sage, who had gone into the woods bordering the bluffs to gather firewood, came bolting back out waving his bloodied ax in the air and screaming, “Snakes! Hundreds of ’em! And they’re all rattlers!”
Fawn, about to unsaddle Magpie, scrambled back aboard and pulled up her toes. “What? ”
“There can’t be hundreds,” objected Finch. “Snakes don’t travel in herds, Sage. You just panicked.”
“Yeah, how many did you really see? ” said Ash. “Two? Three?” Although he prudently unshipped another long-handled ax from his pack.
“Actually…” said Dag, slowly wheeling about and scanning the rocky slopes.
Disturbed and attentive silence fell, broken only by Sage’s panting.
Everyone’s faces turned to follow Dag, like beguiled mice.
“… there are hundreds,” Dag continued. “Those ledges up there are full of snake dens. They coil up in snake balls to get through the cold times, see. They’re all just coming out of their winter sleep.”
Finch swung abruptly up onto the driver’s box next to Calla.
“You can get up to a couple of hundred rattlesnakes at a time in the bigger dens,” Dag went on blithely.
Indigo looked in longing at the rich grass. All the tired, hungry animals had their heads down tearing at it. “We could all hole up in the wagon, I guess, but-would they bite the mules and horses? ”
“They might,” Dag said. “More usually they’d just slither off. But with so many so thick around here, an accident becomes more likely.”
“Can’t you Lakewalkers, like, persuade them to stay away?” asked Fawn nervously. “If you can summon your horses, can’t you, um, unsummon snakes? ”
Ash raised his ax. “If we all worked together, I bet we could clear them out of here permanent.”
Arkady remarked, as if to the air, “The most common snakebite victims I’ve treated are young men. Beer is frequently involved. Mostly, the bites are on the arms, but one fellow managed to get bitten on his ear and one… well, I trust it happened in his bedroll. Because it would have taken a great deal of beer to account for it, otherwise.”
“Bedroll? ” said Fawn.
“Snakes are attracted to body heat,” Dag explained. “They like to cuddle up with you under your blankets. In snake country, patrollers learn to wake up very carefully.”
“Yeah,” muttered Barr. “Especially if there are other patrollers around.”
A white grin flickered over Dag’s mouth that didn’t reassure Fawn one bit. Their bedroll would be laid out on the grass tonight… “Dag…?” It wasn’t loud enough to be a wail, exactly, but it was quite pitiable nonetheless.
He gave up some inner vision, which she resolved not to ask about till they were miles from here, and motioned to Barr and Arkady.