Almost immediately, he was gone. It wasn’t cold and he wasn’t wet. The snow was falling again, warm weather snow, tickling his face and catching in his hair. His shoulders ached, but he was happy to be free from the frigid waters. He tried and failed to free one of his hands to brush the snow from his face.
He was back in the cottonwood tree, but this time he didn’t look down. Instead, he forced himself to keep his gaze focused on the perfect azure sky, Gods of the forest, but it was a beautiful sky. Churn wouldn’t pull his gaze away from the cloudless expanse of Pragan blue perfection, despite the heavy aroma of smoke and ash. He was back, but it wasn’t real. It was a dream. The smells made him want to look down, but he wouldn’t; he would look up at that sky for the rest of his life if necessary.
Then he heard them: there were at least two, above him someplace, hiding in the Pragan sky, but they called him and he didn’t answer – he couldn’t answer. There was no shouting left in him, certainly not from the top of this rutting tree where he had shouted and cried for so long. Instead, he shook his head, a gesture he had perfected in those few moments after climbing from the river, and he would use it again now. It helped him ward off the cold. It was cold now, even there in the cottonwood tree. Perhaps it was winter snow. Churn knew, without looking down from the branches, that Hannah Sorenson was not down there on the ground outside his family farmhouse; she was somewhere else – he tried to remember where she had fallen, but the vast Pragan sky called him back and he forgot the woman for a moment, just long enough to smell the ashes burning below…
Churn dropped the leather pouch. Demonpiss! It’s more of that cursed bark, he screamed in his mind. He dipped his hands in the river and wiped them repeatedly across his leggings, hoping to wipe any vestiges away. Adrenalin surged through his body, warming him for what he needed to do. He picked up the pouch and secured it with the leather thongs, then tied it safely onto his belt. Then he stood for the first time since crawling from the river and looked up the embankment. The curve of the hillside blocked his view, but he could hear Hoyt and Alen right above him, shouting his name
Cry out to them, he thought, yell up to them now. Churn threw his head back, rounded his shoulders and drew a deep breath – but nothing emerged, not a squeak. He couldn’t make himself shout, and as he couldn’t see them, he guessed that they couldn’t see him or Hannah either – and still he couldn’t make himself shout up to his companions. Why would you not call out to them? What is the matter with you? he asked himself, shuffling from foot to foot. Do it now – they need to know where you are! Call up to them, you great stupid rutter!
A length of rope, tied in clumsy knots to three sets of leather reins, landed in the river some distance off to his right and swirled there for a moment before it began moving downriver towards him: Hoyt and Alen had thrown down a lifeline and were dragging it the length of the gorge, hoping he or Hannah would grab hold and offer them a reassuring tug.
Hoyt.
Gods keep Hoyt for a thousand Twinmoons. His old friend had come up with this strategy; Churn swore he would crush the little thief in a bear-hug if he made it back to the top. He watched as the rope came ever closer, then bent to lift Hannah gently over his shoulder. As soon as he moved her, she awakened briefly, screamed what he guessed was a string of obscenities in her own language, and then passed out again. When the line reached the flat stone, he grabbed it, wrapped it several times around his free wrist, tugged twice to let Hoyt and Alen know he was ready and then worked his way up the slope, digging in with the toes of his boots and allowing the two men to haul him and Hannah back to the upper edge of the gorge.
Churn was careful not to look down until well after they had reached the safety of the forested hilltop.
THE BORDER CROSSING
‘We would have known, right?’ Steven asked.
‘I suppose so,’ Gilmour answered, ‘although I can’t be certain anymore – I’ve lost track of myself recently…’
‘I think you’re underestimating yourself, Gilmour. Maybe you’re tired – we’ve been going at breakneck speed since Mark and I arrived, and that’s just been the past Twinmoon or so. You’ve been pushing yourself for much longer: you’ve been running on fumes since Orindale.’ Steven held back a branch to let the old man past. The forest they were walking through was thick with young growth, periodically interspersed with the charred remains of an older tree, still standing, but truncated by fire and crusted in black ash. Steven released the pliable branch with a snap. ‘Anyway, I’m sure we would have felt it.’
‘I agree,’ Gilmour nodded, ‘if he had levelled the city, we would have known. I felt the Port Denis spell from all the way across Eldarn, so even in my current state I think I would have sensed it if Nerak reduced Traver’s Notch to rubble three days’ ride from here.’ He tried to sound encouraged, but he wasn’t happy at the idea of resting at Sandcliff; the site of the massacre that had killed nearly all of his closest friends was not the most relaxing prospect. ‘You may be right, Steven,’ he continued. ‘I’m not young any more – I haven’t been young in nearly two thousand Twinmoons.’ He laughed. ‘But on fumes? That I don’t understand.’
‘Fumes, yes,’ Steven said, ‘gas fumes – it’s a car reference, Gilmour. Automobiles: you’re going to love them.’
‘Automobiles.’ He considered the word. ‘Very well; we shall see in due course.’
Comforted by the idea that Traver’s Notch still stood, Steven changed the subject and asked, ‘Where are we, anyway?’
‘You see that hill over there?’ Gilmour pointed across a shallow valley to the north. ‘That’s Gorsk. Sandcliff is probably four or five days’ ride north of there, longer if Nerak has the hills patrolled and we have to work our way up the coast.’
‘What’s keeping us from just riding through the valley and heading north right here?’ Steven indicated the gentle downward slope from their current position on top of a long ridge running west to east along the border. He was anxious to cross over into Gorsk; he needed to feel as though the final leg of their journey had begun. Lessek’s key had been feeling especially heavy in his pocket.
Gilmour stared for a moment across the valley, then said, ‘I’m no expert on foreign affairs, but I suspect they might have some questions for us.’ He pointed down into the draw where smoke swirled among the treetops that encircled a clearing. There were several rows of large canvas tents.
‘Holy shit,’ Steven exclaimed, ‘where did they come from?’
‘They are encamped all along this ridge,’ the Larion sorcerer said. ‘Take a look back there.’ He pointed west, the way they had come.
Squinting, Steven could see more tendrils of smoke snaking their way skywards from within the trees. ‘Jeez, they’re everywhere,’ he said, then, as if noticing their position for the first time, ‘Shouldn’t we take cover?’
‘Why?’
‘For one, the only cover we have right now is a few charred stumps. And two, well… there is no two, but one seems a healthy enough reason to duck down for me, wouldn’t you agree?
‘I wouldn’t worry, Steven,’ the old man said calmly.
Steven looked incredulous. ‘And why not?’
‘Your mother’s blanket, remember?’
Steven stopped and rubbed his horse’s nose. ‘It works on them too?’
‘From what I can gather, your spell was very thorough.’ Gilmour didn’t elaborate.
Steven looked around, suddenly uncomfortable, and gripped a fistful of mane. ‘All right then. If they don’t know we’re here, let’s go, before they find us some other way. What are we waiting for?’
‘Did I mention that I’m a little uncertain of my own skills right now?’
Steven nodded. ‘And?’