You are a summoner! The voices returned. Give us our justice. You may enter our forest, but the others are not welcome.
My friends and I are prisoners, Tris repeated, hoping that the gambit beginning to form in his mind would work. We were taken by slavers. We have no choice but to enter your forest.
Slavers... slavers... slavers. The word repeated through the voices, and Tris felt gathering anger. Give us the slavers!
Free us from the slavers, promise me safe passage for the captives, Tris commanded, and when we reach the forest, I will give you rest.
Rest... The voices stretched out the word in a long, sibilant howl. We cannot rest.
Give me your promise that the captives won't be harmed. Free us and I will help you pass over, Tris bargained.
Rest... the voices hissed. We will accept your bargain, kin of Bava K'aa. But our power dwells in the forest. Come to the edge of the forest, and we will set you free.
Give me your promise, Tris repeated, your oath that the captives won't be harmed.
We want only the slavers, the voices howled. Free us, and you may pass through our forest in safety. But if you cannot pass us over to the Lady, you and your friends will join us forever.
It was a fool's bargain, Tris thought, but less certain a fate than what awaited them at the hands of the slavers come nightfall. Accepted, Tris pledged.
At the edge of the forest... when darkness falls, whispered the spirits as they drew back. Their sudden departure left him out of balance, like a man braced against a strong wind that suddenly failed. His shields, reinforced against a power no longer present, flared in his magesight as he tried to dispel them.
"You there, put your back into it," shouted a slaver, bringing a whip down hard across Tris's back. Already off balance, the blow drove him to his knees, and he struggled not to cry out in pain.
Carroway helped him to his feet with a worried glance, and Tris shouldered his portion of the effort with the bulky wagon once more.
"Are you all right?" Carroway whispered, an eye on the glowering slaver and his whip.
"Not really," Tris replied through gritted teeth. The lash burned, and he could feel blood mingling with sweat running down his back. "But I think I've got a plan."
"We need one."
"Let the others know. Come nightfall, I'm going to call the spirits."
"That's the plan?" Carroway hissed. "We get killed by the spirits instead of the slavers?"
"We have an... arrangement. I think," Tris replied under his breath. "Whatever you see, whatever happens, just get to shelter. Leave me to handle the ghosts."
"Gladly," Carroway murmured. "But that's not exactly the kind of plan I was hoping for."
"It's the best we're going to get," Tris said, fervently hoping that his reading of the spirits' intent was correct.
"Much more of this, and it won't matter that Carina healed Jonmarc," Carroway whispered. Tris followed his gaze. Vahanian was obviously not fully recovered from his injuries. Twice, the smuggler stumbled and fell. Only the slavers' fear that Vahanian might be vayash moru spared him a beating. That fear was waning, Tris thought, as the slavers' anxiety grew about entering the forest.
Tris groaned as he shouldered their wagon through a particularly sticky patch of mud. Beside him, Carroway cursed creatively in the many dialects of the Margolan court. At the opposite corner, Vahanian and Carina strained against the mire. Vahanian was pale with the effort, and Tris noted that despite their frequent sparring, Carina extended her fierce protectiveness over her patients to include the injured smuggler. She slipped beneath Vahanian's shoulder, steadying him with her own thin, strong frame.
"In another minute, Tarren's going to send one of his bully boys over here to find out why we're not moving," Carroway hissed, warily keeping an eye on the slavers, who were cursing another group of captives whose wagon, mired to its axles, refused to move. The slaver, twice the bulk of any of the straining captives, lashed the nearest man viciously with a riding crop, but did nothing to add his own strength to the effort.
"I know," Tris murmured. "Let's try rocking it this time."
Alyzza, still feared by the slavers, sat hooded and bound on the wagon. She had remained motionless throughout the trip thus far, but now, the old witch slowly scooted herself down the bed of the wagon to be closer to where Tris and the others struggled with the mired vehicle. Following their voices, she stopped just an arm's length from Tris and Carroway, and began to hum softly, swaying with the melody.
"Look!" Carroway breathed. As Alyzza sang, the wagon began to rise, just enough to get it over the ridge. Carina and Vahanian exchanged glances with Tris and Carroway, then lunged against the wagon to seize the opportunity. With a lurch, the stuck wagon came free, nearly rolling out from under them as they scrambled to catch up. Alyzza stopped humming.
"Thank you," Tris whispered as they pushed the wagon past the glare of the slaver with the whip. Alyzza inclined her head, just barely, in acknowledgment.
Twice more before nightfall, Tris and his friends were obliged to depend on Alyzza's help to move the obstinate wagon through the rutted road. By sundown, the worst of the bog was behind them, and Tris felt a chill fill him that had nothing to do with the evening's cold. The end of the marshy ground meant the end of the captives' usefulness, he thought, as the slavers lit the supper fires and staked the captives at the edge of the camp. If Berry's warning was correct, it would be killing time very soon.
The slavers camped at the entrance to the forest, where the trees met a large, vertical cliffside pockmarked with shallow caves and shifting rock. As the camp bustled with its preparations for supper, Tris shut his eyes and tried to concentrate.
When darkness falls, kin of Bava K'aa. When darkness falls.
Tris watched the supper preparations with a leaden feeling in his stomach. The slavers' hushed conversations and furtive glances only confirmed Berry's warning. Tris glanced at Vahanian, who struggled with the small blade Berry had given him, working to weaken the ropes that bound his wrists.
Tris knew the day had gone hard on all of them, with a forced march and exhausting physical work. It looked to have been hardest on Vahanian. Before the march, Vahanian might have held his own in a brief battle. Now, Tris doubted Vahanian could do more than skirmish.
Carina appeared lost in thought. Annoying as the constant sparring between the healer and Vahanian had been during the caravan's trek, now that the healer did not respond, Vahanian seemed to miss the challenge. The double blow of her brother's disappearance and their own reversal of fortune seemed more than Carina could bear.
Carroway was the most visibly nervous. If Berry's warning was correct, then of the five of them, Carroway, Carina and Alyzza would die. As Tris watched, he realized that Carroway, too, was preparing to fight. Hidden in the folds of his tunic was one small dagger that the slavers had missed. Carroway jostled the blade into his numb fingers. He caught Tris's glance and shot a daring grin. If there was to be a battle, the minstrel was going to give the slavers a good fight.
At dusk, as the supper fires burned down, Tarren and his lieutenant walked toward the prisoners. The lieutenant shook his head. "Are you sure we can't find buyers for the rest?" he asked, struggling to reconcile orders with his own business sense. "They aren't the best lot we've taken, but there are mines in the East that would take the bunch of them, no questions asked, so long as they're breathing."