Of all the beasts of lore, the reavers remain among the most mysterious, for the few who observe their habits seldom manage to survive the encounter.
Averan felt as if she carried the world on her shoulders. Yesterday as she’d run for Carris fleeing the reavers, she’d imagined that life could never get harder or more desperate than she’d felt at that moment.
Now, she knew that she was wrong.
Gaborn needed another victory from her. He wanted answers to questions, but she had none.
Almost immediately after feeding on this reaver, she began to feel ill. At first, she thought the sickness was a product of her own worries, despair at her own failings.
She knew within moments of eating the gray matter of this reaver that it was not a Waymaker.
The reaver was called a Keeper and he was intimate with all facets of animal husbandry and butchery. He knew how to gut a carcass, prepare it for his masters.
Visions of the Underworld she’d never seen unfolded to her view: she saw caverns where weird plants grew. Some were tough as gristle and did their best to look like rocks. Others were spiny like sea urchins that thrived in open air, or hung from the cave top like ropes.
The reavers carefully tended the plants in special chambers. But the reavers did not eat their own crops.
Instead, giant segmented worms grazed among the fields, along with strange animals that Averan would have taken hours to describe—spidery animals as a large as cottages, and horned beetles the size of bulls.
So the reavers raised their herds.
Keeper was filled with a jumble of intimate details about the life cycles of each animal. He knew how to prod a cottage-sized spider with an iron pole so that she would leave her cache of freshly laid eggs. He knew how to use a knight gig by feel, so that he hooked blindfish by the belly. He knew which parasites fed on giant worms, and which scents to use to rid the worms of such parasites.
Useless information flooded Averan’s young mind in a torrent, a jumble of images and thoughts and scents that left her dazed. She could glean almost nothing from it.
Yet the images were more coherent than before. Averan had eaten more of this creature than she had of the others. Maybe that was part of it. Or perhaps the difference was that she understood the context of this reaver’s thoughts better than she had the others’.
She was learning the reavers’ language, seeing as a reaver saw. The memories seemed not so much a tangle as they did intermittent journeys through the eyes of another.
Yet Averan felt a pang of despair as the visions began. After spending a long morning looking for the Waymaker, Averan had succeeded in eating a farmer.
So she began to think that her despair was the cause of her pains when they first began.
Gaborn had her ride his horse, his gauntleted hand wrapped protectively around her belly. Her stomach was full, cramping, as it seemed to do every time that she ate a reaver.
Gaborn’s men closed in on Mangan’s Rock, and he ordered various sentries and lords to form a picket all around the rock, to keep the reavers from escaping. But he kept his main force to the west, so that the prevailing wind would continue to blow their scent toward the horde.
He ordered his carters to go to Ballyton and return with supplies for a siege, and then he rode with Averan to a small brook a mile west of the rock.
The brook wound slowly through the grasslands. Cattails and willow grew thick on its banks, and a herd of deer bounded from the brush as the lords approached.
Gaborn took her to an oak tree. Averan brushed away the acorns on the ground and sat in the shade.
Iome sat beside her, wiped some sweat from Averan’s face, and whispered, “You don’t look well.”
“I don’t feel good,” Averan admitted.
“Just sit here, little one,” Iome offered, taking her hand. “I’ll take care of you.”
Averan looked up into Iome’s face. The queen was watching her intently, full of concern.
She doesn’t know me, Averan thought. She couldn’t care about me. But Iome’s expression informed her otherwise. Some people cared more than others did. Some people were born to love others until it hurt.
The wizard Binnesman cleared the ground nearby, dragging away tree limbs. One of Gaborn’s captains, a grizzled old man with a scarred face, gave the green woman a staff. He taught her how to grip it, then began teaching her some basic combat stances and maneuvers—jabs, thrusts, and sweeps. Baron Waggit stood by, soon got a staff, and began trying to learn along with the green woman.
Averan watched them to keep her mind off her own problems. But suddenly her heart began to race in terror. Something was going terribly wrong.
“Help me,” Averan begged Iome.
Iome stared hard at Averan. Gaborn’s queen was a small woman, half Indhopalese. It was impossible to look at her and not to notice the penetrating eyes so brown that they were almost black, reflecting the light. In size and build, she was much like Saffira.
“Jureem,” Iome begged. “Get the child some water. She looks ill.”
“At once.” Jureem went to the stream to fill a skin.
“What’s wrong?” Iome asked.
Averan could hardly explain. At that moment, she was being assailed by a dozen memories at once—lessons in how to transplant a rock plant, how to catch a horn beetle, the chill of racing up the mountains through an icy river, and images of lightning flashing over the battle of Carris. Terror coursed through her in gut-wrenching waves.
“I don’t know...I feel like I’m drowning,” Averan said.
“Drowning?” Iome asked.
Averan couldn’t explain. Strange fears and cravings coursed through her. She struggled. “Maybe it’s the memories. It’s all these memories...”
Iome put her hand over Averan’s forehead. Sweat rolled off like drops of dew. Jureem returned with the waterskin. Iome placed it to Averan’s lips, gave her a cool drink.
Averan’s mouth and throat were so dry. She hadn’t felt this way before when she’d eaten reavers. Now she drank her fill until her stomach hurt, but the water didn’t quench her.
She started to cry.
“It’s all right,” Iome said. “You’ve taken in the memories of three reavers in three days. That must be a lot for a little girl who hasn’t even lived her own life yet.”
But Averan shook her head. That wasn’t it. Sweat poured off her more fiercely. Her heart was racing, and she took deep breaths. The cramping in the stomach had never hit Averan so hard. She’d never had sweat wring from her before.
She wondered if this reaver had poison in its blood.
“Everyone I know is dying,” Averan said. She didn’t dare say that she was afraid that she might die.
“Help me,” Averan begged.
To Averan’s surprise, Iome scooted down, wrapped one arm under her neck, the other over Averan’s chest. “I’ll help you,” Iome whispered. “Whenever you need me, whatever you ask, I’ll help you if I can.”
That assurance comforted Averan. She discovered that she craved a human touch.
A burst of memories welled up. Averan cried out.
“Binnesman,” Iome begged. “Can you spare a moment?”
The wizard came to minister to Averan. He had her open her mouth, checked her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong that I can see,” Binnesman declared in a mystified tone.
“She’s sweating with a fever, and she’s shivering in terror,” Iome said.
Binnesman argued, “Feel her head. She has no fever.”
Iome gave him a look that said she thought he must be daft. She checked Averan’s sweaty brow, shook her head in consternation.
Binnesman peered at Averan worriedly. He took some herbs from his pocket and treated her symptoms. He warned Iome, “Let me know if she worsens.”
So Averan lay in a torpid state, plagued by strange sensations. Pain cramped her feet and joints; dryness chafed her lungs; the consuming thirst ravaged her. She did her best to ignore the pain. She watched the green woman.