Shouting broke out from beyond the rock, the skid of boots on stones, a thud, a curse. At least three men, perhaps more. I knew what I was supposed to do: keep out of the way, leave the fighting to Tali. She’d drummed it into me often enough. If I could hide or flee, that was what I should do. My knife was only for self-defense. I might have better combat skills than I’d possessed last autumn, but I was a beginner by her standards, and my help would likely prove more of a hindrance.
Metal clashed; a man let out a chilling scream of pain. Then came Tali’s voice, cursing. There was a note in it that told me she was hurt. Cold sweat broke out on my skin. The knife shook in my hand. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bolt into the woods, saving myself and leaving her behind. She might be Shadowfell’s best fighter, but the numbers were against her. What if I created a diversion, gave her an opportunity …
Over the years I had learned to walk as a hunting creature walks, my feet making little sound. I moved with care now, avoiding the pebbles beside the water, going instead on the rough grass higher up, edging around the big rock. Tali yelled again, a fearsome challenge. I inched forward, right hand gripping the knife, left hand brushing the rock.
She was surrounded. Her staff lay on the stones, beyond her reach. With a knife in each hand she was keeping them at bay, ducking, turning, constantly in motion, never quite where they expected. There were four of them, and three had hunting knives. One man was bleeding from a cut to the cheek; another seemed to have hurt his leg, but still they circled Tali, taunting her.
“Slice my friend with your blade, would you? Just let me get close enough, girlie, and I’ll show you what a knife’s for!”
“What’s that on your skin, canny magic? Shall we cut you open and see if you bleed like a real woman?”
“Go on, fight me! Let’s see what you’re made of, witch!”
I hesitated, not sure if Tali had seen me. I was at least six strides from them. My heart drummed. If I ran straight forward shrieking, could I win Tali enough time to seize the advantage? I might at least get a chance to do some damage before they grabbed me. I sucked in a breath and stepped out from cover, and someone seized me from behind, knocking the knife from my grasp.
“What have we here?”
All eyes turned in my direction. For a moment Tali’s attackers froze, staring at me and my captor, and in that moment she struck once, twice, and two men went down. Then, with a roar of outrage, the biggest of the men delivered a blow to her head, sending her staggering toward the other one still on his feet.
“Leave off,” my captor growled. “That one might be a stinger, but this one’s a soft kitten. We could all sleep sweet tonight, fellows. I say tie them up and bring them with us. Why not enjoy them before we finish them?”
Tali kicked out, aiming for a man’s privates, but the strike to the head had left her unsteady and the two of them grabbed her, one bending her arms up hard behind her back. She went white, teeth sunk in her lip.
My captor marched me forward. He was strong; there would be no point in struggling. Knife in hand, he addressed me. “Stand still, kitten, or your friend gets gutted like a codfish. You!” This was to Tali. “Try anything and I cut the little one, nice and slow.” He released his hold on me and squatted down to examine the two injured men. One was groaning as he regained consciousness. The other lay sprawled unmoving on the stones.
“He’s dead,” said one of Tali’s captors, a young fellow who looked almost as pale as she. His tone was flat, unbelieving. “Coran’s dead.”
The man who had held me rose slowly to his feet. Between the others, Tali was trying to stand tall, but she looked close to fainting. Blood was running down her neck from the head wound, staining her shirt crimson.
“You killed him,” the man said. “You killed my friend.”
The look in his eyes told me I had only a few moments to act. No choice, then. I met Tali’s gaze, trying to warn her. The river. The water, flowing deep and strong through the valley. Alban’s lifeblood, from the smallest stream to the shining loch to the great ocean. I opened myself to the power of it, and silently I called, Help us! Quickly, help!
The river roiled and rose up. It was over our feet, our ankles, our knees in an instant. It washed over the fallen men, carrying them swiftly away. The three shouted in alarm, and one of Tali’s captors released his hold. Quick as a flash she wrenched free of the second, no longer near fainting but apparently her old self again.
The water rose to my waist. A figure rose with it, taller than a tall man, a being all ripples and eddies and swirls, its features discernible as darker patches in the watery substance of its face. Flotsam adhered to its head, forming what might be hair or a hat, and within its body twigs and leaves washed about as if carried on the natural flow of the river. In its liquid face a mouth opened, a great dark cavity, and one of the men let out a terrified oath. Another shouted in a foolish display of defiance. The man who had been holding me waded as fast as he could toward dry land. In an eyeblink the creature reached out a great watery hand and gripped him around the waist. It tossed him up—a shower of droplets arched through the air, catching the light—and out into the river. He vanished beneath the surface.
“Don’t hurt us! I can’t swim!” shrieked the younger man, while the other gave a wordless wail of horror. The creature wrapped a hand around each, lifting them so their feet were clear of the water. Tali and I retreated to the shallows, drenched and shivering.
The river being spoke, its voice a thundering torrent of sound in which I sensed rather than heard words. “Wash, dip, splash, drown?”
Tali glanced at the eldritch creature, then quickly away. “Tell it not yet,” she said. “Not till they’ve answered some questions.”
“Wait, please,” I said, my teeth chattering. Somewhere under the cold and the shock was the dawning knowledge that once again I had used my gift to deliver not only rescue, but also death. That man, the one not killed by Tali, would not survive being swept downstream unconscious.
“You!” snapped Tali, addressing the two men. “What are you doing here? Why did you attack us?”
The river being gave the men a shake, as if this might jog their memory.
“Speak up!” Tali said. “Or do you prefer to join your companions in the river? Who sent you?”
“W-we were h-hunting,” one fellow stammered, whey-faced. “D-deer. Boar. R-rabbits. No harm in that.”
“Who sent you?” Tali was formidable at the best of times; when angry, she was truly fearsome.
“Don’t let it hurt me!” spluttered the other man, his feet hanging just above the water’s surface. In his terror he had lost control of his bowels. “Hunting, that’s all!”
“What sort of hunters are you,” I said, “that you feel entitled to attack women by the wayside whenever it pleases you? Which household did you come from? Tell us the truth, or my friend there holds you underwater, and how long he keeps you there is anyone’s guess.” I felt within me the being’s fluid presence, its links to the rivers and lochs and tarns of the highlands, its long story stretching back and back in time, perhaps to the days of other Callers. I did my best to meet the murky patches that were its eyes.
“Dunk, wring, soak, drench?”
“Let them answer first,” I said. And to the two men, “Where did you come from?”
“Last chance,” put in Tali. “Speak or drown.”
“W-W—”
“Wedderburn,” the second man gasped. “Keenan of Wedderburn is our lord. Not sent to kill—only—”
“Only what?” Tali snarled. The river being’s hands dipped lower. The men went in up to their necks.
“Look out for—for folk out of place. Folk wandering. No more than that.”
“Look out for them and kill them.” Tali’s voice was flat. “Or no, take your pleasure with them first, then kill them, wasn’t that the plan? Is that what your lord told you to do?” There was a look on her face that truly frightened me.
??
?G-g-g—”
“Enough,” Tali said, and turned her back.
The river being held still, keeping the two suspended. So far as I could tell, it was looking at me. “Plunge, toss, drown, change?” it inquired.
The men turned agonized faces toward me. Neither spoke.
“We can’t let them go free,” I said, my heart thumping. “Not now.” The moment we released them, they’d be straight back to Keenan with their story, and if he didn’t believe the part about watery monsters, he’d surely be interested in two young women on the road, well armed and combative. He’d be interested in any sign of canny gifts, and if these men could put two and two together, they’d have realized the significance of the way this creature spoke to me. But I would not order the being to drown them. I grasped at the meaning of its last word. “Change?”
A smile appeared on its fluid features. It lifted the two and threw them high into the air. As they tumbled, screaming, back down toward the river, the thrashing of limbs and the billow of clothing became the shimmer of scales and the whip of narrow bodies, and two gleaming fish dived into the moving flow of the water. They would live to see another day. But not as men.
“Black Crow save us!” muttered Tali. Her face had turned greenish white, as if she might be sick.
The water retreated, sinking to knee level and lower. The being began slowly to slip back into the body of the river.
“Thank you!” I managed. “You saved us. We are in your debt.”
“Go,” murmured the river being. “Learn. Lead.” Then, with a sound like a sigh, it rippled and vanished into the flow.
We stood in silence a few moments, then Tali said, “We can’t linger here, someone may come looking for those so-called hunters. And we still have to cross the river.”
“I doubt if that will pose any problem now,” I said, with a glance toward the water. “Let me look at your head, at least. You took quite a blow. And I have something else to do, something important.”
We retrieved our bags. Tali’s staff and knives were gone, as was my own knife. I cleaned and bandaged Tali’s wound, saying little. My mind was full of what I had done; full of the death I had delivered. I had called out that being to perform acts of violence. Cause or no cause, it felt wrong.
While Tali packed up, I set out an offering of waybread on a flat stone and spoke words of respect and greeting to the unseen inhabitants of this place. I added a prayer for the men who had died or been forever changed here. They had performed their own act of violence. But, like the Enforcers who had fallen in last autumn’s battle, they had been sons, fathers, brothers, husbands. Someone would mourn their loss; someone had loved them.
I was bone-weary; the use of my gift seemed to weaken me. But there was no time to rest. We made our way upstream and found the ford, a broad, shallow crossing over small stones, the water babbling cheerfully along, only a finger-length deep. Washed up on the bank was a long, cloth-wrapped bundle.
We approached with caution. The thing was too small for a body.
“That’s a cloak,” Tali said. “One of those fellows was wearing it.”
She was right. The sodden cloak still bore a clasp shaped like a battle-ax, perhaps their chieftain’s household emblem. Tali unrolled the garment to reveal our missing weaponry, wet but otherwise unharmed. “By all that’s holy,” Tali muttered. “You have some powerful friends.”
A bout of shivering ran through me.
“You’re tired,” she said, turning a shrewd gaze on me. “I’m sorry, we must keep moving. I don’t want to be on Keenan’s land a moment longer than necessary. Let’s hope the standing stones your friend mentioned are in sight from the top of the hill there. Once we find a safe bolt-hole, we’ll camp for the night, make a fire, change our clothes, and get these wretched things dry. As for what happened just now, I don’t even want to think about it. Not yet anyway.”
I made no argument, though it would have been more comfortable to walk in dry clothing. This was no place to strip off and change. Where one party of hunters had traveled, others might follow.
Tali led off at her usual brisk pace. We splashed across the ford and headed up the hill, where the same subtle signs as before marked the fey path.
“Tell me one thing,” I said.
“What?”
“Were you faking weakness back there, hoping to catch those men off guard? You looked on the point of collapse. You have a lump on your head as big as a man’s fist. It was streaming blood. I’d have expected you to slow down just a bit.”
For a little she did not answer. Then she said, “The pain was real enough. I’ve taught myself to keep going unless an opponent actually knocks me out cold. That has happened once or twice, but only in practice.”
“Really? Who did it?” I could not imagine any of the Shadowfell warriors achieving such a feat.
“Regan,” she said. “My brother. Once each. A while back; they couldn’t do it now. Andra came close once. It wasn’t all pretense, Neryn. Those men caught me off guard, and I wasn’t quick enough in my defense. I saw the look you gave me, warning me that you were going to try something, and I did exaggerate a little in the hope that I’d get a chance to break free. That thing in the river … Whatever I expected, it surely wasn’t that. You called it, didn’t you?”
“It was the only thing I could do to save us.” We scrambled up a tricky section of path, and for a while all my breath was needed for the climb. When we reached a patch of level ground, I added, “When I told Regan I didn’t want to use my gift yet, it was the truth. I’m not used to killing. I probably never will get used to it, even though I know we’re fighting a war and it has to happen. And there’s another thing. Every time I use my gift, every time I harness the support of the Good Folk, there’s a risk that someone will see and take the story back to the Enforcers and to the king. I might draw them straight to us.”
“I did tell you to stay out of it if we got into a fight.”
I held back the obvious comment.
“But if you had,” Tali said it for me, “we’d both be dead. So I owe you.”
“The way I see it, we’re on the road together and we help each other.”
“Mm,” she grunted, and continued to climb, long legs steady and sure on the track. I hitched up my wet skirt and followed.
That night we roasted a skinny rabbit in the coals and ate better than we had for a while. We sat in a silence that, if not quite amicable, felt less strained than before. Our damp garments dripped and steamed on the bushes around the fire.
“You think we’re over Keenan’s border now we’ve passed the standing stones?” I asked her, more to fill the silence than anything else.
Tali spat a small bone into the fire. “As far as I can tell. Tomorrow we’ll be heading south, toward the lochs. More folk around; more need for caution. But you must know that already—you must have come over from Darkwater by the same track, or one very close.”
“Mm.”
She turned her perceptive gaze on me. In the firelight, her eyes were touched with points of gold light. “Still weighed down by conscience? Even though what you did saved both our lives? Neryn, the rebellion depends on your gift. Without you, there’s no chance we can do it in the time we have. You need to put these scruples behind you; if you can’t, they’ll become a burden too heavy for you to carry.”
“It would be bad enough if I were the one sticking the knife in or drowning people. It’s even worse if I make one of the Good Folk do it for me. I know you’re a fighter and accustomed to killing. But wouldn’t you feel bad if you made an innocent person kill someone else?”
“Neryn, that thing at the river, that water creature—it certainly didn’t strike me as in any way reluctant to help you. Nor did your alarming friend Hollow. And didn’t you hear what the river creature said at the end?”
“Go. Learn. Lead.”
“Exactly. It knew who you were. It knew what your mission was. It wished you good luck with it. There was a momen
t earlier on when I wondered if we’d end up drowned too, purely by accident. Still, we could have swum to the bank and climbed out.”
I did not reply.
“Don’t tell me you can’t swim.”
“Not much.” After a moment I said, “Not at all, really. I’ll try not to fall out of the boat when we cross over to the isles.”
“Wonderful.” She wiped her greasy fingers on her skirt. “I’ll have to hope the sea beasties of the west are as favorably disposed toward you as the river creatures seem to be.”
Soon afterward we rolled into our blankets and lay down beside the dying fire. We were camped in woods, under the shelter of a stone outcrop. It was a still, clear night, winter-cold. Above us stars pricked out a brilliant pattern on the dark sky. The moon waxed pearly white.
I was still pondering the extraordinary events of the day. “What was it made you want to stay clear of Wedderburn?” I asked. “When Hollow asked about it, you said something about old history.”
“It’s complicated.” Tali’s face was somber in the firelight. “There are several reasons for steering clear, even though Wedderburn is strategically placed. Regan made the right choice when he went south instead.”
“What reasons?”
“Nothing that need concern you.” She rolled over, her back to me. “Go to sleep. Long walk tomorrow.”
We moved on. Closer to the lochs, the hillsides were more densely forested. With every passing day, oak, beech, and ash put on fresh leaves, welcoming the new season. Here the snow was only a memory. Flowers lifted bright heads above a rich carpet of last autumn’s fallen leaves. Birds chirped, busying themselves with nest building.
Spring rain fell often, swelling the streams and slowing our progress, though we pressed on in all weathers. The waybread was finished. But with the season advancing, mushrooms, wild greens, and roots could be found in the woods. We caught fish in the lochans and set snares for rabbits.
There came a morning when we climbed to a vantage point and saw the shining expanse of a broad loch to the southeast, nestled among forested hills. Hollow’s wee path had allowed us to bypass Deepwater altogether.