From Across the Clouded Range (37 page)

She held up her hand. On the end of
her middle finger was a smear of blood from where the creature’s
tooth had punctured her skin, but the cut that had released the
blood was gone. Awestruck, Tethina stood and looked at her arms in
time to see the red of her burns fade to tan. She pulled the hem of
her skirt up over her knees, and they both watched as her tapestry
of scratches and bruises faded and disappeared.

“
By the Order!” Tethina
swore. Dasen could only nod his agreement.

“
We need to get out of
here,” Dasen whispered when he had overcome his shock. His eyes
scanned the trees, expecting attackers to come flooding out at any
moment. “They’re searching for us. It’s not safe here.”

“
It’s not safe anywhere,”
Tethina dowsed his growing panic. “If I were the bandits, I’d want
us moving. They can’t know where we are or even which side of the
river we’re on. Their horses are worthless in this wilderness, and
they can’t possibly have enough men to search it properly. If I
were them, I’d try to flush us out, get us moving and hope we come
to them. This thing is like a rock you throw into a bush to flush a
quail. If it kills the bird, great, but your real hope is that it
flies.”

She paused and watched the trees.
Dasen could barely comprehend what she was saying, but she put a
hand on his bare chest. “There can’t be more than one of this
thing. Neither of us has ever heard of it. We didn’t see any in the
village. It must be their scout. They sent it over here to flush us
out. If it were part of an organized party, they’d have taken us by
now. No, it was alone, and running now is exactly what they want us
to do.”

“
So are we just going to
stay here forever?” Dasen could not believe what he was hearing.
They needed to get out of here, to find someplace safe, someplace
with proper food, beds, and water, not to mention a horde of
well-armed men.

Tethina looked up at him from
painfully close. Her warm tan hand rested on the center of his bare
white chest, just below the sparkling pendant, between two pathetic
clumps of hair. She watched him for a moment, lips slightly pursed.
Dasen wanted desperately to kiss her again but could not find the
courage, could not expose himself to that rejection
again.

“
No,” Tethina eventually
broke the moment. She removed her hand and backed away. “But we
won’t travel in the middle of the day, and we won’t take any of the
easy trails. We’ll leave this evening and go as far as we can in
the twilight. We’ll camp under pines, no fires, no wandering about.
That means we should have a last good meal before we go. We should
also get some of the blood scrubbed off. If your friends have dogs,
they’ll smell this blood from miles away, so will any bears or
wolves out here with us. We should move that thing’s body too.” She
thought for a moment. “We’ll throw it in the stream, then if the
bandits are looking for it, they’ll find it far away from
us.”

Dasen could not think. That moment
with Tethina had clouded his mind, replaced his fear with a far
more confusing muddle of emotions. “Okay,” he finally conceded.
“But let’s stick together. I don’t think either of us should be out
here alone.”

Tethina smiled mischievously. “Nice
try. But there’s no way I’m letting you watch me bathe. I could
keep an eye on you if you want, but I think I’ve already seen
enough.” She looked at his bare chest suspiciously, making him feel
exposed and self-conscious.

He looked at himself,
ghost white with stick arms, flat chest, and flabby middle. He was
certainly no model of manhood.
How could
someone like Tethina ever be attracted to this?
he thought.
She deserves
better.
He suddenly felt the intense
desire to cover himself and fought to keep his arms from folding
across his chest. “I. . . I didn’t mean,” he tried.

Tethina just laughed and strode toward
the shelter. She disappeared inside a moment later. Dasen looked at
the blood-soaked rag that was his shirt, wondering if he could
possibly wear it again. He was just picking it up to see what he
could salvage when Tethina emerged. She was wearing hide pants, a
loosely laced men’s shirt with a heavy leather vest over it, a
wide-brimmed leather hat, and a new pair of doe-skin shoes. She
carried her short bow and had a quiver of arrows slung over her
shoulder. If he did not know better, Dasen would have thought that
a boy had emerged instead of his wife.

The sentiment must have been obvious
because she cut him off before he could comment. “Don’t say a word.
This is what I have. It is also much more practical for the forest,
and it’s what I normally wore around the village as well, so get
used to it.”

Dasen clamped his mouth shut and
swallowed his words. He had certainly known that she didn’t always
wear dresses, but actually seeing her in pants and a shirt made it
all real. Rynn had been correct. If she showed up in the city
looking like that, he would never live it down. She would be an
outcast and he’d be a laughing stock. He made a mental note to find
her a new dress before they got anywhere civilized.

Tethina threw a shirt at him. “Here,
this will probably be too small, but it’s the only other one I
have. Oh, and give me your pendant.” Dasen looked at her
incredulous then realized that she had removed her pendant as well.
Once couples were joined, they seldom if ever removed their
pendants. It was the symbol that marked them as joined in the
Order. Without them, no would know or believe that they were man
and wife. It was like she was asking to end their
joining.

“
Don’t make a big deal of
it.” Tell rolled her eyes. “It’s just a pendant, and you didn’t
even make it. I might as well be joined to some jeweler. Besides,
we may need to hide our identities, might not want the bandits or
someone else to know that you are worth a flaming fortune. You have
no idea what some people would do for that kind of money.” Teth
seemed only then to realize what she had said. She blanched
slightly and brought her hand to her mouth. “I guess we both know
what they’ll do,” she whispered. “But that just proves my point, so
let me have it. I’ll hide them in the shelter. We can come back for
them or have someone come and get them when this is all over, but
we can’t risk the wrong people finding them on us.” Faced with that
logic, Dasen reluctantly unclasped the gold chain and handed the
pendant to Teth. He was stinging from her comment about the jeweler
but had only himself to blame for that. She ran to the shelter. A
second later, he heard her moving the stone that protected her
secret storage area.

While she was away, Dasen unfolded the
rough homespun wool shirt and examined it. He hated wearing wool
next to his skin. It itched like crazy, and this was not even
quality wool. It was rough as tree bark. The weave was loose and
uneven, the fabric undyed. The collar was laced with a leather
thong in a truly barbaric style. He sighed, looked down at his
chest, felt the rising sun beating through the trees on his exposed
back, and pulled the shirt over his head. The shoulders were tight,
the arms ended well before his wrists, the body barely reached the
top of his pants, and it itched and scratched everywhere it touched
him. He sighed again, scratched at his neck, and looked toward
Tethina, who was returning from the shelter and walking to the body
of the creature.

“
Better than I thought,”
she said with a smile. “Now bring over your old shirt and that
blanket. Grab the water too.”

Dasen did as he was told but diverted
his eyes from the creature when he reached its body. Tethina seemed
no more comfortable around the thing, but she maintained her
command. “Lay out the blanket here. We’ll use it to carry this
thing to the stream.” Dasen spread the blanket in a clear area near
the body. Tethina moved to the thing’s head and motioned him toward
the feet. At her prompting, he grabbed the ankles, felt the oil
from its fur coating his hands. He studied the thick claws on its
four-toed feet. This thing was not human, had never been. But what
was it then? And who were these raiders that they could have
something like this with them?

“
Okay roll it onto the
blanket” interrupted Dasen’s contemplation. Together, he and
Tethina rolled the creature so it lay face-down on the blanket.
Tethina placed her dress, Dasen’s shirt, and the water bag on the
thing then grabbed the two blanket corners near its head. With
another sigh, Dasen lifted the corners at its feet. The creature
was heavy, but with much grunting and several stops, they managed
to haul it to the stream. Tethina tied the corners of the blanket
around its body then pushed it into the water. The current quickly
grabbed it and pulled it from sight. A moment later, she added
their blood-soaked clothes to the water.

Tethina shuddered. “Well that’s taken
care of.” She watched the forest around them then reached into the
pocket of her pants and pulled out a thick bar of soap. “You can go
first,” she said. “I’m going to find our dinner.” Dasen opened his
mouth to protest, but she cut him off, “Don’t worry, I’ll be close.
If anything happens, just yell. If you see people, try to hide.
Barring that, yell out their number and where they are coming from,
but don’t give away that I’m out here. Got it? Oh, and fill the
water skin too, okay?”

Dasen nodded. He watched the trees,
feeling horribly exposed.

Tethina turned to go but seemed to
remember something and turned back. “I almost forgot. From now on,
until we are in a village, I am a boy, your male cousin, got it?
That includes the forest masters, understood?”

Dasen examined her again. She had
obviously wrapped a cloth around her, already small, breasts. Her
hair was shorter than most boys and her build was exactly that of a
lanky fourteen-year-old. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he replied
before he could stop himself.

The comment earned him a shot in the
arm. But Tethina did not otherwise respond. She turned and bounded
into the trees. In a few heartbeats, Dasen could not see or hear
any sign of her.

With a deep breath, he pulled the cork
from the bag and bent to fill it. It was a much easier task now
that the stiffness had left him, knee no longer ached, head wasn’t
pounding. The thought brought him back to the creature. Could it be
some unknown thing from the swamps of Sylia? Or maybe the far
north? Maybe the bandits were Morgs. They were a secretive people –
outsiders were seldom allowed into the Fells. It was possible that
rouge bands shaved and rode horses, possible that creatures like
the one they’d encountered lived there unknown to those outside. It
was the most obvious answer. It didn’t feel right, but Dasen took
comfort from it anyway. Tethina was probably right, he decided. The
bandits couldn’t search for them en masse on this side of the
river. The real danger would come when the crossed.

Reassured, he admired his surroundings
and decided that this was without doubt one of the most beautiful
places he had ever seen: the crystal clear water, towering pines,
jagged snowcapped mountains. His every sense was infused by it, the
scent of wildflowers and pine, the sounds of rushing water, birds,
and squirrels, the sensation of the cold water rushing over his
hands. The air even tasted better here. The tranquility of it
effused him, and his fears seemed to ebb away until he had almost
forgotten the shadows that had been stalking his imagination a
moment before.

He secured the cork in the bag and
placed it on the bank of the stream, found the bar of soap, and
pulled off his shirt. After one more inspection of the trees to be
certain that Tethina, or something else, was not watching, he shed
his pants and took a tentative step into the water.

It was refreshing on the hot day, but
the water felt like it had come off of a glacier, and he was soon
shivering from the cold. He waded in nearly to the middle, until
the water reached mid-thigh, then dunked himself a few times. He
came up shivering and made use of the soap. By the time he had
scrubbed away the blood and grime, he was trembling, his teeth
chattering. He was just taking a last dunk to get the soap from his
hair when a rustle from the trees froze him in place. Kneeling so
that the water reached his chest, he watched the spot carefully,
and to his horror, Tethina emerged.

“
Look what I got.” She
held up a pair of grouse with arrows still protruding from their
chests. “I hit them on the fly. Pretty good shots too.”

Dasen dropped his hands to cover
himself and stammered. Tethina spoke over his outrage. “Don’t
worry. I can’t see anything below the water, and I’ve already seen
what’s above it.” She raised her eyebrow appraisingly, nonetheless,
and stood on her toes. Dasen spun awkwardly around, nearly toppling
as he fought the current from his knees without the use of his
hands.

“
I expect you are just
about done?” Tethina seemed to enjoy his embarrassment. “Can I have
the soap? I’m going upstream to a still pool. When you’re done,
take these birds and my bow back and make a fire. And don’t get any
ideas about watching me.” Her voice turned hard. “I can hear you
coming from a mile away, and I’ll cut your eyes out if you are any
closer than that.”

“
How am I supposed to
bring you the soap while you’re standing there?” Dasen asked when
it became apparent that Tethina did not have any intention to
leave.