New Lands (THE CHRONICLES OF EGG) (15 page)

KIRA WAS UP
and moving first, sweeping all the supplies into her pack except the soggy blanket, the worthless powder horn, and the two machetes.

“Gimme the gun,” said Guts.

“No powder,” she said as she handed me the second machete.

“Why’s
he
get the knife?”

“You have the hook.”

Keeping the second knife for herself, Kira began to push her way inland through the thick brush.

“That’s going to make a racket,” I said.

“No choice.”

We followed her, making a racket as I’d feared. We didn’t use the machetes much—it was faster to just plow through as best we could—and it was hard going.

But by the time we stopped to listen, we couldn’t hear the splashing anymore, and it didn’t sound like anyone was following us through the brush.

We worked our way through it for an hour or so, long enough to cover our faces and arms with more little cuts and scratches, until finally the brush gave way to a forest of thick-trunked trees with low, spreading branches.

It was a relief to be able to move over the more open ground. But it didn’t last long. We’d been hurrying through the forest for just a few minutes when I heard the familiar shriek of a bird, somewhere ahead of us. It was the same call I’d heard the Moku use to signal the slave ship.

I stopped. “It’s the men.”

There was an answering shriek, off to the left.

“They’re close,” said Kira.

There was no knowing which way to go—not straight ahead, and not to the left. But what if there were more of them off to the right as well?

I looked up. The bottom branch of the nearest tree was easily within reach—and its trunk soared well out of view above the thick cover of its leaves.

“That way,” said Guts, pointing to the right.

“Wait—what if we go up?” I suggested.

The others raised their heads and stared up into the tree.

Instead of answering, Kira grabbed hold of the lowest branch and started to climb. The rest of us followed.

We went up about thirty feet, until we couldn’t see the ground through the leaves. Then we waited.

Every few minutes, we heard another pair of birdcalls. The first was always more distant, but the answering call kept getting closer.

Then one came from right underneath us.

I stared down through the leaves, trying to get a glimpse of whoever it was. One of the slavers? Their Moku allies?

Birch himself? If so, he’d be in a bad way—Guts had stomped him pretty good while he was laid out on the ship. There wouldn’t be any mercy after that. They’d kill Guts instantly. Probably Kira, too.

I’d be next, once they got the map out of me.

I still had the machete, and I tried to think about the best way to fight with it if someone climbed up after us.

Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d just sit and wait us out.

There was a faint tremor of movement through the branch as Millicent, sitting beside me, adjusted her weight. I turned my head to look at her.

She was staring down through the trees. Her eyes were sharp and clear, nothing at all like the hollow stare of the night before.

Then she raised her eyes to meet mine, and in an instant, all the misgivings and disappointment I’d felt about her vanished.

Even dirty, scratched, and mosquito-bitten, she was beautiful. But that wasn’t what made me ache when I looked in her eyes. Pella Nonna had been full of beautiful girls, and none of them, not even Kira, had anything like the light in their eyes that Millicent had. It was as if there was a furnace burning somewhere deep inside her, and the heat and the light from it shined through her pupils in a way that was brilliant and fierce and warned she was nobody’s fool and not to be messed with.

That was the look that kept me up at night thinking about her. The look that—even at a moment when one wrong move or accidental noise could bring disaster down on our heads—was capable of making me forget about everything on earth except her.

As she looked back at me, her eyebrows bunched up, as if to say,
Why are you staring at me?

There were stray hairs falling across her face. I lifted my hand to reach out and brush them away.

She drew her head back, out of my reach. Then she glared at me, her lips pressed together in a tight frown.

If it weren’t for the circumstances, I think she would have smacked me.

I was trying to figure out what I could do to make her less angry when we heard another birdcall in the middle distance. This time, the answering call was at least a couple of trees away from us.

The men were moving on.

We waited until the birdcalls faded away, in the direction I thought was north. Kira handed out another round of soggy
pancakes. We ate in silence. By then, the sunlight was starting to weaken—and given the heavy canopy of the trees, pretty soon it’d be too dark for us to see our way out of the tree, much less through the forest.

We held a whispered conference and agreed we should start moving. We climbed to the ground and headed west, toward the sun and at a right angle to where we’d last heard the birdcalls. We went as fast as we could without making too much noise.

The ground gradually sloped upward, and the forest began to thin. The terrain turned a bit rocky, and Kira paused a few times to pick up fist-sized stones and stuff them into her pack. It wasn’t until the third time she did it that I realized she was gathering ammunition for her sling.

It was almost sunset when we topped a short rise with enough of a break in the trees that we could see a line of hills a mile or two ahead, off to the right.

“Should we head for the hills?” asked Millicent. “Or keep going straight?” She pointed in the direction of the sunset.

“We should go north,” Kira said. “Into the hills.”

“That’s where them slavers went,” said Guts.

“Will you stop calling them slavers?” said Millicent in an irritated voice.

No one answered her.

“They weren’t going to the hills,” I said. “They were headed more”—I pointed farther to the right, between the hills and the coast—“straight up the coast.”

“Right, then. Hills it is.”

“Wait,” said Kira, looking toward the sunset. She turned to Guts. “Do you still have the necklace?”

“Yeh.”

“Can I have it, please?”

Guts dug into his pocket and pulled out the firebird necklace. He handed it to her.

Kira slipped her pack off her shoulders, set down her machete, and knelt on the ground, facing the sunset. Then she carefully arranged the firebird pendant in front of her.

“We’re wasting time—” Millicent started to say.

“’Nuff outta you!” Guts growled at Millicent.

“Oh, stuff it, Guts,” Millicent snorted.

Still kneeling, Kira straightened her back, pointed her chin skyward, and began to whisper in Okalu.

As the strange words tumbled out of her, she slowly lowered her head and rounded her back until she was flat on the ground, arms stretched out in front of her on either side of the pendant.

I didn’t know whether to watch or avert my eyes. I’d never known anyone who prayed like that—come to think of it, I’d never known anyone who prayed at all—and once again, I had the sense that we were involved in something much bigger than us, and that shouldn’t be trifled with.

Kira stood up, the necklace in her hand. “May I hold this?” she asked Guts.

He nodded. “Yeh. Course.”

As Kira pocketed the necklace, Millicent nudged me.

“He fancies her, doesn’t he?” she murmured under her breath.

“Shhh!” I whispered, worried Guts had overheard her. “No! Don’t talk about it.”

Kira hoisted the pack onto her shoulders, and we headed for the hills.

IT WAS FULLY NIGHT
by the time we reached the foot of the nearest hill, and the tree cover was so thick we could barely see far enough in front of us to keep moving. At first, we tried to climb straight up, but the hillside was much steeper than it had looked from a distance, so we had to settle for moving at an angle.

“Do we really want to be going inland?” Millicent whispered to me. We were hanging back, letting Kira and Guts take the lead.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well, where are we headed once we lose the men from the ship? Won’t we need to find a port? Where’s the Fire King’s treasure?”

“We don’t know yet,” I said.

“What do you mean, you don’t know yet? What did the map say?”

“Haven’t gotten it translated. That’s why we’re going to find the Okalu.”

“
Find
the Okalu?! I thought she was Okalu!”

“She is. But she can’t read the writing.”

“So she’s illiterate? Oh,
smashing.
”

“I wouldn’t call her that if I were you.”

“Let me get this straight—you hitched your wagon to an illiterate, knife-wielding maniac—”

“I
really
wouldn’t call her those things.”

“Because why be honest? Is that it?”

That got me mad. “Don’t tell me about honesty! When you won’t even admit—”

“I swear to you, Egg, say the word
slaver
and I’ll beat you in the head with a rock.”

I left the sentence unfinished. I’d made my point.

Millicent let out a little huff of disgust. “What on earth have you been doing the past three weeks?”

“Looking for an Okalu!”

And listening to Guts play guitar while I stuffed my face and lounged in the sun. But I couldn’t exactly admit that.

“And Crazy Knife Girl’s the best you could do? That’s
pathetic
!”

“Shut up, Millicent.”

“What a clever retort. All that time hanging around illiterates certainly sharpened your wits.”

We were both quiet for a minute after that. In the silence, I kept getting more angry. I’d forgotten how annoying Millicent could be.

I wasn’t the only one who was getting angrier. When Millicent opened her mouth again, her words dripped venom.

“Should’ve left you to die.”

“What kind of comment is that?!”

“Another honest one. It’s one thing to be a fool. But I never took you for a pig. Thanks for proving me wrong.”

I was stunned. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’ll tell you what,” she spat. “I nearly
died
saving you! I didn’t have to be on that boat. They were going to send me to Rovia. To the finest boarding school on the Continent! And I gave it up. I ran away and hid in that filthy hold, days on end, no food or water—just to save your stupid life! And you couldn’t even be bothered to thank me.”

Her voice was husky with emotion. I tried to defend myself.

“I did—”

“You
didn’t
! Not once! And worse—you just stood by and let
those two rip into me. That shrew was going to slit my throat, and you didn’t even try to stop her! You’re not just a pig—you’re a coward.”

There was a sick, hollow feeling spreading in my stomach. I wanted to yell at her, to tell her she was dead wrong.

But I couldn’t, because I knew at least part of it was true.

“I’m sorry.” The words sounded small and weak.

Millicent let out another huff of disgust. “I should’ve listened to Cyril,” she said.

“Who’s Cyril?”

“Nobody…Just the boy I’m going to marry.”

M
y brain shut down completely. The sick feeling in my stomach kept spreading, and I had to stop for a second because I was getting dizzy, and I thought I might fall over and tumble down the hill.

Then I realized Millicent had stepped up her pace and was almost as far ahead as Guts and Kira—and all three of them were about to disappear into the darkness.

I rushed to catch up, but I didn’t pay enough attention to where I was going, and the broken end of a dead tree branch stabbed me in the forehead. It was excruciating, but the pain seemed to clear some of the fog from my brain. I managed to stagger forward until I was only an arm’s length behind Millicent.

“Who’s Cyril?” I asked the back of her head. I meant to whisper, but it came out much louder than that.

“Shhhhhhhhh!”
all three of them hissed at me.

“Sorry!” I whispered.

I resolved to quit trying to talk to Millicent while our lives were still in danger.