Raging Star (5 page)

There must be another way.

A cautious quork comes from the tree above me. Nero sidles out from wherever he’s bin hidin all this time. This is the crow who’s fought wolfdogs with beak an claw. Who’ll rush to defend me from all dangers. Unless, of course, that danger’s called DeMalo.

Fat lotta good you are, I tell him. Thanks fer nuthin. You led him straight here.

He drops onto my lap then climbs my front to nibble on my ear. He always does that when he feels guilty. The thing is, he likes DeMalo an he knows he shouldn’t. He’d of gone fer the dogs in my defence, no problem. But he’d never harm DeMalo an the dogs was with him, so he must of got confused.

Whose side are you on? I says. I hug him close an stroke his breast feathers. They’re growin back good. Where DeMalo’s hawk wounded him, where DeMalo stitched him—a month
ago now—it’s healed well. Who am I to talk? I says. Whose side am I on? I had him an I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t. What the hell’s wrong with me? I kiss Nero’s head. We cain’t tell nobody about this, you hear?

He chitters agreement. Nero. Th’only livin creature I can speak to freely these days. I gotta guard myself close with everybody else. A leader tells her people as little as possible, only what they need to know. That’s somethin I learned from Slim.

More people will die. People you care about. Your sister. Your brother
.

Lugh, I says. Ohmigawd, Lugh, of course. C’mon, we gotta git to the rendezvous. Make sure they all made it okay. I jump to my feet. Nero spills to the ground with a squawk of protest. As I gather my gear, I says, They’ll be wonderin where we are. Emmi’ll be inside out with worry. Nero, we gotta go. C’mon.

He plays deaf. Beak deep in his birdy armpit, mutterin somethin about a mite. He’ll catch me up later. When it suits him.

I shoulder my barksack an bow. As I pass, I wrench my arrow from the tree.

It’s the first time in my life I ever shot to miss.

I’m cautious as I leave the pool. I set a course due north fer the rendezvous point at Painted Rock. I keep my eyes sharp, my ears keen, my bolt shooter ready in my hand. All clear. Nuthin untoward. No sound in the woods but the sounds of a wood. The bubble chat of warblers. The sigh of the wind. The creak of trees as they ease their bones.

After a couple hunnerd foot, I start to relax. Then. Behind me. A shift in the air. Not a sound, but somebody’s there. As I start to move, a gun shoves me in the neck. Hard to the base of my skull. I stop dead. I know the feel of that snubby nose. A shortbolt shooter. A fast blast. A messy end.

The voice comes from close behind me. I’ll be takin your weapons an pack. An it’s all the same to me if I have to kill you for ’em. You’re gonna drop your gun first, then your bow. One at a time, nice an easy.

It’s a woman. She’s steady-handed with the shortbolt. I can tell by the angle she’s taller’n me. A whisker below six foot.

I let my shooter fall to the ground. She smells of earth an sweat. She sounds of hard years an hard choices. Somethin starts to jig at the edge of my mind. I hesitate a moment.

I said, the bow! She presses the shortbolt fiercer, deeper into the tender spot between my spine an skull. I slide it offa my shoulder. My rare whiteoak bow, the gift of a shaman. I toss it carefully to one side. My quiver follows. I don’t think she’s clocked my knife yet. It’s tucked away in my boot sheath.

She snatches it. Quick as a rattler, she moves. The knife’s gone an the gun didn’t budge. She’s good. Must have long arms.

Let’s have your pack, she says.

I drop that too.

Hands up, she says. On your head.

I do it.

Now, she says. On the ground. Kneel.

The red hot flashes an I’m back at Pine Top Hill. With Emmi, prisoner of Vicar Pinch. The rest of us beat by him an his Tonton. Outfoxed. Outnumbered. I knelt at his feet an begged fer their lives.

I don’t kneel fer nobody, I says.

She grabs my collar. Kicks me. Back of my legs. I’m down. On my knees. Gun hard to my skull.

Didn’t your pa ever teach you manners? she says.

Them words. The very same. An I’m thinkin, me an Emmi in a sweetgrass valley. A cabin by a stream, bowls of stew an tough kindness. No. No. It cain’t be her.

Nero drops from the sky. He’s a screamin fury. Full attack, with beak, wings an claws. He slashes, beats an screeches. The woman staggers back an I’m free. I scramble around. Jump to my feet. An it is, it’s her. It’s Mercy. Ma’s friend Mercy. We thought she was dead. What’s she doin here?

She’s on the ground, scrabblin to git away from Nero. Arms huggin her head, pertectin herself. Her hair’s bin shaved
to snow-white stubble. Around her neck there’s a iron collar. A slave collar.

Nero’s at her. In a flurry of feathers. I can see he’s drawn blood. He means to do worse. Nero, no! I yell. Stop! Go on! I shoo him away an he takes to a tree to glare at me an grumble. Mercy’s lyin on her side, folded in on herself. I crouch at her side.

Mercy, I says. It’s okay, Mercy. It’s me. It’s Saba. Allis’s girl. Willem an Allis. I touch her hand. Lightly. Jest barely. In case she’s a shade, a shadow. But she’s warm. She’s real.

We came to you at Crosscreek, I says. Half a year back an more now. Me an Emmi, remember? When Pa got killed. When the Tonton took Lugh. I found him, Mercy. I got him back.

Slowly, slowly, her arms come down.

Here, I says. Look! I pull the heartstone from my pocket.

She stares. Dazed. Disbelievin. Ma gave the heartstone to her, long years back. Well before I was born. Then Mercy gave it to me. From friend to friend, from friend to daughter.

Saba, she says. Can it really be you? I help her to sit. She stares at me. She lays a work-rough hand on my face. It ain’t possible, she says.

I feel tears prick my eyes. I smile ’em away as I hang the heartstone around my neck. I say what Jack always says. Nuthin’s impossible, I says. Unlikely, but not impossible. That’s one thing I learned since last we met.

An much more besides, I’d say. Her shrewd brown eyes is readin me. Seein further, deeper than I’d like. A raw girl came to me at Crosscreek, she says. I don’t see that girl no more.

Lemme help you, I says. I hand her to her feet an we stand there. We take a long look at each other.

Tall an lean an weathered an tough. An so strongly alive an wise. Mercy was like some magnificent tree. Livin free an alone in her little green paradise, hidden away deep in the woods. A handsome woman with high cheekbones, cropped white hair an dark brows. Now her flesh clings to her bones. Her mean hemp slave shift hangs ragged to her knees.

In body, she might be less. But in spirit, she’s somehow more. She wears her slave collar like the finest Wrecker gold.

We thought you was dead, I says.

I nearly was, she says. Some bugger blew up a bridge just as we was about to cross it. But I thank ’em just the same. Gave me the chance to slip my chains. It’s easier to steal the key from a dead guard. Not to mention his gun. Speakin of which—

As she goes to collect the shortbolt from the ground where it fell, I says, Yer welcome. My pleasure.

She turns, startled. It was you? she says.

Me an some others, I says. I gotta rendezvous with ’em at a place called Painted Rock. Four leagues north. Yer comin with me. I gather my stuff as I’m talkin. The scattered weapons an sack.

I’ll do my best to keep up, she says. If I slow you down, you leave me.

I wince at the sight of her arms, bloody where Nero attacked her. Sorry about Nero, I says. Are y’okay?

I’ll survive, she says. I’ve had worse. Thin white lines, the scars of a whip, criss-cross her sun-tough skin.

How’d they git hold of you? I says.

Later, she says. Let’s move. They might still be about.

She readies her shortbolt fer action an I do the same with my shooter. She grabs my barksack an shoulders it. Kills my protest with one fierce look. I ain’t dead yet. Lead on, she says.

I whistle at Nero. We set off at speed, alert to any sound, any movement. An me an Mercy head fer the rendezvous.

He was caught soon after they’d all split up. Hijacked by the mist, tricked by the terrain, he ambushed himself at a dizzy steep ravine. As he reeled back from the edge, there they were. Three Tonton, their firesticks aimed at his heart
.

He braced himself for the shot. The flare of the muzzles. The impact. The oblivion, swift and sure. He was calm. Blue calm. He felt a beat of wonder at that
.

But no shot came. Death, his choice. To turn and leap and cry out for life as he pedalled the air to the rocks below. No blue calm there. He surrendered. Hands bound behind him, hooded and gagged, they led him stumbling through the woods. Half a league or so, he reckoned. They stopped in what he took to be a clearing. He was made to sit on the ground
.

They waited. The four of them waited. He could feel when the mist began to lift. The day warmed itself on his skin. Time passed. They waited
.

Suddenly, they were scrambling, hauling him to his feet. His hood was taken off, his gag untied
.

The two ghosthounds came first. They slipped through the trees into the clearing and sat right away, panting. A few moments later, he appeared. The man they were all waiting for. He’d been more than half expecting it—who else would the Tonton wait on with such disciplined patience? Still, his heart lurched and quickened
.

Up close. Full power. The night dark gaze tethered him. Circled him. Considered him. Then. In the black water deep of the Pathfinder’s eyes, there was a ripple
.

He smiled. The smile of a man who’d found what he’d been seeking
.

We have much to talk about, he said
.

I’d fergot about Mercy’s crippled ankle. The one she broke an had to set herself. Did a bugger of a job—her own words—an got left with a limp. Her spirit’s bin forged by hardship. Her body’s tough from a lifetime of toil. She don’t ask fer no favours. She don’t let herself fall behind. But she’s taxed by the pace, I can tell.

By mid-mornin, she’s slowed down considerable. We’ve only gone two leagues, jest halfways there. Weak to begin with, her flight up the hill an through the woods must of tapped her out. It’s only sheer grit keeps her goin. I hate to, but we’ll hafta stop an rest soon. I bite down my frustration. If I was on my own, I’d be runnin flat out.

Deadbone country’s given way to a scrubby grassland. The day’s bloomed to a muggy fug. Hot an sticky an close. We skirt a leery path around a lonesome farm, keepin to a narrow ribbon of jack pine. Some cack-handed fool’s bin hackin it hard fer firewood.

Can you believe it? Mercy shakes her head in disgust.

A few steps on, we see the fools. In a field in front of a tyreshack, a Steward couple quarrel furiously over a broken plough. A pair of kids, fifteen or so, bein kicked in the pants by nature. They’re managin to keep around the shack clear an the track to the road too, but that’s it. Billows of bramble an chokeweed romp the fields. Tethered to a spindlebush next to the shack stands a neat red pony.

Wait here, I tell Mercy.