The Mountains Rise (11 page)

“So the blood runs away,” she said, explaining herself.

I never would have guessed she was a homicidal lunatic,
thought Daniel. He was beginning to see the love of his life in a new light.

Pressing hard
,
he severed the skin of the warden’s throat
,
and with a bit of work
,
he cut the jugular as well. Blood was
pumping wildly onto the ground
,
and Daniel felt himself grow faint. Nauseous
,
he bent and began throwing up.

Kate held his shoulder to steady him, while patting his back with the other hand.
“You should have let me do it, Daniel. You’re too gentle for this.”

Spitting to clear his mouth he looked askance at her. “When did you get so callous
about murder?”

“Who do you think does most of the cooking around here?” she told him. “Kill enough
chickens
,
and it gets easy after a while.

Daniel looked at the corpse. “That,” he said firmly, “is
not
a chicken.”

“Neither was Blue,” she replied, somewhat harshly, but then her features softened.
“I’m sorry, that was mean, but you have to see my point.”

“Not at all.”

“You cry over a lost lamb, or a chicken, or a man dying, but it’s all the same. None
of them want to die. The only difference is love and necessity. I kill chickens
to eat, because I have to. I’ve learned not to
cry over it. I cried for Blue
because I loved him, not because a dog is somehow better than a chicken.” She pointed
at the warden’s body. “I did not love that man
at all,
and we killed him out of necessity. I’ll cry no more over him than I would a chicken.”

Daniel remained silent, his face pensive.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“That I might give up eating meat,” he replied.

She hugged him, “
That
is what I love about you, even though it marks you for a fool.” She started to kiss
his cheek
,
but then she noticed the blood running down his neck. It was on her gown now
,
and she could see more soaking into the collar of his shirt. “Oh! You’re bleeding,
Daniel!”

Adrenaline and shock had prevented him from noticing, but now he felt a throbbing
pain from his right ear; correction, from where his ear had previously been. He probed
the area with his fingers, finding only part of his lower ear and the lobe still remaining.
His fingers came away sticky.

Kate examined it carefully before leading him to the washbasin behind the house.
Using a small bit of fresh water she rinsed the wound
,
and then went inside the house. She returned with a clean rag and used a paring
knife from the kitchen to cut it into strips with which she bound
his wound
.

“You’re going to look funny when that heals,” she told him.

“I’m probably not going to survive that long,” he observed.

“Don’t be so pessimistic.”

“How can you be so positive?” Daniel asked. “Barely an hour ago, you were nearly
raped. Seth is badly hurt, Blue is dead, and we just killed a warden—a warden. That
man was a servant of the gods!”

“What about Ronnie?” she asked.

“I don’t regret him very much.”

“My life was impossibly dark two hours ago,” she told him. “The man I loved wouldn’t
talk to me, and in fact
,
seemed to be making every effort to hurt me in every way imaginable. My mother was
hiding in disgrace with her illegitimate child
,
and I was being comforted by a friend
whom
I was afraid I would someday be forced to marry.”

“And Blue?” asked Daniel.

Her eyes darkened, “That’s the worst thing of the lot, but it still can’t lessen the
fact that you finally opened up to me just a little while ago. Things look rough,
but we’ll figure something out.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re running away,” she said simply.

“What?”

“You killed Ronnie, and a warden. Even if we dump their bodies in the river Aston
and Billy will talk. We have a horse, a weapon, and each other. Let me pack up what
I can
,
and we’ll be gone,” she said with blunt honesty.

“That won’t work,” said Daniel. “We’ve nowhere to go. The only other town is Dereham
and they’d still find us there. Eventually either the forest gods or their wardens
will find me, and when they do
,
it’s all over. I shoul
d run, but you at least, have the hope
of a normal life.”

“Not a chance,” she told him. “Go strip the armor off the warden
,
and I’ll gather some food and anything I think we might need and be able to carry.”

“Why the armor?” he asked curiously.

“It looks valuable, and you
are
close to the same size as he was,” she noted.

Daniel knew she was crazy. She honestly intended to run away with him, but he also
knew that he couldn’t drag her into the madness that had devoured his life. She wouldn’t
listen to reason, so he gave up the idea of persuading her. “Alright,” he said at
last, “be sure to bring some spare clothes too.”

She smiled and went into the house while he hurried around to the front. He stripped
the warden’s body as quickly as he could, which turned out to be a more difficult
process than he had imagined. Once he had the armor off
,
he bundled it up and stuffed it into one of the warden’s saddlebags. He could see
that the man had dry food in one bag and a goat-skin water pouch strapped to the back
of the saddle.

Taking the sword belt and sheath
,
he replaced the sword and slung it over his shoulder.
There was a rope tied to one side of the saddle
,
and he used it to tie the warden’s legs together before attaching it to the pommel.
It would be much easier to get the body to the river with the horse dragging it.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes!” he shouted to the house.
With his mind
,
he could see Kate wrapping things up in the kitchen, using a large cloth to make
a simple bundle. He approached the warden’s horse.

The big beast had been watching him suspiciously the entire time. It was well trained,
for it hadn’t moved since its rider had dismounted. The gelding had tolerated Daniel’s
meddling with the saddle
,
but it gave him the distinct impression that it wouldn’t be happy if he tried mounting.

“There now, boy. Nothing to be worried about,” he told it in a soothing voice.

The animal’s aura remained calm while he spoke, but as soon as he placed
his
foot in
the
stirrup it flared with angry turbulence. He threw his leg over its back and made
it into the seat
,
but almost lost his place as the beast reared on its hind legs.

Reaching out instinctively
,
he smoothed the
ripples in the
horse’s aura, much as he had done with his father’s. “Shhh,” he told it. “It’s
alright. I just want you to carry me somewhere.”

The massive animal quieted then, becoming still under his hand. Nudging its flanks
with his heels
,
he urged
it forward.

It took almost ten minutes to get the body to the river
,
and after he had tossed it in he went back to the area where they had left Ronnie.
Repeating the process he got rid of that corpse as well before returning to the Sayer
house. Surveying the ground
,
he could see no sign of the warden’s death
,
aside from some blood that was sinking steadily into the dry earth. A bit of work
with a rake or broom would be enough to hide that.

Kate looked at him from the porch. “By the time anyone questions our absence
,
they won’t even be able to tell anything happened here,” she observed.

Daniel nodded and used the reins to turn the horse’s head back toward the river, using
his heels to urge it into motion.

“Daniel? Hey!” Her voice went from question to yell in less than a second.

He kicked again, and the gelding understood his urgency. It moved from a walk to
a canter and then into a gallop. Kate was running then
,
and her long legs almost caught them before the horse got fully up to speed. “Don’t
do this!” she yelled, her red hair trailing behind her like flames.

“I’m sorry,” he shouted. “Tell them it was all me. You did nothing wrong!” Then
he faced forward, focusing on the trail ahead. He couldn’t stand to look at her any
longer.

For the second time in his life
,
he ran from Catherine Sayer, and it wasn’t any easier than it had been the first
time.

He followed the trail to the river before turning off to follow the southern side,
where the bank was smoother. The terrain was gentler in that direction and if he
followed it long enough
,
it would eventually take him completely out of the valley and into the deep woods.

He had no real plan, certainly not one that involved any hope of long term survival.
He just intended to keep going until there was no chance Kate
,
or anyone else
who
knew him could catch up. He could only drag them down, like a millstone tied around
their necks. The weight of his crimes would bring punishment to anyone near him when
the forest gods found him.

That was what he believed.

Daniel felt bad about leaving
Kate
.
When Aston and Billy told their story everyone would know that he had done something
to Ronnie, but there was no way they could blame her for that. No one else had seen
the warden so he figured she would stay silent on that matter
.

He could hear Kate’s voice in his mind as he rode,
“Seth came to tell me that I’ve got a baby sister.”

Daniel was only just about to turn sixteen
,
and he was already a father.
And Kate still has no idea.

He regretted not telling her the final truth. Her capacity for forgiveness had gone
far beyond anything he had expected
,
but he still didn’t believe she could have accepted that. She deserved the truth,
though.

Once I enter the deep wood there won’t be any coming back,
he noted mentally.
If her mother chooses to keep up the deception after I’m gone
,
it’s none of my concern. I’ve ruined enough lives already.

Daniel had no idea what might
lie
within the borders of the great forest. No one had entered and returned to speak
of it in living memory, other than the wardens that is, and they weren’t part of the
human community, even though they seemed to be human.

The afternoon passed slowly as he picked his way through the broken terrain. In places
the riverbank was interrupted by boulders and large rock formations, forcing him to
turn away from the river until he could work his way around. The further he went
though, the easier it got. The land smoothed out
,
and the vegetation got heavier. In the distance he could see the beginnings of larger
trees
,
as opposed to the scrubby overenthusiastic bushes that they called trees farther
up the valley.

The hills passed away
,
and the
thicker woods
began, but it wasn’t the deep forest yet. That lay farther on, where the oaks and
elms surrendered to the much more massive god-trees. He kept his mind open, examining
the forest around him as far as it could reach. At first he thought of keeping it
closed, in the hope of hiding his curse from the forest gods, but he cast that notion
aside.

He had killed a warden
,
and now he was delivering himself directly into the arms of the deep forest.

Daniel felt them long b
efore they got close; a
man and a woman, each on horseback, pacing him. They were each several hundred yards
away, one in either direction, too far to see physically through the heavy underbrush,
yet they kept the same speed as he did. He stopped at one point, just to see what
would happen, and both of them paused as well.

They’re waiting to see how far in I plan to go,
he mused.
Or maybe they’re just there to make sure I don’t try to back out.

Both of the strangers had the distinctive glow to them that he had come to associate
with wardens.

“It’s almost over now,” he said softly to himself, but then he heard Kate’s voice
in the back of his mind.
“If killing you is the work of the gods
,
then they’re the ones who are wrong.”

Did he really want to just give up?

If I’m already damned, what’s the harm in fighting for my life? I can’t be any more
damned than I already am.

That was the moment when he finally accepted himself, for better or worse, despite
what had been done to him, and what he had done to others. He had dreamed of playing
an honest part on the grand stage of life, but if he was forced to accept this role
,
he might as well make the best of it.

He stopped the horse, noting with satisfaction that his escorts did the same. Dismounting
,
he unpacked the warden’s armor and began strapping it on. The warden had been a
fairly average size man
,
and he was a rather large teen. As a consequence it nearly fit him, although it
could certainly use some adjustments. He took a moment to add the sword belt, putting
it on properly this time. Now he looked like a warden himself.

Soon after
,
he was back in the saddle, resuming his course into the forest. He rode in the same
direction for several minutes before turning to his left and kicking the horse into
a gallop, charging through the trees in the direction of the male warden. Rather
than try to maintain his distance
,
the warden urged his own mount into a canter, heading to meet him head on.

The woman
who
had been following on his right also sped up, moving to follow him.

The distance between Daniel and the warden disappeared rapidly as they raced toward
each other
,
and he noticed immediately that the other man had covered himself with a powerful
shield, just as the first warden had. The warden’s sword glowed with deadly energy
as they got closer.

He’ll cut me in two with that thing
,
and there’s nothing I can do to get through that shield.
He focused instead on the other rider’s horse, twisting its aura in a way that
,
he thought
,
should produce a state of abject panic. The exact opposite of what he had done to
his own mount earlier.

The warden’s horse reared suddenly
,
throwing its rider to the ground and rather than fight, Daniel kept riding, galloping
past while the man fought to keep from being trampled by his panicked mount. By the
time he could calm the beast
,
Daniel was pretty sure he would be far from sight in the other direction.

He still had the woman chasing him however, and she was clearly a better rider. Her
destrier was lighter than the massive gelding he rode and far more agile in the dense
woodland. Daniel was awed by the grace and athleticism of the rider as she moved
with her horse, maintaining her balance, her movements flowing into its own as the
horse wove in and out of the saplings.

She was less than a hundred yards behind him now and gaining quickly. He tried to
reach her mount, to panic it as he had done before, but she had seen his trick already.
There was a shield around the horse as well as its
master.

Frustrated
,
Daniel cast about himself mentally, looking for anything that might help. The ground
ahead was smooth, punctuated only by small bushes and interrupted by generously spaced
trees. Occasional fallen logs and limbs forced the horses to make small jumps here
and there
,
but so far their mounts had shown themselves to be up to the task.

The deadwood caught his attention.

He knew that his ability could affect things in a directly physical fashion, although
he had only recently made that discovery. He reflected on the memory of breaking
the warden’s invisible bonds
,
and then he recalled pulling the leather thong to himself in Kate’s home.

If only I had spent more time trying to figure this out.
Obviously trying to learn to use his power while being chased at breakneck speed
through a woodland obstacle course wasn’t ideal.

She was pulling closer, barely twenty yards behind. Daniel was guiding his horse,
to avoid low brush and obstacles whereas she clearly knew her mount far better. Low
obstacles
s
he merely leaned close while her agile mount leapt them. Branches that threatened
to sweep her from its back didn’t
faze
her either, she had an uncanny way of knowing exactly what was high enough for her
to get under and what really required her to change course.

In short, she was able to take a much more direct path, while Daniel and his larger
mount made constant changes in direction.

She’s faster, far more experienced, and she knows the area,
he thought silently.
She also knows her power, protecting both herself and her mount. I’m completely screwed.

The woman was drawing abreast of him now, a predatory smile on her face
,
and he watched her closing, fascinated by her appearance. The same strange leather
armor encased her body, allowing her plenty of freedom of movement as she shifted
positions on her mount. A wooden sword was in her hand
,
and her dark brown hair was flying behind her in two braids. She looked every inch
a warrior maiden. Confidence was written plainly in every movement.

Even if we were on foot with nothing but swords
,
she’d probably cut me to pieces.

He realized then that she was toying with him.
She was obviously
well versed in her abilities. She could have stopped his mount in any number of
ways, sending him tumbling. Worse, she could probably use her power to kill him directly,
just as he had with Ronnie. Daniel hadn’t the faintest idea how to protect himself.

The expression on the warden’s face told him clearly just how much she was enjoying
the chase.

Reaching out mentally, Daniel tried to use his power to tug at a branch ahead of them.
It was a green, healthy limb, and while he could see and feel it move, its strength
prevented him from ripping it free.

More practice,
he silently cursed himself,
you could have done that if you were more skilled.

The woman had seen him grasping wildly with his power
,
and she laughed, only a few feet behind.

A dead limb, no bigger than a man’s wrist, was in the path ahead of him so Daniel
pulled his horse’s reins to the left to avoid it. Once again, his horse could have
jumped it easily, but he didn’t know its abilities very well. The warden following
never wavered, knowing her horse would clear it.

At the last second the branch jumped upward, tugged by Daniel’s power. It tangled
in the horse’s legs, causing it to stumble. What had been a beautiful display of
skill and athleticism
,
turned into a crashing avalanche of horseflesh. The warden was thrown through the
air, flying twenty feet before striking a small sapling.

Her horse didn’t rise
;
it was twisting and thrashing on the ground. At least two legs were broken. The
woman, incredibly, was alive. The force of the blow had broken her shield but she
hadn’t lost consciousness. Using the tree that had nearly killed her, she steadied
herself as she stood back up.

I need to learn that. Those shield-things are incredibly handy.
He didn’t pause in his admiration though, seeing his chance, he struck at her aura
with his mind, twisting and ripping.

She fought him for a split second, but
the
fall had left her disoriented and weak. After only a moment she was screaming
,
and soon after that she fell, convulsing on the forest floor. Daniel kept his focus
on her until he was sure she was dead, while at the same time turning his horse to
circle back to her mount.

The other animal was in serious pain, so Daniel touched its mind, soothing it and
trying to
calm it
. It was difficult, because the animal was already panicked and its body was badly
injured, but eventually he wrapped its awareness in a sort of mental blanket, forcing
it into blissful unconsciousness. He kept it that way until he could dismount and
finish it with the sword.

Remounting he rode on, searching the forest for the other rider. He had ridden far
enough that he could no longer sense him, so he didn’t know if the man had recovered
and was following him, or whether he had given up.

Hopefully
,
if I can’t find him then he can’t find me.

He directed his mount to head deeper into the wood. The last thing any sane man would
do would be to head in that direction. Soon the towering forms of the god-trees were
looming in front of him.

They were something he had only heard about in stories, or seen in the faint distance,
from the tops
of the hills around the valley;
massive trees that rose hundreds of feet into the air. They dwarfed the largest
of the oaks and elms that dared to grow in their vicinity
,
and once he was under them there were no other trees to be found. Their size overshadowed
everything else.