Blue Raven said, “I’m not sure I can shoot at my own relatives, Silver Sparrow, even if they are shooting at me. But I pledge that I will not aim my bow at you or your … at Matron Dust Moon.”
“Or at Rumbler, if we find him,” Dust Moon added. Sunlight flickered in her suspicious eyes.
“Or at Rumbler,” Blue Raven agreed. “My only goal right now is to find my niece before anyone else from my clan does. I don’t know what we will do after that, but, together, Wren and I will figure out something.”
Sparrow nodded. “Go ahead and get your bow.” Then he picked up his own bow.
Blue Raven walked around the boulder.
Sunlight glimmered and twinkled over the snowy forest. The loud melodious calls of cardinals rang out, whistling cheer, cheer, cheer! followed by a swift woight, woight, woight, woight.
The net in her hands, and a coil of cord looped over her wrist, Wren led the way down the trail. Last night’s windstorm had cracked branches from the trees, and madly strewn them across the snow. Rumbler trotted behind Wren, trying to keep pace with her while dodging the obstacles in his path.
“There it is,” Wren said, and pointed to the small clearing sixty hands away. Pine siskins covered the ground, feeding on seeds that had blown from the thick winter grasses. “This will be perfect.”
She’d dragged Rumbler up the trail last night past this place. It had been filled with birds then, too. Rosebushes bordered the clearing on the south side, straight ahead of them.
Rumbler’s white fox-fur cape swung around him as he swaggered to catch up. An ache built under her heart. He looked so small, and feeble. A search party surely followed them. How would they ever outrun it? And, worse, they were wasting daylight. This instant they should be racing up the trail as fast as they could, not netting birds.
Rumbler stopped at her side, breathing hard, and peered at the clearing. “Where do you wish to set the trap?”
“Near the roses. That way we can hide behind the bushes. Come on.”
As Wren and Rumbler entered the clearing the siskins burst into flight, their yellow backs flashing as they winged up and circled through the trees. They returned to perch in the branches a short distance away.
Wren knelt, and Rumbler dropped to his knees at her side. She placed the loop of cord, and net, on the snow. The net stretched about six hands across. Loosely woven with different-sized strips of bark, no one would call it pretty, but it would do the job. Her mother’s voice seeped through a door in Wren’s souls, saying, That, my sweet daughter, is an embarrassment. A wolf could leap through those holes. A fleeting smile turned her lips. Wren searched the ground for two branches about the length of her arm. She planted them in the snow and hooked two corners of the net to the tops of the branches, then she stretched the net out behind the sticks and piled snow over the bottom of the net to keep it in place. When she’d finished, the trap looked like a lean-to structure.
“Here,” Rumbler said. From his cape pocket he drew out a few morsels of corn bread, and handed them to Wren. His blackening fingers shook.
Gently, Wren took them, and scattered the morsels beneath the net. “Rumbler? Why don’t you go and sit down behind the bushes. I’ll be right there.”
“All right, Wren.”
He rose on wobbly legs, and the hazy sunlight shafting through the trees striped his beautiful round face. As he passed Wren, he put out a small hand and patted her arm, then continued on toward the bushes.
Wren tied both ends of the cord to the two sticks holding up the net, and grasped the remaining cord in what seemed to be the middle. Loops unfurled behind her as she made her way to the rosebushes.
Rumbler whispered, “Are we ready?”
“Almost.” Wren drew up the slack in the cord and ducked down. “Now we are. Be quiet, Rumbler.”
Rumbler nodded, and stretched out on his belly in the snow. His eyes shone as blackly as the deepest forest shadows.
Wren took a breath.
The spicy scent of rose hips taunted her nose. The animals had eaten off the tips of the bushes, and the rose hips on the outside, but inside, shielded by thorns, the seeds had been untouched. She could see them speckling the briar’s interior, and longed to put on her mittens and gather a handful, but she remained still and silent.
The siskins hopped from branch to branch over their heads, singing and chirping. A few cocked their heads to eye the trap.
“Wren?” Rumbler whispered. “What’s happening? Are—”
“Shh!”
He bit his lip.
Two siskins fluttered down near the trap, and began pecking at the snow.
Wren tightened her hold on the cord.
The rest of the flock leaped from the trees, and swooped down, alighting in a rustle of wings.