People of the Nightland(165)

So where did it come from?

With rising unease, he frowned at the silt-choked water, trying to remember the path he’d used to cross last time. The great rock with the white quartz scar was the key. He lurched to the downstream side, where the current split, following a long flat rock that lay just under a U-shaped ripple.

Then he took a step, lost his footing, and sank. Cold washed around him, numbing, shocking his skin. He floundered around, losing his grip on his darts, letting the current take them. He got his feet under him and pushed off the bottom. Orienting himself, he fought the current and climbed up on a submerged gravel bank.

“I don’t know another way!” he cried. “We’ll just have to cross it.”

He watched Skimmer bravely leap, splash, and almost keep her feet as she fought her way across. Then, one by one, they each made the crossing to the shallows.

“Trouble!” Keresa called as she rose dripping from the water. She pointed back to the bank.

Warriors were emerging from the willows they had just left. Kakala squinted across the distance, recognizing Karigi out in front. The river drowned the man’s orders as he gestured his men forward.

“Does he know the ford?” Windwolf asked.

“As well as I do.” Kakala turned, trotting into the next channel. He knew this one: Take the route that winds between the two gray boulders. Each had a long gravel bar behind it.

He sloshed through the water, stepped in a hole, and went down again. Fighting for purchase, he struggled as the current whirled him around. Frantic, he braced on a stone, and floundered ahead. Behind him, the others were coming, but one of the women was in trouble. The current was carrying her downstream.

“Leave her!” Skimmer ordered. “There’s no time.”

“But, someone—” Windwolf began.

“No!” Skimmer pinned him with hard eyes. “We make it now, or die!”

Kakala forced his way ahead, taking a quick glance over his shoulder. Karigi’s men were splashing through the first channel, war darts in their hands.

“Up there!” Skimmer pointed as she hurried beside him. “That high rocky point!”

Kakala nodded, seeing where shale bedrock rose above the bank. A narrow trail led up the side, a place more fitted to deer than humans.

He splashed into the final channel, wading through water up to his chest. Mercifully, the current was slow here, but it kept dragging him downstream, his progress more swimming than anything else. Then, with each sodden step, he rose higher, finally climbing out on the rocks.

Karigi’s warriors were crossing the second channel, just out of dart range.

“Hurry!” He pulled Skimmer up, indicating the trail. “Climb! Help the others up.”

He pulled Keresa, and then Windwolf up the steep bank. Kishkat stopped to help, adding his strength as the floundering women, fear bright in their faces, were pulled from the water and started up the nearly vertical trail.

Windwolf stared at the pursuing warriors. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas? I lost the last of my darts splashing around in the river.”

“We all did,” Kakala replied. “Let us hope they lose theirs, too.”

Windwolf chuckled grimly, then attacked the steep trail. He made it partway up, moccasins slipping on the mud left by others. Kakala watched him grab a root and muscle himself up.

He barely heard the hissing dart over the growing roar of the river. It missed his shoulder by a finger’s width and splintered against the shale.

Kakala scrambled for the now-greasy trail. He leapt, caught Windwolf’s root, and prayed it would take his weight. Spruce root was fibrous stuff, good enough for constructing baskets. This one ripped loose, dropping him a couple of hands’ length, then held.

Handhold by handhold, Kakala pulled himself up until Windwolf reached down to jerk him the rest of the way.

Gasping, Kakala flopped onto the moss-covered soil and asked, “Now what?”

He looked back at the river. Four lines of Karigi’s warriors were tracing their way across the channels.





Keresa took long enough to ensure that Kakala was safe, then looked around. “We need weapons.”

Windwolf nodded. “Did we lose all of our darts?”

“Oh, yes,” Kakala told him darkly. “Running isn’t going to do us much good, either. Not with that many behind us.”

“Sticks, rocks, anything. Find them!” Keresa ordered, staring desperately around the shale formation on which they stood.

“It is time.” Skimmer’s voice had an eerie certainty that stopped Keresa short.

“Time?” she asked.

Skimmer unlaced the leather bundle from her belt and walked to the high lip of the shale formation. She raised the bundle high, a soft Song rising from her lips.