Thirty-one
Sonon leaned against the trunk of a hemlock and watched the snow fall out of the lingering blue dusk. The storm had quieted the forest and given it a luminous serenity. Even the sound of the nearby river seemed hushed.
He tipped his face up and let the cold flakes land on his skin. The boys whispered to his right. He didn’t look at them, but knew they sat atop the rounded humps where Wakdanek and Sindak had buried them less than one hand of time ago.
He closed his eyes and just tried to feel.
One of the boys laughed, and it filled his tired heart with warmth. As long as Wakdanek lived, they’d be all right. The Healer would come back and make sure they got home to their families, who would in turn make sure they were properly prepared to cross the bridge to the afterlife.
He shoved away from the tree and turned toward the river. In the subdued light the water had a leaden sheen.
He wasn’t needed here.
He headed south down the shore.
Nothing mattered now except his steps; they would decide everything. Steps always did. A man might plan for every detail and try to prepare himself for all the things that could go wrong, but in the end steps were all that mattered. Steps created the path. Steps brought you to the final moment when you had to stand face-to-face with all the grief you’d ever been asked to shelter in your heart. Your own, as well as that of others. It didn’t matter who you were, or how you’d lived … the enormity was unbearable. It slammed you down. When you struggled up again, the grief either transformed into the Healer’s balm or it became a murderer’s inspiration.
He concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other.
Somewhere just ahead, he would take the final steps.
Thirty-two
Only the muffled tramping of their feet on snow-covered leaves filled the twilight.
“We’ll have to stop soon,” Auma said from behind her. “It’s getting too dark to see the drag marks, and the snow is falling harder.”
Zateri didn’t answer. Panic was running hot and fierce in her body. She couldn’t believe Wrass had dragged himself this far, but she knew him. The darkness and snow wouldn’t stop him. He’d keep moving, trying to put distance between himself and Gannajero, until he was physically unable to continue and collapsed in a dead faint. If she didn’t find him soon, she never would. The snow would fill the drag marks, and his trail would be erased from the world.
“Did you hear me?” Auma asked. “We should stop for the night.”
“I’m not stopping.” Zateri kept her gaze on the ground. A shallow swale marked the path where Wrass had dragged himself through the falling snow. It led around a thicket of willows and up into the trees. As she walked along beside the swale, gigantic flakes swirled around her, landing cold and silent on her hood and cape.
“Zateri! We have to stop!”
She swung around with her jaw locked. She was too exhausted and frightened to tolerate weakness. In anyone. “If you can’t keep up, then sit down. I’ll come back for you as soon as I find Wrass.”
Auma clutched the collar of her doehide dress closed beneath her chin. “I wasn’t trying to make you angry. We’re tired and hungry. We can barely see. I—”
“Stop complaining. I can’t stand it. Don’t you think I’m tired and hungry, too?”
Zateri glared at her and turned back to the trail.
She followed his path around a massive sycamore trunk, then down a slope. Auma and Conkesema resolutely plodded along behind her.
Zateri’s taut nerves hummed. Every noise, even the whisper of an owl’s wings overhead, left her shaking. She loved the woods at home, but this forest lay as though under some dread enchantment. She could sense Forest Spirits moving around her, tracking her through the haunted darkness, peering at her between the frosted branches. Every now and then, she glimpsed something blacker than the shadows drifting through the trees. And there was more than one.
But she couldn’t let fear stop her. Auma was right about one thing: the light was almost gone. Time was running out.
Ahead of her loomed the dark bulk of a toppled maple. The roots thrust up into the air like crooked arms. Straining her eyes against the falling flakes, she thought the trail led toward it.
Her moccasins squealed in the snow as she trudged ahead. In the hollow beneath the upturned roots, there was a dark splotch, a mound, like an animal curled on its …
“Wrass?” she cried. Down the swale she ran, slipping across the snow, her cape streaming behind her. “Wrass? Wrass!”
He woke with a start and shoved up on his elbows. Weakly, he answered, “Zateri?”
“Thank the gods we found you.”