Chapter 35 Aleksis
35
Aleksis
He woke to the sound of troubled voices. Matiss. Karolis. And the voice of the rain, still pelting down. Although they were in shelter, everything felt damp. He struggled up, wrapping his cloak around him. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ The two of them were standing at the cave mouth, looking out. Lukas was there too, with a blanket around his shoulders.
‘We can’t find Pavel,’ Matiss said. ‘I’ve checked as far as the stream. We’ve called out, but I doubt he could hear us over the rain. None of us has seen him since last night; if he went out to take a piss in the woods, he did it before we woke, and he hasn’t come back.’
A chill ran through Aleksis’s veins. Terror rose in him, a monster from long ago. He forced it down. He was leader. He must take control, stay calm, put a plan in place quickly. ‘How long? Why didn’t you wake me earlier?’ Then, at the look on Matiss’s face, ‘Forget that. Lukas, will you make up the fire? He’ll be cold when he gets back. We need to search straightaway. He can’t be far off, surely.’
‘Aleks.’ Karolis spoke in the voice a parent might use to a panicking child. ‘We can’t search in this weather. We’ll do nothing but wear ourselves out. We should warm up, prepare as best we can, and head out looking as soon as the rain eases off. Not all of us at once. Two at a time. Or maybe two pairs, with someone staying here in case he comes back on his own. He may have found a bolthole somewhere in the forest and be waiting for the same thing, a break in the weather.’
‘Why would he have gone so far away that he couldn’t get back?’ Lukas asked. ‘A piss in the woods, Matiss said. But that can be done a stone’s throw from here.’ As he spoke, he was building the fire again.
Aleksis found himself unable to respond. In his mind, he was running through the forest in the pouring rain, shouting until his throat felt raw. Markus! Markus, where are you? He ordered himself to take control. Make a plan. Get a grip. But he couldn’t move.
‘Aleks.’ Stasya’s voice, steady as a rock. ‘Get dressed. Warm up. One step at a time.’
He drew breath. Came back to the here and now. If Karolis was the strong father at this moment, he thought, Stasya was the wise mother, bidding the frightened child be calm. He did as he was told; it made perfect sense. Besides, what other choice was there?
‘Aleks.’ Something in Karolis’s tone drew all eyes in his direction. He was standing by the inner wall of the shelter. ‘Pavel’s things are gone. Clothes, weapons, pack, even the blanket.’
A deathly silence. Then, ‘Are you sure?’ Aleksis asked. ‘He hasn’t just moved them? What possible reason could he have for heading off on his own?’
‘Without saying a word.’ Matiss was sombre, even as he began the familiar routine of tea preparation. ‘Did anyone hear anything?’
Shaking of heads; murmurs of no .
‘Some of the tales have travellers going missing,’ Stasya said. ‘But they also have Forest Folk living in the woods, and all kinds of uncanny beings on the mountain.’ She paused to think. ‘If such folk do exist, they might be friends or enemies. It depends which story you hear.’
‘You’re saying they might actually help us? If they’re real?’ Matiss was staring at her, brows up.
‘In some stories they do. But you’d need to know how to call them. And there are right and wrong ways to ask beings like that for a favour.’
Aleksis wanted to believe it was that easy. Say the right word, and a horde of magical folk would appear and find Pavel and then conveniently vanish so they could get on with the journey. But he could not. ‘And you don’t know the magic word?’ He addressed this to Stasya, who quickly turned her attention to helping Lukas with the fire, but not before he glimpsed the look on her face. He’d upset her. He’d sounded mocking, unkind. And now he had no words to apologise.
‘I think they leave signs sometimes,’ Stasya said, still not looking at him. ‘They mark pathways, showing which way to go, or which way is safest. But who or what they are, exactly, I don’t know. Believe me, Aleksis, if I knew the magic word I would say so. It’s not a good time for a man to be out there on his own.’ After a bit she added, ‘Pavel’s been looking worried, don’t you think? And unusually quiet, as if something was troubling him.’
‘Something on his mind, yes,’ said Matiss, hanging the pot over the new-kindled fire. ‘Should have asked him if he wanted to talk it out. But I thought he was just tired. Like all of us. Missing his family, most likely. What in the name of the gods would make him head out on his own? Has he taken any supplies?’
‘Hardly worth checking,’ Aleksis said. ‘There’s not much we can do about it either way.’
‘Makes sense to know what we’ve got left,’ Lukas said. ‘I’ll check, if nobody has any objections.’
‘None at all.’ Aleksis watched him as he went through the packs, wanting to tell Lukas he was a trusted part of the team now, but not quite prepared to say it. The truth was, the two of them, Lukas and Stasya, would be assets to any team. They were strong, capable, practical. It was all too easy to forget that Lukas still had a wound that was troubling him. And that the two of them had been through a nightmare before he brought them on this journey. If he’d been delayed by a mere few hours in getting back from Raven’s Watch, Lukas would have been brutally killed, and Stasya would have been forced to watch it happen. How could the Ruler set such an act in motion? Gods, now his mind was circling again, showing him vile images of what might have been, and terrifying ones of Pavel being attacked by a bear or falling down a cliff or simply getting lost in the forest, wandering and wandering and never finding his way home …
‘I’d say he’s taken a few days’ rations for himself, no more,’ Lukas said, breaking into the whirl of his thoughts. ‘If he’s headed home, he’ll need to trap or fish.’
Silence again. It was Karolis who carried the trapping equipment and the fishing line.
‘What would make him do this now?’ Stasya mused. ‘If he changed his mind about coming, why leave it so long? And why not say anything?’
Matiss was shredding herbs into the pot. The smell was comforting, a reminder of better times. ‘The story of Markus,’ the big man said. ‘The missing boy. Made me think again about this place and its mysteries. Maybe Pavel saw something or thought of something that was a clue of some kind. Something he thought he’d go and investigate on his own, in case he’d got it wrong and wasted everyone’s time. Maybe it isn’t far off. Could be he’ll walk back in here with answers. You never know.’
‘The story of Markus troubled him.’ Stasya was lining up cups for Matiss to fill. ‘He looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Or remembered something so terrible he couldn’t speak of it.’
The story. The wretched story that never left him for one single moment of one single day. The story that kept him awake at night and, when he finally slept, haunted his dreams. If only the answer were so simple. ‘Possible,’ Aleksis said, ‘but not likely. He already knew the gist of it.’
‘He was tired,’ Karolis said. ‘It would have been hard making that trip to Heartwood and then heading straight off again, more or less. And upsetting, no doubt. He had friends among the men Rihard took there. Friends who may well still be in that settlement.’
‘Drink, everyone,’ said Matiss. ‘It’ll warm you up. And we’d best have something to eat. This storm can’t go on forever. As soon as it dies down, the search begins.’
‘This can’t wait,’ Aleksis said, working hard for a steady tone. ‘He could be lying out there injured in this chill. The man doesn’t have days, he may only have an hour, or even less. We eat, we wrap up, we head out, no matter what the weather. We find him today and bring him back to safety.’