15 #2
“Yes.” She looks up with a smile. “Thank you for all your help today. If I might ask you for one last favor while I complete the final trim stitches?”
“Of course.”
“At the end of the lane, there’s a woodpile we share with three other homes.
The men of those families have been so kind to let us partake in their supply since my husband’s death.
If you could take the little wheelbarrow by the front gate and fetch one load of firewood, I would be so grateful.
By the time you return, your carpet will be finished, and you can be on your way. ”
An errand that will take me out of the house, away from Vawn? I scan her face, looking for anything out of place. She gives me a faint smile.
“It’s a difficult job for the children,” she says. “And my back has been sore lately… but you’ve done so much for us already. I’m sorry to ask.”
It feels cruel to deny her, and I have no good reason to refuse. As long as I’m quick about it and I alert Vawn to my temporary absence, it should be fine. It’s only the end of the lane. I’ll have a clear view of the cottage from there. If anyone enters it, I’ll spot them, and I can run back.
“I’ll let my brother know where I’m going,” I say. “And I’ll take the vial along with me. You’ll receive your payment when I return.”
She throws me an uncertain glance. “Take care that the vial isn’t broken.”
I want to tell her that if it didn’t break during the slide out of the mountain, or during our encounters with the spidermaws and wimmets, it certainly won’t break when I’m fetching firewood. But I simply say, “I’ll be careful,” and I head for the back bedroom.
Vawn is belly-down on the floor, shirtless, raising and lowering his body in a slow, purposeful rhythm. The exercise makes every muscle of his arms more defined.
“The carpet is almost ready,” I tell him. “Gwin wants me to fetch some firewood, and after that we can leave.”
Vawn leaps to his feet with a taut grace that makes my stomach flutter. His skin is coated with a light sheen of sweat. “You want to leave this evening and fly over the Red Mountains in the dark? Shouldn’t we stay one more night and leave in the morning?”
“I can’t explain it, but I have this feeling that we need to go. We should get out of here as soon as possible.”
He nods, tossing his hair back from his face. “Very well. I’m going to do another twenty-five of these, and then I’ll get ready.”
Part of me wants to linger and watch, but instead I buckle on my belt, checking on my knives and the glyph paint vial. Then I head back to the front room, grab my cloak from the chair where I left it earlier, and leave the house by the front door.
Wind ruffles my short hair, but it doesn’t have the teeth that it had yesterday.
If the breeze weren’t so strong, it might even be too warm for the cloak.
Down in the canyon the air is probably even warmer.
The blood ivy will have soaked up all the heat of the sun, and it will release it slowly during the first part of the night, turning the floor of the canyon humid and luminous.
I knock wet clumps of snow off the wheelbarrow and shove it onto the lane, trundling it through mud, pebbles, and slush.
At the end of the lane, past a few more cottages, stands a shelter, just half a dozen posts and a roof, erected to shield stacks of firewood from the elements.
The ground slopes upward from there, rocky and jagged, rising to the lip of the canyon.
Along its edge march rows of priest pines, a type of evergreen, the only tree in this region that is immune to the ravages of blood ivy.
And above the pines, the mountain keeps rising, a towering heap against the gold and pink of the sunset sky.
Before I reach the shed, I turn around and scan my surroundings carefully, from the steep slope of the lane to the blue shadows of the cottages.
All is quiet and still, except for another family’s laundry fluttering from their own clothesline and a handful of chickens strutting and pecking in a small yard.
There’s not a single threat that I can see.
No one skulking along the lane toward Gwin’s house, no one trudging through the remaining snow toward her back door.
By all appearances, we are safe.
But I can’t get my nerves to settle. I’m desperate to get on the carpet and leave this place. The faster I finish this chore, the sooner we can do that.
I set the wheelbarrow down in front of the woodshed and begin taking split logs from the lowest stack.
The weight hits me from above, brutal and bone-crushing. A man’s big body, crashing down on me from the roof of the shed with such force that I feel one of my ribs crack when I hit the ground.
He sits on my back, pressing my face into the muddy slush while I thrash and struggle. I can’t scream aloud, but inwardly I’m shrieking abuse at myself for not realizing that our pursuers might not target Vawn first. It never entered my mind that they would lie in wait for me.
I was so stupid not to anticipate this. So stupid…
I’m inhaling slush, choking on mud, and the lack of air makes my chest swell tight and my head feel like a blood balloon. A second person is beating me with an object, battering every part of me that isn’t covered by the weight of my first attacker.
I’ve been through some brutal training, but never have I experienced pain like this, blooming through every limb until I can’t be sure if I’m human-shaped anymore. I feel like a mushed, amorphous blob, shining bulbously, horribly red, swollen to bursting with pain, pain, pain.
And then the red light goes out.
I choke on foul water and grit, coughing it out of my lungs. Every cough is a stab wound to my chest. My saliva is thick, tinged with copper and salt.
It’s dark, except for a little watery moonlight. My right hand lies near my face, bruised and battered, shaking when I lift it. Two of my nails are broken, split partway through the glyphs, and the rest of the symbols have been scrubbed or scratched off my nails.
I’m on my stomach amid leaves, stones, and snow, but my body is slanted at an odd angle. When I shift my weight, I slide downward rapidly before my boot hits something and I stop again.
That sudden, swift descent tore the breath from my aching chest. Cautiously I lift my head and look up… then down.
I’m lying in a horribly steep crevasse that empties into the canyon.
My body was dumped here. Either my attackers thought I was dead and were disposing of my carcass, or they knew I was still alive and expected the fall to finish me off.
Which it would have, if my boot hadn’t snagged on a jutting rock and postponed my demise.
As it is, the dropoff is not far away from my feet, promising a deadly spill into the vast canyon below. I’ll splatter on rocks or be split by tree branches, or perhaps I’ll strangle to death in a net of blood ivy.
The upward slant is so steep that I can’t climb back up, not with my head pounding and my lungs feeling as if they’re full of splinters.
Not with my very bones bruised and my skin torn.
I’m fairly sure the smallest finger on my right hand is broken, and something deep inside my body is thrumming with a horrible, sickening agony.
The crevasse stinks like shit and rotten food. Ash, filthy straw, and spoiled food are mixed in with the dirt. The villagers of Weaver’s Canyon must dump their refuse down here.
Whoever those men were, they beat me and threw me away like garbage. And by now, they’ve taken Vawn. I’d bet my life they were bounty hunters—although my life doesn’t seem particularly valuable at the moment. One wrong move, and I’ll lose it.
It had to be Gwin. She betrayed us. She must have arranged the whole thing early in the morning, when she went to bargain for the unicorn hair.
She watched me work with her children all day, helping them with chores, listening to their stories, laughing at the silly jokes and songs they made up—and she still sent me up the lane to the woodshed at sunset, knowing I would be attacked.
Knowing that those men planned to kill me.
I’ve been stripped of my cloak and my belts. The leftover money and the vial are gone. Everything is gone except my boots. Maybe the men who assaulted me didn’t want to take the time to unlace them. They’re custom-made for me, after all. They would only suit someone of my exact size and build.
I don’t dare push any harder against the rock where my boot sole is propped. If it gives way, I’ll slide off the edge and plunge into blackness.
Gingerly I lift my trembling hand and move it down to my thigh, feeling for the beaded hilt of my hidden weapon, the needle-like blade that I used to threaten Steros. Maybe, if I can get both of the secret blades out, I can use them as climbing spikes and work my way back up the slope.
I tug at the thin weapon, trying to draw it, but even that slight movement causes a shift in the rock that’s propping my boot.
I freeze, a panicked sob caught in my throat.
Vawn. I call his name in my head, pointlessly. Help me.
There’s a chance he escaped the hunters. Maybe I should call for help. If he’s looking for me, maybe he’ll hear my cry.
Or maybe he’s not the one I should call out to.
“Severin,” I croak. “Severin…. Please.”
Gwin would have kept the carpet for herself. He’s either in his case or weighed down by the unicorn hoof she used to keep him dormant during the repair. He won’t hear me, and if he does, he might not be able to get out of her house to come to my aid.
What if Gwin gave him to the bounty hunters? Only two people can ride him at once, so the hunters wouldn’t be able to take Vawn on the carpet with them—unless they have a second carpet. Which is possible, given the village’s specialty.
I inhale a little more deeply, and a fresh wave of pain rushes through my body.