14.

An Unexpected Visitor

In the middle of the night, my eyes flew open. At least, I assumed it was the middle of the night. It was hard to gauge time in the depths of a cave.

Two strange sounds competed for my attention.

The first sound was odd breathing coming from Khara. On each inhalation she made a sustained snorting noise, not unlike a bog toad.

I assumed all humans did this when they slept.

The second sound seemed to be a rat scrabbling over the stony cave floor. But my nose immediately corrected that impression. It wasn’t rat or mouse.

It was wobbyk.

My heart leapt.

I strained to listen. Scrabble, scrabble, pause. Scrabble, pause.

And there he was.

Tobble.

He flashed a grin. In the faint light from the moonsnails, his black eyes glimmered. I shook my head, silencing him before he could speak. We could not afford to waken Khara.

I rolled onto my side to show Tobble the rope that still bound my wrists. His nimble little paws, along with his teeth, went to work. My hands tingled with their newfound freedom.

I patted Tobble in thanks. He seemed pleased, for he produced a purring sound, a softer, more melodious version of Khara’s heavy breathing.

We crept inch by inch, Tobble in the lead. Vallino heard us, of course. He was a clever beast, and herd animals have sharply developed senses. He could have exposed us with a single nicker or a loud snort, but he stayed silent.

I suspected Vallino did not enjoy carrying my weight along with Khara’s. He was probably happy to see me leave.

We soon emerged beneath a star-strewn sky and moved away from the cave as quickly as we could while still remaining silent.

“Many thanks,” I whispered. “So that was you I heard calling my name on the trail?”

“Yes. I wanted to give you hope.”

“I thought I was imagining things.”

“Your wound,” Tobble said, pointing to my side. “Are you well enough to travel?”

“I’m fine.”

Tobble jutted his chin toward the cave. “Did the human girl plan to kill you?”

“You knew she was a girl?”

“Of course,” said Tobble. “You didn’t?”

“No,” I admitted. There are times when dairne honesty can be a disadvantage.

“So do you think she wanted to kill you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I need to know whether or not I saved your life.”

“Ah. Well, you certainly rescued me,” I said. “And I’m deeply grateful. But whether she meant to kill me, I can’t be sure. I don’t know what she was planning.”

The wobbyk made a disgruntled sound. “In that case, I suppose I can’t count it as an actual lifesaving.”

“Of course you can.”

Tobble shook his head. “It’s Code, Byx. You cannot argue with Wobbyk Code.”

I sensed it was best not to debate. “So,” I said, changing the subject, “where do you think we are?”

“Well, as best I can tell, we are at the end of a ridge, between the Forest of Null and the Therian Marshes.”

“The Forest of Null?” Every dairne pup had heard of the Forest of Null. It was featured in many bedtime stories. Not the happy sort of bedtime story. The type of story involving fell beasts, monsters, and carnivorous plants.

Tobble nodded solemnly. Even a solemn wobbyk looks a bit silly.

“I’ve never been to the marshes,” I said.

“Nor have I,” said Tobble.

I tried to recall my geography lessons. “And what lies beyond them, do you think?”

Tobble tapped his chin. “The plains. The capital. Rivers. Mountains. Some other stuff. And then a whole different country, Dreyland.”

“That sounds about right,” I said. “Geography was never my best subject.”

“Well, I can tell you this: we certainly don’t want to get too close to the border.”

“As if we could ever get that far!” I replied. “But why do you say that?”

“Rumor has it that the Murdano is planning to invade Dreyland soon.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“We wobbyks are seafaring folk.” Tobble grinned proudly. “We know a great deal about a few things, and a few things about a great deal.”

“Then perhaps you could help me decide where to go.”

“That,” said Tobble, “I shall leave up to you.”

How to make a decision? If only, I thought desperately, my parents were here to guide me. Myxo, Dalyntor, any of my siblings: they would all have better instincts than I. What did I know? I was the runt. The least important member of our pack.

I knew nothing.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. I knew that the important thing at that moment was to get as far away from Khara as possible.

I looked at Tobble’s trusting, expectant face. “Marshes it is, then,” I said, trying to sound decisive.

Tobble pointed to the north. We set off at a pace limited by his stubby legs. I realized with a guilty start that Tobble must have been running all day and much of the night to keep up with Vallino.

To rescue me.

“You must be exhausted. Would you like me to carry you?”

“I wouldn’t hear of it! You’ve been injured,” Tobble said. “In any case, the wobbyk metabolism is a marvel to behold. I once ran for six days straight without sleep or sustenance.”

My dairne instincts told me I was hearing more than a little exaggeration. But I said nothing. In any case, I could hardly rush ahead and abandon him. He’d taken risks for me. I would not let myself forget that fact.

The dank odor of the marsh wafted our way before we arrived at the first grayish, spongy mound of drooping grass. It smelled of rot and decay, too sweet in the upper registers of scent. It smelled of living things slowly dying.

But as we pushed on, as I dragged my feet out of sucking mud, I smiled to myself. Khara might follow this way, but Vallino would not.

“We should walk for a bit longer, then turn southwest,” I said.

“Back to—to where we started?”

The question brought me up short. Was the burned and blood-spattered mirabear hive my destination?

Why? To return to dead bodies? What would I do when I got there?

I hesitated. “I could speak a ritual for the dead,” I finally suggested.

Tobble accepted my answer, but it didn’t satisfy me.

Did I truly have no destination?

The realization flooded me with despair. I was in the middle of a stinking marsh with nowhere to go.

I had no family. I had no home. The only reason to head back was because I had no better destination.

I belonged nowhere. To no one.

For as long as I could remember, I’d been part of something bigger than myself.

Part of a family.

Part of a pack.

Part of a species.

What was I now?

You’re still a dairne, I told myself. You’re alone today. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be alone forever.

Myxo had planned to lead our pack north. She must have believed more dairnes could be found.

If she could hope, then I could, too.

I remembered, with a sudden pang, my mother’s words the last time we were together: It’s never wrong to hope, Byx.

Of course, she’d also said: Unless the truth says otherwise.

“Byx?” Tobble asked. “Are you all right?”

I gave a small nod. I might have been the only dairne in all the southlands. In all Nedarra. In all the world, perhaps.

I didn’t know the truth, couldn’t guess what lay ahead. Not yet.

But perhaps I wasn’t entirely alone. Not with this little wobbyk by my side.

We trudged on. It became harder to advance. The gloomy landscape was dotted with wide, shallow pools and soggy mounds of earth. Each step forward meant yanking a foot from sucking mud so determined to hold us in place that it almost seemed alive.

The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow claw. Ahead of us, skeletal trees glimmered in the moonlight. They were leafless, with huge knots of exposed roots digging into the mud like thousands of gnarled fingers.

“Those are marsh demontrees,” Tobble said. “Perhaps we could rest there?”

“How scenic,” I said. “Perhaps tomorrow we can camp in a graveyard.”

We settled onto a nearly dry spot atop a mat of roots. I began scraping muck from my feet with a stick. Tobble groomed himself for a moment, muttered something incomprehensible, and instantly fell fast asleep.

It was probably for the best. I could stay awake to keep watch.

I yawned, shook myself, yawned again.

Stay awake, I told myself. You can sleep later. Stay awake.

Another yawn.

Stay . . .