Bramble

FIRST LIGHT WAS early so far north, even in spring, and they were all yawning and shivering as they met outside Safred’s house and followed her through the alleys and streets of the town to a small wooded area on its outskirts. A score or so of townsfolk came with them, and they greeted one another with nods and yawning half-smiles so simply that Bramble knew they took the walk to the gods’ wood every morning.

The wood was surrounded by fields and some houses, and it was clear that the town had expanded around the altar, but had left enough space to keep the gods happy. They didn’t like being crowded, it was said.

Bramble could feel them, lightly, in her mind. It was not the uncomfortable pressure they used when they wanted her to do something. This was almost companionable. It was the first time she had felt this way, going to greet them. At home, in Wooding, she had hated the dawn prayers, surrounded by those afraid of the gods, or of life, by the pious and by those who wanted to be thought pious, like the Widow Farli. But here, she sensed nothing from these people but simple devotion. No doubt it was harder to pretend to be pious with the Well of Secret’s eyes on you.

The rock was in a clearing, surrounded by old beech trees, huge and knotted and twisting overhead so that their branches met and the altar seemed to be at the center of a domed room. Moss and young grass covered the ground and Bramble could hear the trickle of a stream which the gods always liked to have nearby. Although they were close to the town, she felt as though she were deep in a forest, perhaps even the Great Forest that she had dreamed about so often. The hairs on the back of her neck raised, and she knew that the gods had turned their attention to all of their followers, not just her.

They came to the altar in the silver light just before dawn, and knelt together, in silence, as the winds of dawn began to blow. Safred bowed her head; Martine and Ash looked down at their hands, which was not quite the same thing. Zel was praying, her mouth moving silently, her hand clasping Flax’s. His face was blank. Surprisingly, Cael was also praying fervently, hands clenched against his chest.

Bramble’s mind was empty of prayers. All she could do was feel: grief for Maryrose and a dark scouring of blame and anger for the gods, because they hadn’t protected her sister. They gave her no reply in words, but she had a strong sense of their regret. It wasn’t enough to ease her grief, but her anger cooled a little, and turned toward Saker. I will kill him, she thought. The pressure on her mind increased with the thought, but for the first time ever, she had the sense that the gods were undecided. Should I kill him? she asked them, but she heard no answer except, Not yet.

As the first light touched the tops of the trees, throwing shadows down onto the altar, the other townsfolk stirred and got up, backing away respectfully until they were beyond the circle of trees. But Safred motioned to their group to come closer. She laid a hand on the altar.

“Today we part. But we’ll meet again, to bring the parts of the answer together.”

“Aye,” Cael said. “But where, and when?”

They looked at Safred, who hesitated. Bramble could tell there was no answer from the gods.

It was Martine who answered. “Turvite,” she said.

“The stones?” Safred asked. “The stones say so?”

“Common sense says so, which is worth more,” Martine replied briskly. “It was Acton’s last big battle. It’s the biggest city in the Domains. Sooner or later this Saker will go there, and he will bring his army.”

“Oh, yes,” Bramble said, feeling Martine’s words ring true. “He’ll want Turvite. He’ll want to succeed where the old enchanter failed.”

“Yes. He will want to surpass her,” Safred said slowly.

“So,” Cael said. “Turvite.”

Ash flinched, just a little, as though Cael’s voice had been a prod to his memory. “Um… Turvite might not be so healthy a place for Martine and me,” he said.

Martine laughed. “True,” she said. “Perhaps we should meet just outside Turvite. There’s a village a few miles up the river, called Sanctuary. We could meet there.”

“As soon as we can,” Safred said reluctantly, and it was an irritant to her, they could all see, that she did not know the time and date.

“Where will you go to find the songs?” she asked Ash.

His face closed down. “South,” he said.

“But I need to know —” Safred began, and at the same moment the gods roared into Bramble’s head, forbiddingly. No! they ordered. Safred jerked as the command hit her. Ash shook a little, as though he had heard them too, but his face stayed stony.

“No,” he echoed the gods.

Safred stared at him, her eyes burning and her face pale, but at last she nodded and the pressure in Bramble’s mind eased off. Bramble could see the effort it took her not to ask more. She waited for Safred to say some final exhortation or blessing, but she just stepped back from the altar and walked away, her back to the altar. That unsettled Bramble, who always backed away, out of a mix of respect and caution. It seemed to her that Safred took the gods for granted, and that was not quite safe. She shrugged. None of her business. She had to see to the horses for the journey.

They walked back to the town and Bramble went straight to the stables instead of to Safred’s house with the others. She led the horses around to the house, trying not to think about being separated from Cam and Mud. There was no choice, really, but she took a few moments as she led them to talk to them, telling them they would meet again, soon, soon. Trine got jealous and bumped her head against Bramble’s side. Instinctively, she braced for a lance of pain from her arm, but of course there was none. She was healed. She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to that.

Bramble had bought provisions for a few days’ journey from Heron and had insisted on paying for the room as well, over Ash and Martine’s protests. “Least I can do,” she said. She never had liked being in someone’s debt and only the knowledge that the gods had sent Ash and Martine to her at the right time allowed her to bear the gratitude she owed them. She grinned at Ash. He was still walking stiffly from the long ride. She remembered how much learning to ride hurt.

“Think you can manage another ride?”

He looked at Cam with some doubt. “If I have to,” he said, then laughed with her. There was something false about the laughter, though, as if he was trying hard to seem light-hearted. Bramble felt a little protective of him, which was stupid, considering it was he who had saved her life. Zel brought a sack out from the house and dumped it next to the door frame.

“Another journey,” Martine said. “Maybe Acton was right when he sent us on the Road. It seems like we can’t get away from it no matter how we try.”

“No rest for the Traveler,” Ash said. “Not this side of the burial caves.”

“I guess we must be Travelers, then,” Martine said wryly. Zel went back in for another load, leaving the door open behind her. Martine said quietly to Ash, “I cast again, and the stones said the same thing.”

He went very still for a moment, then shrugged. “Doesn’t change anything.”

“It may be that you need to find different —”

Ash cut her off. “Forget it. I can’t do it, and that’s all.”

Bramble busied herself with checking the girths on the horses. No business of hers. They had the right to their own secrets. But she noticed distress in both their faces, although they tried to disguise it with the blank face so many Travelers seemed to develop. A protective face, that gave nothing away.

Safred’s voice reached them, murmuring quietly. Then the sound of a man sobbing uncontrollably. One of the pilgrims, no doubt. Bramble was uncomfortable with this side of Safred’s power. To heal flesh was extraordinary enough. To heal the spirit — something in her rebelled against that idea. To be so vulnerable to someone who was, after all, only another human… although at one time she had intended coming to the Well of Secrets for exactly that kind of healing, now it seemed inconceivable to her. There was no way she was baring her soul to Safred.

Safred’s voice came again. Martine, Ash and Bramble exchanged glances. After a few moments the sobbing stopped and Safred appeared in the doorway, Cael behind her.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said cheerfully.

Bramble looked at Ash and smiled. “Parting of the ways. I guess we’re not meant to travel together, lad,” she said half-regretfully. He nodded, half-regretful himself.

Zel and Flax emerged from the house, Zel talking in a big-sisterly tone.

“You help as much as you can. Stay out of the inns. Wait until we’re together again.”

Flax bore her advice patiently; more patiently than most younger brothers would have. His mouth was crooked up a little at one corner, as though he found it amusing, but he listened and nodded and said, “Yes, Zel,” in all the right places.

Mullet came around the corner leading four horses, three skittish chestnuts who looked like they had the same breeding and a much older, steadier bay. The old man nodded familiarly to Bramble. She nodded back and smiled. They had met already that morning to groom and saddle the horses. That had been the best time since she’d come to Oakmere, going quietly about the familiar tasks in the warm, lantern-lit stable, working companionably with Mullet as she had done so often with Gorham, the comforting smell of horses surrounding them.

She had been surprised to find the horses in such good condition after their frantic race to get her to Oakmere, but Mullet had grinned.

“Well of Secrets, she gave them a visit,” he said.

“She healed them?” Bramble asked, astonished. It had not occurred to her that Safred would care about animals. Animals had no secrets.

“Said you’d need ’em,” he confirmed. Yes, that made more sense. Safred might be a seer, but she was practical, too. She wouldn’t let anything get in the way of the task at hand.

Now, as Safred swung up on the old bay, Bramble could tell that she had been right. Safred didn’t care about the animal; it was just a way to get to where she was going. Bramble was trying hard not to dislike Safred, out of gratitude, but she suspected that it was a losing battle.

“Let’s go,” Safred said. “May the gods go with you.”

“We might have less trouble if they didn’t,” Cael said softly to Bramble, and she chuckled.

Safred jammed a battered old leather hat on her head — all those freckles, thought Bramble, still amused, glad in some way to notice any weakness in her. They mounted their horses. They paused for a moment, exchanging glances: Zel and Flax, Ash and Martine. Then they rode away, Safred, Zel, Cael, Martine and Bramble to the north; Ash and Flax to the south.

Cael laughed openly at the look on Safred’s face as she twisted in her saddle to watch the young men ride away.

“That boy has a secret,” she said, her eyes hungry.

“And the right to keep it,” Cael said.

Reluctantly, Safred nodded and started her horse off again. “For now,” she said.

They rode out of the town toward the north, passing through streets which led to houses with large vegetable gardens and then a narrow strip of farmland, just showing the first greeny-purple tips of wheat above the soil. There were oats, too, in strips among the wheat, and cabbages, onions, beets — all the staples that would get a northern town through the long stretch of winter.

Not far from town they skirted a lake fringed with willows.

“Oakmere?” Bramble asked.

Cael grimaced. “They cut down the oaks to build the town, then someone brought a willow up from the south and they just took over.”

Bramble pursed her lips. “Yes, incomers do that.”

He gave her a look that showed he understood that she was talking about more than trees, but made no comment. She found herself liking him. He reminded her a bit of her own uncle, her father’s brother, who was a chairmaker and woodcarver. She hadn’t seen him often in her childhood because he lived in Whitehaven, where there was a bigger market for the intricate and expensive carving he loved, but she always enjoyed his visits. He was far more jovial and light-hearted than her parents, and took Bramble’s daily explorations of the woods in his stride, unlike every other adult she knew. Cael had the same acceptance of life, the same good-natured easiness and enjoyment. But her uncle had been no fool, and neither was Cael.

Soon the farmland gave way to scrub and heath and then to sparse woodland, mostly birch and beech and spruce. It was clear that the trees were harvested by the townsfolk. There were stumps and coppiced trees, cleared areas where young saplings were springing up, the remnants of charcoal burners’ fires.

The road was bordered by hedgerows — hawthorn, in flower, and wild white roses, which sent thorned canes onto the track and forced them to ride single file, Zel leading, ahead of Safred. Gorham must have thrown Zel up on a horse before she could walk; she rode as if she were a part of the animal. Safred was competent enough on a horse, Bramble had noted, but mounted clumsily, and she used reins and a saddle, which somehow surprised Bramble. She herself was riding Trine, not trusting her to anyone else, and as usual went without a bit. She had given Trine’s saddle to Ash, for Mud, and rode Trine with just a blanket and saddlebags. The bags Merrick had given her. A torrent of grief broke over her at the memory and her chest felt painful, as though her heart was being squeezed. She forced herself to pay attention to where they were going. Ahead of them was a line of darker trees. Bramble couldn’t see what they were — pine or larch or oak, maybe elms. There was no sense of a specific color green, just a wall of darkness which grew as they rode closer.

They reached a crossroads where a much larger road led off to the northwest. Safred dismounted and the others followed suit and stood by their horses. Martine and Cael thankfully stretched their legs.

“Ahead is the Great Forest,” Safred said. She paused and took off her hat, pleating its crown without looking at it. “When we get to the altar we’ll be safe, I think. Until then, be careful. Don’t leave the path.”

“They always say that in the stories,” Bramble said involuntarily. “The old stories about children lost in the Forest always say, ‘Don’t leave the path,’ and the child always does.”

“Yes,” Safred said. “Remember what they meet when they do.”

They rode on.

The Forest began abruptly. There was a small slope covered with a dense thicket of wayfaring trees, not yet in flower. The grayish branches and rough leaves almost barred the path, but Cael pushed through, and they were suddenly among pine trees. Huge, straight, ugly. It was a little like the forest near the Lake, but more.

The enormous trees made Bramble feel as though she and the others had been shrunk to child size, or smaller; that they were toys pretending to be human, like the dolls Maryrose used to play with. She wondered if anyone or anything was playing with them, and what the game really was.

Under the high, intertwined branches, they rode in an artificial dusk that pressed heavily on them. The ground was covered by a carpet of browned pine needles so thick that the horses’ hooves made no sound and Bramble was for the first time glad of the chink of bits and bridles from the others’ horses. Far above them, patches of orange lichen spread like disease on the trunks. The smell of pine was so strong that after a while Bramble’s nose blocked it out and she could smell nothing. See nothing except the gloomy brown and tan of the forest floor. Hear nothing except the faint sough of wind in the branches high above them. There were no stumps, no clearings. No one came here for wood or charcoal or pine, Bramble suspected. No one came here unless they had to.

Back at her home in Wooding, she had wanted so badly to come to the Great Forest, but this was not what she had hoped for. All her life, she had imagined herself running free here, but in her imagination it had been a wilder, more isolated version of her woods at home, filled with familiar, beautiful greens: oak and elm and alder and willow, holly and rowan and hazel, each a different shade, each taking its proper place in the burgeoning life of the wood.

This Forest’s life was the opposite of that simple kitchen table they had sat around yesterday, of the daylight life of eating and drinking and talking and being. The opposite of the familiar stable where the horses’ breath had showed misty in the chilly morning. Even the opposite of the gathering in the dawn around the black rock altar, where their own breaths had billowed out like steam. This was a place where breathing was foreign. Unwelcome. She felt the pressure of the Forest in her mind, like the pressure from the gods but with a different flavor. There was no voice here, as the gods had voices. There was nothing here but time, endless tree time, where a single heartbeat took a whole year and a thought might last the length of a human life.

Bramble remembered her panic in the forest by the Lake and how the presence of the horses had saved her from it. She saw that the others were starting to feel the same panic now. Picking up on their riders’ anxiety, their horses were growing increasingly nervous, especially the two skittish chestnuts that Zel and Cael were riding. Bramble did not give into it so badly this time — perhaps because she had found a way through it before, and now kept her attention on Trine’s warm hide and the way her muscles moved.

“Concentrate on your horses,” she called to the others, her voice dropping flat and harsh into the silence. “Feel their warmth. Smell them. They’ll comfort you.”

Her companions turned back to look at her in surprise, then they nodded and moved with more confidence. Safred leaned down in her saddle to lay her face against the bay’s neck. Zel dropped her hands so that they rested on the saddle bow, where she could feel the shift of her horse’s muscles.

Bramble saw them relax a little and was pleased. Whatever they had to face in this forest, they weren’t going to be in a panic when it found them.

Then they reached a stream, bubbling over flat, round stones, no more than a hand-span deep but too wide to jump across. At least, it was too wide for these horses. If the roan had been with her, they would have made it easily. She pushed aside a sharp pang of grief at the thought, but the memory of the roan lying in a stream much like this one, bleeding, his head in her lap, returned implacably. Guilt, as well as grief, welled up in her. It was her fault he had died. If she hadn’t made him run in that last chase, he would never have fallen. He would still be alive. Concentrate! she told herself, and looked up and down the stream, searching for a crossing place.

The stream was wide enough that a shaft of sunlight made it down through the bordering trees, and bushes and grasses grew along its banks, their sharp green shocking in the gloom of the pine forest. It was the most cheerful place they had come to in the Forest, but the horses refused to cross. Bramble dismounted and walked to the front, leading Trine. There was a flat space on either side of the stream, but it was bare of any marks. Not even animals came here to drink. Trine snorted and backed away from the water.

“Water sprites?” Bramble asked Safred.

Safred shrugged, but Cael answered. “You can see water sprites, usually.”

“What, then?” Bramble asked.

Martine bent to sniff the water. “It smells of something I’ve met before,” she said thoughtfully, “but I can’t quite place it.”

In turn, they bent and sniffed the brown water. For all of them, it brought up an almost memory, a feeling that they knew the scent if only they could remember. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but it was not pine or fruit or flower or bog or anything else that you would expect to find in a forest.

“If the horses don’t want to cross it, I don’t think we should,” Cael said. The others nodded and Bramble was relieved. She trusted the horses’ instincts more than the humans’.

The stream crossed the path at a right angle and there seemed no other way over it. The path clearly continued on the other side.

“Don’t go off the path, children,” she said wryly.

“Bramble’s right,” Zel said suddenly, not seeming to notice the wryness. “This might be a trick to get us off the path.” She swung down from the chestnut and sat on the pine needles to take off her boots.

“Zel?” Martine said. “What are you doing?”

“I reckon I can make it across there,” Zel muttered, pulling her boots off with a strange ferocity. “This is something I can do.”

Bramble nodded. She’d feel like that, too, surrounded by people who can speak to ghosts and tell the future. Hells, she did feel like that, and she was the Kill Reborn. But although Gorham had told her that Zel was a tumbler, it was a very long way across that stream. She said nothing. The girl knew her own business best.

Cael wasn’t so sure. He measured the stream by eye. “It’s too far!” he said. “You’ll fall halfway.”

Zel jumped to her feet and began to do some limbering exercises, swinging her arms and legs. The horses edged away, the white of Trine’s eyes showing. Bramble went to her head and soothed her.

“We’ll see,” Zel said. “If I get over we can string up a rope and you can slide across.” She paused. “Do we have rope?”

“Aye,” Cael said, his voice deep and comforting. “We’ve got rope. But that won’t get the horses over.”

“We’ll have to leave the horses,” Safred said, her voice tight. “We have to get to the lake by sunset.”

Neither Bramble nor Zel liked that idea. Bramble didn’t want to leave Trine in a strange place with who knew what hiding in the shadows. Zel, it was clear, had anticipated who would be left behind to look after the horses. She prepared for the jump with her mouth set.

Bramble found it hard to believe there was any danger. She remembered jumping the chasm near Wooding. That had been dangerous. This was just a shallow stream which, as the sun rose above the trees, began to sparkle in the sunbeams. But the horses wouldn’t cross it. Bramble shrugged. Nothing was ever shagging easy.

Zel backed up the path and motioned them to move out of the way. Bramble and Cael took the horses off a little; Martine and Safred went to the other side of the track. Bramble expected Zel to run, instead, she took a couple of long paces and then started to do flip-flops, hands to feet to hands, building up speed. At the very edge of the water she jumped high and curled into a ball as she spun in the air, across the stream: once, twice, three times . . .

Her feet came down only a foot from the bank. She splashed heavily into the water, landing on hands and knees. The water flew up and doused her and the smell, whatever it was, immediately grew much stronger.

Zel knelt in the water, silent. She seemed frozen. Petrified.

“Zel?” Bramble called, but she didn’t respond. Bramble edged down the stream, still holding the bridles, so she could see her face side on, but Zel’s expression was fixed in a grimace of surprise.

“Turned to stone?” Cael wondered, voicing all their thoughts. He picked up a pinecone from the track and threw it at Zel’s back. She twitched in response. He did it again and she scrambled up to her feet, her face changing gradually from surprise to fear, her eyes following something to her right, her head turning as she tracked something that wasn’t there.

“Zel, keep going!” Safred called, but Zel remained still, breathing hard. Cael threw another cone, and another. Zel’s back shrugged and involuntarily she took a half-step. Then she screamed, the scream of a child who has seen a monster. Bramble bent and grabbed a cone and threw it, too. Then they were all throwing cones, some landing near Zel, some hitting her legs and back, and one bouncing off her head.

“Aow!” she said, and took one more step. Enough to bring her out of the water. She stood looking down the track and shook her head as if to clear it. Then she turned, her flexible tumbler’s body seeming heavy. Her feet fell solidly with a thwack into the mud.

“Are you all right?” Martine called.

Zel nodded and looked around again, clearing her throat as though she hadn’t spoken for a long time.

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?” Safred asked.

Zel shrugged. “I dunno. Everything… changed. Like I were somewhere different. There was elk. I think elk, but they was huge. A whole herd of ’em. And the trees was different — oak, I think, maybe some elm, and grasses and… and there were this thing, like a giant cat, shagging enormous, chasing the elk and they was running and running and the ground were shaking and then that thing, that big cat, it had these teeth down to here,” she gestured to below her shoulders, “it stopped running and it turned to me and started to come. It were going to jump, like a wolf jumps — it were going to take out my throat, I could smell it. Then something hit me on the back of my head and I took a step and it — it was gone. All of it were just gone.”

She sat down heavily, as though talking had exhausted her.

“You were right here,” Cael reassured her. “You never left us.”

Zel bit her lip. “If that thing had landed on me, I’d be dead,” she said with certainty. “Here or not, there or not. I’d be dead.”

“Mmm,” Safred said. “Better not to take the horses through it, then.”

“How do we get over?” Martine asked.

“We tie a rope high on one tree over this side,” Cael said, “and then throw it to Zel. She can fix it lower to a tree on the other side and we slide down the rope. We can use one of the leading reins to hold onto.”

Safred looked doubtful. “I’m not so good at climbing trees,” she admitted. Bramble was amused to hear that the Well of Secrets had any flaws. “There’s an easier way,” she said. “It’s simple. Just tie a rope around your middle, toss the other end to Zel and let her drag you across. Or if she’s not strong enough, she passes it around a tree over there, throws it back and we all haul on it. Doesn’t matter what you see or what you smell while you’re going over, you’ll be across in a moment and back to your senses.”

“It’s a risk,” Cael said thoughtfully. “That cat thing might be waiting for the first one over.”

“I’ll go first,” Bramble said.

“No,” Safred said. “We need you. We can’t risk you.” She looked at Cael.

Silently, he took rope out of his saddlebags and prepared to throw it to Zel. Safred’s eyes clouded for a moment and then she shook her head as if to clear it. Asking the gods? Bramble wondered. If so, she hadn’t got an answer. Her face was hard to read. This was her uncle, after all, Bramble thought. She had to be worried, even if she didn’t show it. Or was she so used to being controlled by the gods that she didn’t fear anything they didn’t tell her to fear?

Zel pushed herself to her feet and caught the rope Cael threw over easily, then passed it around a nearby pine at waist height and threw both ends back. He caught them and tied one end securely around his waist. They took hold of the other end and held the rope taut. Zel positioned herself at the tree to make sure the rope didn’t catch on anything.

Cael walked back a few paces from the stream.

“I’m going to take a run-up so I’m moving fast when I hit the water,” he said. “Ready? Pull!”

He ran at the water and they had to haul quickly on the rope to keep it tense. As his feet splashed into the stream his steps faltered. Unlike Zel, he kept going, but he slowed down and put his arms out in front of him as though warding something off. Bramble was closest to the stream and she hauled hard on the rope, jerking Cael forward.

“Pull!” she commanded and they pulled together, leaning into the rope and walking backward up the path. Cael was drawn forward across the stream but he went in staggering paces, arms frantically trying to clear something from in front of him as he went. He grunted with effort as he swept his arms from side to side. A couple of times he jerked as though he had hit something. He stepped sideways and the rope went slack. He was only a few steps from the bank. Zel was shouting at him, waving her arms near his face, balancing precariously on a rock at the water’s edge, all her tumbler’s agility called into play. He didn’t react to her at all.

“Pull!” Safred shouted and they pulled more desperately, tightening the rope and dragging him facedown into the water. The smell of the stream became much stronger, making them gag. Then he was flung up in the air, his arms flailing, by a force none of them could see, although they felt the strength of it as the rope was jerked through their hands, burning as it pulled. Cael was thrown up and forward, as dogs who are gored by a boar fly through the air from the boar’s tusks. He landed heavily on the side of the stream. His shoulders were above the stream and Zel grabbed them and hauled him as they pulled the rope. As though aware of her for the first time, he rolled to his hands and knees and shuffled himself out of the water, then collapsed on the ground, his hands shaking as he tried to undo the rope.

There were scratches all over his face and his clothes were ripped across the chest. A long, shallow gash cut across the width of his body. It looked much like a tusk wound, Bramble thought, widening as it went from a narrow point. He had been very lucky.

“Are you all right?” Safred called. He nodded and touched his face. Blood was welling in a dozen scratches.

“Uncle? Can you talk?”

“I always told you to get outside and play more when you were little. You should have listened to me and climbed a few trees while you could because, niece, I think you should climb one now.” Cael was trying hard to speak light-heartedly, but long tremors wracked him, the aftermath of terror.

“What was it?” Martine asked, but he shook his head, shuddering at the memory.

“Tell me,” Safred said urgently, her eyes intent.

He smiled shakily at her. “At last, I have a secret that you want! But this is not the time, niece.”

“Tell me,” she said again, pleadingly.

He shook his head. “Never mind about it now. Just rig up that rope and hold on tight.”

Safred’s face was a mixture of exasperation and thwarted desire. Bramble realized that knowing things, being told things, was as necessary to Safred as breathing. She was called the Well of Secrets because once told, the secrets were never spoken of again, disappearing as if into a deep well; but she drew those secrets to her more like a whirlpool than a well. She sucked them in as though they were air to breathe. Martine was staring at Safred, too, as though comprehending the same thing. She saw Bramble looking at her and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “Interesting, isn’t it?”

Cael tied off the rope around the pine tree they had used as a pulley and Martine pulled the rest of it back to their side. She looked doubtfully at the nearest tree. Bramble took the rope from her, exasperated, then took a rein from Zel’s chestnut and tucked it into her belt.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t climb trees when you were a youngling either?” she said as she swung up onto the lowest branch. Fortunately, near the stream the pine branches grew close to the ground and were relatively easy to climb.

Martine didn’t respond, but Zel answered for her.

“Travelers don’t, mostly,” she said. “You get yelled at if anyone sees you. Sometimes they throw rocks.”

Bramble sniffed. She had been yelled at more times than she could count, climbing other people’s trees, but no one had ever thrown rocks at her. Because she wasn’t really a Traveler, just Maryrose’s wild little sister. Gods she hated that whole way of thinking about Travelers! It stank like rotten fish. She put her anger into her climb and ignored the scratches from the pine twigs and bark. At a point where a branch had broken away, leaving a gap they could swing through, she attached the rope firmly to the trunk, making sure it was lodged securely on the stub of the branch. The line stretched tight right across the stream. She would have to bring her legs up at the end, though, to stop them splashing in the water as she landed.

She balanced on the branch below and doubled the rein, then flipped the doubled length over the rope and caught it with her other hand. She understood the theory. You were supposed to hold on to the rein and your body weight would slide you down the rope to the other side. From here, the rope looked frayed and the rein too thin. Break your neck, or simply fall into the stream and be ripped apart by whatever had attacked Cael. She grinned, feeling her blood fizz with the familiar excitement of danger, and launched herself from the tree.

The rush through the air was dizzyingly fast. Bramble tried to bring her legs up in time so that they did not hit the water on the far side of the stream, but just as she began to lift them, something invisible grabbed her ankle and yanked. She fell into the water with a flurry and splash that blinded her.

Scrambling to her feet, she blinked the water from her eyes and found that the something was not invisible after all. It was a man — no, a woman — no, a something almost human which stood, lounging, on the bank, laughing at her dishevelment and her astonishment.

Everything around her had changed, and she was caught in a surprise so profound that it left no room for other emotions.

Movement caught her gaze, and the being on the bank looked with her, still laughing. Fleeing through the trees was a herd of brown deer, but of a kind she had never seen before, with a broad white stripe down their back and black legs. They bounded over bushes and fallen trees, through undergrowth which masked the rest of the Forest. What had been pine trees were now elms. There were birds singing. Thrushes. The stream was narrower, and clearer, the water less brown, the stones rougher under her feet.

Her companion had a long knife in its hand. A stone knife, the kind that never dulls. It looked sacrificial. As she thought it, the laughter stopped. The person on the bank looked at her and smiled a kind, terrifying smile. It was thin, and no taller than she, and beautiful the way a hunting cat is beautiful, the way a hawk is beautiful as it hovers, waiting for the kill. There were hawk’s feathers woven into its hair, so that she could not tell where the feathers stopped and the hair began, and its eyes were gold and slitted like a hawk’s. Behind her, the undergrowth rustled and she wondered how many of them there were, and why she was still alive. Astonishment gave way to acceptance. If it was her time to die, so be it.

“Will you not run, as the deer run?” it asked. Its voice was warm and oddly husky, as though it spoke little.

Bramble shook her head. “I have done running,” she said. “If you want to kill me, go ahead.” She knew the edge of the stream would get her back to her own people, her own — what, time? place? world? She also knew she couldn’t get to the edge of the stream before that wicked blade took her throat. She wasn’t inclined to run for its amusement.

Concern filled its eyes but it came a step closer. Its bones moved oddly under its skin, more like a cat than a person. Another step. It raised the knife to her throat but did not touch her.

“There must be fear to cleanse the death,” it whispered.

Bramble knew that she should be shaking in terror, but the feeling refused to come. She wasn’t good at fear, never had been. With the roan and Maryrose both gone, there was nothing in this life she would mind leaving. It would take more than the threat of death to make her afraid. As though it recognized the thought, the hunter frowned.

“There must be fear,” it repeated. It increased the pressure on Bramble’s throat until she felt a runnel of blood make its way down her skin.

“I’ve been dead,” Bramble said. “There are lots of things worse than a clean death.”

It began to shake, its face crumpling with uncertainty. “Without fear, the death is tainted. The hunter becomes unclean.”

“Then don’t kill me.”

“But the Forest requires it. All who see us must die.” Then it cocked its head as though listening. “If I do not kill, I betray . . .”

Bramble listened too. Around them, everything became quiet. The thrushes stopped their trilling, the wind died, the stream itself seemed to pause. Then a shiver came through the trees, not from the wind but from the earth, a shiver that passed up the trees and lost itself in the gray sky above. Bramble felt that a message had been sent, but in a language she could not hear. The golden eyes filled with tears which trickled slowly down its face, as though the message had been one of great grief. It lowered the knife and slowly slid it into a belt sheath.

“I may not kill you now. The Forest knows you, Kill Reborn. You may travel safely here.”

“And my friends, too,” Bramble demanded. “And our horses.”

It nodded. “If you will it. But the Forest says, move swiftly. The time is almost ripe.”

It drifted back toward the undergrowth, and as it went, the scent from the stream intensified.

“Wait,” Bramble said. “What is that smell?”

It laughed bitterly. “Memory,” it said. “Memory and blood.”

She took a step forward to follow it, to ask it more about the Forest, but the step took her from the elms back to the pines, to a blue sky above and Cael grabbing her hands, hauling her out of the water.

“How long was I there?” Bramble said. Safred and Martine, on the other side of the stream, opened their mouths to ask questions but Cael waved them silent.

“Only a moment. How long was it for you?” he answered.

Bramble considered. “A few minutes, maybe. Hard to tell. Long enough to almost be killed.”

“What did you see?” Safred called. Her face was intent.

“Later,” Bramble said. “There was a message from the Forest. Travel swiftly, it said. The time is almost ripe.”

“Aye,” Cael said grimly. He called to Martine. “Keep your legs well up, lass, when you come over.”

Bramble shook her head. “No, it should be all right now. The Forest has given us leave to travel.”

Immediately, Safred plunged into the stream, crossing in a few strides without incident. She reached the other side and Cael took her hand to haul her up. He grinned at her.

“Should have gone first if you wanted to know what was out there, girl,” he said. She looked sideways at him, annoyed.

The smell had gone from the stream. Martine led the horses to the water and this time they ambled across willingly, snatching mouthfuls as they went.

Safred laid her hand on Cael, her eyes closing. Martine said quietly to Bramble, “Healing him,” and Bramble nodded. Safred opened her mouth to sing and Bramble felt a shock go through her when the song came: grating, horrible, somehow familiar. She turned to Martine.

“Is that how she healed me?”

Martine nodded. “With a little help from Ash.”

Knowing how horrendous her own injury had been, Bramble expected Safred to deal with Cael’s scratches easily. But the song continued, louder, and Safred was frowning. Cael looked down at his chest, where the long gore mark stood out livid against his skin. It began to bleed. Sluggishly, then faster and stronger. His face paled and he reached up to grip Safred’s wrist. She stopped singing and her own face was so white each freckle showed up clearly.

“They are not there,” she said. “The gods are not there.”

There was such desolation in her voice that Bramble went to her instinctively and put a hand on her shoulder.

Safred looked at Bramble’s hand. It was scratched and bleeding from climbing the pine tree. Safred touched it lightly and closed her eyes. The scratches disappeared, fading away completely, just as her shoulder wound had. Safred didn’t even need to sing.

Her eyes opened full of relief, but as she looked at Cael, she was at a loss. “I don’t understand. They were there, easily, then. For Bramble.”

“But not for me,” Cael said. His face was unreadable.

“You said,” Bramble reminded Safred, “that whatever guides you is weak in the Forest. Perhaps a wound that the Forest has inflicted is beyond their power here.”

“You got that scratch from the Forest.”

Bramble shook her head. “Not from the Forest. Just from a tree. There’s a difference.”

Cael shook his head as though it were too hard for him. He went to his horse, pulled a kerchief out of his saddlebag and mopped the blood from his chest.

“Enough,” he said. “If the Forest wants me to bleed, then I’ll bleed. Let’s get going.”

Safred studied him with a worried face, but eventually she nodded.

In silence, they mounted up and followed the trail before them.

“Me first this time, I think,” Bramble said and Safred nodded agreement.

“Quickly, then. The lake is not far now.”