It explained why, with all the yelling going on, neither Gael nor Cai had come searching for the source of the trouble. It also explained the obvious state of injury on a few of the warriors as they'd entered the village.
"Aedus, get up to the lodge, get Theron, get the girl, get Barruch and get out of here."
Thankfully, the girl didn't argue. She scrambled up the tree, her grubby legs agile and adept as if they'd been born to climb. Alaysha swallowed hard. She had only to buy time, that was all. Just enough for Theron and Aedus and the girl to find and gallop away on Barruch. If Gael and Cai lived, they'd surely be protected somewhat by their marks. Yenic was gone, hopefully far enough that he'd be safe. The spontaneous lighting of the Highlanders had slowed down, so she thought he must have found a way to stop his mother.
So all she needed was time.
Enud climbed down from her beast and strode toward Alaysha. She limped painfully, and Alaysha could see a large gash in her side. Even as she came forward, she was pulling her sword from her back. The Enyalia behind her look ragged and weary. Scouting the escapees had taken its toll; Alaysha counted half a dozen beasts. Not so many then.
A scrabbling noise came from behind the tree, and Alaysha knew Aedus had made it back down. She moved away from the Redwood, closer to Enud, whose circlets rattled louder with each step. The tree was thick enough that the inhabitants could slip off into the woods and not be seen.
"I shall wear your teeth first," the Enyalian said. "And then my sword sisters will clear this village as it should have been done seasons ago."
"You'll string no new teeth today, Enud," Alaysha told her and the woman laughed.
The time, if it was ever going to be right, was now. Alaysha wouldn't see one more of these people murdered today. She thought of her father, imagined his icy eyes as he told her to bury the emotion, to see her foes as targets of shield and bone. To think of them as water. Water she needed, wanted, and could use if only she could sniff it, touch it, draw from each pore the way a bucket emptied from a well.
But not from everywhere. From one target. That one right there who was even now swinging her blade, thinking to stop the beating of her heart and take her teeth, to decorate her thighs with a string of white bone.
The power awoke. It unfurled like a leaf to the spring sun. Alaysha imagined the pathways that she knew from past experience were there. She saw them all in her mind's eye, and her tongue tasted the fluid that kept the Enyalian's eyes clear, her lungs moist, her breath in sweat. She heard Enud's short sigh and the hollow thud of steel against ground, and she knew she'd done it.
She'd sent the power in one finger to touch the one target she needed and she nearly wept in relief because it worked.
She stood, heaving with exertion, staring down at the leathered bit of skin at her feet and she heard her own choked laughter ripple across the air because there were no seeds for her to collect. She looked up, searching for someone to tell this to, and she remembered they were all gone and she was left with six furious Enyalia. And she realized she was fatigued but not beaten by the power. And then she realized the power was still unfurling.
And then the rain came.