Foxfire

“THAT DAMNED FORTRESS is locked tighter than a virgin’s legs,” Pedar grumbled. “That’s the price of success,” Temet replied. “And we have Keirith to thank for it.”

Keirith saw Temet’s grin reflected on the faces of the others—Faelia and Selima, Mikal and Pedar—the special few who planned every attack and discussed every strategy. Now he was part of that inner circle.

It had been more than a sennight since he’d seen Rigat. At their last meeting, his brother had seemed distracted. Perhaps the recent inactivity had left him as restless as everyone else.

Mikal frowned; he’d made no secret of the fact that he resented Keirith “squandering” his gift on healing the spirits of the “weak.”

Pressing his hand over his heart as if stricken, Pedar rolled off the log. Mikal waited for the laughter to ebb before nudging him with his foot. “Get up, fool. And help us figure out how to open the virgin’s legs.”

Pedar glanced from Faelia to Selima, but the looks they gave him were enough to send him back to his place with only a meek, “Oh. Right. The fortress.”

His words dispelled the lingering good humor created by Pedar’s silliness. They all knew that the village near The Bluff traded with the Zherosi.

“Well, we’re too few to consider an assault on Little Falls,” Selima said. “And it would be suicide to attack The Bluff.”

Faelia leaned forward. “But the garrison is undermanned. And thanks to our ambushes, the Zherosi haven’t been able to reinforce it.”

“There’s precious little darkness this close to Midsummer,” Pedar interrupted. “They’re bound to notice a lot of shrubs creeping up on them.”

“Forget the brush,” Faelia said. “If we can get within bowshot, we could use flaming arrows to fire the palisade. All we need is pine resin—or animal fat—”

The first time Keirith had witnessed one of their arguments, he’d feared they would come to blows. Only Temet remained aloof, content to listen and offer a quiet remark when tempers flared. Like a father with a brood of quarrelsome children. When he finally raised his hand, the contentious voices immediately fell silent.

“A big ‘if,’ ” Selima interrupted. When Faelia stiffened, she quickly added, “If anyone can convince them to fight, the Spirit-Hunter can. But we can’t pin our strategy on that.”

They all stared at him. Until now, he had simply relayed Rigat’s information and allowed them to discuss strategy.

“Nial tried that,” Mikal interrupted. “The guards heard the splashing and picked them off. Like spearing salmon in a fish trap.”

“The ships will be guarded,” Mikal said. “And we’d have to avoid the village.” His scowl reminded everyone that his tribe willingly cooperated with the Zherosi. “It might work. But . . .”

Mikal moved his shoulders as if his tunic had suddenly grown too tight. “There’s bound to be changes since Keirith’s last vision. I’d just feel better if we could see the fortress firsthand.”

An awkward silence fell. With Sorig gone, Mikal was the obvious choice, but everyone knew how much he hated going anywhere near his birthplace.

“Nay,” Mikal interrupted. “If we want to convince Nial to help, we’ll need as much information as possible before the Gathering.”

“Right.” Temet’s voice was brisk, but he squeezed Mikal’s shoulder briefly. “Choose two or three others to go with you.”

“It might be better if I went alone.” Mikal grimaced. “I can always say I came back to mend my differences with my father.”

Temet nodded. “We’ll move camp tonight, but stay close to The Bluff for a sennight in case there’s another attempt to relieve it. After that, we head west to the Gathering place.”

Keirith knew better than to ask where it was. Temet had probably told Mikal the location, but the rest of them would only learn their exact destination on the final leg of the journey.

The group slowly dispersed for the evening meal. Probably suetcakes and smoked venison again. Although they were half a day’s journey from The Bluff, Temet had ordered that no fires were to be lit until after the Gathering, fearing a hunter might spy the smoke and report to the Zherosi.

As Keirith wandered through the clearing, he passed men and women sharpening blades and fletching arrows. A few—less industrious—sprawled on the grass, their bodies striped by the sunlight slanting through the trees. Hard to imagine that less than half a moon ago, these same men and women had slaughtered dozens of Zherosi.

At the edge of the embankment, he spied Eilin at the stream below, picking his way across the rocks. The boy started as two of the bathing men playfully hurled gouts of water at him. Then he smiled and brandished his fishing spear with exaggerated menace.

In the first days after his healing, Eilin had tagged after him like a puppy, afraid to let him out of his sight. But he seemed more confident now—and he’d lost that glaze-eyed look of silent terror.

He’d been less successful with Idrian and Nuala. Temet had sent them both home, overruling Keirith’s pleas that they simply needed more time to recover.

“Maybe so,” Temet had said. “But they’ll have to do that elsewhere. I send the wounded home to keep them from slowing us down. These two may have different wounds, but I can’t permit them to endanger the rest of us.”

At least he had helped them through the worst of it. And Temet had been kind in his farewell, assuring them that he would need them come winter when the Zherosi began their logging operations.

Keirith’s worries faded as he meandered through a pretty little copse of birches. He caressed the slender trunks, delighting in the feathery curls of bark. As the trees gave way to a rocky ledge, he caught his breath.

It was like standing at the edge of the world. Rolling hills spread out beneath him, an endless canopy of green that faded into a soft blue in the distance. Shading his eyes against the setting sun, he made out the occasional glint of water, and, far to the west, a thin haze where smoke rose from a village.

Could the Zherosi really destroy all of this? It seemed impossible. Yet he had seen the sun-baked plains of their homeland where legends claimed forests had once stretched for miles.

Choosing a spot well away from the edge, he sat and rested his back against a sun-warmed boulder. He had always loved sunsets in the north, the soft colors melting together as evening approached, the lingering half-light of the gloaming fading so slowly you could still make out the black outlines of the trees far into the night.

Enjoying the rare solitude, Keirith felt contentment banish his lingering anxiety about Rigat’s absence and his concern about his spirit-wounded comrades. He watched the wispy clouds fade from rose to violet, and the sky pale to the subtle blue-gray of a wood pigeon. His breathing grew deep, his limbs heavy, as if his body were surrendering to the inevitable twilight. The birds had surrendered as well, their chirps and squawks and warbles fading with the light. Less than fifty paces away, the camp bustled with activity, but stillness filled his body, his mind, his spirit.

A sinuous cloud, purple as a fresh bruise, drifted past. High above it, an eagle soared in a long, slow spiral. Suddenly, it folded its wings and plummeted earthward. The muscular legs reached out. The deadly talons seemed to pluck the cloud from the sky. As the eagle flew toward him, Keirith realized it had snatched up the cloud, which dangled limply in its grasp. Transfixed by the vision, he watched the eagle until it hovered before him, so huge that it blocked out the sky.

The talons relaxed. The cloud drifted slowly to the ground. It was as insubstantial as ever, but he could See the color changing from purple to green as it wriggled toward him, just as he could See the black scales that zigzagged down the adder’s back, the dark “X” on the back of its head, and the familiar red-brown eyes, wise and unblinking, that stared up into his.

Waves of warmth flooded him as Natha flowed over his feet, up his thighs, across his chest, and finally curled around his shoulders. His spirit guide’s tongue caressed his cheek.

Natha’s tongue flicked out again, and the weight of his anxiety seemed to melt away. “You make everything difficult. Especially excreting that one. Until you understand why, he will never leave you.”

Natha gave an irritated hiss. “Are you deaf as well as foolish? For you, I will endure this. But I will never understand why you enjoy it.”

The eagle’s wings flapped with otherworldly slowness as it descended to the ledge. The feathered head swung toward him. The hooked beak opened to emit a thin chirrup.

With the ease only possible in vision, Keirith vaulted onto the wing, clinging to the tip of one feather. It kept changing beneath his fingers, one moment soft, the next spiky, the next as solid as wood. He pulled himself up, hand over hand, until the eagle apparently lost patience with his slow progress and raised its wing, tumbling him onto the broad back.

Like the feathers, the eagle’s body felt utterly unreal—too resilient to be flesh, too yielding to be bone. He dug his fingers into the feathers of the massive neck, but even with his legs outstretched, he could barely grip the eagle’s back with his ankles. As he struggled to find a safe position, its body dwindled until it was little larger than a real eagle. After Natha slithered up his back and curled around his neck, the great wings spread and lifted them off the ground.

He was flying. Not spirit-linked as he had been with the eagle at home, but soaring through the sky, fearless and exultant. His hair whipped across his face, and he threw back his head, his laugh mingling with Natha’s exasperated hiss.

From this height, the river looked like a strand of gray wool in a huge green mantle. Here and there, the forest gave way to tiny patches of open fields and a cluster of huts small enough to hold in his hand. But near each Zherosi fortress, ugly brown wounds marred the flow of green where the loggers had chopped down the trees.

He closed his eyes, unwilling to allow reality to mar the joy of the flight. Then, shamed by his selfishness, he opened them again.

In the unnerving way that visions shifted time and place, they were much lower now. Three ships crawled upriver toward Little Falls. He must remember to tell Temet.

As the eagle glided over a low hill, a lake appeared. Villages hugged the northern and southern shores. Two peaks jutted up on either side of a narrow channel. And Keirith forgot the ships and the fortresses as he stared down at the village of his birth.

Oddly, everything looked exactly as it had fourteen years ago. There were the fields he had walked through, the familiar circle of huts. And near the summit of Eagles Mount, the pile of sticks and bracken where the eagles nested. But instead of the awkward fledgling he had spied on his last morning, he saw only a small white form nestled under the female’s dark breast feathers.

Again, the vision shifted. At first, he was only aware of being enclosed by softness. Then he realized that he had become the newly hatched chick, peering out from under his mother’s feathers, craning his neck to watch his father circle closer, clucking and chattering in his eagerness for food.

A faint tapping caught his attention. It came from the egg. In the three days since his hatching, he had watched his mother turn it with her beak, felt her shifting her body to shelter it from the wind and rain.

As the irregular taps continued, the egg shuddered. A tiny crack appeared. Another tap and the crack widened, branching into tiny fissures that snaked across the dark reddish-brown patches that stained the creamy shell. More insistent tapping and the shell splintered, revealing the tip of a tiny, hooked beak.

He butted his head against his mother’s breast, but she refused to be diverted. With infinite gentleness, she nipped at the shell. A small, damp head appeared. It lolled against her until she nudged it with her beak. Then the thing began moving again, unseen wings battering against its shell.

Totally engrossed in the wriggling intruder, his mother ignored his high-pitched bark of resentment. When the chick finally broke free, she plucked away the fragments that clung to its damp, downy feathers.

The tiny head turned. Blue eyes stared up at him. Then it fell back on the sticks, basking in their mother’s love and attention.

His beak darted out and stabbed the defenseless neck. A bright spot of blood marred the white down. With mingled horror and triumph, Keirith attacked again. The chick struggled helplessly, but his mother only shifted on the nest. For all the tenderness she had shown, she would not stop him. He was the firstborn. It was his duty—his right—to kill this weakling. There was only food enough for one. Only love enough for one. This was not murder, but a sacrifice, ordained by the gods. And he—not this intruder—was the one chosen to carry out their will.

The blood was warm in his mouth, as delicious as the soft flesh he tore with his beak. Two pairs of eyes watched him from the tangle of sticks—one pair the same blue as Mam’s, the other the color of the blotches on the shattered eggshell. His brother’s pleading eyes grew wide and empty. Natha’s watched impassively.

Keirith’s triumph vanished. Desperate to escape the carnage, he struggled to the edge of the nest. But his wings were too small, too weak to carry him skyward. Helplessly, he tumbled toward the rocks. He opened his mouth to cry out to Natha, but it was Rigat’s name he screamed.

A shadow drifted over him. Strong wings enfolded him. His father cradled him against his breast feathers and lowered him slowly to the ground.

His legs were so weak he could hardly stand. Fa must be holding him up. But that was impossible; Fa was standing before him. When had he changed from eagle to man?

As Natha slithered through the grass, Keirith saw a figure rise up out of the ground. It loomed behind Fa, little more than a shadow under the trees. And although there was nothing overtly menacing about the figure, Keirith shouted at Fa to run, to escape while there was still time. The words emerged as shrill chirrups. He heard Natha hiss, then saw something flying toward Fa, and knew the sound had not come from Natha.

The arrow struck Fa in the shoulder. His legs folded under him and he sank slowly to his knees. Only when he fell facedown in the grass did Keirith see the second arrow in his back.

His scream shattered the vision and sent his spirit hurtling back into his body. The first convulsion made him jerk upright. The next slammed him back down. Rock scraped his elbows and knees as he twisted helplessly. He heard voices calling his name, felt hands trying to hold him. He bit down on wood—someone must have shoved a stick between his teeth—but he shook his head wildly and finally managed to spit it out so he could gasp out his name.

Too exhausted to sit up, he curled into a ball so he could run his trembling hands over his head, his shoulders, his torso, his legs.

He closed his eyes, fighting the wave of nausea. They lowered his head onto something warm and soft. Faelia’s lap, he realized.

Visions were unreliable—chancy, Gortin always called them. They could be reflections of your worst fears or glimpses into the future. They could warn you of genuine danger or a threat that existed only in your mind.

Rigat was his brother. He loved him. Worried about him. And aye, sometimes he resented him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to kill him. Xevhan had done that, not him.

He was too spirit-sick and exhausted to think about Natha’s words now. More important was the connection between the first part of the vision and the second. He must try to remember details, to discover if it was a real place or an imaginary one. He had to warn Fa of the betrayal that would occur.

He seized Temet’s hand. “The Gathering. I have to know where it will be. Not the location, but what the place looks like.”