Foxfire

BOUND BY HIS OATH to his mother, Keirith made no attempt to escape, but each day, the weight of the accusing stares grew heavier. Scouting with Holtik allowed him to avoid them during the day. Sentry duty at night postponed sleep, which brought twisted dreams of blood-drenched battles and Xevhan’s insidious whispers about his cowardice.

His father’s death, the slaughter in the village—it all seemed as unreal as this endless flight to nowhere. They had hoped the Zherosi would abandon the hunt once they reached the forest, but they knew from Selima’s runners that the komakh was still pursuing them. Never closer than a mile behind the rear guard, never farther than three, the Zherosi seemed content to trail them without closing in for the kill.

After a sennight, Faelia risked calling a day of rest. While the boys and girls gathered deadwood for a fire, Callie helped Ennit slaughter three of the ewes. The novelty of full bellies helped eased the tension in camp. When Holtik and Braden returned the next morning from carrying food to the rear guard, they reported that the Zherosi had never stirred from their camp.

“But not many.” Keirith had heard that report, too. “And they won’t expect us to try and infiltrate. I could slip past them—”

For a day they sat in their camp while the Zherosi remained in theirs. After that, Faelia reluctantly agreed to send him and Holtik to find out what Selima knew.

The recruits protested with noisy good humor, clearly used to Selima’s chaffing. Although she was probably Faelia’s age, that still gave her ten years over the most senior member of her band. To compensate, they were all attempting to grow beards; the scraggly fluff on their cheeks made them look like a flock of fledglings.

Her breath hissed in. Keirith interrupted her stammered apology to remark that his father had always been fond of children, and the awkward moment passed.

“When we move, they move,” Selima said. “When we stop, they stop. I’ve let them come within bowshot, Keirith! But they just stand there, waiting for us to shoot first.”

As talk turned to other subjects, his father’s name came up again and again. Tentative until they gauged his reaction, the fledglings were soon vying to offer anecdotes about the Spirit-Hunter.

A respectful silence greeted Owan’s words. The boys’ faces grew dreamy as if each imagined himself the recipient of that approving pat.

It was a simple story of panicked boys reporting the approach of a Zherosi war party, but the hushed voices of the three who took turns telling it and the faces of those listening changed it into something almost magical.

If Owan lived to start a family, he would tell the tale to his grandchildren. By then, the approving pat would have become a hug and the decision to head north an example of the Spirit-Hunter’s godlike wisdom. That was the way with tales, always changing and growing, no matter what the Memory-Keepers recited. And that was why his father had insisted on deflating the myth when he told the tale of his quest to the children of Eagles Mount, emphasizing his fear instead of his bravery, his doubts rather than his certainty of success.

“They need to know there’s no shame in being afraid,” Fa once told him. “It’s how you meet the fear that counts. If they grow up thinking only great men can accomplish great things, they’ll never dare anything for fear of failing.”

The boys fell silent. A sigh eased around the circle. Even Selima’s face was soft with recollection. But it was Holtik who said, “You knew him best, Keirith. Would you share a story about him?”

Keirith’s gaze moved across the eager, expectant faces. With the Zherosi so close, they didn’t need to hear about the man who had screamed when Morgath hacked off his fingers. A tale from Keirith’s youth would only remind them of families they might never see again. But perhaps he could give these boys a tale from Fa’s youth, one that might give them a source of strength in the coming days.

He cleared his throat and began to speak of his father’s vision quest. How he had expected to find a wildcat or a fox when he went into the forest, for they were solitary creatures as he was. How he waited three days and nights, crouched in a thicket, fighting hunger and thirst and the fear that came with every snapping twig and rustle in the underbrush. He described his father’s surprise at hearing the she-wolf call his name, and later, the realization that she had come to remind him that he was not alone, but a member of a pack. And he spoke of the comfort and wisdom that his vision mate had offered—on the treeless moors, on the plains of Zheros, even in Chaos.

The boys’ silence made him fear he had failed them. Then Lendon looked up. Absently stroking the birthmark on his cheek, he said, “I found a bear on my vision quest. Some of the other boys laughed. Because I was small for my age.” His defiant look dared any of them to comment. “But our Tree-Father said it was because my spirit was fierce.”

Keirith listened to their bantering, their shared memories of vision quests and hunts and the villages they had left behind. And for the first time in moons, he felt at peace. Talking about Fa had eased his grief, and realizing he had banished the boys’ fears—if only for a little while—gave him a greater sense of accomplishment than his visions ever had. The same quiet joy he had first experienced after healing Hua.

When they left Selima’s camp near sunset, Keirith carried that joy with him. It shattered when they arrived to find the main camp in turmoil. His mam drew him away from the knot of wailing women and told him Donncha was dead.

A shrill cry made them turn. Catha was clutching her babe to her breast, but one hand came up to point at him. “It was your doing! Donncha spoke against you and you killed her.”

“Donncha was old,” Ennit added. “For days, she’s been complaining about her shortness of breath. Likely, her heart gave out. You should be glad she was granted a peaceful death instead of accusing Keirith of murder.”

“Who knows what he can do with his magic?” Catha insisted. “He cast out the spirit of a Zherosi priest, didn’t he? And now he’s done the same to poor Donncha.”

Duba’s voice shocked them all into silence. Even after Keirith helped reclaim her broken spirit, she seldom spoke to anyone save Alada and their orphans. In all his life, he had never heard her voice raised in anger.

“What do you know of Keirith’s magic?” Duba demanded. “I felt him—searching for me through the emptiness that filled my spirit after my boy died. I know his power. The light he carries inside of him. And the darkness, too.”

As he had done during his other spirit-healings, he had opened himself to Duba, sharing his pain and fears to ease hers. But hearing her speak of that connection made him feel naked before the tribe.

“We all have our dark places. Our secrets. I’ve touched Keirith’s. And I know he did not do this. Now stop upsetting the children, Catha, and help us gather stones for a cairn.”

Catha’s face crumpled. Arun awkwardly patted his mother’s shoulder and led her away. Slowly, the others dispersed, the priestesses to prepare Donncha’s body, the women and children to gather stones.

His mother touched Duba’s arm and murmured something. Duba smiled and shook her head. When Keirith thanked her, she patted his cheek, as if he were one of her orphans. Then she and Alada herded their little ones away, smoothing hair and wiping tear-streaked cheeks.

His mother stared after her. She looked old and tired, but under his scrutiny, she straightened, thrusting out her pointed chin with the same stubborn defiance that had helped her survive starving winters and illness and death. He had never seen her weep for Fa, but sometimes he caught her clutching the bag of charms she wore about her neck. Her hand came up now, fingers closing convulsively around the doeskin.

He followed her along the stream until they were out of earshot. For a long moment, she stared at the water trickling over the stones. Without looking at him, she asked, “Do you think Rigat killed her?”

Instead, he asked, “And the Zherosi? They could have caught us—killed us—days ago. He must have told them not to. But if that’s true, why bother sending them after us?”

He nodded, uncomfortably reminded of the choice the Trickster had forced upon her, but he couldn’t help asking, “And Fa’s death? Was that a test, too?”

Again, her hand closed around the bag of charms. “Darak was the center of my world—and yours. If we can forgive Rigat for that, surely we can forgive him anything.”

“He would never harm his sister!” When he was silent, she said, “Nay, Keirith. I won’t believe that.” But doubt shadowed her expression.

Her fingers worried the bag of charms, but once again, her chin came up. “Then we must find him, Keirith. And reclaim him. Before we reach those limits. Or Rigat does.”

The tribe moved east as soon as the cairn was built. “It will only remind them of Donncha’s accusations,” Faelia told him. But she also confided that she wanted to find a more defensible site. “If Mam’s right—if Rigat’s testing us—he’ll soon tire of this game. When he does, we must be ready.”

None of the sites satisfied her, but after three days on the move, the children were so exhausted that they had to call a halt. Ennit slaughtered two more sheep while the men hunted and the boys and girls fished and set snares. They smoked most of the meat and fish; Faelia insisted they have food that would last if they had to flee.

During the day, Keirith supervised the fishing with Dirna, but every day at sunset, he slipped away from camp, seeking stillness and solitude—and Natha. Where once he had struggled to obtain a vision, they had come with disturbing regularity since he had fled the village. Three times, Natha had shown him the eagle chicks. Now, instead of the elder killing the younger, they battled each other with bloodstained beaks and claws.

Only once had he Seen something else. In that vision, he stood on a barren hill, watching a line of people walk one by one over the edge of a cliff. A woman raised her hand in farewell. Although he could not see her face, her belly was big with child. Suddenly, he found himself in a cave, staring down at his sleeping parents. His mother’s face was peaceful, but his father’s was turned away. Fa looked oddly small, as if age had shrunk him. When he walked toward them, the vision abruptly ended.

He hoped the image of the people vanishing over the cliff was a metaphor for the flight of his tribe rather than an omen of its annihilation. He could make little sense of the part about Mam and Fa. Still, if they could never lie together again, perhaps it meant he and Rigat would never battle.

It was like the years had rolled back and he was once again Gortin’s apprentice. Only it was Natha answering questions with questions, and scolding him for his impatience.

He envied Callie who could comfort the tribe with the ancient story of their people’s flight north. And his mam and Hircha who soothed their bruises and scrapes with poultices. His visions offered only the promise of death.

The promise was fulfilled on their fourth evening in the new camp. The shouts shattered his trance and sent him racing downstream. His steps slowed when he discovered the entire tribe clustered together on the bank. The women backed away to let him pass; the fear in their eyes sickened him.

Dirna sidled up to him. In a few moons, she had lost her father, her uncle Nemek, her cousin Nionik, and Adinn, the man she’d hoped to marry. Now her aunt was dead as well. Although her face was stricken, her voice trembled only a little as she whispered, “She was washing the baby’s clouts. We saw her slip and hit her head. By the time we reached her . . .”

Catha’s wet hair straggled across the grass like strands of lakeweed. His mam smoothed it and brushed her palm across Catha’s face, closing the shocked, staring eyes. Although no voices were raised in accusation, everyone had to be thinking the same thing: Catha had spoken against him, and now she—like Donncha—was dead.

They buried her that night and broke camp at dawn. Wila nursed Catha’s babe with hers. Mirili told Keirith she knew it was not his fault, that Catha’s behavior had become increasingly erratic since the deaths of Nemek and young Nionik. A few people speculated that Catha had killed herself, but Keirith knew that was impossible. Little Ailsa was less than two moons old. Catha would never have left her motherless.

He helped the others set up camp before heading upstream, uncertain if he wanted to seek another vision or simply escape the brooding tension. The splashing water soothed him and the trunk of the tree-brother at his back lent him strength. Pine boughs whispered in the breeze and sunlight danced across the water, playful as a child. This was the kind of magic his father had loved, the ordinary magic of the forest that he’d worshiped as reverently as the gods who had created it.

He let himself drift, his senses mesmerized by the slap of water against rock, the hiss of foam dissolving in the shallows, the ever-changing play of colors as the water passed from light to shadow: sparking gold and silver, darkening to a dull greenish gray, foaming white over the rocks.

His smile faded as the foam coalesced into shapes. Ungainly wings sprayed water droplets as they flapped. Sharp beaks sprouted. Two feathered heads twisted toward him. Two pairs of eyes stared back at him.

He whispered Rigat’s name and felt another chuckle resonate in his spirit. Beneath it, the power smoldered, stronger than ever. If Rigat choose to turn it against him, the power would destroy him. Just as it was consuming Rigat.

The teasing voice carried echoes of Fellgair’s mockery, but beneath the confidence, Keirith sensed a throb of loneliness. Immediately, the sensation vanished and with it, Rigat’s presence.

Rigat leaned against the trunk of a pine. His face was thin and bronzed from exposure to the sun. It was as if all the softness had been burned away, and with it, the boy who had teased him for his inability to walk quietly through the underbrush, who had eagerly proposed that he play eagle and spy on the Zherosi, who had dreamed that, together, they could change the world.

His brother’s glance wandered from the stream to the sky—everywhere except in his direction. Yet Keirith was certain Rigat was studying him covertly, gauging his reactions. How many times had Rigat invaded his spirit without his knowledge? Often enough to know about the vision of the eagle chicks.

He suppressed the flash of anger, along with the questions he wanted to ask: about Donncha and Catha, the attack on the hill fort, the Zherosi’s senseless pursuit. And Fa.

It would always lie between them, tainting their relationship. Keirith knew his father would be the first to urge him to find a way to salvage the love they had once shared. Knew, too, that any sort of confrontation would drive Rigat away. But he couldn’t help blurting, “Why wouldn’t you save him?”

Pine needles rustled as Rigat swung his foot in a slow arc. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t save him. The healing doesn’t last. Not when the wound is mortal. It always needs more. And if I had no more to give . . .”

Rigat could have given them more time with Fa, but that might simply have prolonged his suffering—a day or two of health before the inevitable decline began. Fa had always recalled his father’s slow march toward death with horror. Keirith could never have forced him to endure that—even if it meant losing him sooner.

He thrust aside the memory of his father’s face, twisted in agony, to recall his mother’s, desperate and hopeful as she urged him to reclaim his brother.

For the first time, his brother met his gaze. The bloodshot blue eyes searched his face. For all he knew, the power searched his spirit as well, intent on uncovering any doubts.

“They wanted to believe Othak’s lies!” Rigat slammed his fist into the trunk of the pine. A tiny shower of dead needles drifted onto his head and shoulders. “Just like they wanted to believe Donncha’s lies. And Catha’s.”

Keirith closed his eyes. Although Faelia had not seen Othak after the massacre, Keirith had always suspected that Rigat had killed him. Given Othak’s role in driving Rigat from the village—and Mam’s suspicions about his involvement in Gortin’s death—Keirith found it difficult to blame Rigat for that. But Donncha was an old woman with a vicious tongue, and Catha, just a frightened young mother. Rigat had deliberately snuffed out their lives. How could he forgive that? How could he encourage this vengeful boy to return to them when any slight—however small—might bring down his wrath?

Keirith opened his eyes to find Rigat watching him. Immediately, his brother’s gaze slid away and he began shaking pine needles from the folds of his khirta.