Annekteh magic...in the plains, limited to their natural abilities to Take their vessels, to inflict certain kinds of pain — a skill developed by their craving for anne-nekfehr — to sense other magics flowing nearby. In the mountains, with magic running through the ridges like veins of gold, the Annekteh remembered old skills, worked to develop new ones.
Just now they sensed something amiss. Something with a seer’s feel, just as there had been on the day the plainsmen brought in Dacey Childers, the day the Blaine-child had somehow freed him and fled with him from these hills.
If he was back, he’d been more circumspect.
But the Annekteh grew more attuned to the ridges. And when Nekfehr sifted through the input of all the local annektehr, he liked it not. Needed more, if he was to find any conclusion in the nebulous taste of seer’s magic on the hollow-twisted breezes.
He had magic and men at his disposal. Perhaps it was time to go looking.
~~~~~
Rain drizzled through the early dawn, obscuring the landscape with a grey mist that drifted as randomly as a school of fish. First veiling Blaine’s entire field of view, then suddenly lifting to reveal the small gathering before her, it painted the Shadow Hollers boys unnaturally clear in the crystal pockets of dry air. She sat quietly on the log at the top edge of the clearing and studied the assembly as the boys waited for Trey and Burl to tell them why they were there. Some, like Trey and Burl, looked on the edge of manhood, while some hardly seemed old enough to be hunting on their own. All were dirty and tired, and shooting covert glances at Dacey where he stood next to Blaine.
She counted twenty all told, and thought it was a mighty poor force to be setting up against the Annekteh.
“I know you thought you were here after big cat,” Dacey said. The boys stopped milling about and stared at him, only then realizing that Burl and Trey, rather than organizing them for a hunt, were simply sitting and waiting. “But you’re after something much bigger, something that’s already got its claws in you.” He spoke with the quiet, comforting assurance she was used to hearing from him, and the boys’ murmuring reaction quickly silenced. “My name is Dacey,” he told them. “And I’m your last chance against the Annekteh. And now you already know enough to get everyone in a pack of trouble, you choose to go back and tell it. Even so...if you ain’t up to this, you better go now.” The expression he gave them was neutral and far from accusing. Statement of fact.
But Trey got to his feet and glared at the youngsters assembled before him. “I second that,” he said. “Go if you can’t take the thought of what we aim to do. But any of you let word of this leak and the rest of us’ll —”
Dacey’s quiet throat clearing — the very same noise he used to quell Mage — stopped Trey short, and he settled for giving them all a hard look before sitting again. No one else moved. No one else spoke. Several of them looked to be on the edge of bolting, and some of the others — the youngest ones — were about ready to cry from relief.
Someone had come to help stop the nightmare.
“There’s two things we got to do,” Dacey told the apprehensive youngsters. “The first is get your families free, out from being hostages. The other is to drive the Annekteh away. In order to do them things, we got to kill every last one of them that’s Taken.”
Their hope grew, shining through as determination; they nodded, jostled one another, muttered rebellious phrases.
It was Dacey’s next words that turned them all back into scared children. “Now think on this. As soon as the annektehr — the Takers inside — realize we’re killing them, they’re gonna start Taking more vessels — ones you won’t want to hurt. But you’re going to have to keep right on at them — trying to kill people you know and maybe some you love.”
The silence that followed was complete, down to the wind that should have been moving through the trees and the birds that had been quarreling over nesting areas. It was Whimsy who broke the gap, finishing a yawn with a loud and ridiculous squeal.
Dacey gave her the briefest of affectionate glances, and looked back at his young warriors. “We’ll use the bulk of you fighting in the woods, part of you as runners to the men, and the last of you to take back the meeting hall,” he said. “We’ll go for the known Taken, first — be easy to start with, as you all know who they are. Once they have a chance to spread, to Take others, I’ve got a way to tell you who to go after. You’ll be using bows and slings and whatever throwing rocks you can find — nothing up close — and if you hesitate to aim where I say, you’ll be turned on as one of them. I want you to think about what that means.”
“But how c’n you tell?” The question came as a plea, from one of the youngest children there. The stricken look on his face showed that he, at least, realized he might be ordered to kill one of his own.
“I do know,” Dacey said, flat statement. “If they ain’t nekfehr, you won’t be pointed to ’em. You got to accept that right now or this won’t come off.”
Even Burl’s face showed the reality of what they faced. Blaine stroked Blue’s head, feeling as invisible as if she’d been clutching the blinder. Dacey, you’re scaring them off, she thought, watching the sniffling, scared bunch.
Dacey seemed to see it, too. His voice gentled down some. “I know I’m a stranger to you. It’s the only reason I’m not caught up with the rest of your menfolk. Trust Trey and Burl iff’n you can’t bring yourself to trust me. And iff’n you can’t do that, trust that I hate the Annekteh as much as anyone. If that ain’t enough, you just better figure you only got a short span of days before more o’ them get here, and I’m the only one standing here to tell you how to get free before that happens.”
There was no denying that. They had only days before their lives were forever changed, they were children, and here was someone who would — who could — tell them what to do. A few of them looked up at him, earnest-faced and somehow uncertain at the same time — we want to believe in you expressions — but they didn’t know if they dared.
“Any one of you let on that something’s up, and the Annekteh’ll Take you,” Dacey said. “They’ll slap you down before you get started — and they may never let you go. You keep that in mind until you hear from Trey or Burl just what you’re to be doing, and when.” His face took on a different kind of intensity. Hope. Purpose. “An’ you keep this in mind — we can do this. They don’t know I’m here. They’re weak, in thinking that they can’t be hurt, when they can. We can do this.”
He sat down on the log next to Blaine. The boys stirred, and turned to one another, still flashing frowns and uncertainty at Dacey, talking in what started as whispers but rose to chatter punctuated with emphatic exclamations. They’d do it, she thought. It wasn’t like they had a choice. “What do you think?”
“They’ll do,” he said absently. “I reckon they got to.”
Blaine snorted. “Half of ’em ain’t old enough to find the outhouse at night by themselves.”
“I know.” His voice was quiet.
Not in a talking mood. Blaine left him alone, busied with the task of staring down the few glances coming her way as the boys filed out of the clearing. Glances filled with silent questions about her — for although she knew some of these boys, they appeared not to have recognized her. She didn’t know whether it was because of their numbed condition or because of some change in herself. Upon inspection she certainly appeared the same.
She couldn’t say the same of Dacey. Never mind the jagged healing spot above his temple; she was getting used to that. She looked instead at the darkness under his eyes and the strain around his mouth, high contrast with the grin that came so easily when he sang with the dogs. “They would rather fight, even this dirty, than live under the Annekteh,” she said, almost before she knew she intended to speak.
Dacey looked at her in mild surprise, and after a moment, a quiet smile barely stretched the corners of his mouth. Then he looked out at the abandoned clearing and the sunshine that had risen over the top of the opposite ridge to sparkle through the hollow, changing the grey fog into brilliant clouds that gathered densely unto themselves as they drifted upward. “By the time this is over, even if we win, those boys will hate me. I’m asking them to do things children ought not even think of.”
“They’ve already seen and done things they ought not even think of,” Blaine said, petting the velvet of Blue’s ear. “You’re the one that told me, way back at your cabin, that things was never going to be the same. You’re the one who knows all about it. How can you doubt what you’re doing? I don’t.”
“Don’t you?” Dacey asked, looking at her, that clear-eyed look of his.
Blaine frowned at him. “You might make it easy and just let me say so.”
“Ain’t my way,” Dacey said, but a hint of humor had returned to his face.
She couldn’t help it. She stuck her tongue out at him. And then she stuck her chin on the heel of her fist and looked out at the shifting clouds, enjoying the sounds of birds reclaiming the clearing with the boys gone. The past few days had seen an explosion of green, and the trees showed a multitude of hues in their fast-growing leaves. Many times she had watched similar weather and similar views from her rock, and now she could almost pretend....
But not quite. She glanced at Dacey to find him lost in his own reverie, comfortably companionable here, on the heels of a declaration of rebellion. And when she looked back upon the cloud that drifted its way up the hill toward them, its first tendrils curling at their feet, she found it had changed. Involuntarily, she sat up straight, gaping at the shadows, the tint of purple that now reached for them. She dug her nails into the rotting wood of the log, searching for something real and solid as the color deepened.
“Dacey,” she said unsteadily, unable to tear her eyes away from the miasma that flowed around her calves. “Dacey!” she repeated more insistently, her voice going shrill and terrified. Beside her, buried in dark fog, Blue growled.
The moist fingers shifted up to her thighs and Blaine could stand it no longer — she stood to flee, looking wildly for escape, finding that the rest of the cloud had risen above them and covered everything, leaving only a few dark, looming and unidentifiable shapes. “Dacey!” she shrieked. Beyond reasoning, beyond terror, she dropped to her knees to bury her face in her hands, a thin, insubstantial target buried in purple mist, rocking and keening in fear.
“Blaine.” Two strong hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her against the rhythm of her own movement. “Blaine.” He gave her a single, tooth-rattling shake and she suddenly realized he was there, turned to huddle in against him. “It’s all right, Blaine. They ain’t here. Just a Taker trick.”
“Wh-what?” she said, muffled through her hands.
“Look,” he said firmly, turning her away and gently but insistently removing her hands from her face.
The clearing shone before her, washed in sunlight and strong shadows. Above, the dissipating mist still shone faintly of purple as the clouds rose to evaporate in the sun.
“I — I thought they were here,” she said tremulously. “I thought they had us.”
“Just tricks, Blaine.”
“But — didn’t you see it?”
“Not until I looked for it. It weren’t nothing more than what a good seer could have done in the days when they were strong. Just trying to scare us.”
“Well, damn,” Blaine sniffled, “they did a good job.”
“That’s all right,” Dacey said, sliding back to sit on the log again. “Iff’n we hadn’t got them some scared, they wouldn’t have bothered to do it.”
“But they don’t know we’re here,” Blaine said, sitting back on her heels and wiping her face with a sleeve that left her more smudged than she’d been. “Do they?”
“I don’t reckon,” Dacey said thoughtfully. “They might could suspect I’m back, what with those men dead.”
“That’s enough,” Blaine muttered, still shaky as she rose to her feet. She was beginning to feel ashamed and more than a little bit angry.
“It’s all right, Blaine,” Dacey repeated quietly, although when she looked at him, his gaze was on the faint path leading toward their old camp. After a moment he fumbled with the buckle that wrapped the leather upper of his boot around his lower calf. The soft leather sagged, spilling out the winter wool lining. He pulled a small pouch from the wool and relaced the boots.
By now Blaine knew enough not to ask, and merely watched with curiosity until Dacey stood, emptied the pouch into his hand, and held it out to her. Within were four completely nondescript dull white objects, each about the size of one of her front teeth. Blaine blinked and stepped closer. They were front teeth. Someone’s cutting teeth. She wrinkled her nose at him and deliberately stepped back again.
“They’re teeth, all right,” Dacey said, in complete sympathy with her expression. “And more. They’re protection.”
“From what?” Blaine asked, skeptical.
“They’re Annekteh Took. Were,” he corrected himself. “Now they’re wards, iff’n you know how to use them. Set ’em in a building, it’s safety from Annekteh.”
“Then why ain’t we used ’em before?” Blaine said, not quite a demand. She was just as glad they hadn’t.
“They ain’t without risks,” he said, tilting them around in his hand. “They pretty much make a path that’s easy for the Annekteh to follow. Once you use ’em, they know where you are, and that you got magic. ’Course, once they get to you they can’t actually get in, but then neither can you get out. I was counting on these to help us hold the hall if we take it.”
“Strikes me this is one of those things you been keeping from me.” She leaned just a little closer, deciding she definitely didn’t want to know how they’d been acquired in the first place. “Why tell me now?”
“I want you to take them.”
“Oh, no.” Blaine’s interest evaporated. “They’re yours. I don’t want nothing to do with them.”
“I’ll show you how to use them,” Dacey said, giving her as intent a look as he ever had, “and then you’ll take ’em. You got to. Up to now I’ve been your safety, Blaine, not that you’ve needed much. I figured I could protect you from being Took, and it weren’t worth the risk of using these, shouting to ’em that we were here. But I reckon they do know that — or at least think it — or they wouldn’t have played with the mist. And things are gonna get confusing soon. You won’t be as safe no more. You take these, and if the time comes you need ’em, use ’em. But don’t lose ’em, cause you’ll be the one setting them at the hall.”
“Dacey...” she protested, and he brought his gaze up from the teeth to look directly at her.
“Blaine,” he said, “I need to give them to someone I can depend on.”
Human teeth. That was bad enough, but to know they’d been Took? Blaine shuddered. Someone I can depend on. Slowly, she extended her hand. The little grey objects tumbled into her palm, warm from Dacey’s own. She stared at them.
“Now listen close,” he said. “I don’t want to go through this too many times — I got yet to make it back to the old camp today.”
Blaine’s gaze had been oddly drawn by the things in her hand, but now it wrenched back to Dacey. “You can’t go, not if they know you’re around, not when you’re still puny from that rock!”
“That’s all true enough, but...we might need a place to fall back to, Blaine. I want it set to rights, and I want it safe — and if they know we might go there, it won’t be safe. It’s got to look like no one’s ever been there. I don’t reckon that’s how you left it.”
“I’ll go, then.” They did need his pack, and her bearskin still hung over a branch plain as day. “You know I got restless feet. And you — iff’n I could boss you around with any luck, I’d be sending you back to rest while you can.”
He rebuckled his boot, considering her words. “It’s good sense, I can’t argue that.” Straightening, he stretched, scrubbed his hand through his hair — one side of it, anyway — and nodded. “Iff’n you’re truly —”
But he stopped short, stiffening, off-balance with his stretch and jerking to catch himself. “No,” he breathed, and his expression changed so rapidly Blaine had no chance to follow, to figure out what was going on. He made no effort to give her that chance. His face closed up; he straightened. “I reckon I need the chance to stretch my legs, Blaine. I won’t be gone but for a while.”
“Dacey,” she said, all set to protest, lifting her chin to its most stubborn elevation. “I can’t stop you, but I ain’t staying behind.”
“You’ll be all right,” he said, picking out one of the teeth from the group on her palm. “It’s got to be done. Now listen up, I’ll tell you how this is done.”
She gave him a cross look — it’s not me I’m worried about — and bent to the task of learning the wards. Then she’d see about who went and who stayed.
~~~~~
With the wards secured in her pocket, Blaine had watched Dacey take the hill to the old camp. Mage walked along behind him, his nose to the wind and actively searching the air; the other three foxhounds were off on some errand of their own.
It should be me.
But he hadn’t wanted it. Had gone in that one strange moment from considering her sensible offer to steadfastly refusing it, to refusing even her company.
Leaving her with this handful of disgusting old teeth.
But he had his reasons, whatever they were; he always had his reasons. And he was right enough not to be free with ’em, not with the Annekteh around. So Blaine went over the ward procedure in her head three times — it was simple enough, if distasteful — then quit the clearing in search of a willow — and, perhaps if she were lucky, sassafras. By the time Dacey returned from his ill-advised hike, he’d probably be in need of more of that tea. Meanwhile, Trey had been thoughtful enough to bring more food, so she had no intention of foraging unless she saw something irresistible.
The sassafras remained elusive, and she moved down toward the creek in search of willow. It was easy found, and she stripped off a few wands for tea before she cut a branch to transform into a willow whistle on the way back.
Blue hovered around her as she brewed the tea, and she let him taste it when he insisted; he gravely lapped it, but only once — and his tongue flew around the inside of his mouth, trying to rid himself of the bitter taste. Blaine laughed and then had to say she was sorry, and he forgave her by cleaning her arm from wrist to elbow with that same big tongue.
For an afternoon that came on the heels of a purple mist and the gathering of miniature warriors, Blaine enjoyed herself almost indecently. Now that she’d accepted Blue’s affection, and even allowed herself to return it, she discovered that his companionship was entertaining. She didn’t even begrudge cutting off some of the bear meat for him so he wouldn’t pester her about the warming bacon and beans.
But when darkness fell, Dacey’s portion of the beans sat dried and cracked at the edge of the fire. Alternately worrying and dozing, Blaine sat against one of the little pines, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and the blue ticked dog on her feet. A few owls hooted back and forth at one another while the dying fire occasionally shifted, sparking in the darkness. Now and then the trees moved enough to rustle in the breeze. Blaine listened to the soft intrusions, comfortable with them. When Blue gave a soft whine she didn’t stir.
And then something made the hairs on the back of her own neck stand up. An instant later, Mage’s eerie lament filled the air, swallowing the other night noises with its intensity.
Blue jumped to his feet, his hackles rising, his whine growing into the sort of moan which could only rise to a howl. Blaine grabbed his collar, struggling to keep the blanket around her shoulders as she stood. “No good,” she said. “We don’t want to call no attention to ourselves.” Unhappily, Blue subsided, looking up to her for reassurance.
After some moments, when the night noises resumed and Blue gave one of his whiffling sighs, Blaine sat back down. She was halfway to the ground, her ankles crossed, her balance precarious, when Blue gave a sharp bark. She snatched at his collar again; he tore through her grip like a favorite knife through a weak pocket and was in full cry before her bottom hit the ground. Blaine stared stupidly after him, and only belatedly — and futilely — shouted, “Blue! You get back here!”
The rustling noise of his progress up the ridge faded. She was alone.
Blaine closed her eyes — frustrated, searching for patience and fortitude — but they opened again, quick and very wide. She knew that Mage song, that very noise. Not any old hound howl, not talking with the others up on the ridge. Spirits, it was the very one he had sung the morning she found Dacey tied and struggling.
A hound’s cry of mourning.
They’ve got him. The Annekteh have Dacey again.
“Blue!” she cried into the night. Don’t leave me to face this alone!
Blaine stepped outside the pines, only to discover that the evening mist blanketed out the sky and all but the lowest branches of the trees, leaving her no sign of moonlight. No way to find him. No way to keep herself from blundering into the Annekteh, were they out there. Agonizingly indecisive, she clutched the blanket together at her throat, her fingers tight in the wool fabric. Squinting into the darkness for answers.
Something shuffled in the woods, something close and slow and quiet. But before her frustration could turn to fear, she heard Blue’s whine.
“Blue!” Had he really come just because she’d called? Surely not. Surely he was only confused. He came to her, head low and expression confused, and Blaine gave him a quick hug — making certain sure to get a good grip on his collar.
Moon or no moon, Blue could find Dacey.
His braided leash lay in a coil beside the blankets, and Blaine wasted no time hooking him up. She crushed the already dying fire into coals and bent over to touch her head to his. “I can’t find him,” she said. “But you can.” First a hug, and then she gave his shoulders a little push forward. “Go ahead. Find Dacey.”
She didn’t imagine he actually understood — but he was free to go where he’d wanted, all along, and he knew that well enough. He took off with Blaine in tow, unwavering and determined, his course certain and detouring for only the most major of obstacles. Blaine went on four limbs almost as often as he and scaled slopes as fast as she ever had, yanked upward by her hold on the leash, one hand before her to ward off obstacles she couldn’t see.
At last, worn out with the effort of dodging branches that were already in her face and of stumbling over invisible tree roots, Blaine dug her heels in. “Blue, wait,” she panted. Grudgingly, the dog stopped, just long enough for her to loop the leash in front of his throat for control. She held the ends of the loop in both hands and slowed their progress to a fast walk. Not long after that they hit the top of the ridge, and the going was as flat as it ever got.
Blaine caught her wind and eased her grip on Blue. Instead of taking off again, he slowed, lifting his nose to the breeze, jerking in tiny whiffs of air between thin whines.
A ghostly white shape lurched out of the mist at them. Blaine gasped, but her instant of terror quickly turned to relief. Mage. The dog came directly to her, whining, his head and tail low. The dog who had hardly ever even glanced her way...wanting direction from her. “With me, Mage,” she said softly, and he fell immediately to her side, leading her, looking back to see that she followed.
She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to see what he’d show her.
They had not far to go. Three other spirit-white shapes appeared in the darkness, two of them milling uncertainly by the third, and coming to greet her — touching her hands with their cold noses, whining, beating her legs with their tails, moving on to do the same with Mage and Blue. Two of them came. The third waited.
Blaine reached out her hand to touch each hound, offering a rare caress. Whimsy’s cold nose pressed firmly into her hand as the little bitch crept closer, while Chase winced away, whining, as she came upon the terrible swelling around his eye and half his face. “Dacey,” she murmured, feeling sick.
She moved to greet Maidie and stumbled over the edge of her bearskin. That’s why they’re here, she realized. Waiting on the bearskin, something of Dacey’s, for his return. She reached for Maidie —
And stilled, startled by the cool feel of the sour old dog. Gently, Blaine shook Maidie, then snatched her hand away as lifeless bones move beneath her touch. With a cry of dismay, she threw her arms around the nearest hound, hugging tight, staving off tears and a suddenly overwhelming fear for Dacey. They kilt his Maidie!
But Dacey, at least, was surely still alive. They needed what only he could tell them.
Blaine took a deep breath and pulled away from the dog, surprised to find that she had been hugging Mage, and that Blue stood anxiously beside her, waiting for the chance to push between them and claim his spot back. She drew him in, gave Mage a thankful pat, and gathered the dogs around her to wait out the long night.
When morning came — or close enough to make out the dim outlines of the woods — Blaine dragged the golden-specked form of Maidie from the crumpled bearskin and built her a cairn. The four remaining dogs made anxious circles around the abandoned camp until Blaine took the free end of the leash and captured Chase with it. Mage subsided with a word, having apparently taken her authority to heart — although as the sun rose, he could not contain a howl.
Blaine made a careful search of the area around the bear skin, finding nothing of Dacey — no clues, no struggle, and a trail so broad, made by so many feet, that she didn’t dare follow it. So she folded the drying pelt, and reluctantly unleashed the dogs so she could tie the skin and haul it back with her. Bereft of their master and their confidence, the dogs followed her meekly back to the clearing. She arrived at the pines just as Trey and Burl came up the hill from the hollow.
Trey stopped Burl with a touch and they both stared up at Blaine. “What’s going on?” Trey asked, taking in the pelt and the four subdued dogs, turning it into suspicion. “Why have you got Mage?”
“Because they got Dacey,” Blaine answered wearily, unable to spare Trey the blunt answer. She rushed on with the rest of it, circumventing his questions — she only wanted to get this over with. “He went back to our first camp — he wanted to clean it up so we’d have a safe place if things went bad. He was still going dizzy sometimes, he shouldn’ta’ gone —” Her voice broke, but forced her way past it. “He got to the camp, he musta.... I found this,” she finished, dropping the skin, “and the dogs. The old bitch is dead.”
Trey dropped to a knee to take a quick but firm look at Chase’s face, dismissing the dog with a quickness that told Blaine all was well. “He shouldn’t have gone,” he muttered, standing to face her, anger blooming on his face, maybe a little fear. “He risked everything — he lost it! Why’n spirits didn’t you stop him?”
“Did it seem to you like I could boss him around?” She glared at him, stiff in her anger, the dogs swirling around her like windblown leaves. Finally Blue nudged her hand and she turned to stalk into the pines.
Damp cold ashes greeted her from the fire circle. Resolutely — as if by following normal procedures, she could claw her way out of Annekteh trouble — Blaine knelt and began arranging tinder.
“I got biscuits,” Burl’s voice came almost timidly from behind the curtain of pine. “Mought still be warm, iff’n you eat quick.”
Blaine sat back from her task. “I could use a warm biscuit,” she said, suddenly exhausted. Something to fill her stomach and take her mind off what was happening.
Dacey, in the hands of Annekteh again. It ain’t right. He’d come up here to help, and been caught. He’d come back, and been betrayed. And now they had him again. It wasn’t even his fight! Not truly.
She took the warm, honey-soaked biscuit Burl offered and looked up at him, finding Trey just behind him. “It’s our fight.”
Taken back by the suddenness of it, they both used a moment to follow her thinking. Then Trey shook his head. “Blaine...”
“No. Listen. It’s true, Dacey’s the only one who can tell the Taken right quick.” Not that she knew how. “But we’ve still got something we didn’t have before.” She dug the grotesque wards out of her pocket, showed them to the boys. “We won’t have to worry about the meeting hall once we get it, and they won’t be able to Take whoever we can get in there. All we got to do is time it so the timber men are warned we’re making trouble, and get free of their guards before the Annekteh start Taking ’em as fighters against us. There won’t be many Annekteh-Took to kill, not if we do it fast — you know who they are, right? Start with ’em! And you know those plainsmen don’t know a thing about hill fighting — they ain’t even allowed a short bow.”
“And just how do you know so much all of a sudden?” Trey demanded.
“I been with Dacey for weeks,” Blaine said, standing up to stare him straight in the eye. “And I’m the only one here who got two good looks at their camp before they moved in on us. I heard ’em talking and I know they’re plain thick when it comes to mountain woods. They’re fighters, not hunters. Well, we’ll hunt ’em!”
“Maybe we can do it,” Burl said slowly.
“An’ maybe we can’t,” Trey countered.
“It’s only a few days now till those others show up.” Blaine plunked her fists on her hips and challenged him with a lift of her chin. “More Annekteh, more guards. What chance do we have then? And if it don’t work...we won’t be no worse off.”
Still there was hesitation on Trey’s face, though Burl turned to him, nudging his shoulder, nodding. “She’s right about that, Trey. Even if we can’t do it...better to have tried than to give up now.”
Trey looked...frightened. That was it — frightened. Not, she thought, of the fight — but of the responsibility of making the decision. “Trey, we don’t have to tell the other boys that Dacey’s gone,” she said. “You know ’em best — you split ’em up and assign groups. You know the pattern of the guards, too. We can do it, Trey.”
We have to believe we can, if we’re gonna even try.
“Yeah,” Trey mumbled. “Maybe. I’ll think about it. But you gotta be certain about holding that hall, Blaine, ’cause without Dacey aiming us...well, we sure ain’t gonna be able to hurt our own unless we know they’re Taken.”
“I can make the hall safe,” Blaine asserted, pretending she was as confident as she let on.
“All right, then.” Trey scrunched pine needles beneath his heel and walked away, leaving Burl holding the rest of the biscuits out to Blaine.
“Iff’n we hear anything about Dacey...” he said.
“Thanks,” Blaine said, taking the bundle. If she heard anything about Dacey, she had every intention of trying to get him free. But she didn’t say it, not right away. She knew they’d both argue against it, that they couldn’t risk losing any of the three of them, not if they wanted this fight to go on.
Blaine watched the boys make their way down the hill; too soon, she was alone. Blue nudged her hand, his eyes on the biscuits, wagging his tail so hopefully that his bottom wiggled and danced against the ground where he sat. She turned to him, suddenly very glad for his presence. It was going to get lonely enough up here as it was.
~~~~~
Does anyone know you’re here in Shadow Hollers? What happened to our Brethren in the south? Will there be others of you coming?
He’d been tired and light-headed, knowing Blaine was right and at the same time unable to risk her — unable to risk that his seeings held truth. Blue, roaring to Blaine’s rescue, spitted on a sword. The shelter in the background, Blaine kicking it down, struggling between two men...
Truth, indeed. He’d known to watch for them. Should have told her the seeing. Should have stayed away.
But the camp needed securing. From the camp the Annekteh could find the clearing. In the clearing they could find Blaine and Dacey. It had seemed like too great a hazard, when the Annekteh were roused to the point of throwing around magic in the mist.
To someone who couldn’t think straight.
Drugged. Dry mouth, empty stomach, full bladder. Throbbing head. Don’t talk, don’t talk. Say nothing. It was the only way to make sure none of his words would be betrayal.
Would you like something to eat? Would you like us to loosen those ropes? Implied promises. The smell of dusty straw in his nostrils, the scratch of it against his cheek. The questions, over and over again.
Does anyone know you’re here in Shadow Hollers? What happened to our Brethren in the south? Will there be others of you coming?
Pain, then; plenty of it. Annekteh pain, scorching along his nerves until he had no control over his body. Annekteh fear — drugs and plains magic. Until he couldn’t take it any more and live, and so found a seer’s wall to hide behind. A wall he knew he might never make his way back through, where he felt nothing — but could still dimly perceive Annekteh fury at the old seer’s trick. Where he could barely hear the pronouncement about his life — cold, cold words. He can still be of use. A warning. But first we clip his wings.
They propped him up against worn stall boards, limp and unresisting. They pulled his eyes open, and through the veil of the seer’s wall, he saw gloved hands bearing a dipper of water, water that splashed into his open eyes. And then he saw nothing at all.
~~~~~~~~~~