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Bryar scowled at the sight before them. As they’d worked their way south along the western mountains, the rumors of invasion became more rather than fewer, embellished with tales of kidnapping, torture and rape, fearsome weapons. By now the stories didn’t include green skin; the Terrans had evolved into giants, destroying everything in their path.
They’d seen no evidence of any of it. The rumors sprang from fear, pure and simple. But few Weavers made it this far west, so even their appearance caused concern.
The route south amounted to little more than an animal track. They were standing beside an east-west gully containing a small, fast-flowing river coming down from the mountains, puzzling how best to cross, when two teenage boys, armed with slings and an arsenal of rocks, appeared on the other side.
The boys chose to fight first and ask questions later. One of them let go with a rock the size of Tai’s fist. Bryar shoved Tai behind him, but took the rock on his bicep.
“We’re Weavers,” Kiril shouted across the river.
“You ain’t wanted here. Go back where you came from.” The second boy let loose another rock, which landed harmlessly at Kiril’s feet.
The first boy emitted a piercing whistle. Bryar looked at the others, rubbing his bruised arm. “Calling for reinforcements?”
“This is getting tedious,” Tai said.
“Dangerous.” Bryar started them backing away from the bank.
A group of men arrived from the west, not, as he’d expected, to team up with the boys, but on their side of the river. More stones flew – many more.
Bryar exchanged nods with Tai and Kiril. They wheeled and took off the way they had come, only to find themselves outflanked by another posse of stone-wielding villagers yelling at the top of their lungs.
He’d sung about war cries, but never actually heard one. He devoutly hoped the first time would also be the last.
“We’re Weavers!”
Bryar doubted Kiril’s shout carried above the melee. Before they could defend themselves, they were in the center of a barrage of rocks. Tai was the first to go down, with a shriek and then silence. Bryar skidded to a halt and fell on top of her. The stones pounded his back; he cupped his hands around his head and hoped Kiril fared better.
The assault ended with a dozen large, angry men standing over their huddled figures. Hard hands yanked Bryar to his feet. Kiril received the same treatment, while a man with muscles like hams scooped up Tai. She was conscious; she fought like a demon. The man casually pinned her arms, then tossed her over a shoulder and walked off. Bryar jerked forward and was wrenched back, the hands on his arms tightening painfully.
They’d taken his love, and he was helpless.
~~
BRYAR SHIFTED ON THE dirt floor of their prison which, although windowless, permitted the entry of minimal light through cracks between the boards. They’d spent the late afternoon and evening side by side on a rough bench where Kiril, arguably in worse shape, now lay curled. The room was smaller than Bryar was tall, and he wasn’t a tall man. He had no idea where Tai was, or how they were treating her, or how severely she had been hurt.
Tai could take care of herself. He hoped.
His back and legs ached from countless bruises; the uneven dirt floor didn’t help. So Bryar wasn’t fully asleep when he detected a scratching from the vicinity of the door. He sat up carefully, silently. Kiril groaned in the darkness.
He and Kiril had already spent part of the dark hours attempting to pry free enough boards to allow them to escape, but the effort had been futile, yielding only a torn fingernail that worried him more than the bruises. An open wound, and no way to clean it, never mind use that finger to prove his prowess at music.
His stomach rumbled. It had been nearing time for the evening meal when they were attacked, and they’d been given only a dish of tepid water between them.
The scratching came again, then a click, accompanied by a burning smell and a whispered curse. The door opened very slowly.
“Are you here?” Tai’s voice, barely there.
“Don’t open too far,” he whispered back. “There’s no room.” From movement behind him, he concluded that Kiril had sat up.
Tai slipped into the tiny space, quietly pulling the door to. “Your packs are outside. Can you travel?”
Instead of answering, Bryar reached out, felt her legs, her slender torso. He shuddered out a sigh and pulled her closer.
“We can travel,” Kiril confirmed, his voice a thread.
Tai stooped and landed a kiss on the top of Bryar’s head. “Let’s go. There’s not much time.”
She eased the door open again, looked and listened – Bryar had no doubt she was tapping into her refined Scribe’s senses to detect movement in the village – then slipped out, her hand finding his as she led them from their prison.
They each snatched up a pack without regard for which was whose, then followed Tai, using only starlight to work their way. Once they flattened themselves against a building, and another time dived for a ditch, but before daybreak they’d stumbled on a trail leading south.
“Stop?” Kiril asked. “We need rest.”
“I think we need distance more,” Bryar said. Tai nodded agreement. “Is there anything to eat?”
“Only what we came with, assuming they didn’t scavenge our packs,” Tai said. “They smashed the chitarre, Bry. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s replaceable.” Tai was whole, if hurting, and freedom stretched before them. He’d possessed that chitarre for years, but it was the least of his priorities now.
In the packs they found waybread and a small store of dried meat, and by common agreement downed the food while they walked. Hunting had been good, and enough streams cut down from the western mountains for water to be plentiful. Keeping their strength up to put distance between them and the hostile village was the highest priority.
“How’d you get free?” Bryar asked around a bite of the tough bread. He had scarcely removed his hand from Tai, touching her back, her face, her arm, since their escape. In the light of daybreak she looked battered, with scrapes and bruises and a tear in her tunic, but she was upright, walking, keeping up with the men. She would be all right.
“I’ve never used Auric energy this way before,” she said. “We’re learning things I wish we didn’t need to know, from sealing the power cell to the dangers in the hills, and now this. I tried a confusion spell, then a binding, without any luck. So I sort of wove a template into a hard ball and threw it at my guard. Knocked him cold. We never called the templates spells before. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either.” Bryar’s mind involuntarily brought up Ezra’s prediction, so long ago, that their way of life was vanishing, and his carefree wandering of the byways, carrying music with him, inevitably would come to an end. This trip had proved the wisdom of Ezra’s words. Heartbreaking – but not something to share with his companions. Not yet. Right now they needed all the conviction they could muster to get to a safe refuge and heal.
“You’ve got that quiet thing going that tells me you’re thinking.” Tai stuffed another bite of waybread into her mouth, then squeezed his hand, hard.
“Yeah.”
She leaned closer and whispered, “Don’t.”
Beyond that, neither of his companions seemed inclined to pick up their conversation, so they walked along in silence. Under a bright, clear sky, with the crispness of autumn in the air, Bryar breathed deeply and wondered what the fate of the Midland would be.
~~
BRYAR LEANED AGAINST the waypost, the first tangible sign of progress they’d had in days. They and the land endured a blast of unexpected late-summer heat, more than three nine-days past the beginning of autumn. He longed to throw off his clothes, but respected Kiril’s sensitivities. The man still wore long pants under his tunic.
Besides, if Tai should do the same...
Sometimes having Kiril along proved a nuisance, although he did his best to subtly disappear when it was obvious they wanted privacy, a sensitivity Bryar hadn’t expected in the acerbic Terran.
They had two choices, assuming no one planned to take the pass over the western mountains. Bryar had never been to the western lands, but if they crossed, they couldn’t get back before winter closed in. And he was growing homesick for the rolling green hills and fields of the east.
Tai sat cross-legged at his feet, idly piping notes on her flute, one he’d been crafting by firelight for much of the trip. He frowned. The F above C still rang slightly flat.
“Decision time,” he said. “South or east?” He’d already put his arguments against going west, and his companions were equally weary of nights on the road and waybread, when they could get it.
Kiril, restless as always since regaining his health, paced. “Which way do you reckon the ship is?”
“More or less southeast,” Tai said. “Impossible to tell which route is more efficient.”
“You really want to see this thing?” Bryar asked her.
“Sure. I’m a Scribe, remember? Besides, Quinn’s there.”
Beside them, Kiril stiffened, so briefly he might have imagined it. Except he didn’t. Kiril and Quinn had never been able to get along; he couldn’t blame the man for being reluctant to run into her again.
Tai had mentioned Quinn a few days back, he recollected. It hadn’t sunk in at the time; he’d been skinning a rabbit for their supper, hoping to save the hide toward making a warm vest. Winter would overtake them before they reached the Motherhouse.
It would be good to spend time with Quinn again. It could be a long time before she returned to the Motherhouse, especially now that she had found the Terrans.
“South?” he asked. “It seems to me the hostility’s less, the further south we go.”
“Whatever.” Kiril sounded irritable.
“Come on,” Tai teased. “You can’t expect a signpost saying ‘Terran ship’. Though it would be nice if one turned up.”
Kiril leaned over Tai and ruffled her hair, grinning. “Brat.”
“Hey.” She jerked her head away, landing it conveniently on Bryar’s thigh.
Bryar laughed. These mock tiffs between them had become part of their routine. Tai didn’t really mind, and it showed him an unexpected side of Kiril, one capable of laughing and teasing.
“East,” Tai said, hooking an arm around Bryar’s leg. “Because there’s no telling when we’ll find another track east, given how sparse the settlements are.”
“East it is.”
“Do you want to smoke the meat before we leave here?” She stood, pocketing the flute, and gestured at the day’s catch.
“Probably a smart idea, given the heat. You do the fire, Kiril and I’ll find wood.”
He looked back over his shoulder as he walked away with his companion... friend, he decided, Kiril had become a friend. A man he trusted.
Tai had gathered up what little kindling was to be found near the crossroads and conjured a small fire from it. Through bugs, sore feet, assault, and exhaustion, never once had she complained. Already she was weaving sticks together, making a smoking frame.
To think that despite his penchant for ballads of love, he’d never known.