Deep Water (43 page)

He checked on Flax regularly, knowing the lad was nervous and knowing he should be. The Deep was dangerous, and not just because
of the demons. Vipers, spiders, scorpions lurked beneath every rock, every leaf. Poison tainted the beauty; he was reminded
of Doronit.

The outsiders, Acton’s people, thought the stones were a maze, difficult to find the way through because of their complexity.
But that was just the wilds, the outside skin of the Deep, where the River allowed the fair-haired ones to penetrate. Further
in, the truth was stranger. Ash had been here six years running with his father, the years between his voice breaking and
his apprenticeship to Doronit, and it had never been the same twice. No one could penetrate the Deep unless the River willed
it. Rock walls shifted; streams bubbled up where there had been solid rock the day before; bogs appeared that could suck a
man down in three heartbeats, too quick even for a scream. Ash had seen that, once, when he was fourteen.

“Turn away,” his father had said. “He came here with treachery; the River claimed him.”

Ash found a clearing, a place with good water and grass, where they could leave the horses. They watered and groomed them
and hung nosebags from the cliff wall as temporary mangers. By that time it was dark.

“Do we light a fire?” Flax asked hopefully.

Ash shook his head. “Follow me. Your eyes will adjust.”

This was his favorite time in the Deep, just after sunset when the enchantment started. At least it had seemed enchantment,
the first time, and every time afterward, too, even when he understood how it happened. As they walked further into the difficult
passageways of stone, the walls began to acquire stars. Small, green, they glowed so faintly that it seemed like a trick of
the eyes. Then, as the darkness gathered and his eyes adjusted, they became brighter, casual constellations scattered across
the rock walls, clumped together in shining clusters, lighting their way.

Ash looked back at Flax, and was satisfied by the wonder on his face.

“What are they?” Flax asked.

Ash contemplated telling him the truth: little glowing insects. Glow-worms. But he’d always hated that name. It diminished
the beauty.

“The stars of the Deep,” he said. “Come on.”

They turned a corner and found themselves in a larger defile, with a stream pelting down the middle, splashing and leaping,
throwing small pebbles and grit into the air. The edges of the defile were covered with fallen rocks and the way out was blocked
by them, except for the stream, which launched itself from a small gap between the rock walls into the darkness. If they tried
to wade through the stream and edge through the gap, they would be thrown helpless as dolls against the sharp rocks, or over
the edge, to where they could hear the water plummet down to smash on rocks far below.

“Careful,” Ash said. “From here, the demons watch.”

He stood up straight and said clearly, “I am Ash, son of Rowan. I am known to this place. My blood is known. I give it again,
that this place may know me afresh.”

He took his belt knife and moved to the stream, then pricked his finger and let three drops of blood fall into the water.
The stream quietened immediately. The water still flowed fast, but it no longer leaped and challenged.

Ash beckoned Flax toward him. As he approached, the stream again became wild, leaping high in menace. Ash took Flax’s hand
and held it over the stream.

“This is Flax, son of Gorham, come to meet his blood in the Deep.” He pricked Flax’s finger and let the blood drop into the
water. It calmed immediately.

“Come on,” Ash said. “Now.”

Quickly he led Flax into the stream, stumbling a little on the rocky bottom, but striding as fast as he dared through the
gap in the rocks. The stream pushed against his boots, but it didn’t thrust him hard enough to make him fall; it didn’t suddenly
spring up when they were halfway through. He had seen that happen, too, to a scrawny friend of his father’s, a storyteller.
The man’s body was never found.

“The River protects itself, and us,” his father had said, as though trying to convince himself. But no one had said what the
River was protecting itself from that day.

They had to turn at the very edge of the waterfall and sidle along a ledge. The ledge was narrow and there were rocks underfoot.
It led along a sheer cliff wall to another gap in the rocks, and another canyon beyond. They stepped carefully through the
gap and made their way down the canyon, and from there onto another high ledge. Ash could hear Flax breathing hard. He remembered
the first time he had done this, or something like it, because it was never the same twice. The physical danger hadn’t been
as bad as the threat of the unknown, the demons waiting out in the darkness.

As though the thought had called them — and maybe it had — they heard the demons howling. The sound wasn’t exactly like the
howling of wolves, but it wasn’t human. Flax stumbled as the first long wail reached them and Ash put out a hand to push him
safely against the cliff face. They stopped for a moment, listening to the grief and hunger in the demon howl. Both of them
were shivering.

Beyond this canyon was another one, and then another one after that. They twisted and turned and Ash knew it was useless to
try to remember them, but he tried anyway. His safeguarder training was no use here, but he had been trained so long that
he couldn’t just abandon it.

Finally, they came into a large space ringed with cliff walls that were broken by caves and cracks. Inside one of the caves,
a fire blazed just out of sight. Shadows flickered on the cave walls and out onto the beaten earth floor of the clearing.
The sudden gold and orange of its light was almost too much for their dark-adjusted eyes.

Flax gasped. From behind rocks, from fissures and caves, figures emerged from the darkness. Naked, male, thin and solid, and
tall and short, all with dark hair across their arms and bodies. The bodies seemed to be striped with blood. But it was their
faces which had scared him, Ash knew. He remembered the first time he had been confronted by those snarling snouts, the sharp
teeth, the animal eyes. Each man had the head of an animal: badger or otter or fox or deer, varied but all wild animals. There
were no cows or pigs or sheep. A wildcat, but no cats; a wolf, but no dogs.

He knew what Flax was thinking: masks, surely they were masks? But they were not. Of course not. What would be the point of
pretending? Dressing up in silly clothes, painting their bodies — that would not be work for men.

The demons closed toward them, slowly, and in their hands were stones; flint, sharp as knives. Flax’s breathing was faster
and shallower. He was getting ready to run. Ash put a hand on his arm, to calm him.

“We are members of the blood,” he called to the demons. “I am Ash, son of Rowan, whose blood has calmed the waters.” He nudged
Flax. Flax had to clear his throat before he could talk.

“I am Flax, son of Gorham… whose blood has calmed the waters.”

The hands holding the stones lowered to the men’s sides. One of them, a badger, came forward to place his hands on Ash’s shoulders.
Ash looked deep into the dark eyes which glinted orange in the firelight and breathed in the sharp badger scent. He felt a
swirl of emotions: anger, happiness, resentment, love.

“Fire and water, Father,” he said.

T
HERE WAS A
marching song playing at a dirge pace in her head — in Baluch’s head. Bramble felt relief at being back with Baluch, despite
the severe cold. Vision came back with a rush of white, dazzling. Snow, everywhere. Rough ground underfoot, invisible under
the snow. Cliffs on one side, a high, rocky white slope on the other. Oh gods, Bramble thought. We’re in Death Pass again!
On the slope lay tons of snow which would crash down to bury them all at the slightest sound. Even though Bramble knew that
the raiders — the invaders — had made it through unscathed, the sight of that burden of snow made her nervous, threatening
with the same kind of impartial animosity as the Ice King. The silence was intense; the men pushed through the snow so slowly
that even Baluch’s sharp ears could only just catch a faint susurration at each step.

Acton was in front of Baluch, his gold head shrouded in hat and scarf, his shield slung over his shoulder, but his back unmistakable
as he waded slowly through the breast-high snow. For a moment, hysteria flickered in Bramble. How had she become so shagging
familiar with Acton’s back? But she was, or Baluch was, or both. Baluch could see the profile of the man next to Acton — it
was Asgarn, which vaguely surprised Bramble. Asgarn hadn’t seemed the type to volunteer for something as chancy as this. Perhaps,
she thought, the lord of war picked his men. Part of Bramble found that amusing; that Asgarn might have been caught in his
own snare, and then she wondered why she assumed Asgarn had been laying traps, why she just plain didn’t like him.

Acton and Asgarn led, just as in all the ballads, the two thickset men ploughing gradually, silently, toward the gap between
cliff and slope, toward the triangle of ridiculously blue sky. Bramble had always imagined this day as being cloudy and gray,
but it was a beautiful day, crisp and sunny.

The man next to Baluch stumbled and flung out a hand. Baluch grabbed it and hauled him back up. The man’s gasp sounded overly
loud and the entire band paused, terrified, in mid-step. A thin trickle of snow slid off a rock on the lower slope. They froze
in place, waiting. Baluch was praying, Bramble realized, opening himself to the gods, but the gods refused to come. There
was only a long moment of fear before the trickle of snow stopped.

They began moving again, slower than before despite the cold. Baluch’s hands and feet were numb but his cheeks burnt and his
mouth ached every time he drew a breath. For a while it seemed that the end of the pass was as far away as ever, that they
would trudge through burning cold forever. But gradually, inevitably, the triangle of blue grew larger. Then the snow was
not breast-high, but waist-high. Then thigh-high. Knee-high. Then the triangle of blue stretched to cover the whole sky, and
they were out of the pass, standing on a lip of ground looking down into the valley, slapping each other on the back in congratulation,
but silent still.

Silent, because below them in the morning light lay Hawk’s steading. Smoke rose from its chimneys, but no one was about yet.
There were no guards. The steading was undefended in early spring, because Death Pass was its defense. Silently, Acton drew
his sword and settled his shield onto his left arm. The others did the same. Acton nodded to them, all fifty of them, and
slapped Baluch on the arm. For a moment his face was serious, then he grinned at them, the joy of battle alight on his face.
Baluch smiled involuntarily and hefted his sword. Bramble could feel the tension in him but also the excitement and, with
it this time, a sense of grim purpose. Acton saw it in his face and nodded, a darker expression in his eyes.

“Let us take our revenge,” he said so quietly that the others had to strain to hear. “Make them regret their treachery.”

“Yes,” Asgarn said. “Kill them all.”

Baluch raised his sword high in acknowledgment, and the others copied him. The sun shimmered off their blades and blinded
Baluch; and for a moment it became morning sunlight on water and the water rose to blind Bramble in its turn.

Blood in her mouth. Blood trickling down from her lip onto her chin. Her back was against a wall, and her legs were unsteady.
The woman — yes, this was definitely a woman, a young woman clutching a blanket to her naked chest — lifted a hand to wipe
away the blood. The movement brought back sight, and Bramble wished it hadn’t. They were inside, in a small wooden room with
a shuttered window and a bed. It smelled of woodsmoke and sex and fear.

The girl who had giggled, Edwa, lay on the bed, trying to pull her shift down around her buttocks. She was bleeding, too,
the blood oozing down her inner thighs. There were bruises on her legs and arms. Her long hair was loose and snarled.

“Please . . .” Edwa said, raising her face in supplication to the man who stood in front of her, his left arm raised high
as though about to strike her. Hawk. Edwa’s face was dark with bruises all down one side. Hawk lowered his arm and began to
undo his trouser drawstring.

“Come to your senses, have you?” he snarled.

Bramble could feel the woman whose eyes she saw through move her lips, her tongue, wanting to say something, to protest. But
she had clearly learned that protesting brought nothing but blows. She dug her fingers into her own palms in an effort to
keep quiet.

Bramble desperately wanted to be somewhere else, to
not see.
She was shocked to the core. Hawk was black-haired. Black-eyed. Like her. She had
known
that he and his men were using the girls, but to
see
it. To see a Traveler, as he looked to her, abuse a gold-haired girl… It went against all her prejudices, all that she
wanted to be true.

Come on, Acton, she thought, where are you? Get in here and save them. Then she realized that she was urging on the invasion.
She didn’t know which made her sicker, the impending rape or her own thoughts.

The noise started outside: yells, the crash of swords and shields, screams. Hawk spun around at the sounds, his back to both
women. He fumbled to pull up his trousers.

The woman dropped the blanket to the floor and jumped on his back as he bent over. She grabbed his belt knife at the same
time. He straightened explosively, trying to throw her off. She locked her arms around his neck and strained to pull his head
back, but he was too strong.

“Edwa!” she yelled, “take the knife.”

Hawk was trying to drag the woman off his back, but she was holding on with all her strength. Edwa put out both hands for
the knife. The man whirled and the knife slashed across the back of her hand, drawing blood. She ignored the wound and his
clubbing hands and grabbed the knife, holding it confidently, as though she had been longing for this moment. With both hands
now free, the woman dragged back his head. As soon as his throat was bared, Edwa raised the knife and plunged it deeply into
his neck. Blood spurted out,
poured
out all over her. Hawk fell to the floor with a wet gasp, dead already. Bramble was ashamed of how satisfied she felt as
he collapsed.