The Four Forges (29 page)

Then sunlight slanted in, through a ragged hole from where their air pipes had led.

“Tree’s blood, you going to wait all day to come out?” Garner yelled down to them cheerfully.

Keldan wiggled through the tunnel first, his brother pulling him out with a painful grunt, and then they went out one by one, all but Tolby who stayed to guide Hosmer’s still form through as carefully as he could from his end. At last, they all stood together surrounding Hosmer at the end of the farm and orchard, where the air pipes to the cellar had been pulled apart and out so Garner could free them.

Around them, the world was even more destroyed than Grace had imagined. Flames licked at the blackened stumps of the framework of the house, little left beyond that. The barn, the press, dark and glowing ghosts of themselves, orange and gray ash and blackened charcoal. Nothing remained but the stone foundation Tolby had laid in his youth, and heat from the fire had cracked the stones wide open. She turned her gaze quickly from the sight of a spit, and a carcass upon it, not wanting to think what it might have been.

Nutmeg cried out. “Oh, poor Bumblebee!”

Garner shook his head, leaning on Keldan. “They tried to get that old pony, but he was too shrewd and quick for them. That’s what’s left of Yellowbeard when he came back to defend his haystacks. A stringy meal they made of him.” He nodded his head toward the spit in memory of the billy goat that had chased Rivergrace more times than she cared to remember, as ornery himself as the little goats that he sired were sweet.

“You were close enough to watch?” Tolby shaded his eyes, looking across the cloud-studded sky where the coming rainstorm had veered away from them, and sun peeked through momentarily, dazzling those who’d been in the cellar for what seemed nearly half the day.

“Not that close. I saw the hounds, but the smoke and such filled their nostrils and any scenting wanted from them, they couldn’t do. They’d torn the house apart, Da, and fired everything by the time I got to the windbreaks. So I climbed up and watched, and hoped by Tree’s blood you were all safe.” He looked at Hosmer. “And most of you are, it seems.”

“Bolgers?”

He shook his head slowly, wearily, and Keldan stepped closer to take more of his weight on his shoulders. “Ravers and Bolgers. You’d not have made a stand, none of us would. Outsmarting them was all we could hope for, and we’ve done it.” He gusted a sigh. “A lot of rebuilding to do . . .”

“No.” Tolby hiked up his belt. “I’m not a quitter, but it’s time for a change. The city, I think, where Lily can do that weaving and tailoring she’s so good at, and I can have a press closer to the drinkers who profess a fondness for my cider. Still . . .” He looked about. “It’ll be a long walk. A night in the trees for all of us, and we’ll start tomorrow.”

And so they did.

SOMETIME BEFORE DAWN, when all seemed still except for the grumbling snore of her husband and the soft, deeper, yet quieter purrs of her children, Lily undid the ties Tolby had fastened about her and slid down the tree. By the dark of night, the wreckage of her life seemed pooled in shadow everywhere she looked. Not only the house and outbuildings, but the orchard itself had been torched, the green and fruiting trees burning reluctantly, it seemed, but still burning. Only here on the outskirts, among the emeraldbarks, had the trees withstood the fires. She’d seen the hills scorched black after wildfires and seen the greening return, after seasons, and so their own ranch and orchards might come back. The Farbranches were the ones who wouldn’t recover from this.

She and Tolby had talked quietly long after the others had fallen asleep. Time to move on, they agreed. Time to let the children know a different life, and time for them to slow down a bit. And time, perhaps, to hide Rivergrace in the crowds of a city rather than in the open country. She never spoke of the attack during the fair a few years back, but Tolby knew something had happened to fill her with silence, uncharacteristic even for her. Nutmeg remembered being taken by a Bolger but little else, and Grace never said anything beyond washing her hands over and over for the next few days, although it had been one sister who found the other. None of them ever spoke of that time, until this eve, when Tolby told her he feared that the Ravers had marked the family and they might find peace hard to keep. The raiders were fierce and their ways unknown, unfathomed.

Lily found a sharpened poker and went to the part of the house she remembered. The main cellar had finally fallen in, the kitchen floor which was its roof burning through, and she moved carefully because everything still held a surprising heat. The stone stairs rocked under her light steps and she paused at every other one, fearful of being dumped downward all at once. It took her a few moments squinting in the bright moonlight to find her digging spot, and bring up the leather bag of coins she kept buried there. Her hands went over the pouch of Rivergrace’s things. After hesitating a moment, Lily buried them again in the oilcloth sack she’d put them in so long ago. Perhaps it would be best to keep the past buried.

Feeling soiled and gritty, Lily retraced her steps through the broken foundation of the home she and Tolby had built together, and where they’d spent a loving life together. She looked round, her heart aching, yet knowing they could have lost much, much more. Hosmer’s injury should heal cleanly and although more serious than Garner’s, it was Garner’s wound that worried at her. It looked like a shallow yet long flap of skin gouged aside, but it showed festering, and she knew his ribs had cracked as well from the blow. He’d said little even when they’d discovered that he was injured, more concerned about Hosmer, but a quiet, somber Garner was a Garner in pain. She knew both her sons well enough to know that Hosmer, hurt as he was, was healing quickly while Garner might be denying just how much attention he needed. She would have to find poultice makings along the road and insist he use them.

Bumblebee had come snuffling back, stiff-legged from the hard drive Tolby had given him, yet nudging at all of them as if worried about them more than himself. Rivergrace and Nutmeg had fussed over him, rubbing his legs and grooming him, he groaning and leaning on them both like a big, overgrown dog. She patted his shaggy, slumbering form now as she passed, and found the windbreak tree she and Tolby had shinnied up. For a few brief minutes that night, it had been almost as if they were young again, climbing trees as young lovers in a glorious spring and summer. She remembered one moonlit night when they had climbed to a tall tree outside their town, and picnicked, and Tolby had thrown twigs at passersby from the tavern down the lane who could not for the life of them figure out where the debris had come from. But the climb tonight had been a lot harder, with joints stiffer than she cared to think about.

She stood at the trunk, craning her head back and wondering if she could clamber up again without waking Tolby. Lily got to the first big fork in the tree’s branches, when she could see torches on the road, flickering. They’d come back!

“Tolby! Tolby!”

Her voice, pitched low but urgent, stopped his snoring, and then he shook his grizzled head. “What?”

“Wake up! They’ve come back.”

The tree trembled as he thrashed around in it before untangling himself from his own ties. “What are you doing way down there?”

“Never mind that. What are we all going to do?”

“Stay up in the trees, and hold our tongues. Get yourself back up here.”

Lily began climbing again, slipping once or twice, and grateful when she got close enough that Tolby’s strong hand could reach her and pull her back up to the fork where he perched. He hugged her tightly. “Don’t go bolting away on me,” he said.

“I wasn’t. Should we wake the others?”

“Not till I get a better look. But they’ll need to be awake, to keep quiet.” Tolby gave her a last squeeze before edging away, and higher, to the willowy treetop which swayed under his weight. Rain had come in the faintest of patters, not putting the fires out, but making the stench even more foul, and the damp drops hissing where they touched the hottest spots. The sky had cleared then, and he peered across their ruined farmland. Tolby stayed for long moments as Lily held her breath. Finally, he called down, “I cannot tell what comes. Wake them, have them hold their silence.”

Lily leaned across the fork of her tree, to the branch tethered there and tugged on it, lightly but insistently. The branch, bent over from the windbreak tree next to hers, shook about Nutmeg and Rivergrace, waking both of them. They, in turn, stirred Keldan and Garner. After hushed complaints, all were awake save Hosmer, who lay lashed to his tree with Keldan, and only moaned now and then in a deep dream, which Lily had lengthened with one of her “syrups.” Tolby muttered down again, “I cannot see! They’re moving slowly, searching. What fiends can see at night, even with torches?”

“No hounds, though,” offered Keldan. He began to unstrap himself. “I’m going to run take a look.”

“Stay here!”

“If they’re as slow as you say, I’ll be there and back before they’ve noticed.” Keldan looked upward at them, waved, and dashed off before Tolby could stop him.

“He had better be, or he’ll be dead,” Garner said quietly. Lily made a sharp sound, and all of them went quiet, waiting.

Rivergrace watched the smoky orange torches draw closer, slowly, deliberately, bobbing in the night. Before she had been desperate to be outside, regardless of the enemy, now she wished for shelter again, and hugged the tree tightly, bark cutting into her clothes.

Keldan appeared again, like a will-o’-the-wisp out of the night. “Da! You’ve got to come.”

“What is it?”

“It . . . you have to see it.” Keldan gulped. “It’s everyone,” he said, as Tolby slid down and landed with a thump beside him. “It’s everyone come to answer the beacon and help.”

 
As the night shifted slowly away, the wagons and riders had filed into what was left of the Farbranch home and orchards, gathered in a circle, with the militia riding patrol, not too far away and not too near. Dawn came fitfully, and their time to leave grew close. Still and all, what do you say, Tolby reflected, to a man and good friend who’d lost two of his sons, even though he had a barnful of them still to his name? It made no difference he had more children. The loss of one always cut just as keenly. He pressed the bracelet that Hosmer had saved into Cavender Barrel’s hand, saying only, “From what Hos said, I wouldn’t send anyone looking that didn’t have a strong stomach and heart. There’s not much left after the Ravers to bury, Cavender. You have to be warned on that, ugly as it sounds.”

His friend’s shoulders bowed, as he fixed his eyes on the item, and closed his hands about it tightly, until his scarred knuckles showed white. “Thank ye, Tolby, and give me thanks to that boy of yers. They did their best. Are ye sure ye’re not staying?”

“No, my mind’s made up. I’ve had the life I wanted. Lily’s been hankering to go back to the city a bit. I reckon it’s time, while we’re still young enough to start again.”

“We’ll be missing you. Good folks, and neighbors, and all.”

“I know, Cav. We’ll be missing you. But I’ll be carting back and forth. If I buy the place I want, I’ll still be needing apples.” Tolby swung about, gesturing. “Anyone wants to salvage this, I’ll deed it to them. The trees are strong, good sap in ’em, deep roots. I grafted good stock onto good stock. They’ll come back.”

“Aye, they will. We’ll ask about. Maybe a young couple or two might pitch in together to work it.”

“That’s good talk.” Tolby smiled grimly. He pressed Cavender’s hands again, tightly. “We’re so sorry, Lily and I.”

His friend pressed back. “We’ll have a good talk about it with the Gods themselves, we will, when it’s our time. What are they thinking, taking the young, eh?” Barrel sighed heavily. He stepped off. “Looks like they’re waiting on us.”

Indeed, the small cart they’d put to rights, and a small wagon someone had lent them, were filled with their packs and supplies from the cellar, and the few things they could scrape out of the ruins and ashes. Bumblebee stood in the cart’s yoke and tossed his shaggy head impatiently, while Hosmer’s still tired tashya-blooded horse was tied behind. They’d been lent two mules for the wagon, and Hos lay in back, Garner sitting at his side, legs tucked under him. The girls rode on the front seat with Keldan driving, while Lily waited for him at the cart, still saying good-byes. They drove out to a dawn still hung with smoke on the air as the fires burned out in the new day, and their friends accompanied them to the road.

Lily never looked back. Rivergrace put a hand out in farewell to her river, and a cloud of alna rose, circling over them twice, before winging their way back across the water to the forest deeps.

 
 
Sevryn lay on the healer Frelar’s cot, feeling her tough hands knead the knots and soreness out of his body, testing the flexibility of his joints and muscles, and then, finally, rubbing ointment into his new scars. The bruises would heal and the scars fade out, she told him, but he knew that, and it hurt no less this time than the last. He slowly relaxed under her hands.

“You have good Vaelinar blood in you,” grunted Frelar, as she rubbed the ointment in a second time, just for the sting of it he thought. “These are new but nearly healed as it is. The scarring will be minimal or fade altogether.”

“That would be about the only good Vaelinar blood has done me.”

She slapped his left buttock. “Listen to you. Think the queen would talk to you at all if you weren’t blooded? Queen Lariel is what and where she is because she knows the true worth of a person. She sees beyond blood and skin, as one of her station should.”

“Vaelinars are born to such stations.”

A strong hand found a knot just above his shoulder blade and knuckled into it sharply until it was all he could do to breathe. “Stations, even among the Vaelinars, are earned. Never forget that.”