Watersmeet (9 page)

“I won’t hurt you,” Abisina promised, trying to sound calm and soothing. “It’s as you said, I’m a creature of the surface, and I need the sun, the wind. Anything.”

“But there is no way to the surface from here. This is our rootfield— Wait, I’ve got an idea!” Hoysta studied the ceiling again and prodded it with a crooked finger. “No,” she murmured, moving to another spot. “Try this one.” She poked again and then in a third spot. “Ah!” Hoysta raised both hands to the roof, pulling so hard that for a moment she hung from the ceiling, kicking her short legs and grunting until whatever it was gave way. She tumbled to the floor in a shower of earth and snow, with a root the size of a pumpkin on her chest. “Hee, hee, hee!” came her wheezy laugh as she stood up and wiped her eyes. “There!” she said, pointing toward the ceiling.

Abisina glanced up, not knowing what she was supposed to find, and saw only the dirt roof. Then, looking closer, she realized that the loamy black was broken by the thinner darkness of night. She stood up and held her face to the opening left by the root, letting the air rain its coolness on her. She smelled the sharp odor of firs and felt the stab of frost in her nose. “It’s night,” she murmured.

“Sorry, dearie,” Hoysta said, “I can’t sense when it’s day and night like Haret can.”

“No, it’s fine.” Abisina fixed her gaze on the small patch of sky. The darkness shifted above her, and she recognized tree branches moving in strong wind. And as she stared upward, a pinprick of light twinkled and was gone, was there, then gone, then there again. “A star,” she said, afraid to blink in case she lost the tiny spark.

Hoysta let her stand there while she gathered more roots. Abisina didn’t know how much time passed before the dwarf said, “Dearie, must go now,” laying a hand on her arm. “Haret will be wanting his supper. Don’t know day and night, but I know supper and breakfast,” and she chuckled.

I’ll be up there soon, traveling toward Watersmeet
, Abisina thought, her worry eclipsed by the freedom of seeing the outside world again. She followed Hoysta to the entrance of the rootfield and touched the old dwarf’s shoulder. “Thank you,” Abisina said softly.

Hoysta smiled, exposing her few teeth, the skin crinkling around her eyes. There was no fear in them now. “Have to think of something to tell Haret about
this
.” She raised her basket laden with the root she’d pulled down to expose the sky. It was four times larger than any of the other roots. Abisina answered Hoysta’s smile with her own, and they trooped back to the cave.

Haret said nothing about the root. He just raised his eyebrows as Hoysta tried to hack into it with a large knife, and then he regarded Abisina suspiciously. But Abisina didn’t care. That pinprick of starlight gave her new energy. Every stitch she sewed in a sleeping roll, every loaf of flatbread she formed, every smoked mole she stowed in the leather travel bags got her closer to the outside. Still, her stomach clenched the night she overheard Haret say, “We leave tomorrow.”

She had been lying in bed, waiting for sleep. She knew Hoysta and Haret were sitting by the fire in the great room. She could hear the soft tap of Hoysta’s knitting needles and see Haret’s shadow as he paced.

His words brought a cry of protest from Hoysta. “Not yet, Grandson! She’s still weak! And she’s just a child.”

“She is not as young as you think. I would guess fourteen or fifteen winters.”

“A baby!”

“They don’t live as long as we do. It’s as if she had more than twenty winters!”

“Still! Not
so
old,” Hoysta said grudgingly.

“She is not your pet, Grandmother.” Haret’s voice was hard. “Have you forgotten your sister’s children hunted down while they fished along the Great River? And what of Siedra, who went to
talk
to the humans and never returned? And Stonedun—or
Vran
dun, as they call it! The humans built their village on top of our own city until it collapsed on itself.”

The dwarves destroyed Vrandun!
But Abisina knew the Vranians were capable of hunting down dwarves—even dwarf children.
Could it have been the humans’ fault?

“And now the humans talk of another war,” Haret continued. “A new leader is stirring the villages. I have it from a scout who returned yesterday. He’s called Charach, this leader,”—darkness reached toward Abisina at the name—“and he plans to finish what they started so long ago, to ‘subdue the monstrosities.’ That’s how they speak about us, Grandmother. Do you think they would offer you one pebble of the care you’ve given
her
?”

Hoysta was silent, and Abisina crept out of her bed. Staying in the shadows, she peeked into the great room. Haret stood with his back to her. Despite the low light, she could see the pain on Hoysta’s face.

“The snow is all but gone. The human is ready,” he said.

“A few more weeks would make her stronger.”

“We don’t need a few more weeks, Grandmother. We leave tomorrow.”

“But, Haret, think of your parents! Your uncle! Your grandfather! Digging till their tools broke. Digging with their fingers till they bled. Digging their own graves. I am trying to spare you!”

“I’m different, Grandmother. I don’t have the Obriumlust.”

“I can see it. You’ve grown thin with pacing. Your temper! You are not the boy I raised.”

“It’s for my parents—for all of them—that I’m doing this! We’ve never had a chance like this before. To turn my back now would be to turn my back on all that we are as dwarves!” Haret’s voice rung with finality. “I am going to the Mines to face this demon, once and for all.”

Hoysta lowered her head and said nothing. When she looked up, the skin around her eyes and along her jaw had gone slack. She seemed ancient. But her voice was firm. “You think I’m a foolish old woman. Maybe you’re right. But I have lost too much to this quest.”

“Grandmother.” Abisina had never heard Haret’s voice so gentle. “I will return. I give you my word. And—and I will take care of the human.”

Hoysta reached out and touched her grandson’s face with her gnarled hand. “I have dreamed of this metal, too. It’s in our blood. But at my age, the metal has tarnished. News of our kin, dwarves who escaped to the other side of the mountains—that is all I want now. Bring this news to me, Haret. Leave the Mines. Find our kin and come home.”

The old dwarf and the young one looked at each other for a long moment before Hoysta rose to go to sleep. Abisina crept back to her own bed, leaving Haret to resume his pacing.

Abisina woke to Hoysta’s voice: “Don’t forget to feed her the soup once a day. Needs the strength!”

She sat up.
Today we leave for Watersmeet!
The skin on her arms turned to gooseflesh despite the cave’s heat.

Next to her pallet, Abisina found her new clothes laid out: knitted mittens and hat, a pair of leggings, a tunic made of rabbit pelts, and the fur-lined leather boots she had watched Hoysta soften with her own teeth. Her throat tightened as she began to dress.

She stepped through the archway into the great room, where the dwarves stooped over two sacks set by the fire.

Glancing up, Hoysta cried “Leaving today!” and pulled Abisina to her. The smell of earth hung about her, but it did not make Abisina cringe. And the quiver in the old dwarf’s voice made Abisina’s throat tighten again.

Hoysta, eyes wet, led her over to a stump-stool and thrust a bowl of root porridge at her. Abisina tried to eat, but her stomach rebelled and she put her bowl aside after a few bites.

“Eat more!” Hoysta urged. “You need strength!”

Abisina choked down two more bites before Haret grunted, “It’s time to go.” He picked up one of the bags at his feet and held it out to Abisina without a word. She braced herself for its heaviness but found it light. As Haret lifted his own bag bulging with provisions, Abisina realized she’d been given a fraction of the gear. She pushed aside her pang of guilt, reminding herself that Haret would have let her die in the snow if not for the Obrium necklace, her mother’s necklace, which was around
his
neck. She settled the weight of the bag on her left shoulder, the leather strap across her chest. She added a water skin over her other shoulder.

Haret buckled a belt with a long dagger around his waist, tucked a small hatchet into the belt, and set a bow and quiver across his back.

Abisina was ready for this moment. “I need a weapon.”

Haret narrowed his eyes. “You think I’ll arm you, human?”

“I need to protect myself, like you. A bow and arrows. I learned to shoot when I was a small child—we never left the village without them.”

“I’ll protect you,” Haret said.

“You would have left me for dead—”

“We have no other bow,” Hoysta said quickly.

“Then I’ll make one on the trail,” Abisina replied with a defiant look at Haret, though she had no sinew to string it.

Hoysta hurried to tie the mended Vranian cloak around Abisina’s neck. It fell several inches shorter against her legs.
Have I grown taller?
Abisina wondered.
Eating that horrible soup?

Walking stoop-shouldered up the tunnel, excitement tingled down to her fingertips. In a moment she would be outside in the sun and the air! The three of them came to the fork—and this time went left. The farther they moved along the tunnel, the cooler and lighter the air felt in Abisina’s chest.

Haret suddenly threw himself on the ground. Abisina hesitated.

“On your belly, dearie,” Hoysta said behind her and pushed her gently to the ground. “Small tunnel. Looks like a badger hole.”

Abisina crawled forward, pushing her bag around to her back. But the bag snagged on the low ceiling, forcing her to return to a wider point in the tunnel, remove her bag, and start in again.

“Human!” came Haret’s growl.

As Haret left the tunnel, Abisina saw a circle of daylight and felt a rush of cold, clean air. She wriggled on her belly until, at last, she poked her head out into brilliant daylight. Haret knelt next to the hole, holding back the branches that covered the entrance. Abisina got to her knees. Patches of snow still lingered under the tree, drifts of blinding white. Abisina followed Haret as he crawled under the tree’s branches and into a small clearing.

The light made her squint, her eyes watering. She peered upward, where she expected to find the sun’s golden face burning down through the overlapping branches. Instead, she saw only a few patches of cloud-covered sky.

Hoysta, who had followed them out of the hole, also looked skyward, but warily, as if expecting something to swoop down on her. As she helped Abisina put her bag over her shoulder, Hoysta’s movements were awkward and rushed.

Only Haret’s eyes were wide open.

“Have everything?” Hoysta asked Haret, her words clipped.

“Yes, Grandmother.”

“Well then—” Her voice caught. She took Abisina’s hand and held onto it tightly, like someone drowning. “Dearie, maybe you will hear what I am trying to say. Haret believes that humans and dwarves are not friends. You haven’t always wanted my care”—Abisina looked down—“but no good has come from our hate. Perhaps, some good will come of our friendship. You can trust my Haret.”

Hoysta hugged Abisina to her hard, and Abisina could feel her shaking.

“Thank you,” Abisina whispered. “I’ll never forget you.” As she hugged Hoysta back, she realized what she said was true.

Hoysta pulled away, wiping her eyes. “And you, Grandson. Be careful. For both of you.”

Haret took her hand. “I will. Good-bye, Grandmother.”

Hoysta embraced her grandson, her tears falling openly, and scuttled back under the branches, her sobs fading as she disappeared down the tunnel.

As they set off, Abisina gloried in the air on her face, the spicy smell of pines, the cacophony of bird calls, and the hazy green of budding leaves covering the maples, oaks, and beeches. The drought was over. All over the forest, water gurgled underground and dripped from the trees. The pine needles beneath her feet were slippery with melting snow.

“How much snow did we get?” Abisina wondered aloud.

“Twice the size of you,” Haret grunted.

Even Haret couldn’t bother her now. Abisina sighed happily. Everywhere she looked, Spring asserted herself, and Abisina drank it in.

But this euphoria did not last. They followed a trail north, threading through tall groves mercifully clear of undergrowth. As the day progressed, however, the path narrowed and then faded away altogether, while the undergrowth grew thicker. Soon they had to pick their way among saplings, brambles, and brush that pulled at Abisina’s clothes, slapped her in the face, and pricked her hands until they bled. Clouds of gnats clustered around her eyes and whined in her ears.

These irritations were nothing new—she had worked hard in Vranille and in the forests surrounding it. But after her injuries, followed by months of confinement in the cave, Abisina had lost her hardness. And Haret set an infuriating pace. Although her legs were longer than his, she had to jog to keep up. For six hours they climbed uphill without rest—except for the times she slipped on pine needles and fell, once landing on an exposed root. The spot on her hip still throbbed, and she knew a purple bruise was hidden underneath her leggings. After this fall, Haret paused long enough for Abisina to get back on her feet and then set off.