BLACKVEIL
The shallow cave Grandmother and her people sheltered
in was a dismal, dark place, but it was better than being caught in
the forest and getting sucked into some mire. Torrents of rain had
poured through the forest canopy for three days now, best as she
could figure.
They’d found the
cave in a hillside that rose up beside Way of the Moon. It was
mainly natural in origin, but refined by hand with stone tools they
found scattered about. Someone had widened the entrance and leveled
the floor, and there were signs the walls had been chipped at.
Grandmother did not see it as the work of Eletians, for it was far
too crude, and they did not seem to her to be cave-dwelling
creatures.
They’d had to scare
out a colony of roosting bats, oversized things displeased at being
roused from their winter’s torpor. Their eviction had been
accompanied by much screaming and covering of heads by Min and
Sarat, which only stirred the bats up more. Even Grandmother found
herself shuddering and ducking at the leathery flap of wings so
close to her head.
Afterward, Lala
found herself a dead bat on the cave floor to examine. She poked it
with a stick and turned it over. Grandmother took a closer look
herself, amazed at its sharp claws and fangs. The bats she was
accustomed to back home were diminutive, maybe the size of her
forefinger at the most, and harmless. These were the length of her
forearm. Grandmother and her people were lucky they hadn’t been
bitten or scratched.
When Griz saw what
Lala was about, he grabbed her stick without apology and used it to
pitch the dead bat outside. Then he and Cole set about rigging one
of their tents over the cave entry as much to keep the rain out as
to prevent the bats from returning, while Deglin worked to light a
fire. Meanwhile, Min and Sarat cleared the floor of guano. Deglin
declared some of it would work as fuel.
A crack in the
ceiling drafted smoke out from their campfire, and it was the
warmest and driest Grandmother had felt since they passed into the
forest. From time to time, she caught sight of large, multi-legged
insects scuttling at the edge of the firelight, but as long as she
stayed near the fire, they kept clear of her. Every so often Min
would scream, and Cole would come to her and crunch the offending
insect beneath his boot.
After laying out
their gear to dry, Min and Sarat brewed tea and started to make the
usual thin stew. The rain provided them with plenty of water,
though it left a distinct, dank aftertaste on the
tongue.
Lala occupied
herself by searching out insects to stomp on, and Grandmother gazed
into the fire, wondering when the rain would let up so they could
continue their journey. She wondered if the Watchers sat out there
in the rain waiting for them to emerge from the cave. She’d felt
their gaze ever since they started along Way of the Moon. She and
her people were being stalked.
She did not mention
the Watchers to the others, not wishing to alarm them until there
was a specific threat. The regard of the Watchers went beyond the
general awareness the forest had of their passage; the Watchers
were intentional in their regard. Intelligent.
Perhaps the Watchers
were trying to figure out how strong Grandmother and her people
were; how much of a defense they’d put up if attacked. Maybe they
were just curious.
What Grandmother did
know was that she wasn’t going to take any chances, and so she
doubled her wardings at each of their campsites, including the
entrance to this cave.
As she stared into
the fire, she also wondered what was happening on the other side of
the wall. How was Colonel Birch faring? How went the muster and
training of Second Empire’s forces? She had a way of seeing what he
was up to, but the forest made the use of the art unreliable. Well,
she had to try sometime, and their circumstances might not be as
good later on.
Long ago she’d
collected fingernail clippings from the colonel just for the
purpose of seeing through his eyes. She pried one out of a tiny
pouch she kept in her yarn basket. It was a fine crescent specimen,
perhaps from the thumb. Birch kept his fingernails remarkably
immaculate, but she supposed that was the difference between an
officer expected to serve in court and a common
soldier.
She knotted a length
of sky blue yarn around the fingernail—knots of seeing. Sky blue
was good, she found, for seeing over a distance, like looking
through the clear sky itself.
“Show me,” she
commanded as she tied the last knot. She flung it into the fire.
The fire flared. The yarn writhed as the flames consumed
it.
At first she thought
the spell would resist her, but then a window opened in the fire
and she held her breath. Snow. Snow framed by the flames of their
campfire. Squalls battered rows of tents and were so dense she
could not see far.
Three figures
struggled into view and halted before her/ Birch. One of them had
his hands bound behind his back and his face was bruised and
bloody. He wore green. One of the king’s accursed Green
Riders.
“What do you want
done with the spy?” one of the men holding him asked.
“He is a messenger,”
Birch said, his voice disembodied. Of course it would be, since
Grandmother watched through his eyes. “Therefore we shall send the
king a message.”
“I understand.” A
knife flashed out and the man sank it into the Rider’s
back.
The Rider’s eyes
went wide. Snowflakes caught in his hair as it was tousled by the
wind. Beneath the blood caked on his face, Grandmother saw he was
young.
But never innocent.
No, she knew better. From the beginning the Green Riders opposed
the empire, acting as scouts, messengers, and warriors for their
king. And yes, as spies, using their miniscule but insidious
abilities with the art to commit evil upon the forces of the
empire, and now Second Empire.
She felt no surge of
compassion, not even when Birch’s man twisted the knife in the
Rider’s back. The young man’s mouth opened in a silent cry as he
fell to his knees, sinking into the snow. Some mother just lost a
son. So had the mothers of the empire lost sons, many sons, to the
heathen Sacoridians.
No, she felt no
compassion when he collapsed into the snow, crimson flowing from
his mouth. An enemy of Second Empire was dead and she could only
rejoice.
“Prepare the
message,” Birch said. “Those Greenie horses are clever—this one’ll
go right to the king.”
There was laughter,
then all Grandmother could see was snow, snowflakes swirling this
way and that. The vision extinguished and she was left in darkness.
Dark except for the one candle Cole lit on the other side of the
cave. He brought it over to Grandmother and they all stared at the
dead campfire. The cave smelled of damp soot.
Sarat reached for
the ladle in the stewpot, but could not pull it out. “What have you
done, Grandmother?” she chided. “The stew is frozen
solid.”
“Oh, dear,”
Grandmother replied. Once again the instability of the forest’s
etherea had twisted her spell. “I’m sorry, child. We’ll have to
start the fire again and thaw it out.”
As Cole used his
candle to light fresh kindling, Grandmother reflected that next
time she’d wait until after supper to work a spell. But what she’d
just witnessed was more satisfying than any meal.