Chapter Twenty Nine
She tried to scramble to her feet, but she was hampered by the folds of the thick cloak, and her movements were clumsy. The long knife was still buckled in its sheath at her waist, and she fumbled for it as she rose.
"Easy," she heard Evander murmur. "Don't panic. Not yet."
"Who is it? Who is there? Show yourself." She gripped the knife's hilt and called out into the darkness. Her voice sounded squeaky and frightened, even to her own ears, and she shook herself.
"Show yourself," she insisted, taking a deep breath. "Nobody's going to hurt you if you're a friend."
There was a long silence.
The knife lay at her feet. Slowly, without taking her eyes off the dark shape, she reached down and picked it up.
"Come out," she insisted, her voice ringing clear and steadily in the quiet darkness.
There was a heartbeat's pause, and then the shape moved. It had been further off than she had thought, and she heard the long grasses rustling as it approached. She felt her heart pounding in her throat as she gripped the knife hilt and spread her feet, bracing herself for an attack.
"I say," said a familiar voice. "You do look a pantomime. Don't be ridiculous, Suzie. Put that thing down. What on earth do you think you're playing at?"
Susan felt a rush of nausea. Her hands dropped, and the knife clattered to the ground.
"Daniel?" she said, unbelievingly. "Is it you?"
She felt Evander's cold horror, felt him slip quietly back to the silent recesses of her thought. She stared at the slight shape as it emerged from the shadows.
"Daniel?" she said again
"Yes, of course it's me, who did you think it was?" the voice said, and Daniel emerged, real and solid, into the firelight. "I've been looking for you all day. What in the world are you doing? And what's that you're wearing? You look completely ridiculous. I can't believe I'm seeing this. A woman your age, playing at swordfights and building campfires. Really, Susan. I can hardly believe my own eyes. Isn't it time you'd grown out of being so completely silly?"
Susan gasped.
"How - how did you get here?" she asked, stepping back a little.
"The same way as you, I suppose," Daniel said. "I've come to find you and send you back before you do anything else foolish."
"Send me back?" Susan stammered, incredulously. "But -"
"Yes, send you back," Daniel snapped. "Honestly, Susan, I can't believe you've just abandoned all of your responsibilities like this. Just to up and disappear like that, without even a word to anybody. What were you thinking? What did you think I was going to do, coming back to an empty house? For goodness' sake, isn't it time you grew up?"
Susan felt her cheeks growing hot.
"I couldn't help it," she flared. "I didn't ask to come here. I didn't choose it."
Daniel sighed.
"No, I suppose you didn't, although it doesn't seem to me that you've tried very hard to do anything about it," he said. "I think we need to talk. You'd better sit down."
Susan's knees seemed to buckle underneath her. Her mind was whirling. Tears had sprung to her eyes, and she was not sure if they were anger or shame. In a dark place, somewhere inside her pain, she felt Evander's wordless calm touch her thought and then withdraw quietly, watching her.
Daniel settled himself on the other side of the fire. He reached a hand out towards her, but she drew back. Sighing, he shook his head.
"Really, Suzie, this can't go on," he said, kindly. "I'm sure it's all been very exciting, and all that, but I think enough is enough. You've got to go home now."
"I don't think you understand," Susan said, slowly. "I can't go home. Not without the rings. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get them back."
"Of course, I know that," Daniel said, irritation in his tone. "I know exactly what you're trying to do. But I think it's about time you stopped. It's completely - inappropriate. It's a lunatic thing for a woman of your age to be doing. Charging off through the middle of the night on some fool's errand. I'm afraid it can't go on. You can pack yourself up and go back to that ridiculous boat you've borrowed from goodness' knows where. Tonight."
"I can't," Susan said, beginning to feel panicky. "I can't. I need the rings. I've got to have them to get home. Unless you've got some - some other way."
"Of course I have," Daniel said, crossly. "For goodness' sake, Susan, please don't imagine we're all as hopelessly fanciful as you. This is absolutely no place for you. Now please do what you're being asked and go back to that boat. Straight away. Tonight. You can wait for me there. I don't want to hear any more arguments. I've arranged to meet Lefay tomorrow and collect the rings from him. We have a gentleman's agreement. It needn't concern you. I will pick them up, and then come down to collect you and take you back home. You might try to arrange yourself some more respectable garments in the meantime, you look a perfect fright."
"I - I can't," Susan said. "I don't understand, Daniel. I don't think Lefay would just give you the rings. It isn't like that. He - he wants them for himself."
Daniel let out a little laugh.
"Really, Susan, please don't imagine you can try and tell me what's going on in another man's mind," he said, loftily. "You always were quite sure you knew everything, weren't you? Well, I can assure you that you aren't nearly as clever as you think, and I would ask you please not to interfere. None of this was ever any of your business in the first place, and I can hardly believe you've had the bare-faced cheek to imagine it was. You always liked being in the middle of some drama of your own making, didn't you? Well, it's time it stopped. Honestly, Suzie, sometimes you're just too much to believe."
Susan bit her lip.
Inside her thought, Evander stirred. She felt his touch against her, cool and soothing against the heat of her pain.
"Daniel," she said, slowly. "I'm sure you're trying to do what you think best, but I can't do it. I have to try and stop Mr. Lefay. I have to take the rings from him. You can - you can come with me if you like, you can help if you feel you'd like to - to work together. But he won't give them to you. Or to anybody. He wants to keep them. He's determined."
"I won't hear of it!" Daniel expostulated. "I'm not having you - making a fool of yourself any more. Leave that ridiculous sword where it is and make yourself ready to go back to the boat. You can take that hideous horse creature with you if you like, but go you will. I won't tolerate this. You will do what you are told or I'll -"
"Or you'll what?" Susan asked, suddenly. "You can't do anything to me, Daniel. You can hit me if you like, but it won't stop me. I have promised that I would try and stop Mr. Lefay, and I'm going to do that. It doesn't - it doesn't make any difference what you think."
"How dare you refuse me?" Daniel shouted, fury making his face scarlet, even in the firelight. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. You will go back and wait for me, the way a wife should. You will do what I ask you. This is all because of that - that giant, isn't it? That creature ought to be in a cage. You are my wife, and you will do what I tell you, and you will never see nor speak to him again, do you understand?"
There was a moment's silence.
"How do you know about him?" Susan asked quietly. "You can't see him here. How do you know about him?"
"Because - because I've been watching you!" Daniel shrieked, leaping to his feet. "I know all about it! I know what you've been doing. I know he's been trying to undermine me. He's done his best to persuade you to - to disobey me. Well, you won't. You will not! I am your husband, and you will do as I say!"
"Watching, Daniel?" said Susan, softly. "Watching from where?"
"Don't pretend you don't know!" Daniel bellowed, and he lunged, suddenly, across the fire towards her. "You've been all over him ever since you set eyes on him. Making those little-girl eyes and pouting your lips at him! You're disgusting, do you know that? As if even a great stupid, ugly giant would want anything to do with you."
Susan ducked back out of his way, scrabbling in the dust for the knife. She leaped to her feet, raising it in front of her.
"How did you get here, Daniel?" she asked again. "Exactly how did you manage to be here? Where have you come from?"
"I came the way you did," he shouted. "I came through the woods."
"Not without the rings, you didn't," Susan said, and suddenly she felt very calm. She gripped the knife.
"Who are you?" she demanded, and she heard her own voice ringing calmly and clearly. "You aren't Daniel. I don't know you. Who are you?"
She felt Evander in her thoughts, exultant and proud, and her fingers clenched around the knife hilt. One thrust, she thought, one swift movement.
"You daren't!" the creature shrieked. "You dare not take the risk. I am Daniel, I tell you. Would you murder me?"
She checked herself for a moment, then clenched her teeth.
"You are not Daniel," she said, suddenly certain. "I don't know who or what you are, but you are not Daniel. You don't even feel like him. You are a liar. Tell me who you are and what it is that you want. Speak, quickly, because your life depends on it."
The creature was silent for a moment. Then its face seemed to change. Its features twisted, becoming horribly distorted in a savage, laughing parody of Daniel's face. In a sudden, lightning-fast move it lurched across the fire towards her, stamping on the hot embers as it tried to grab her, and catching her wrist, its fingernails digging into her arm like claws. Susan felt blood trickle down her arm, and cried out in shock. Her grip tightened on the knife, and she lashed out with it, drawing red ribbons across the creature's chest and hacking at the hand that gripped hers. A sudden spurt of hot blood made her gasp and choke, and then suddenly it released her, flailing towards her with its other hand, trying to grab hold of the hand which still held the knife.
She staggered away, swinging desperately at empty air with the knife. The creature had a bubbling gash across its shoulder and the base of its neck now, but it seemed not to feel the pain. With a sudden bound it hurled itself across the fire and upon her, knocking her backwards. She tumbled against the rocks, and it was on top of her, clawing and shrieking, trying to dig its sharp fingernails into her eyes. She felt Evander in her thoughts, urging her to stab, not slice, and she clutched the handle of the knife, trying to grip it, to lift it.
The creature was crushing her. The knife was heavy, her fingers flailing, too weak to hold it. She jerked her head from side to side, frantically trying to escape the creature's grip. It clutched her neck, its hand hot and slippery with blood, and she felt its fingers tighten. Then the pain came, the gasping for breath, the agonising burning in her throat, and the world began to swim. She swung the knife weakly in her clenched fist, and it struck against its side. She felt it scrape on rib bone, and thought, desperately, Lower.
The next blow hit below the ribs, something soft and yielding, and this time the creature howled. For a moment it loosed its grip on her. She pushed with all her might and managed to roll sideways, tugging the knife free. Blindly, wiping blood from her eyes, she struggled to her knees and raised the knife again.
The blow never fell. Suddenly it was over. The creature seemed to shrivel. It clenched its hands and stared up at her. Daniel's eyes, endlessly sorrowful and riven with pain.
"Help me," it gasped, and it was still.
An oily black cloud seemed to seep from the small corpse. It hovered for a moment, just at the level of her eyes, and then with a sudden, spiteful-sounding hiss, it was gone.
Susan's breath was coming in hoarse, rasping gasps. She staggered to her feet, and gulped lungfuls of the cool night air until her panic ebbed away and her breathing eased. She stared at the bloody horror at her feet, until her stomach rose, and she turned away.
When she had done her eyes were wet with tears and her mouth foul tasting. She picked up the water skin and sluiced her face and neck. Blood was trickling from the back of her head where she had fallen against the rocks, matting stickily in her hair, and she reached a tentative hand to touch it.
She felt Evander, wordlessly warm and close, and let the tears flow, feeling his pity and knowing he shared her horror. Yet there was something else as well, and it took her a moment before she realised that it was admiration, and pride in her.
"You were so brave," he said, answering her unspoken question. "You fought it all alone. You warned it, and you meant it. It was trying to kill you, and you fought it off. You did it. It was so hard, and you did it."
Susan reached down and rolled the now smouldering corpse away from the fire. It seemed to be furred, and the sickly stink of singed hair rose as she tipped it over.
"It's one of those rabbits," Evander said. "It must have borrowed the poor thing's body and - I don't know, changed it in some way. That's how it got past the reem. She wouldn't think anything about one of those. Poor thing. We could skin it? You can probably eat them, and we might need it later."
"I couldn't eat it," Susan said, with a shudder.
She dropped the knife, which she had still held clutched in her numb fingers, and crumpled to the ground, staring at the rabbit's body. She felt Evander's soothing touch.
"The things it said, they were all rubbish," he said, simply. "It wasn't Daniel, you know that. It was just picking things out of your own thoughts. It knew what you were most frightened of, and said that. It didn't think any of those things were true. It just wanted to hurt you. It just wanted you to do what it told you, and it knew that there was its way in."
"It wanted me to stop chasing Lefay," Susan said, bleakly. "The thing is - the awful thing - I almost did. I nearly gave up."
"You didn't," Evander said, stoutly. "You thought that you should, perhaps. You believed for a minute. But you never came anywhere near doing it. I don't believe you would have done if it really had been Daniel. You're stronger than you think."
"I'm sorry," Susan said aloud, sniffing. "You shouldn't have had to hear all of that."
"None of it was true, Evander said, equably, and she felt his calm acceptance with a rush of reassurance. "Daniel - I mean the real Daniel - doesn't think those things. They're your fears. The thing, the kvalara, just saw them and used them."
"How do you know he doesn't think them?" Susan said.
""Because I can see where they came from. Somebody else said them, to hurt you, a long time ago, and they built a cage for you. You've been living in it ever since. It's time you climbed out of it. It's all nonsense."
"It said some - some horrible things," Susan said.
"I'm on the inside," Evander said. "I can see the truth. Listen, you need to stop thinking about it if you possibly can. I know it sounds awful, but do you think you could sleep? Maybe not, but you should try and rest. It's still too dark to move on. I can feel the reem anxious about you. She'll be more comfortable if she feels you relax."
Susan sighed.
"I don't know if I could sleep," she said, and yet after a little while she did, soothed by Evander's gentle presence. The dawn was beginning to streak the sky when she stirred and blinked, wondering for a moment where she was.
She felt Evander awake and alert, and thought for a moment he had shaken her.
"There's something moving," he whispered. "I don't know what it is. It might just be the reem, but better to be safe. Pick up your knife."
Susan stared into the half-light, but could see nothing. Sleepily, picking up the still-sticky knife, she staggered to her feet.
A moment later she was startled by the rapid thudding of hoofbeats and a soundless shock of alarm which could only have come from a frightened reem. She hesitated for a moment, and then felt her mind flooded with white hot certainty that they must run. She glanced around her, panicked, before scrambling up to the top of one of the rocks, tall enough for her to swing herself onto the reem's back.
"I'm here," she thought frantically. "I'm ready!"
"The bags!" she felt Evander urging. "Don't leave the bags!"
She hesitated for a moment and then jumped down just as the reem burst upon them, her eyes rolling and her head down, swinging her long horn from side to side as if trying to shake it free of something. Desperately, Susan caught the nearest bag and scrabbled back up the side of the rock, teetering for an agonised second before hurling herself on to the back of the reem, who barely paused in her headlong gallop.
For a moment she thought her momentum was sure to carry her straight over the creature's back, that she would lose her precarious balance and slide straight off to be crushed beneath those galloping hooves. She felt the bag slipping from her fingers, and clung with all her strength, forgetting her the ache in her limbs as she fought to stay mounted.
The reem circled around the rocks and set off up the slope at a furious gallop, her neck outstretched and her breath coming in frantic, gulping gasps.
"What is it, oh what is it?" Susan begged, leaning forward over the creature's broad neck and trying to stop the bag from thudding against her shoulders.
As if in answer, a long howl rang out behind them, making Susan shiver with horror. It was answered by a second, and then a dozen voices were raised, yaps and cries interspersed with growls and snarls.
Their pace made it impossible for Susan to risk glancing over her shoulder at first, and she was forced to guess from the noises whether or not they were pursued. It very quickly became clear that they were not, as the sounds faded into the distance, and as they reached the ridge at the top of the little hill the mare's pace slowed, and eventually she faltered to a halt, her chest heaving and her breath snorting through her wide nostrils.
Susan turned to look down into the valley they had just left.
A dozen creatures, still snarling and fighting, filled the hollow where they had camped. Yelping and shrieking, they tore and dragged at something which Susan imagined must have been her remaining bag, since the burned corpse of the rabbit could no longer be seen.
"Shouldn't we run?" she whispered to the reem, hardly able to hear her own voice over the pounding of her heart.
It was Evander who replied.
"Let the reem get her breath. They won't follow us up here, we've got too good a start on them. They aren't stupid enough to chase something they know will get away."
"What - what are they?" she asked.
"Fenris," Evander said. "They're a sort of - of wild dog. They're much bigger than dogs, though, nearly as tall as you at the shoulder, and they hunt in packs. I told Vanir, you remember, there was one at the Foot of Yggdrasil. Until that one I didn't think there were any left. I'd only ever heard of them in legends. They're very clever, and they have their own language, of a sort. I suppose it must have been the smell of the blood that attracted them. When we've got a bit further away we'd better stop and try and wash the rest off."
"We've lost the bag," Susan said, bleakly. "I think it was the one with the food in."
"Can't be helped," Evander said. "We might be able to find something. You'd better get down and fasten the other one on. She'll travel more easily with it properly buckled on instead of bashing against her withers like that. At least you've still got the flint and tinder. Put your cloak into it as well. You might need both hands. You can get back on from that rock there."
Susan slid down and started to fumble with the bag's straps, hampered by her trembling hands and the difficulty that the top of her head was not quite as high as the reem's back, but eventually she managed it, with Evander's direction. Then she bent to wipe her bloodstained knife on a clump of moss. The blood had dried now, and she had to scrub quite hard, but eventually it seemed clean, if not exactly shining, and she swung herself back up, feeling considerably lighter and more buoyant without the thick cloak, and they set off into the cloudy morning.
Chapter Thirty
There were a lot more trees now, and after an hour the land ceased to be open, until they found themselves crowded by trees on all sides. This slowed them considerably, not because of the thorns, which were far less in evidence here, but simply because of the difficulty of picking a path across uneven ground and avoiding the lower branches.
Eventually Susan tired of endlessly ducking, and slid down to walk at the mare's side. This made things considerably easier for her, not least because she was so much smaller than the reem, and could walk in her wake as she pushed her way uncomfortably through the thick, fern-like plants that covered the woodland floor, trying not to brush against the trees as she passed.
It was not a pleasant walk. The leafy branches overhead shut out the watery sunshine, and the forest was grey and misty and sour-smelling. Black fungus crawled over the trees, and warty, greenish-grey toadstools peppered the ground, emitting a slightly nauseating, sweetish smell, as if they were rotting even as they grew. Susan knew that after the fenris, she was paying acute attention to every sound and flicker of movement, and she startled often, peering anxiously around her and squinting into the gloom. Mostly the disturbances were birds, who seemed to have colonised the upper branches of the woodland, and whose noisy, unfamiliar calls constantly surprised her into jumping and glancing fearfully behind her.
Worse than the smell, or the endless anxiety, though, as they went further and further into the forest, was the presence of dense clouds of black, biting insects. These hung in swarms above the oily patches of mud and seemed to follow them as they went, causing the reem to flick her tail restlessly, and occasionally turn her head to snap at a particularly painful one. Susan flapped her hands and slapped at them, but they quickly became a torment, landing on any exposed skin and stinging ferociously, leaving red, itching lumps in their wake.
After several uncomfortable hours it seemed to Susan that she could bear it no longer.
"This is dreadful," she said aloud to Evander. "I can't work out where we are any more. I couldn't even tell you if we were going in a straight line. Surely we must be getting near to the road now, if there ever was a road, that is."
"I don't think it can be very much further," he said, encouragingly. "I think we've gone pretty much straight, and even if we haven't, we're going more or less in the right direction. Sooner or later we've got to come across the road."
"If it was a road," Susan said.
She felt Evander's calm reassurance, like cool water flowing over her agitated thoughts, and was grateful. She was trying hard not to think about the creature that had visited the campfire, and the dreadful feeling of her knife scraping on bone. Her face ached from its clawing hands, and the cut on the back of her head felt tight underneath her matted hair.
"I'm hungry," she almost said, and then bit her lip, because it would have been a pointless grumble. In any case, Evander knew.
"I'm hungry too," he said, mildly. "That's how it works. I feel what you're feeling. I don't just know about it, it's my feeling too. I wish we'd had breakfast."
Susan's mouth flickered in a smile.
"Sorry," she said.
She reached up to put her hand into the bag. She had thought to find the water skin, but instantly realised that it was not there. She withdrew her hand, her heart thudding uncomfortably.
"We must have left it by the camp fire," Evander said. "We can't drink the water in here. It smells as though it's been sitting here for years, it's probably poisonous. There's bound to be a fresh water stream sooner or later. The reem's been drinking from them. They're probably all right."
Susan tried to feel encouraged, but her courage was failing. Up until that moment she had barely noticed her thirst. Now that she had thought of it, and realised it could not be slaked, it was suddenly unbearable. She stopped for a moment, and rubbed some of the itchier insect bites. She regretted this instantly, because it only made them worse.
"Are we sure this is the right way?" she asked, trying not to sound irritable. "Oughtn't we be going left a bit? It feels as though we've been in these woods for ages. What if we're not going towards the road at all?"
"I don't know," Evander answered. "I've been trying to keep track of it, but I think we're heading straight in the direction of the road. It's really hard when we can't even see the sun."
"Well, I think we're going the wrong way," Susan said. "I think we've taken a path too far to the right. We might be walking right next to the road for all we know, and never getting any closer to it."
"I don't think so," Evander said. "I think we should keep going."
"I'm going to go left," Susan said, and she tugged at the reem's mane.
"Come on. I think we've gone a bit far over."
The reem stopped, and fixed Susan with her huge eyes. Susan looked back at her impatiently, trying to project a picture of the road they had seen from the boat. The reem gazed at her, unblinking for a moment, and then set off again, plodding along in the same direction.
"I think we're going too far to the right," Susan called. "Wait. I think we need to head down there."
The reem did not pause. She continued on her path as if Susan had not spoken.
"Stop it," Susan said, impatiently. "It isn't that way. We're going wrong."
The reem stopped. For a half second Susan's mind was flooded with a burst of longing, for bright fields and sunshine, for the smell of mown grass and the sound of clear water, and then in its place came an image of trees, stretching endlessly ahead and filled with thirst and savage stings, as gentle and hopeless as a sigh.
"She's telling us that we have to keep on," Evander said. "She wants to get there as much as you, and she thinks we need to go this way."
"How on earth can she tell?" Susan wondered.
"No idea," Evander said, "but I don't think she'll change her mind easily. I don't think we can do anything other than follow her. I don't want to wander off without her, do you?"
Susan didn't. Reluctantly, and with several glances through the trees to her left, she set off after the reem, her feet squelching uncomfortably through the muddy undergrowth, trying to ignore the sickly, decaying stench that arose with every step.
They carried on like this for more several hours, until Susan felt her face almost on fire with the burning from the insect bites, and her back and legs ached. She felt bruised and weary, and so thirsty that several times, unthinking, she reached again for the water skin, before remembering anew that it was no longer there.
She was glad, afterwards, when she remembered those dreadful hours, that Evander had been with her. He did not speak, but his determination to endure filled her with a wish to do the same, not to whine or grumble. She tried not to think of the dreadful, unceasing itching, of the endless irritation of the black insects that would settle on any exposed skin. Instead, she tried to summon happy memories to soothe herself, to recall times when she had felt cheerful and contented and optimistic.
They all seemed to be from so very long ago. She remembered her pleasure in her first dance, when she and her friend had tiptoed anxiously through the wide doors into the dim room, filled with crowds and music, and how an hour later she had been whirled off her feet, tipsy with laughter and the glorious, thrilling rhythm. She smiled to recall it, and felt Evander's interest, almost envy, at the picture. He repaid it with a vivid memory of himself and Alwen, much younger, dancing and spinning to music that reminded Susan of an Irish holiday they had once had when they were children, except this was around a huge bonfire, and surrounded by trees.
A lone woman's voice was singing, fast and merry above the tumult of the dance, and the melee of drums and strings, and Susan knew that this was Evander's mother. She felt his momentary pang of loss, and reached her thought to him, as gently as she could.
"She had a lovely voice," she murmured.
She felt an unexpected wash of sadness, not quite connected to his loss, and touched it softly, before stepping back in surprise.
"I don't believe she loved Alwen better," she said, stoutly, and was about to add: "Mothers don't," when a memory of her own mother, smiling fondly at her youngest brother, startled her with its jealous shock.
Instead, she said nothing, and simply reached out her thought, as consoling and gentle as if they were walking hand in hand, and was met with his grateful relief.
She was lost in these thoughts when the reem, swinging her head backwards to bite at a particularly irritating insect, managed to knock her with her horn, and she slipped and tumbled over, landing on her knees in an unpleasant-smelling clump of sodden moss.
She was not hurt, but as she rose to her feet she realised that the woods had become lighter. She stared into the distance, and thought that perhaps the gloom had lessened a little.
"You're right," Evander said, excitedly. "Straight ahead. I think we might be coming to the end."
Susan would have liked to hurry then, desperate to escape from the woods into the fresh air, but the reem insisted on maintaining the same, steady pace, and it was another twenty minutes before the trees thinned suddenly to nothing, and they were blinking in the bright afternoon.
They were standing on a little hillside in a wide, mossy clearing, which sloped gently down a sandy bank to a sparkling river. Susan gasped with pleasure, too thirsty to care very much for anything else, and she followed the reem as she set off towards it at a sharp trot.
She wondered for the briefest moment if it might be all right to drink, if the foul-smelling forest might have leached its poisons into the water, but she was too thirsty to care, and as she dipped her head into the fresh coolness, she realised the water was sweet and clear. She drank, savouring its sharp, clean taste, and after a moment, drank again.
She tugged the remaining bag loose, dropping it on the riverbank, and the reem, pleased to be free, waded into the water, where she paused, shoulder deep, in the middle of the flow. After a moment, she ducked her head, and submerged herself totally, rolling and splashing in the rushing torrent. Susan watched for a moment, and then on impulse, stood up and stripped off her clothes.
She plunged in after the reem, exhilarated by the shock of the cold water on her sore, burning skin. When she emerged a few moments later she felt as restored and encouraged as if she had slept soundly and awoken to a fresh morning. The water had eased the painful, itching sores, and her skin glowed as if she had scrubbed it.
She felt Evander laughing, and realised that he had shared her pleasure. For a moment she felt a painful burst of self-consciousness, before realising that he could hardly feel curious about the body he was inhabiting as if it was his own, and instead, laughed back.
"There's a clean shirt in the bag," was all he said.
She towelled herself dry with the grubby shirt, a little reluctantly because it was stiff with dirt, ashes from last night's fire, and dark bloodstains. Once she was dressed, she took the soiled shirt to the water's edge and tried to rub some of the dirt from it.
"Leave it to soak for a minute," Evander said. "Put a couple of rocks on it and leave the river to rinse it a bit. It won't come clean but it'll help."
Susan did as he suggested, realising with an uncomfortable jolt how hungry she was. Her thirst had been so intense that she had forgotten about food, but now it had been slaked, her stomach was gurgling uncomfortably.
She glanced enviously at the reem, who had emerged glistening from the water, and who was now grazing enthusiastically on the soft grass a little way away.
"Do you think there might be plants I could eat?" she asked Evander. He was not sure.
"There's nothing here I recognise," he said, "and I don't think it would be a good idea to try something we don't know about. I wouldn't want to try and eat anything that was growing underneath those trees anyway. It doesn't feel clean, somehow."
Susan thought about it.
"I'm sure you're right," she said, "only it seems different out here. Fresher, as if life might have a chance again. The forest felt like - I don't know, almost a living death. But this is different."
"It is," Evander agreed. "Look, let's give the reem a chance to eat for a few minutes, and then we'll go on a bit further. It isn't going dark yet. Maybe we could follow the river upstream for a while. I don't know about you, but I don't want to go back under those trees again."
Susan shivered.
"Not if I can help it," she said.
Chapter Thirty One
She sat down on the bank, glad of the chance to rest for a few minutes, and watched the reem. The river seemed to be flowing along the foot of a valley, and tree-lined banks rose on both sides of it, gentle at first, rising on one side to climb sharply to the mountains, which were now so close that in a very few hours she would be in their shadow.
"Well, we're getting closer," she thought, a touch grimly. "I wonder if Lefay has got this far yet."
"If he hasn't, he won't be very long," Evander answered. "We'll have to keep moving. We'll need to eat, if we can find anything."
Susan did not feel especially hopeful about the latter, but she rose to her feet anyway. The reem lifted her head and ambled across, nudging Susan's hands enthusiastically.
Susan re-fastened the bag, and turned towards the river. It was shallow and sandy at the edge, and for a moment she waded in with renewed pleasure, enjoying the sensation of the cool water lapping against her ankles. Then she set off along the grassy bank, slowly followed by the reem, who kept stopping to seize a mouthful of grass here and there.
Now that the agony of the itching had faded and her thirst was slaked, Susan found herself thinking more and more about food, and she gazed around her at the vegetation on the river bank as she walked, wondering hopefully if anything might be edible.
"I don't suppose there was anything to eat in this bag?" she wondered, aloud. feeling Evander's weary dismissal of the suggestion before he responded.
"It was all in the other," he said. "We'll have to stop for the night soon anyway, there isn't much daylight left. Let's go on a bit further and then stop. We can light a fire at least, and there might be some roots or something."
The sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains by now, and their great shadows had stretched over the riverside. Susan gazed down its rippling surface. Now that the sunlight was no longer reflecting on its dancing surface, she could see down into the water. The water was so clear that she could see right down to the riverbed three or four feet below, where strands of a weed-like vegetation wafted here and there above a bed of pink-coloured sand.
She stared at it idly for a few minutes as they walked, until suddenly her gaze was caught by a flicker of movement, and she gasped in surprise.
"Fish," she said suddenly. "There are fish in the water. Lots of them. Look"
She felt Evander's keen interest, and regret at having left his father's fishing rods behind.
"We could catch one," she suggested, hopefully. "There must be a way. Have you ever done it? I mean, just with your hands. "
He considered.
"We might be able to do it," he agreed after a moment. "Let's give it a go. We could camp here, it's as good as anywhere. I'd hoped to get to the road tonight, but I don't suppose it will matter."
The reem, ambling a little way behind them, stopped at his words, and immediately lowered her head and began to graze.
"We'll use some of her tail hairs," Evander said to her. "They're pretty strong. You'll need to ask her if we can take them. She'll probably understand."
Following Evander's thought, Susan unfastened the remaining bag. Then she took her knife and after showing the curious reem what she hoped to do, cut three long strands of her tail and laid them carefully on the grass. Then she made her way back underneath the trees, squinting a little in the dying light, and cut several long, sharp thorns from the ever-present tangle of thicket. Carefully she tied a thorn to each length of wiry hair, and then followed Evander's direction to the mossy bank, where her scrabbling eventually unearthed a frantically wriggling worm and two large beetle-like creatures.
One of them seized the flesh of her thumb in its sharp jaws, drawing a fat drop of blood and making her gasp in pain.
"You can't blame it," Evander said, sympathetically. "You're about to poke the thorn right through its middle. Poor thing. Be quick."
Shuddering slightly, Susan drove the improvised hooks through the struggling creatures, and looked around for something to which the lines could be tied.
A branch overhung the river a little way off.
"That'll do," Evander said. " Tie them all there. It's a bit of a long shot, but it's all we can do. There are so many fish in there, one of them must be hungry."
Wading into the river until she was knee-deep, Susan fumbled clumsily as she tied the coarse hairs to the branch. One almost escaped her, to be swept away along the current, but she caught it in time, and in the end all three were secure, and their still-wriggling victims lowered into the water.
"We'll just have to keep checking them," Evander said. "Let's find some firewood."
A little while later the fire was crackling reassuringly, and Susan had spread out her heavy cloak to sit beside it. Her stomach was grumbling uncomfortably, and she had checked the lines several times without result. She was just trying to persuade herself to give up hope when a soft grunt from the reem made her glance across at the water.
Below the tree branch the water had begun to swirl a little, and one of the lines had stretched tight.
Frantic in her hurry, Susan splashed into the water just as the line snapped. The fish was as long as her forearm, and considerably fatter, and was twisting from side to side as it tried to dislodge the obstruction in its mouth as it tried desperately to escape upstream. Susan threw herself on it, soaking her shirt and breeches with a cold shock, her mouth and nose filling with water as she splashed below the surface.
She grabbed it, and somehow hung on, despite its slimy skin and furious struggles. It fought hard, and at one point twisted a mouth full of unexpected teeth towards her, trying to bite her hands and face with a frightening ferocity.
She clutched it to her and staggered back to the bank.
"Don't drop it until we're a good way away from the water," Evander warned, excitement ringing through his thoughts. "It'll only flap itself back in. You'll have to kill it quickly."
The killing, with her long knife, was not accomplished as quickly as Susan would have liked, and by the time it was done she was trembling uncontrollably, only partly with the cold of her sodden clothes. She sliced its belly open and gutted it, at Evander's instruction, and dug a small flat skillet out of the bottom of the bag.
Still shivering, she undressed, her chilled fingers struggling with her knotted sash, and spread her wet clothes on the grass to dry out. She wrapped herself in the cloak, and crouched beside the fire.
She felt Evander's urging her to add more wood to the small blaze, and moved the skillet a little to the side so as not to burn the fish. She leaned over it, holding her numbed hands out, until slowly she felt the warmth creeping back to her fingers.
"You know, I think this must be the river we saw from the barge," she felt Evander saying, thoughtfully. "That means that if we keep following it, we'll probably reach the road quite soon. We'll have to hurry, though. The veorldur said that Lefay was a couple of days ahead of us, and I can't see we've managed to make such good speed we've caught up more than a day, even with the reem. It's been slow going through those woods."
"The road might not have been any faster," Susan reminded him. "That must have got pretty overgrown as well by now."
She stopped, suddenly, her attention caught by a sound. A little way from the firelight she saw the reem lift her head as well, and gaze upwards.
The noise came again. It was a long, wailing cry, high and quavering and distant
"What was it?" she whispered aloud.
"Birds," she felt Evander respond. "I don't know what kind. It's two of them calling to one another. Listen."
She listened for a moment, straining her ears to hear over the crackle of the fire and the first sizzling of the fish, hissing on the skillet.
As they listened, the noise became louder, loud enough to echo faintly along the rocky valley walls, eerie and unearthly.
"They're quite close," Evander whispered. "They must hunt at dusk, in the early evenings. Some birds do. I think it must be those huge ones we saw earlier. I wonder what they're hunting. There must be some pretty big prey to feed creatures that size."
Susan shivered.
"I hope we don't meet any of it, whatever it is," she said.
A little while afterwards the fish had begun to brown, delicately, at its edges, and Susan fell upon it hungrily, tearing it apart with her fingers and stuffing it, still too-hot, into her mouth. She felt Evander's relief as she ate, and tried not to rush too much, hoping that if she ate more slowly she would feel full faster, and there might be some left for morning.
There was not. Indeed, there was not quite as much as she would have liked, and she would have been very pleased to have been able to add some potatoes and cauliflower, or even some bread. When she had finished the fish was gone apart from a few bones, and its blackened tail. She sighed resignedly and wiped her mouth.
She would have liked to curl up and sleep immediately, but of course she could not. She rinsed the skillet in the river, and scrubbed it clean with a handful of grass before replacing it in the bag. Then she piled wood on the fire and arranged her still-wet clothes around it, hanging them as close as she dared from carefully propped branches, hoping rather forlornly that they would be dry by morning.
Of course they were not, not quite. Susan opened her eyes to a grey, rather cloudy dawn, the fire reduced to a handful of cold ashes, and her clothes, still damp along the seams, dangling hopefully above it.
Shivering, she struggled into them, and then pulled the cloak back around herself. It was comfortingly warm, but heavy enough to make movement slow and cumbersome, and after a few moments she decided she would forgo it until she remounted the reem.
The reem waited patiently as Susan fastened the remaining bag against her flank and slung the bow across her shoulders. There was no water skin to refill now, but Susan supposed that would not matter at the moment, whilst they were following the river.
They had to walk a little way along before finding a boulder large enough for Susan to scramble up and mount on to the reem's back, but once she was settled, with the cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders, the reem, who seemed newly energised after her restful night, broke into a smart trot, and they set off.
They travelled like this for about an hour, following the winding path of the river. The sun had broken through the clouds by now, and the air felt warmer. Susan tugged her cloak free, allowing it to fall across the reem's broad back, and gazed upwards into the brightening sky.
Far above them, and some way ahead, she could see two small shapes circling lazily, lifting and spiralling on a thermal current. She shaded her eyes to see.
"They must be actually above the mountains," Evander marvelled. "They must be able to fly past the wall. I wouldn't have thought that anything could get in and out of there."
"I suppose flying over it isn't the same as landing there," Susan said, a trifle tetchily. She was hungry again, and her insect bites from the previous day had begun to itch, until she felt irritable and out-of-sorts.
She felt Evander's touch on her thoughts, soothing and calm, and laughed.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said aloud. "I'll try and be patient. I'm just trying not to grumble, and I suppose I'd like to."
She felt Evander's amusement.
"You don't need to grumble," he said. "I can see it anyway. It's deafening already. Try and think about other things. Anything. I'd like to see some more of your memories about school. We don't have anything like that here. Father taught us, mostly, and somebody else came to teach us the things that he wasn't so interested in, or good at, like the different properties of metals, and the ways to form things from them. Smith's work, really. The old mage from the Last Garden came to teach us about healing, and remedies, and Alwen just fell in love with it, and with him a little, I suppose. We all knew even then where he would go in the end."
A small rush of his own memories accompanied this, and Susan was examining them with interest when a change in the reem's pace made her look up again.
They had rounded a bend in the river, and the overhanging trees had cleared.
The sun was in front of them, shining directly into Susan's eyes, and for some minutes it was difficult to be sure of what she was seeing. A little way ahead of them, casting long shadows in the sunshine, hunched shapes squatted at the water's edge, impossible to distinguish at this distance.
Susan squinted into the sunshine, trying to make them out as they approached.
They looked to be buildings, built of the red-gold stone, As the reem trotted closer, Susan could see that they stretched in a long line along what was now undoubtedly a road, away towards the mountains. As she stared, she saw that there were two rows of them, facing one another, and beside them, rising plainly over the dancing waters, there was a stone bridge.