Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (65 page)

The trail they were following ended up leading directly to the eastern bank of the Slova River. Each had more or less known that this would be the case from their study of the maps, which also indicated that it continued on the same side of the river. This would allow them to stay in Ravenwild. Neither had any intention of venturing into Slova again. Once had been enough.

They studied the tracks left by Thunder and Lightning. They led straight to the river’s edge, disappearing into it.

“What do we do now?” Ryan asked.

“Well,” she said, looking skyward, “we have a few hours of daylight left. We need to check up and down-river to see if the horses came out on this side. They’re very smart. They might have wanted to make it look like they had crossed, you know, if they thought that maybe somebody besides us was following them. I fish. You track.”

“Are you sure we should split up?”

She laughed. “RyeRye, I haven’t been sure about anything since we got here. Except that I don’t want to be here. But go. I’ll be okay. You’ll be on foot, and I’ll have Fury. I’ll yell if there’s trouble. I’m sick of deer meat. Go.”

Ryan set off, going downriver. It made more sense to him to try that way first. The maps indicated that the land upriver was basically a vast tract of nothingness, whereas at least to the south there was a town. Named Salem, even.

As the sun was giving its final salute to the day with the dazzling colors of sunset, Ryan returned to their campsite. He could smell the fish cooking from about forty yards out and was ravenous when he finally arrived.

“Good news,” he said. “I found their tracks about a mile downstream. They came out in a place on
our side
, obviously, and they definitely continued south, the same direction we’re going. Looks like they stayed way off the trail we’re on. I worked my way back out to it, and their tracks don’t reappear on it again. At least as far as I followed it.” He worked a piece of hot trout off of its hanging stick and blew on it, then popped it into his mouth.

“Would you please pass the salt?” he asked with a smile.

Gracie passed him the bag of salt that had been generously donated by Sarah.

“Don’t use a lot,” she said, “We need it to salt pelts.

“I knew they were up to something,” she continued. “Now we
know
they were trying to make it look like they crossed the river. That can only mean one thing: they expect us to be followed.”

“Or they already know that we are,” he said, working on his second piece of fish.

“Well,” he said, “in the morning it seems to me like we should do the same thing they did. To make whoever might be following us think that we crossed over too.”

“It’s going to be a cold swim in the morning,” she said.

After they had finished eating, while Ryan tidied the camp, Gracie brushed out Fury and checked his hooves. “Let us know if you see or hear anything strange,” she said.

He looked her in the eye and seemed to nod slightly.

She kissed him on the nose and said, “Thanks.”

In the morning, as they floated in the freezing cold water of the Slova River, hanging on tight to Fury, each fought hard to not hold their breath. Thankfully, with the river’s swift current, it took but a few minutes to get to the spot where Ryan remembered having found the tracks of Lightning and Thunder. It was none too soon. Each shivered violently on the riverbank. Ryan got a small fire going while Gracie rubbed Fury down. In about an hour they put on their now nearly dry outer garments and crawled their way back to the main trail, Ryan being careful to cover their tracks behind them.

They hiked the rest of the afternoon and stopped to make camp for the night.

“I don’t think we should make a fire tonight,” said Ryan.

“Oh no,” said Gracie. “Not cold deer meat again.”

“Sorry about that,” said Ryan, with a small smile.

“I also think we should camp way off the trail,” he said. “We should be getting close to Salem tomorrow, and the closer we get, the higher the odds that we might run into trouble.”

So they left the main trail and worked themselves into a dense thicket about a quarter mile from the trail’s edge.

“You sleep,” Ryan said, as the darkness descended. “I’ll take first watch. I’ll wake you up.”

Gracie offered no argument and was asleep in seconds.

It was shortly after midnight when Ryan heard it, the distinct popping of a small branch. He remembered something Orie had whispered to him back home when they had heard the same sound while they shared a deer stand. “That’s either a deer, a big dog, or a man.”

“Or a Gnome, or a Troll, or a horse,” he thought. He listened intently, but heard nothing else untoward.

He woke Gracie in about an hour and told her about the noise. Her watch remained uneventful, however, and when they returned to the trail in the morning, they saw the Gnome footprints that spoke clearly to the cause. They counted at least a dozen sets.

“What are they doing headed north?” he asked softly. “Won’t they freeze to death? I thought for sure that Forrester said we wouldn’t be seeing any more Gnomes by now because they all had to get back to Vultura before winter came.”

Gracie shrugged. She didn’t care as long as they were gone and no longer a threat. What she did care about was getting to wherever it was that they were meant to go. But what vexed her most was that they still had no idea where that was, or why they were going there in the first place. They had, after all, only come this way because it was the only way that the horses would allow, and now two of them were gone. It was all very confusing.

“Hey,” said Ryan. “Are you good?”

“I suppose,” said Gracie. “Not really. I just want to go home. But we can’t. Sometimes I feel like we’ll never get home. We go from this to that, to this to that, and from this to that, and we’re always running for our lives, and now we have, like, no idea why we’re going wherever it is that we’re going, or for that matter, where that is. I’m sick of being dirty all of the time, and eating cold, half-raw, deer meat, and basically being afraid all the time. I want to wake up from this awful nightmare.”

“I sure hear that,” said Ryan softly. He gave her a heartfelt hug. “But right about now, I think the only thing we have, other than our wits, is faith, faith that somehow, some way, I can’t explain it, but, you know, like we’re doing what we’re supposed to do. From the look of the maps, we should be coming up on the town of Salem tonight. Salem, Gracie. That’s the Strong family’s hometown where we come from. I have to believe that there’s some sort of significance to that. You know, like we’re somehow, maybe, supposed to end up there. I don’t know … ” he finished, his voice trailing off.

She took comfort in his arms for a minute, then pushed him gently away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll try and be strong.”

“Gracie,” he said, “you already
are
strong. Stronger than I have been, that’s for sure. I would have died if it wasn’t for you. We have to keep going. One foot in front of the other, and ‘Keep our faces to the sunshine,’ like Mrs. Strong always says. We’ll get through this and go home someday. I promise.”

That said, they broke camp.

“Today will be dangerous,” said Ryan. “We already know there are Gnomes about, though they should be long gone. So I think what we should do is, I’ll scout ahead to be sure the trail is clear, and you stay back with Fury. If you see danger from behind, ride hard forward and pick me up. Even doubled-up, we can outrun those little Gnomes. If I see danger ahead, I’ll come back to get you, and we’ll ditch this trip, retrace our steps, and go after Mr. and Mrs. Strong.”

Gracie nodded. “Sounds good to me,” she said, trying to make a smile which wouldn’t come.

Ryan reached into the bag of smoked meat. “How about a nice doughnut?” he asked, holding up a piece. She laughed a very small laugh, accepted it, and began to chew slowly.

“All right then,” he said, “Keep a sharp eye out, and remember, you’ll hear them before you see them.”

“Check,” she said, gloom written all over her face.

The explosion thundered from the base of the cliff in the mountains to the southeast of Mos Summit. It echoed around and around for several seconds while a massive chunk of the cliff face collapsed in a pile of rock and dust.

When the echoes had stopped, Doreen, Jared, and Diana stood up. “Wow,” said Doreen, “I’m impressed.”

Miles away, camped out on the northern reach of the Great Slovan Plains, Trolls lifted their heads and wondered about the storm causing the thunder. None of them paid it any serious mind. Violent mountain storms were normal for this time of year as fall faded away to winter.

Jared smiled and wrapped Diana in a big hug.

“Ha ha!” he yelped. “We did it, we did it … we did it,” clenching his fist and giving his hand a few hard shakes up and down.

“We did,” said Diana. “Thanks to this one,” she added, nodding towards Doreen.

“Tell me, Doreen,” said Jared. “How did you ever remember the ingredient that I was lacking to make the blasting powder? You learned it from somewhere. Does it help at all to remember where it is you came from? You know, to remember your former life?”

Doreen shrugged. “No.”

Diana approached her and put her arm around her shoulders. “I know it must be very hard on you to not remember who you are or where you come from. But try, Doreen. Try hard. It would be best if you could remember. Best for you.”

Doreen snapped at her. “Don’t you think I would give anything to remember?”

She threw off Diana’s arm and walked away, shaking her head in disgust. Diana approached Jared, who said quietly, “Let her go for now. She’s obviously scared out of her wits that she might never remember. I can’t begin to imagine how scared she is.”

There was a brief silence.

“But what about the prophecy, then? We have to tell her soon.”

“This afternoon,” said Jared. “We’ll let her be for now and tell her this afternoon.”

Unlike unwelcome visitors, Saviar Murlis and company arrived at Elsie’s spelled domicile by walking straight in without incident. She had been expecting them, of course, having monitored their journey from the beginning with the same kind of looking-stone that had been used by her sister, Cirrhus, for her entire life, and had prepared a splendid meal, right down to the desserts, at which the three children stared when they spied them on a stand beside her highly polished table. “Not yet,” she said with a smile. “First you need to get some real food into you, and then you can eat as much of that,” nodding to the desserts, “as you wish.”

All together there were nine of them in the small cabin with Elsie: Saviar Murlis, Acting Emperor of Vultura, and his wife, Kerlix, Miano, their sixteen year old boy, Fabindora, their fifteen year old girl, Jori, their twelve year old boy, Turman Pandieth, Seth Queslian, Ettan Cooke, and Mandel Ott. It had been a harrowing trip, with several close encounters with the Trolls, but they had all arrived intact, if starving and exhausted.

“Now the
very
first thing I want you to know,” she said to the children, “is that you are safe here. Safe, safe, safe. This is a special place. It is a secret place, of which nobody knows but us. So tonight, when you go to bed, you must remember that nobody can hurt you here. Do you understand?”

All nodded.