No True Way (14 page)

The hearthfire leaped as if in ironic commentary, glowing on the Herald's whites and gleaming on Selaine's bright hair. Deira frowned. When the girl looked at Garaval, there was entirely too much admiration in her hazel eyes. He was young, good-looking enough to catch a girl's eye even without the glamour of a Herald's uniform. Falling in love with a Herald was only too easy, if one forgot that they only cared for their own kind.

“We could build a new village . . .” said the headman. “Downstream . . .”

“And who would grind yer grain? The flow's not strong enough to turn the mill wheel there,” growled Kel.

“When the creature's eggs hatch, there will be no safety anywhere in these hills—” the Herald replied.

“Send to the Hawkbrothers—” said Anellie.

“And what do we do 'til they arrive?” exclaimed Farmer Dorn. “If we don't get the fields planted soon, we might as well let the creature eat us now, for we'll starve when winter comes!”

“D'ye say we should give up, then? Leave our homes and our fields and run away?” They had already loaded the elderly and smaller children into wagons and sent them down the road to Donleigh.

That's what
I
had to do,
Deira exchanged shuttle for weaving sword and beat up the thread into the weft, evening, tightening, until it was smooth.
Sometimes that's the only way to survive.

“Fetch help from the Hawkbrothers, then!” Headman Martom gestured northward. “Isn't dealing with the beasties that escape from the Pelagirs their job?”

“That might take weeks!” interrupted the miller. “Ye can't just ride off and leave us to deal with this monster alone!”

“Couldn't your Companion carry a message?” asked Anellie.

Silence fell as the Herald's gaze went inward. After a moment he sighed and focused once more. “Nienna says she can do that, but it will take time . . .”

“'Til then, how'll we live?” asked Dorn.

“If the Creature is making a nest in the village, perhaps it will no longer hunt the hills,” said Deira. “You might be safer back at your farms—”
And out of my house
, she thought.

That sparked a new round of debate. Homes might be in ruins, but the fields were waiting. The farmers were grateful for any encouragement to return to them.

They have their work,
she thought, touching the polished upright of the loom,
and I have mine. Though mine is more portable.
But now that the human involvement she had hoped to escape had come to her, it no longer seemed so urgent to leave.

“And I'd best be getting back down th' hill to see what my daughters've done to the soup I set going over th' fire,” said Anellie.

The knowledge that she was not somehow expected to feed all these people eased another of Deira's worries. She contributed some old potatoes to the pot and bid them farewell with a semblance of courtesy.

“I am sorry we had to invade your home,” the Herald said quietly as the others began to leave. “We could have had this discussion in the meadow, but the folk are on the edge of hysteria, and we needed privacy. Also, I think their leaders needed to see a whole roof and your work
at the loom. It reaffirms their belief that there's order in the world.”

Deira stared at the loom without seeing it. “A pity they're wrong,” she said grimly.

“You came here from somewhere else, didn't you?” he asked, with an inward look, as if he were trying to place the accent she had tried so hard to lose.

“And it looks as if I will be going somewhere else soon,” she snapped, turning away as she pulled the heddle rod forward and let it click into the slot at the bracket's end. She suppressed a bitter smile as she heard him sigh, and then his polite farewell.

“Why don't you like the Herald?” asked Selaine when Garaval had gone. “He's come all this way t' help us—”

“Oh, yes,” Deira said bitterly. “And he'll be on his way just as quickly once it's clear there's nothing he can do. Easy enough for a Herald to escape, wearing those pretty white clothes that he doesn't dare get dirty!” For a moment, memory showed her a white uniform stained with blood, but bitterness forced her on. “Galloping away on his pretty white not-a-horse and leaving us to deal . . . !” She caught her breath on a sob. For a time, her struggle to control her breathing was the only sound in the room.

“The Companion's going, but Herald Garaval's staying
here
. . . .” Selaine said softly. “An' you yourself wove him into the web.” She pointed, and Deira saw that the shuttle she had snatched up earlier must have been from the wrong bag. A broad band of Herald white now ran through the fabric on the loom.

*   *   *

Deira dreamed that she stood on the graceful stone arch that gave the town of Westerbridge, where she had
grown up, its name. The Herald was beside her, commenting on the beauty of the evening as the setting sun turned the clouds to flame. Basking in the sense of safety she felt when he was near, she scarcely noted his words. The sky dimmed, and he wrapped his cloak around her as the clouds released the first spatterings of rain.

Then, suddenly, the wind was roaring. Furious gusts lashed the river to a froth. They dashed for shelter, but now it was the new Herald, Garaval, who ran at her side.

“The storm is coming!” he cried, “The town will be washed away!”

And then the flood crashed over them, and she woke, gasping, to lie in a tangle of bedclothes, listening to the pattering of rain.

The rain did not last long, but when Deira stepped out of her doorway, she saw clouds like sodden rovings of gray wool stretched across the sky. As she moved about making breakfast, Selaine eyed her uneasily. Deira wanted to reassure the girl, but something was stirring just below awareness. Something related to her dream.

“Fill up the big pot,” she said finally. “They'll be cold and damp down there. We'll take them some tea.”

Selaine's eyes widened, but she did not argue.
There was this to be said for disaster,
thought her mother—
a situation sufficiently dire stilled even adolescent rebellion.
Deira did not try to explain—could not have explained how somehow during the night she had gone from wanting to flee the village to looking for a way to save it.

*   *   *

Anellie had boiled up some porridge for the refugees' breakfast, but the tea was welcomed all the same. As it was passed, Deira seated herself by the Herald.

“You said your Gift was Foresight,” she said as Garaval looked up in surprise. “Does it work for weather?”

“Good question,” he answered. “If it's going to storm, we'll need to fix up some shelter here.” He closed his eyes, and her sense of his presence suddenly dimmed. After a few moments, he looked back at her, shivering.

“You were right. A storm is coming, a big one! But you get heavy rains every year—why did I see a flood sweeping through the town?”

Deira closed her own eyes, images flickering into place behind them as they did when she was designing a tapestry.

“The creature is stronger than we are, and we cannot use fire,” she said slowly. “But nothing stands before a flood. The creature is nesting right where the river bends around the village. If we could gather the waters and then release them, they might sweep it away.”

“Mill's a wreck, but there's nothing wrong with th' millpond,” said the miller from behind them. “Plenty of broken timbers there to make a dam.”

“We make it so when one board is knocked loose it gives way—” said the Herald, and Deira remembered that building was one of the things they taught at Herald's Collegium.

“Village wall's down at that corner already!” said someone.

“Th' flood'll carry the creature away!” Now everyone was talking.

The eggs would go, certainly,
thought Deira,
but the creature might be able to hold on.
Images wove in and out in her brain.

“If the creature doesn't drown,” she said at last, “it would be better if we could capture it. My daughter and
I—” she nodded at Selaine, “make nets as well as cloth. Bring me rope—all the ropes you can find—and we will show this beast that she is not the only web-weaver in Valdemar!”

*   *   *

That first day, everyone with the strength for the work joined in dismantling the wreckage of the mill. They came back with scrapes and splinters, but they were smiling, even when the rain began to fall. Except for two boys who had ventured too close while trying to observe the creature, there were no more deaths, and the people who remained had crowded into the houses on the eastern side of the village, so they had shelter. The nimble-fingered members of the community worked on the netting, led by Deira and a woman who had grown up in a fishing village on Lake Evendim.

Even if this doesn't work, in times to come these people will hold their heads up knowing that at least they tried
, thought Deira.
And Selaine and I will feel easier because we tried to help them.
She laid her fingers over those of the miller's wife, showing her once more how to make a sheet bend that would securely join a rope that was thick to one that was thin.

She had run away before. Flight had brought her no peace, and even the safety had been an illusion. Time to see what fighting back would do.

By the end of the second day, the men had erected a framework for the dam. As the days passed, and they wove planks or ropes together, the lumpy pile of netting grew and the level of the millpond began to rise. Day by day, the volume of water passing beneath the bridge dwindled, despite the rain.

On the morning of the fifth day, Deira was whipping
the end of a rope before tying the final knot on one of the edges of the net when a shadow fell across the work, and she looked up to see Herald Garaval standing there. He had clearly been working hard. His leathers would need a session in the bleaching vats before they were either white or pretty again, while she doubted that even her clever needle could salvage the cloth.

“How close are you to finishing?” he asked. His voice was hoarse, and beneath the mud on his cheek she glimpsed the flush of fever.

“By this evening we'll be done,” she answered, “and so will you, my lad, if you don't take care. You wouldn't be the first Herald I've had to nurse because he burned himself to a stub trying to save the world. We need you alive and strong! Ask my daughter for some white willow tea, and get some rest, in the Lady's name!”

“Soon . . .” Garaval said vaguely, as if even the thought of rest had distracted him. Then his gaze focused again. “I've been Foreseeing. The rain will stop soon. For a few hours we'll have run-off, but only the gods know how long before the eggs hatch and we have a dozen creatures to catch instead of one. Tomorrow we have to break the dam.”

When he had gone, Deira closed her eyes, seeing in memory the hollow-cheeked features of another man who had thought that the desire to serve could substitute when the body's strength was gone. How could he have abandoned her?

He didn't . . .
Certainty blasted through her barriers from somewhere deep within.
Heralds are neither invulnerable nor immortal. Something happened to keep him away.

“Mother, why are you weeping?” Selaine's voice recalled her to herself again.

Deira opened her eyes and managed a smile. “Weeping? Why should I weep? No, my love, it's only the rain.”

*   *   *

The rain had ceased during the night, but the watery sunlight was veiled by thinning clouds, the outlines of wood and field blurred by mist rising from saturated ground. On the bridge, a ripple of tension ran through the waiting crowd. Compulsively, Deira stroked the harsh hemp rope she held. She and Selaine and most of the other women were holding down the ends of the net on each shore while the men used stout branches to suspend the middle from the bridge, ready to drop it over their prey. The Herald and the strongest of the men had gone to free the linchpin holding the dam.

From upriver came a long horn call. For a moment, the only other sound was the chuckle of water in the stream. Then, senses were assaulted by the shriek of rending wood. A vibration shook the bridge as beyond the village planks and water sprayed into the sky. In the next instant, all gave way to a roar as the pent waters burst free.

Another burst of spray fountained high as the flood hit the edge of the village, sending everything the creature had not already destroyed hurtling downstream. Logs from the palisade, furniture and beams and thatching surged toward them, and tumbling in the churning mass they glimpsed the egg-sacs' gelid gleam. An ear-shattering screech pierced the river's roar.

“She's coming!” shouted someone.

The mass approached with terrifying speed. Deira
tightened her grip on the rope as a knobbed claw flailed. As the first debris passed under the bridge she could see the curve of the carapace heaving upward. With a shout the men on the bridge let the net drop and shoved the other edge outward. The bridge shook as the wreckage crashed into it, and the people on the shores braced as the ends they had tied to trees or pegged into the earth took the strain.

The creature had reached the top of the tangle. The net heaved as she struggled to break free. Someone screamed, knocked aside as a tree was jerked from the soaked ground. Across the river two more ropes gave way. Deira swore as the one she gripped tore from her fingers. Still reaching, she heard Selaine grunt and then, impossibly, saw the rope end curve back toward them, to be grasped by a dozen eager hands. Deira turned to her daughter, saw Selaine's eyes roll up in her head, and caught her as she fell.

*   *   *

“Mama, I'm sorry . . . I know ye don't like me t' move things with my mind.”

The whisper brought Deira upright from where she had been dozing, leaning against her daughter's bed. The house was full of people, talking, tending the injured, brewing tea over the fire, but there was only one voice she wanted to hear.