They emerged at the edge of the ridge. Grace saw keenly despite the night and pointed at something to their right that seemed very unhill-like. “What’s that?” she whispered to Nutmeg.
“A pile of wood,” Nutmeg answered in disappointment. “Maybe a bonfire, a big fire, to light.” She sighed and chafed her hands together. “All those scratches for nuffin’.”
“What’s it for?”
“Signals, if we get in trouble and such. The other farmers might see it.” Nutmeg put her palm over her nose a moment, muffling her whisper even more. “Supposed to have a volunteer cavalry round here. Hosmer always wants to join, but other than Bolgers, we don’t get much trouble.” She shrugged. “Least I know what they’re doing.”
“Not a surprise.”
Nutmeg grasped both her hands, her warmth enveloping Grace. “Nuffin’ exciting. Just lots of work. Stone and then wood, for burning a long time.” She tugged on Grace gently. “Better get home.”
Rivergrace moved to the ridge itself, hard rock cresting through the softness of the hill, and stood for a moment, flooded by the silvery moonlight. She could see the wide ribbon of the river down below, and the dark clumps of the trees before the ordered rows of the many orchards and fields, all cloaked by night yet visible if shaded. “We live down there.”
“Yup.” Nutmeg gathered her hood about her tousled hair. Her breath puffed out. “It’s getting too cold. We need to go.”
Grace nodded slowly, reluctant to tear her gaze away from the river, which seemed to call her even from so far below her. She let her breath out in a long sigh. She could not leave with the river in her eyes, so she turned about. The valley and wilderness on the other side of the hills ringing the Farbranch lands lay stretched out, with none of the orderliness of the orchards and fields. She thought she saw movement, and went to her knees, pulling Nutmeg over into a tumble at her feet.
“Grace!” Nutmeg rolled about, but Rivergrace kept her hand bunched in the other’s coat.
“Riders,” she said, low and urgent. “Down there, can you see them?” She pointed down below, and Nutmeg answered with a hiss, settling on her stomach and watching.
“Bolgers,” she said. “And something else.”
“They’re headed toward the river road.”
Nutmeg began to wriggle backward. “We’ve got to get home.”
“Light the bonfire?”
Nutmeg shook her head. “I’ve got nuffin’ on me to do that. And it’s not built yet, not ready. We’ve gotta get Acorn.” She slid past Rivergrace, down the hill, and Grace followed after. Halfway down, Nutmeg jumped to her feet. They could hear the pounding of hooves at the base of the ridge, loud pounding, and Nutmeg told her, “Forget being quiet, we gotta be fast!”
They ran and rolled through the brush and branches, loud enough that snoozing Acorn threw his head up with a snort and rolled his eyes about, wheeling around when they burst into the clearing. He tossed his head and stomped with a low whicker of menace until she clucked at him. Nutmeg grabbed the reins, throwing herself onto his withers first before reaching down to haul up Rivergrace. Acorn danced about skittishly, leaving Grace hopping about for a few minutes before she scrambled up. Holding onto each other and the woolly pony as tightly as they could, they urged him into a rugged trot toward the Farbranch home.
They thundered home, each step a jolt that made Grace feel as if her head would fall off, holding on for dear life. Heat rolled off the pony as he put his head down in answer to the tattoo Nutmeg drummed on his ribs, urging him for quicker. Branches snapped in their eyes. Grace’s hood was torn back and flopped about her shoulders, the cold night wind suddenly in her face and ears and eyes.
They never knew what gave them away. Just that, suddenly, Acorn swerved across the broken trail, and a huge horse reared in front of them, blocking them. It was not a Bolger riding it. Grace looked up in fear and saw a . . . a thing . . . swathed in crimson wraps, with a thousand points of light for its face, and beetle-black wings at its back, and legs that were not flesh and blood but spiked cricket legs spurring the horse to cut them off. She had no idea what it was, but it gave off an evil aura that sucked the breath out of her. It pointed at her, sticklike wings thrashing with its eerie movement.
An angry buzzing surrounded them, then bramble crackled and popped, and the Bolgers rode out. Two more of the things led them. One swung about and leaned toward her. “Ssssstrange blood,” it hissed. Points of light glinted inside the veiled cloth that wrapped its head. The night spilled across its garb, making it look like red-black blood.
Grace grabbed the right rein from Nutmeg’s hold and pulled it, hard, wheeling the pony about and she kicked him as harshly, urgently, as she would ever think of striking an animal. Acorn squealed and bolted into a dead run, just under the outstretched arm of the nearest Bolger.
Nutmeg stuttered in fear, unable to get a word out. Grace leaned her face to the other’s. “Get to the river!”
“The road is wide. They’ll be catching us easier.”
“Just get to the river.” She had no plan, no thought but fear coursing through her veins and the need for the river.
Acorn found the nimbleness of his youth. He leaped fallen branches and skirted trees that sent the pursuers behind them off their course momentarily, and Nutmeg turned him to the river. At its edge, Grace jumped down and pulled Nutmeg with her. She tore the bridle off, slapping Acorn on his flanks. The pony let out a sharp grunt and took to his heels, tail flipping, as he disappeared into the gloom. She knotted her fist in the bridle. “Come with me.” Without waiting for answer, she hauled Nutmeg behind her, and slipped into the cold, icy waters of the river. She remembered the other Bolger hunt, but this time, fear ran in her veins instead of blood. They were dead if those things and the Bolgers found them. She knew that. Dead as if black nothingness claimed them forever, forever cold, forever unable to touch the sunlight or the still river or warm flesh. Dead.
Nutmeg sputtered. “Grace! We’ll die in here. We’ll freeze.”
Rivergrace shook her head. “No. Trust me.” She wrapped part of the bridle about her wrist and tied the end off to a tree root hanging from the bank. “Do you trust me?”
Nutmeg tried to inhale and couldn’t. She stared, the pale moon reflecting in her face, and shivered. Grace held her arms out and took her sister into them, and sank both of them into the water, rolling so that only part of their faces stayed above, and let the current carry them into an eddying cove. She breathed slow and still, feeling Nutmeg in her arms do the same. She let herself go to the river. Its waters warmed gently about them, till the chill left them. She drifted low into the water until only her nostrils were above it.
The river muffled the noise, but they could hear the search on the river road and bank. Nutmeg quivered in her hold. Grace tightened it, giving comfort. The river would hold them safe. She knew that. It would hide their warmth and their scent and whatever it was the others might use to track them, unless they could smell their very souls. If that were true, there was nothing could save them.
The waters rocked them gently. Grace could feel her heartbeat slow, quieter and quieter; her ears caught the noise of hoofbeats and shouts moving down the road, the anger and menace and sheer evil of the things after them. Nutmeg relaxed in her arms and only the leather ties of the anchoring bridle kept them from drifting gently out of the small cove into the river’s main current and away.
They stayed even when it grew quiet. Then came a hubbub, a great shouting, and thundering of hooves, and fiery torches streaking the air, and Grace opened her eyes to watch it through the water, breathing with the same slow measure.
Hosmer led the force as they galloped by. Grace shook Nutmeg slightly and sat up in the waters, the icy air immediately sweeping over them. She hauled them back to the bank, hand over hand on the bridle, emerging from the river as if being birthed, a kind of lassitude coming over her.
Nutmeg erupted from the water behind her. She clawed up the muddy bank, yelling and screaming. Rivergrace followed quietly, water streaming down her, the warmth cascading away into a freezing chill, and her teeth began to chatter. The small cavalry wheeled about as Nutmeg bobbed up and down in the rutted lane, hollering and waving her arms. It was Tolby who got off his horse first, who grabbed the girls up.
“I’ll be taking the belt to your hides later,” he cried, and held them tightly, and it sounded as if he wept as he kissed their heads.
Hosmer stayed aboard his horse, one of the wagon horses, almost as shaggy as Acorn but blowing steam and pawing fiercely at the ground. “Sign up the road shows they were beating the brush, hunting for something. They gave up without a fight, though.”
“Did you see them?” Garner asked as he got down, peeling off his coat, and throwing it over the two of them. Nutmeg stammered and stuttered out the tale of the Bolgers and the things with them.
Tolby choked and pulled the girls near. “Ravers,” he managed, finally. “They rode off when we hit the road. Noise and bluster was all we had to throw at them, but it was enough, this time.”
“Tree’s blood,” cursed Garner and Hosmer together.
“We’ll have to get the beacon finished, and patrols up,” Hosmer managed to add. The moonlight paled his face.
“Aye, no doubt of that.” Tolby closed his arms tighter around his girls.
But Rivergrace went stiff in Tolby’s hug, finding no comfort. It was not the blood of the trees that had been hunted.
It had been her blood.
Chapter Fourteen
IN THE BARNYARD Tolby dropped his hand on Hosmer’s shoulder. His son turned about, and Tolby noticed for the first time that their gazes no longer met; he had to look up a bit to reach Hosmer’s stare. His throat closed a bit at the realization.
“What is it, Da?”
“You’ll be taking Banner. He’s a cart horse, I know, but he’s also the best rider we have, and if the militia takes you, you’ll need y’r own. So Banner will be doing double duty. I trust you to not overwork him, eh?”
“I won’t.” An expression of joy passed over Hosmer’s face, quickly replaced by one of solemn duty. “Thanks, Da.”
“Think nothin’ of it. And when you’re gallivanting about, at the Barrels and Stonesend and such, you might be finding a pouch of good toback for me, right?” The small town and outpost held many luxuries the isolated farms and ranches did not.
“Right.” Hosmer grinned, before turning away to finish his chores.
So it was that Hosmer joined the Silverwing Valley militia as soon as they got the beacon finished, riding with leathery old men of long experience and young boys filled with hot eagerness. Banner grew leaner and gained stamina with all the work, as did his rider, but neither complained. The duty seemed to make them thrive.
And it was then that Rivergrace learned the river had a name, the Silverwing, for its graceful flow down out of the mountain snows. They had always just referred to it as the river, as if there were only one, and there could be no other name for it. Brooklets and creeks and such abounded through the valley, but there was only one river. Knowing its name did not change her feelings for it. During the day when she and Nutmeg had free time, precious little now, for although Lily did not punish them openly, she saw to it they had many, many new tasks about the farm, Grace would go down to the river’s banks and sit and watch the waters tumble past. Evening forays no longer seemed wise or possible.
The Farbranch holdings sat back from the river quite a bit, and Tolby told her why one morning when he whistled to fetch her up to take care of the goats. “It floods, lass, during rain and the melt off. Some years the Silverwing is treacherous and canna be trusted.” He showed her the high water marks and silted areas where the river had crept out over the land from its bed. “I’m no fool, so I built back, even though it’s a trial now and then.” He chewed his pipe stem. “We’ve never been washed out.” He opened the goat gate to let her through, and latched it behind her, leaving her wondering a bit over his words. It had never occurred to her that the river might be dangerous.
The first night of true, black frost brought a morning where the land held the chill, and she awoke to ground that crackled when she stepped upon it, and the wash water held a thin layer of ice. Grace snugged herself into her coat and visited the convenience as quickly as she could, and stood outside to wash up with Nutmeg who danced on first one leg and then the other, a dance that she assured Grace would drive away the cold.
Garner came down from the beacon ridge, both he and his mount looking red-nosed from the frost. He stayed in the saddle. “Where’s Da?”
“Around somewhere. He needs to wash up,” Nutmeg told her brother sagely. She eyed him. He had two bundles tied to the back of the saddle, one his bedding and the other unknown. “Wotcha got?”
“Nothing for you.”
Nutmeg jostled Grace’s elbow when she took a step back. Her brother’s normal teasing manner had fled, replaced by a frown. She looked at Grace and shrugged, before grabbing the washrag and cleaning behind her ears vigorously. Then the two made their way to the warm house and breakfast while Garner’s horse gave off a low chuff of unrest.
“Something’s wrong,” Nutmeg told her confidently.
Grace squeeze her sister’s hand. “Enough trouble.”
“I wouldn’t hafta snoop if they’d just tell us,” Nutmeg countered. They heard Tolby’s hail from around the corner, and both turned as one to go back and see.
Grace laughed softly at that, but she froze solid in place as they emerged, and Garner opened up his bundle, throwing it upon the ground, and a grizzly hide fell free. It tumbled open, bloody and ragged-edged, a green pelt with the head still attached, dead eyes glaring at them.
“Blood and shit.” Tolby stared at it. “Where did this come from?”
“I took it, Da. I skinned it this morning.”