“Circles,” she said. “But you’ll have to show me what I’m supposed to be looking for. I’m a city girl.”
I briefly showed her what little I knew of woodcraft. I showed her the sort of ground where a boot will leave a scuff or a print. I pointed out how the pile of leaves she had walked through were obviously disturbed, and how the branches of the banerbyre were broken and torn where she’d struggled through.
We stayed close together, as two pairs of eyes are better than one, and neither of us was eager to set off alone. We worked back and forth, making larger and larger arcs away from the bluff.
After five minutes I began to sense the futility of it. There was just too much forest. I could tell that Denna quickly came to the same conclusion. The storybook clues we hoped to find once again failed to show themselves. There were no torn scraps of cloth clinging to branches, no deep bootprints or abandoned campsites. We did find mushrooms, acorns, mosquitoes, and raccoon scat cleverly concealed by pine needles.
“Do you hear water?” Denna asked.
I nodded. “I could really do with a drink,” I said. “And a bit of a wash.”
We wandered wordlessly away from our search, neither one of us wanting to admit that we were eager to give it up, both of us feeling in our bones how pointless it was. We followed the sound of running water down the hill until we pushed through a thick stand of pine trees and came upon a lovely, deep stream about twenty feet across.
There was no scent of foundry runoff in this water, so we drank and I topped off my water bottle.
I knew the shape of stories. When a young couple comes to a river there is a definite shape to what will happen next. Denna would bathe on the other side of the nearby fir tree, out of sight on a sandy bit of shore. I would move off a discrete distance, out of sight, but within easy talking distance. Then…something would happen. She would slip and turn her ankle, or cut her foot on a sharp stone, and I’d be forced to rush over. And then…
But this was not a story of two young lovers meeting by the river. So I splashed some water on my face and changed into my clean shirt behind a tree. Denna dipped her head in the water to cool off. Her glistening hair was dark as ink until she wrung it out with her hands.
Then we sat on a stone, dandling our feet in the water and enjoying each other’s company as we rested. We shared an apple, passing it back and forth between bites, which is close to kissing, if you’ve never kissed before.
And, after some gentle goading, Denna sang for me. One verse of “Come Wash,” a verse I had never heard before, which I suspect she made up on the spot. I will not repeat it here, as she sang it to me, not to you. And since this is not the story of two young lovers meeting by the river, it has no particular place here, and I will keep it to myself.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Pegs
NOT LONG AFTER THE apple was gone, Denna and I pulled our feet out of the water and gathered ourselves to leave. I considered leaving off my boots, as feet that can run bare over Tarbean’s rooftops are in no danger of being hurt by the roughest forest floor. But I didn’t want to appear uncivilized, so I pulled on my socks despite the fact that they were damp and clammy with sweat.
I was lacing up my boot when I heard a faint noise off in the forest, out of sight behind a stand of thick pine trees.
Quietly, I reached out to Denna, touched her shoulder lightly to get her attention, and held my finger to my lips.
What? She mouthed silently.
I moved closer, stepping carefully to make as little sound as possible. “I think I hear something,” I said, my head close to hers. “I’m going to go have a look.”
“Like hell you are,” she whispered, her face pale in the shadow of the pines. “That’s exactly what Ash said before he left last night. I’ll be damned if you’re going to disappear on me too.”
Before I could reply, I heard more movement through the trees. Brush rustling, the sharp snap of a dry pine branch. As the noises got louder, I could pick out the sound of something big breathing heavily. Then a low, animal grunt.
Not human. Not the Chandrian. My relief was short-lived as I heard another grunt and some snuffling. A wild boar, probably heading for the river.
“Get behind me,” I said to Denna. Most people don’t realize how dangerous wild boars are, especially in the fall, when the males are fighting for dominance. Sympathy wouldn’t be any good. I had no source, no link. I didn’t have so much as a stout stick. Would it be distracted by the few apples I had left?
The boar shouldered aside the low hanging boughs of the nearby pine, snuffling and huffing. It probably weighed twice as much as me. It gave a great guttural grunt as it looked up and saw us. It lifted its head, nose wriggling, trying to catch our scent.
“Don’t run or it’ll chase you,” I said softly, stepping slowly in front of Denna. At a loss for anything better, I brought out my folding knife and worked it open with my thumb. “Just back up and get into the river. They aren’t good swimmers.”
“I don’t think she’s dangerous,” Denna said in a normal tone behind me. “She looks more curious than angry.” She paused. “Not that I don’t appreciate your noble urges and all.”
At second glance I saw Denna was right. It was a sow, not a boar, and under a patina of mud it was the pink of a domestic pig, not the brown bristle of a wild one. Bored, it lowered its head and began to root around among the shrubbery below the pines.
Only then did I realize I was poised in a sort of half-crouch, one hand out like a wrestler. In the other hand I held my pitiful folding knife, so small it needed several runs at halving a good-sized apple. Worst of all I was only wearing one boot. I looked ridiculous: crazy as Elodin on his worst day.
My face flushed hot and I knew I must be red as a beet. “Merciful Tehlu, I feel like an idiot.”
“It’s rather flattering, actually,” Denna said. “With the exception of some rather irritating posturing in bars, I don’t know if I’ve ever had anyone actually leap to my defense before.”
“Yes of course.” I kept my eyes down as I tugged on my other sock and boot, too embarrassed to look her in the eye. “It’s every girl’s dream to be rescued from someone’s pet pig.”
“I’m serious.” I looked up and saw some gentle amusement in her face, but no mocking. “You looked…fierce. Like a wolf with all its hackles up,” she stopped, looking up at my head. “Or a fox, I suppose. You’re too red for a wolf.”
I relaxed a bit. A bristling fox is better than a deranged, half-shod idiot.
“You’re holding your knife wrong though,” she said matter-of-factly, nodding toward my hand. “If you actually stabbed anyone, your grip would slip and you’d cut your own thumb.” Reaching out, she took hold of my fingers and moved them slightly. “If you hold it like this, your thumb is safe. The down side is that you lose a lot of the mobility in your wrist.”