Chapter 29: A Safe Place

Bachi jerked his head around, looking at Tarek in confusion. “What?”

Seeing the grim smile on Tarek’s face, the confusion melted into horror. “No. No, no, no. Never. No. I won’t.”

“Bachi, you can get into and out of that village without a single person knowing you’re there. If I could do it, I would, but…”

“No, but, see…!” the lad sputtered, his chin quivering. “There’s no point. There’s no one down there!”

“No one?” Tavi asked. “Are you sure they’re not just sleeping?”

“I can tell the difference between sleeping and not there,” Bachi said indignantly, pulling on his mustaches. “There’s not a single person in those houses.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Tarek wondered. “Why isn’t anyone home?”

“Maybe they all came to their senses and decided to live on flat ground,” Bachi said. “A sudden, joint clarity to save their idiot tribe.”

“Where did they all go?” Tavi said. “This place doesn’t look abandoned.”

“I have no idea,” Bachi shrugged.

“They are on the far side,” Pahtl said.

Bachi sagged. “Don’t tell them,” he groaned.

“What?” said Tarek. “How do you know?”

“If you cubs would stop chattering for half a heartbeat you would hear them,” said the otter irritably.

They quieted and listened. After a long moment, Pahtl bobbed his head up and down. “Yes. Very faint. Tum. Tum. Tum. Same sound over and over. Your ears are bad, but I hear it.”

Tarek strained his ears and thought he heard something but couldn’t be sure if he was imagining it. Then Bachi sighed piteously, and nothing else could be heard.

“Drums?” Tavi suggested.

“Could be,” Tarek said. “We should go look.”

“Good!” Tavi said, jumping to his feet. “I’ve been wanting to cross that bridge since I first saw it.”

Bachi put his hands over his face and moaned.

“It won’t be as bad as going down into the village, you said so yourself,” Tavi said, grabbing the portly boy by the arm and hauling him into a sitting position.

“Cutting off a finger might not be as bad as losing an eye, but I’m still not going to get excited about it,” Bachi said.

“Come on, you great baby,” Tavi teased, taking him by both arms and helping him stand upright. “It’ll be fun.”

“I will not do this thing,” Pahtl said flatly.

“I’ll put you over my shoulders like you wanted me to in the high grasses,” Tarek offered. “I’ll go slow and safe.”

“I am not a cub, to be carried on the back,” Pahtl growled.

“You could try to work your way down through the village to the water and back up the other side,” Tarek said, “but that river looks even fiercer than the Ix. I worry you’d get swept away.”

“More bad ideas,” Pahtl said. “I will swim no more great rivers. I could, but I choose not to.”

Tarek looked over the gorge and back at his furry friend. “You don’t have to come,” he said reluctantly. “I won’t force you.”

Pahtl snorted and rubbed his whiskers with his forepaws. “You will fail without me. Very well. Put me on your back. Be very careful.”

Getting the massive otter up onto his shoulders and balanced was arduous and painful, and it only grew harder when he took the ropes in his hands and tried to walk on the single, narrow line underneath his feet. He quickly learned not to look any further than his toes as the gaping chasm opened below them. His feet wobbled from side to side as he worked actively to keep his balance with the heavy, musky load on his shoulders.

“Be more careful,” Pahtl hissed, his muscles tense against Tarek’s neck.

“I am,” he grunted, focusing on his steps. The rope jumped and trembled as Tavi moved onto the bridge behind him.

It was a long, tense, sweaty handspan, filled with Bachi’s whimpering and Pahtl’s nervous complaints. Tarek’s broad shoulders burned with the otter’s weight, but when he felt like complaining, he imagined leaving his friend behind and the load grew a little lighter.

The night was halfway past by the time they reached the north rim of the gorge, and Tarek had never been happier to have solid ground under his feet. He lowered Pahtl to the earth with a groan and sat watching the two boys finish their crossing as he gathered his strength. Tavi came quickly, hopping lightly off the rope with a grin and a flourish, but Bachi groaned and puffed all the way to the end, collapsing once again on the ground as soon as he could.

“I wish I never met you idiots,” he moaned, face-down in the dirt. “The Song lied. This isn’t the quest I was supposed to go on. No one should ever have to do that.”

“You had to have crossed the great rivers at least once,” Tavi said. “How’d you do it before?”

Bachi looked up, surprised. “I… uh. I don’t know! I was in the Song, I suppose. I didn’t even notice.”

“So what you’re telling me,” Tavi drawled, “is that you might have crossed this very same bridge already and you wouldn’t even know it.”

Bachi shuddered. “Don’t. I refuse to even think about it.”

“Come on,” Tarek said. “I know we’re tired, but we need to find the Shinsok. We’ll go quiet and careful.”

They could hear the faint beat of a drum now that the river was behind them, and with a minimum of grumbling they headed northward. A wide swath of fresh footprints leading from the closest path out of the gorge drew them ever closer to the sound, and within a few hundred paces they could hear faint voices drifting on the moonlight.

“Is the whole tribe out here?” Tavi whispered.

“Some kind of ceremony, maybe,” Tarek said.

Tavi grunted. “It couldn’t wait until morning?”

Tarek stopped. The sounds were growing clearer. “We should get off the trail.”

The short, needle-leaved trees and sparse grasses on this side of the gorge weren’t nearly as easy to conceal themselves in as the lush jungles of home, but Tarek found a tree whose branches draped closed to the ground, making a hollow space he could shimmy into. Pahtl squirmed in next to him. There wasn’t enough room for Tavi, but with the Song to aid him he could stay hidden with far less cover than what Tarek had found.

Bachi shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot on the path, wringing his hands. “You need me to go take a look, don’t you?”

“I do.”

Bachi gulped, nodding.

“You’ll be fine,” Tarek said, putting a dose of hearty confidence into his tone. “You can do things no one else can. You’re a Singer, right?”

“Right,” Bachi said weakly, his eyes straying down the path toward the sounds of the drum. “Right.”

“No one will see you. Sneak in as close as you can, get a quick count, and try to find the chief. Then come back. Quick, careful, easy.”

“I’m going to die,” Bachi whispered.

“You won’t. Look at me,” Tarek commanded.

The boy complied, his eyes wide and breath shallow.

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“You think you’re a coward, but who hit the Iktakan chief over the head when he was about to put a war club through my skull?”

“I did,” Bachi said, his voice small.

“Who?” Tarek cocked his head, pretending he hadn’t heard.

“I did,” came the reply, stronger this time.

“That’s right. I’d have died without you there. You’re a brave man that’s capable of incredible things. You lived in the Song for moons at a time. You can Sing to these sad little trees and they’d grow doors if you asked. It’ll be more than enough to hide you. Won’t it?”

“I…” Bachi’s chin firmed. “Yes. I can do it.”

“Good man. Off you go.”

Bachi squared his shoulders, started humming, and faded from view.

“He’s going to die,” Tavi whispered from nearby.

“Hush, he will not.”

“He might,” Pahtl said. “He said so himself.”

“Stop it, both of you. Tavi, go find a better hiding spot.”

Tavi’s and Pahtl’s joking was in bad taste, but the fact that they felt comfortable enough in the Wobanu boy’s skill to make fun of it heartened Tarek. Half a moon’s turn before Bachi had been too frightened to even approach a fully-distracted hunter in the rain, and now he walked into an unknown situation with an entire tribe gathered. And even if no one would accuse him of going boldly, he goes willingly. We’re lucky he chose to come with us.

Tarek settled in for another wait. The night had dragged on far longer than he’d planned when he first decided to press on past dark. A few more handspans and the sky would begin to lighten in the east. Patl was warm and still against his flank, and Tarek’s eyes started to drift closed. His thoughts spun and drifted, and he imagined he could see the entire landscape all around glimmering in the moonlight despite being ensconced in his hiding hole. He drifted over the deep gorge behind them as if he were a hunting owl, effortless and silent. He could see a lone figure lurching through the woods in the distance, its hand clamped to its neck. Curious, he drifted closer, and the figure lifted its bloody face to look right at him. It was Kanga.

The shock jerked him back to wakefulness, and he realized he could hear footsteps on the path nearby. For one insane moment he thought it was his old Catori rival, but then his head cleared. How long has it been? It could have been mere moments or half a handspan and he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference hidden under this tree.

There were too many footfalls for a single person, and Tarek tensed, pulling the bow from his back. Pahtl stirred. “Stay here unless there’s trouble,” he whispered to the otter. “Please.” He was nocked and ready to draw as he eased out from under the tree’s branches in a crouch.

Two figures approached, their hair and shoulders outlined in the white light of the moon. The sloped frame and heavy paunch of the one on the left could only be Bachi, but the stooped back and white hair of the other was unfamiliar. Their arms were linked together, and the old one was pulling a reluctant Bachi back the way he had come.

Tarek was still hidden in the shadow of the tree, and he pulled his string tight against his jaw, ready to loose at the first hint of danger. Has he been captured? By that dried-up old thing? His recent experiences made him want to strike first and ask questions after, but his heart rebelled against the idea of harming an elder without provocation. He gritted his teeth, and the fire-hardened tip of his arrow wavered.

“Tarek?” Bachi called out. “It’s me.”

Tarek kept the tension on his string. “I know it’s you,” he hissed, still staying in the shadows. He angled his face toward the tree as he spoke, letting the leaves and branches scatter the sound of his words across the road. No need to give away my position until I know what’s happening. “Who have you got with you?”

“A friend,” said a cheery voice at Bachi’s side. “No need to hide.” A woman, from the sound of it.

“Forgive me, elder, but that hasn’t been true anywhere else we’ve gone,” Tarek said, still casting his voice toward the branches.

“Plenty of nasty folk out there in the Land, I dare say,” the elder said. She seemed entirely at her ease conversing with unseen strangers in the heart of the night. “I hope your journey’s not been too harsh.”

“We’ve managed,” he replied. “If you’ll let my friend loose, we’ll continue it.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Do you think I could stop him? I was a decent grappler when I was young, but a stiff wind could knock me over these days.”

Bachi, apparently unaware that he had not been a prisoner, stepped away from the elder hesitantly. “Your pardon, wise one,” he muttered.

“You could get a good meal in you before you go if you’ve a mind to,” she said casually. “It’s not often we hold the vigil, thank the ancestors, but there’s plenty of meat and cheese if a few extra mouths happen to join us.”

Tarek eased off his bow and thought it over. The elder seemed like nothing more than a kind grandmother offering succor to strangers… but the Land was not a place of easy succor, not in Tarek’s experience. Dared he trust himself and his brother to another tribe’s goodwill?

“Forgive me, I should have introduced myself,” the woman said. She didn’t even bother to look around for him; she merely addressed the air as if he were some kind of spirit. “I am Seppa, the chief of the Shinsok. None will harm you here. We’re peaceful folk.”

Tarek let himself be convinced. He wanted to trust this old woman. Her confidence and warmth was a balm to the cankers of suspicion that had blistered his soul since the Iktaka had laid hands on him. There are good people in the Land. There have to be.

He gathered his courage and stepped into the moonlight.

She turned toward him, inclining her head graciously. “A pleasure to meet you, young man. Thank you for not putting a hole in me.”

Bachi scurried toward him, and Tarek shot the boy a questioning glance.

“She saw me,” he whispered. “I was buried in the Song and she saw me.”

Seppa chuckled. “It’s a neat trick you’ve got there, son, but I started humming the Song when my mate died twenty years ago, and I never stopped. I don’t even have to make the noise anymore, it just comes right out of my heart. There’s nothing under the sun I can’t see.” She pointed a bony finger off to her left without looking. “The other boy lying in the grass there, for instance.”

Tavi clambered to his feet sheepishly and shrugged at Tarek.

“Different customs,” Bachi said. “I’ve never heard of a woman chief.”

“Well, you’re young. I’d wager you haven’t heard of most of the things out there. And that you misunderstood the better part of what you did hear.”

“I remember talk of the Shinksok chief in my village,” Tarek said. “They spoke of a man.”

Seppa sighed. “That was my nephew they spoke of, lad. He was the chief up until yesterday, when he took a bad step and went in the river.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tarek said. “You’ve taken his place?”

“For a short time, yes,” the woman said easily. “We’ll choose someone else soon. No one wants a grandmother telling them what to do for very long.”

Tavi laughed. “Maybe our old healer Mahela will be our next chief!”

“Not ours,” Tarek reminded him.

Tavi grimaced, his cheer souring.

“As much as I’m enjoying the conversation, I’ve got responsibilities at the vigil,” Seppa said. “My tribe may be peaceful, but I thought it best to catch your Singing friend here before he barged into the middle of something he didn’t understand. If you’d like to join me and watch us lay my nephew to rest, none will bother you. Like I said, there’s plenty of food.”

“Javelina?” Bachi said hopefully.

“Several,” Seppa assured him. “Come now, boys. You’re all looking a little leaner than is healthy. Come have a bite. You can’t tell me it wouldn’t be nice to see some smiling faces.”

Tarek couldn’t deny the truth of that. More than anything, though, he just wanted the woman’s offer to be real. He wanted there to be a safe place somewhere. Anywhere.

“Thank you, chief. We’d be glad to come.”

He hoped they wouldn’t regret it.

 

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All right friends, I held off on this for as long as I could, but I have to go to a once-a-week release schedule. Stick with me! There's a whole left left to come for Tarek.

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