Dasen had had better weeks than the one the followed the Muldons. Every day was the same monotonous grind of walking from sunrise to sunset, sleeping under trees, bathing in streams, and eating whatever tasteless things they could forage or kill. He spent most of it feeling wet, tired, sore, and inadequate. Teth saw to the last with seemingly continuous lessons on all the “manly” skills he had never learned. To this point, she had attempted to teach him to shoot, hunt, track, navigate the forest, forage, walk quietly, “read” his surroundings, start fires, find shelter, climb trees, and cover his trail. None of them seemed to have taken, much to her apparent satisfaction. Dasen could only imagine that she was trying to prove his deficiencies as a man as if that would somehow displace hers as a woman. He was not sure how that would change anything once they reached the city, but if it was her goal, she had certainly succeeded.
At the same time, his sheer incompetence had foiled her attempts to maintain their proper roles. He had lost his right to lead an hour after they left that initial trail. Hunting had lasted until the second night without meat. And luckily, they had not tested his ability to defend them from an attack. The tasks he was still forced to perform were menial but demanding: gathering wood, carrying the pack, breaking trails through heavy brush. As a result, he had at least become stronger over the last week. He could now maintain even Teth’s most strenuous pace. His feet had grown accustom to the rough terrain so that he could watch the forest around him without tripping. He was so used to the weight of the pack that he felt disconcertingly light without it. And his muscles were only slightly stiff even after especially hard days.
Through it all, there was Teth. They spent every moment together, often very close together, but the affection from a week ago was gone. She did not kiss him, did not hold his hand, did not allow him near her while she slept, barely spoke to him outside the lessons. Yet he could not get those things from his mind, could not forget how she smelled, tasted, felt. And he could not forget her eyes that night at the Muldon’s, her words, her tears. He still believed he had been right but wondered why the price had to be so high and often considered how next time could be any different. To this point, he had not come up with any answers.
A few feet ahead of him, Teth came to a stop. They were walking along a narrow deer trail through an area of widely spaced deciduous trees. The thick branches above blocked all but the occasional streamer of light, kept the summer sun from being overpowering, and limited the undergrowth to a few scraggly bushes, vines, and moss. The forest had been getting less dense and more deciduous for days, and Dasen had to believe they were finally nearing its end.
The sun was well past its height now, and Teth had strung her bow a few minutes before. The stop now could only mean that she had found their supper. He wondered what it would be this time. The forest had a bounty of small game – and larger, though Teth refused to kill anything that they could not eat in a day or two. To this point they had eaten rabbits, squirrels, grouse, a woodchuck, fish. Some were better than others, but without salt or seasoning, they all tasted basically the same, and Dasen had lost any enthusiasm for food beyond its ability to keep his stomach from rumbling.
Confirming his suspicion, Teth pulled an arrow from the quiver across her back. So what will it be today, Dasen wondered, a chipmunk, crow, snake, what else will she make me eat. If she had seen it, it was as good as roasting over their fire. Teth was an undisputed genius with a bow. She almost never missed no matter the size, speed, or distance of her target; and her ability to draw, aim, and fire in one breathtaking heartbeat was almost as impressive as her accuracy.
Dasen watched her eyes, searched for the source of her attention, and eventually identified the covey of grouse under a nearby bush. A week ago, he never would have seen them – the bush where they hid was dense, and their brown speckled bodies matched it perfectly – but Teth had shown him how to look for slight anomalies in the undergrowth and identify them as animals. He watched the birds, thankful that they would be eating something normal that night, until Teth turned to him with the bow.
“Here,” she whispered, “do you see the birds under that bush?”
Dasen moaned. She hit him with the bow, and he accepted it without complaint. He took a deep breath. The grouse were small and almost twenty paces away. He had improved with the bow, but there was almost no chance that he would hit one of the birds. He glanced at Teth, hoping she would spare him the embarrassment, but there was no reprieve. He lifted the bow, drew the taught string, and sighted along the length of the shaft. He took a deep breath, held it, and released.
The arrow flew into the bush close enough to rouse the birds, but not anywhere near hitting them. They took flight, rising slowly from the ground, wings beating madly. Dasen could only watch, so Teth ripped the bow from his hands. She had an arrow drawn a heartbeat later and fired without even seeming to aim. The bolt flew faster than Dasen’s eye could track until it met the breast of the last bird. It tumbled to the ground in the center of the trail they were following. It flopped, but the arrow had gone clean through, and in only a few seconds its struggles ceased.
Despite having seen countless shots like that, Dasen was amazed. And Teth acted as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She deftly unstrung her bow, placed the string in her pocket, and tapped him on the chest with the shaft. “You think too much. It is good to prepare yourself, but sometimes you have to stop thinking and give yourself up to the task.”
“But you told me to pause and take a breath before I shoot.”
“That’s because you were not properly bracing. Now you’re waiting too long. When you hold too long, the bow wobbles. You can’t hit anything when that happens. You have to create a solid foundation. Too fast or too slow and it won’t work.”
“So how did you learn to shoot?” Dasen asked with a mix of frustration and awe. He didn’t think he would ever be able to do what Teth did effortlessly almost every day. How was it possible for an orphan girl from a remote village to do that, to do any of this? Obviously, her aunt had taught her a lot on their trips to gather herbs in the forest, but Dasen doubted that Milne had ever hunted, slept under pine trees, or hidden trails.
Teth gave him a cautious, sidelong look. “Why do you think I should tell you? Trying to find the root of my decent in to chaos, are you?” She smiled mischievously, obviously pleased with the turn in conversation.
Dasen forced a laugh. “If you want to put it that way, sure. How was it you became a chaos-worshipping demon in the first place?”
Teth spun and growled at him, hands extended as claws. “I’ll drag you into the Maelstrom, little boy.”
Dasen was so surprised that he actually jumped, which only made Teth laugh harder. “Seriously, I’ll tell you, but first I have a question for you. If everything that happens is part of the Order, then why does my ability to shoot a bow have to be outside that Order? Maybe the Order made me this way for a reason. Did you ever think of that?”
“If you were a deer or a bear, I’d agree, but you’re not. You’re a person. You have freewill. You define yourself through your decisions.”
“Thank you, counselor. Are you going to get that arrow?” Dasen took a few strides off the trail to the bush they were just now passing. Teth continued on, bending only slightly to pick up the arrow with a bird skewered across it. “If we didn’t need the arrows, we could roast the bird just like this.” Dasen slid the arrow he had retrieved back into Teth’s, now half-full, quiver. She handed the bird to him, and he secured it to his pack using the arrow.
“So you were going to tell me about your decent into chaos,” he reminded when he had the pack on his back again.
“Don’t push it, counselor boy, or you’ll remain just as celibate as one of them.” Teth laughed again at Dasen’s shock. She was obviously in a rare good mood. “I’ve been wondering when you’d finally start to understand. I could just as well a
sk when you decided to stop learning how to provide for yourself and hide away in a library. It’s not that much different, you know.”
Dasen wanted to protest – learning, understanding the Order, was a very honorable role for a man – but Teth did not let him. As he drew the breath, she turned and scowled. “Do you want to hear the story or not?” Dasen nodded, so she continued, “I started shooting soon after the fire. When they were clearing out our house and selling off my parent’s things, I latched onto my father’s bow, and for some reason, I had to have it. I still can’t explain it. It’s not like he ever even used it. I suppose it just felt right, made me feel safe, made me feel as if a part of him was still there to protect me.” Her voice betrayed her emotions with the slightest crack. “In any case, I eventually decided that if I was going to carry the thing around I should learn to shoot it. So I snuck into the woods behind my aunt’s house and fired at stumps for hours. At first, I could barely draw the string, but eventually, I could hit my targets center with every shot. Hunting came naturally after that.
“The new shop owner wouldn’t sell me arrows, so I used the money Ipid sent to buy them from the caravans. I told them they were for my father, which I pretended was true. I think Milne knew it was wrong, but after the fire, she basically let me do anything that made me happy, and she never complained about having meat for the pot."
Teth stopped and looked back. Dasen was silently amazed. She made the story sound as casual as if describing how she had learned to bake bread, but he could only imagine how much additional ridicule, resentment, and abuse she had brought upon herself. It became clearer and clearer that this was not a passing fancy, was not some childish attempt to rebel. He stopped and watched her walk, gliding effortlessly through the trees, and realized that her skills had been a lifetime in the making. This had started with a distraught little girl and become an identity. And he began to understand what his father had said in the coach that day a lifetime past.
Considering that, he jogged a few strides to make up the distance he had lost, and was just about to ask another question when Teth abruptly turned from the trail. She wrapped her hand around his mouth and pulled him behind a nearby tree. The move was so sudden and unexpected that Dasen lost his balance, and Teth allowed him to crumple to the ground behind the broad trunk of a beech tree. She crouched beside him, studying the forest. Moving to his knees, he joined her, peering around the other side of the trunk. He held the one-tined pitchfork tightly – somewhat surprised that he had not impaled himself on the thing as he went down. Teth had her bow out, but she had not strung it.
"There’s a clearing up ahead,” Teth whispered, breath tickling across his ear. “I think I saw a line of horses along the outer trees."
Dasen’s heart jumped at the mention of horses, and he frantically searched the trees in front of them. In the back of his mind, he knew that they had been traveling undisturbed for too long and had become complacent as a result. They had not seen any signs of other humans in days, let alone invaders. Not since they had crossed the main road – an operation done in the dead of the night with great caution – had they seen anything that would indicate an invasion was taking place. There had been no freeholds, no creatures in the sky, no horsemen, nothing but trees and animals. Dasen had begun to believe that either Teth was right about them stopping to regroup, he was right about them concentrating on Wildern to the south, or both. In either case, he had hoped they would have an easy trip to Thoren once they finally emerged from the trees and found a village. Now he saw that was just another convenient fantasy. If not for Teth's sharp eyes, they would have walked right into the invader’s camp. Now, they would have to find some way around the camp and hope that a sentry had not seen them.
They watched the forest for several minutes with racing hearts, but there was no reaction from the clearing. When they were certain that no alarm had been raised, Teth stood, strung her bow, and notched an arrow. Dasen knelt beside her with his crude spear held out in front of him. Its point wavered disturbingly in his trembling hands.
Teth did not look at him as she leaned in close. "I think we should take a look at the clearing. We may learn something important about the invaders. Do you think you can move quietly through this underbrush?"
Dasen looked at her as if she had suggested they jump off a hundred foot cliff, but she just stared at him, expecting a response. She had obviously made up her mind. He could refuse and allow her to do her spying alone, but he was supposed to be the man. How would it look to send his wife to scout the invaders while he cowered behind a tree? "I’ll try, but let's be careful,” he agreed with a sigh.
Teth nodded and took the first steps toward the clearing. Dasen studied the ground in search of the best places to step so that he would make as little noise as possible. Teth had tried to teach him all this, but actually doing it required a lot more than a few terse lessons. He stepped slowly, leading with his toes and rolling back to the balls of his feet as he hunted for the next footfall. He reached out with his ears as he walked, searching for any sound that might suggest that they had been discovered, and scanned the trees for clues from the clearing. A few paces into the trip, he caught a flash of movement. It looked like a man striding across the clearing. He could not be sure through the green before him, but there was certainly activity ahead, and he thought that he had seen the glint of steel as the man went by. Heart pounding, he glanced toward Teth and found her twenty paces in front of him, kneeling in some heavy brush at the side of the clearing. She looked back and motioned him forward. He grumbled about that being easy for her but tried to follow.
He took his next step and, with a small yelp, stopped in his tracks. The point of a spear had appeared at his throat. He followed the shaft into the lowest branch of the oak tree he had been using to conceal his advance and found a slender man in a green tunic and brown pants. The man was staring at him with cold eyes that held a silent warning against movement or sound.
Dasen looked toward where Teth was studying the clearing. She must not have heard the yelp. He wondered how he might warn her without getting himself skewered. Nothing came to mind.
“Drop that spear,” the man in the tree ordered. His voice was hushed so as not to warn Teth. His eyes bounced back and forth between them. Dasen complied. He threw the one-tined pitchfork to the side and held up his hands, blood pounding in his ears so that he could barely hear. The spear point shifted from his throat, and the man leapt smoothly to the ground behind him. "Okay, laddy, I don' wan’ no trouble, so jist move ‘long toward yir friend. If he’s smart, I won' ‘ave ta run ya through."
Dasen turned before he thought. The man did not seem happy about the abruptness of the move, and the spear dug into his back, but the glance was well worth it. He had just realized that the man was speaking the Imperial tongue with the now familiar dialect of the Western Kingdoms. That and the glance back had confirmed that this was no invader. On his left breast was a large patch showing a brown field with green dots, the crest of Uhia District. They had found the forest masters.
Dasen eyes were aglow when he turned back toward the clearing. He had been dreaming about finding the forest masters since Randor’s Pass, and the sight of that patch made him so happy that he wanted to turn around and embrace his captor. The only thing that kept him from doing just that was the fear that he would end up embracing the spear instead. He looked for Teth, ready to deliver the good news if she had not already discovered it, but she was no longer there.
Only seconds before she had been crouched behind that bush; now, she was nowhere to be seen. Dasen scanned the surrounding area, searched the bushes and tall grass around the clearing, but there was nothing. He was flabbergasted. He knew that she could move fast, but he could not believe how abruptly she had disappeared.
The ranger behind him was just as stunned. He prodded Dasen with his spear. "Where’d he go then? Tell
‘im ta come out. I’ll no ‘urt ya’ lessin’ ya’ meant us ‘arm, an’ I don' think that’s yir plan."
Dasen knew the man was right. Finding the forest masters was the best thing that had happened to them since the joining ceremony. "Teth! Come out! These are the district forest masters. They’re on our side. You can come out."
Silence answered him. He yelled again, but there was no response. He began to worry that something might have happened. He continued to scan the trees with building desperation, but Teth was gone. She had disappeared as thoroughly as if she had never existed.
Chapter 31