Saun began to give her a garbled and guilty-sounding account of his trying to help by slaying mud-men in pots—Fawn gazed in bewilderment toward the boggy shoreline where he pointed—that she could only follow at all because of the prior descriptions of the groundlock she’d heard from Dirla. Of Dag, leaping into the eerie danger to save somebody named Artin, which sounded just like Dag, truly. Of Dag being sucked into the lock, or spell, or whatever this was. Of Dag lying unarousable all these three days gone. Fawn stopped fighting, and Saun, with a stern look at her, let her wrists go; she rubbed them and scowled.
“But I’m not a Lakewalker. I’m a farmer,” said Fawn. “Maybe it wouldn’t work on me.”
“Mari says no more experiments,” said Saun grimly. “They’ve already cost us three patrollers and the captain.”
“But if you don’t…” If you don’t poke at things, how can you find anything out? She sat back on her heels, lips tight. All right: look around first, poke later. Dag’s breathing didn’t seem to be getting worse right away, anyhow.
Mari, meanwhile, had led Hoharie and Othan out to the mud pots, then back through the grove to examine the other captives. Mari was finishing what sounded to Fawn like a more coherent account of events than Saun’s as they came over and knelt on the other side of Dag. Her tale of Dag’s ground match with Artin’s failing heart had the medicine maker letting out her breath in a faint whistle. Even more frightening to Fawn was Mari’s description of the strange blight left on Dag’s ground from his fight with the malice.
“Huh.” Hoharie scrubbed at her heat-flushed face, smearing road dirt in sweaty streaks, and stared around. “For the love of reason, Mari, what did you drag me here for? In one breath you beg me to break this unholy groundlock, and in the next you insist I don’t dare even open my ground to examine it. You can’t have it both ways.”
“If Dag went into that thing and couldn’t get himself out, I know I couldn’t. I don’t know about you. Hoped you’d have more tricks, Hoharie.” Mari’s voice fell quiet. “I’ve been picking at this knot for days, now, till I’m near cross-eyed crazy. I’m starting to wonder when it will be time to cut our losses. Except…all of those makers’ own bonded knives went missing during the time they were prisoners of the malice. Of the nine people down, only Bryn is carrying an unprimed knife right now. That’s not much to salvage, for the price. And I’m not real sure what would happen to someone locked up like that trying to share, or to her knife—or to the others. We had ill luck with those mud-puppies, that’s certain.”
Saun, now leaning against the barren ash tree with his arms folded, grimaced agreement.
Fawn’s belly shuddered as it finally dawned on her what Mari was talking about. The picture of Mari, or Saun, or Hoharie—likely Mari, it seemed her idea of a leader’s duty—taking those bone knives and methodically driving them through the hearts of her comrades, going down the rows of bedrolls one after another…No, not Dag! Fawn touched the knife beneath her shirt, suddenly fiercely glad that her accident with it back at Glassforge had at least blocked this ghastly possibility.
Hoharie was frowning, but it seemed to Fawn more in sorrow than dissent.
“I will say,” said Mari, “Dag falling into this lock seemed to give everyone in it new strength—for a little while. But the weaker ones are failing again. If we were to add a new patroller every three days, I don’t rightly know how long we could keep them alive—except, of course, the problem would just get bigger and bigger as we strung it out. I’m not volunteerin’, note. And I’m not volunteerin’ you either, Hoharie, so don’t go getting ideas.”
Hoharie rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m going to have to get ideas of some sort. But I’m not going to attempt anything at all tonight. Fatigue distorts judgment.”
Mari nodded approval, and described the camp off the blight to the east where everyone not tending the enspelled apparently retreated to sleep. When she paused, Fawn motioned at Dag and broke in, “Mari—is it really true I can’t touch him?”
Mari said, “It may be. The finding out could be costly.”
Or not, thought Fawn. “I rode all this way.”
Hoharie said, in a sort of weary sympathy, “We told you to stay home, child. There’s nothing for you to do here but grieve.”
“And get in the way,” muttered Othan, almost inaudibly.
“But I can feel Dag. Still!”
Hoharie did not look hopeful, but she rose to her knees, reached across Dag, and took up Fawn’s left arm anyway, probing along it. “Has it changed any lately?”
“The ache feels stronger for being closer, but no clearer,” Fawn admitted. “It’s funny. Dag gave me this for reassurance, but instead it’s made me frantic.”
“Is that you or him that’s frantic?”
“I can’t hardly tell the difference.”
“Huh.” Hoharie let her go and sat back. “This gets us no further that I can see. Yet.” With a pained grunt, she rose to her feet, and everyone else did too.
Fawn held out her hands, palms open, to Mari. “Surely there’s something I can do!”
Mari looked at her and sighed, but at least it was a sigh of understanding. “There’s bedding and catch-rags to be washed.”
Fawn’s hands clenched. “I can do that, sure.” Better: it was a task that would keep her here in the grove, and not exiled a mile away.
“Oh, that’s important. You rode a long way to do laundry, farmer girl,” said Othan, and missed the cool look that the Lakewalker women turned on him. It was no stretch to Fawn to guess who had been doing the washing so far.
Mari said more firmly, “Not that there’s a pile. It’s so hard to get anything into these people, there’s not much coming out. In any case, not tonight, Fawn. You look bushed.”
Fawn admitted it with a short nod. When it was all sorted out, the party’s horses, including Grace, were led off to the east camp by the patrollers, but Fawn managed to keep her bedroll and saddlebags in the grove by Dag. It was driving her half-mad not to be allowed to touch him, but she set about finding other tasks for her hands, helping with the fire and the batches of broths and thin gruel that these experienced women had cooking.
Hoharie commenced a second, more thorough physical examination of all the silent groundlocked folk, an expression of extreme frustration on her face. “I might as well be some farmer bonesetter,” Fawn heard her mutter as she knelt by Dag. The tart thought came to Fawn that really, they might all be better off with one; farmer bonesetters and midwives always had to work by guess and by golly, with indirect clues. They likely grew good at it, over time.
Resolutely, Fawn took on the laundry the following morning as soon as she could rise and move. At least the work abused different muscles than the ones she’d overtaxed the past three days. Riding trousers rolled above her knees, she waded out into the cool water of the marsh towing a makeshift raft of lashed-together deadwood holding the soiled blankets and catch-rags. The water seemed peculiarly clear and odorless, for a marsh, but it was fine for washing. And she could keep an eye on the long lumpy shadow beneath the ash tree that was Dag, and see the silhouettes of the ground-closed helpers moving about the grove.
To her surprise one of the Lakewalker men, not a patroller but a survivor from the ruined village down the shore, came out and joined her in the task, silently taking up the rubbing and scrubbing by her side. He said only, “You’re Dag Redwing’s farmer bride,” not a question but a statement; Fawn could only nod. He had a funny look on his face, drawn and distant, that made Fawn shy of speaking to him, though she murmured thanks as they passed clouts back and forth. He took the main burden of lugging the heavy, wet cloths back to the blighted trees, and, being much taller, of hanging them up on the bare branches after she shook them out. The only other thing he said, rather abruptly as they finished and he turned away, was, “Artin the smith is my father, see.”
Hoharie paced around the grove and squinted, or walked out to a distance and stared, or sat on a stump
and drew formless lines on the ground with a stick, scowling. She went methodically through an array of more startling actions, yelling at or slapping the sleepers, pricking them with a pin, stirring up the half-formed mud-men in their pots. Mari and Saun, with difficulty, dissuaded her from killing another one by way of a test. Flushed after her futile exertions, she came and sat cross-legged by Dag’s bedroll, scowling some more.
Fawn sat across from her nibbling on a raw plunkin slice. She wished she could feed Dag—would the taste of genuine Hickory Lake plunkin be like home cooking to him? But even if she could touch him, he could not chew—he could barely swallow water. She supposed she might try cooking and mashing up some of the root and thinning it down for a gruel, disgusting as that sounded. She asked Hoharie quietly, “What do you figure?”
Hoharie shook her head. “This isn’t just a lovers’ groundlock enlarged. Something of the malice must linger in it. Has to be an involuted ground reinforcement of some sort, to survive the malice’s death; what it’s living on is a puzzle. Well, not much of a puzzle; it has to be ground, the mud-men’s or the people’s or both. People’s, most likely.”
“Like…like a tick? Or a belly-worm? Made of ground,” Fawn added, to show she wasn’t confused about that.
Hoharie gave a vague wave that seemed to allow the comparison without exactly approving it. “It has to be worked ground. Malice-worked. Could be—well, it obviously is—quite complex. I still don’t understand the part about it being so anchored in place. Question is, how long can it last? Will it be absorbed like a healing reinforcement? And if so, will it strengthen or slay? Is it just their groundlock paralysis that is weakening these folks, or is there something more eating away at them, inside?”
At Fawn’s faint gasp Hoharie’s eyes flicked up; she glanced from Dag to Fawn, and murmured, “Oh, sorry. Talking to myself, I’m afraid.”
“It’s all right. I want to know everything.”
“So do I, child,” Hoharie sighed. She levered to her feet and wandered off again.
Saun having gone off to the east camp to sleep after taking a night watch, it was Othan who came at noon to feed Dag broth. Fawn watched enviously and critically as he raised Dag’s head into his lap, wincing at every harsh click of spoon on teeth or muffled choke or dribble lost down over Dag’s chin. At least Dag’s face wasn’t rough with stubble; Saun had shaved it just this morning. Fawn had wondered at the effort, since Dag couldn’t feel it—but somehow it did make him look less sick. So maybe the use of it was not for Dag, but for the people who looked so anxiously after him. She had smiled gratefully at Saun, anyhow.
Othan, on the other hand, glowered at her as he worked.
“What?” she finally demanded.
“You’re hovering. Back off, can’t you? Half a mile would do.”
“I’ve a right. He’s my husband.”
“That hasn’t been decided yet.”
Fawn touched her marriage cord. “Dag and I decided it. Quite a ways back down the road.”
“You’ll find out, farmer.” Othan coaxed the last spoonful of broth down his patient’s throat, which moved just enough to swallow, and laid Dag’s head back down on the folded blanket that substituted, poorly, for a pillow. Fawn considered collecting dry grass to stuff it with, later. Othan added, “He was a good patroller. Hoharie says he could be even more. They say you’ve seduced him from his duty and will be the ruination his life if the camp council doesn’t fix things.”
Fawn sat up indignantly. “They say? So let them say it to my face, if they’re not cowards.” And anyhow, I think we sort of seduced each other.
“My uncle who’s a patroller says it, and he’s no coward!”
Fawn gritted her teeth as Othan—safely ground-closed Othan—stroked a strand of sweat-dampened hair back from Dag’s forehead. How dare he act as if he owned Dag, just because he was Lakewalker-born and she wasn’t! The, the stupid boy was just a wet-behind-the-ears apprentice no older than she was. Younger, likely. Her longing to shut Othan up, make him look nohow, was quelled by her sudden realization that he might be a lead into just the sort of camp gossip Dag had so carefully shielded her from. Also—this was half an argument. Just what all had Dag been saying back to Hickory Lake Camp? She recalled the day he’d made that poor plunkin into a porcupine with his bow and her arrows. Her spinning mind settled on, “I’m not a patch on your malices, for ruination.”
“They’re not our malices.”
Fawn smiled blackly. “Oh, yes, they are.” She added after a fuming moment, “And there isn’t any was about it, unless you want to say he was a good patroller, and he now is a really good captain! He took his company right through that awful Raintree malice like a knife through butter, to hear Dirla tell it. Despite being married to a farmer, so there!”
“Despite, yeah,” Othan growled.
Fawn took a grip on her shredding temper as Mari and Hoharie came up. Othan scrambled to his feet, giving over glaring at Fawn in order to look anxiously at the medicine maker. Hoharie looked grim, and Mari grimmer.
“Which one, then?” said Mari.
“Dag,” said Hoharie. “I’ve worked on his ground enough to be most familiar with it, and he’s also the most recent to fall into the lock. If that counts for anything. Othan, good, you’re here,” she continued without a pause. “I’m going to enter this groundlock, and I want you to try to anchor me.”
Othan looked alarmed. “Are you sure, Hoharie?”
“No, but I’ve tried everything else I can think of. And I won’t walk away from this.”
“No, you’re leaving that dirty job to me,” muttered Mari irritably. Hoharie returned her the sort of sharp shrug that indicated a lengthy argument concluded.
Hoharie went on, “I’ll set up a light link to you, Othan, and try for a glimpse inside the groundlock, then pull back. If I can’t disengage, you are to break with me instantly and not try to enter in after me, do you hear?” She caught her apprentice’s gaze and held it sternly. Othan gulped and nodded.
Fawn scrunched back in the litter of dry grass and dead leaves on Dag’s far side, wrapping her arms around her knees and trying to make herself small, so they wouldn’t notice and exclude her.
Hoharie paused, then said, “My knife is in my saddlebags, Mari, if it comes to that.”
“When should it come to it, Hoharie? Don’t leave me with that decision, too.”
“When the weakest start to die, I believe it will throw more strain on the rest. So it will go faster toward the end. That poor maker who died before Dag’s patrol arrived showed that such deaths won’t break the lock; if anything, it may grow more concentrated. I think…once two or more of the nine—no, ten—are down, then start the sharing. And you’ll just have to see what happens next.” She added after a moment, “Start with me, of course.”
“That,” said Mari distantly, “will be my turn to pick.”
Hoharie’s lips thinned. “Mm.”
“I don’t recommend this, Hoharie.”
“I hear you.”
Evidently not, because the medicine maker lowered herself cross-legged by the head of Dag’s bedroll, motioning Othan down beside her. He sat up on his knees. She straightened her spine and shut her eyes for a moment, seeming to center herself. She then took Othan’s hand with her left hand; there apparently followed another moment of invisible-to-Fawn ground adjustments. Without further hesitation, Hoharie’s right hand reached out and touched Dag’s forehead. Fawn thought she saw him grimace in his trance, but it was hard to be sure.
Then Hoharie’s eyes opened wide; with a yank, she pulled her hand from Othan’s and slammed the heel of it into his chest, pushing him over backward. Her eyes rolled up, her face drained of color and expression, and she slumped across Dag.
With a muted wail, Othan scrambled up and dove for her. Mari cursed and caught Othan from behind, wrapping her arms around his torso and trapping his hands. “No!” she yelled in his ear. “Obey her! Close up! Close up, blight you, boy!
”
Othan strained against her briefly, then, with a choke of despair, sprawled back in her grip.
“Ten,” snarled Mari. “That’s it, that’s all we’re doing here. Not eleven, you hear?” She shook him.
Othan nodded dully, and she let him free. He leaned on his hands, staring at his unconscious mentor in horror.
“What did you feel?” Mari demanded of him. “Anything?”
He shook his head. “I—nothing useful, I don’t think. It was like I could feel her ground being pulled away from me, into the dark…!” He turned a distraught face to the patrol leader. “I didn’t let go, Mari, I didn’t! She pushed me away!”
“I saw, boy,” sighed Mari. “You did what you could.” Slowly, she stood up, and braced her legs apart and her hands on her hips, staring down at the two enspelled in their heap. “We’ll lay her out with the rest. She’s in there with them now; maybe she can do something different. If this thing was weakening with age, could we tell? If nothing else, she may have bought three more days of time.” Her voice fell to a savage mutter. “Except I don’t want more time. I want this to be over.”
Hoharie’s bedroll was placed under the ash tree close to Dag’s. Othan took up a cross-legged station of guard, or grief, on the opposite side to Fawn, who sat similarly beyond Dag. They didn’t much look at each other.
Toward sunset, Mari came and sat down between the two bedrolls.
“Blight you two,” she said conversationally to the unconscious pair, “for leaving this on me. This is company captain work, not patrol leader work. No fair slithering out of it, Dag my boy.” She looked up and caught Fawn’s eye from where she lay on her side near Dag. Fawn sat up and returned an inquiring look.
“Bryn”—Mari hooked a thumb over her shoulder toward the rank of female sleepers beneath their awning—“will be all of twenty-two next week. If she has a next week. She’s young. Good groundsense range. She might yet grow up to have a passel of youngsters. Hoharie, I’ve known her longer. A medicine maker has valuable skills. She might yet save the lives of a dozen girls like Bryn. So how shall I decide which first? Some choice. Maybe,” she sighed, “maybe it won’t make any difference. I hardly know which way to wish for.