The forgotten stone, p.39
The Forgotten Stone, page 39
“I forgot, that’s all. Turned around by the goat.”
“I saw no goat.”
“Neither have I! That’s the problem,” she reminded him.
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t recognize you. Come with me.”
“I have to get back home! Look, I’ll let the goat go, but I have to leave now. I’m sorry I lost my bearings, but I won’t do it again.”
“Ah, so we are bargaining now?” scoffed the Sumu. “I said come with me.”
“What for?”
“What for! It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I—stop!”
What he said didn’t matter much to Enouim, though. She wheeled and fled. The nearest clear tunnel was in the opposite direction, through the restricted area to Twedori’s house. Going around would take too much time. To make matters worse, Gabor and Canukke were still missing.
A shout behind her was followed by another, alerting her that she was already outnumbered. Enouim rounded the corner and dove through an open window. She rolled to a stop, footsteps pounding toward her. A bed was made up on the floor, a doll made of grass beside it. Beside the bed was a small table with a Sumu mantle draped over it. A tall crate of blankets sat in the corner. Enouim pulled out the blankets and climbed into the crate, pulling the blankets on top of her as quickly as she could. A baby whimpered nearby, and two sets of footsteps brought the whimper into the room with Enouim.
“If they find you, all three of us die,” said a woman’s voice in hushed tones. “You, me, and the baby.”
“I don’t understand. Did they …” a man’s voice trailed off, gruff with emotion.
“You were never good with numbers, were you?” hissed the woman. “She’s two months old. Two. You’ve been gone for seven. Do the math.”
“Why would you hide this from me?”
“Hide it!” exclaimed the woman, her words steeped in contempt. “You were distracted. All about the next adventure. Too wrapped up in the next badge of honor, or the bottom of a glass of meade to see what was at the end of your nose! I was sick for weeks, and you never took notice. I let you believe whatever you wanted to believe. It was better that way, Canukke.”
Enouim’s mouth dropped open from under the blankets. She knew this woman’s voice. It was Edone.
“Please … can I?” Canukke asked. Enouim couldn’t see, but imagined him reaching out to the baby.
“I think you’d better not,” Edone sniffed. “You could be dead tomorrow. And if you spend another second here, she will be too. We all will.”
“No one saw me. Edone …”
A pause. Enouim felt incredibly uncomfortable being privy to such a private moment. Still, she knew they had even less time than they thought. But what could she do? Just pop out of the blanket box with news of her latest caper?
“Someone ran by. Something is going on. It’s only a matter of time.”
She had to say something. Enouim reached up to claw the blankets out of the way, so abruptly that the crate tipped and spilled her out onto the floor. Canukke and Edone gaped at her, frozen. The baby in Edone’s arms smiled.
“Err … hello, Edone. Canukke?” Enouim stammered.
Edone gasped.“Enouim?”
“We have to go,” Enouim said to Canukke. “Sorry. I … did something. People looking. Gabor missing. You disappeared! And we apparently aren’t supposed to be …”
“Get up,” Canukke growled, face turning to flint. Just like that, he closed himself off and again became the warrior. He turned to look again at Edone, softening as he took in the sight of his wife and daughter.
Allowing himself no more, Canukke snatched the Sumu mantle off the table and shrugged into it. Canukke gripped Enouim’s wrist in a tight vise, and she winced as he pulled her to the window. “You will stay close. You will say nothing, and you will do everything I tell you. If I tell you to fall on the ground, you drop like a sack. If I tell you to run, you run like your life depends on it—because my every word is life to you, you understand?”
Enouim stared at him.
Canukke put his face an inch from her nose and spoke again. “Do. You. Understand?”
Enouim nodded.
Canukke gave her a short nod, then looked out the window again. He glanced back at Edone one more time. “I will come for you.” With that, he stepped out the window and dragged Enouim behind him. Outside the window, he pulled Enouim in front of him, gripping her left elbow with his left hand, and putting a knife at her back with his right.
“Crouch a little,” Enouim hissed. “You’re too tall for a Sumu.”
“A quick enough glance and we’ll make it,” he whispered, but he bent his knees as he shoved her forward.
They came to the end of the row, passing where Enouim had met the Sumu soldier before. Canukke was moving at a clipped pace, and she stumbled to keep her feet. As they rounded the corner, she saw several tribesmen scattered about, one guarding a barred wooden cage four feet wide and six feet tall. A woman stood inside it, leaning back against the side with her arms crossed. She looked up as Canukke and Enouim passed, and Enouim’s eyes widened. It was Chayan.
Their eyes locked for a moment as they passed, but now instead of hate Enouim saw fear. Chayan’s glance drifted from Enouim’s face to Canukke’s hooded form, and recognition flooded her expression. Looking ahead, Enouim saw they were almost there—rounding one more corner to the right would lead them to Twedori’s tunnel. Still, there were now eight tribesmen milling about between them and where they needed to go. The guard by the cage had let them pass, but now another Sumu approached.
Just then Chayan reached through the bars and yanked the guard back toward her, wrapping her arm around his neck and choking him from behind. Shouts ensued and the men ran to the cage. Enouim heard a thud as something heavy hit the ground. She tried to turn back and see what was happening, but Canukke’s knife dug into her back and his grip on her elbow tightened.
“This is for us,” he hissed. “Make it count.”
Canukke pushed her ahead of him as they turned the corner, and more shouts and the clash of steel proved that somehow Chayan was still fighting from within her cage. Three more tribesmen ran past them as they reached the tunnel. In the commotion, Enouim and Canukke managed to slip inside without attracting attention.
Enouim paused in the passage, afraid for Chayan. What would happen to her? But it was out of their hands.
“Go!” Canukke demanded.
She went.
They made it back to the rendezvous point, where Ruakh and Kilith were waiting with the bows, arrows, and other weaponry they had scavenged. Enouim and Canukke went to check on the horses, hiding them as best as they could and caking mud on the distinctive white markings on Inferno’s hindquarters. No Gorgenbrilder or Sumu horse had them.
There was no good way to get the horses into Gorgenbrild, so all they could do was untack them, take as many supplies as they could manage, and hide the rest. By the time Canukke and Enouim returned, Gabor and Oloren had made it back. Gabor let Canukke have a piece of his mind for disappearing. He’d watched Enouim wandering about looking for Canukke, but knew better than to follow suit. When he saw that the guard had run by empty handed, Gabor found his way back on his own.
Knowing they couldn’t stay out in the open, Gabor climbed a tree at the rendezvous to keep an eye out for Serete and Vadik while Enouim created an air bubble in the river and floated the rest of them to the bottom. The river ran through the woods just east of Gorgenbrild and continued on southeast the way they’d come. Enouim sat cross-legged inside the bubble on the cold, wet ground at the bottom of the river, listening to the others strategize.
“… still, at this point, I wonder if it’s not a better idea to smuggle out as many as we can,” Oloren was saying. “Then make the assault from there. If we die, we die; this way at least some of our people may survive. Once a true rebellion breaks out, Khoron-khelek will slaughter everyone rather than continue the games he has been playing.”
“It would attract too much attention.” Ruakh shook his head sadly. “I think that may be as quick a road to death as any.”
“We got eight people in and out successfully,” Oloren answered. “Perhaps we can get just enough out to assist us.”
“Serete and Vadik aren’t back yet,” Canukke reminded her. “But it is true, eight people is less than ideal for launching an assault. There are several men I would want by my side, but of those willing to join us, we still need a number of them waiting inside Gorgenbrild.”
“Ruakh and I brought back far more bows and arrows than we have manpower for,” noted Kilith. “I think we can make it appear we are a larger force than we are.”
Enouim squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, focusing on the feel of the river around her. She pressed a hand to the earthy river bottom, still wet. The river coursed by them, sure and steady, consistent, predictable. She wished life was more like that. For a moment Enouim allowed herself to breathe in the tranquility of the river, a calm that may well have an expiration date. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?
As her thoughts began to wander, Enouim felt something nudge her, but she didn’t pay it any heed. Suddenly Canukke gave a disgusted yell, and Enouim’s eyes snapped open. He was sopping wet.
Oloren laughed. “Stay with us, Enouim! You started to drift, and the bubble wavered and plopped the world’s biggest raindrop right on his head!”
“When you startled and opened your eyes, the bubble widened and resettled,” Ruakh added. “Looks like it requires a little more focus.”
“Sorry,” she said, grimacing at Canukke’s expression.
“He’ll get over it.” Ruakh grinned.
Kilith couldn’t help but smile.
“That is good to know though,” Oloren said. “You will need to pay attention so we don’t get swept away out of the blue.”
Enouim nodded. Just then she heard a dull splash—she felt it, too, in a way—and saw Gabor swimming down toward them. Placing a hand on the wall of water beside her to increase her accuracy, Enouim pulled a bubble down from the surface to envelop him as he swam, and carried him down to join them—all while sitting peacefully on the river floor.
Gabor was dumped rather unceremoniously into their circle, and he looked at her in wonder. He shook his head, but seated himself, and gestured toward the surface. “They’re coming now.”
Enouim closed her eyes, hand still on the edge of the waters. Two more forms stepped into the water, and she carefully divided the river on either side of them. She heard Vadik yelp, and then Vadik and Serete walked right down the riverbank and to the river bottom, Enouim allowing the river to close over the bubble, like a tunnel. Soon all eight were sitting in a circle together, recounting what had happened in Gorgenbrild. Canukke said nothing of his daughter, and Enouim respected his wishes.
“You weren’t supposed to leave the passageway,” Vadik scolded Enouim.
“Unless I had to, you said,” Enouim corrected.
“And you had to?” Serete asked.
“Er …” Enouim paused. Okay, so technically she didn’t have to. “I mean, it was right next to the Sumu headquarters. Not the safest of places.”
“She went on a killing spree,” Gabor added. “Turns out she’s Gorgenbrilder through and through!”
“You what?” Vadik and Serete exclaimed at once.
Enouim jumped, and the bubble around them wavered.
“Careful, boys, or you’ll drown us all,” Canukke cautioned dryly.
Enouim regained her composure. “Okay, first of all, it was hardly a spree. I left because I saw my mother and needed to make sure she was okay. And I only killed one person. It was either him or me, and I did not enjoy it. I would very much like to have this whole ordeal over with to avoid killing people in the future.”
“Hardly people, these tribesmen!” Vadik spat.
“They certainly have the brains for a successful takeover, though,” Serete said. “And their numbers are nothing to sneeze at. We are too few, even with the bloodthirsty swords of a hopeful handful inside.”
“Kilith, what was this you mentioned about making it seem like there are more of us than there are?” Oloren asked.
“The bows and arrows … we brought rope too, and a few other things. I think we can booby trap them to fire from multiple directions at once. The trick will be that each rig will only fire once, since it will be impossible to reset the traps on the move. But maybe that is all we need … enough to draw attention and distract.”
Ruakh began drawing in the damp dirt, laying out the Sumu camp. “Meanwhile, we set up here and here,” he said, emphasizing these on his map in the ground. “The surprise and confusion will give us an advantage. But we will need more than a few bow and arrow tricks to get things going.”
“The Sumus need to be thrown in as great a disarray as possible to offset our numbers and give us a chance to send the signal inside.” Gabor began drawing Gorgenbrild itself, marking tunnels with the small stones and bits of plant life around him. “At least two of us need to enter Gorgenbrild and fan out to send the signal and rally the people—three really, if we want a real shot at this. And three should truly be more like sixteen, but I suppose we must work with what we have.”
“A big enough distraction, and we can skip the tunnels altogether and take horses,” Oloren suggested. “We just need one or two of us in the trees to provide cover.”
“That will spread us too thin,” Serete said. “Perhaps we can wrangle their horses once we are inside.”
“Where am I supposed to be?” Enouim asked. The thought of being left to fend for herself in hand-to-hand combat made her nauseous.
“Despite your remarkable achievement of surviving last night, your strength is in the river,” Canukke said. “Upriver from here, it runs right through their camps. That is where you will take up your position.”
Enouim breathed a sigh of relief. The river was her safety.
“We brought more knives for you, too,” Kilith said. “You have good aim, so we’ll strap you with as many as we can. We may set booby traps or light fires or any number of things as distractions from our small force, but you are the greatest weapon we have at our disposal. You can course through water at breakneck speeds, and you have power over anything in the water. Part of our responsibility will be to give you material—whatever we dump in the river will be yours to play with.”
Enouim smiled. “I can do that.”
“You said you wanted all this to be over so you wouldn’t have to kill anyone, but it’s not over yet,” Vadik said. “You need to be willing to do what it takes. The mission might be doomed already, but if you fail to give one-hundred percent, you may as well dig our graves.”
Enouim’s eyes widened.
“No pressure,” Gabor laughed. “You’ll do what it takes in the moment. You will be fine.”
She swallowed, suddenly unsure of herself again.
“Don’t worry. We won’t leave you alone,” Serete added.
“I still think we need to find a way to get the horses into Gorgenbrild—at least enough to rally everyone together,” Oloren said. “And we need more than a few fake arrow shots or even Madzi magic to disguise the fact that there are only eight of us.”
Enouim thumbed her collarbone, then ran her hands along her belt. She touched the edge where she had memorialized Pakel, and thought of all there was still left to lose. She wondered what Baird was doing now, and if he had made it back safely to Kalka’an. Her hands traveled across her belt to finger the small pouch at her waist.
When she spoke again, she spoke in sync with Serete: “I have an idea.”
43
“You first.”
“No, go ahead.”
“Well, it’s pretty simple really.” Enouim tugged the pouch off her waist and held it up. “Ethanine. Could we sneak it into their food supply?”
Vadik laughed. “Perfect! How much is there?”
“I don’t know—this much?” Enouim tossed him the pouch.
He took it with glee and peeked inside.
“It won’t take much to knock them out if it’s ingested,” Serete noted, nodding. “Where did you get that?”
“Baird gave it to me before he left.”
“Figures—Kalka’aners love their plants and potions!”
“How do we get it in their food?” Oloren asked.
“Sumus make large batches of soup in their main camp,” Kilith said, “and then have dried meats and whatever they hunt. The main camp supply would be our target, if we can get to it.”
“We can kill them quickly on our way in, once the ethanine puts them to sleep,” Gabor said. “Or even afterward if we give them enough. It lasts a long time.”
“We’re going to kill sleeping Sumus? That doesn’t seem right,” Enouim objected. “Why can’t we just leave them lie and capture them or something?”
“Doesn’t seem right, eh?” Gabor said. “You know what else doesn’t seem right? Tribesmen slaughtering people. Eight morons against an army. No way we can capture that many anyway. We need to even the odds.”
“They’re animals, Enouim,” Canukke agreed. “Dying in sleep is too good for them.”
“I don’t think we should be part of a mass slaughter.” Enouim turned to Serete. “What was your idea?”
Serete grinned. “What greater distraction is there than a zegrath tearing through camp?”
“And you are the zegrath whisperer, are you?” Gabor asked.
“Pretty much,” Oloren said. “He has studied them and can track them to their dens.”
“Even if you found one, how could you make it go where you want?” Vadik asked.
“Pups,” Ruakh said.
Serete nodded. “Exactly. Zegrath pups stay in the den while mom goes out to hunt. If we take the pups, mom’s incredible sense of smell will lead her in all her fury to precisely wherever we drop them off.”
Canukke smiled. “I love it.”
Enouim frowned. “What if the mother is in the den when we get there?”
