I feel tears prick my eyes. I smile ’em away as I hang the heartstone around my neck. I say what Jack always says. Nuthin’s impossible, I says. Unlikely, but not impossible. That’s one thing I learned since last we met.
An much more besides, I’d say. Her shrewd brown eyes is readin me. Seein further, deeper than I’d like. A raw girl came to me at Crosscreek, she says. I don’t see that girl no more.
Lemme help you, I says. I hand her to her feet an we stand there. We take a long look at each other.
Tall an lean an weathered an tough. An so strongly alive an wise. Mercy was like some magnificent tree. Livin free an alone in her little green paradise, hidden away deep in the woods. A handsome woman with high cheekbones, cropped white hair an dark brows. Now her flesh clings to her bones. Her mean hemp slave shift hangs ragged to her knees.
In body, she might be less. But in spirit, she’s somehow more. She wears her slave collar like the finest Wrecker gold.
We thought you was dead, I says.
I nearly was, she says. Some bugger blew up a bridge just as we was about to cross it. But I thank ’em just the same. Gave me the chance to slip my chains. It’s easier to steal the key from a dead guard. Not to mention his gun. Speakin of which—
As she goes to collect the shortbolt from the ground where it fell, I says, Yer welcome. My pleasure.
She turns, startled. It was you? she says.
Me an some others, I says. I gotta rendezvous with ’em at a place called Painted Rock. Four leagues north. Yer comin with me. I gather my stuff as I’m talkin. The scattered weapons an sack.
I’ll do my best to keep up, she says. If I slow you down, you leave me.
I wince at the sight of her arms, bloody where Nero attacked her. Sorry about Nero, I says. Are y’okay?
I’ll survive, she says. I’ve had worse. Thin white lines, the scars of a whip, criss-cross her sun-tough skin.
How’d they git hold of you? I says.
Later, she says. Let’s move. They might still be about.
She readies her shortbolt fer action an I do the same with my shooter. She grabs my barksack an shoulders it. Kills my protest with one fierce look. I ain’t dead yet. Lead on, she says.
I whistle at Nero. We set off at speed, alert to any sound, any movement. An me an Mercy head fer the rendezvous.
He was caught soon after they’d all split up. Hijacked by the mist, tricked by the terrain, he ambushed himself at a dizzy steep ravine. As he reeled back from the edge, there they were. Three Tonton, their firesticks aimed at his heart.
He braced himself for the shot. The flare of the muzzles. The impact. The oblivion, swift and sure. He was calm. Blue calm. He felt a beat of wonder at that.
But no shot came. Death, his choice. To turn and leap and cry out for life as he pedalled the air to the rocks below. No blue calm there. He surrendered. Hands bound behind him, hooded and gagged, they led him stumbling through the woods. Half a league or so, he reckoned. They stopped in what he took to be a clearing. He was made to sit on the ground.
They waited. The four of them waited. He could feel when the mist began to lift. The day warmed itself on his skin. Time passed. They waited.
Suddenly, they were scrambling, hauling him to his feet. His hood was taken off, his gag untied.
The two ghosthounds came first. They slipped through the trees into the clearing and sat right away, panting. A few moments later, he appeared. The man they were all waiting for. He’d been more than half expecting it—who else would the Tonton wait on with such disciplined patience? Still, his heart lurched and quickened.
Up close. Full power. The night dark gaze tethered him. Circled him. Considered him. Then. In the black water deep of the Pathfinder’s eyes, there was a ripple.
He smiled. The smile of a man who’d found what he’d been seeking.
We have much to talk about, he said.
I’d fergot about Mercy’s crippled ankle. The one she broke an had to set herself. Did a bugger of a job—her own words—an got left with a limp. Her spirit’s bin forged by hardship. Her body’s tough from a lifetime of toil. She don’t ask fer no favours. She don’t let herself fall behind. But she’s taxed by the pace, I can tell.
By mid-mornin, she’s slowed down considerable. We’ve only gone two leagues, jest halfways there. Weak to begin with, her flight up the hill an through the woods must of tapped her out. It’s only sheer grit keeps her goin. I hate to, but we’ll hafta stop an rest soon. I bite down my frustration. If I was on my own, I’d be runnin flat out.
Deadbone country’s given way to a scrubby grassland. The day’s bloomed to a muggy fug. Hot an sticky an close. We skirt a leery path around a lonesome farm, keepin to a narrow ribbon of jack pine. Some cack-handed fool’s bin hackin it hard fer firewood.
Can you believe it? Mercy shakes her head in disgust.
A few steps on, we see the fools. In a field in front of a tyreshack, a Steward couple quarrel furiously over a broken plough. A pair of kids, fifteen or so, bein kicked in the pants by nature. They’re managin to keep around the shack clear an the track to the road too, but that’s it. Billows of bramble an chokeweed romp the fields. Tethered to a spindlebush next to the shack stands a neat red pony.
Wait here, I tell Mercy.
Keepin low, I dash through the chokeweed, slip the pony’s tether an lead him quietly back to her.
He’ll make yer goin easier, I says. Lemme help you on. She steps in my cupped hands, I boost her onto his back an we hurry away without notice.
Once we’re well gone I says, They’ll find life a bit harder without no pony.
From the look of ’em, says Mercy, I’d say it might well be the last straw. Them two got no skills, no knowledge. You can see there ain’t no trust between ’em. They probly hardly know each other. It won’t take much to make their house crumble. It don’t stand on strong foundations.
Let’s hope, I says.
That was a half-decent place, not so long ago, she says. Resettlement, the Tonton call it. I call it what it is. Stealin. Whoever had that bit of land stole from ’em, they was earth-wise. Not like them hopeless kids. No, they would of watched an listened an worked through the seasons. They would of learned from their patch of earth. What it needs. What it don’t need. How they could live together. That takes years.
I know she’s thinkin about her green valley at Crosscreek. The cradle of her toil an care an hope. Wonderin if it’s in good hands or gone to ruin. Her small wooden shack shaded by pines. The red bench by the door. The murmur of shallow water over stones.
If Lugh saw that mess, he’d spit fire, I says. It’s his dearest wish to have some good land. To work the earth. Fer us to be settled.
An you? she says. Is that what you want? A life workin the land?
I ain’t thought about it much, I says. That’s fer later. Right now, I got bigger things on my mind.
The blood moon. That’s what’s on my mind. Seven nights away.
I told Mercy a lie. I have thought about it. A life workin the land.
Lugh’s always wanted the same thing. To be planted in one place. To live by the heartbeat of the earth. Its rise an fall an rise an fall. Where nuthin changes, but everythin changes. When we was little, he’d kneel in wonder to the first grass of spring. I’d trample it as I tried to do the same.
I wanted what he wanted, though. Of course I did. We belonged together. We was made together. Two halfs of one whole. Boy an girl. Fair an dark. We took it as a given that we’d be together all our lives. It would never of occurred to us that we wouldn’t. But that was before. Before the Tonton came to Silverlake an killed Pa an took Lugh an everythin got changed ferever.