The Demon King. Cinda Williams Chima

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       CHAPTER THREE AMBUSHED

      All the way back to Marisa Pines Camp, Dancer strode along, slender shoulders hunched, his usually sunny face clouded, his body language discouraging conversation. After a couple of tries, Han gave up and was left to wrestle with his questions alone.

      Han knew nothing of wizardry beyond his mother’s dire warnings. Did it come on in childhood or not until much later? Did it require amulets like the one that seemed to weigh down his bag? Did wizards need schooling, or did charmcasters have an inborn knowledge of what to do?

      Most of all, how was it fair that some people had the power to make others do their bidding, to create fires that couldn’t be put out, or turn a cat into a hawk, if the stories could be believed.

      To break the world nearly beyond repair.

      The clans had magic too—of a different sort. Dancer’s mother, Willo, was Matriarch of Marisa Pines Camp, and a gifted healer. She could take a dry stick and make it bloom, could make anything grow in her hillside fields, could heal by touch and voice. Her remedies were in demand as far away as Arden. The clans were known for their leatherwork, their metalwork, their tradition of creating amulets and other magical objects.

      Bayar had made much of the fact that Dancer had no named father. How did he know that, and why did he care? The way Han saw it, Dancer didn’t need a father. He was totally embedded in the clan, surrounded by aunts and uncles who doted on him, cousins to hunt with, everyone connected by blood and tradition. Even when Willo was away, there was always a hearth to welcome him, food to share, a bed to sleep in.

      Compared to Dancer, Han was more the orphan, with only his mother and sister and a father dead in the Ardenine Wars. They shared a single room over a stable in the Ragmarket neighborhood of Fellsmarch. The more he thought on it, the more Han felt sorry for himself—magicless and fatherless. Without prospects. Mam had told him often enough he’d never amount to anything.

      They were about a half mile from camp when Han realized they were being followed. It wasn’t any one thing that caused him to think so: when he turned to inspect some winter burned seed pods at the side of the trail, he heard footfalls behind them that stopped abruptly. A squirrel continued to scold from a pine tree long after they’d passed. Once he swung around and thought he saw a flash of movement.

      Fear shivered over him. The wizards must have doubled back after them. He’d heard how they could make themselves invisible or turn into birds and strike from out of the air. Ducking his head just in case, he looked over at Dancer, who seemed absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts.

      Han knew better than to allow an enemy to choose the time and place of an attack. Just as he and Dancer rounded a curve of the hill, he gripped Dancer’s arm, pulling him off the trail, behind the massive trunk of an oak tree.

      Dancer jerked his arm free. “What are you…?”

      “Shhh,” Han hissed, putting his finger to his lips and gesturing for Dancer to stay put. Han loped back the way they came, making a big circle so as to come in behind any pursuers. Yes. He glimpsed a slight figure clothed in forest colors gliding from shadow into sunlight up ahead. He put on speed, lengthening his stride, thankful that the wet ground absorbed the sound of his footsteps. He was almost there when his quarry must have heard him coming and cut sharply to the right. Not wanting to allow the charmcaster time to conjure a jinx, Han launched himself, crashing into the intruder and hanging on as they rolled down a small slope and splashed into Old Woman Creek.

      “Ow!” Han banged his elbow against a small boulder in the creek bed and lost his hold on the charmcaster, who twisted and wriggled and seemed incredibly slippery and soft in unexpected places. Han’s head went under, and he sucked in a lungful of water. Coughing, half panicked, he pushed himself to his feet, slinging his wet hair out of his eyes, worried he’d be jinxed before he could act.

      Behind him, someone was laughing, gasping with merriment, scarcely able to speak. “H-H-Hunts Alone! It’s still too cold for s-swimming.”

      Han swung around. Dancer’s cousin Digging Bird sat in the shallows, her mop of dark curls plastered around her face, her wet linen blouse clinging to her upper body so the light fabric was rendered nearly transparent. She grinned at him shamelessly, her eyes traveling up his body in turn.

      He resisted the temptation to duck back under the freezing water. His face burned, and he knew it must be flaming red. It took him a minute to get his voice going. “Bird?” he whispered, mortified, knowing he would never hear the end of this.

      “Maybe we should change your name to Hunts Bird,” she teased.

      “N-no,” he stammered, raising his hands as if to ward off a curse.

      “Jumps in the Creek? Red in the Face?” she persisted.

      That was all he needed. Clan names constantly changed to fit until you were grown and thought to be stable. You might be Cries in the Night as a baby, Squirrel as a child, and Throws Stones as an adult. It was always confusing to flatlanders.

      “No,” Han pleaded. “Please, Bird…”

      “I’ll call you whatever I want,” Digging Bird said, standing and wading to the shore. “Hunts Bird,” she decided. “It can be our secret name.”

      Han stood there helplessly, waist-deep in the water, thinking she was the one who needed a new name.

      He and Bird and Dancer had been friends since he could remember. Every summer since he was small, Mam had sent him up from the city to live at Marisa Pines. They’d camped together, hunted together, and fought endless battles against imaginary enemies throughout the Spirit Mountains.

      They’d studied under the ancient bow master at Hunter’s Camp, chafing at the requirement that they build a bow before shooting it. He’d been with Bird when she took her first deer, then burned with envy until he got his. When he did, she’d taught him how to slow smoke the meat so it would last through the winter. They were twelve at the time.

      They played hare and wolf for days on end. One of them—the hare—would set out through the woods, doing his or her best to throw the other two off, by walking over solid СКАЧАТЬ