Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Shortly past the faintest glimmer of moonrise, I turned to Sanya. She had helped me sort through what to take, and I'd given her several things I didn't want Leif to confiscate. She also brought me an extra water flask, enough staple food for a fortnight, and the most precious gift of all—extra flint, a metal spoon, and a small pan so I could cook over an open fire.

Ren had arrived with her, and while we hurriedly packed my things, he kept a watch out for anything suspicious. It seemed like I had fooled Garimorn into believing that I'd obey and show up on the morning, because nobody came near my house.

I gathered my bow and a couple quivers of arrows, my short sword, and my dagger. I also packed rope, a hatchet and axe, the heaviest winter blankets that I could carry on Yaran's back, a leather waterproofed tarp, and a bucket protected from the wind with embers in it so I could easily start a fire.

I lived near enough the outskirts of town to sneak away without attracting notice, and so I set the key on the table and stood by the door. Nothing in the house would be spared, it all belonged to the sheriff and the Magistrate now. I steeled myself for what was likely to be a brutal trip, but I was still afraid to take that first step.

"You should leave while you can," Sanya whispered, her eyes brimming. A tear raced down her cheek. "I feel so guilty. I should have loaned you the money earlier."

"You and Ren couldn't afford it. You can't really afford to help me now, but I appreciate everything you've done. To be truthful, I'm not sure I can do this."

My heart ached. I'd spent my entire life in this village, and now it was about to be all gone. But it was time. I gave Sanya and Ren a silent hug and swung up onto Yaran's back, gently spurred him, and we were off.

I headed north, avoiding the main gates leading out of the village. Instead, I opted for a seldom-used side path that the hunters mostly took to avoid congesting the main roads during hunting season. It led to the northwest, toward Bramble Fel Forest. Granted the forest was quite a distance away, but I would cut off on a side trail that my father often used.

Few hunters dared the trail, given it cut through a fen that was reputedly haunted, but I knew that I had to put my fears aside. Garimorn would send out a search party, at least until he decided that I'd died from stupidity. If I could lie low for a few days, I should be in the clear. What I'd do after that, I had no clue, but I'd cross that river when I came to it.

As the lights of Renmark began to vanish behind me, I yawned. I'd taken a nap for a few hours in the early evening, but I was still tired.

I stared up at the sky. It was overcast, though the snow shower had stopped, but the silver clouds glimmered, and moonlight reflected through them, lighting the path. The sounds of the night echoed around me—the soft movement of animals in the bushes, the crunching of thin snow beneath Yaran's feet, the swish of tree boughs in the blustery night.

The evergreens loomed tall—blue spruce and fir mostly. Here and there, tamaracks stood out among the perpetual green of the other conifers, with their golden needles still clinging to the boughs. Come the next windstorm and the air would be filled with them as they shed their kingly cloaks to stand as barren as their deciduous cousins. The maple, birch and rowan trees had already dropped their leaves, now slumbering until spring.

The taps had been removed from the maples, but come the Wind Moon, several months after midwinter, the sap would begin to flow again and the harvesters would be out in full force. I had brought some maple-sugar candy for quick energy. My mother and I had tapped several trees and each year, we made enough syrup and sugar for our needs.

Thinking about maple sap brought me back to thoughts of home, and my mother. I missed her keenly, and the past couple of days had only increased that loss.

Thoughts of my cozy house with the crackling fire and the aroma of stew cooking over the fire filled my mind. As I swayed along, holding firmly to Yaran's reins, I finally let myself cry. Life had gone from comfortable and predictable to leaping into the abyss.

By dawn, I was exhausted. I was used to riding long distances, but the emotional overwhelm of the past few days consumed me, and I just wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep for hours. As the light lengthened, it occurred to me that I'd best get off trail. While I had managed a long trek in the hours during the night, I had stuck to the main path and now it was time to hide. There were still enough hunters out looking for game that I couldn't chance any of them seeing me and reporting back to Garimorn. I figured that I had till midmorning at best before he figured out that I'd left town. For one thing, my horse wouldn't be at the house.

When he realized I wasn't showing up, my guess was that Garimorn would search the village first, and I prayed he wouldn't question Sanya and Ren too much. They were good at bluffing, though. If asked, they would tell him that they had sold me bread and cheese, but that I hadn't said much, just that I seemed lost in thought and had said I might be gone for a time.

That way, they wouldn't get in trouble. If he pressed, then Sanya could say that she was certain I hadn't told her what was happening so that she wouldn't worry. The last thing I wanted was for her and Ren to get in trouble for helping me.

I spotted a side trail up ahead, leading north, into the depths of the forest. It looked abandoned. The brush was so overgrown that it told me the hunters hadn't used it much, and I struggled to even remember seeing it marked on my father's map he had drawn.

"That's the path leading to Bramble Fel Forest," I said. "No wonder it's fallen out of use."

Yaran just twitched his ears.

The forest I knew—the Leanderial Forest—gave way to the Bramble Fel the farther north you went. Few of the hunters ventured into Bramble Fel, and the path had fallen out of use. I hoped that one horse passing through wouldn't leave too many marks in the thick overgrowth that covered a good share of the path. Riding slowly and deliberately, I chucked to Yaran to pick his way through the tangle as we began our way up the slope.

"Slow boy," I said. "Take your time."

It was as though he understood me.

Yaran cautiously navigated the thick foliage that covered the path. My people—the People of the Snow—lived between biomes. We were in a wide region that was known as the Leanderial Zone, marked on the south by the Leanderial line and to the north, by the Eiralpine Line. Where we were hunters and gatherers, the People of the Sun were agricultural, and above the Eiralpine line, the People of the Sky were nomadic and lived with little social structure.

The People of the Snow lived close enough to the upper mountains that the flora of both interwove to create an ecotone, with the best of both zones combining. I couldn't remember much about the Bramble Fel, but I was about to find out.

As I entered the canopy of the shadowed woodland, the tamaracks gave way to larger, darker conifers. The wood ferns were almost waist high, and as Yaran picked his way through them, their fronds gave way, then snapped back to cover our passage. I glanced behind me to see that—unless someone looked closely—we were leaving no sign that we had come this way.

Relaxing, I paused and unpacked a sliver of maple-sugar candy, eating it and then swigging a drink of water to clear my throat. The candy gave me energy, and I decided I could wait for breakfast until I found a good place to stop.

An hour later, the sun was up and dawn gave way to a cloud-covered morning. The light was diffused and the chill in the air was setting in. It was getting colder. I sniffed. Snow was on the horizon. My guess was that it would be snowing heavy flakes by noon, which would give me both an extra advantage—it would be harder to follow my tracks—but also a curse. Riding in thick snow wasn't easy.

I began to look around, wondering where to make camp. I needed some form of cover, though the leather tarp would work to help keep the snow at bay, if I tied it correctly. It was large enough that I could make a short A-line structure with it, but I didn't want to waste that much of its coverage.

But as I broke through the thicket into a small clearing, to one side I saw a hole in the slope. It was then that I realized how steep the grade of the path was. It wasn't steep enough to notice on horseback, but it steadily inclined. The forest was so thick that I had almost forgotten I was on a path at all. Praying the hole wouldn't lead in to a wolf or a bobcat den, I brought Yaran to a stop and swung off, grimacing when my feet hit the ground.

"Cripes, I'm stiff," I grumbled, just to hear myself talk. Over the past hour or so, the forest had grown closer, and the birdsong had diminished. The wind had picked up, but mostly near the tops of the trees. They were so thick here that it kept the worst of the gusts away from the ground. I glanced behind me. The main trail had vanished; I couldn't see anything to indicate its existence, which meant that no one from there could see me, either.

I cautiously approached the cave. The entrance was barely high enough for me to step through. I peeked inside, but nothing came charging out. From what I could tell, it was a simple hole, only a few feet deep before it ran into the wall.

There was only the main chamber, with no other outlets—another good thing. I could rest here, cover the hole with the tarp, and get some sleep. Yaran couldn't fit, but there was a large patch of wood ferns near the hole and I could partially hide him there. He was a smart horse, he would put up a fuss if anybody but me tried to lure him away.

I double-checked the little cavern for any snakes or anything, but they were all in their underground burrows by now. Spreading out my blankets, I then took the pot of embers and set it close to the opening so that any smoke wouldn't fill the hole. I stoked the embers to life with some kindling and a few small pieces of wood. The flames shot up as the sparks caught hold, and I relaxed for the first time since I'd left my home.

I brought out some bread and cheese, and decided against cooking anything. I wanted to be much farther away before I took the time to settle in and make a proper stew over the fire. Instead, I covered Yaran with a saddle blanket to keep him warm and brushed away the snow so he could graze on the grass beneath. Then—armed with my bread and cheese and an apple—I settled down on the blankets, near the crackling flames.

The fire wasn't big enough to warm me thoroughly, but I took my gloves off, held my hands near the flames, and leaned close enough for the warmth to take the edge off the chill. After a few minutes, I ate my bread and cheese and then, the food hitting me like a sedative, I snuggled up beneath the blankets and fell asleep, so tired that no dreams entered my mind.

I woke near dusk. I'd slept through the entire day. As I stepped out of the cave, I realized that it had snowed most of the afternoon. Instead of a thin layer covering the ground, now the forest wore a blanket of white, inches thick. There were no track marks near the cave, save where Yaran had shifted his weight, and small tracks that I read to be squirrels.

Grateful I'd worn boots instead of flats, I tramped through the snow, stopping behind a nearby bush to relieve myself. I had thought to bring several rolls of tessori—sanitary paper we got from our trades with the People of the Sun. I dug into the snow to bury the signs, then caught up a handful of the frozen water to wash my hands. I would have to figure out how to improvise once the tessori ran out, but hopefully by then I'd find a place to settle. Finally, I packed one of the flasks I'd emptied with fresh snow. It would melt into water as I traveled.

After stowing my blankets, making sure the embers were still cushioned and burning in my fire bucket, and securing everything to Yaran I swung into the saddle again and, amid the fluttering snowflakes, headed deeper into the forest.

While the path was harder to see in the dusk and the snow, there was a clear trail through the trees, overgrown or not. But the snow made it hard for Yaran to pick his way through, and I huddled in my rabbit-trimmed cloak as we slowly forged our way into the thicket. I wasn't sure how far until we were fully into the heart of the Bramble Fel Forest, but we weren't there yet.

If I remembered correctly, the borders of the forest were around three days trek from the village. Which meant two more days traveling. But each moment, each hour put me further away from Garimorn and the village, and so I forced myself to keep my focus as I rode along. I had brought along some yuv-yuv leaves. When chewed, they acted like a stimulant. They grew wild in the forests, but it was past the season of harvest. Luckily, they were small and easy to carry, and it took only a few to wake up a tired mind and body.

As night fell around me, I kept my focus on the present. It was all too easy for speculation to turn into catastrophizing, and the last thing I needed was to throw myself into a panic.

Instead, I thought about what I might use for a travel lantern. Tonight would be as bright as the night before, thanks to the clouds and the snowfall, but if the snow stopped, I wouldn't be able to see beyond my hand.

I didn't want to carry a torch, nor a lantern. Those were too easily seen in a pitch-black environment, although they were good for keeping predatory animals at bay. But they would alert any bandits or human predators to my presence right away. There were a few magical items that produced glow-lights, but I didn't own any, and I hadn't known anybody who did. There just wasn't a good answer to what I needed. But, if the storms held another night, I should manage to switch to traveling during the day.

Speaking of…what the hell was I going to do? I'd gotten away, but now what? I could hide out in the Bramble Fel for a little while, then make my way to the south, down past the Leanderial line. I could get a job as a washwoman or servant, or maybe find a business I could do. There was still hunting to be done, or maybe I could start a little farm.

I let myself muse on the possibilities as the miles wore away beneath Yaran's hooves. To my surprise, despite the snowfall, I found a peace in the silence as I rode into whatever future Fate had decided to hand me.