Seer's Blood Read online

  Rand eased back a step, not happy to have been pointed out. “I’m leaving now, Mommy.”

  Lottie had her back to them, a good, sturdy back that suddenly seemed too slight for this worry, and she stared off the porch to the seeded garden spot past the front yard. Abruptly, she turned to the house, her face hidden, but her voice as revealing as ever — this time, determined that things would turn out well.

  “You just wait a minute, Rand. You’ll need a lunch, and a little extra for when you find her.” All practicality and back to the Lottie they knew, but Rand wondered at the little bit of Blaine he thought he’d seen in that moment of confrontation with Cadell.

  ~~~~~

  Blaine woke with an immediate feeling of trepidation, wondering which parts of the previous day had been real and which were merely memories of the night’s intense dreams. She lay with her eyes closed and determined that she was chilled and almost too stiff to move, and that yes, she really must have had the adventures she remembered. That, and that Dacey had already risen, leaving her with the luxury of all the blankets to herself — though she’d slept hard, and didn’t remember him coming to rest at her back, or even that he’d been there at all.

  That settled, she ventured a look around. Although the weather had faired and the sky was clear, the sun hadn’t yet breached the opposite mountain, and everything was damp, including Blaine. To her relief, the big ticked hound was nowhere in sight. His warmth at night was one thing — confronting his big face during the day was another. She sat and stretched painfully, straightening her skirts from where they had rucked up around her knees — not that they were much longer than that any more, anyway. She thought of the new set she’d been working at, folded neatly in the trunk at the end of her and Lenie’s bed, and wondered if she’d ever finish them.

  She’d thought she was alone, but then she heard Dacey’s low chuckle. It was a warning — for Blue was trotting into the rough camp, an offensive vision of bloody, drooly hound. A giant lump of smeary brown fur hung from his big jaws, and Blue, minus a small chunk of nose, had blood dripping from both his ears, tinting his ticked chest pink. He stopped in front of her and gave the furry blob a proud little shake; the offering swung heavily in his jaws.

  “He ain’t going to hurt you,” Dacey assured her, not moving from his spot somewhere behind her.

  That was a matter of opinion. Blaine drew her feet in close.

  Blue dropped the fur at those feet; it struck the ground with a dull thump and rolled limply over to reveal itself as a groundhog, a large fellow already fat with early spring greens. Blue plumped his bottom to the ground and watched her expectantly.

  “I believe he’s got a crush on you,” Dacey said, amusement in his voice.

  “That’s silly.” Blaine was not amused. “I ain’t that fond of dogs.”

  “Maybe not, but a dog’s got a way of looking into a person’s heart, and ole Blue must’ve liked what he seen. Now tell him he’s a good fellow, or he’ll sulk all day, and I don’t have time for that.”

  Uncertainly, Blaine regarded the dog. Too much encouragement, and he might come closer, smearing her with that gory face. She offered, “Good boy, Blue. Nice dog.”

  How that tremulous praise could have meant anything, she didn’t know, but the ticked hound thumped his tail on the ground, and his jaws fell open in a happy pant.

  Dacey gave a grunt of satisfaction and interrupted the scene by scooping up the groundhog. He looked much better today, his face healed up more than she ever would have thought possible, his movements easy. It worked. The tea worked, just like the blinder.

  “’Atta boy, Blue,” he said with satisfaction, and quickly field-dressed the animal. He fed the liver and heart to the dogs, the rest of whom had wandered in after Blue, wrapped the carcass, and stowed it in his bulky pack. “Ready to go?” he asked.

  “Go?” she replied blankly.

  “They’re gonna be looking for us today. And even if they can’t track worth nothing, they’ve got enough men they could stumble on us by chance.”

  Blaine staggered to her stiff legs and excused herself into the brush. On the way back she shook some wet rhododendron leaves off on her hands and scrubbed her face, a crude washing up that nonetheless made her feel better — and gave her time to think. Dacey and the five hounds were waiting, more or less patiently, when she returned to the camp. Waiting to leave.

  “I ain’t so sure I want to go a-traipsing off with you,” she said, trying to look him in the eye and ending up with her gaze on Mage instead. “It’s one thing to avoid my daddy’s farm. It’s a big ’nother one to go further off than we already are.”

  “Blaine...we done gone over this.”

  She fidgeted with the end of her braid, and burst out with, “I don’t know you, Dacey Childers! I don’t know nothing about you. I only helped you ’cause no man deserves what those strangers did. I don’t even know why they were doing it! But...my daddy’s got to be warned of ’em.”

  “I’ve done warned your daddy — I told you that.” Dacey shifted the pack against his back. “You do know something of me, Blaine. You know I come from the seers’ line. You know I ain’t mean to these dogs, and that I never come near you last night.” His voice made a subtle leap from its sensible tone to intensity. “And you know you was seen when you got me loose — mebbe all they seen was skirts and braids, but that’d be plenty. Those men are going to be looking for us, and it won’t go easy for neither of us, should we be found.” He gave her a moment to think about it. Then he said, “Best you come with me, Blaine.”

  “I guess...” she said faintly, unwilling yet to face it — but Dacey’s expression was set.

  “I can’t stay,” he told her, almost like he might be pleading with her, “and I can’t have your harm sitting on my shoulders.”

  She tried again in a stronger voice, “I guess maybe I will.”

  ~~~~~

  Rand didn’t even try to find the signs from Blaine’s flight behind the barn; yesterday’s storm would have washed them clean away. Instead, he picked up the trail behind the springhouse. Blaine was in the habit of taking that dog path, and he didn’t need to follow exactly how she’d started, as long as he ended up at the same place.

  A quarter way up the slope, the trail hit a fork along the hillside. Both paths, he knew, got a body to the other side of the mountain, where she said she’d been — but at vastly different endpoints. He was betting she made a habit of taking the easiest.

  He struck out on his own, glancing only occasionally at the signs of her previous passages. Once he reached the rock she had sometimes mentioned — it couldn’t be anything else, not that brute — he saw a new trail, one left by bigger, clumsier feet than Blaine’s, a new trail that had survived even the storm. Full of sudden foreboding — Rand, there’s men, over the ridge — he slowed his pace, stopping often to take note of the forest. A few jays screamed above his head in occasional alarm, but he heard and saw nothing else that seemed disturbed.

  The new path led him straight to a camp.

  She’d been telling the truth.

  Men. Men with swords.

  But there was no sign of them, now; no sign of Blaine. Cautiously, he moved closer.

  Within the camp area, last fall’s leaves were shuffled and cleared in spots for fires. Rand started in the center of the camp and spiraled outward, moving slowly, carefully. He made a slow inspection of the area and found signs of horse or mule, temporary latrine areas, and game cleaning spots. One fire pit still held considerable heat. Startled, he instantly crouched to scan the trees.

  No, he was alone. He must be. But where had so many men gone, unnoticed? Cautiously, he continued his spiral, gradually passing to the edge of camp. Recent sign there indicated that the whole group had retraced the path they’d come in on, toward the creek at the bottom of the hollow. Travel was easier on the ridges; only men who didn’t know the hills would travel the creek, which they could follow to the river branch and thereby not go a
stray.

  And after then, where? And why?

  He wondered if Blaine knew. He wondered if she was with them. And much as he hated the thought, he almost hoped that she was, because otherwise...

  It took him a moment, then, to uncurl his fingers from clenched fists, and continue his search. He walked a few circles past the camp perimeter until he happened on a tangle of threads the color of Blaine’s winter wool, snared in greenbriar.

  There was no other sign of her.

  He stopped, wiped his hands over his face, and thought. Daddy and Jason would be trailing Blaine soon enough, and the dogs would find sign that Rand walked right over. But he was the only one who knew of the strangers.

  So rather than walk the ridge hollering for his sister, Rand took a deep breath and made his way to the creek — and then stood there frowning at the still-muddy water. The strangers were heading for the river branch, all right, and from there they could easily find their way to the river and the settled creek mouths. Those families needed to be warned.

  He didn’t hesitate, not any more. He headed for home. It was time to come clean about Blaine’s wanderings and his part in covering for her...and what she’d said about Dacey and the strangers.

  He half expected to hear Jason’s dogs sounding before he made it back, but the hills remained silent; he made it back to the final slope above the springhouse without sighting any other searchers. Strange.

  The farm looked quiet; the children were nowhere to be seen, not even Willum — who, at this time of day, was usually the color of grime and possessed of a collection of insects, dead and alive. Then he remembered that today was a quilt party at the meeting house. All his family was there, except for his daddy; even Lottie had decided to go, hoping to spread the word about the search for Blaine.

  Good. It would be easier if he could talk to Cadell alone first.

  But his relief was short-lived. As soon as he rounded the house, Rand discovered the men grouped about his porch. Neighbors all, and some he hadn’t seen since winter set in. Why, there was old man Bayard, who had declared years ago that anyone with something to say could just walk down to his little shack and say it — and iff’n they didn’t see fit to visit an old man, Bayard didn’t see as they’d be good company anyway.

  But now he was on Rand’s porch, commanding the cushion on the swing. Rand mounted the steps to the porch and went unremarked as the loud buzz of talk continued.

  “I don’t see how you could have heard the same dogs, seeings how you’re two hollers away from us,” Wade was saying to Cadell, who answered with a shrug.

  “I didn’t ride that mule all the way over here to talk about who heard dogs and who didn’t,” Bayard said, his voice as over-loud as usual. “Things don’t seem quite right around here, and it’s that we’ve got to talk about. Don’t reckon I’m the only one to note the northern sky some days back!”

  Only Jason nodded — sandy-haired Jason, standing at the outside corner of the porch with two of his big brindle hounds on lead; the others looked baffled.

  “Bayard, you put too much on them old eyes,” Wade said. “Sky’s been the same as always.”

  “I seen it.” Jason lifted his head, a challenge to Wade. “Funny kind of haze over the northern ridges, a downright sickly, dark thing.”

  Cadell surprised Rand by adding, “My middle girl — the one that’s gone missing — she said the same.”

  “Any of you have any sense, you’re thinking of the Takers.” Bayard tamped his walking stick on the porch in emphasis, looking right justified in it.

  Cadell gave him a startled look; Rand saw uneasiness mixed in, as well. No one else seemed to note it.

  “The Takers are dead,” Wade said. “And the sky is fine.”

  “Don’t try to tutor me on the Takers, young man. You should reckon well enough that I’m the only one in these parts to know my granpappy and hear of his time on Anneka Ridge. I’ve certainly told you all enough times!”

  At this unintentional confession there were low snickers all around, and Bayard let them pass. “Let me tell you, I heard often enough myself about that battle. Sure those men thought they’d cleaned up the Takers for good. But for all the times you’ve heard about the battle, how many times have you heard about the only sure sign that came before? The purple-like sky in the north. Comes off o’ their magic, I was told, and it ain’t no wonder can’t all of us see it — how many boast a seer’s blood, these days?”

  Silence — an admission of sorts — greeted his remarks. Finally Cadell spoke, and his voice was tired. “All right. Supposing we’re dealing with more Takers. Just supposing. What, then? We ain’t got a seer to point out which of them, and maybe which of our neighbors, are Took. And if it is like the tales we’ve heard, they’ll come here with a passal o’ men — too many for us to fight without the Takers getting to us. Our only chance is to tell who’s Took, according to what I’ve heard, an’ kill those men first.”

  “Or those women,” Bayard said grimly, adding a dimension to the history they’d never heard before.

  “Not women!” Jason, wed within the year and already waiting for his first child, stiffened.

  “Or children,” Bayard said firmly. “You know all it takes is a touch on flesh for a Taker to put some of its power in you. Then you might as well be dead, an’ better off, too, because you can’t stop from hurting your neighbors and kin. What better way for them Takers to get close to us? Be a woman, and the menfolk don’t think to be wary of you. Or a child, crying in the dirt. Go to pick it up and comfort it, and you’re one of Them.”

  “So what do we do about it?” Cadell repeated — slowly, distracted. Thinking of something he hadn’t owned up to yet.

  “Find us a seer?” Jason said hopefully.

  “Quit scaring each other like little ol’ women,” Wade scoffed. “Start paying attention to raising crops an’ children and not our hair.”

  “Might be best.” But Jason sounded tentative, even if most of the men nodded at his words.

  Cadell’s jaw set, a thinking look. Rand knew it. Knew his father wasn’t happy about what he was about to say.

  Knew he’d be even more unhappy about what Rand had to say.

  “Daddy,” he said, stepping the rest of the way up to the porch.

  Cadell didn’t let him get anything else out, showing an anxiety he hadn’t revealed that morning. “Rand! Did you find your sister?”

  “No. But I found something else, and I think these men’ll care to hear it.” He hesitated, and Cadell nodded him to continue. “Yesterday at noon, Blaine came down from the hills and told me she’d seen some men in that wild hollow over the ridge.”

  “Fiddlehead Hollow? No one lives there, not since that seer family was burned out in the Taker fighting,” Bayard said.

  “Blaine don’t go that far into the hills,” Cadell said, but he’d turned to wariness, one that spoke of his own lack of conviction. He believed it already — he just didn’t want to.

  “Meaning no disrespect, but she does. She always walks the hills, to get away from —” Rand glanced at his uncle, sitting there beside Cadell, and changed his wording to “ — Lenie’s teasing.” Cadell knew well enough what he’d really meant. “She’s never been hiding in the high barn like you all figured, an’ I — well, I didn’t figure it was my business to tell hers. By the time I found out about it, she already knew the hills well enough to take care of herself.”

  “So what’s the point?” Wade said.

  “Yesterday she came and told me about these men, all ruffled up about it. She wanted me to come see, but... well, you know how she gets these things in her head sometimes,” he shrugged, unable to meet anyone’s gaze. “I figured she’d just dreamt something. So she headed back up the hill — she was trying to get me to follow. And...this morning when I followed her trail, I found signs of a big camp. Horse sign, too. Fresh, from earlier today. They’d left out towards the creek, headed downstream.” He looked at Cadell. “I couldn’t f
ind any trail on Blaine. Just enough to know she’d been there. But listening to your talk, I thought this was something that concerned more than just us.”

  There was silence, then, as the men considered the significance of the Takers sky and the presence of armed strangers; even Wade had sobered.

  Rand sat on the porch rail to face his father. “Y’know, she said something about that Dacey fellow. Said they had him tied, and she was afraid for him. She said they had swords.” He gave his daddy an apologetic look. “That’s why I thought she’d been dreaming. Who’s even heard of them being used around here?”

  “Dacey?” Bayard said sharply. “Ain’t no one by the name of Dacey hereabouts.”

  “From the family of Childers, down south of us. Old seer family. Came to my place a few nights back with trade for a meal and dog scraps.” Cadell hesitated. “I warn’t sure how to bring this up before, but...he done gave me a warning before he left. I didn’t take no stock in it at the time....”

  Rand gave his father a sharp look, suddenly afraid of what he was going to hear — more afraid, even, than of what he’d already found.

  “Spit it out, Cadell!” Bayard demanded.

  Hard and sudden, Cadell did. “Said he’d had seeings. That he was here because them seeings told him the Takers were coming back.”

  There was silence. They were on Cadell’s homeplace; no one wanted to offend. And as they took that moment’s hesitation, their skepticism turned to the same mixture of half-believing wariness that still rode Cadell’s features.

  Jason was the first to break the silence, his brows bunched up over his strong forehead. “Say it’s so. What’re we gonna do about it? A stranger touches you and quick as that you’re his? We’re needing a seer to tell who’s safe? It’s so, an’ we’re all in a mighty bad place.”

  “Sit in our homes and make damn sure no stranger sets foot on our land,” Wade snorted, looking pointedly at Cadell.

  “Quit yer bulling at Cadell, Wade. We’d had no talk of the Takers when he made this Childers fellow welcome, an’ he’s the only one with a daughter missing.” Bayard stuck his chin out at Wade, who subsided. “Now that we’ve had some talk about the situation, I expect we’ll all be more careful...an’ the first thing we got to do is track down those men.” He trailed off to squint down at the end of the yard. “Cadell, ain’t that your oldest girl a’running up the lane?”