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  Yet it had been two days now and she had not been able to get a coherent word out of Rylan since. She was terrified, furious, that it was too late. Now she sat in this winter cold room that was Rylan's latest shak, a poor one as he struggled between sicknesses. Her eyes drifted over the cracked walls, the gaps and the chips, the rough clay floor. It is empty of more than the belongings I've sold for fresh water and food, she thought. This life of ours is dead, and this key is going to pick the lock of the Beast caves.

  She wrestled Rylan into a pair of thick pants, a tunic, and a sweater she'd been using as his pillow. She was rough, glad when she shook him awake. She was panting as she finished wrapping his belt on and tying his warclub to it. She stuffed his feet into boots and stood glaring down at him.

  “I'm leaving. If you want to live, get up and follow me.”

  Her words fell hard and cold, but she knew he would heed them. He could not delay any longer. The final chance to decide in favor of life over death was here, and she was confident of his choice, despite how his fear for her had made him wait until his body was at its weakest. She turned and walked out into the harsh white sun.

  She waited outside, leaning against the house. The sun was bright, but not warm enough to heat the adobe. As she waited for him to summon the will to follow her, her mind raced. Free of the burden to convince him to go, she thought again of her weak plan on how she was going to get there. Her only supplies were an oilskin wrapped around her waist with a coil of rope, and sharp throwing stones currently tied around a smaller rope's ends like a bolo. She had no food, as her stomach growled around the dry heels she'd forced down. But she wouldn't have gotten this far in life without being able to think on an empty stomach. When Rylan staggered, wheezing, into the doorway, she ducked under his arm to drape it around her shoulders, and they were off, heading due south. South out of the City, and south to find the Beasts.

  It was incredibly easy to leave the Dark. She had done it a handful of times before with Rylan when he was in the throes of fascination with the Wild. It seemed strange to her that their close, wretched world that contained all wealth, pain, friends, and future was in truth no wider than a half hour's walk straight out from the City walls. They would not be leaving along any of the City roads, nor even tracking along them once in the forest. It was the True Wild for them.

  Rylan's current shak happened to be on the southern side of the Dark, which made the journey infinitely easier. Her information said the Beast Caves were a three-day run due south from the City. All she had to do was get him to a water source in the forest, and then she'd go on alone. She refused to think about them separated, Rylan weak and alone, for days in the forest. For now, she just had to keep him moving. Even within the Dark there were good and bad areas, but you could always count on the outermost fringe, out near the trash barricade, to be a bad area. The nicer compounds were near the City wall.

  On a normal day, KarRa could have cleared the Dark and been at the barricade from Rylan's shak within a quarter hour. Today it took two hours. They fell four times, and she only managed to snatch a moldy roll and three carrots from the street level hovels, always those of the weakest, as they wound their way past. It took another hour for them to get clear of the debris encircling the Dark, that which had no trade value and was too big to be burned. She thought she had never strained so hard as she pushed, pulled, lifted, and rolled her man through the man-made obstacle of wood and stone scraps. Two shaks high, it worked well enough for wild men and creatures, providing a warning at the very least. It utterly failed to protect against fuzzies, the magical scourge. Their name sounded innocuous but they were a main reason for the City walls. The blurred dregs of loose mage energy drifted around until they came into contact with a human, where they burned the body to blackened char.

  The clearing on the other side was kept up by City guards, no brush or trees for three hundred paces so the rare attempt at crossing could be monitored. It would have been better to cross at sundown, but Rylan was shaking now, occasionally muttering to people not there, pouring sweat, and had wretched up all the liquid in his body. She knew once he went down he would not rise again easily. So they crossed. Sure enough, a guard called out at them when they were half way, but she flashed her skinmark and he fell silent and turned away. Far and Sera had done a good job of strengthening Scuffle's Clan reputation. Luckily, this guard must have some lawless ties to the area.

  They fell again within a bodylength of the forest. Scrambling for some leaves off a bush at the edge, she thrust them into Rylan's hands.

  “Feel it,” she gritted roughly, panting from hauling his weight for hours. “You're almost home.”

  She did not know where those words had come from, but they seemed effective as he staggered onto his feet with her help. He could no longer get upright and leaned over heavily. She tucked his hands into her belt and towed him like a child through the dense scrub at the edge of the clearing and finally they were among the canopy of full trees. Day was already sliding low now, and what small warmth the light had held was gone from the low angle of sun and the cool of the thin winter shade. She tugged her war club free, just to be safe. Every small hair on her nape thrilled to attention. Here it begins, she thought.

  She had gotten him into the forest, and she knew that if all the Winds flowed her way, she could get Rylan accepted by the Beasts. But she also knew she would not be returning to the Dark. She would not even be returning to the forest. She did not know why some of the men who were Beasts were turned away, but she knew, knew in her blood, that Rylan would not be. And that meant that she was going to disappear. Eaten, enslaved, sacrificed, magebound, she yanked her mind sharply from spiraling scenes of horror and torture. She had come to terms with it after Borl's screaming death. Then she had known that she not only could, but would do this. No screaming death agony for her man.

  Rylan's life was the purpose that gave her strength to get up and keep living. Whether he slept by her side or not, whether she went a year without smelling his scent warm in her nose with his arms around her, she owned him in a way no other could. She was alone in life, that lesson she had learned when he had closed the door on her in that crooked hall, yet Rylan was still somehow hers. For his constancy in childhood that had saved her sanity and life, for his lasting friendship and support through all her struggles, for his flesh against hers in the night all those years, she would willingly die to see him to his new Clan, where he would grow to become one of the powerful, privileged Beasts.

  Dragging him through the soft needles and cracking twigs, she lost track of time until it became too dark to see. She cued her war club and checked her path south again, then lit it softly with a word. Rylan had done the direction spell for her, but lighting was one of the few spells she could handle herself. They continued crashing so noisily her nerves were numb with terror for several hours before Rylan's legs gave out. Then she focused on getting him to drink water she painstakingly gathered from the leaves of the winter bushes around the area.

  Lying down behind him she spread the oilcloth over them and curled around him. She would have to be alert until Rylan revived. Her skin crawled with the feeling of openness around them, no walls to trap and spell for protection. The scent of True Wild all around her seared her nose with its sharpness and utter lack of any human taint. Without her club's light, she could not believe how black it was. There was no green tint to the air this far from the City wall. She strained to listen to every sound, and every sound was strange. Rylan's breathing seemed to even out, an old lullaby for her traitorous heart to follow.

  When she awoke, birds were singing. It was a sound she had heard but a few times before in her life, and then faintly. This pure calling seemed to pierce her mind. Wind was blowing in the trees. The light shifted to and fro. Something not human chattered a ways off. Cold air was seeping from somewhere, yet warmth was mostly trapped around her stiff, sore body. Cataloging the strange sounds, she decided all was normal in the forest around
them. Her pounding heart was commanded to accept her failure to stay on guard. They were still alive.

  She checked Rylan. He looked … better? He was not sweating, not shaking, not so yellow, although his lips were chapped, his eyes bruised and sunken. All that day she let him sleep as she explored in a spiral around him. She found no water, but collected what she found trapped in the crooks of plants and gave it to him. She ate the carrots, although she was not hungry. She thought with a sarcastic shrug, Why bother to eat when I’ll no doubt be dead or as good as in a week? Snorting at her high Guild drama, she determinedly munched and swallowed knowing her journey was far from over. KarRa always did what was needed to survive. It was a favorite phrase of Scuffle’s: “Live to spite and despite them.”

  Curled around Rylan again the next night, she strained to separate danger from forest. Her body melted with relief to feel his stir into wakefulness. He turned to her and gathered her close. They lay in their KarRylan tangle of old, feeling the strangeness of the forest around them.

  “What news,” he asked softly, hoarse.

  She shuffled around and brought out the stale roll. Ripping pieces off it, she mouthed them until they were soft and moist, and then put them in his mouth.

  “I think we are a half day's run into the forest,” she said after he had swallowed the last. “There is no water nearby, so we must go on. If we can find water, I'll leave you and go on by myself.”

  He was still, stroking her hair with weak curls of fingertips, then nodded. “Now or in the day?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Now then,” he said. He rose, tottered to a tree, and relieved himself while she rolled the oilcloth and bound it to her waist with the rope. He took his main war club and muttered words. “Water is closest that way.” He pointed south and she breathed a sigh of relief. Not backwards, nor angling west toward one of the City roads. The winds were flowing their way.

  He started out and made it a half hour before he had to ask to lean on her. She was astounded by this improvement. Following him, some of the worry knots eased under her ribs. He was going to live.

  It was just starting to creep light when they came upon the river. They both stood there, stupefied.

  “Have you ever?” she asked.

  “No,” he said faintly, “But I've dreamed it for days.”

  They sat, heavily, leaning against the other and just took in the wide, sparkling, chattering waters as the sun rose.

  She chuckled, “From no water to too much!”

  She spread out the oilcloth for him to sit on, brought him scoops and scoops, and then drank deep herself. She wet one of her sweaters and bathed their faces and arms. He lay down in the shade of thick bushes and she went off to hunt.

  Taking her bolo from her waist, untying one of her throwing knives from one end, she again studied the forest for prey as she had yesterday. But whereas before she had only seen flitting tiny birds high in the trees, now she saw the waste of ground animals. Eventually she even found a little path. The air smelled so fresh. The sounds of wind in dry leaves and distant water were so strange. Heart thumping, creeping slowly between trees, she watched for a shimmer in the air of a magic creature, as well as watching the ground for signs of wild ones. She was a good hunter, as chucks were one of the main sources of food in the Dark. Vermin, they crept in the dark, emerging from City sewers. They were small but long and quick, and hard to catch. She had no trapping supplies, but she did not need them.

  Finally she spotted a small furry grey creature that chittered and squeaked as it moved about the leaves at the base of a tree. Her knife found it with a quiet swish. She took it away from the small path to skin it. She summoned her own weak mageheat and seared the chunks of flesh. She choked it down, saving only a small portion for Rylan. From here on out, she would travel alone and needed strength. On her way back, she recognized chive stalks and pulled several handfuls. Not his favorite, but too bad.

  She woke him as soon as she returned. She fed him, helped him drink again, and had him lay a return spell on her backup club. She was leaving the still damp sweater laying on a nearby log, and her throwing knives. She tucked the oilcloth around him, leaving his right arm free of the cocoon so he could use his club quickly if need be.

  Kneeling next to him, they both stared at the river leaping and splashing a few paces away. She'd never seen anything so strange and beautiful as that wild road of water. It seemed to be alive, talking, laughing, always running but never getting away. She could have sat there for days.

  Eventually she turned to him and he raised his eyes to hers. They studied each other, dark eyes to gold. Leaning forward she touched her forehead to his, noses side by side, breath softly blowing onto each other's lips. Her heart thundered in her throat as pictures of him whirled in her mind’s eye. Rylan snarling at Scuffle when reprimanded for not knowing his lessons, feet too short to reach the floor. Rylan laughing silently at her from the shadows as she bungled a roof hang and slid with a crash onto a garden wall. Rylan shirtless, washing his hair, the summer he came into his growth, all smooth strips of muscle and tan skin. Rylan cursing her in a fury, Rylan stone-faced calm and liquid quick in battle, Rylan wrestling Far and shouting with laughter.

  Her head spun in a whirl of golden brown that had been the only beauty in her life. Pulling back, she saw his pupils retract in the midst of his incredible tawny eyes. Beast eyes that would reflect any mage light at night with a green cast or glow with power during strong emotion. His stubble had come into a soft thin beard during these last days and her fingers rasped through it as she trailed the tips along his jaw. He swallowed. She stood. His eyes traveled down her length and smoothly passed on, his head swinging around to the river.

  “You survive, KarRa. I will find you, find a way to protect you…” His hoarse voice broke.

  “Perhaps. You will live, and that is my satisfaction for my entire snarly life.” He closed his eyes and she felt his anguish and self-loathing beating along their magepath. She sent back love, then turned and walked away.

  Chapter 2: Dawn

  Her legs were sore. She sat and rested with her back to the wall. That she’d survived to get here, to the Beasts’ City, was half the miracle she needed. The small underground room was rounded, carved from rock, with niches for large balls of magelight. The wall was bumpy against her back. It was warmer down here than it had been above, and smelled of earth.

  Taking his old warclub off her belt, she cradled the precious magic that would find Rylan again, and held it close. She tried to imagine that she was like a Beast and could smell him on it. She managed to bring up the memory of his neck scent at night, then angrily banished the feeling when it made her eyes foolishly wet. It was an indication of just how close to the bone she was. Tears were an indulgence of the weak, Scuffle said. Fit only for the true dark, when you were alone.

  She checked on Rylan through their magepath, and found him weaker, stirring her anxiety. She sent comfort at his query to her stirred emotions. That he was still alive, lying defenseless in the wilderness for two days, was another part of the miracle.

  Then she focused her mind in her favorite activity of soothing yet wakeful concentration that she used whenever she had to wait patiently, which was often in her career as a thief.

  She began listing all the knifedances she knew—formal ones Scuffle had taught them based on City knife fighting. Not particularly useful for real fighting but good for concentrating, balancing, and stretching. She went on to holding her memory of Scuffle's shak before his death. She had made it to his upper floors when her guard stood aside as stepping feet sounded down the hall. She let her fighting face settle into place and stood. So far she hadn’t been touched, or even questioned much.

  Five men swept into the room smoothly and fanned out around her. The one who entered last paused in mindtalk for several moments with her first guard. He was taller than the rest, with thick black hair but tan skin and wearing only a knee length leather skirt. Th
e rest were all dark-skinned and dressed as her first guard, in complete sets of leather, as she was. Then he turned and strode up to the stone table opposite her, putting his hands flat upon it and looking her all over.

  He rolled his shoulders, expanded by at least a half a head, and then his magic hit her like an entire basket of wet laundry dumped on her head.

  Her breath left in a rush and she nearly cried out in shock. She had never known anything like it, and she had been scanned by powerful exiles before, but that had felt more like ants or chucks swarming her than this incredible crushing force. When she became aware again she had no idea of how much time had passed, but she was listing against the wall, shaky.

  “Your name,” he spoke with utter command.

  “KarRa.”

  “Your whole name,” he demanded impatiently.

  “Just KarRa,” she responded calmly to his harsh commands. At this there was a swift exchange of eyes around the room. She had dealt with hostility and cruelty all her life and if he thought to shake her knees with simple intimidation he was mistaken.

  “From where do you hail?”

  “Outside the wall of Fourth City.”

  He tipped his head. “Tril tells me you speak Truxet. What Beastspirit are you tied to?”

  “I do not know what any of that means.”

  The man frowned even more ferociously. “The guard that found you says you spoke in our way, in complete understanding.”

  “I was using Dark bodyspeak.”

  “You have had no contact with any Beasts?”

  “I've known Borl and Rylan.”

  “And what Clan were they of?” He was getting frustrated with her.

  “Borl was of Morg's clan, and Rylan is of my clan, Far's.” This caused more eye flicking among the men.

  “Which is the one you want us to go to.”

  “Rylan. He lies in the forest beyond the river two days north from here. I have this club keyed to lead you there.” She stepped forward and laid it on the table, the guard closest to her tensed, growled.