Part 28 (2/2)
Brin glanced down self-consciously at her hands, folded in her lap before her. She remembered Allanon touching her forehead with his blood as he lay dying and she s.h.i.+vered with the memory.
”Poor us,” she echoed softly.
They rested for a few minutes longer, then resumed their journey east. Barely an hour later, they crossed a shallow, gravel-bottomed stream that meandered lazily away from the swifter flow of the main channel of the Chard Rush back along a worn gully. They caught sight of a single-room cabin that sat back in among the forest trees. Built from hand-cut logs laid crosswise and caulked with mortar, the little home was settled in a clearing upon a small rise that formed a threshold to a series of low hills sloping gently away into the forest. A handful of sheep and goats and a single milk cow grazed in the timber behind the cabin. At the sound of their approach, an aged hunting dog rose from his favorite napping spot next to the cabin stoop and stretched contentedly.
The woodsman Jeft stood at the far side of the little clearing, stripped to the waist as he cut firewood. With a sure, practiced swing downward of the long-handled axe, he split the piece of timber that stood upright on the worn stump that served as a chopping block. Working the embedded blade free, he brushed aside the cloven halves before pausing in his work to watch his visitors approach. Lowering the axe-head to the stump, he rested his gnarled hands on the smooth b.u.t.t of the handle and waited.
”Morning,” Brin greeted as they came up to him.
”Morning,” the woodsman replied, nodding. He seemed pot at all surprised that they were there. He glanced at Rone. ”Feeling a bit better, are you?”
”Much,” Rone answered. ”Thanks in part to you, I'm told.”
The woodsman shrugged, the muscles on his powerful body knotting. He gestured toward the cabin. ”There's drinking water on the stoop in that bucket. I bring it fresh from the hills in back each day.”
He led them down to the cabin porch and the promised bucket. All three took a long drink. Then they seated themselves on the stoop, and the woodsman produced pipe and tobacco.
He offered the pouch to his guests, but they declined, so he packed the bowl of his own pipe and began to smoke.
”Everything fine back at the trading center?” he asked casually. There was a long silence.
”I heard about what happened the other night with that bunch from Spanning Ridge country.”
His eyes s.h.i.+fted slowly to Brin. ”Word has a way of getting around a lot quicker than you'd think out here.”
The Valegirl held his gaze, ignoring her discomfort. ”The trader told us where to find you,” she informed him. ”He said you might be able to help us.”
The woodsman puffed on the pipe. ”In what way?””He told us that you know as much as anyone about this country.”
”I've been out here a long time,” the man agreed.
Brin leaned forward. ”We are already in your debt for what you did to help us back at the trading center. But we need your help again. We need to find a way through the country that lies east of here.”
The woodsman stared at her sharply, then slowly removed the pipe from between his teeth. ”East of here? You mean Darklin Reach?”
Both Valegirl and highlander nodded.
The woodsman shook his head doubtfully. ”That's dangerous country. No one goes into Darklin Reach if they can avoid it.” He glanced up. ”How far in do you plan to go?”
”All the way,” Brin said quietly. ”And then into Olden Moor and the Ravenshorn.”
”You're mad as jays,” the woodsman announced matter-of-factly and knocked the ashes from the pipe, grinding them into the earth with his boot. ”Gnomes and walkers and worse own that country. You'll never come out alive.”
There was no reply. The woodsman studied their faces in turn, rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully, and finally shrugged.
”Guess you've got your own reasons for doing this, and it's none of my business what they are. But I'm telling you here and now that you're making a big mistake-maybe the biggest mistake you'll ever make. Even the trappers stay clear of that country. Men disappear up there like smoke-gone without a trace.”
He waited for a reply. Brin glanced briefly at Rone and then back at the woodsman once more. ”We have to go. Can you help us?”
”Me?” The woodsman grinned crookedly and shook his head. ”Not me, girl. Even if I was to go with you-which I won't, 'cause I like living-I'd be lost myself after the first day or so.”
He paused, studying them shrewdly. ”I suppose you're set on this?”
Brin nodded wordlessly, waiting.
The woodsman sighed. ”Maybe there's someone else who can help you then-if you're sure this is what you want.” He blew sharply through the stem of his pipe to clean it, then folded his arms across his broad chest. ”There's an old man named Cogline. Must be ninety by now if he's still alive. Haven't seen him for almost two years, so I can't be sure if he's even there anymore.
Two years ago, though, he was living up around a rock formation called Hearthstone that sits right in the middle of Darklin Reach-formation that looks just like a big chimney.” He shook his head doubtfully. ”I can give you directions, but the trails aren't much. That's wild country; hardly anything human living that far east that isn't Gnome.”
”Do you think he would help us?” Brin pressed anxiously.
The woodsman shrugged. ”He knows the country. He's lived there all his life. Doesn't bother coming out more than once a year or so-not even that the last two. Stays alive somehow in that jungle.” The heavy brows lifted. ”He's an odd duck, old Cogline. Crazier than a fish swimming through gra.s.s. He might be more trouble than help to you.”
”We'll be all right,” Brin a.s.sured him.
”Maybe.” The woodsman looked her over carefully. ”You're a pretty thing to be wandering off into that country, girl-even with your singing to protect you. There's more than thieves and cowards out there. I'd think on this before you go any further with it.”
”We have thought.” Brin came to her feet. ”We're decided.”
The woodsman nodded. ”You're welcome to take with you all the water you can carry,then. At least you won't die of thirst.”
He helped them refill their water pouches, carrying a fresh bucket of water from the spring that ran down out of the hills behind his cabin, then took several minutes more to give them the directions they needed to reach Hearthstone, scratching a crude map in the earth before the stoop.
”Look after yourselves,” he admonished, offering each a firm handshake.
With a final word of farewell, Brin and Rone hitched up their provisions across their backs and walked slowly from the little cabin into the trees. Behind them, the woodsman stood watching. It was clear from the look on his bearded face that he did not expect to see them pa.s.s that way again.
29.
They journeyed through that day and the next, following the twists and turns of the Chard Rush as it wound steadily deeper through the forests of the Anar and crossed into Darklin Reach. Rone was gaining in strength, but he had not yet fully recovered, and progress was slow. After a brief meal on the second evening, he went directly to sleep.
Brin sat before the fire, staring into the flames. Her mind was still filled with unhappy memories and dark thoughts. Once, before she felt herself growing sleepy, it seemed that Jair was with her. Unconsciously, she looked up, seeking him. But there was no one there, and logic told her that her brother was far away, indeed. She sighed, banked the fire, and crawled into her blankets.
It was not until well into the afternoon of the third day following their departure from the Rooker Line Trading Center that Brin and Rone caught sight of a singular rock formation that loomed blackly in the distance and knew that they had found Hearthstone.
Hearthstone was a dark, clear silhouette against the changing colors of autumn, its rugged pinnacle dominating the shallow, wooded valley over which it stood watch. Chimneylike in appearance, the formation was a ma.s.s of weathered stone carved by nature's fine hand and shaped with. the pa.s.sing of the years. Silence hung starkly over its towering shadow. Solitary and enduring, it beckoned compellingly from out of the dark sea of the vast, sprawling forestland of Darklin Reach.
Standing at the crest of a ridge, staring out across the land, Brin felt its unspoken whisper call out through her weariness and her uncertainty and experienced an unexpected sense of peace.
Another leg of the long trek east was almost over. The memories of what she had endured to reach this point and the warnings of what yet lay ahead were strangely distant now. She smiled at Rone and the smile clearly caught the highlander by surprise. Then, touching his arm gently, she started downward along the shallow valley slope.
The barely discernible line of a trail snaked down through the wall of the great trees. As the sun moved steadily toward the western horizon, the forest closed about them once more.
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