Nik didn’t overthink it. He ran, stopping only twice—once at a blackberry thicket where he gritted his teeth against the pain and then dragged his wrists and the backs of his hands against the knife-tipped thorns before slicing off a thick branch and doing the same to his face and neck. His next stop was at a stream that was really little more than a brackish low spot in the forest. He rubbed mud on his face, hands, and clothes. He wished he didn’t have to but decided it would be safest if he frayed the ends of his cloak and ripped holes in his pants and shirt—not holes big enough that uninfected skin could be seen through them but big enough for him to not stand out in the grim picture Wilkes and Claudia had painted of the Tribe.
He dug into his travel satchel, pulling out the large square of clean bandage cloth Mari had given him. He dunked it in the water, completely soaking it before he packed it into the woven pouch Sora had given him after he’d explained what he needed to transport a shoot from the Mother Plant.
And then he ran again. Nik was glad Sora and Mari had made him wait and heal—even if he hadn’t been able to wait long enough to heal completely. His leg ached, but it stayed strong. His back was sore, but he had no problem lifting and sighting his crossbow. His well-conditioned body wasn’t one hundred percent, but it carried him forward, barely breaking a sweat as he jogged relentlessly north.
It seemed like hardly any time at all before Nik started to spot familiar landmarks. He adjusted his route, circling farther to the west than he would have liked, as every second was precious, before heading north again. It was only when he came to the blackened boundary that was the fire line that he slowed and left the path.
From there he focused on stealth instead of speed, but he saw no one. Where he would have expected the Tribe to be clearing the path that led through the burned remains of the forest there was only the smell of smoke, blackened debris, and silence.
“It’s like the forest has been abandoned.” He spoke softly to Laru, if only to prove to himself that sound could still exist in the barren landscape around them.
There was little breeze, and what there was of it brushed softly against his face. Nik was grateful for that. No canine should be scenting for him or Laru, but there was always the chance that someone—and by someone Nik was specifically thinking of Thaddeus’s sharp-nosed Odysseus—would accidentally pick up their scent, and that could be deadly.
And then Nik got even closer to the Tribe, and worry about someone scenting them evaporated. The Tribe reeked. Borne on the gentle breeze, death and disease drifted to Nik, filling his nose with a thick, fetid stench that had him wanting to gag. Beside him, Laru sneezed violently several times and even sprinted off the path and into the surviving forest to rub his face in a patch of moss before he padded back to Nik’s side.
“I know. It’s bad,” Nik said to Laru. “Sunfire! Little wonder they’re going mad.”
Nik heard coughing before he caught the murmur of voices and he slowed. Moving between concealing rubble and brush piles, Nik and Laru inched ever closer to the settlement. Finally Nik ran out of the blackened landscape left as aftermath of the devastating forest fire. This part of Tribal territory was as familiar to Nik as was his own nest. He had often accompanied his mother to the huge old pine that had once been the heart of the Tribe and after being outgrown still served as sanctuary for artists to work and meditate. After her untimely death, Nik had kept coming to the meditation platform because he felt closest to her there.
Finally he took a knee behind a massive cedar whose low-hanging branches almost touched the mountains of ferns growing beneath it. From there, he was close enough to see the meditation platform and what was left of the Tribe.
Nik’s chest constricted with the magnitude of the devastation before him. Tribesmen and women lay on makeshift pallets that circled around the tree. People were tending the wounded and ill, but even from a distance Nik could see that they, too, were coughing and scratching at their arms and legs, as well as moving slowly, painfully. Campfires were lit and he could see pots simmering over them, but the only thing he could smell was decay.
He watched as long as he could, but soon he knelt beside Laru and took his Companion’s face between his hands, speaking quietly, earnestly, to him.
“You must stay here. Hide. Don’t let anyone see you—no matter what happens. If I’m taken go to the Channel. Wait for Mari and the Pack to get there around dusk. Tell her to get free. Tell her I’ll follow you and her—that I will escape—but don’t let her come here. Don’t let her fall into their trap. Do you understand?”
Laru huffed softly, sending a wave of warmth and understanding to Nik. Then he rested his head against his Companion’s chest. Nik knew he was trying to hide it, but he could feel Laru’s stress and fear. He wrapped his arms around the huge Shepherd’s neck, hugging him close.
“Hey, big guy, don’t worry. I won’t let you lose me, too. I promise. I love you, Laru. Always.”
Laru licked his face, but Nik could see tears streaking down the Shepherd’s sable-colored fur.
“I promise,” he repeated. “You won’t lose me.”
Then Nik stood and carefully rearranged his cloak so that the hood shielded most of his face. He pulled his dirty sleeves down. Except for the bloody marks on his hands and wrists, his healthy skin was completely covered.
He stared down at himself, seeing a stranger and understanding, if only for a moment, how Mari must have felt having to conceal her true self all those years.
“Never again, Mari,” he murmured the promise. “That’s why we’re building a new world—so that we can all be our truest selves.”
Nik hugged Laru once more and then stepped out from behind the concealing cedar, changing his movements and his body language. He hunched his shoulders and bent at the waist, as if his stomach pained him. He tried a few ragged, wet coughs and forced his breathing to be audible. Then, slowly, slowly, he began shuffling forward, heading to the familiar entrance to what used to be a place of serenity and beauty but was now a place transformed into a waking nightmare by death and disease.
Nik had to make his way around the sick and wounded. Most of them didn’t even glance up at him. He forced himself not to look at their faces. Forced himself not to see what had become of friends and colleagues. If I look—if I recognize any of them—I won’t be able to leave them to this awful fate. This is for Mari and our Pack. I have to get in and get out, for our Pack.
He was almost at the tree when laughter drew his attention. At first he thought he might be hearing things, but when he glanced up from under the hood of his cloak Nik saw a small group of Tribesmen and their canines, led by Thaddeus, striding into camp.
“Ralina! You asked and my Hunters and I provided!” Thaddeus crowed.
The Storyteller emerged from an area near the other side of the old tree. She moved slowly and Nik heard her coughing, but she stood straight and went directly to the Hunter.
“What is it, Thaddeus?” she asked, wiping her hands on the bloody apron she’d tied over her dirty tunic.
Nik was pleased to hear disdain in her voice. Maybe not everyone has bought into what Thaddeus is trying to sell, he thought.
“Turkeys!” Thaddeus exclaimed. He made a brisk gesture, and the three Hunters behind him whom Nik recognized as Andrew, Joshua, and Michael, reached into their trap bags and pulled out several fat birds, tossing them at Ralina’s feet with a nonchalance that boarded on disrespect. Then a fourth Tribesman stepped up with the Hunters, opened his bag, and added two more turkeys to the pile. A familiar Shepherd stood beside the man, and Nik felt a jolt of shock—it was Goliath, a large, mature Shepherd who had bonded to Maxim a decade earlier. Nik felt as if he were dreaming as he watched Maxim with the other Hunters laugh and joke as if they weren’t ill at all!
Nik studied the men and their canines. Yes, all four of them looked strong, but they weren’t completely well. Nik could see bloody bandages wrapped around their elbows, wrists, and even knees, though they rarely coughed. Their eyes weren’t glassy with fever. Their faces weren’t flushed with unnatural heat. And they obviously had a lot more energy than the rest of the Tribe.
Nik’s gaze went from the men to their Companions, and he noticed that the canines didn’t look as healthy as the men. The three Terriers and one Shepherd moved slowly, if they moved at all. Each of them lay down gingerly as soon as their Companions entered the clearing, as if there was something wrong with their stomachs. Goliath shifted his body then, stiffly, painfully, and Nik caught sight of his underbelly—and he sucked in a breath. Goliath had bloody wounds on his flesh! Nik’s own stomach roiled with nausea as he realized what he had to be seeing. Someone had flayed strips of flesh from the bellies of the canines! Sunfire! What he and Mari had only guessed at seemed right—Thaddeus was flaying the skin from canines and merging it with Companions, just like Skin Stealers did! And it was transforming them!
Nik turned away, unable to watch any more of Thaddeus and his gang as they postured and strutted while their canines suffered silently beside them. He slid around the tree, taking advantage of the fact that Thaddeus had everyone’s attention, easily finding the wide, sturdy steps that had been built into the tree generations before. He moved quickly up the stairs, only changing his posture again as he reached the main platform. Here, in this place that had been fashioned for beauty and meditation, were the most severely wounded and sick. The stench was almost unbearable, making Nik’s cough more authentic than he would have liked it to be.
One person was with the dying. She glanced up from the person she was tending, and Nik barely recognized her defeated eyes and her flushed face as those of Emma, a young Healer apprentice.
“There’s no room for you here.” Emma spoke softly, as if she barely had the energy for words. “If you wait below, there will be a place open soon.”
Nik ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. He coughed again, long and wet, then in a whispery voice that he hoped sounded nothing like his own said, “No, I only want to sit with the Mother Plants. They are a comfort.”
Emma nodded wearily and made a weak gesture to the rear of the platform and a second series of stairs that wound upward to another, much smaller landing. “Go on. It’ll do the Mother Plants good to have company. Since Maeve was taken ill hardly anyone is tending them—though we’re lucky. They seem to be flourishing anyway.”
“Thank you,” Nik ground out the words, and limped to the stairs. He moved slowly and carefully up them, in case anyone was watching, but as he reached the landing and glanced down he realized no one was paying any attention to him. Everyone was too embroiled in their own private misery.
The landing was empty, so Nik straightened to gaze fondly at the life-giving Mother Plants. Emma had been right. They certainly were flourishing.
The ancient stories said that the Mother Plant had been formed from what used to be called a staghorn fern. The resemblance to a stag’s antlers was still apparent, though the ferns had evolved to an enormous size. At maturity, their fronds were easily big enough to engulf an adult Tribesman. Their fantastically large root balls anchored them to the pines, and from that security they grew and reproduced. They had three kinds of fronds—shield fronds, sterile fronds, and fertile fronds. The sterile fronds grew all the time, along with the shield fronds, which looked exactly like their name. They shielded the root balls, allowing them to anchor to the surface of the trees as they also wrapped around the bark, creating a barrier protecting the roots. The fertile fronds budded when Tribeswomen became pregnant, opening to form massive sheets of filigree-patterned green as babies were born. The fertile fronds were soft and pliable and covered with spores. It was these fertile fronds in which the Tribe’s newborns were wrapped from birth until they had known one full winter. The spores of the ferns—each in a pattern as individual as each infant—were absorbed through the skin, miraculously allowing the child to begin to absorb sunlight, much like the fern itself.
Nik approached the enormous cluster of plants. He reached out and gently stroked a frond.
“I’m sorry I have to uproot you. I promise the Pack will take good care of you. Earth Walkers can grow anything, so I’m sure you’re going to do well with us. And I’ll be as careful as possible with you.”
Nik studied the fern closest to him, lifting the massive sheets of fronds, both sterile and fertile, so that he could peer beneath them to the underside of the plant. Sure enough, peeking out from the moss that Maeve and her Tribeswomen had packed around the root ball were several small plants the Tribe called pups.
“There you are,” Nik said. “The future of our Pack.”
Nik took the soaked cloth from its woven container inside his satchel. Ever so gently, Nik used his knife to sever the young fern’s roots from the main plant’s root ball, placing it in the middle of the cloth. He moved to another plant, not wanting to overtax any of the ferns, and chose another pup, carefully severing it from the root ball. Then he moved to yet another fern, harvesting one more pup.
“That should be enough, especially with the Earth Walker’s talent with growing things.” Nik wrapped the wet bandage cloth around the three pups and was sliding them back into their woven carrier when he heard a sound behind him and whirled to see Maeve with her young Shepherd, Fortina, beside her.
“Nik! What in the name of the Sun are you doing?”
Nik finished packing the young Mother Plants into his satchel before he responded.
“Hello, Maeve. It’s really good to see you.” Nik smiled at Maeve, trying to sound calm and normal, as if Clan Law didn’t proclaim stealing from the Mother Plants was a crime punishable by death.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Maeve’s voice was as hard as her expression. Her young Companion, Fortina, whined fretfully at her side, and Nik could easily see why the pup was so upset—Maeve looked terrible. Her face was flushed with fever. Her bare arms were covered in sores, and when she wasn’t coughing her breath wheezed painfully.
Nik forced himself to respond as if Maeve weren’t deathly ill. He turned his attention to the pup, just as he would have if they had been meeting under normal circumstances. “Hey there, Fortina. You’re looking well, and you’re almost as big as your brother, Rigel.”
The pup began wagging her tail, but Maeve’s sharp tone had her tucking it between her legs and peering up at her Companion with big, sorrowful eyes.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
Nik drew a deep breath and told the truth. “I’m harvesting a few pups from the Mother Plant to take with me. I’m not returning to the Tribe but starting a new group of people who want a change from the past. We’re called a Pack. Maeve, if you’d like to join us, we would be happy to welcome you.”
“And is this Pack,” she pronounced the word disdainfully, “made up of Scratchers?”
“Earth Walkers. That’s their real name. And, yes, there are some Earth Walkers. There are also some Companions—Hunters and Warriors—who have chosen to join us, as well as Antreas and his Lynx, Bast. You remember him, don’t you? He was visiting the Tribe to find a mate.”
“I remember him. I also remember your father and the fact that he died because of your Scratcher.”
“No, Maeve. I was there. I saw exactly what happened. Father was killed by Thaddeus.”
“Only because your father was too kind! He was trying to protect that bitch Scratcher. Thaddeus was right. Had she died that night instead of Sol, none of this nightmare would have happened to us.”
“Maeve, Father died protecting Mari because he believed in protecting the innocent and he knew Mari was innocent. Don’t you think I miss him more than anyone? He was my only living parent! And now he’s gone, but not because of Mari. Father is gone because Thaddeus is consumed by hate.”
“Maybe that’s how it looks from where you stand. You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?” When Nik said nothing, Maeve’s face twisted into a sneer. “That’s what I thought. Young men can be so stupid—led around by their desires. Well, from where I stand it looks like this Scratcher has bewitched you.”
“You’re ill and not thinking clearly. Come with me. Mari will heal you, and you can tend a whole new generation of Mother Plants. Think of the adventure it will be, Maeve!”
The older woman shook her head disdainfully. “If your father could see you now, he would be disgusted.”
Nik’s anger began to stir. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It was Father’s wish that the injustices we committed against the Earth Walkers be remedied. He would be the first to congratulate me on our Pack—and the first to join us, as I cannot imagine him wanting any part of a Tribe led by Thaddeus.”
“I see you find it easy to put words in a dead man’s mouth,” she said.
“That dead man was my father. He gave me those words. I have no need to make them up. Now I’m asking that you stand aside and let me leave. I have only harvested three small Mother Plant pups. I have not injured the ferns in any way. I want nothing from the Tribe except to be allowed to go my own way in peace. This is the life you have chosen, so I will leave you to it. All I ask is that you show me the same respect and leave me to the life I’ve chosen.” Nik began to walk past Maeve, but one of her skeletal hands shot out, snagging his wrist with surprising strength as Fortina whined pitifully.
“Quiet, Fortina!” Maeve snapped at the pup. “I think we should see what the Tribe has to say about Nik stealing Mother Plants.”
He wrenched his wrist free from her. “As far as I can see, there is no Tribe left. Step aside, Maeve.” As he began to walk around her, Nik reached into his travel satchel, feeling for the length of braided rope he always kept there. I’ll tie her and gag her. That’ll give me enough time to get away and—
Maeve’s scream pierced through the sounds of the sick and dying, echoing in the fetid air around them. She shouted, “Help! He’s stealing from the Mother Plant! Help me! Help!”
“Bloody beetle balls!” Nik swore.
He rushed past Maeve, launching himself down the stairs, three at a time. On the main platform, Emma looked up from administering to patients, her eyes wide with shock as she recognized him, but Nik didn’t hesitate. He ran, leaping over the dying, as he sprinted to the final set of stairs. He reached the forest floor in seconds, and then he ran, weaving between pallets of the wounded and sick as they began to stir. Nik could see Maeve on the top landing. She was leaning over the railing, shouting, “It’s Nik! He’s stealing Mother Plants for his Scratcher bitch!”
Like they were moving through dark dreams, the fallen Tribesmen and women began to rise, their feverish hands reaching for him, grasping at his cloak, trying to stop him. But Nik was faster and stronger. He dodged around them, picking up speed. At the edge of the clearing, he could just make out Laru’s amber eyes from where he’d remained hidden. Nik’s Shepherd was utterly focused on him. He could feel Laru’s strength and encouragement—and he picked up his pace, moving even faster. He was mere yards away from the forest line, and the relative safety the underbrush would provide, when he was blindsided. Someone hit him, and hit him hard, knocking him off his feet and causing the breath to rush from him.
Nik tried to stand, even before he could draw air again, but a foot in the center of his back kept his face pressed into the earth.
“Why in such a hurry, Nikolas?” Thaddeus’s voice sneered. “I’d hate to see you go before you said a proper good-bye—and before that whore of a Scratcher comes to rescue you. Again. Only this time we’ll be ready for her.”
Nik closed his eyes and focused all his energy into communicating with his Companion. Go, Laru! Run! Meet Mari at the Channel!
Instantly Nik was flooded with strength and love and understanding. He allowed himself a moment of relief. Laru would go to Mari. Now all Nik had to do was survive and escape so that he could go to her, too.