Child of Flame (Page 216)

“Badly hurt,” said Laoina, translating Two Finger’s words. He turned away to speak to the girl who, despite her youth, seemed to be Horn’s apprentice. Dressed in a woven blouse that fell as far as her knees, she, too, wore the copper ornaments common to those who had won a Hallowed One’s renown. Her hair was braided with pale shells and beads carved out of bone, and she wore a pectoral so heavy that her shoulders bowed under the weight of it—or maybe that was only the weight of the burden that would come to rest on her should Horn die and not be able to take her part in the great weaving.

The girl would have to take Horn’s place.

Alain had been wandering around at the edge of the torchlight, staring at the paintings. When Adica looked for him, she saw him tentatively reach up to place his uninjured hand over the broad palm—a grown man’s palm—that had been outlined in red countless generations ago.

A faint grunt sounded beside her. The feather wafted up, blown by a puff of air, and Horn’s eyes snapped open. For an instant, Adica had the wild idea that the old woman was staring directly at Alain with her vacant eye. Abruptly, her left hand let go of the gold cup balanced on her chest and, trembling, grasped Adica’s wrist. Her other hand, withered and limp, rolled away from the cup which, overset, spilled its aromatic brew down over her right side. If the hot liquid burned her, she seemed not to notice.

She spoke in her own language. Laoina was quick to translate as Two Fingers hurried over to crouch on Horn’s other side. “Go by the silent road.” Only half of her mouth truly moved when she spoke, giving her words a lisp, but Laoina had clearly spent many seasons listening by the side of the old woman and had no trouble interpreting the slurred sounds.

Two Fingers grasped her limp right hand and drew it back up to her chest. He set the fallen cup upright on the cavern floor, wiped its rim with a forefinger, and touched that moist finger tenderly to the old woman’s lips.

“You are ill, cousin,” he said as Laoina murmured a translation to Adica. “You are not strong enough to weave the loom.”

Horn licked her lips as well as she could, tasting the liquid. “I am sorely hurt. I will not live long. But my apprentice died last year and this young one—” she indicated the girl with a movement of her good eye, “—knows too little.”

“I will remain,” said Two Fingers. “My niece can take my place in my own land.”

“So be it,” whispered Horn. She looked at Adica. “How will you weave at the loom while the Cursed Ones control our lands?”

“Adica must go on to Shu-Sha—” Two Fingers began, but Horn cut him off.

“Nay. We cannot risk her in that land.” She coughed, as if so many words were a great trial to her, taxing what little strength she had. Liquid bubbled in her lungs, a deadly sound. After a pause during which all of them waited patiently, anxiously, Horn went on. “She will walk the silent road with this Walking One, daughter-of-my-heart Laoina. The Bent People will take her by their roads back to Queens’ Grave. Laoina must go back to her home and bring to me her strongest warriors. We have too few adults left to attack the Cursed Ones ourselves. We must have a force strong enough to draw them off on the evening of the great working, so that Two Fingers can reach the loom and weave his portion. Only then will we be safe.”

Horn coughed again, shaken with it, weakening perceptibly.

Alain ghosted in beside her and settled down like a hound come to rest beside its mistress. He set his good hand on Adica’s shoulder and regarded the old woman with a compassionate gaze, neither too sorrowful nor too cool. “May you find peace, honored one,” he said.

At the sound of his voice, Horn turned her head so that the slack side faced them full on. She seemed, oddly, to be staring at Alain again with her vacant eye, as though it was the only eye that could focus on him properly. Her labored breathing made an erratic accompaniment to the other sounds in the cavern: whispering children, a light and steady snoring from off in the darkness, the insubstantial footfalls of unseen dancers and pipers caught forever in their ancient ceremony, painted upon the rock ceiling. A faint horn call seemed to resound, but surely it was only a trick of the ears or the echo of a child’s sigh.

Horn spoke in an altered tone, too resonant to come from that diseased throat. “You do not belong here, Wanderer,” she said in the language of the Deer tribes. “Go back to your own place. Your father weeps for you.”

Alain’s expression altered, pain and bewilderment replacing sincere sympathy. “I have no home. I have no father. No mother. No kin. I came alone, with nothing, from the place I once lived. I will not go back.” He stared fiercely at Horn’s slack eye before turning to Adica. The light in his expression made her heart flood with joy. “Here, I have a home. I will not leave her.” He clasped one of Adica’s hands between his own. Even the grasp of his injured hand felt strong, now.