His hunting luck was good. I could feel him draw on my skill and experience with the sling when he used it. It felt odd, almost as if he were bleeding me for sustenance. At the same time, he could not open that link and take from me without leaving his own thoughts vulnerable to my spying. I caught a glimpse of his plan. He would stay here, in Lisana’s house, and eat all he could for four days before making a quick-walk to the Trading Place. He hoped he could regain enough of his weight to be impressive to the folk gathered there. There was something else, too, something he guarded more closely. I could not see it, but knew he anticipated it with excitement but also with a strange regret.
This was a different forest he moved through, as different as the forest on the other side of the mountain had been from my prairie home. That was a revelation to me. I had thought that all forests would be, well, forests. To discover that they differed as much as one city does from another was almost shocking. On this side of the mountains, evergreens predominated, cedar and spruce for the most part. Their fallen needles carpeted the earth and I tasted their resinous scent with every breath. I passed anthills that were waist high; at first glance they seemed to be merely heaps of rust-brown needles. Ferns were also plentiful, and mushrooms in astonishing variety. He recognized some as energizing for his magic and picked and ate them. Soldier’s Boy recognized them from Lisana’s memories. My reluctance to trust such a secondhand memory swayed him not at all from eating every last one of them. And when he had finished, the subtle humming of the magic in my blood rose. He walked on with a satisfied smile. He liked being able to take care of himself, I realized.
The first hare he saw escaped him because he had foolishly not thought to gather stones for ammunition before he set out. He sought out a stream, and again I felt him pilfering my memories to select stones of the right size and heft for the sling. I resented that. He had his own secrets that he kept from me. Why should I share the skills I’d worked so hard to perfect? I clenched my mind shut to him.
He paused a few moments by the stream to drink, and then to make several practice shots with the sling. He was not very good at first. He selected a tree trunk as his target. The first stone went wide, the second grazed the bark, and the third did not leave the sling at all but fell at his feet. I felt his frustration, and felt, too, the hunger that gnawed at him. He needed what I knew.
I gave in, reasoning that if he did not eat, my body would suffer. When he reached again for my memories, I actively offered to him what he needed to know, not just how to stand and when to release the stone, but also the “feel” of the sling itself. The next two stones he launched each hit the tree trunk with a solid and satisfying “thwack!” He grinned, replenished his ammunition, and stalked on, suddenly a predator in these woods.
He killed the next hare he saw with a single stone and lifted the limp carcass with satisfaction. It was a big one, and fat for winter. Satisfied, he headed back toward the cabin. They would have fresh meat tonight. It wouldn’t be enough to sate him; he felt as if he could eat four more just like it. But it would calm the hunger enough to let him sleep. Tomorrow he would send the boy out to forage as well. Tomorrow, he promised his growling belly, would be a day of plenty. For tonight, the single fat rabbit would have to do. He hurried through the gathering gloom.
He smelled the smoke through the trees, and then saw flickering light through the cabin’s window. Winter, with short days and long nights, was venturing closer with every day. He felt a lurch of fear as he considered how poorly equipped he was to face the turn of the seasons, but then gritted his teeth. He had four days. Four days to fatten himself, to find trade goods and trade them. He needed winter clothing and a steady supply of food from a loyal kin-clan. But he wouldn’t get those things by going to the Trading Place looking like a skinny old beggar. “Power comes most easily to the man who appears powerful,” he said aloud. I felt a lurch of dismay. Another of my father’s teachings. Would all the harsh wisdom he had passed on to me in the hopes of making me a better officer now be turned against Gernia and my king? Traitor, I suddenly thought. Renegade.
I was suddenly glad I was dead to my world. I wished with deep passion that Epiny didn’t know I was still alive, that no one did. I had the sudden sick conviction that all I’d ever learned was going to be used against my own people. Coward that I was, I did not want anyone to know that I was the one responsible. If I had had my own heart any longer, it would have felt heavy. As things stood, I had to endure Soldier’s Boy’s satisfaction as he strode up to the house.
A croaker bird abruptly appeared, probably drawn by the smell of the dead hare. Cawing loudly, he swooped in to settle on the main roof beam of the little house. He perched there, looking down on the scene with bright and greedy eyes.