Forged in Fire

Chapter 5-1

Hunter woke up sweating. The sun hadn’t cleared the treetops yet, but already the jungle was steaming like a sweat lodge in the old home country. He grumbled about camp, eating the last of the previous night’s beans, drinking from the stream, and trying to decide what to do.

“Quam, it’s boring as hell here,” he muttered to himself, then cringed. “Quam, I’m starting to sound like Chekwe. Ugh.”

He looked around, trying to decide what to do. He could hoe corn. He could carry water to irrigate it. It might or might not grow, no matter what he did. He shrugged, admitting to himself that he really knew nothing about how to raise corn. On the other hand, he knew how to scout, and he knew how to hunt peccary, and he knew how to kill goblins and bounty hunters.

He turned and peered up at the southern ridge. Mist hung over the trees, blocking his view of the crest. There might be goblins up there again today. Or maybe today he would go and meet the people at that cattle ranch.

No, he ordered himself. It’s not safe yet.

No,It’s not safe yet.Still, he was bored, and lonely. He armed himself from the weapons cache in the hut and headed east instead of south. The eastward trail was dangerous because it led toward town. It was important for the same reason. He had a pit trap there that had killed a tapir a week ago, and while the trap was sprung, he still believed that rotting flesh was usually a good deterrent to unwelcome visitors – and any visitor was unwelcome to Hunter.

Beyond the pit, though, miles up the valley, there was a little Refugee settlement at a ford in the creek. The leader of the settlement was named Shimun, a prickly old fellow who disapproved of weapons and gave spouted religious opinions. But he was a human other than Chekwe, and he sometimes had news from the north. Best of all, Shimun had the Refugees’ distrust of anyone outside his own sect. He had warmed to Hunter a bit, but Hunter figured Shimun would keep quiet about himself and Chekwe.

Even though he trusted Shimun and his people, Hunter liked to scout the settlement for an hour or more to make sure it was safe before he approached. He took his time making his way there, keeping an eye out for a jaguar that Chekwe claimed was prowling the area, then found a perch halfway up a hillside where he could overlook the settlement and watch for anything strange. Nothing had ever stirred here, though, except the Refugees going about their chores. And that was precisely why he and Chekwe had come to this valley. As if the jungle wasn’t bad enough, Refugees were cursed. Everyone knew it. So, everyone stayed away.

Until this day.

Hunter heard the clatter of a buckboard wagon coming up the narrow trace towards the settlement. He jumped up and dodged behind a tree, even though he was already a quarter mile from the settlement and even an eagle wouldn’t have been able to spot him. He gripped his shield and spear and watched, breathing hard, as the buckboard pulled into sight, splashed through the ford, and jerked to a stop in front of Shimun’s house. His breath caught, then he released it in a long, relieved sigh.

The driver was a woman. A brownie, but a local, dressed in the embroidered blouse and skirt all the local women wore. She hopped out of the buckboard to talk to Shimun, and was followed by a lad, a gangly youth taller than his mother but still as knob-kneed as a colt. Hunter couldn’t hear the conversation, but he could see Shimun’s reserved posture and imagine the old Refugee’s disapproving scowl. Hunter could also imagine the woman’s disappointment and chuckled at the thought of her driving away without whatever she came for.

Except that she didn’t drive away. She handed the buckboard reins to Shimun, she and the lad grabbed bags out of the wagon, and together they headed up the trail, westward and deeper into the jungle.

“What?” Hunter blurted out loud. “You can’t go that way, woman!”

He headed for the trail at a quick trot, meaning to cut the woman off and send her back the way she came. After a hundred steps he pulled up.

He couldn’t cut her off and send her back because he couldn’t show himself to her. Heart pounding, Hunter tracked the woman and the lad for a mile, finally getting to within a few rods of them when they stopped by the creek for a drink. He kept low and out of sight, listening.

“Ma?” he heard the lad say.

“Yes?”

“That heretic sure seemed afraid of the bad men. Should we be afraid too?”

Yes, Hunter thought, then heard words that made him reel.

Yes,“We’re looking for the bad men he’s afraid of,” the woman’s voice said.

No, Hunter thought in panic. No. No. No.

No,No. No. No.The murmuring voices began to move away, still to the west. Hunter followed along, still just rods behind, until he caught his first glimpse of the woman up close. She was tall, deep bronze-brown, bounding up and over a boulder in the trail. He caught a flash of long sinewy limbs, a determined set to her spine, a thick ochre braid bouncing as she set a swift pace, and a forward thrust of her head that said she was not slowing down or turning back.

No, Hunter groaned inside. You can’t go that way. Go too far and you’ll hit a trap. Or worse, you’ll run into Chekwe. Quam save you if you keep going.

No,You can’t go that way. Go too far and you’ll hit a trap. Or worse, you’ll run into Chekwe. Quam save you if you keep going.

Dahlia and Paul clambered over rocks as the trail got rougher, their breathing heavier as the valley began to rise away from the coastal plain they were leaving behind. An hour passed, the trail dwindled to a trace, and there was no sign of human life. No farms, no hunter’s or trapper’s huts. Just thick, darkening forest, and a trail that was dwindling to a bare trace-mark through the undergrowth.

Who in Quam’s name would want to live here? She wondered. Further out than heretics, who have no fear of devils. Further than any lawman could possibly bother hunting for them. Why?

Who in Quam’s name would want to live here? Further out than heretics, who have no fear of devils. Further than any lawman could possibly bother hunting for them. Why?“Let’s stop for another drink,” she said. Paul threw himself down by the stream to lap at the water, and Dahlia peered around the jungle, trying to pierce the foliage with her gaze. It was no good. The whole world seemed to have turned to a blur of dark green.

Dahlia felt her pulse quicken, even though they were resting. She realized her knuckles were white where she gripped her cane knife. I’m afraid, she admitted to herself.

I’m afraid,“Paul,” she said aloud. “I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?” Paul echoed, wiping water from his face as he stood up. “Why?”

“I can’t think of any good reasons for these deserters, for anyone, to live this far in the hills.”

“They flog and even hang deserters,” Paul replied.

“No one arrests deserters in Orzan. No one arrests anyone, for that matter,” she spat. “The province is thick as ticks with deserters. And cutthroats. And rapists. And, if the rumors are true, with slavers.”

Paul was quiet for a moment.

“You think that Ector tricked us?”

“Maybe,” Dahlia said. “Or maybe he was just a crazy drunk and sent us on a pink peccary chase.”

“We can go back, Ma.”

“We need those steers,” she muttered, then declared, “we need those steers.”

need“Ma. If we can’t get the money, I can join the army.”

“No.”

“They say the war’s almost over. I might not be gone that long.”

“No.”

“Pa did…”

“No!” Dahlia shouted. For a heartbeat, her voice echoed through the jungle before the sound was swallowed in the vastness of the hills and crowding trees. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. Let’s go another half mile. If we don’t find anything by then, we’ll head back.”

Paul nodded and led the way. Dahlia followed along, keeping her eye on the long shadows, and mouthing silent prayers and trying to keep her breathing even. The trail rose and dipped and rose again, and suddenly Paul yelped and jumped back hard enough to stagger Dahlia.

“What?” Dahlia cried.

“Look,” Paul said, pointing and shifting out of her way so she could see the trail ahead.

“Quam,” Dahlia breathed.

The trail just ahead of Paul was broken by a gaping pit. The pit had been covered by slender sticks and grass, but something had stepped into the trap and crashed through the covering. Dahlia edged forward and looked over the lip of the pit and saw, eight feet down, a very dead tapir. It had plunged onto a cluster of stakes, brutally sharp things that had run the tapir clean through, with plenty left protruding to kill anything else that might follow the animal into the pit.

“If I had stepped in that…” Paul said, and his voice trailed off.

Dahlia stared at the dead tapir. It was swarming with maggots and flies, and the sickly reek of decay wafted up from the pit. Yet another smell mingled with that stench, a smell that didn’t belong in the forest.

Smoke.

Smoke.Dahlia peered ahead. The trail dropped again ahead of them, and through a break in the foliage she could see a valley opened in front of them. And in the valley a trickle of smoke rose from some sort of clearing.

Even in the jungle’s heat Dahlia felt a shiver go up her back. She put her hand on Paul’s arm.

“I think we found them,” Paul said, following her gaze.

“I think so too,” Dahlia said. “But I also think we’d better go back.”

Behind her a third voice spoke.

“I think it’s too late for you to go back now.”

Dahlia spun, crouched, dropped her crossbow, and clutched her cane knife in both hands, ready to launch a slashing attack at whoever had spoken.

It was a man: tall, bearded, bare-armed, and wiry. In a heartbeat Dahlia took in his weapons – shield, spear, ax, sword, dagger – and she tensed her whole body and shifted her feet for a better fighting stance.

“Don’t step backwards,” the man said.

“What?” Dahlia spat.

“For Quamsake, Ma’am, don’t step backwards. You saw the pit, didn’t you? And you, lad, don’t even try to load that crossbow.”

The man raised his spear to point at Paul. Dahlia shifted her eyes to see her son. Paul was frozen in the act of drawing his crossbow string. After a heartbeat he couldn’t hold the tension and eased the string forward again. Dahlia looked back to the man and growled at him through clenched teeth.

“Don’t you point your spear at my son again.”

“Ma’am, I don’t want a hole in me any more than you want one in him.” He lowered his spear.

Dahlia straightened from her crouch but kept her cane knife up. She breathed deeply and looked the man over more closely.