Fourteen The forest was more comfortable to all of them than the road, and provided more cover from curious motorists. While the wooded side of the road wasn’t what any of them would consider true forest, it was wild enough to relax Fenn, wild enough to be easy running. She kept an eye on Moira and Toy, looking back every few minutes to be sure they were keeping up, but they were the one a Wild One and the other a Hunter, no matter what else they were, and they could run the woods as well as she could. Her feet landed softly in the dirt, the branches barely cracking beneath her. Her legs pushed up for each step so that she was nearly flying, until it felt as if her toes were barely touching the ground. The branches parted for her, and the wind pushed her along. She could almost be grateful to the Nedetakaei whelp, for giving her the excuse to take things at this pace, to ground herself in true woods again. It was the proper way to go about a hunt. It was the right way to be living. She smiled fiercely into the wind. This was why the Nedetakaei called them feral, called them beasts, and of all the Shenera Endraae, her kind were certainly the wildest. Even Moira, shy and sheltered as she was, was an untamed deer. Moira. She sniffed the air, sniffed it again, and skidded to a halt, dance-jumping over several roots that reached out to trip her. Nathaniel kept running until she called out his name; he’d been as run-tranced as her, although his stop was more graceful. “What?” he snarled, and then, looking behind her, his understanding showed quickly. Moira and Toy were nowhere to be seen; even their scent had faded from the air. “I will strangle Jinani if she gave me defective chains,” Fenn snarled. “We can track our scents back to theirs, but they’re both good at hiding traces – or, at least, Toy was when he was a Nedetakaei Hunter.” He nodded. “Blood calls to blood.” He pricked his index finger with the claw of his thumb, and made as if to flick the blood onto her. “Don’t you dare.” Some things were worth the fight, even if she was doomed to lose. “I’m already bound to him. I won’t be bound to you as well.” He looked surprised, at first, and then, damn him, amused. “I will not bind you,” he assured her. “Hold out your hand, then.” She held out her hand to collect the drips, and concentrated on the bond between that blood and Moira, between that blood and the child Moira was carrying. She didn’t quite, as Bunny had said, “see connections,” but what the whore had described and what she did were too close for much comfort. She’d been raised to believe the Shenera Endraae were different than the Nedetakaei, special, and the Wild Ones the most different of the Children of the Law. She had to find Moira. She had to bring Moira with them to the Bone Path, and she had to follow the Bone Path to their sister’s killers. Any qualms she had were less important than that geas – and how the hell had Toy gotten around her command to stay close? She focused on the blood, on the connections, and ran. Moira was ready for them this time, and the wards she put up were clever, and tricky. Fenny used every trick she knew to slip past the wards, to hold on to the tiny, tenuous connection that was a child less than a week past conception. The girl wasn’t used to that, yet. If they survived, Fenny would show her the ways she’d learned, to get around the connection the child forced on you, but for now, she’d exploit that weakness and any other she could find. They ran, Nathaniel a glowing light beside her. She was, after all, tracking his blood. His genes. Somewhere ahead of her, tangled in a mist of green threads, was the faint glow of Moira, the tiny glow of her unborn child. Bunny had warned her, but she hadn’t known what she was listening for, had she? Anything strong enough to pull someone back from Hell, that was enough to track you on solid earth. And the woods? She would have to teach Moira that, outside of her own home, relying on familiar terrain to protect you was less reliable. Later. When she didn’t need every weakness to keep this mission on track. When she didn’t have to deal with two rebellious and difficult captives, one of whom thought she was a monster, and the other one of whom had been one himself. She tripped over a rock that hadn’t been there a moment ago, and nearly slammed her forehead into a quickly-growing plinth of stone. She righted herself just in time to side-step another growing lump of stone, and duck a handful of thrown rocks. If he was close enough to throw things, he was close enough to hear her voice. On the slim chance that the chains weren’t defective, she snapped out orders. “Toy! Moira! Sit, stay, and stop Working!” The rock at her feet stopped moving, although a few more stones flew her way; one of them caught her in the knee while she was dodging another three. Pain and annoyance made her snappish. “And cut that out,” she added, and the rocks stopped flying. Behind her, Nathaniel coughed. She didn’t look at him; if he was laughing at her, she didn’t want to know it. She slipped through the rocky barricade, tracking the thrown rocks back to their source. Toy sat in front of another large boulder, holding a long spear of smooth wood. His hands were shaking, and a thin trickle of blood dripped from his lower lip, but he was sitting very firmly between her and the boulder, wielding his spear. “I’m protecting her,” he called out. “You told me to protect her. And myself.” He leveled the spear at Fenn as she came closer. “This isn’t safe for any of us. The Bone Path. Tracking down Shenera Oseraei who are trying to kill your family. How can I keep her safe when you’re dragging her into the biggest danger that exists? How can I keep myself safe when any Shenera Oseraei Hunter who sees me will either kill me on sight or drag me back to the Queen for punishment?” He gulped air, his hands shaking, the spear wobbling. The stink of his fear carried to them on the breeze. “You told me to keep her safe,” he whimpered. Fenn barked out a laugh. “I forgot,” she admitted. “I forgot how literal these things can be.” “Nedetakaei?” Nathaniel asked. “The commands. The chains command obedience, not submission.” She looked back at the boy. “He had to know we could track them. But he’s right. This mission isn’t safe.” “It is necessary.” “Of course. Because the Old Man says so.” “Because they are killing off our family line.” “That, too.” She didn’t feel like arguing with him, so she turned her attention to the skinny, terrified boy in front of her. “Toy. Keep Moira, and then yourself, safe from any danger except me and Nathaniel and the danger that this quest has in its nature.” He nodded, a little tension going out of his shoulders, but the spear didn’t waver. “You know what will happen if you try to put that stick in me, don’t you?” She spoke calmly, like to a spooked animal. She didn’t need to threaten him. “You’ll kill me,” he answered. There was some hope in his tone. She hadn’t expected that. She shook her head slowly, and watched the spear waver in time with the movement. “Freedom, or the freedom of death, is what you get if your service pleases me, Toy.” She watched him fill in the rest of the equation. The spear thudded to the ground, and his forehead touched the dirt in front of him. Slowly, the boulder behind him opened to reveal a defiant Moira. “You’re not very nice to him,” she complained. “I thought he was very clever.” She moved as if to stand up, and frowned as she found she couldn’t. “Clever is not always good,” Nathaniel answered. “You people don’t like anything that doesn’t agree with you.” Toy, Fenny was amused to note, was looking at Moira in nervous horror. “There is no time for dissension during war. We can disagree after this quest is finished.” “I don’t think I want to talk to you after that. I want to go back to my cabin and be left alone.” “Be that as it may.” He looked to Fenny. “Can we begin travelling again?” She glanced up through the trees at the sun. They still had plenty of daylight left. “We should,” she agreed. She closed the distance to Toy, ignoring the spear, and offered him a hand up. “Come on.” Want more online fiction? Check out Web Fiction Guide!		Updates on the first and third Sunday of each month
	Copyright © 2009 Lyn Thorne-Alder. All rights reserved.