The Lost War by Karl Gallagher (novel24 .txt) 📗

That was not just unfamiliar but unprecedented. Disbelief delayed his response. “Thank you, Master.”

Ithuil hoped the delay hadn’t been rude.

“You are now a senior apprentice. Stand.”

He stood up, half expecting to be clouted back down for his presumption.

“That’s enough for today. Alas, it will take another hand of hands of days for the vermin to find their way back to the protected woods. I must be patient. Oh, you may go tell your news to the others.” The sorcerer opened his current book and held a needle in a flame.

“Thank you, Master,” he said again. He ran from the hollow tree. Who to tell first? Greet the other senior apprentices as an equal? Or gloat in front of the relatives who’d predicted he’d be dead within a year?

One Month After Queen Camellia’s Death

Newman was hungry. His breakfast was half the size he was used to. His stomach wanted more.

The rest of his squad looked hungry too. The month since the aborted crown tourney had been hard on everyone.

He gathered them around him rather than making them form a line. “The game’s getting scarcer. We have to go farther out to find near-deer. They’re in smaller groups when we do find them. Between us and the wolves and whatever the other predators are there’s a lot of pressure on them.

“So we need to adapt. Instead of one group with a bunch of bearers we need more hunters and smaller groups. Easiest is to split in two with me and Deadeye as hunters. We’ll do that this afternoon.”

The squad was waking up. Deadeye liked having his own team. The rest were realizing this wasn’t just a pep talk.

“We’re going to train you as hunters. Stalking. Tracking. Archery you already know, but we’ll work a bit on moving targets. Lesson one is walking without scaring the hell out of the deer.”

They’d gone far enough from camp that the woods weren’t trampled over. Newman stepped off the rhino trail into the trees.

“Watch my feet as I walk. I’m not going in a straight line. I’m stepping on dirt or moss. Dead leaves and twigs make noise.”

He took a few more steps.

“That’s a root. I can step on it. It’s too solid to crack. Notice how I’m putting my feet down. Gently. I’m walking at normal speed but slowing the foot right before it touches the ground.”

The hard part was analyzing what he’d been doing his whole life so he could teach it. For the past three days he’d felt like a centipede tying himself in knots trying to figure out the order his feet moved in.

“Borzhoi, your turn. Everybody listen to him walk.”

Teaching these guys to be decent hunters was a pain in the ass. But they were too short on food to wait for them to figure it out on their own.

***

Stitches saw some fan-weed growing by the side of the rhino path. A few cuts with her knife and she dropped the intact plants into her basket. She looked at the accumulation and smiled. Not bad for a half a day’s work.

Finding edibles was easier when you spent your time looking instead of gossiping about who’d broken up with whom or what awards the King might give out next. And your basket filled faster when you didn’t have to share your finds with the rest of the group.

Gathering on her own worked much better for Stitches than trying to be part of a group. Avoiding the cold shoulders and whispers of ‘murderer’ was a benefit.

Dumping out a full basket at the commons impressed people. Hungry people didn't carry grudges. They said thank you for food. And they said it louder for filling food like vineroot or eggs.

Which was why Stitches was out here, deeper in the forest than other gatherers had the nerve to go. Everywhere close to camp was picked clean. So she listened to the hunters and went where they'd found game.

Today she was guaranteed a good reception at the common pavilion. A tree had yielded a dozen plum-like fruits. More were still ripening on the tree waiting for her return. Stitches wouldn't be sharing its location with anyone. Or giving the fruit to the Court. They'd all rejected her. It was time to make new friends. Sweets were one way to do that.

Calories were an even better way. She spotted the flowered tendril of a vineroot plant curling around a bush. Her mouth watered. Stitches followed the tendril around to where it poked out of the dirt and started digging with her knife. She'd have to dig down a foot or two, and cut some roots from other plants growing over it to pull this tuber out. Then she'd be done for the day. This would overflow her basket. She'd have to carry the tuber home under her arm.

A rustling made her look up from the work. Figures stood over her. "Um . . . hi?" she essayed.

Then fangs tearing into her flesh made her scream.

***

The stream just downriver from camp was the preferred bathing spot for everyone wanting to avoid cuttlefish. Its cut through the bluff was steep enough to let one person shower in it. The channel on the floodplain was knee-deep at most but some logs and stones had dammed it up to make a pool against the bluff.

It was the ladies’ turn to bathe. Ivy stood guard with a pikeaxe, more for cuttlefish than wolves. Only one mollusk had come this far upstream but no one wanted to let another surprise them.

Redinkle and Shellbutton had a surprise of their own for the bathers.

“Who wants to try an experiment?” asked Redinkle, holding up a small crock. She had to almost shout over the sound of the falling water.

“What is it?” said Lady Elderberry.

“Homemade soap. We’ve been