Free Voice of Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready Page A

“I feel better now.”
    “Don’t lie.” He helped her stagger to their bed.
    “I should take that down.” She pointed to the bucket.
    “Don’t be ridiculous.” He pulled the blanket up to her chin and wiped her face dry with a clean towel. “Go to sleep.”
    He lowered the waste bucket to the forest floor using the pulley, then descended and emptied the contents in a nearby latrine. When he returned home, Marek found Rhia sprawled across their tiny bed, arms and legs covering most of the territory. Since he couldn’t join her without waking her up, he formed a pillow out of the spare blanket and stretched out on the tattered rug next to the bed.
    He fell asleep to the rhythm of her snores—another new development with her pregnancy—and hoped she didn’t step on him in the middle of the night if she got sick again.
    In a dream, his mind played back the evening’s events, but this time when he dumped the waste bucket into the deep outhouse hole, it contained more than the remnants of dinner.
    A tiny human form—no bigger than his thumb, yet with distinctive arms, legs and head—slid from the bucket and tumbled into the abyss.
    “No!” Marek flailed for the child, but the more he struggled, the faster the little person fell, as if the earth were pulling it harder to spite its father’s desperation. The hole winked shut, and the darkness was complete.
    Marek woke with a soundless scream. After a long moment of staring into the dark, shivering, he sat up and reached for Rhia. She had stopped snoring, but he could hear her breath if he held his own. There was space beside her now, and he climbed into it. When he pulled her close against his chest, she stirred but didn’t wake.
    Rigid with vigilance, he held her until dawn leaked its hazy light through the windows.

    “Shh! They’re coming!”
    Standing with Elora, Alanka watched the Kalindon children play Descendant Invasion for the hundredth time. They slunk across the forest clearing, hunched over, the little ones on the backs of the bigger ones.
    The oldest, a boy of six, directed them behind a clump of honeysuckle. “Everybody be quiet,” he whispered so loudly it might as well have been a shout, “or they’ll get us.”
    At a seemingly random point, some of the children decided to become Descendants themselves, chasing the others and taking them prisoner. Once everyone had been captured, the game began again.
    “When will they get tired of it?” Alanka asked Elora as they dragged another cartload of wood toward the village center.
    “It’s their way of dealing with what happened. I’d rather they act out their fears than keep them inside.”
    “I’d rather forget it all.” They arrived at the growing woodpile and began to unload the cart. The palms of Alanka’s gloves were wearing thin; she’d get a splinter soon if she wasn’t careful. But then at least she would feel something.
    “We’ll never forget.” Elora grunted as she lifted an armload of wood. “We can try to turn our minds away, but our bodies remember.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Every day someone comes to me with a fluttery heart or cold sweats or both. Or they can’t sleep at night, waiting for the next attack.” She brushed her hands together. “What about you, Alanka? I haven’t seen you in my office. How are you holding up?”
    Alanka shrugged. “Too busy. No time to fret over things I can’t control. When I go to bed I’m too tired and sore from combat lessons to lie awake worrying.”
    “I told Ladek and Drenis to go easy on the nonwarriors. You’ll get hurt.”
    If only, Alanka thought.
    Elora turned the empty cart around. “At least the rescue party has made it to Leukos, according to the Hawks.”
    Alanka should have been encouraged by the news the latest troupe of Asermons had brought to Kalindos. In her mind, though, Leukos was a gaping maw waiting to swallow Adrek and the other rescuers along with the captives.
    “How’s the hunting?” Elora