Free Reading the Wind (Silver Ship) by Brenda Cooper Page B

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    Kayleen shrugged, looking over at me apologetically. “We do need to go toward wood. We’ve picked most of the perimeter clean of anything that will burn, and we’ll need to bring back firewood.”
    We’d need more than one trip’s worth of wood to keep a big fire going all night. But she was right. I sighed. “Okay, Liam, we’ll brave the forest.”
    Liam used the last of the water from the bucket he’d given Windy to douse the fire, which spouted a gush of white smoke and steam. We shouldered our packs, Kayleen grabbed Windy’s lead, and the three of us set off, shortly passing the perimeters. “Wait,” I said. “Should we take the perimeter with us?”
    Liam stopped, a thoughtful look on his face. “We’d just have to takethe devices—we could find wood or stones to mount them on.” Then he shook his head. “It’s a lot to carry, and it’s only a warning. Besides, I’d like to have the bells go off if anything comes here, whether we’re here or not.”
    Kayleen looked thoughtful. “We know more now. I can tune them better, at least to the dogs. Maybe I can set the warning bells to dissuade them, like the ones around town.”
    I looked at her doubtfully. We’d taken portable perimeters around Little Lace Lake, and they hadn’t done that. But who knew what her abilities were like now? “We don’t have time to tune them today,” I said. “We’d better leave them, in case we get back too late to set them tonight.”
    “We won’t,” Liam said.
    Kayleen raised an eyebrow.
    “Besides, we brought weapons.” He grinned, a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Let’s go.”
    We started out with Liam walking in front, Kayleen and Windy between us, and me in the rear. I kept my silence, still not entirely happy with the direction we were going.
    We crunched across a long stretch of rocky surface like we’d landed the skimmer on, walking slowly, since we had to pick our way through the rough footing.
    After about half an hour, we started winding upward. The ground turned to dirt and sandy loam. Without an actual path, we made a few wrong starts as we pushed through vegetation, turning back when small cliffs or rock piles stopped us. I watched Windy’s ears, hoping she’d warn us of anything we didn’t want to encounter. She kept them up, swiveling them around, sometimes turning her head all the way back to look at me, as if to say, “Keep me safe.”
    The greenery grew steadily bigger as we gained altitude. Pairs of twintrees twisted their reddish bark together, rising taller than most of our twintrees back home. Tiny green circles hid in the long, thin pointed leaves. The fruit had yet to grow the spikes that protected it from birds once it began to ripen. Near the high tops of the twin-trees, red and blue and yellow birds with long beaks watched us quietly, chattering to each other after we passed.
    Twintrees seemed to be the only familiar big trees. I didn’t see anytent trees, or lace-leaves. Here and there, unfamiliar tall evergreens with long spikes for needles towered above us. Denser underbrush than Jini’s threatened our progress regularly. Big-leaved bushes grew as tall as our heads. Long ropy ground-huggers with nasty spines tried to trip us up, and twice we stopped to pull spines from the thick fur just above Windy’s hooves. One of the thorns came away with blood dripping from its wicked, clear point
    Liam wandered back and forth like the lead camp dog, Ritzi, sometimes putting up a hand for silence, bending his head, and listening to the forest.
    He called a rest stop when we came across a clearing. A stream meandered through it, and a large pile of tumbled stones seemed to rise up out of the ground near the middle of the open space. After we watered Windy and found a way to lead her a little way into the rocks and still have a view, Liam pulled a notebook out of his pack and started taking notes.
    Kayleen leaned over to me and asked, “What’s he doing?”
    He sat a