Free Deepwood: Karavans # 2 by Jennifer Roberson

both. When the suns rise tomorrow, it will be my task to protect the mother and daughter. Tonight, will you honor us with your protection?
     
    From without, from a distance, came a scream.
     
    Audrun shot to her feet, clasping the baby. “That’s Gillan!” she cried. “That’s
Gillan
!”
     
    PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.
     
    —
painpainpain
—
     
    He was stripped of self, of self-control, of all humanity save that which screamed in pain. He was nameless, mindless, engulfed in agony. He could not speak, could not pray, could not beg, could not petition the gods, the Mother, for release. He could only scream.
     
    His leg was afire.
     
    To the bone, it burned.
     
    Around him, heat turned stone to liquid. Heat bubbled up. Heat wreathed the world in steam. Beneath him, his body was poised to fall, to follow his leg into indescribable agony. If he fell, if he followed, would the pain cease?
     
    —
painpainpain
—
     
    Gillan screamed again.
     
    ELLICA, POISED STIFFLY upon the rock, heard the screaming. It harrowed her to the bone. It set the hairs on her flesh rising, her scalp prickling. Not close, not close. Was it human? Demon? Prey?
     
    Was it something dying?
     
    Some
one
dying?
     
    INDECISION LOCKED AUDRUN’S joints, held her transfixed in place. She could not move. She could only clasp the child, only stare at theman, only fasten every nerve upon the comprehension that her son was in pain. Her son was screaming. Her firstborn, the eldest of the siblings to the infant named Sarith, was not only in Alisanos, but in agony.
     
    She knew his scream.
     
    Ah, Mother… O, Mother of Moons … Mother Mother-Mother…
     
    She was torn, torn, torn. A baby here. A son there.
     
    A baby, safe within a ring; Rhuan had told her so. And a son in pain.
     
    “I have to,” she gasped. “I must.”
     
    “Audrun—”
     
    Her body insisted, and her heart, and her soul. “I have to go.” She thrust the child into his arms. “Take her. Take her. Keep her safe.”
     
    “Audrun!”
     
    “That’s Gillan!” she cried. “That’s my
son
.”
     
    “Audrun, no!”
     
    She entrusted him with what was precious to her. She left the child, left the man, left the dreya ring. She ran.
     
    Mother
, she prayed,
O Sweet Mother, save my son.
     

Chapter 6
     
    W HEN DAVYN FIRST saw the smudge of trees along the horizon, his pulse quickened. He thought he recalled the guide shouting at them through the storm, saying something about a forest providing some shelter for them; was it here the Shoia had carried the smallest of the children, searching for safety? He had seen nothing of a forest as he’d stood upon the chest inside the wagon, but the land was not entirely flat.
    Davyn broke into a jog. If the guide had gotten Torvic and Megritte to the forest, he may have done the same for Ellica and Gillan, and possibly even Audrun. Perhaps only
he
had been caught in the worst of the storm and the rest were safe.
     
    Fear began to recede. Apprehension still rode him, but the idea that the others were safe became fixed in his mind. For some distance hope and the beginnings of relief carried him easily, but then his body began to flag. He dropped to a walk, stretching strides to covermore ground, but before long that, too, seemed to require too much strength, more endurance than he had. Davyn, panting, stopped, gulped water, caught his breath, then forced himself into a jog once again. He would go in spurts, as a man rode a horse crosscountry: walk, trot, gallop; walk, trot, gallop. It didn’t spend the horse unnecessarily, but steady changes of pace covered ground.
     
    Possibly,
possibly
, all were safe. Possibly they were together somewhere in that forest, praying to the Mother for
his
safety.
     
    That made Davyn grin. All his worry for naught; only
he
had been in danger while the others took shelter from the worst of the terrible storm. And he had survived. He was uninjured. They would be together again, a family again, and