Chapter 1: Into the Woods

I ran through the trees and snow barefoot. The firs and redwoods stood as tall as the mountains around me. In their century-long shadows, a child looks like little more than another forest creature panting, trembling, running by. At the next clearing I glanced over my shoulder. My footprints had left a trail behind, each with a rust smudge of blood from my cracked feet.

“Frackit!” I swore, but I didn’t have time to stop and bind them. I could barely feel them any more anyway. Either I would freeze to death or be caught and killed. I plunged back between the black pines. If I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of my face, then my pursuers shouldn’t be able to see me. Unless it was-

“Lorus!”

I cringed and dropped into a crouch.

“Lorus! I know you’re in there!”

Gimlet jogged into the clearing right after my bloody footprints then stopped to catch his breath. The steamy air blew out of him and floated around him giving his wild, blonde hair antlers. I closed my eyes and stayed silent. Quietly, the hunter walked across the clearing, purposefully putting his feet into the prints I had left behind.

“Loooooooo-rus. I know you’re here.”

He came right up to the wood line. I couldn’t help but half crack open one eye. I could see him carefully pulling away some of the branches, wading through them as he pushed forward.

“Come on, Bright Eyes. You’re not some senseless animal.” His head swiveled in my direction, and I quickly closed my eyes. “Don’t make me treat you like one. Haven’t I always treated you nice? Haven’t I always looked out for you? Made sure you got your turn at the stew pot? Made sure you had some place warm to sleep?”

I had to smother my mouth and nose with my hand to keep from growling. Gimlet’s idea of “looking out” for someone always came with a price, a rebuke, a humiliation.

He clicked his tongue and shook his head, “So ungrateful, Lorus! After all that the tribe gave you as well. You can’t just abandon us like you did your clothes, Lorus.”

Gimlet cracked a smile as he reached into his side bag and pulled out a large, fluffy mound. I felt my teeth chatter in response, and my fingernails dug into my ice white, bare arms as I tried to suppress the shudder. The coat had been the last thing I dropped.

“I think Dallia would be very sad to know you lost her gift,” he held it up to his face and inhaled. I shivered even more and bit my bottom lip. His head swiveled again, straight to where I was crouching. Every muscle in my body froze. “You must be nearly naked by now, Lorus. What are you still running around in? Your small clothes?”

He pretended to ponder then his eyes opened wide in delight, “I spy with my little eye a white on white shadow, trying to get by- gotcha!”

Whenever Gimlet found me with his gaze, I never could get away. There was just something about those pale gray, almost blue eyes that caught me like a moth in a candle. His club flashed from his sleeve and came down in an overhand blur. There was a snap and crunch as it connected…with nothing!

Blinking, Gimlet stood up and pulled my white drawers out of the snow. I let the puff of steam coming out of my mouth carry the laugh away as I wriggled down a ditch slope like an otter. The screaming and ranting from behind me was worth it just to puncture the “mighty hunter’s” ego. It would be a memory I would savor, even if it did mean I now would freeze my butt off.

The key to not freezing to death when you are wearing nothing but an undershirt is to make a fire if you can, keep moving if you can’t, and remind your body that even if you can’t feel it, it’s still there. I did my best not to let myself fall asleep. By the break of day, I was exhausted and felt like walking death. When I found the toppled log with the inside rotted out, it looked as inviting as a feather mattress. I made myself stay awake long enough to gather as many dry pine needles and leaves as I could then burrowed into the cold mess, pulling my knees up under my shirt. I never thought I’d fall asleep. But I must have, as my mind fled almost as fast as my feet.

I never really think about it when I decide to run; I just do. The Ayfortees tattooed my eyes the first time I did it to mark me, a black triangle on top and below each eye, making me look like a clown. No one would take in a spoiled girl, they thought. The next step would have been to cut my nose and lips off, but it’s hard to chase a seven-year-old through brambles. Small things can run fast. Scared, small things run faster.

The Plainsmen didn’t think my markings spoiled much. I could still cut wood and carry, dig in fields and clean pots, but that was only when they could catch me. It’s harder to run and hide in a land so flat you can see ten miles ahead. Sometimes I think they just let me run to see how far I would get and how quickly. I brought a good price when they sold me to the Roadies. They thought they were doing me a favor. After all, the Roadies were all covered in tattoos and black streaks. Selling me to them would be like returning me home.

I didn’t actually mind the Roadies except for the smell and Gimlet. They were a restless people, drifting from village to village, but sometimes I saw cities. They would never take me along when their chiefs went in behind timber walls and rubble facades to trade. So I would be left with their children, most twice as big as me, to “play” and watch the babies.

When my womanhood came, they decided it was time for me to mate. I didn’t approve of the mate they chose, not him, not any. It was not that I had a choice, but I was young stock, so they hoped I would have a good chance of producing lots of children.

They pointed out that bearing a child would promote my status in the tribe. I wouldn’t have to be a slave any more. I could be a Giverned, their word for someone who brings in children, either their own or from elsewhere. The more children I could produce, the more my rank would increase. Since I started early, I might be a Matriarch by the time I began to silver. It was a tempting offer.

But then the night I was supposed to be mated, I ran. The weather had turned some weeks ago. It was brisk during the day with the cold deepening once the sun went down. An early snow shrouded the camp. The mothers of the tribe had all donated a little to my wardrobe, wool pants from Nada, a linen shirt that had only been mended once from Maebh. My buckskin boots were from Lithalia’s dead son that we left stretched out on the coast of white birds. The coat I loved best. It was a speckled gray with fluffy fur, a shade that I had only seen on the great wolves that even the Ayfortees were afraid of. Dallia said it was elk, but that had to be a lie. There have been no elk to hunt let alone make coats out of since the world fell asleep. That’s what Gimlet said anyways.

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The coat was so big on me that the back hem dragged a little on the ground. I picked my feet up as I marched through the camp, jingling and clicking with other donated bells and beads reluctantly contributed by girls I used to sit with. One foot up then down into the snow making a little hole. The other foot came up then down. It went into the snow, bringing with it a little cave in and cold sneaking in through the top of my boot. I lifted it again and shook it out before replacing it with a little hop. I took a bigger step this time and another hop. Then another and another hop, and suddenly I was running past the last tent in camp, past the reach of the campfire light. I don’t think anyone there, including me, understood what just happened. All they found was a trail of shed clothing, bells, and beads dropped at intervals behind me leading into the woods.

It was the scream that woke me up. Immediately, my head shot up. Mistake. There was not a lot of room inside the log. Something was strange outside; there was a noise I couldn’t quite place. It was like a chorus of frogs all croaking in unison, followed by an angry hiss, and sounds like hail hitting a wagon roof. The longer I listened I would hear more screaming, more angry voices shouting back and forth. I considered whether or not they were getting closer and decided I would have to give up my log.

Moving was agony. I checked my fingers and toes. My fingers were okay, but the color of the little toes of my feet scared me. Gingerly as I could I blew on my hands then straightened out the toes on my feet. Much as I tried, I couldn’t stop the whimpering nor the tears and snot that began leaking down my face. Most of the feeling returned, but now my stomach was growling, and the alarming noises were definitely closer.

I looked around for something to bind my feet with. The best I could do was some birch bark stripped off a tree and padded with moss. The going would be slower, but hopefully now I wouldn’t leave as bad a trail. Carefully, I set off through the woods, doing my best to pick sunny patches to move through to fight off the chill. Something hissed past my head. I ducked instinctively into a crouch, looking back to the bushes it had shot from. Nothing came, so cautiously I crept after it, curious whether it was bird or animal.

A good thirty paces onward, I spotted something lodged in a tree just a hand over my head. It was an arrow, but one of the strangest makes I had ever seen. When the Roadies hunt, sometimes they use longbows that stand nearly as tall as the man, but it lets them bring down wild goats or even fowl from long distances. When in the woods or chasing down fleeing slaves, they carry a crossbow. This reminded me of the crossbow bolts, but it was even shorter. The feathers of the shaft were made out of a strange, stiff material, almost like leather, and the shaft itself was shorter than the tail, and spiraled. It looked like someone had twisted in their hands. I reached up and pulled it out of the tree. My breath sucked in as I stared at the head, baffled. It was made out of metal. New metal. Metal that someone had to have forged.

That’s when I realized someone else was staring at the bolt. Just past the tree, looking back with equal surprise, was Gimlet. I was away again in a heartbeat. I swear I felt Gimlet’s fingers brush my shoulder, trying to grab my chemise then scrambling behind to follow.

“Lorus! Gah! Not that way you little idiot!”

I ran as fast as I could through the pines and the birch. I ran faster than I ever had before. I ran so fast, the world slowed to a crawl. I spotted a hole in the shrubbage, just a gap over a brambles hedge and under a low hanging limb. Sucking in a breath, I leapt, yanking both knees up to my chin and squeezing into a ball. Like a rabbit to its den, I was through-

And into the middle of a massacre. The world froze for a second as I hung in mid-air. It looked like one of the pictures in Jubee’s precious book, the one with people and events before the Big Sleep. But, then Lithalia found it and used it for kindling. It was a field at war, but one side was sorely at a disadvantage.

Before me a group of fighters, wearing the oddest attire I had ever seen, stood side to side. They had put up a barricade of their round shields and more metal shafts than I’d ever seen in my lifetime, but it gave them precious little protection from their attackers. The defenders, in their coats of forest green and navy, had arm-length shooters raised to their shoulders, some already discharging their bolts. These weren’t bows; they were something else like a long stick, and the shortened bolts fired out of them with astounding speed and force. Others green-coats were crouched behind them, frozen in the moment of levering in a reload. One man crouched at the edge of the barricade, arm outreached. A few feet before him, a young woman, her helmet discarded revealing wild, black hair, was crawling back towards her unit, a heavy bag slowing her movements. She would not make it.

All around the green fighters swarmed the mud-daubed elfs. The so-proclaimed earth's-last-friends outnumbered their prey three to one. From the number of arrows and wounded elfs on the field, I was surprised the fight lasted as long as it did. White teeth sharpened to points, ears cropped at angles from birth, fingertips and nails hardened to claws, elfs were what the Roadies frightened their children with when they misbehaved. When a trailer hitch broke or someone’s wheel broke with no explanation, it was elfs. When someone hale and strong the day before suddenly sickened and died, it was elfs. When a child wandered too far from the center of camp suddenly vanished out under their sitters’ eyes, it was elfs. If anyone stole more children than Roadies, it was the elfs. They were even more feared than the Ravenous; although, there were many arguments which were more lethal.

And right now, one was in mid-spring towards black-haired girl. Let there be no mistake, I did not want to save anyone but myself. I just happened to already be in mid- flight. Elfs traditionally do not wear clothes, something they deem unnatural and pretentious, unless health and weather dictate it. Of all the available landing spots, this one was literally just under my feet. As soon as that realization dawned, time started again.

It’s not a pretty or a comfortable thing slamming into a naked man, no matter what Maebh says. I’ve had plenty of experience being thrown around and bashed into things. Most don’t hit or kick back. There was a lot of yelling and shrieking. I roll-bounced off the elf’s shoulders as both of us crashed to the ground. Hard. I could feel the shock all the way up my arm. Quick as I could, I tried to orient myself. Now that time had started again, so had the noise. The infernal whistling was everywhere, and punctuating it the bolt sticks the green coats carried made a teeth grinding whizz-slap sound every time they fired. I thought if I stayed low, I could scamper around the edge of the fight and vanish back into the woods. And then they shot me.

The impact hit me so hard in the back it knocked me forward into a muddy, ripped up hillock. That was probably a good thing, as I’m pretty sure I shrieked like a little baby and cried as I grabbed my arm and rolled over on my side. Had the elf snuck up behind me to wreak revenge?

When I sat up, I found myself staring teary-eyed back at black-haired girl, face ashen, both shaking hands still pointing the bolt-stick at me.

“You shot me you turd nerfer!” I cried.

“Aaaaaagh! You stupid, poncy git! You shot her!” Gimlet hollered. When had he arrived?

“I-I-" black-haired girl’s eyes bulged as she looked back and forth between her hands and me. Elf was long gone. Lucky sot.

You-shot-me!” There was plenty more I would have liked to say, but suddenly Gimlet was there trying to scoop me up while green coats rushed us. I think I made it to my feet, but I left my sense of balance behind. Then there were grabbing hands and a soft sack of black. But then maybe that was just the consequences of being cold, naked, and bleeding closing in around me.