I woke up to find my face pressed into the packed dirt wall of the hut. I jerked backward from the awkward position to look at Prevna. She was still sleeping but at some point she had dragged the bedroll next to her half on top herself like a bulky blanket. Doing my best not to wake her up, I checked her pulse and visible skin for any signs of frostbite. Her pulse was strong and some of her skin was reddened from the cold but nothing looked frostbitten. I held in a sigh of relief as I went to pull my hand away, only to find my hand was stuck pressed against her neck.
Prevna yawned and cracked her eyes open to look up at me but she didn’t release my hand. “Will I live?”
I scowled back down at her. “Only if you let me finish closing the door flap.”
Prevna let my hand go before she stretched. “What about the others?”
My head snapped up to take in the interior of the hut again. Wren, Dera, Nii, Andhi, Ulo, Breck, and Loclen were all spread out around the hut. Some had clearly been ready to go to bed while others look like they had been in the middle of a conversation or game when the music hit them. Breck slumped against the wall not far from the entrance. It looked like she had been trying to check on what was happening but without the threat of being frozen to death it seemed like the music had put them to sleep much faster.
Still, it was…irritating to realize that I was so used to seeing them around that my mind had just ignored their presence. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be observant and always know who was around me. To be prepared.
Turning away from the lot of them I focused on the last knot I had failed to tie and got it tied properly with quick, practiced motions. Between the way I had slept and the rest of knots, most of the cold air had been kept out but there was no reason to let the air drop below freezing inside the hut if I could help it. The fire had gone out at some point.
My nose and ears were cold but as I cupped my hands around them and they gradually warmed up, it didn’t come with the needle-like pain of frozen skin coming back to life. Despite my proximity to the entrance frostbite hadn’t been able to overcome the protective walls and my layers of clothing.
By tying the last knot in place, I had blocked out the errant bit of sunlight stealing into the hut—sunlight that shouldn’t have been shining if it was still the same night. We had likely lost a day or two to our forced sleep and I wasn’t keen on finding out how much of a disaster was happening outside. Not yet.
I couldn’t check on everyone the same way I had with Prevna but she was going around nudging everyone awake. Given the yawning and exclamations and curses I figured they were alive and well. Besides, if I had managed not to succumb to the cold death or frostbite right next to the door then they should all be fine.
A little puffball twittered and landed on my head. I gave Chirp one stroke on his belly feathers before demanding, “Off.”
He chirped again but fluttered off back in Wren’s direction. Other shapes shifted in the dark and I noted that for all that Dark Sight sounded lackluster compared to the other boons, this would have been a nice time for it. I could have seen for myself how they were doing and Loclen might not be cursing about being woken up and then tripping over a bag. It seemed not even magical sleep could make her a morning person.
Prevna took charge of telling the group what little we knew while everyone got bundled up and then I had to undo my knots again, so that we could all go outside to see and assess the damage. Ulo looked like she wanted to somehow blame the whole mess on me, so I glared at her as she stepped past into the snow and made a mental note about making her day a bit more miserable in the future.
Outside the Rookery was eerily still and quiet without the usual bird calls and everyday noises of a busy tribe. We must have been among the first to wake up.
The group huddled together right outside the hut as everyone stared in shock. The downed storm bird that nearly crashed into the village was clearly visible from where we stood. That gruesome image, if nothing else, clearly showed that something was wrong. The Rookery would never stand for one of their birds being abandoned to injuries and the elements.
Because no one else was doing it, I took charge. “We need to start getting everyone else woken up. Andhi, Ulo, Nii go wake up everyone in the village. Make sure you check for anyone in the snow—not everyone might have made it inside. The rest of us can shadow walk to the upper level and wake up Tufani and Barra and anyone else among the nests. We can see what she thinks about waking up the birds too.”
Ulo crossed her arms. “Why should we listen to you?”
“If you want to sit on your butt and see how the tribe likes it when they wake up, go ahead.” I smirked at her and focused on the others. “I’ll go and check on Juniper. Does anyone know where Ento and Idra might be?”
No one knew for certain. Some thought they might be with Juniper, others thought they might have went back to talk with Tufani. Ento didn’t seem like the type to sulk but I wouldn’t put it past Idra to find some out of the way place to huff and puff, and get them both caught in the cold and music.
But there wasn’t much we could do but wake up everyone we could find. Hopefully they would know how to help the crashed birds and having more people meant we could find others faster.
Nii started off for the village and with a tug Andhi got Ulo to follow her with a put upon huff. The rest of us hurried to reach the nearest trees so we could shadow walk to the upper level. Loclen and Dera had to take a little longer searching for a tree with a deep enough shadow that would let them slip into the shadow paths.
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I didn’t wait for the others once I stepped out of the feathered tree’s shadow. They knew where Tufani’s hut was and it’d be more than a bit pathetic if they couldn’t do what I had already told them without me in the lead. Instead, I took the most direct route I could towards Juniper’s hiding place. I knew she was out in the cold—fur blankets could only do so much if she fell asleep without preparation—so there wasn’t time to waste to check if others had been caught out in the nests.
Part of me had been tempted to try to shadow walk to where she was as it wouldn’t have been that much bigger of a distance than I took from the lower level to the feathered tree, but I wouldn’t have the advantage of the height difference. Being able to look down and pick out the tree I wanted made it much more likely I’d end up closer to my target still. Trying to travel on the same level with nests and other things blocking my sight didn’t make that trick possible and I didn’t want to end up in some random part of the woodland. That’d have to wait until I understood what Esie meant or I was desperate.
So I ran and cursed Juniper and her stupid decisions as well as Idra’s terribly timed accusations. Really, I probably should have had someone with longer legs go check on her, but I couldn’t deny that I had skills that everyone else didn’t if her condition was dire.
Not that I was sure I could bring myself to be frozen solid again for her sake, but I at least knew that gradual, gentle, enveloping heat would be better than warmed rocks or leaving her in clothes soaked by snow if the cold death had her in its clutches. Really, that might even be too much to expect them to know even if it seemed like common sense. Some people in the cohort might think praying to the goddess or taking her back to the healer would be enough, but I doubted either would have much attention to spare. One because of indifference and the other because I was sure the healer’s hut would soon be full of injured and sick people with the damage the sudden sleep had likely done.
When I reached Juniper’s makeshift hidey hole I realized that it didn’t matter who had come to check on her.
Because she wasn’t there.
Blankets were strewn around the front of the hollow like they had been thrown off Juniper or there had been a brief struggle. I wasn’t a good enough tracker to tell. What I could tell was that it didn’t look Juniper had chosen to leave on her own. There were footprints in the snow, big ones, that seemed fresher than the others’ coming and going had left.
Someone else had been here and taken Juniper for some unfathomable reason—and it didn’t look like they had gone back to the Rookery. Instead, the big footprints headed deeper into the woods.
I groaned. Of course, Juniper had managed to get kidnapped on top of everything else. That was the way her terrible luck had gone ever since we left the training grounds. First the festerlings, then getting herself stuck not once, but twice, and now this. I had heard stories of tribe leaders’ daughters getting kidnapped and ransomed by particularly daring Picker bands but I hadn’t thought one of those daughters would turn out to have such a penchant for disappearing.
So.
I could try to track the footprints and hope I was smarter and more observant than whoever I was tracking as well as enough to take them on, go back and get others to do the same or hope that Barra had been found so that she could use her blessing to find Juniper again.
The third option was the best in terms of accuracy and wasting the least amount of time, so I gave the tracks leading off among the trees one last look before I turned and ran back the way I had come.
- -
Barra had been found. After a fashion.
I arrived at Tufani’s hut to find that she was awake and heading the recovery efforts for the birds while the tribe’s Pack Leader that I had never paid attention to directed the upper level’s human search and rescue. The tribe leader and their Grandmother were heading similar efforts to recover herds and humans on the lower level.
Tufani also had a few choice words to say about the Tracker’s choices as she did her best to save the birds that had fallen all over the Rookery, some with riders. Apparently, “the glass obsessed fool” had gone back the statue to collect more glass “to top off her reserves” and no one had seen her since. So now the tribe was left with no way to locate missing birds or people, or contact the whisper women and let them know about the disturbing crisis.
Of course nearly everyone sent a whispered prayer with a drop of blood to the goddess, but no one really expected Her to answer them. The goddess might accept prayers but that didn’t mean She answered them. Or that you really wanted Her too. There was a good chance that Her attention could make a bad situation worse if She got offended about the trouble—and with the harp and its blasphemous music that rested in the hand of a statue of Her sister no one really wanted to take that chance. So the prayers were short and vague so She also couldn’t get offended that they hadn’t prayed to Her.
But all that meant was that the one person who could definitely find Juniper was also missing and had likely been involved with the harp’s sudden ability to put everyone to sleep. Tufani had sent one brave rider and storm bird to go retrieve Barra but there was no guarantee they’d find her or, if they did, she wouldn’t be stuck asleep given how close she must have been to the harp. Even if she was awake I wasn’t sure Juniper’s disappearance would win out over all the other people and birds the tribe needed her to find.
Which left me with two choices: track alone or with a group. Maybe a rider and bird could be sent out too to search from above but they wouldn’t be able to make out the tracks and I doubted in all the chaos that a random tribe member would be willing to abandon their tribe for a girl they barely knew even if she was a Sprout.
I didn’t want to but tracking with a group had the higher chance of success. I wasn’t keen to relive my experience tracking down Ulo and Nii, and I knew there were at least of few others in the cohort who’d be better skilled and interested in joining the hunt. Breck would go because it was exciting, Prevna because she wouldn’t want to abandon Juniper to whoever had her, and Ento and Idra would likely want to make up for the mistake of losing their charge now that they had been found tucked safely under a bird’s breast. Loclen could be helpful because of her shadow shrouding blessing just like Dera’s versatility with her blessing, but I wasn’t sure they’d be willing to brave to the danger, snow, and cold. Wren’s ability to communicate the birds could also help us but she also might be more useful calming down the storm birds in the Rookery.
Tufani probably wouldn't approve of my plan to make use of the cohort and go after Juniper so I didn’t tell her. Instead I mentioned searching farther away from the Rookery and she waved me off as a tribe member hurried into the hut to report on the latest findings. I took that as acceptance and went to find who I could.