"And the calf?" asked Talen.

"Saved," she said. "For now." She took off her b.l.o.o.d.y ap.r.o.n and hung it on a peg on the wall.

Under the ap.r.o.n, River was wearing her work pants, which would have been a much easier mark for a clothing thief since River's room was on the first floor of the house. Of course, she'd only point out that n.o.body would look for pants in a girl's room. Which was true for most women, but River wasn't most women. She wore pants to everything but the dances and festivals, and even then she threatened to do so. Skirts were a bother in the fields, she said. A bother on a horse, and a bother when hunting. And n.o.body was going to tell River otherwise..

Talen gave his b.l.o.o.d.y sister his most pleasant smile.

She looked at his bare chest and legs. "Where are your clothes?"

"That's a good question," said Talen.

River shook her head and went to cupboard to get her pot of honey. She searched about then turned around looking like she'd lost something.

Surprise, surprise.

There was nothing like her cinnamon honey. It was not the thick, amber that most of the honey crafters sold. This honey was thin and clear and tasted like moonlight. River got it from a love-sick dyer who lived on the far side of the settlements and liked her despite her pants. He said the honey came from bees that made their hives in the cliffs there. He had also said that his love for her flowed like the nectar of the pale green flowers that clung to the cliffs, that she was his flower and he her bee, and that their pollinations would be more wild and splendid than anything a pot could contain. He'd said a lot of things; all of which proved that the dyer knew nothing of women. At least, not River. She had smiled at the dyer's sentiments, but that didn't make the dyer any less of an idiot or his hands any less blue. River was not a girl won with declarations of wild and amorous pollinations or delicious gifts, even if the gift was honey so rare it cost three weeks worth of labor.

Ke, Talen's older brother, walked in next with flecks of barley stalks caught in his tunic. Ke was built like a bull. In the summer he looked even more like one because he shaved his hair short. He did it, he said, to keep his head cool and make it easy to clean. But it also allowed him to show off the thick muscles in his neck.

He walked over to the bedroom and retrieved his bow and archer's bag. The bow was made with wood, horn, and sinew, and it was so powerful only someone with his ma.s.sive strength could draw it more than half-a-dozen times. Da, because of his strength and size, was sometimes called Horse. Ke, having inherited all of Da's muscle, had picked up the name of Little Horse, but he wasn't a horse. That was too n.o.ble a creature. Ke was a bull, no doubt about it.

Talen, of course, inherited all the wit in the family, but n.o.body seemed to value that. He was never referred to as "the bright one" or "that great blaze of brains." Instead, he got names like "Twig" and "Hogan's Runt."

Ke sat at the table. His bow was blackened with charcoal and linseed oil and then covered with a good layer of goose fat and beeswax to protect it from the wet. Ke had always been an excellent archer; Da had seen to that. But Ke was now something more. He'd proven last year in the battles with the Bone Faces that he was an efficient killer as well. He pulled out his crock of goose fat to rub in yet another layer then looked back into the bag. "Hey," he said and opened the mouth of the sack wider to fish about in its contents.

"Lose something?" Talen asked.

"Where are my new bowstrings?" Ke said.

"Strange," said Talen. "All sorts of things going missing today." He tsked. "What a negligent bunch we must be."

It took River about two seconds to catch on. "I want my honey," she said.

"I want my trousers," said Talen.

Ke looked up from his sack. "You took my strings?"

"You took my trousers."

"What would I want with those?" asked Ke.

"What would I want with your bowstrings? They don't fit my bow."

River put her hands on her hips. "That honey has a special-"

"Oh, don't act like you're offended for the Dyer," Talen said and began to work his way towards the door.

"Who said anything about him?" River asked. "That honey's imbued with vitality. Now, hand it over."

"Pants first," said Talen. He continued to move until he stood between them and the doorway.

Ke narrowed his eyes.

River c.o.c.ked her head, threatening a fight. She tightened the yellow sash she used as a belt. This is what she did when she wanted to run. Then Talen's brother and sister exchanged an evil glance, and Talen knew if he sat where he was a moment more, they'd have him.

"Trousers," he demanded. Then he dashed out of the house in his bare feet and underwear and into the yard.

To his surprise, Talen found Nettle, his cousin, opening the door to the smoke house to get something to eat. He was supposed to be on a patrol with his father, but Talen didn't care what he was supposed to be doing. He was here now, and could even the odds in this fight.

Ke and River charged out of the house. At this point River was the one to worry about. In addition to being a healer, she was a thrower, deadly with spoons, pots, and sticks at twenty yards. She could whip off a wooden garden clog and fling it with ferocious aim at your head before you'd taken five steps. Talen knew; he had the b.u.mps to prove it.

He darted left. One moment later a short length of firewood flew past his head. Talen thanked his instincts and darted right, pa.s.sing Nettle.

"Trip them," Talen called back.

Nettle, the Mokaddian traitor, did no such thing. He cut a link from one of the hanging sausage chains, took a fat bite, and stood back to enjoy the show.

Talen raced towards the woods beyond, but River had the angle on him and sprinted to cut him off. Thank the Six she hadn't had time to pick up anything but a stick. Talen veered toward the garden.

"Pick up the pace," Nettle called out. "They're gaining on you."

"Coward," Talen yelled back. He dashed around the garden fence, turned to avoid Ke, ran back toward the house and found himself boxed in between the midden and the barn.

He had two choices. He could make a run at one of them and hope to blow by, or he could go up the old walnut tree and hope they would stay at the bottom and do nothing more than shout insults and threats up at him.

He wouldn't get by Ke and his long arms. Talen had enough room to get by River, but she was daring him, grinning at him to just try.

He made his decision.

Da had fashioned a wooden slab bench and put this bench under the giant walnut tree, just to the right of the trunk. Talen ran for the bench. When he was close enough, he took one running step to the bench and the next to an old k.n.o.b sticking out about five feet up the trunk. He followed the momentum upwards, grabbed a branch, pulled himself up, and stood on a fat arm of the tree well out of the reach of his brother and sister.

"That's about the dumbest place you could have chosen," said Ke.

Talen climbed a few branches higher and looked down at the two of them. "The joke's up."

"We don't have your hog-worn trousers," said Ke. "You're the one who loses things on a regular basis."

Talen did not lose things on a regular basis.

Ke bent over and picked up a number of rocks. "You come out of that tree or I'll knock you out," said Ke.

"No," said Talen. "I think you need to give up your childish games."

But Ke threw a rock instead.

Talen ducked. The rock flew straight and true and would have made a pretty bruise, but a small branch stood in the way and sent the rock wide. Goh, he needed to put more branches between him and those rocks, so Talen scrambled up the tree until the branches were no bigger than his thumb.

He couldn't see Ke or River from this height. Nettle stood over by the well finishing his sausage, using one hand to shade his eyes from the sun.

"You smelly b.u.m," Talen called down. "Do something."

"Jump," shouted Nettle. "He's coming up."

Talen heard the leaves rustling below as someone ascended toward him.

Nettle was a fine one to stand there and call out impossible instructions. Talen must have been at least forty feet up in the air. There was nothing else around him the tree but the barn, and that was much too far away, which meant he had nowhere to go.

Ke was right-running up this tree had been idiotic.

Down below, Ke pulled himself higher in the tree.

Talen did not want to be at his brother's mercy at this height. Then he thought he saw a path through the limbs that just might let him get around that big bull. Talen descended, scooting to the right. Ke climbed, circling to the left until they were only separated by a couple of branches.

"I'm going to give you one last chance," Ke said. He looked up at Talen like a dog that had just cornered a rabbit. Talen scuffed the branch he stood on and sent small particles of bark down into Ke's face.

Ke ducked to keep the bark out of his eyes, and Talen made his move. All he needed to do was get to a branch four feet below him and to the right. It would be a quick climb from there to the ground.

He swung down, but Ke had been expecting the move, and suddenly he was grabbing at Talen's leg.

Talen moved out on his branch. Ke followed. Talen jumped for another branch. He grabbed it with both hands, pulled himself upward, but before he could get a leg up the branch popped and swung him to the side.

It was dead and rotted.

Talen looked for something else to grab, and then the branch popped again and broke entirely from the tree.

Talen reached out, grabbing for anything, but it was too late, and then he was falling head first. He yelled. He saw Ke's face then a wide open s.p.a.ce beyond with nothing between him and the ground but a branch that would most a.s.suredly break his neck.

6.

Stag Home IF THIS FALL lamed Talen, he'd be good for nothing but the war weaves. An image of him at the wizard's altar in Whitecliff flashed in his mind, the Divine draining away his Fire, the essence that fueled the days of his life, so it could be used by a better vessel-by a dreadman. The dreadman would give Talen homage for the gift, but Talen didn't want any homage.

He yelled a long "Nooooooo."

A twig poked Talen's eye. Then his ankle caught, and Talen swung into the center of the tree and smacked his head.

Ke grunted. "Grab a branch," he said.

Talen looked up. It felt like a piece of bark the size of his thumbnail was stuck in his eye. He blinked, but could barely see. He blinked again and found his ankle was caught, not in a fork of two branches, but in Ke's iron grip. Ke bent over a branch holding on to Talen, his face set in determination.

"You're slipping," he said.

Talen twisted around, found a branch, and grasped it with both hands. "I've got it. Let go."

But Ke did not let go. He repositioned his grip and said, "You'll hang here until you tell us where you've hidden our stuff."

Talen's eye ran like a river.

"What about my trousers?"

"Goh," said Ke. "If I come across your trousers, I'm going to burn them. Then you'll have something to yell about."

"Hoy! What's going on here?" It was Da standing at the base of the tree.

"They've taken my work trousers," said Talen.

"Is that so?" Da asked Ke.

Talen still hung mostly upside down, the blood rushing to his head.

"It is not," said Ke.

"You three," Da sighed. "Today I come out of the barn to find one of you hanging naked in a tree. What am I going to find tomorrow? Get down. Both of you."

Ke looked down at Talen. "You're lucky." Then he flung Talen's legs away.

Talen clutched the branch. His body swung around like a festival acrobat's. His grip on the branch slid. Then he reached out with one foot and caught another branch to stand on. Talen steadied himself and blinked to clear his vision.

Ke said, "You should thank me for saving your neck."

"You're the one that put me here," Talen said.

"I'm the one who didn't murder you," he said, and then descended to the ground.

Murder indeed. Talen watched Ke go and realized the truth was he had been lucky. His heart was still thumping thinking about how narrowly he'd missed a broken neck. And Ke had held him like he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes. Talen shook his head. Why couldn't he have gotten at least half of Ke's strength? He sighed. It was going to be annoyingly inconvenient to have to wear his fine pair of pants to work in. And at week's end, when he cleaned them and hung them out to dry, he'd have to sit around in his underclothes and bat the biting flies away. And if Ke or River hadn't taken his pants, then who had?

Talen climbed out of the tree and stood before Da.

"Did you look for the pants in the barn?" Da asked.

Of course, he'd looked in the barn. He'd looked everywhere. "I'm not going to ruin my good pair."

"Then work in a leaf skirt. I'm not buying any material for another pair. Nothing in heaven or earth will make me feed negligence."

"I wasn't negligent."

"It doesn't matter anyway," said Da. "You're not going out to the fields just yet. Put on your good trousers and get the peppercorns. You're going into to the village to get some hens from old Mol the fowler. I've had too many days without eggs."

"Last night you said you wanted to see us up and in the fields with the barley."

"Well, I'm saying right now that I want some hens. And you're going to get them."