He forced himself to stroll slowly back to the camp, finding the girl sullenly prodding the fire with a stick and Erlin retying one of the straps on his pack.
“ We’ll be on our way soon,” Erlin assured him. “We’ve put you to enough trouble.”
“ Heading north?” Vaelin asked.
“ Yes. The Renfaelin coast. Sella has family there.”
“ You’re not her family?”
“ Just a friend and travelling companion.”
Vaelin went to the shelter and fetched his bow, feeling the girl’s mounting tension as he strung the bowstring and slung the quiver over his shoulder. “I have to hunt.”
“ Of course. I wish we could give you some of our food.”
“ It’s not permitted to take aid from others during this test. Besides I’m sure you can’t spare any.”
The girl’s hands moved irritably: True.
“ I suppose we should take our leave now,” Erlin said, coming over to offer his hand. “Once again, my thanks young sir. It’s unusual to meet such a generous soul. Trust me, I know…”
Vaelin moved his hands, the shapes he made clumsy compared to theirs but the meaning was clear enough: Riders to the south. With dogs. Why?
Sella’s hand went to her mouth, her pale face nearly white with fear. Erlin’s hand inched closer to the curve bladed knife at his belt.
“ Don’t do that,” Vaelin instructed him. “Just tell me why you’re running. And who’s hunting you.”
Erlin and the girl exchanged frantic glances. Her hands fidgeted as she fought the impulse to communicate. Erlin took her hand, Vaelin wasn’t sure if he was trying to calm or silence her.
“ So they teach you the signs,” he said, his tone neutral.
“ They teach us many things.”
“ Did they teach you about Deniers?”
Vaelin frowned, remembering one of his father’s infrequent explanations. It had been the first time he saw the city gate and the bodies rotting in the cages that hung from the wall. “Deniers are blasphemers and heretics. Those who deny the truth of the Faith.”
“ And do you know what happens to Deniers, Vaelin?”
“ They are killed and hung from the city walls in cages.”
“ They are hung from the walls whilst still alive and left to starve to death. Their tongues are cut out so their screams will not disturb passers by. This is done purely because they follow a different faith.”
“ There is no different Faith.”
“ Yes there is, Vaelin!” Erlin’s tone was fierce, implacable. “I told you I had been all over this world. There are countless faiths, countless gods. There are more ways to honour the divine than there are stars in the sky.”
Vaelin shook his head, finding the argument irrelevant. “And that’s what you are? Deniers?”
“ No. I follow the same Faith as you.” He gave a short bitter laugh. “I’ve little choice after all. But Sella has a different path. Her belief is different, but just as true as yours and mine. But if she’s taken by the men hunting us they will torture and kill her. Do you think that’s right? Do you think all Deniers deserve such a fate?”
Vaelin studied Sella. Fear dominated her face, her lips trembling, but her eyes were untouched by her terror. They stared into his, unblinking, magnetic, questing, making him think of Master Sollis during that first sword lesson. “You can’t trick me,” he told her.
She took a deep breath, gently disentangled her hands from Erlin’s and signed: I am not trying to trick you. I’m looking for something.
“ And what’s that?”
Something I didn’t see before. She turned to Erlin. He will help us.
Vaelin opened his mouth to retort but found the words dying on his lips. She was right: he would help them. There was no complexity to the decision. It was right, he knew it. He would help them because Erlin was honest and brave and Sella was pretty and had seen something in him. He would help them because he knew they didn’t deserve to die.
He went into the shelter and returned with the yallin root. “Here.” He tossed it to Erlin. “Cut it in half and smear the juice on your feet and hands. Whose scent do they have?”
Erlin sniffed the root uncertainly. “What is this?”
“ It’ll mask your scent. Which of you do they follow?”
Sella patted her chest. Vaelin noted the silk scarf around her neck. He pointed at it, motioning for her to hand it over.
My mother’s, she protested.
“ Then she’ll be glad it saved your life.”
After a moment’s hesitation she undid the scarf and gave it to him. He tied it around his wrist.
“ This is disgusting!” Erlin complained smearing the yallin juice on his boots, face contorted at the pungent stench.
“ Dogs think so too,” Vaelin told him.
After Sella had anointed her own boots and hands he led them into the densest part of the surrounding woodland. There was a hollow a few hundred yards from the camp, deep enough to hide two people but offering little protection against expert eyes. Vaelin was hoping whoever hunted them wouldn’t get close enough to see it. When they had settled into the hollow he took the yallin root from Sella and smeared as much juice as he could squeeze from it on the surrounding ground and foliage.
“ Stay here, keep quiet. If you hear the dogs lie still, don’t run. If I don’t return in an hour head south for two days then circle west, follow the coast road north, stay out of the towns.”
He made to leave when Sella reached out to him, her hand hovering close to his. She seemed wary of touching him. Her eyes met his again, not questing this time, just bright with gratitude. He smiled back briefly and was gone, running full pelt towards the hunters. The sparse woods blurred around him, his hunger wracked body aching from the effort. He pushed his pains away and ran on, the scarf on his wrist trailing in the wind.
It took five long minutes of hard running before he heard the dogs, distant high pitched yelps growing into sharp threatening barks as they drew closer. Vaelin chose a defensible position atop a fallen birch trunk and quickly took the scarf from his wrist, tying it around his neck and tucking it out of sight. He waited, arrow notched tight to his bowstring, breath steaming as he dragged air into his lungs and fought the tremble from his limbs.
The dogs were on him quicker than he expected, three dark forms bursting from the undergrowth twenty yards away, snarling, yellow teeth flashing, churning snow as they sped towards him. Vaelin was momentarily shocked by the sight of them, they were an unfamiliar breed. Larger, faster and more thickly muscled than any other hunting dog he had seen. Even the Renfaelin hounds in the Order’s kennels seemed like pets in comparison. The worst thing was their eyes, glaring yellow, filled with hate, they seemed to glow with it as they closed on him, drool trailing from snarling maws.
His arrow took the first one in the throat, sending it tumbling into the snow with a surprised, piteous whine. He tried for another arrow but the second dog was on him before the shaft was clear of the quiver. It leapt, sharp nailed paws scrabbling at his chest, head angled to fix the flashing teeth on his neck. He rolled with the force of the lunge, letting his bow slip away, his right hand pulling the knife free from his belt to stab upwards as his back connected with the ground, the dog’s momentum helping bury the blade in its chest, punching through ribs and cartilage to find the heart, blood gouting from the mouth in a thick black spray. Fighting nausea, Vaelin put his boots under the twitching body and heaved it away, rolling upright, knife levelled at the third dog, ready for the charge.
It didn’t come.
The dog sat, ears flattened, head lowered near the ground, eyes averted. Whining, it raised its muscular form to edge closer then sat again, glancing at him with a strange, fearful but expectant expression.