Sonia put her head on one side.
“You have found only seven things so far, counting the crystal,” she pointed out. “Did the Fellan not tell you there were nine powers in all?”
Rye put his fingers back into the little bag and felt something small and flat wedged into one of the corners. He eased it out carefully.
It was a transparent disc, thin as paper and not much bigger than his thumbnail. As he held it up, it shone blue and green in the light.
“What is it?” Sonia leaned closer.
Rye shrugged uneasily. The strange disc had done nothing, but as he looked at its glimmering surface, a deep trembling began in the pit of his stomach.
“That still only makes eight,” Sonia said. “There must be something else. Look again!”
Rye shook his head. “There is nothing else.”
He pushed the disc back into the bag and instantly felt better.
“We will think about it again in the morning,” he said, scooping up all the other objects on his knee and returning them to the bag, too. “We should try to get some sleep. I only wish I still had that box of supplies I was given. I am starving.”
Sonia grinned. “I can do better than stale volunteers’ food.”
She untied the bag she carried at her waist and rummaged inside it.
“Here!” she said, pulling out some little bundles wrapped in red cloth. “I have dried bell tree fruit and hoji nuts. I have cheese and honey. I have rice pastries, rolls, and sweet cakes. And a flask of amber tea.”
She met Rye’s startled gaze defiantly. “Yes, I stole them from the Keep kitchens. But will you reject them for that?”
Rye laughed and shook his head.
Gratefully they ate and drank. Then, yawning, they settled themselves for sleep. Rye put the light crystal back into the little drawstring bag, and once again, they were plunged into darkness.
Rye lay back on the straw, finding that despite everything he felt strangely content. His stomach was full. There was silence outside. Cool air blew softly through the tiny gaps between the stones of the walls.
“Ah,” he heard Sonia sigh. “How good it is to feel fresh night air! In Weld now, we would be sweltering in our beds.”
Sweltering and listening in dread to the skimmers, Rye added silently. He thought of his mother in the Keep — sad and alone, but safe at least.
“Yet here it is warm enough to be comfortable but cool enough to sleep,” Sonia was going on drowsily. “Who would guess it was almost Midsummer Eve?”
Rye stared up into darkness. Words scratched on stone seemed to dance in front of his stinging eyes.
Rye slept heavily on his bed of straw. His sleep was filled with dreams of raging bonfires, of dark stone passages, of chains, weeping, and blood. And threading through the dreams like a repeating pattern were images of Dirk, face blackened and fists clenched, repeating over and over again: “Make haste! Time is short. It is almost Midsummer Eve.”
Rye woke with a start, a beam of sunlight shining straight into his eyes through a split in the roof. He sat up, confused and panic-stricken. How long had he slept? How much precious time had been lost?
Calling urgently to Sonia, he grabbed the bell tree stick and crawled to the door. His legs and back were aching. His skin itched, and his clothes were stiff with dried mud and slime. Feverishly he unbarred the door and pushed out into the light.
He staggered to his feet and took a few stumbling steps forward, his heart still pounding with the panic he had felt on waking. He stared dazedly over bumpy sunlit fields and distant hills, his eyes watering.
Everything looked shockingly bright. The sky above him was a great bowl of cloudless blue — dazzling and unnatural. Behind him, he heard Sonia calling sleepily from the shelter.
Then he heard another sound — a low, menacing sound. And it, too, was coming from somewhere behind him.
His heart seemed to stop. Slowly he looked back.
And there, looming from the side of the shelter, lumbering around the corner to hulk between Rye and the open doorway, was the horned beast.
The beast looked even more fearful in daylight. Its shaggy coat was matted with mud, burrs, and the dried blood of its kills. Its tiny eyes flamed with the hunger of its long hours of waiting. The single yellow-white horn, sharp as a blade, gleamed in the sun as the creature pawed the ground, its foaming jaws stretched into that hideous, grinning, blunt-toothed snarl.
Time seemed to stand still. Thoughts flew and tumbled over one another in Rye’s mind, flashing choices at him like a handful of playing cards thrown high into the air.
He could try to dodge around the shelter and get up onto the roof, but the beast was too close. It would be upon him before he could even begin to climb. If he ran toward the road, the creature would certainly catch him before he even reached the flattened fence. If he turned and made for the open fields, he might last a little longer, but the result would be the same.
The fact was, the beast would easily catch him whichever way he ran. He had seen its speed. But run he must, as fast as he could, and not just to try to save himself.
Sonia was in the shelter. At the very least, he had to lead the beast as far away from her as he could, so she had the chance to shut and bar the door.
Rye glanced to his left, to the grove of trees. There was a low-branching tree at the edge nearest the road. He knew it was his best chance.
The beast lowered its head and charged.
Rye yelled, threw the stick wildly, and ran.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the beast wheel and come thundering after him. He could hear the creature’s grunting bellows and the pounding of its hooves already drawing closer, closer to his heels. The grove of trees seemed very far away.
Run faster, he urged himself in terror. Faster!
And then, suddenly, the low-branched tree was right in front of him. Suddenly he was flinging himself up onto the lowest branch, seizing a higher one with sweating, trembling hands, and climbing up, up….
How have I done this? he thought in confusion as he climbed. How did I outrun it?
The tree shook as the beast battered its trunk, butting and tearing at it in fury. Rye wrapped his arms and legs around the branch he clung to, screwing his eyes shut, pressing his cheek against the rough bark.
Then there was a thud and a piercing squeal.
Rye opened his eyes and looked down.
The horned beast was lying at the foot of the tree. A metal spike was sticking out of its side. Its body jerked once, and was still.
“Got it!” a voice roared from the direction of the road.
Rye peered around the branch and blinked into the sun. A dark, chunky, child-sized figure in a green cap was standing just inside the flattened section of fence. The figure was lowering a glinting metal triangle that was plainly some sort of barbarian bow.
Behind the figure, pulled up in the middle of the road, was a bright green horse-drawn cart loaded with enormous bleating goats. Fixed to the cart’s side was a bold white sign.
Another figure, even smaller than the first and wearing a bunchy striped skirt, sat on the driver’s seat of the cart, punching the air with one hand and holding the horse’s reins with the other.
“Good shot, Dadda!” the figure in the cart cried, and at the same moment, Rye realized with a shock that the person at the fence was not a child at all but a very short man.
“Ho there!” the short man called, waving to Rye. “You can come down now!” He slung the weapon over his shoulder and began striding toward the tree.
Rye clung to his branch, staring in disbelief. Who were these people, who looked like sturdy children but carried weapons strong enough to slay monsters? And how rich, or how mad, must they be, to use a horse to draw their cart, while their giant goats rode?