Maeve interrupted her thoughts. “I feel like such a fool for taking so long, but I’d like to offer my condolences for the passing of Tura. So much has happened in the last few weeks that, well…I should have said something before now. Your mother was a wise woman.”
“Tura wasn’t my mother.”
“Oh? But I thought…” Maeve looked puzzled.
Suri shrugged. “Our best guess is that I was stolen out of my cradle by crimbals who wanted to take me to Nog. But something happened on the way, and either they dropped me in the forest where Tura found me or I somehow escaped. Tura thought I was a little strange, so she figured the latter was more likely.”
“How horrible,” Maeve said with genuine sympathy. “How old were you when Tura took you in?”
“Don’t know; young, though. Tura said I was tiny. Said I was so small that she would’ve missed me in that pile of leaves if I hadn’t been crying. Apparently, I had nearly buried myself in them. Anyway, I cried so loud she said she could hear me over the roar of the cascades. We figure maybe that was why the crimbals dropped me; I could wail like the North Wind.”
“Tura…” Maeve narrowed her eyes. “Tura found you in a pile of leaves…near a cascading stream?”
Suri nodded. “She showed me the place. I used to go there and sit, sit and think. Wondering, you know? I thought maybe I’d catch one of the crimbals and they might tell me how I came to be there. They might know who my parents were and why they didn’t come looking for me. But crimbals are impossible to catch, hard to see even. You only get a glimpse of them out of the corner of your eye. When I was young, I imagined the crimbals hadn’t stolen me at all, that maybe they had saved me. My parents could have been monsters, or maybe they’d been killed. Maybe I was carried away for my own good. It’s possible my dying mother called to Wogan for help, and he sent the crimbals. I can still picture her handing me over to their keeping. Wogan might have told them to bring me to Tura rather than Nog, knowing she would take care of me.”
“And now? Now that you’re older? What do you believe?”
Maeve was looking at her intently. Normally, the old woman struck Suri as flighty. She was the sort who didn’t listen when a person talked, or at least she didn’t look at people. At that moment, Maeve focused on Suri to the exclusion of all else, and she found the intensity of that attention disturbing.
“I recently learned that parents of unwanted children leave their babies in the forest. I hope I wasn’t one of those.” Suri disliked the way Maeve was peering. That sort of thing would cause a moose to charge, but she guessed the old woman didn’t know any better. “I’ve been thinking…that…well…if Tura hadn’t found me, I could have suffered the same fate as your daughter. I suppose that’s part of why I’m here. Aside from the whole stopping-the-demon-from-killing-everyone thing, of course.”
“How old are you, Suri?” Maeve asked, her voice trembling, her eyes tearing.
“Not certain about that, either. Depends on how old I was when Tura found me. Fourteen, maybe?”
Maeve reached out and took hold of Suri’s hands. The old woman was shaking.
“Are you cold?” Suri asked.
Maeve pulled Suri up. “We have to get out of this cave. We have to get out, right now!”
As Maeve grabbed hold of Suri’s hand and started to pull, the light changed.
The moonlight coming in the cave’s mouth was blotted out, leaving them in darkness. A heartbeat later the great bear’s outline was obvious and nearly filled the entire opening. It took one step inside, hesitated, and then roared. The sound was deafening.
Grin knew they were there. Knew before she entered, most likely, and Suri was certain the bear didn’t like unexpected guests. The great padded paws thumped on the dirt, her nails clicking on the rock. She advanced slowly, then roared again. Maeve screamed and threw her arms around Suri, squeezing her and crying, “No!”
“Remember to call your daughter’s name when Grin reaches the salt,” Suri whispered. She’d already told Maeve this twice but felt it was important to remind the old woman, since her former courage seemed to have fled at the sight of the bear. Such a thing was easy to excuse. Even Suri was having second thoughts.
Grin bounded forward in a charge and stopped right on the nest—directly on the spray of salt Suri had laid down.
“Now!” Suri told her. “Do it now.”
“Suri!” Maeve cried.
“No, not me! Call your daughter’s name. Call for Shayla.”
Grin roared and reared up. The beast’s head brushed the cave’s ceiling, and its body blocked the exit.
Maeve ripped Tura’s staff from Suri’s grasp and shouted at the mystic, “Run!” Then the old woman raised the stick high above her head. “Back! Back, you vile beast! You can’t have my daughter!”
Suri was both bewildered and amazed as the old woman advanced on the bear that towered over her, rolling its head as it growled. Maeve got in one good swing. Tura’s staff struck Grin on the side. Then the bear brought a forepaw around and caught the old woman. Maeve shattered like an egg struck by a hammer. Long white hair and a dress fell to the stone.
The bear rose up again and roared at Suri—the last intruder.
It didn’t work. The salt failed. Maeve went crazy and forgot her daughter’s name. What a disaster.
The mystic retreated as far as she could, pressing against the rear wall. No escape, no place to go, no shelter, nowhere to hide.
You’re always right, Tura.
The bear sniffed at the silent, still body of Maeve, then began its charge. The lumbering force of rippling fur and muscle drove forward, propelled by rock-gouging claws. Suri held her breath, bumping the back of her head against the rear wall as she tried to flee through stone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Trapped
I looked often for that famous place. I wanted to see it for myself, to peer into the brink and test myself. I never found it. That forest has a way of keeping secrets, the good and the bad.
—THE BOOK OF BRIN
“Malcolm, Persephone,” Raithe called. “Like before, with the wolves.”
They both knew what he meant and put their backs together. Persephone pulled the shield off her back and hooked her left arm through the straps. The enarmes were made for bigger men, and she couldn’t properly reach the leather grip, catching it with only the tips of her fingers. In her other hand, she held the legendary spear, which also felt too big, too heavy.
“I don’t know how to fight,” she whispered over her shoulder.
“Neither do I,” Malcolm admitted.
“Doesn’t matter,” Raithe replied. “There’s too many of them. We’re going to die.”
Some of the men heard, and smiled. In the moonlight, they looked like grinning ghouls. Persephone hoped Raithe had said it to make them overconfident, a ploy of some sort, but they didn’t look like they needed any reassurance. The brutes were in no hurry. They took more swigs from their waterskins, then slowly began spreading out, circling them, putting shields on, laughing with one another as they did. Most of the faces she didn’t know, and she didn’t want to. They were men from Nadak, and madness was in their eyes, the same sort of madness she’d seen in people during the famine. The Nadak men were starving, but what they hungered for was revenge—against her, against anyone.