Chapter 20

"Maybe," he said slowly, "we don't need to go over the river at all."

A crease appeared on Halt's forehead as he thought about it, but he hadn't been well and didn't know about the things Will did. Antil and Lillian weren't anymore enlightened.

"Don't give up Will," Lillian pleaded. "I don't want to stay here forever."

"I'm not giving up," Will told her, appalled she would even think that of him. He rocked onto his feet, adjusting the tiger pelt to cover him. They still had seven spears and he passed them around- two for Halt, two for Antil, two for Lillian and one for himself for he had his obsidian knife as well.

Halt passed the statue back to Antil. The healer clutched it to his skinny chest, diregarding one of his spears to hold it. Halt helped his former apprentice to gather their clothes in a dripping bundle. The two of them must have looked quite ridiculous, draped in tiger stripes, their hair sticking up in all directions, though cleaner than the others after their dip in the river. They certainly didn't look like rangers.

"Care to share your thoughts?" Halt prompted. Will nodded briefly as he dropped the tiger fur to stab at the sides, making arm holes. That way he could fasten his belt around the tiger fur and position his dagger by his hip, while still being able to move his hands. He scanned the bank; there didn't seem to be anything he'd forgotten.

"There's no way the tribespeople could have rowed over the river," he said. Halt nodded. That much was obvious.

"So maybe they went under it," Will continued. He gestured to the others. "Come on, up you get, there's no time for resting now."

Lillian hopped up, her knuckles white around her spears. Antil flurried around his pockets to tuck the statue away. The spearpoints quivered in his trembling hands. Will reflected that he didn't know what this man looked like when he wasn't withering away. As for Lillian, she was a far cry from the groomed courier he'd first met; she had been sanded at the edges and held the spears with such vice like madness that she might well go beserk if anymore of the tribesmen showed up.

Halt enhanced his tiger fur in the same way Will had. He held both his spears in one hand while he stooped to pick up Ruch's sword.

"Don't," Lillian said. "It's cursed. It must be. First Ruch had it, then Sirisa."

"I'm not going to use it," Halt reassured her. Indeed, he kept it wrapped in the banana leaves as he tucked it under his arm.

However many spears they had, if the tribespeople attacked they would be slaughtered. There was no doubt about it. The furs hindered the ranger's movements, plus they were carrying their wet clothes. Will jerked his head towards the trees and weaved through them, the others on his heels.

"We know the tribespeople must have been to Oramin recently to get that statue," Will continued.

"Yes, yes, hurry up about it," Halt grunted impatiently. Despite himself, Will had to enjoy leaving his mentor hanging. That and he was going slowly to make sure Antil and Lillian were following his thought process.

"I was thinking about Ruch's legend. Kohalli the Bloodthirsty. He led an army through the jungle and waded through the river to attack Oramin. But no one actually saw him crossing the river, right?" Will directed this to Antil, who of course knew all the legends.

"No." The healer failed to see the significance. "He was wet though; they saw him emerge from the bank."

"Right. They saw him emerge in the legend. They didn't see him walking through the water." Will glanced at his former mentor. Halt was nodding thoughtfully.

"You think he went under the river?" he asked. "It's possible, I suppose, that there's an underground tunnel of some kind. If this Kohalli character was leading an army, the Arasi might well have been secretly working away underground for years."

"Aras is renown for it's miners," Antil put in.

"Is it?" Will hadn't known that. "I thought it would make sense for a tunnel under a river to be damp at least, so they'd be wet when they reached the end."

"The legend also said the monster fish wouldn't attack Kohalli," Lillian added. "Obviously under the river there would be no fish."

They exchanged hopeful glances. That is, except for Halt, who rubbed his chin.

"The tunnel could have flooded by now of course," he reasoned. "This all happened long ago, I assume."

Will hadn't thought of that. His step faltered and he frowned to himself. There was nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. They passed the spot where he and Sirisa had come across the tiger, then where the swamp had descended on them- now rich soil.

"At the place where I found the obsidian, I slipped and my foot fell down a hole," Will carried on. "The ground must be hollow there. Maybe that's where the tunnel starts."

"If there is a tunnel," Antil said.

"There is," Will said shortly. There had to be. He couldn't handle another night in the wild without going insane.

At the rocks, he scouted ahead, scampering over the flecks of obsidian. Antil and Lillian dared not get their hopes up. They trailed behind. Halt did too, observing the land in meticulous detail. Nothing would escape his eye.

"Here!" Will called them over. "This is the spot." They grouped around the hole, less than impressed at the crumbling surface. Halt turned his attention immediately to the land around them.

"There must be an entrance," he said. "And a deeper hole. Step carefully," he cautioned.

The rangers were accustomed to stepping lightly and glided over the rocks; Will with a touch more care because he'd already slipped once. Lillian and Antil treaded with exaggerated tip toes. Her nerves on edge, Lillian squeaked now and again. They'd turn to come to her aid and see she had just lost her balance on the rocks.

Will and Halt pasued to pull on their wet boots. The dampness in the soles squelched as they stepped, and blisters formed on their heels (they didn't wear their socks in case their toes got mouldy) but it was better than the stabbing shards of obsidian and other sharp rocks.

On one occasion, Antil's foot fell down a hole and they had to pull him out. Lillian observed that even if they did find a tunnel, it looked like the ground was ready to cave in on them anyway. This was an encouraging thought. But Halt said that if the Arasi were miners then the tunnel would be safe and they wouldn't build it under loose rock.

"You could have said that before we started searching for it around here," Will accused, venting his frustration.

Halt raised an eyebrow at him. "Think. All this loose obsidian will have been turned up by the mine. It'll be around here somewhere, just not under the worst of the rock. Say, over there." He pointed to a dip in the rocks. They headed for it, dropping down a steep edge.

Sure enough, there was a square opening held up by wooden pillars. Around the entrance was an abundance of obsidian and other rock, chipped from inside the tunnel. Will imagined a cart pushed out of the dark tunnel, loaded with shiny rocks and pushed over so that they scattered everywhere. Why not gather them up? Were they panicking? He thought of the heavy rains and the swamp.

"It must have flooded," he said. "They left it abandoned. It drained out again in good weather but they didn't trust it for mining anymore. Kohalli came up with the idea of extending it and launching a surprise attack on Oramin."

Halt nodded. He too had come to a similar conclusion.

"How can you possibly know that?" Lillian asked.

"I don't know it," Will told her. "It just makes sense." He had to think of Horace and how the knight would hate to make his way down an abandoned mine shaft. The darkness didn't bother Will so much, but still he was nervous about what might lie in wait down the tunnel.

"Torches," Halt said, ever practical. They set about gathering branches and lit a small fire. Will opted to hold the torch as everyone else had two spears. They doused the fire and erased the evidence of it when they had one branch crackling. Halt had painted a graphic picture as they were preparing of the tribespeople seeing evidence of them and realising they'd gone down the tunnel.

By now, their clothes had dried enough. The ranger's dressed, much to Lillian's relief. Halt even still had his ranger cloak with only a few minor tears and Will felt far braver when his former mentor tugged his hood up, looking every bit the stern ranger again, albeit a battered one. Will kept his tiger fur as a coat and gave Antil the other. Lillian had the smaller one, the third, that was more of a vest on her.

They brought along sticks to burn if their current one ran out, carried by Lillian. The first step was the hardest. Into the depth of darkness, the firelight glittering on the walls of the tunnel. Away from the jungle. Towards home.

The path was smooth, for old carts to run over. They never did come across any of these carts. Will assumed the tribespeople had scavanged what they could, taking them apart for tools. But he would have noticed if they'd had pickaxes and he never saw any of those in the tunnel either. Maybe the people took them back when they stopped mining. Or maybe they'd simply been wrong about it being a mine at all.

He asked Halt and the ranger shrugged. "They had an army come down here, they probably brought the pickaxes home," but there was no way of knowing for sure.

Old torch brackets were still lodged in the walls, but the torches had since been removed. As they went deeper in, they saw obsidian in the walls that had never been mined. The ground began to squelch. It wasn't long until they were wading through thigh deep water. Drops fell from the ceiling. Drip, drip, drip. An ominous noise that had an echo in the tunnel. Drip-drip. Drip-drip.

"In flood season it probably fills right up and drains out again," Lillian said to make conversation. The others nodded, they had nothing to add to this.

After another heavy silence, Antil said, "I can't imagine this will succeed."

Will glanced sharply at him. He waited for a continuation- why shouldn't this succeed? Then he realised that was not what Antil meant at all. He just could not imagine it because before the wild, he'd been imprisoned for a year and he'd almost forgotten what a normal life was like.

"I can't imagine remembering this," Lillian agreed. Telling it to her friends back in Caraway like a distant story.

"I can't imagine not longing for the past," Antil said.

"I can't imagine getting up in the morning and not seeing the trees," Lillian said.

"I can't imagine sleeping in a bed."

"I can't imagine eating at a resteraunt."

"I can't imagine getting married," Will put in.

"I can't imagine that either," Halt said dryly and Will glared at him. It had soon changed. They said 'I can't imagine' but it wasn't true because they began to list the things they could imagne, the things they were longing for. Loves, friends, comforts, pets, castles, a particular river Lillian had skimmed rocks over, an apple tree Will had picked fruit for Tug- Tug, Abelard, Horace, Evanlyn, Pauline, Alyss, Baron Arald, Sir Rodney, Jenny, George, Gilan- they listed name after name.

The mine began to slope upwards. The torch brackets weren't on the walls here. Will guessed this was when it had become less a mine and more a battle tactic, for the army would have had torchbearers, the ground wasn't smooth anymore, and the water was up to their hips.

They stopped talking as the water level lowered and the ground angled up. Will tried to slow his thudding heart. They had reached a dead end.

"Now what?" Antil said. There was no frustration in his voice, nor any accusation at being led all the way for nothing, just an empty desolation.

Will bit his lip. He swung the burning branch around, taking in the solid rock. Halt touched his arm.

"Always remember to look up," he said. So Will did and saw what the older ranger had already seen. Wood- the underside of floorboards.

"Lillian, hold the torch," he said, passing it to her. She juggled her spears into one hand, clenching it with the other. Will grinned at her. He placed his palms on the wood and pushed up. They came loose with no effort, clearing the way out of the tunnel.

He shoved gestured to Lillian to pass him back the torch. Then he shoved his spear through the hole, ready to defend himself if there was anyone on the other side. He lifted the torch, the light shining on what he saw now was a storeroom.

There were shelves of musty books. Paintings hung on the walls, of battles and fights, heads being lopped off and one in particular that caught Will's eye: a man in with vines and trees snaking around him, looming over him were luminous flowers that resembled those Will had seen in the jungle and the border was rushing water with a spike toothed fish in the upper right corner.

No one was in the room. He gave the torch back to Lillian and pulled himself up. Will turned to help the others, one at a time, Lillian then Antil then Halt into the room. Lillian had tears streaming down her face.

"This is the storeroom under the hall," Antil said, choked wonder in his voice. He staggered over to a box of statues just like the one he'd acquired. They could hear him rummaging in it, sobbing softly to himself.

"Halt?" Will asked, a little uncertain as to what their next move might be. "Are we still going to try and get a treaty with Oramin?"

Halt shook his head. "I doubt they'll listen after we sacrileged their precious painting. I've had enough of Oramin anyway, no offence Antil. I think it's time to go home."

Will had never failed a mission before. "Without the treaty?" As keen as he was to see Alyss, he didn't like to leave before he'd achieved his goal.

"We can't get a treaty with every country," Halt said. "Let it go Will and let's just count ourselves lucky to be alive."

"I guess so."

"I know so," Halt said sternly. "Now, we'll meet up with the skandians."

"What if they've left?" Lillian fretted.

"Svengal wouldn't leave us," Will told her without a trace of doubt.

"What about Antil?" she asked. She still couldn't stop the teardrops. They trickled in rivelets down her cheeks and plopped onto her collar. It wasn't fear; it was unbearable hope that they might soon be home.

Halt approached the healer. In the shadows, Antil looked thinner, haggard and defeated, as if he'd melt like the candle wax in the statues he was so fond of. Halt rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Antil, you are welcome to join us and come to Araluen," he offered.

Antil shook his head. Not in refusal, in disbelief. "I have a wife and a son," he whispered. "A wife and a son. I can see them again."

"They would of course be welcome in Araluen as well," Halt said.

"Thank you," Antil murmured. "After all, no one in Oramin is going to welcome a criminal."

"But that's ridiculous!" Will exclaimed. "You aren't a criminal. You just couldn't save one person. It wasn't your fault!"

Antil sighed. "It was one of Lord Daan's ladies. Not the right people to fail at healing." He placed the statue in the box of it's kind. "How do I know my wife will be happy to see me?"

"There's ony one way to find out," Will said. He made his way to a ladder leaning against the wall and climbed swiftly up the rungs. There was a trapdoor at the top and he rattled it- padlocked.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Let us out! Open up! Help!"

He heard a flurry of footsteps. Hanging on to the ladder with one hand, he angled the spear with his other. Halt was right behind him, climbing up the ladder. Antil was holding the base and Lillian raised the torch.

The trapdoor shook as someone fumbled with the keys. It eased open. Fresh light enveloped them, a relief after the tunnel, just as the rising sun was a relief after a night in the wild. The browned face of an Oramine peered down at them, alarmed. Will couldn't blame him; they were a sight in their furs, with their tangled hair and the speckle of stubble over his chin. And of course the spears. Will pointed his at the young Oramine.

"Move," he ordered. The man threw up his hands and stepped to the side as they clamboured out of the storeroom. The wild clung to them like droplets after a bath.

"Are you with the other foreigners?" the Oramine asked.

"What?" Will muttered. "You mean the skandians? Yes, we're with them."

The Oramine's face darkened. "And a convict too, I see," he nodded to Antil. A second later, something else registered. "You are the one's condemned to the wild! You have come from there! Lord Daan! Lord Daan!" He hurtled down the hall, yelling at the top of his lungs.

Halt started in the other directions, bustling the others along with him. They dripped water over the polished wood. The paintings on the wall seemed far too immaculate for them.

"Deja vu," Will said to himself. For they were in the hall where they had been arrested. Sure enough, it wasn't long until they spotted the five lords painting, hanging in it's prominent position.

"I've half a mind to break it," Halt growled.

"Don't," Antil muttered.

Lillian was already lifting it from the wall. "All this fuss over a painting," she said. "Just because the Arasi stole it."

"Don't touch it," Antil hissed.

"Put it back, Lillian," Halt said. "Let's go." Apparently, he could suppress his desire to get rid of the painting. But Lillian dug her nails into the frame. It split, cracking at the edges. Will remembered thinking it was remarkably light for such a thick canvas.

He pried it from her hands and split the frame all the way. There was a sliver gouged out of the canvas. Inside was a piece of parchment. Will pulled it out. The sloped writing was in Oramine.

"Come on," Halt said impatiently. Will passed it to Lillian with a brief instruction to look after it. They jogged through the hall. They didn't come across anyone else, though the rangers heard footsteps pounding behind them.

"This way," Halt said, shoving open a door into the afternoon daylight. Several Oramine pointed at them from the trees. "Where will your wife and son be?"

"Halt," Will said before Antil could answer. "Maybe I should get in touch with Svengal while you get Antil's family."

"Good idea," Halt nodded. "Take Lillian with you."

"Right, good luck."

"You too."

Will gripped Lillian's arm and ushured her on. "Remember the way to Insee river?" Of course she did, and after a bit of prodding she gave him directions. He remembered too, but he thought it was good for her to feel like she was helping.

They heard shouts behind them. "There they are!" "The ones who survived the wild!" "They shouldn't be alive!" "They must be sorcerers!"

Will and Lillian doubled their efforts. They skidded over the turf. She stumbled and he helped her up. But they were losing ground and armed Oramine soldiers gained on them.

"Keep going," Will muttered. He gave her a shove and spun around, drawing his obsidian dagger. He had been pleased with it in the jungle. Now, as the soldiers drew their swords, he thought it woefully inadequate.

They were on him, swingin and slashing. He fought back with all the wilderness that had sunk deep into his bones. The strike of a snake. The claw of a tiger. The bite of a fish. Stabbing with his spear like he had against the tribespeople. In battle, there was little difference between them and the Oramine. Splashes of blood brought him back and he thought he hadn't escaped the wild at all.

Will staggered back under the blows. They fanned around him, surrounding him. He hoped Lillian was running. He hoped she and Halt and Antil would make it to Araluen. A glint of silver swept down on him. Will was trying to block another cut at the same time, he saw as if it was in slow motion that he could not defend himself.

Then the space around him was cleared. A roar thundered, a battlecry. Will resheathed his dagger, loosening his hold on the spear. He smiled. Svengal and the other skandians whirled their axes, crashing on the soldiers. The sickly stench of blood rose in the air, then the cry of retreat as the Oramine backed away.

"Will!" Svengal bellowed. He picked up the young man in a massive bearhug. Will was laughing as he struggled to free himself. "Where've you been? We've been waiting for ages."

….

The ship sailed out of the Insee river that evening. Will scrubbed the last traces of the wild from his skin. He borrowed skandian clothes. The shirt hung to his knees, the sleeves dangled past his hands. His pants were rolled up around his ankles and only staying up because of his belt. A sheepskin vest gaped around him. But they were clean and fresh.

The floorboards tipped under his bare feet, rocking on the waves. He padded onto the deck, combing through his curls with his fingers. Halt was hunched over the rail, an air of foreboding around him. They'd had a feast for dinner, all jokes and ale and good food. Halt was suffering the consequences of eating with weak sea legs.

Antil had his arm around a pretty woman, and a young man of seventeen darted around the deck as if he'd never seen anything so marvellous in his life.

"Dolphins!" he called, laughing. Antil smiled at him. The healer was groomed, and though he looked as ridiculous as all of them in skandian clothes, his hair had been trimmed (by his wife) and his eyes were bright.

Ruch's obsidian sword was in the closet of Will's room. He'd looked at it once to change the banana leaf wrapping to one of soft cloth. Other than that, he left it alone. He liked to think that a piece of Ruch's and Sirisa's souls were joined with that sword. He liked to think in some way, they had made it out of the wild.

"Will," Lillian said softly. She had a peach dress on and her blonde hair gleamed in the sunlight. The dress was a gift from Antil's wife. From what Halt told him, the first thing she'd said when they declared they had to leave was, "well let me get my things." They'd had to pack as many bags as they could carry with clothes before she would leave with them.

Lillian held out the scrap of parchment. She'd been pouring over it since they got on the boat. Meticulously translating each symbol of the Oramine language helped her to stay calm. "It says, 'gifted to the arasi from the Oramine, to end the fighting. May the sixth lord be a better one.'"

"So the Arasi didn't steal it," Will said. "It's just another case of warped history." He wrote her translation beside the scrawl. Maybe, they would be able to use it to get a treaty with Oramin, by telling them their legend was wrong and that there'd been no real reason to prosecute them for from what he'd grasped, they hadn't wanted foreigners touching it because of the arasi stealing the painting. A skilled negotiator like Halt could twist that in their favour. Or maybe not. A treaty with Oramin might be more trouble than it was worth.

"I'm sorry," Will apologised. "This whole thing didn't go smoothly for your first mission."

Lillian let out a shaky laugh. "I don't think I want to be a courier anymore."

"It's not always this bad," Will said.

"I was there when both of them died." There was a shrill note in her voice. "How can I get past that?"

Will touched her arm. There wasn't much he could do that would comfort her. "What will you do?"

"I don't know," Lillian muttered.

He hesitated. "You'd make a good scribe."

"You think so?" She looked up at him, her eyes wide and desperate.

"Yes. Lots of writing and memorising things. Not much danger."

"Then I think I'd like to be a scribe."

"I have a friend who's a successful scribe," Will said. "I can get you accepted to be trained. I'm sure you'd graduate in no time at all."

"Thank you," she said. "I'd like that."

When the stars and the moon came out, Will brought his mentor a cup of coffee. They leaned on the railing, Halt still a touch green, sipping the fragrant liquid. They didn't speak, just stared at the northern stars that would guide them home.