Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 26 of 66

The eye still hung near the cave roof. Rebecka watched its blue iris track the woman on the coast road. "How fast is she?" "Fast," the eye said. "She has cut inland. She rides through scrub now, not road." Rebecka pulled the compass from her belt and flicked the lid. The needle spun and settled north-northwest, then wandered. It marked a moving point, not a fixed one. That was the problem. The woman could come by any of three draws below the ridge. Only one funneled to the bottleneck at the cave mouth. The other two crossed rock the eye could barely track and let a single rider slip past into the trees above them. From above, she could drop a pin on Ninka through the roof cracks and never show her face. Ninka stood at Rebecka's elbow with the dreamcatcher against her chest. Her hood was up. She spoke low. "Let me look." "Not into her. You said." "Not into her. At the ground under her." Ninka closed her eyes. Her lashes twitched. "Dry creek. Red stones. A dead pine leaned across it." Rebecka looked at the eye. "Do you see that." "East draw," the eye said. "She is in the east draw." The east draw did not reach the bottleneck. It climbed to the ridge shoulder above the cave. Rebecka's chest went cold. "How long." "An hour. Less if the horse holds." Rebecka moved. She grabbed the quiver and counted arrows by touch. Fifteen. She turned to Lark where he lay against the wall. "Can you walk." "I can sit up," Lark said. "I can't cut stone again." "I need you at the slot with Marcus. If I miss her, she comes down the throat behind me. Hold the line." He nodded once. Rebecka took Ninka's face in her hands. "You stay under this hood. You stay by Makani. You do not look at her again." "I won't." Ninka's voice went quiet. "Mom. She has a doll of you now. She made it on the ride." Rebecka let that sit for one breath. Then she let it go. "Then I'd better shoot first." She climbed the fissure at the back of the front chamber, up through the crack Lark had left open for air. She came out on the ridge shoulder in cold light. The east draw opened below her, red stones bright. She lay flat on the stone. The bow warmed under her hand. The rider came around the dead pine at a canter. Burned ear on the left side. A cloth bundle at her hip. The bow hummed. Range good. Kill sure. Rebecka hated it and drew anyway. One arrow. The woman went off the horse sideways and did not move. The eye drifted down to the body. "She is dead." Rebecka stayed flat. The bundle at the woman's hip had spilled. Not one doll. Three. Small, bound, waiting to be given out. One student down. Two names she did not know, already carrying her face.