Veyra Flintstep's Arc

Chapter 12 of 14

Veyra drew the second copy the next morning at the chieftain's table. The hide was smaller than the first, but she fit every pole and turn onto it. When the ink dried, she rolled both maps and tied them with cord. Then she sat back and stared at her hands. Two maps. Two people who could read them. If she and Giloa went into a crevasse together, the ink would still be there, but no one alive would know what the marks meant. She found Giloa outside splitting kindling. "The maps aren't enough," she said. "Someone else has to walk the road with us. Learn the poles. Learn the cache." Giloa set the axe down. "Who." "I don't know yet." She went to the shaman's hut first. Shahndiin was outside, tying a fresh bundle of herbs above her doorway. The blue names on her arms caught the low sun. "I need a second reader for the map," Veyra said. "Someone who knows the mountain. Someone who'll live past me." Shahndiin did not turn around. "Not me. My road is the forest and the pool. I would forget your poles by the second snow." "Then who." "Ask the chief. He knows every young back in the village." Veyra crossed to the great hall, the bone arches over its door casting long shadows on the stone. Barren Meadow sat inside on a low bench, oiling a strap. He did not look up when she entered. "I need a warrior," Veyra said. "Young. Steady. Willing to learn the road with me before spring." "For what." "So the road doesn't die with me and Giloa." He set the strap across his knee. He thought for a long moment. She braced for a refusal. He had refused her warriors before. "Take my grandson's second boy," he said. "Nendo. He hunts with Giloa's cousin. He can read a marked trail." Veyra almost asked why. She did not. She saw the answer in his face. The old man was setting a piece of his line outside his own house, away from the meetings his grandson was holding against him. He was moving something he loved to safer ground. "He'll walk the whole road with us," Veyra said. "Both passes. The cache. Every pole in order." "Take him in the spring." Barren Meadow picked up the strap again. "He leaves when you leave. He comes back when you come back." She left the hall with the second map under her arm. Giloa was waiting by the wind chimes at the village shrine, the crystal rods clicking above him in the cold air. "Well?" he said. "We have a third," Veyra said. "The chief's great-grandson. Nendo." Giloa nodded once. "Good." Then, quieter: "He's the chief's blood. That's not free." Veyra looked back at the hall. "No," she said. "It isn't."