Rebuilding a world, he knew, started with taking over the first objective, then following with the others. And he was going to find a way to do it. Project Calypso had given him all the time he needed.
TARRAGON CLAPPED a hand over his mouth and lay still. The ground was cold against him despite the warm clothing he wore, and he was finding it hard to mask the gray fog wisps of his breath because his lungs were still laboring from the run.
He heard the men behind him, beating through the brush with their swords and staffs. Their lanterns looked like burning, baleful eves as they swung from their handles. The men called down all kinds of curses on him and Bean.
At fifteen years of age, Tarragon believed in curses and dark gods and the fact that nature was stronger than anything man could create. What he didn’t believe in was the Prince’s decision to start the Time of the Great Uprooting.
He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth as his father had taught him. Foxglove had been one of thorpe’s best druids, full of the fey gift, having only to put his hands upon a man, woman or child of the village to know what to give them for their sickness.
His father had also been one of the Prince’s most ardent opposers. Two weeks ago Foxglove had been found dead in the nearby stream. It was supposed to look as if he’d slipped on a wet rock and smashed his head in.
Maybe he had. But when Tarragon had put his hands on his father and held him and cried, he’d known his father had been murdered. That was his gift the knowing. Only he couldn’t control it enough to convince others that what be saw was always true.
He knew that at least one of his father’s killers was among the men who hunted him. This night, with the help of Bean, the stable boy, he’d managed to know that.
But they’d been discovered. Cut off from returning to the thorpe, not even knowing for sure whom they could turn to, they’d fled into the forest. They hadn’t counted on the men following.
Tarragon straightened and put his back to the tree. He was breathing more regularly now despite the way his heart thundered in his chest. He gazed wildly around the thick copse. Demons and witches were reputed to live within their boundaries. The Prince had tried to quiet such talk when he’d learned of it earlier, but it proved impossible. Children loved stories of terrors and monsters, and despite the fact that they grew up into adults, those tales continued to haunt them, turning into beliefs.
The bark was hard in his fingers, iced over from the cold and the frost. The hunters continued to close in, and he counted perhaps as many as a dozen of them. Maybe there were a few more or less. It didn’t matter, because there were more than enough to kill him. And Bean.
He swallowed hard. He’d lost the other boy in the last break. Wildroot was a good three hours back the way he’d come. He’d felt certain the Prince’s seed heralds would have given up before now. “Bean!” he whispered hoarsely. “Bean!” There was no response.
Steeling himself, fighting his fear, Tarragon moved into the open. The hunters were twenty yards away, following a path that led through the trees, only partially visible.
He muttered a quick prayer to Lugh Silverhand as he slipped through the trees. “Bean!”
“Here, Tarragon.” The voice was listless and papery thin.
“Where?” Tarragon asked. “I can’t see you.”
“Ahead of you. Follow my voice.”
“If you talk any louder, everyone in the forest is going to be able to find the way to you.”
“I’m sorry.” Bean’s voice sounded very weak.
A glance over his shoulder showed Tarragon that the hunting party was still heading away from them. He almost stumbled over Bean when he turned back around.
The boy lay in the brush, breathing rapidly. He was three years younger than Tarragon, but had the same dark hair and pale, aquiline features that marked him as being from the same tree. He was dressed as Tarragon, in homespun breeches and a thick shirt, with a patchwork coat hanging down to midthigh. His deerskin boots still carried the smell of the stable on them, and it was a wonder the hunters couldn’t track them by that alone.
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