"Hey! Wake up! You're all a bunch of pansies, the lot of you," Rutiger grumbled. "I leave for one minute to catch that little one and when I come back, you're all taking a nap! I thought we had stuff to do." He laughed to himself.
Bain groaned a little, his head feeling as though it had split in half. Icy water splashed across his face, delving into his nose and mouth so he had to quickly sit up to avoid choking to death. Though his shirt and hair were wet and his head throbbing, he was otherwise unharmed from the dart.
"It was her," he groaned.
"Yeah, I guessed as much. She is the tricky one. She got you all with some tree frog slime, not enough to kill you, but enough to knock you out and make you vomit a bit." He picked up one of the darts from the table and touched it to his tongue briefly. "Tastes like burnt mushrooms, that's how you know."
Bain scrambled out of the tent, just in time to purge the contents of his stomach, which were minimal, and continued to dry heave for a few minutes, while Rutiger went about splashing water on Link and Arthur.
Bain forced a few mint leaves into his mouth to chew. They tasted as cold and bitter as he felt. "She is probably dead now," he said, softly. A new wave of guilt washed over him as he thought of how she had bounced upon the bear's head. He had stolen a sweet and innocent life. "There was so much blood on her. It...it just looked like I shot her...right in the heart. The Wind knows where she is now, but we still have to find her body. If the Ferals find it first, they will use it as an excuse to turn on Incitatia and bring their vengeance to fruition."
"But she is only one little girl. Why would they care if she was dead? Ferals are so reclusive, they are likely not to even notice," Arthur murmured.
"They notice when we kill a single deer. There are always birds about and the Ferals know what they see. Why do you think we have had such a hard time out here? They have more spies than all of the cities along the Mourning Sea. In fact, they probably already know what I have done and are moving against us even now," he said tersely, rubbing his hands over his head. Bain could not believe what he had done. It seemed too unreal, too distant and numb. His eyes darted to his bow, cast onto the ground beside a tent, loathing it and himself. Was this who he was, an Avian who could get so wrapped up in getting what he wanted that he would resort to murder and hiding bodies?
He stood up, forcing himself to swallow the nausea that had clung to him like the scent of beer and failure. He felt as though he could drown himself in alcohol, to wash away the horrible shame and regret, but decided that would be too kind to himself. Bain felt that he deserved to feel the pain of what he had done to come close to the pain he had made her suffer.
"Come," he said to the other three. "Let's pick up the snares we set at the stream. Then, we can begin looking for her and...bury her."
"What are you going to do about your duty, Bain? You must still find a Feral," Arthur said softly.
Rutiger shifted his weight from one foot to the other. If Bain did not take the punching girl, he would, just for the fun of her company.
He sighed. "I have not forgotten, Arthur. I suppose I will talk to that one later today," he said, nodding to the closed tent. He did not want to talk to any Feral that might remind him of the life he had taken. He did not want to continue the hunt at all. "Or maybe we will just go back to the city for a week. I don't know. We can decide later. I just want to give that girl a proper burial and pay for what I have done."
His men said nothing, feeling the pain in his words. Though it was an accident, the crime was weighing heavily on his back, more so than his responsibility to his lineage. They waited for him to rise and followed him on foot through the trees. Link stayed back to watch over the camp and the female tied up in Rutiger's tent. They matched his slow but determined pace, scanning the ground carefully for blood or footprints. It was a much longer walk on foot, but the morning was a solemn one and the trip would help Bain process the events of the previous day. His friends hoped that he would forgive himself, though knew what their own reactions would be in his place.
For a while, he seemed to relax, the invisible burden he carried lightening as the forest did around them. Bain replayed the event of the chase over and over in his mind, searching for the moment when she veered right into the path of the arrow. He had not seen it hit her, but forced himself to remember the blood spilled all down her torso and the suffering in her eyes. He had put it there.
Through his thoughts, he heard the sound of the stream as they approached it and it shifted the images to the day he had watched her bathe. He could remember the sound of her laughing at the cat and a new wave of sadness rolled over him. Even now he could smell the honey wax soap in the air.
"On the bright side, we can hunt without being pestered. I would love some venison-"
"Shh," Bain said quickly to Arthur. He had thought the scent of the soap was just his imagination, but as he focused, he could tell it was real. Perhaps the bar had fallen into the water, but his heartbeat quickened at the thought that she might have somehow survived.
He motioned for Arthur and Rutiger to follow quietly and crept along the deer path to the side of the stream, hidden behind leafy branches and shadows.
There, on the flat rock, kneeled his Feral, weakly cupping water with her hand to let it run over her shoulder. Bain felt as though his heart came to a screeching halt, so overcome with emotion and overwhelming relief. He did not know whether he was more happy that she was alive or that he had not committed the worst of all crimes. Her back faced him, though, showing him what he had done and reminding him that he was responsible for it.
The wound was open and dark, the blood that had clotted around the deep cut and entry turned the water she poured over it red. The white doeskin she wore was now brown and pink with old and new blood, a ticking clock. If he did not get her help soon, she might become too weak to fight any infection.
"She's alive," he whispered, more to convince himself that he was awake than anything.
Bain motioned for Rutiger to go around to the other side of her and for Arthur to flank him. With the wound, she would not be able to fly well, if at all, and so would not be able to escape by going up over the waterfall. Her only route would be to flee downstream, but would have to face the three of them. Bain did not intend for her to even leave the ground. He pulled out a small dark bottle from the pouch on his belt, glad he had not thrown it away. It would make everything much easier.
Arthur pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to Bain.
Sorren tried not to move her arm at all. Even the slightest bit of jarring sent shooting pain down to her fingertips. She was glad for the shelter of the rocks that made the waterfall, hiding her from the wind that begged her to fly, pushing against her wings, which only made the long cut on the back of her shoulder hurt more.
After she left the Peregrine's camp, she thought only to go home, but fell down in exhaustion not a quarter of the way there. She tore the ends of the branches from a long needled pine and searched for a depression among the giant roots of a nearby tree. Surrounding herself with the soft fans, she had made a warm bed and finally was able to rest, hoping that she would have enough energy to make it back to the cave in the morning.
However, when the sun rose, her shoulder hurt worse than before and turned dark with angry bruises. She knew she needed to wash it and the thought of cold water on her hot skin was too tempting to resist. The stream was not far out of the way. She hoped she would find someone there, perhaps Blue or Wren, that would send a message to Bear, telling him that she was trying to get home and needed help.
With her knife, Sorren cut the band of her shirt that held it around her neck. She kept the doeskin pressed against her chest with her knee as she strained to see the wound. She bit her lip as she gently scrubbed at the clots with the tips of her fingers. Sorren tried to think of where she could find any Crush Ants, giant ants with massive hooks for jaws. She could hold their snapping mouths to her skin and let them clamp the sides of a wound shut in their bite before she pinched their heads off, leaving sutures behind.
The hairs on Sorren's neck stood on end and she heard them coming a fraction of a second before she saw their shadows. Adrenaline poured through her veins, numbing her from the arrows she thought would rain down on her. Her free hand found the handle of her ax on the ground and as she stood, she spun toward the closest Peregrine, the one coming from her left. It was the biggest of the males, Rutiger, and his meaty hand flew out faster than she could move and grasped the handle, stopping the arc that would have landed the blade deep into his neck.
Dizziness from standing too quickly without the full amount of blood made her stagger backwards. The wind swirled around her and Rutiger as the other two landed behind her, her back and wings pressing into the chest of one. A strong arm came around from the side, the shoulder preventing her from seeing who it was, and secured her against him. His hand gripped her left wrist, pinning it against her chest to hold up her shirt. Sorren cried out weakly in pain under the pressure and struggled with her right hand to reach up and free herself.
She felt his left hand come up and press a cloth over her nose and mouth, the metallic scent wrapping around her head like a giant mouth and swallowing her whole into the blackness. As she fell down the tunnel and her knees buckled, she saw two silver eyes watching her disappear.