on the rocks below, the forest hemming him in on every side. Andiene stood by the cliff’s edge, proud and beautiful. He would have gone to her side, but the river was wide and deep and ran with blood; he could not cross. Then she looked at him and laughed, as the dragon raised his gray viper’s head from the meadow and breathed out flames, flames that clung and burned like the traitor’s death he had seen so often. In that fiery moment his body burned to ashes and was gone.
When he woke, still sick with the pain of that burning, he did not find the cool mists of the dream land, but air so heavy and hot that it could scarcely be breathed. It lay on the land like the lifeless breath from an opened oven. There was a stillness in the forest; no birds, no insects, not even one breath of wind to rustle the trees.
He walked to where Lenane slept, and shook her awake. “Lady, rise and see what has come upon us unaware.”
She looked at him with suspicious eyes, and closed her hands so the claws half-showed between her fingers. “Leave your claws in their wristlets, my lady,” Kallan said. “I woke you because you have lived in the forest the longest of us all. Summer is upon us.”
She rose then, and limped to the door of the safehold. One swift look told her all she needed to know. “Seven days more to travel, then the leaves fall and all paths are gone.”
“So few days?”
“Did you ask me, to question my reply? Look, the leaves are already gold. There is no life in them.”
Kallan thought of himself and his five comrades. Two strong, two weak, two sick and lying near to death. He turned to Lenane, though he knew what her answer would be. “Is this any fit place to shelter when true summer is upon us?”
She shook her head. “Some of us might live. Some would not. We cannot dig a place to hide in the hard ground, even if you were willing. There is no surety that the water will hold in the heat of the summer. Do you know this forest, to know of any villages that could shelter us?”
“No,” Kallan said. “What I am familiar with lies far from here. We have no time to search.” When Andiene woke, he spoke to her. “Can you charm the trees?”
“How do you mean?”
“Make them accept your hand on them, to break their boughs and tear their limbs.”
She shook her head. “No. I could spend a ten-score of years in wooing these ones to me, and still they would not grant such a wish. What do you need to do?”
He explained. “Ilbran and I traveled this road when we entered the forest. The safeholds are still bound to us, I think. We have enough time to leave, if we can find some way to carry him. But since your powers will not charm the trees, we will manage with what we can find.”
So the four of them, Syresh, Lenane, Andiene, and Kallan, searched the paths and gathered windfallen branches to make a sled, tying the wood together with vines. It was a crudely built thing that any artisan would have been ashamed to acknowledge, almost more trouble than it was worth as it jolted along the uneven ground.
They traveled slowly, the next day. Ilbran lay on the sled, still holding Kare, and Kallan dragged them along.
They reached the next safehold with great thankfulness. Carvarinelan guarded it, the hunter, whichever one of the wise ones he had been.
When Kallan and Syresh set the sled down in the safehold, Kare sighed and turned, as a sleeper does in a troubled dream. Her eyelashes quivered, barely noticeable.
They watched her in sudden hope, not daring to move or speak, but she lay fragile and quiet again. So they left her where she was, with Ilbran holding her tight, and calling her name as though it were the only word he knew.
Kallan was troubled. He is giving his strength to her. But when he tried to take the child away, Ilbran fought until the blood stained his bandages again, and would not let her go. It seemed better to let him have his way.
In the morning, Kare woke as though from a long and restful sleep, but her father was worse, and very near to death. Kallan tried to feed him soup or water, any kind of moisture in this