SPIRIT WALKER

Chapter 17: How the Sky Feels (part 2 of 2)

Wisteria shifted her attention. She kissed Tull with passion, and felt him respond in kind. His eyes closed, and she watched his face for a reaction. He seemed to kiss with his whole soul, using every muscle of his body to caress her. She reached up under his shirt and stroked the hairs of his chest. He felt so strong and reassuring. Being with him was nice.

Yet she knew that if the journey reached a point where it might succeed, she would have to betray him. She wondered how she could accomplish such an act—betray him so that he'd never know. If Phylomon found out what she'd done, he'd punish her.

Tull moved his hand down to her thigh. A wolf howled nearby, followed by others, and Wisteria shivered in fear.

The fire crackled and spread its light to the nearer trees. Beyond that, the forest was impenetrably dark. Wisteria noticed a smell that reminded her of cheese, a delicate yellow cheese her father sometimes bought from farmers far to the south, and she thought it strange that Tull's skin should bear this sweet, sour smell. And suddenly she became aware that the scent was growing stronger, and she thought that very strange.

A twig cracked beside her, and Tull whirled and pulled his kutow, swinging the double-headed ax over his head as he issued a battle challenge.

Scandal jumped for his weapon, but Phylomon shouted, "Hold!"

Four giant women stepped out of the darkness, each completely nude, each of them well over eight feet tall, with dark cinnamon-colored hair and skin as dark as the redwoods themselves.

Wisteria gasped, for they seemed to her to have materialized from thin air, their presence heralded only by their smell. Each was shapely and beautiful, with wide hips and pointed breasts; Wisteria felt so embarrassed by their nudity that she had to stifle an impulse to run and grab blankets to cover them. They were Dryads, of course, keepers of the redwood forest.

One woman carried a thin white bundle on her shoulder.

She stepped forward and tossed the mayor's Dryad to the ground at Wisteria's feet, as if the girl were a sack of grain. The red woman moved her fingers through the air, waving them as if they were falling snow blown by the wind. Wisteria recognized the action from legend——Hukm finger language—but she'd never known anyone who spoke the strange tongue. The Dryad of the redwoods waved her fingers downward three times, then made a single emphatic chopping motion.

Phylomon said, "Get the mayor's Dryad some water." Phylomon waved his fingers at the women, then blinked once.

The red woman raised her hand and let her fingers fall, weaving syllables into the motions of her fingers; she made a chopping motion at the end, and then backed silently into the shadowed woods.

Wisteria raced back to the wagon to get the last of the drinking water. Tull, seeming hesitant to give up kissing Wisteria, went to the wagon and stripped cloth for compresses. Phylomon and Wisteria washed dirt and blood from the Dryad.

Tirilee's pale white skin, normally mottled by a few dark stripes, was blackened by bruises and tiny cuts. Her clothes were shredded. She watched Phylomon with unfocused eyes, but seemed not to realize where she was.

"The Dryads of the redwoods caught her following us," Phylomon explained. "They beat her at first, but decided she might be with our party, so they brought her here. I told them that she was our scout. They say we must take her from their forest immediately. If we let her plant any of her aspen trees, they'll kill us."

"My God!" Scandal said. He walked away from the fire and peered beyond its ring of light. Wisteria could smell the scent of cheese very strongly as she worked. "Do you smell that," Scandal called. "Froghollow cheese, yellow and sweet. You'd think it was fermenting in their breasts."