Passage

Yet Fawn wasn’t sure but what Crane had done more damage with his poisonous tongue than his dubious ground. He’d sure tried, anyhow. Dag should have paralyzed that part of the renegade, too, she decided. Had Dag’s odd outburst at di

Dag’s ground had to be in the most awful mess just now, come to think. Like a house the day after some big shindig where all the neighbors and kinfolks came, and ate and danced and drank and fought till all hours and your least favorite cousin threw up on the floor. You couldn’t hardly expect to get any work done till you’d cleaned up the place again all tidy, and you couldn’t tackle that till the hangover passed off.

Upon reflection, Fawn was profoundly thankful that Dag showed no weakness for drink. Patrollers in their cups had to make the most morose drunks in the world.

She snorted and rolled over, cuddling in tight. Please be well, beloved gloomy man.

24

The next day the Fetch floated through yet more of the bleak, treeless, unpeopled country they’d been passing for the last hundred miles. Berry promised there would only be about another day of this, then the banks of the river would grow more interesting than these endless scrubby sand bars: strange new trees, still green in the dead of winter and bearded with moss, mysterious creeper—hung side cha

“Hey, is that a narrow boat comin’ downstream, or—or not? If it is, that’s the biggest narrow boat I ever did see.”

Dag swung around. A slim vessel some thirty-five feet long was rapidly overtaking them. Paddles flashed in the hazy winter light, ten to a side; the occupants kept up a song to unite the rhythm of their strokes. Distance muffled the words, but Dag seemed to smile in recognition.

Barr, whose own watch was coming up soon, came out and stared over the stern rail, a half-eaten apple in his hand. “Isn’t that a Luthlian boat?” he called up excitedly.

“Yep,” said Dag. “But those aren’t Luthlians paddling, exactly. Those are southern Lakewalkers, heading home from a couple of years of exchange patrol.”

“How can you tell?” asked Fawn. “Their clothes? Their ages?”

The big narrow boat was already shooting past them—a quarter-mile off but still in the cha

“That, and the enthusiasm. Though if you were outru

Fawn, who had not only seen but made a malice kill, nodded perfect understanding. Barr, who hadn’t, looked envious.

“So the southern Lakewalkers export all their best young patrollers up the Gray for a couple of seasons. And hope they get them back.”

“Do the malices take so many?” asked Berry.

“No, actually. The biggest causes of losing young patrollers in—or to—Luthlia are accidents and the weather, and marriage. The malices are a long ways down the list. There are those who say the malices aren’t nearly as scary as the Luthlian girls.” Dag gri

“Not you!” said Fawn.

“I was a much braver man, when I was young.”

Whit cocked his head, watching the narrow boat pulling out of sight south around a broad curve of the great river. “Hey, Dag—it just occurred to me. I never asked. What was your name up in Luthlia when you were married to Kauneo? Because it wouldn’t have been Dag Redwing Hickory Oleana, then. Dag Something Something Luthlia, right?”

Barr, about to abandon the back deck again for the kitchen, paused and glanced up over the roof edge, ears plainly pricked.

Dag cleared his throat, and recited, “Dag Wolverine Leech Luthlia, in point of fact.” He added in hasty clarification, “Leech for Leech Lake, like Hickory Lake.”

“So Wolverine was Kauneo’s tent-name. And, er…Leech would have been your camp name?”

“Yep. It’s a pretty well-known camp, up in those parts.”

Whit scratched his chin. “Y’know, that Dag Bluefield thing is starting to make all kinds of sense, all of a sudden.”

Fawn ignored him to ask, “Did the lake really have leeches?”

“Oh, yes,” said Dag. “Big ones—six inches, a foot long. They were actually pretty harmless to frolic with. Kept you alert while swimming, though.”

He gri

Six more days brought them to Graymouth.

But not, Fawn discovered to her disappointment, to the sea; the town lay not on the shore but ten miles inland. Downstream from the bluffs on which the town stood, the river split into several cha

Uptown, as near as Fawn could tell from this waterside vantage, was built of substantial houses and goods-sheds and pleasant i

Downtown boasted a lively day market and trade of all sorts. Keelers looking to hire on upstream crewmen propositioned Whit and Hod within a short time of the Fetch tying to the bank, and another fellow tried to buy Copperhead right off the deck. Copperhead—rested, refreshed, and rowdy after his long boat ride—showed off by trying to kick out the pen slats. Dag rescued Berry’s boat and the i

Whit and Hawthorn took off down the row of boats; Fawn snagged Berry to guide her to the market to find fresh new food for supper. Barr and Remo followed them, trying to look tall and grim, like guardsmen of some sort. Fawn thought if it weren’t for the sheer embarrassment of it, they’d be clinging to each other like youngsters lost in the woods, surrounded by all these strange farmers. They stuck tight to her, anyhow, staring around warily.

“It’s not as big as Silver Shoals,” Remo muttered.

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” Barr muttered back.

Who’s protecting who? Fawn didn’t say aloud. Tact was a fine thing.

She did spot a pair of older Lakewalkers at the far end of the market square, a man and a woman, but they were too far away to hail, and by the time she worked around to that side, they had gone off. Were they local, or from upriver? Was there a camp near here? She would have to ask Dag. But they all returned to the Fetch before the Oleana boys had a chance to work each other into some sort of ground-panic.