Page 33 of Moon Chosen

Her mother’s head whipped up, and her eyes instantly found her daughter. “Mari?”

“Behind you, Mama!” She pointed over her mother’s head and repeated, “Run!”

Leda hesitated not a moment longer. “Earth Walkers, let night’s madness fuel your flight. Flee to find safety!”

The Clan exploded into movement. There was no breath wasted on screams or cries of terror. Children ran silently to their mothers, and just as silently their mothers lifted them and raced off, fleet as clever deer, into the forest. Some men turned to face the intruders. Some men sprinted into the darkening forest.

Mari was sliding halfway down the bank when the first arrow struck through the neck of one of the Clansmen who had chosen to stay and face the Companions. His death cry gurgled through blood and he fell, twitching, not far from Leda.

“Mama! Hurry!” Mari cried, motioning for her mother to come to her.We can hide in the holly. They won’t expect any of us to stay that close. They’ll pass by—they’ll pass by!Mari’s mind worked frantically as her mother rushed into the creek, trudging laboriously through swift, thigh-deep water toward her.

A blond man jumped over a moss-covered log, saw Leda, and headed into the water. Close behind him another man paused long enough to yell, “Don’t waste time with the old one. Get the girl on the other bank!” before he followed a mother and her infant daughter into the brush.

Girl on the other bank? He means me!Panic deadened Mari’s reaction, and her body didn’t seem to remember how to move.

The first man grunted in agreement with his friend, and plowed through the water past Leda. “No!” her mother cried. “Not my daughter!” With a thunderbolt of fear, Mari watched her mother grab at the man’s clothing. She caught his shirt and pulled, causing him to pause in his headlong rush—but only long enough for him to backhand Leda so that she fell heavily, hitting her head against a rock. Leda crumpled and the swiftly flowing water lifted her, carrying her lifelessly downstream.

“Mama!” Mari cried. Her panicked freeze shattered. Shrieking rage and fear, she pulled the slingshot and a handful of rocks from her pouch. With a graceful, practiced motion, she sighted, whipped her arm back, and hurled the sling. The rock hit the man in his face, smashing his cheekbone and causing him to stumble so that he fell onto the steep bank only feet away from Mari.

Then Mari ran. Along the bank she rushed, keeping a loaded slingshot in her hand and dividing her focus between her mother’s floating body, and the danger that searched the forest around her for captives.

Mari fought through the thickening underbrush, tripping over felled logs, her leaden feet finding leaf-filled holes in the forest floor that were camouflaged by dusk and her need to get to her mother before she drowned.

Mari was going to save her mother—shehad tosave her mother. Mari couldn’t allow even the possibility of Leda’s death to seep, poison-like, into her reality or her heart would crack and break and her legs would stop carrying her. Finally, the creek took a sharp right-handed turn, catching Leda’s body in a jam of water-swollen logs and boulders. Mari half ran, half fell down the bank, leaping into the water and struggling against the current to her mother.

Leda lay, faceup, clothes and hair tangled in the water debris. Mari reached her and began wiping long hair and blood from her face, feeling frantically for a pulse in her neck. When she found the beat of her mother’s heart, she sobbed in relief. “Mama! Mama! Wake up—talk to me!” Mari ran her hands over her mother’s neck and arms, taking note of the hand-shaped bruise that was already darkening her cheek and the cut slowly weeping blood down her forehead. Mari forced herself to take deep, calming breaths as she began assessing her mother’s injuries and pulling her free of the flotsam jam.

Leda moaned and began shivering, her eyelids fluttering. “Mari… Mari…” the Moon Woman murmured her daughter’s name even before she was fully conscious.

“Shhh, I’m here, Mama, but we have to be quiet. I don’t know where they are or how many of them there are,” Mari whispered.

Leda’s eyes opened. She tried to sit up and cried out, falling back into the water and clutching her side. “Ribs. Cracked or broken.” Leda gasped and spoke quietly and quickly. “My head, too. Hit a rock in the water. My vision is blurred. Get me into the underbrush. I’ll hide. You run for home.”

“I will not leave you.”

“Mari, do as I say.”

“Leda, for once I don’t care what you say. I will not leave you!” Mari enunciated each word carefully. “Now, stop talking and help me get you out of this water before you freeze.” As gently as she could, she put Leda’s arm around her shoulder and, grasping her mother’s waist, began helping her wade through the water to the steep far bank.

“The other bank is closer and not as steep,” Leda spoke between gasps of pain and chattering teeth.

“The other bank is also the direction they came from. The far bank is steeper, but it has more rocks and logs and places to hide. The underbrush is so thick I almost couldn’t get through it to you. It held me up; it’ll hold them up as well,” Mari said grimly.

Leda didn’t waste breath agreeing with her daughter—she just nodded and pressed her hand more firmly against her side, biting her lip to keep herself from crying out in pain. When they reached the rocky bank, Leda collapsed, trembling and trying to catch her breath in short, painful gasps.

“Just up there and a little way back I saw a dead cedar, choked by vines so that it still looks green—almost alive. I think it will hide us,” Mari said.

Hand still pressed to her side, Leda lay against the damp, leaf-covered ground. “I can’t. I’m too dizzy. I’ll get sick if I move.”

“Then we stay here and hope none of the Companions come this way.”

“W-when did you become so stubborn?” Leda gasped, shaking her head at her daughter.

“I’m not sure, but I think I get it from my mother.” Mari crouched beside Leda. “I can’t lose you, Mama.”

“Then it looks like I must make it up the bank to that dead tree.”

Mari grasped her mother’s hand and pulled her to her feet. Leda stood for a moment, only swaying slightly, and Mari thought it was going to be okay—and then the sickly white tinge of Leda’s skin blanched almost colorless and a painful shiver skittered through her body, bringing with it a flush of silver gray.