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“Kah! Stop!” I snapped. “Going to the bramblelands was your idea.”
“What’s going on?” Raven said, glancing back and forth between us, only able to hear one side of the conversation.
“Kah’s worried we won’t be able to find a map,” I lied, wincing as my shoulder throbbed again.
“Where are we planning to get one?” Raven asked. If she was shaken by my description of the Bramblemen, she was hiding it well.
“There’s a Terran village close to the eastern border of the bramblelands—about a day or two from here. That’s where we’re headed. If a map of the bramblelands exists, I have a feeling someone there will know of it.” It was a longshot, but it was the only idea I had.
As desperately as I wanted to get to Askeland, I secretly prayed there was no map of the bramblelands in all of Eastlandra. Because if there was, the only place it would lead to was certain death.
The old mapwe bought in the village came with a warning from the Terran who sold it to us. “That place is cursed,” he said, onlyafterhe’d pocketed the jaders I’d paid him. “You’re going to need more than that old map to make it out of there alive.”
I know!I wanted to shout.
After we left the village, Kah and Raven looked on as I unfolded the worn vellum on a large flat rock. The ink was faded but still legible, revealing a dense black labyrinth with endless winding paths. In the heart of the bramble forest was a crude illustration of a city with the wordNekhananwritten beside it. There were no other names on the map, just a few small symbols in the corner.
I pointed at the city.“Nekhananmeans ‘city of gold’ in the old tongue. People believe that the Bramblemen keep their riches locked away there. Or, depending on which rumor you go by, the city itself is made of gold. Either way, those who’ve gone looking for the treasure never return. Though, that’s probably because the bramble killed them.”
“What do those mean?” Raven said, pointing at the other symbols. “They look like bones. I think that one’s a skull.”
“Let’s focus on finding a way through the maze,” I said, trying to divert her attention.
She noticed what I was doing. “What are you not telling me?”
I glanced at Kah. He shrugged. “I guess she should know.”
“There’s a rumor that the Bramblemen are cannibals,” I told her, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Cannibals?”
“It’s just a wild rumor, but these symbols are probably some sort of warning.”
“Let me get this straight,” Raven said, her fortitude waning. “There’s a cannibalistic tribe that lives in the bramblelands, guarding some sort of treasure, and everyone who steps foot in there never returns because they’ve either been poisoned, eaten, or lost in the maze?”
“Something like that.”
“Great,” she mumbled, her tone edged with sarcasm.
“Look, whatever these people are like, we need to avoid them. That means not getting too close to their city,” I said, searching around for something to draw on the map with. I found a soft, dusty red rock on the ground and used it to carefully trace a winding path to the northern edge of the lethal maze, circumventing the city. “We need to get from where we’ll enter here to the river path at the western foothills of the mountains here.” I pointed at the two places on the map as I spoke. “The river path is in Kovak-claimed territory, so we’ll be protected there. We just need to be sure not to stray too far to the west and end up on this side.”
“What’s there?” Raven said, pointing at where the map ended.
“You don’t want to know.”
She stared at me in a way that said otherwise.
“Fine, it’s a forest that may be more deadly than the bramblelands.”
She seemed to accept this as a good enough explanation for now.
The three of us stared mutely at the jagged red line drawn across the vellum.
“I guess that’s our new way home,” Kah said.
We walkedin silence along the road toward the bramblelands until it became obvious all three of us would collapse from exhaustion. We found a place to camp in the forest, far enough from the road that our presence wouldn’t be noticed. We built a fire and curled up to sleep next to it as a heavy blanket of stars pulled tight over our heads.
Raven fell asleep in minutes. But I lay awake, staring at the sky. The moon had shrunk to a wide crescent, like a questioning eye, watching to see if I’d reach the finish line of this life-or-death race.
