Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [84]
“We’ll go this way,” she said.
Nightshade stood staring at her, dumbfounded.
“For a gnome nickel, I’d leave you to be eaten by bugbears,” he told her, then added in a mutter, “But that would be mean to the bugbears.”
He glanced to the west, where the sun was sinking rapidly out of sight, as though it couldn’t get away fast enough. Shadows were slithering over the road.
Nightshade began wandering up and down the side of the road, looking for largish rocks. When he found one, he picked it up and lugged it over to where Mina was standing and dropped it down at her feet.
“What are you doing?” Mina demanded, after he came back with the fourth rock.
“Marking the trail,” Nightshade said, hauling over rock number five. He threw it down, then began arranging the rocks, stacking four on top of each other and placing the fifth to the east of the stack. “This way Rhys knows which direction we’ve taken at the crossroads, and he can find us.”
Mina stared at the stacked rocks, and suddenly she ran at them and began to kick at them in frenzy, knocking Nightshade’s neat pile all askew.
“What you are doing?” Nightshade cried. “Stop that!”
“He’s not going to find me!” Mina shouted. “He’s never going to find me. I don’t want him to find me.”
She picked up a rock and threw it, almost hitting Atta, who leaped to her feet in shock.
Nightshade grabbed hold of Mina and hauled off and swatted her a good one on the rear portion of her anatomy. The blow couldn’t have hurt very much, because he encountered nothing but petticoat. His swat shocked her immensely, however. She stood gaping at him, and then she burst into tears.
“You are the most spoiled, selfish little kid I ever met in my life!” Nightshade yelled at her. “Rhys is a good man. He cares about you more than you deserve, because you’ve been a real brat. And now you’ve run off, and he’s probably worried sick—”
“That’s why I ran away,’ ” Mina gulped between sobs. “That’s why he must never find me. He is a good man. And I almost got him killed!”
Nightshade gaped at her. She had not run off to escape Rhys. She’d run off to protect him! Nightshade sighted. He was almost sorry he’d spanked her. Almost.
“There now, Mina.” Nightshade began to thump her on the back to help her quit crying. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. I understand why you did it, but you still shouldn’t have run away. As for almost getting Rhys killed, that’s nothing. I’ve almost gotten Rhys killed a couple of times and he’s almost gotten me killed a bunch. It’s what friends are for.”
Mina looked extremely startled at this, and even Nightshade had to admit his explanation didn’t sound as good when it came out of his mouth as it had when it was in his head.
“What I mean, Mina, is that Rhys cares about you. He won’t stop caring just because you’ve run off. And now you’ve added worrying and wondering to caring. As for you putting him in danger”—Nightshade shrugged—“he’s known all along that he would be in danger when he decided to take you to Godshome. The danger doesn’t make any difference to him. Because he cares.”
Mina regarded him intently, and it seemed to Nightshade that her tear-shimmering amber eyes would swallow him whole. She reached out a tentative hand.
“Is it the same with you?” she asked meekly. “Do you care about me?”
Nightshade was bound to be truthful. “I’m not as good a person as Rhys, and maybe for a moment or two back there I didn’t care much at all, but only for a moment … Or two.”
He took hold of her hand and squeezed it. “I do care, Mina. And I am sorry I spanked you. So help me stack up these rocks up again.”
Mina helped him arrange the rocks and then they continued on, heading east. The road led through fields of tall grass, past a small pond, over a couple of creeks. By this time, the sun was barely a red smear in the sky. From the top of a hill, they could see the road dip down into a valley and disappear into a forest.
Nightshade considered their options. They could camp here, by the roadside, out in the open. Rhys would