The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

“I don’t imagine he was thinking very clearly at the time.”

“Ella,” he said, trying out the name. “You think one of them from upriver would really join a household and get an implant and everything?”

“It happens sometimes,” Enid said. “Not as much as it used to, thirty or forty years ago. Things have settled down since then. But it happens. She wore Coast Road clothes. Maybe other things about the place looked good to her too.”

“Her folk’ll never come down the river looking for her,” Teeg said. “They’ll never talk to us.”

Enid looked up to the clear sky, up the river and its muddy, recently flooded banks, and sighed. “We’ll see.”

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Enid crossed the bridge and took the west side. Teeg took the east, and the two of them paralleled each other, traveling up the San Joe. Still swollen from the storm, water lapped over the banks, which were mucky and hard going. Across the water, Teeg used his staff to pick through debris and mud, leaning on it for balance, unsticking his feet when the muck held on too tight. She could have used a walking stick herself, but did her best, looking ahead for footholds and grassy patches.

A rudimentary path wended its way along this side of the river. Or, if not a path per se, there at least were multiple sets of footprints marking the easiest way to go, proof that others had slogged through this route. Enid guessed there was another on the other side, where Juni and the others would come down the hill with their bundles of reeds.

When the water settled they likely fished here as well. The sun beat down; bugs swarmed. A low, constant chirping rose up, faded, then rose again, an undertone to the sound of water—frogs.

She parted waterlogged grasses and drooping willows, searching the edges of the water. Thought briefly about wading in farther, then decided against it. The current was fast, the water chilled, dark with silt. The likelihood that she’d find anything lodged out in the middle of the stream was slim.

She didn’t find much of anything washed up on the banks, unfortunately. Finding a bloody machete would be too much to ask for. And even if she had, it wouldn’t point to who’d killed Ella—a bloody machete rarely had the owner’s name inscribed on the handle. If it were that easy, anyone could be an investigator.

A mile or so up the river, up the steep banks to the west, Enid could just make out the cliff where Semperfi’s ruined house teetered, balanced on its forest of flimsy supports. From this vantage, it looked even worse, the steep angle of the eroding cliffside appearing even more severe. The structure seemed to tremble, and she could almost see the mud slipping downward. Maybe Erik would feel better if she brought him here to show him this view.

Around the next bend in the creek’s path, along an eroded channel, Enid found a stretch of cut rushes. Willows and cattails, mowed down to stumps. The cut patch went a ways up the slope—the work of a morning, for the folk from Bonavista who must have come up here to harvest. This was where they’d collected the bundles they’d been carrying when Enid and Teeg had arrived yesterday.

Exposed to air and sun and rotting, the spongy ground stank. A blackbird squawked and flapped up and away. For all its unpleasantness, the Estuary was vibrant with life. This mowed patch would grow back even thicker next season. Ruins might litter the coast, but life went on somehow.

Across the river, Teeg whistled to get Enid’s attention, then cupped his hand around his mouth. “Nothing here! You?”

“Nothing!”

“Do we keep going?”

Ahead, the channel narrowed, the sides growing steeper. Another hundred yards, climbing farther into the hills, the path dried out and trees took over from cattails and brush. They were running out of a track to follow.

But the reeds were freshly cut; clearly people still came up this way.

“Just a little farther!” she answered. She wanted to get all the way to the trees, to where the wild started.

The households followed the path up the ridge, paralleling the river below. Except for the ruined house, Enid couldn’t see any buildings, but she could guess how far along she was, where she’d end up if she could get to the top from here. The farther upriver she went, the more the river narrowed, and the higher it climbed, until it spilled out of the hills and forest above. While it wasn’t visible from this spot, Last House would be west of here, just over the edge of the river channel. Just a little climbing would get her there.

She didn’t expect to hear voices.

They spoke low and urgently, and though she couldn’t make out the words, she recognized the voices of the folk at Last House. Enid held her breath. Neeve said something, too softly for Enid to understand.

Mart answered gruffly. “No, you need to stay clear of those investigators, you hear me?”

And then they were gone, moving away from the ridge, up the path to their home.

Ella’s death had really affected the folk of Last House. Was never easy, seeing violence like that inflicted on someone you knew—someone you’d made plans with . . . whose whole future was suddenly cut off.

Enid continued her trek up the river, along the last little bit before the way became impassable.

And that’s when she saw it: a shadow stepping back, rustling a stand of uncut reeds. She almost turned away, thinking it was a deer or raccoon or some other critter. But she squinted, took a few steps closer . . . and a face looked back at her.

Young, maybe early twenties. Male, with the shadow of a dark beard started. Plain clothing.

She couldn’t see more details than that, because the figure raced off.