Ina brought Mo-Tenge-Lioywe, Muolkomes, Luoluy, Muoldock, and Rodolrod. The presence of the last one was not at all pleasing for Fao. He was always on his own wave, he frowned for no reason, then joked out of place. His humor was strange, sometimes too coarse and incomprehensible to the rest. Rodolrod was adult enough, but had not yet learned to turn into an animal, though he didn’t seem stupid and was skilled enough. He sometimes made Fao uneasy. But now she had to reconcile herself with his presence.
“I want to say goodbye to my mother!” Moulsabr declared suddenly.
“Me too!” Buka climbed up.
Fao immediately cursed the moment when she trusted Swaol-Ney. She was ready to pounce on a friend.
But then the matter came under the control of Wey-Leya.
“No goodbyes!” she said. “Whoever wants to leave leaves with us now! Who wants to stay, stays!”
“I stay!” Buka yelled.
“And I!” added Moulsabr.
“Good! Then we will tie you to the trees! And in the morning, they will find you!”
“Are you serious?” Fao grabbed Wey-Leya by the sleeve.
“I do not want to be in the court of the elders for the second time!” Wey-Leya confidently stated, and Fao even felt embarrassed at her own feebleness.
“But the six-fingered people will drag us away,” Buka lamented.
“If they yell like that, they’ll surely wake up some of the adults,” Ina whispered.
“Let’s go! We’re all going!” Nome fixed the situation, stepping forward. “Children too!”
They agreed, as the fear of being tied up in the clearing at night overpowered the fear of the unknown.
The detachment of the young Vedichs advanced into the dark thicket.
11
At first, they walked cautiously, but once away from the city, they broke into an easy run, led by Nome, who had excellent eyesight. Wey-Leya drove the little children from behind with her threats. Ina ran beside Nome, ensuring they followed the path Docko had described.
Fao and Swaol-Ney were in the middle. Rodolrod ran immediately behind Fao. This neighborhood was not very pleasant, and Fao could feel a heavy glare on her neck.
At dawn, they decided to stop because the younger ones were falling asleep. When they woke up, the sun was already high, and an excited Wey-Leya was ready to get moving. Fao, who usually woke up feeling cheerful and joyful, now felt worried and frustrated. She was ready to repent and go back. But having witnessed the zeal with which Wey-Leya was waking the detachment, she dismissed such thoughts.
After seeing no fallen fruit on the ground, Wey-Leya tore off the greenish fruit from the hazel bush. “Won’t doing that offend Mother Nature?” one of the young Vedichs asked cautiously.
“Mother Nature has already given us these nuts!” Wey-Leya insisted. “Sooner or later they will fall off anyway! So, what’s the difference?”
“But the elders say…” began Laol-Jamal.
“That you can’t leave the forest of Dockol-Mo,” Fao finished, amazed at how her idea of the world had changed in just a day. Just yesterday, she would have considered eating unripened nuts an outrage.
After eating a light breakfast, the detachment got back on the road to continue on their journey when suddenly, Nome abruptly stopped. He closed his eyes and gestured with his hand for everyone to stop. He stood for several moments in silence, and then opened his eyes wide.
“Sabers! They are running very fast! And a few other big animals with them!”
“A pursuit!” Fao guessed.
“We’ve got to hurry!” Wey-Leya ordered.
Soon, Fao heard the chase too. Suddenly, from the bushes ahead, the muzzle of a bear appeared, accompanied by a roar. The squad stopped. The first thought was that they were surrounded by the countrymen from Swa-Ioledea. However, very quickly Fao realized that it was not a Vedich, but a simple animal. The bear shook his head and disappeared into the bushes.
Can it be? Can it?
The heart of Fao began to beat faster.
“He’s calling us!” she announced and followed the bear.
“Impossible!” objected Nome, who rushed after his friend.
The thickets parted, and a forest river opened to Fao’s eyes. Just as she realized that it was too wide to cross, Fao saw four more bears rolling a huge dry tree trunk to the edge of the shore.
They are helping us! Yes! They are helping us!
“How can this be?” whispered Wey-Leya, apparently not believing her own eyes.
“That’s because they’re my friends!” said Fao proudly.
The bears rolled the trunk into the river, after which two of them dived into the water to push the dry tree to the other shore. The ferry was ready! The fugitives climbed aboard and quickly passed the newly emerged bridge. Once they completed the crossing, the powerful forest animals turned the trunk along the river where it was picked up by the current and disappeared, as though it were never there.
“Thank you! Thank you!” a joyful Fao shouted from the shore as Wey-Leya pulled her by the sleeve. “I’ll never forget you!”
From the thickets on the opposite bank, the predatory eyes of sabers began to show.
12
“What have we done?” Dockomol-Ildas began to lament first. “We have betrayed our own people! We will never be forgiven!”
“You should have thought about this before!” Wey-Leya reminded sternly.
“We did not betray our people!” Nome objected. “They were betrayed by our elders! If other people of Elinor have decided to go to the Valley, then why should we sit out in the woods? What did Docko say? That people from the Valley suddenly disappeared! Now the rulers of all nations send caravans to the Valley to find out what happened. And what if Dockol-Mo suddenly becomes empty? If suddenly we all disappear, who will remember us? Listen, we will all remain Vedich! Let’s swear on it to each other! To keep its life, we will use the culture and traditions of our people! But this doesn’t mean that we can’t communicate with other people! We communicated, after all, with the Taurs, didn’t we? So, it’s not the time to reproach ourselves! We must move forward!”
“I swear!” Fao jumped to her feet, proud of Nome and his inspirational speech.
“I swear!” repeated Ina.
“I swear!” recalled Wey-Leya.
“I swear!” said everyone in a chorus.
13
The forest was changing.
Somewhere in the eerie green, there was succulent grass that grew up to the waist and thickets of hawthorn and elderberry that clung to the branches and tore their embroidered clothes; where the flavors of flowers beat into the nostrils, making them sneeze.
Every day during the transition, it became easier to plunge into these fresh new colors. Or to more modest places, where blue forget-me-nots and yellow inflorescences of celandine shyly appeared along the beige cover of fallen leaves, where the oaks dropped on the heads of negligent travelers with heavy acorns, and from under the roots, the grunting of the wild boars could be heard.
There were quite gloomy ones also, where the dark green needles pricked in the face