A group of hunters rushed past her, their bows out and ready, about to climb the ladders, she presumed. Letting them pass, she glanced at the commotion around the burning houses and the blackened tobacco plots, remembering that with Schikan’s friend taking her newly acquired bow, she would need to fetch hers as she went. To run out in the countryside full of wandering enemy with no weapon to defend herself was ridiculous.
Shrugging, she slipped away, along the blackened poles of the fence and toward the relative quietness of the remote part of the village.
Chapter 8
The darkness dispersed slowly, painfully. As he emerged from its suffocating depths, he felt it closing in on him again, enveloping, trying to pull him back.
For a heartbeat, he stayed there, on the brink, undecided. The oblivion was smothering but tempting. No pain there. The other side offered no such comfort.
Hesitantly, his senses reached out, tasting the water-drenched reality. There was trickling, much of it, everywhere it seemed. It made noise, and it touched him too, splashing very near, licking his limbs, trickling under his nape, caressing it, but in an unpleasant way. It was as though he were a rotten log, a broken canoe, a dead body floating on its own, tossed about, played with by the river, or the mysterious spirit’s inhabiting this land.
In panic, he lurched upwards, but the pain exploded in a spectacular show, spreading with many colors, pretty, but offering nothing besides the suffocating darkness again. He retched and retched until his throat convulsed, its muscles going numb from the sharpness of the pain, but the waves kept rolling over his tormented chest, bringing up more of the revolting substance.
Grateful for the hands that pushed him over, he wished they would offer support. It was easier to vomit lying on one’s stomach, but the necessity to keep his head up, not to let it drop straight into the foul-smelling pool, sapped the last of his strength. It was truly inconsiderate of whoever was there to do nothing but watch.
“Feeling better?”
The familiar voice made him wish to look up, to seek the owner of it. Still, he didn’t find it possible to lift his head any higher, exhausted by the struggle to keep it where it was, in the air and out of the water, his stomach propped on a hard surface, trying not to slip from it, its sharp edges jutting against his skin.
“Okwaho!” the voice repeated again and again, the worry in it obvious. “Okwaho, come on. Stop choking. Drink some water.”
The hand grabbed his arm, pulling him, ruining his painfully acquired balance. Though not much strength was applied, it still made him lose his rickety support, rolling down and into the splashing water. The panic was back, mindless, all-encompassing. He was going to drown!
Thrashing with his limbs, it took him a while to realize that the water was shallow and calm, the sprinkles marring his vision nothing but the fruit of his own panic.
“Calm down for all the good and bad spirit’s sake!”
The blurry forms of the rocks and the green undergrowth kept swaying before his eyes, making his stomach turn again. This time he knew it was Akweks, the familiar broad face swimming into his view. Pale to the point of frightening, bleeding and bruised badly, the sight of it still reassured him beyond reason. They weren’t dead, neither of them.
“Where are we?” he croaked, nauseated by the mere attempt to move his lips. It brought the cough back, the pitiful attempts of his tormented throat to bring out more of the disgusting phlegm. The effort had him doubling with pain.
“Stop talking and drink something. You look terrible. Scary. Like bad spirit.”
If he had any strength left, he would have elbowed his friend before commenting on how bad he looked himself. As it was, he merely accepted the offered drink that was disappearing quickly, trickling out of the cupped palms.
“What happened?”
“We jumped into the stupid river.” Akweks was sitting awkwardly, leaning against the nearest rock, his injured leg out of the water, the other washed by the light current. The shore was near, just a rocky strip of land, slightly familiar.
“We did?” He tried to remember. There was a grove, yes, and the other warriors, and Akweks had been hit. Yes, with an arrow through his leg.
He narrowed his eyes, struggling against the fog, the nausea overwhelming, the clubs hammering inside his skull, determined to shatter it. His hand was heavy as he brought it up, and it shook, the touch of his skin warm and sticky against the trembling of his palm, unpleasantly numb.
“Yes, we did.” Grimacing, Akweks leaned forward, pointing vaguely. “But you did it in a lousy way. Nearly cracked your head open.”
He touched the sticky numbness again. “It feels cracked.”
“It’s not. Well, not badly.” The youth reclined again, his face awash with sweat, glimmering in the last of the daylight. “When you went down, I thought you did crack it open, went on your Sky Journey. But when I dragged you out, you were gulping air, making stupid noises. So it looked like a good idea to take you along.”
“Didn’t they try to shoot at us?” Pushing with both hands, he tried to regain an upright position, disregarding the dizziness and the pain that was spreading everywhere. Was he hurt in more places than just the annoying head?
“Don’t know. Maybe. By the time we managed to surface, we weren’t anywhere around that accursed cliff.”
The nausea was receding, and it made his head clear. “You saved my life. I will never forget.”
Akweks’ generous lips twisted into a crooked sort of a grin. “Don’t fret about it. You saved my life before, dragging me to that cliff and over it. I just paid you back.”
“Oh, please!” Narrowing his eyes, Okwaho glanced at the darkening trees, the cliff towering above their small inlet, unfriendly, ominous, promising no good. “Where are we?”
“Don’t you recognize it?”
He blinked to clear his vision, taking in the narrow strip of rocky land and the trees towering too close to the water line, its peculiar outline.
“Our boats.” Akweks jerked his head, indicating the woods. “Up there.”
“Oh, the boats!”
Now the familiarity made sense. So they weren’t lost. He let out a breath of relief, then scanned the shore anew. It was darkening rapidly, yet they still could have made their way back to their people. It was a fair possibility. With Akweks limping, yes, but with his, Okwaho’s, support…
He blinked forcefully, to make the worst of the headache retreat. How badly was his head cracked? A new inspection produced more of the pulsating stickiness somewhere above his ear. Not as numb as before. Painful, but bearably so. A bit higher, around his temple, and he might have been done for, he thought, shivering, aware of another pain throbbing behind his shoulder. A careful tilting of his head had him staring into a blurry, angrily red spot. Was his back cut too? He remembered the push. Oh, yes, he did not jump off that cliff of his own accord. So it must have been an arrow. Curse them all into the underworld of the Evil Twin!
“We’ll sneak back under the cover of the darkness,” he said, pleased with his success of maintaining his balance. Swaying and propped with his hands, he was upright and looking as though about to keep it that way.
“Not sure about that.” Akweks was struggling too, trying to move his injured leg, using both hands in order to lift it, his face breaking out in a new bout of sweat. “You go… I wait here. Can’t go… not yet.”
With all the swimming and struggling, his leg looked worse than before, an angry mess of torn crimson tissue, dripping water, and oozing blood, glittering in a bad way.
Okwaho tore his eyes off the unsettling vision. “We’ll go together. We’ll manage.”
Leaving the slippery support, he plodded in the shallow water, grabbing his friend’s shoulder, maybe offering help, maybe seeking to support himself, he didn’t know.
“Come, we’ll get into the woods first. Out of this water and away from wandering eyes.”
Taking most of Akweks’ weight again, he suppress
ed a groan, his nausea returning, the throbbing in his head and his shoulder taking away his ability to concentrate. It was difficult not to slip on the glistening pebbles, without the need to watch every slippery step, holding onto another unsteady body. He clenched his teeth tight.
The light was still strong, but it wouldn’t be long before it began dimming. Relieved to stand on a steadier ground, Okwaho looked up, studying the bushes. They did not look familiar. And so was the lay of the land. The rocks were not as protruding, and the trees not as close to the waterline at the shore they had hidden their boats at. For some reason, he felt something close to relief. No watchful eyes in this place, no palpable fear or hatred. The woods stared indifferently, not moved by the hobbling intruders.
“Stay here till I check the surroundings.”
It was good to be free of Akweks’ weight again. He straightened his shoulders, watching his friend slipping along the nearest rock, leaning heavily against its slippery surface.
“The boats can’t be too far from here.” Wiping the sweat off his brow, Okwaho looked back at the river. “I’ll know better when I wander up there, behind the curve.”
“They have to be somewhere around,” groaned Akweks, his face grayish, lips pressed into a colorless line. “I was sure this was the place.”
“Well, it’s not, you brilliant scout.” Okwaho forced a taunting smile. Anything to keep the panic from rising. “That’s a completely different shore. But if our boats are not too far away, then we are better off. I’ll get you supplies, something to bite at, and a blanket to keep off the cold. Then you will stay here until I come back. If not,” he shrugged, wincing with pain from his wounded shoulder. “If not, then we’ll go back together.”
The thought of the twisted trail that they followed for a considerable part of the night only a day ago, walking briskly and happily, full of high spirits, filled his insides with ice. How were they to climb it now, battered, wounded, and exhausted?
“Wait here.”
Scooping more water, he sprinkled it onto his face, to make the dizziness go away, then straightened up. The narrow strip of sand stretching behind their rocks glittered peacefully in the last of the light, smooth and undisturbed. Yet, something was wrong there, too. He narrowed his eyes, willing the nausea away. Oh, but he needed his senses sharp to survive the upcoming night.
The shoreline curved, then straightened again. It should not be such a long walk, and but for the pain in his back and the clubs pounding inside his skull, he would have been rushing on, unafraid. There were clearly no people around this part of the river, with all the warfare concentrated up there, judging by the clouds of smoke. Had they burned that settlement? The thought made him uncomfortable for a moment. It took much work and many days, or even moons, to build a longhouse. But then, he remembered the ugly, mutilated constructions he managed to look over this very morning, while watching that village from a nearby hill. These villagers did not even live like normal people.
A darker gap in the trees caught his eye, as he leaned against a rock, exhausted. A trail seemed to be starting there, a natural thing, but for the fresh cavities that led to it. Not many and sparsely spread, they glared at him, unmistakable. People had been walking this shore, not very long ago. Maybe half a day, maybe less. And they were careful to conceal their trail.
Perturbed, he knelt to study one of the cavities. Yes, a footprint. The blurry form of a moccasin belonging to a man, a young man, a warrior surely. Or maybe a hunter. Both options boding no good. He thought about Akweks curled behind the curve of the river, wounded, suffering, in no condition to fight back, a perfect captive. And he himself, exhausted, wounded too, even if not as badly. Oh, Mighty Spirits!
All ears now, he neared the trees, spotting more prints as he went. Just a few more, but still footprints. Different looking, this time. Lighter and smaller. The same prints he had followed a day before?
He shivered, then forced himself to drop down in order to study them, even though the clubs inside his skull were busy redoubling their efforts, threatening to make it explode. If he sat, he might have no strength to get up again.
He narrowed his eyes, willing the prints to tell a different story, to show no likeness to yesterday’s local. Same length, same width, but it might just belong to a person of similar size. A boy or a woman, wandering out here? Why would they do that? And through the morning prior to the attack, too, when they must have already known about the warriors, thanks to the same nosy local.
Why would she go out again? And why did he keep thinking of her as a woman? The moccasin prints indicated nothing, not even something peculiar that would help him tell if it was the same person or not.
Catching the trunk of the nearest tree for support, he forced himself back onto his feet, hurrying toward the darkness of the grove now, hoping against hope to find nothing there, no prints and no people, and most importantly, no essential items belonging to his people. It was certainly not the shore they had hidden their boats on.
Under the cover of the thick foliage, the dusk was deep, blocking the last of the light, trying to hinder his progress. It was difficult enough to follow the invisible path, with only an occasional print, without the woods working against him. He muttered a silent prayer, asking for forgiveness at his intrusion, begging the local spirits to pay him no attention, as he would be leaving soon enough.
No sound penetrated the thickening darkness, but he knew he was being watched by the ancient giants and their wards, all the creatures that inhabited this haven. Safe in these foreign woods he was not.
Fighting against the rising wave of the bad feeling, he stopped and listened, then pushed on. It was obvious that the clearing was near, and when he came upon it, he wasn’t surprised, neither by its existence nor by the boats scattered all over it. The intruders didn’t even bother to hide them. They took the vessels and dropped them at the nearest available place. What lowlifes!
He tried to breathe evenly, to make the panic go away. What now?
The longest vessel was sitting on its side, as though thrown out of the river by a rapid current. He inspected its insides, but as expected, the jars of ground maize, some tools, and the additional weaponry stored in it were gone. Filthy thieves!
He tried to think what to do. To take the boats, hiding them in yet another place seemed like a good solution. At least the lighter ones. He was in no condition to drag the two longest vessels. Then, he would have to run back, as fast as he could. Kayeri should know that their canoes had been discovered, had been tampered with. Who knew what else the devious locals had done already?
The inspection of the rest of the vessels brought the same results. Why did he bother with it? The answer presented itself readily, shamefully open. Was he trying to delay the inevitable journey back? And what to do with Akweks?
With the descending darkness, the wind increased, rustling in the bushes, yet suddenly, his skin prickled, and his instincts urged him to crouch behind the nearest boat, his ears pricked. No branches cracked, yet he knew someone was coming, progressing carefully, by stealth. A human or an animal, it didn’t matter.
His hand strayed, desperate to locate the club, knowing it was gone, swallowed by the treacherous river. Gripping the hilt of his knife tightly, he felt the pouch that held Father’s necklace, still there, secured safely. It calmed the wild pounding of his heart, if only a little.
A new gust of wind brought a measure of moisture in it. From the river, possibly, but he checked the sky. Was it going to rain?
A figure appeared between the trees that shielded the view of the shore. Just a silhouette, progressing hurriedly. He cursed his lack of appropriate weaponry again. But for the long, decorated bow and quiver of arrows, each having its special feathering, colored in gray, commemorating his personal guiding spirit. His left hand slipped, searching the ground. A stone or a log, anything that could be thrown would do.
The figure paused, as though trying to reach with its senses too, still shielded by th
e trees, unsure of itself. When it headed out, its back was turned to him, and he seized on his chance, pouncing in one desperate leap, pushing the boat away with his feet as they slipped against its craggy surface, welcoming the advantage its elevated position gave.
He saw the intruder turning, responding with swiftness by bringing her bow up. Reacting fast, he lurched sideways, but didn’t lose his balance, the sharpened stick that she loosened swishing beside his face, scratching his ear, leaving a stinging sensation. In the next heartbeat, he was upon his rival, colliding with her in such force that they both went down tumbling.
His senses screaming for a kill, he pinned his victim to the ground with his entire weight, his eyes taking in the wide, terrified face belonging to a young girl, her eyes huge and round with terror, mouth gaping, the gentle skin of the throat convulsing under the pressure of his knife.
Bewildered, he froze, trying to understand. Her eyes seemed as though about to pop from their sockets, but as he moved his blade away, they focused, flickering with resolution.
His nerves stretched to their limits, he backed away slowly, desperate to control the trembling of his limbs. Who was this girl? What did she want in this place?
Her bow jutted against his thigh, and as he eased away, he looked at it, remembering that she had shot at him with this thing. Before any more memories and conclusions surfaced, her hands flew up, fingers claws, darting for his eyes, just as her freed leg folded, smashing into his groin, taking his breath away with the suddenness and the viciousness of her thrust.
Fighting the pain, he shut his eyes against her assaulting nails, trying to keep out of her reach, while desperate to capture her wriggling body again, to render her wildly flailing limbs harmless. She was like a mad creature, like a fish plucked out of the river, thrashing about with no consideration to a reasonable way of behavior, beating at him with anything she could.