Vanguard

by Ann Aguirre

  Trudging up and down the steps so many times left her woozy, but eventually the top floor was as clean as she could make it. Tegan stacked all the machine parts that looked like they might be useful and then went down for the last time today, she hoped. Down here, the brick floor was relatively clean and dry, but the moss and lichens needed to go. Wrapping her sleeve around her palm, she got a shard of glass and scraped the walls with meticulous care. Her arm ached as she went, but it would be worth it.

  Someone clearly lived here at some point. They might be able to use the metal stove, provided the pipe wasn’t defective. Exhausted, she put the glass back and organized the broken furniture according to what might be usable. By the time Szarok returned, she had the space beneath the stairs in decent condition.

  “Dinner,” he said.

  Smells good.

  Mouth watering, she followed him outside, where he’d built a spit and was roasting an enormous bird. That was a gift for her, clearly, because he didn’t even like his food cooked. She smiled up at him in speechless gratitude. He returned the look with a sweet softness that made her heart quiver.

  “You’ve done so much,” he said. “Do you mind watching the food while I wash?”

  “Of course not. I left the spare clothing in the chest.”

  “Don’t forget to turn it.”

  Pointedly, she turned away so he knew she wouldn’t spy on him. Tegan sank down with a muffled groan and tended to her meal. Szarok finished his bath before she was done, so he joined her as the sunset rioted in glorious colors overhead. If they didn’t get rescued soon, winter would be difficult. There were tons of seabirds now, but they might fly away when the snow settled.

  “Just a little longer.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve already eaten.”

  “Sorry. How was it?”

  “Not bad. Not as delicious as the deer on Antecost. I think it’s safe to eat now.”

  In her haste she burned her fingers and dropped the bird in the ash near the fire. It didn’t deter her, however; Tegan only dusted it off, broke off some meat, blew on it, then crammed it into her mouth. It had a strong flavor, but it wasn’t bad.

  “Did you see anything else?” she asked.

  “Foxes, plenty of them. They must prey on the seabirds. There’s also a horned thing running around. They’re fast.”

  “It could be worse.”

  Tegan finished her food and went back to study the metal houses one last time. They contained pitiful rusted furnishings, nothing much of use, but she stared hard at those stained, foul-smelling mattresses. Maybe … She got out the knife and sliced them open. They were full of disgusting foam and dead insects and coils of wire, but the fabric might be salvageable. She slit two of them all the way open and shook them until her arms hurt, then she turned them inside out. The interior was much cleaner by comparison.

  Szarok found her as the light faded. “What are you doing?”

  “Making a bed. I hope. Were there lots of loose feathers where the seabirds nest?”

  “Yes, a carpet of them.”

  “Bring back as many as you can.”

  While he was gone, she unraveled some thread from her shirt and stitched together the fabric. It was poor work, unlike when she closed a wound, but it would hold. Then she ventured out into the field past the tiny village and harvested the dry rustling grass, as much as she could carry. Another trip and she picked sweet-smelling purple flowers. When Szarok returned with a massive load of feathers, she was stuffing the mattress in great handfuls.

  “Shove the feathers in,” she told him.

  The end result wasn’t pretty as she stitched it up, but it looked more comfortable than the brick floor. At least the nights weren’t cold enough to worry about blankets. With an exhausted sigh, she tilted her head toward the signal tower in silent invitation. He responded by lifting the mattress in his arms like it was his bride and arranging it near the ancient, potbellied stove.

  “I cleaned the pipe,” he said. “So we can build a fire if it gets cold.”

  “Let’s just go to sleep.”

  As she moaned and rolled onto the mattress, he hesitated. “I can—”

  “It’s for both of us,” she mumbled. “Don’t be stubborn. We’ll be warmer together, and it’s not like this is the first time.”

  Mentally she wandered through the times they’d slept together. In Antecost, on the ship, last night in the cave … This is the fourth occasion.

  “True.” Careful as a feral cat, he tucked in behind her.

  Someone else might have scared her so much, she couldn’t relax, but this bed was lovely, all cut grass, wildflowers, and heavenly softness compared to the rock ledge. Paired with his heat at her back, she fell hard into sleep and woke only when he rolled away early that morning. Half awake and complaining, she rolled into the warm spot he’d vacated.

  She found him later, skinning some prey. He’d prepared the meat and hung the skin in a way that she recognized from the fur and leather workers in Salvation. With their immediate needs tended, it was hard to know exactly what she should do, but reason asserted itself. Offering a tentative smile, she headed past him, down the rocky slope toward the beach.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To build a signal. We need to pile some rocks on the beach and hope a ship passes close enough to see it.”

  “A fire would do the same, but I fear wasting our fuel. To set a blaze large enough, we’d need to burn all the dry brush and—”

  “We might not make it through the winter. Let’s be cautious.” Tegan agreed that approach was wise.

  He nodded and set aside his task in lieu of working on hers. Together, they dragged enough rocks to form a V with the point heading out to sea. Szarok seemed puzzled by this idea, so Tegan explained, “I read this in a book. If you do this, it creates a tidal pool. Fish can swim in when the water is high but when the tide ebbs, they can’t get out again.”

  “And we eat them,” he said with apparent delight.

  “That’s the idea. We should also be able to eat the seaweed.” She knelt to examine the swirling green stuff in the water.

  “You want me to consume sea leaves?” His expression said that was very unlikely.

  “Well, I will. I can’t get all the nutrition I need from meat. This may not taste very good, but I need to swallow a little now and then.”

  “There are some plants,” he said.

  Tegan sighed, wishing she had more varied knowledge. “I don’t know that much about foraging. We lived off the land some during the war, but I was never in charge of that.”

  “No, I’m sure these were planted on purpose. I’ve seen your folk digging them up.”

  She perked up. “Show me.”

  Szarok delivered them to a ragged patch behind the signal tower. When he churned up the earth with his claws, he produced an extremely lumpy potato. “There used to be more, I think. This is what survived.”

  “We should dig up all the ones we can find then. They’ll rot in the ground if we don’t.”

  “You know I don’t want them,” he said simply. “But since you’re kin, I’ll always get food for you.”

  Over the years she’d known James, he had said much sweeter things, so why did the simplicity of Szarok’s words make her insides flutter? Truth be told, she didn’t enjoy it; the feeling unsettled her. Then she realized she had chosen his word.

  Unsettled.

  “It will be a long, hard winter if nobody looks for us,” she said then.

  Szarok touched her shoulder, briefly. “We’ll find a way.”

  The Last of Her Blood

  The Isle of the Dead was inhospitable but not impossible to survive.

  That was what Szarok privately called the place where they had landed. Sometimes he wasn’t altogether sure that they’d survived the swim, but if not, he’d ended up in a human afterlife instead of releasing his memories. And that, that could not be true. So he helped Tegan fashion a relatively c
omfortable nest.

  Between his hunting and the garden that had been left to grow wild, there would be enough food for a while. Down by the sea, the tidal pool they’d created did trap fish now and then. He savored them fresh and raw; she preferred hers cleaned and cooked.

  The first few days, she watched the horizon as if she expected to see sails at any moment.

  “They’re looking for us,” she said.

  For you, perhaps. Szarok understood that she was a person of importance, a hero from the war and well educated. She knew how to heal the sick and comfort the heart when it ached. At first he resisted that gentling, but now that he’d stopped, it was easier to be with her. Sometimes he even forgot she was human, since they slept in the same bed and she smelled … familiar now.

  “We have the resources to last for a while.”

  She nodded.

  In the signal tower, she had a crate of tubers salvaged from that sad garden. How many seasons did the vegetables grow untended, rot away, and go back to seed before we came? There was nothing to explain who the bodies in the graveyard were or why they died here.

  It had been almost a week.

  Though he didn’t say it aloud, the captain must have given them up for dead. I would be, if not for her. He had never owed anyone so much before, and the debt sat heavily on his shoulders. The least he could do was hunt and protect her with his life. So far, no serious threats had appeared, but this place echoed with sadness and pain, an ominous shadow falling across both of them. Each day they remained stranded, the People would be suffering. More than anything else, he hated being helpless.

  “The sun is bright today. It won’t always be. Come.” She beckoned.

  Already he’d grown too accustomed to her comfort and warmth. What he’d learned from Tegan contrasted so sharply with the pain and hate in his memories that his head ached with it. Yet he took the necessary steps toward her and let her link their fingers. She led him away from the signal tower, down toward the big brine. The only useful aspect of that aquatic terror was that it evaporated, leaving salt behind. Thanks to that salt, he was slowly curing skins to serve as their winter nest. While he hoped rescue came before then, it seemed foolish to bet their lives on it.

  Silvered by the sunlight, the water lapped at the stony shore. A couple of fish swam lazily in their tidal pool, trapped but not alarmed by it. That wouldn’t start until they left the water, flopping and desperate and choking. That’s how I feel in your world, he told them silently.

  “What are we doing?”

  “No matter how it happens, we’ll leave this island by water,” she said. “So I’m teaching you to swim.”

  He bared his teeth. “My people cannot swim.”

  “That’s because you’ve never learned. Even if there are some physiological differences, I refuse to believe you cannot learn to float. From a scientific perspective, that makes no sense. Rather, I suspect all the drowning memories you share as a species make you prone to panic in the water, and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  Szarok stiffened. “You’re saying we sink because we believe we cannot swim.”

  “That has to be part of it.”

  “But—” His protest terminated when she tugged him toward the water. Fear sealed his throat, so he could only snarl in wordless antipathy.

  “We’re only going this far today. You don’t have to get undressed. Just let the water touch your feet. That’s all.” She stepped forward so that the waves washed over her toes. “Come on. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Her smile drew him unwillingly. Once, he found her face so awful and strange, but now he saw only kindness. Before he realized his own intent, somehow he was standing in the icy water. His heartbeat spiked, and for the first few seconds there was only distant screaming in his head. When that cleared, he breathed a bit better. Her hand tightened on his. Today the waves were fairly calm, unlike the storm over the open sea. There was even a sort of terrible beauty about the emptiness where ocean met sky.

  “I’m not afraid of drowning on land,” he muttered.

  “Then you should enjoy this. Just take a walk with me without leaving the water.”

  His claws dug into the sand, leaving divots that the water smoothed away. Over his shoulder, he watched this erasure. Tegan turned to look, too, but she was smiling.

  “It gives you hope, doesn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “When I see that, it makes me think that no matter how bad it is, given time, things will eventually get washed away.”

  Szarok glanced at the water again, trying to see it with her eyes. “My feet are cold.”

  “Just a little longer.”

  That turned out to be the length of the shore, but she eventually let him retreat. Szarok prided himself on tolerating the lesson, and afterward, while they were eating the fish he’d speared with his claws in the tidal pool, he realized that he remembered the heat of her fingers more than the cold water on his feet.

  “Tomorrow we’ll do a little more.”

  “This is a waste of time. I cannot learn.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather test if that’s true? The Uroch never had a teacher before.”

  “Is that what you are?” he asked quietly. “My teacher?”

  “In some ways. Just as you are mine. We’re on a road nobody has ever walked before, and that means we can only learn from each other.”

  Reluctantly he smiled. “Learning again. You are obsessed.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I can think of worse fates,” he said.

  Normally he stood watch for a couple of hours to make sure she didn’t feel too nervous to sleep. But they had been on the island long enough that he felt sure there were no other predators. The foxes posed no threat and couldn’t get through the door besides. So when she retired, he went with her.

  “You’re not staying up?”

  “Not anymore.”

  The long look she leveled at him prickled a little, but it wasn’t unpleasant. “Good night.”

  She fell asleep much faster than he. For countless moments longer he listened to her breathe. Perhaps she trusted everyone like this, but her ease with him seemed like a gift. Carefully, so as not to startle her, he reached out to touch the dark strands fanned out between them. Her hair was rough, but that might be because she couldn’t wash it properly. It smelled a little, mostly of smoke, but there were also familiar echoes, likely reflected from his own skin. Slowly, he curled a lock around his finger and admired the ring he’d made.

  Generally, the People didn’t bond as humans did. Rather they cared for families as an extended clan, and heart-bonds waxed and waned freely. As vanguard, however, he had no such liberty. In human towns, he saw mated pairs cleave to each other long after breeding season passed. He had assumed it was just … different, but now—he fell asleep wondering.

  * * *

  At dawn, he stripped down and went hunting—not for seabirds or tidal pool fish, but for one of the horned creatures. The way the thing moved made Szarok believe it would taste similar to venison. It took him several hours, but he finally ambushed one and wounded it badly enough that it couldn’t use the terrain to get away. With great delight, he drank down several mouthfuls of hot, delicious blood.

  A noise nearby made him turn, and he found Tegan frozen behind him. I must look terrifying. But before he could decide how to react, she came forward. If she had been shocked at how bloody he was and the fact that he chose to stalk his prey in his bare skin, she didn’t show it. But clothing could not be quieted, and it often carried smells that would give a hunter away.

  “Do you need help getting the goat back to camp?”

  Relief surged through him. “This looks different than the ones from the mainland.”

  “It’s probably wild or inbred or both. Look at those horns.” She leaned down to inspect the way they curved.

  “I can carry it. But … how did you find me?” He’d thought humans weren’
t particularly good at tracking.

  “Trade secret,” she teased.

  “It’s unkind to reject my desire to learn.” It felt … strange to joke with her while he stood bare skinned and covered in blood.

  But it shifted things, too. The ache in his heart faded, as there was no reason to be wary. Nothing I am will frighten her. Nothing of mine will repel her. He felt this in his bones. No point in pretending Tegan of the Staff was just a human anymore. He had no way to express how clever, special, and wonderful he found her, but he hoped that she could feel it, even if the right human words never came. Covered in blood, he couldn’t touch her.

  But … he wanted to.

  “I watched the birds,” she said. “As they scattered and flew. Then the foxes. They all seemed to be running away from you, so I guessed. And got lucky.”

  Satisfied and impressed, he answered her initial question. “No, I don’t need help. I’ll eat my breakfast, then deliver yours.”

  “I’ll head back then.”

  “Before you go…”

  Tegan turned with an inquiring look. “Hmm?”

  “I want to make a deal.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m listening.”

  “If I continue with these swimming lessons, you learn more Uroch. I miss hearing it.”

  To his surprise, she brightened as if he’d offered her a present. “Done. I can’t promise I’ll be good at it, but I do want to learn.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She smiled and waved, heading back toward the settlement. In time, he’d feel comfortable eating in front of her, but being careful of human sensibilities had been ingrained in him as he trained to become the vanguard of the People: learning human ways, their speech, discovering what alarmed and frightened them. For him it had been just another sort of camouflage, useful for the hunt. Never could he have imagined that a human female would make him more at home in her presence than he had been anywhere else in life.

  Later he met her at the shore, resigned if not excited. Tegan knelt and rolled his trousers up to his knees, then she took his hand. “We’re going a little deeper today.”