by Mara Duryea
“Daddy!” I screamed.
“Kill her,” Sizhirin snarled. “And then eat her.” He plunged into the forest.
The Berivor bloodheart jerked Velevy’s head back and slashed at her throat, but the claws only grazed her neck. Terros’s sinuous hand caught the pale wrist and snapped it. He used its screaming body to bat the others away as he hauled Velevy to her feet.
That was the last I saw before the trees blocked off the road. Almost immediately, Rezh and Rindar charged into Sizhirin from both sides.
I tumbled across the ground as the three crashed into the bushes. Rindar’s dagger slid through Sizhirin’s ribs on impact. It did nothing to Sizhirin. The huge Hatrin lifted Rindar bodily off the ground and threw him into a tree. Before he could make another move, Rezh ripped his claws into Sizhirin’s back and shredded a chunk out of him. White bone gleamed from the deep wound, but Sizhirin felt nothing but rage.
Whirling around, he swung his arm at Rezh’s head. My dad ducked and slashed Sizhirin across the stomach. With an awful roar, Sizhirin assailed Rezh like a tidal wave of claws and fists. My dad feared nothing. His hate and fury were fixed.
In the middle of this battle of giants, Rindar regained his wind and attacked Sizhirin. He didn’t have his spear. Later I learned his kiderrin had bolted when Sizhirin had appeared. The massive Hatrin refused to back down. He couldn’t die. Rindar and Rezh didn’t care. They’d leave him a pile of writhing pieces, if nothing else worked.
The masses of star leaves growing along the branches suddenly parted in the wake of a charging kiderrin. Terros held Rindar’s black spear in one hand, the light of murder in his green eyes. Velevy was huddled in a corner of the frame, cradling her head. The bloodhearts were nowhere in sight. Their blood spattered Terros’s frame.
“Get back!” he bellowed.
As Rezh and Rindar darted out of the way, Terros dove off the kiderrin. His body and spear were like a single shaft. The spearhead cracked through Sizhirin’s chest. Terros’s momentum knocked the Hatrin down, and the spear plunged deep into the ground.
Sizhirin’s mouth opened in a soundless shriek. His blue eyes bulged from their sockets. Purplish blood oozed from his mouth and nose.
“What is he?” cried Rindar.
“A monster,” Rezh snarled, hefting a giant rock off the ground. Sizhirin began choking something out, but Rezh smashed his head. Sizhirin’s skull cupped the rock like a crater holding a meteor. The body still struggled to remove the spear.
“Run!” Terros snapped, darting for the kiderrin.
Rezh sped to my side and swept me off the ground. As he scrambled into the kiderrin frame, I thrust my hand out to Rindar. “Grampa!” He didn’t have much choice. Even if he did, seeing me alive would have been enough for him to follow, for he had thought me dead. He hurled himself onto the kiderrin. Rezh and Terros glanced at him in surprise, but there was no time for questions.
Terros hadn’t allowed the chaos to make him lose sight of why we’d come to the road. We’d acquired a vozhar, but her medicines remained with her kiderrin. Instead of fleeing home like a madman, Terros drove the kiderrin back to the road.
“Those bloodhearts are gone,” he said huskily.
Rezh’s arms tightened around me. “Great Cubons, get the woman’s kiderrin! Where is it?”
“I saw it jump into a tree.” Terros steered the kiderrin into one of the trees and sure enough, the beast was shivering in the branches. Keeping me close, Rezh propelled onto its back. The impact seemed to snap the animal out of its fear.
“Let’s go,” said Rezh, and rushed back to where we’d left the hammers. He and Terros snatched them up as they each bounded by. Terros whistled for his kiderrin and it loped from the trees.
I peeked over Rezh’s arm to ensure Rindar was still with us. The dark-skinned Miricor was digging through his red medical bag and removed dried lanadin. He sprinkled water from his waterskin onto the herbs and rubbed them into paste between his fingers. Cradling Velevy in one arm, he massaged the lanadin into her temples. She sighed in relief, keeping her eyes closed.
“Is okay,” said Rindar. “You gonna be fine.”
Terros glanced at Velevy and then at him. “Zhin called you ‘grampa.’” He coughed for several seconds and ended gasping for breath.
Rindar pressed Velevy’s head against him as the kiderrin hopped over a mesh of branches. “I am.”
“What’s your name?” said Rezh. Rough coughing tore his throat.
“Rindar.”
Terros started as if someone had pushed him. He turned and stared at Rindar’s face. His mouth moved with words only he could hear.
“Can I see your right ear?” said Terros.
Rindar turned his head as he brushed his black hair from his pointed ear. A white scar circled halfway around its base.
“She said you almost got your ear cut off,” said Terros softly.
Rindar dropped his hand and gazed at him. “She said if was one boy, she’d name him Terros.”
My uncle’s lower lip trembled. “I’m Terros.”
Rindar’s back stiffened. “You’re…” Setting Velevy gently down, Rindar pulled Terros to him and tangled his fingers into his hair. “My son, my son!” He kissed Terros’s feverish temple.
“Mom said you’d always come,” said Terros.
“She had more faith in me than I did.” Rindar pulled back and clasped Terros’s face in his hands. “You so sick and I try for to kill you!” He looked ready to throw up.
“I had Rezh,” Terros reassured.
“Rezh is Vaylee’s son, too?” said Rindar. “How?” He didn’t really want to know the answer. A wanderer’s life could become the stuff of nightmares. Things happened, especially to women and children.
“I’m not her son by blood,” said Rezh. A bitter tone underlaid the words, but Rindar sighed in relief.
“We’re a band,” said Terros, making sure he hadn’t let the reins flop out of the frame. “So we’re brothers.” He smiled. “He’ll be your son, too. Zhin’s already claimed you as his grandpa.”
“If that’s okay with you,” said Rezh, guardedly. “You wouldn’t have to claim me if you didn’t want to.”
Rindar gazed steadily at Rezh, perceiving veiled grief in his face. “Vaylee claimed you.” The hidden words behind it were clear: If she claimed you, then you must be a good person, and I shall claim you, too. You belong to me at this very moment.
Rezh gave a small smile. His mouth moved, but nothing came out. He and Terros exchanged glances. Something passed between the two, which put them both on edge.
Rindar immediately detected something the matter. “What goes on?”
Terros twisted the reins in his hands. “Dad…”
“No,” said Rezh.
“It’ll be all right,” said Terros. “He loves my mom, and she’s a Veerin.”
The Miricors and Veerins despised each other just as much as they do today, despite the current peace declared by their leaders. The feud between them has lasted for generations. Antiminars and Vorions are also a part of it. Miricors and Antiminars will team up against Veerins and Vorions, and vice versa. The hatred doesn’t hold sway for those born outside of Vaylania, though.
“What?” said Rindar.
“Mom loves him,” said Terros. “Besides, he’ll need to know sooner or later.”
“Just…” Rezh took a breath. “Let me think.”
“All right.”
We continued on, but not in silence.
“Dad,” said Terros, “how did you come here? How do you know Zhin?”
“I found Zhin in the woods like one feral child,” said Rindar. He related our adventures together up until the haladon attack. I found myself listening closely to the part when I wasn’t there and had been dangling on the haladon’s spike. “I see the guest house burned down,” continued Rindar. “I think the baby is dead and I not know what else to do but follow where Zhin had been leading me. Is how I come upon the road. I was gonna cut th
rough the forest where I run into you kidnapping the lady. Rezh, you let me hold the baby one little bit?”
“Yeah.”
We slowed a little as Rezh drew his kiderrin near the other beast. He handed me to Rindar, who squeezed me to his breast. We sped up again.
“What happen to you, minamee?” said Rindar.
I told him, feeling quite proud that I had been inside a rilith forest like he had. My dad listened closely, noting Rindar’s reactions to my words and observing how Rindar caressed my fuzzy ear.
As we reached the vicinity of the bunker, and the bitter river smell reached through the trees, Rezh took a nervous breath.
“Okay,” he said. “Rindar?”
“Yeah?”
“I have to tell you something important.” He frowned. “Maybe you should hear it before you think of joining our band.” He drew near the kiderrin again and held his hand out to me. I took it and he swung me into his lap. “Do you love Zhin?”
Rindar grew confused. “Of course I do. Why?”
Rezh dug his thumb claw into the reins. “His…” His voice faltered, but he rallied. “His m—”
Sudden screams pierced the forest. Men’s shouts and laughter crashed on our ears like the dread clicking of hunting retsinists.
“The bunker’s being attacked,” Terros snapped.
19
Wanderers
Six filthy men garbed in baggy rags were dragging three feverish women from the bunker: a Syladin, Veerin and a Hatrin. The lanky Berivor whom Rezh had argued with last night lay wounded on the ground. Ikalkor knelt over him, crying. The corpses of two other men from the enemy band lay nearby.
Rezh shoved me into a corner of the frame. “Lay down, Zhin.”
He, Terros, and Rindar charged into the six. Grampa leaped onto the head of a Hatrin, who’d twisted the Veerin’s arm behind her back. His other hand clutched her black and white hair. Impaling the man through the ribs, he propelled onto the Rykori. He disarmed the wanderer in a liquid motion and stabbed him neatly through the heart.
Terros and Rezh had trampled three others with their kiderrins. The last attempted to flee, but Terros stood up on his kiderrin’s back and hurled a spinning blade through the man’s neck.
“Take care of my brother,” said Terros to Velevy, who’d recovered enough to function. He led her gently to the lanky Berivor. The Hatrin woman knelt over him in hysterics. I recognized her as my Aunt Selly.
“Rindar,” the Veerin suddenly cried from where she sat on the ground. She tried to stand, but didn’t have the strength.
“Vaylee!” Rindar fell on his knees beside her and tucked her into his arms. They burst into joyful tears, kissing one another to make a seven-year-old barf. I turned my face away.
Rezh jumped out of the kiderrin next to the Syladin, who laid half-conscious on the ground. He eased her to a half-sitting position and she slumped against him. A single swatch of pink streaked through her dark blue hair. Blue fins laced her forearms like delicate paint. She wore a tan dress to her calves, and her tail flopped over the back like a blue and pink scarf.
Here she was at last, my mother, Gilanra. Tripping down the kiderrin, I wiggled into her arms. An aura like a cool spring breeze emanated from her and into my little heart. I pressed my face into her shirt. It smelled of flowers and something else I couldn’t pinpoint. It reminded me of sunrises, when pink and gold dyed the sky.
My mother forced her pink and blue eyes open and stared at me as if I were an apparition. “Zhin?”
“Don’t worry, Mommy,” I said. “I’m home.”
Gilanra cried out as tears gushed down her hollow cheeks. She kissed my head and pressed me to her heart, quivering as if she might explode. Only sobs passed her dear lips.
She sank into Rezh and squished me between them. My dad wrapped his arms around us. I melted into their warmth, like a water droplet returning to its source. My dad’s heart beat like the tug against my ear. My mother’s scent became my air. There are few times in life when we experience complete bliss. I could have stayed like that forever.
***
“Is he going to die?” Selly wailed, as Velevy patched Potesac’s wounds.
Rindar, Rezh, and Terros were packing up the wagon. We had to move as soon as possible. The eight dead men probably belonged to a bigger band, and they would come in search of their missing members and kiderrins. Those belonged to us now. Sizhirin’s bloodhearts could discover us as soon as he was recovered.
Velevy had administered medicine to my family, and now her only problem was Selly. My aunt was a beautiful Hatrin woman, boasting silvery white ears, tail, and leg fur. Black hair cascaded to her hips like the finest silk. She had delicate features, thick black lashes, and silvery blue eyes. My grandma Vaylee said Selly was a pretty little Cubon with no sense in her head. After a while, people forgot how pretty she was because of the nonsense that spilled out of her mouth.
“He not gonna die,” said Velevy. “He just needs rest.”
Selly buckled as if Velevy had pronounced Potesac dead. “You’re no help!”
Terros rolled his eyes. “Selly, go lay down.”
Selly collapsed next to Potesac. “Gilanra, can’t you make him better?”
“Leave her alone,” Rezh growled.
“What did I do?” Selly wailed.
“Oh, Great Cubons.”
I looked at my mom. She, my grandma, and I rested on a blanket Rezh had put out for us. Vaylee was curled up on one side of me and Gilanra was on my other side, gazing at the sky.
“Why does Selly like to lay down in the dirt, Mommy?” I asked.
“She thrives in it,” said Gilanra.
Vaylee giggled. I tried to figure out what that meant and spent the next few minutes at a total loss.
“We’re ready,” said Rindar.
As he and Terros hoisted Potesac into the wagon, Selly and Ikalkor climbed in with him. Rezh aided Gilanra into a kiderrin frame and made doubly sure I was still there.
Gilanra held her arms out to me. “Baby.” I sat against her stomach and Rezh covered us with a blanket. By then, Rindar had put Vaylee onto his kiderrin.
All the while, Velevy had watched in rising agitation. What exactly was her situation? Nobody had harmed her. These wanderers were kind and chivalrous. Maybe she’d wake up in a Kosalin, chattering with awiks and plupkins.
Terros approached Velevy and held baggy clothes out to her. They were made of tan-colored leypel hide. “You need to put these on and pull the hood low over your face.”
“Why?” Velevy squeaked. “So nobody know I kidnapped?” She looked ready to cry.
“That wouldn’t matter,” said Terros.
Velevy pouted. “Why not?”
“Your red robe gives you away, so other wanderers will want you. It also sticks out, so everything will see you. You need the hood low over your face because you’re pretty.”
Velevy’s cheeks turned pink.
“Ugly men like those who attacked will take you away so you can have their babies.”
The pink in Velevy’s cheeks faded to ashen white, and she snatched the clothes. She changed in the bunker tunnel. When she walked out, she was dressed as a proper wandering woman: long sleeves, baggy pants under a knee-length skirt, and the hood shading her face.
“Now you look nice,” said Terros. “You ride with me.” He took her arm and pulled her onto his kiderrin.
We headed further west, putting as many miles as possible between us and the bunker. We continued westward for several weeks, never seeing civilization, and not daring to either. Sizhirin and his bloodhearts could be anywhere.
All the while, Velevy cared for Potesac and rid our band of the fever. Terros hunted food for her and made sure she stayed warm, comfortable, and safe. It became apparent that he’d claimed her as his woman, in true wanderer style. It was the way Rezh had claimed Gilanra, and the way Potesac had claimed Selly.
Velevy was totally oblivious to this tradition. She dreaded the day whe
n Potesac fully healed. It meant we’d toss her back to civilization and she’d never see us again, especially never see Terros again. Since she failed to voice her assumptions, nobody set her right.
One morning, when the first summer rain dribbled round the bunker tunnel and the men were out hunting, Gilanra decided Potesac had remained messed up long enough. Kneeling beside him, she breathed light into her hands and rubbed his head.
As Potesac’s body shined blindingly bright, Velevy screamed and dashed to the other side of the room. She pressed her back to the wall. She shaded her eyes, but at the same time, she had to see what my mother was doing. Gilanra kissed the top of Potesac’s head. The light swept inside his body, and he sat up with a sigh of relief.
“It took you long enough,” he said, and then he smiled.
Gilanra smiled back. “I was getting tired of Selly rolling in the mud every day in mourning. She’s already chopped off all her hair.”
“Oh, Great Cubons.”
Velevy burst into tears. “You’re well!”
“Don’t be scared, Velevy,” said Gilanra. “I’m a Sylex. Now that you’ve healed me, I could heal Potesac.”
“A…a Sylex?” Velevy’s lower lip trembled. “You can heal everyone else now. You don’t need me anymore.”
Gilanra’s brows knit. “We’re not going to eat you. We’re friends now.”
Velevy threw her face into her hands. “Is not why.”
Steps sounded in the tunnel, mingled with laughter, and then Rindar, Terros, and Rezh walked in with slabs of meat. I jumped up and cheered, because, you know, meat.
“What’s this?” said Terros, observing Velevy. He set his meat in a large bowl and removed his wet jacket.
“She’s upset I healed Potesac,” said Gilanra. “She doesn’t think we need her anymore.”
“Now you’ll send me away,” Velevy wailed.
Understanding entered Terros’s countenance. “Oh.” He smiled and sat beside Velevy. “You can’t leave.”
Velevy peeked at him. “Huh?”
