The Bargaining Path
Page 60
***
We were running towards the spot in our village from which I was picking up the thoughts of the Old Spirits. As we ran, we passed other infected people who were lying in the dirt, moaning. All around the village, there were bodies. Some had been shot. Some had been ripped apart. The earth drank up the blood like it was dying of thirst. All around us, rivers of red ran and joined, forming puddles and thin streams that almost seemed to draw symbols into the dirt all around. The people still alive, covered in the evidence of their slaughtering of their neighbors, stood up and began to shamble home when I shouted at them to do so. Apparently, my command for civility and my direction to return home had spread through the camp, far beyond the village square.
“Should we really run out there to meet them when it is just you and me?” Savannah asked, stopping our run and panting for breath as she spoke.
“Of course we should. Is this an antifeminist moment, Savannah? I seriously thought we were on the same page with our views on the capabilities of women in relation to men and as individuals.”
I was not panting at all, though I am not bragging when I say that; I was simply more adept at handling those physically demanding, mentally straining, life-or-death situations than she was because I had been experiencing them for so long.
“You know it’s not that. It’s just… We really should bring more people with us. If it will make you recant your assertion that I’m sexist, then we can bring all girls. We’ll be like Amazonians. Whatever floats your boat.”
“I’ve always wondered, is that a double entendre? That expression?” I stopped, shook my head, and came back to the topic at hand. “Never mind. I am going to say something right now that might shock you, but you are right.”
She gasped comically, and I narrowed my eyes at her.
“We should see if James and all of that lot in the infirmary have come to their senses yet. We could use their assistance in parlaying with the Old Spirits, who are close, by the way, but not too close. In fact…” I closed my eyes and caught the thoughts of that old man with the young wife again. The man who was supposed to meet them had not shown up. This older man feared that he had succumbed to the airborne trebestia venom, even though they had all been exposed to it. They had all suffered through its effects, because doing so would grant temporary immunity. That is why I was immune to the effects. My eyes turned to Savannah, wondering if she had been bitten or scratched and treated in the infirmary, and that is why she was not currently going out of her mind. That moment was not the time to ask, so I turned back to the thoughts of the old man.
“They’re lost. Thank God or the Gods for that. The spies they planted here are not exactly professionals, and they certainly are not skilled at compass reading, or cartography, or both. So we have now been granted some much needed time to assemble an actual plan, not just an impulsive jaunt into an unknown level of danger.”
“So the infirmary, then?”
“Off we go.”