Obsidian and Stars

by Julie Eshbaugh

“I trust him,” she murmurs.

  We watch him climb—not coming straight up but choosing to pick a path that winds up the cliff. Still, despite this easier route, he struggles. I watch him grope for handholds as if he were weak, as if he were a man much older than he appears.

  “Something’s wrong,” Noni says. “I’m going down.”

  I watch him advance up the cliff as she works her way down, panic growing inside me. We should not be out in the open, exposed to the Bosha. Noni should not be climbing down this cliff, even if she does trust this man. I start down a few steps behind her, my eyes on her uncle, when suddenly he falls forward, landing on his face on the sand. A long dart protrudes from his back.

  I glance over my shoulder at the clump of trees where the others are huddled. Kol lies on the ground, but Morsk sees me. He gets up. As I descend the cliff, I hear him coming over the ledge above me.

  Noni reaches her uncle. He’s still alive, but won’t be for long. His hands grip Noni’s arm. “I had to warn you,” he says. “I had to warn you and your mother.”

  “But how did you know—”

  “Your father has been looking for you. He knew a boat was gone.” The poor man chokes. Blood spills over his lips. Morsk hurries to our sides and helps pull the man upright. He leans over and spits blood into the sand. “When he didn’t find even a sign of you up the river, he turned his attention to the sea. He’s had people out searching the coast. But—” He gasps and coughs, and I draw Noni away, as if I mean to protect her from the horror of watching her uncle die. But she pulls away from me and moves closer to him. She wants to hear every word he came to say.

  “He noticed a branch with green leaves that came in on a wave. ‘Islands.’ That was what he said that day. He had seen two paddlers heading out to sea. He said they knew where the island was. He said this proved it. . . .” This time, mercifully, his voice trails off instead of breaking into a hack.

  I swallow hard. The paddlers he saw were me and Lees. “We gave you away,” I say. “It was us—”

  “I don’t care. I would be dead by now if it weren’t for you, anyway.”

  I doubt this is true, but if Noni hoped it would make me feel better, it does. “Who attacked you?” I ask. “Did Noni’s father—”

  “No.” He coughs again, and this time I think he’s died. He stills. Noni sets a hand on his, and he opens his sunken eyes. “Protect her, please,” he says to Morsk. “Protect her and her mother.”

  In reply, Morsk simply nods. I see him swallow hard.

  “This dart. It was thrown by someone here on the island. I never saw who it was, but they are here. They are already here, and they will kill to get her back.” He chokes again, gasping for air. His eyes meet Noni’s one last time. “Be careful. Be careful.”

  He lies back against the sand. For a moment his breathing comes in a rough pant, and then it stops. His chest stills, and the hand clenched around Noni’s wrist slides to the ground.

  He is dead.

  “I’m so sorry, Noni,” Morsk says. I notice a knot in his throat as he speaks.

  She leans over and kisses her uncle on the brow. “He was my mother’s favorite. Now he’s going to her.” Tears spill from her eyes and she turns her face away.

  “The dart was thrown by someone here on this island,” I repeat aloud to myself.

  “So her father is already here?” Morsk sets a hand on the dart, rocks Noni’s uncle forward, and tugs hard to pull it loose. With it out, the dead man’s body is able to lie flat against the sand.

  Noni slumps against his chest. “That’s better,” she sobs.

  Something about the dart is familiar to me. I take it from Morsk’s hand. His eyes stay on it, too. “You’ve seen darts like this before, haven’t you?” He nods. We grew up in the same clan. “Noni, does your clan use darts?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do you carve them from?”

  “Bone.”

  I hold up the dart to the light. “This is spruce,” I say. “I know the design. This is Bosha made.”

  We leave Noni’s uncle at the base of the cliff and rejoin the group. They’ve shared some food, but they’ve also stood at the edge of the cliff. They are anxious to ask about the man who died.

  “So the Bosha are not far,” Pek says.

  “But why would they want to kill my uncle?” Noni asks, passing me her pack so I can try to get some food into Kol.

  “I don’t think they knew who he was,” I answer. “They probably thought he was one of us.”

  Kol is awake, but very weak. He accepts a sliver of dried mammoth, but takes only a small bite. “You should let me go look for feverweed,” Noni says. But I can’t let her go now, even though I know Kol needs it.

  “Soon,” I say. “When I can go with you.”

  “So the Bosha are close, armed, and ready to kill,” Pek says. “And Noni’s father’s clan is coming, too.”

  “We need to go—to get down the cliff and to the boats before the Bosha find us and before the Tama attack.” I say all this—not as much to let the others know my plan as to clarify it for myself. The sun is sliding toward the sea, and though we still have a long time before dark, we don’t want to push out onto the sea when the day is mostly gone. “But if the Tama come for Noni, I want you to know I will defend her. I will protect her like I would if she were of the Olen clan. But she’s not, so I can’t ask any of you to do the same.”

  “I would do the same.” It’s Kol. The first words he’s said since Pek carried him across the ground. “I may not be well enough to defend her. But I would.”

  “I would, too,” says Pek.

  “We all would, Mya.” Seeri leans forward and clasps my hand. “You aren’t asking us to do anything we don’t want to do.” My gaze moves to Lees, and then to Morsk. They both nod in agreement.

  “Who wouldn’t defend a child in danger?” Lees asks.

  Chev might not, I think to myself. Not that Chev was cruel or unfeeling, but he lived by the rule of clan first. He might not have defended Noni if he thought it risked the safety of members of his own clan. He may have forbidden others from defending her, too.

  Am I already failing in Chev’s place? Or were his rules for leadership all wrong? Right now is not the time to ask these questions. Instead, I look around the group, assessing weapons and skills. “Since we all agree that we will protect each other and Noni, here’s what I think we should do.”

  I outline my plan—Lees will stay back with Kol and Noni. She will be left with a spear, an atlatl, and darts, but they will be expected to stay out of sight under these trees. Morsk, Pek, Seeri, and I will climb down the cliff wall and move up the beach to the boats. We will each row back one of the boats so we can get all of us off the island tonight.

  Pek is on his feet almost before I stop speaking—one hand reaching for his spear while the other tugs Seeri to her feet. Morsk has yet to sit. His eyes have been locked on the sea the whole time.

  “Before you go,” Lees starts, “I have a comment on your plan.”

  “We’ll be careful—”

  “I think I should go, and you should stay with Kol.”

  My back is turned to Lees—I’m leaning over Kol, my hand pressed to his scalding cheek—but when I turn I see something unfamiliar in her eyes. She hands me her spear. “You’ll need this. I’ll take a set of darts and an atlatl instead. But you should stay with Kol. I would want to stay if Roon were the one sick. He needs you.” There’s a heaviness in her voice I’ve never heard before, and I realize the thing in her eyes is concern. Not the childish kind of concern I’ve seen there before, like the look she gets when she fears she’s missing out, but the concern that I am doing the wrong thing by leaving her with Kol.

  By leaving Kol with anyone but me.

  “It’s too dangerous—”

  “Staying here to defend the two of them is just as dangerous. Noni’s never even held a spear—”

  “That’s not true,” Noni blurts out, but I know
what Lees means. She can’t be depended on to help if they were found.

  “The trip to the boats will be much more dangerous—”

  “Will it?” It’s Seeri who interjects now. “I don’t know. Honestly, Mya, I think I would be less worried about Lees if she were with me, Pek, and Morsk than if she were left behind to defend two defenseless people.”

  I study Seeri. Is this really what she thinks? Or does she think Kol might die and I should be here if he does?

  I know he won’t die—he can’t die—but I bend down beside him and he turns to me. His eyes see me, but I don’t think he’s heard anything we’ve said. His eyes flutter, move to the sky, and fall closed again.

  “All right then. I’ll stay. But I want a signal. If any of us gets into trouble, we’ll set a fire. If we see smoke, we’ll know it’s a call for help.”

  “But won’t smoke draw everyone else who’s stalking us, too?” Pek asks.

  “I’d be happy to have them all out in the open at last,” Seeri says. “It would be better than fearing every shadow.”

  With these words in my ears I walk with them to the edge of the cliff, wondering where the Bosha might be at this moment and when they might attack. I watch Pek, Morsk, and Lees drop over the ledge one by one and start down. Seeri goes last. “Don’t worry about us,” she says, pulling me into an awkward hug. “Take care of Kol. We won’t be long.”

  I stay low to the ground and watch her descend. When she is halfway to the bottom of the cliff, I creep back into the shade of the trees and find Kol alone.

  Noni is gone.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Kol lies on the ground, but he does not lie still. He tosses restlessly, like a dreamer caught in a nightmare. Every part of his body is in motion except for his left leg.

  From just beyond the edge of this clump of trees, Black Dog howls. I crouch down and slide toward the sound, Lees’s spear balanced on my shoulder. Black Dog howls once more and I am up, running toward the sound.

  I see her even before I reach the edge of this meager stand of stunted trees. She lies on her back beside a clump of plants with deeply serrated leaves. Feverweed. Handfuls of stalks yanked straight from the dirt litter the trampled grass. Noni lies still, a dart sticking out of her neck. Black Dog runs in circles around her until he hears my foot on the ground.

  I drop down, crawling on hands and knees to the edge of the trees. Noni looks at me, moving just her eyes. She is alert—alert enough to know she is in danger. My gaze sweeps the open space around her, but I see no one. Where did her attackers come from, I wonder, and where did they go? Are they hiding, waiting for me to come out into the open? It doesn’t matter; I have to go to her. With the spear balanced on one shoulder, I slink across the ground to her side.

  Blood runs from both wounds in her throat—where the dart went in and where the tip came out. She is bleeding hard. “I had some,” she says, and her chest rises and falls like the sea in a storm. “I dropped it—”

  “Shush,” I say. I gather the plants that are scattered on the ground. “I’ve got it.” I scoop her into my arms—she is so light—but I’m exhausted. My steps are slow, and with each one I turn and look over both shoulders.

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Noni says. Her voice gurgles, like she’s underwater. As I carry her, Black Dog runs in front, but then stops and lifts his head. He sniffs the air. I hesitate, wondering if he smells the scent of the person who attacked Noni. I don’t move until the dog runs again, returning to Kol’s side.

  I lay Noni beside him on the mossy soil. When I brush my fingers across Kol’s forehead, they burn. His fever must be rising. His body has gone still. I think maybe he’s fallen back to sleep, or whatever approximation of sleep his high fever will allow.

  I check Noni’s wounds. “I’m going to leave the dart in place,” I say. “It will bleed less.”

  “Pack the feverweed all around it.” Even with blood running from an open wound, she still wants to tell me how to use the plant. I’m happy for it—she is still awake, and I so desperately want her to stay that way. “I promise you it will stop the bleeding.” I follow her instructions, hoping these leaves will do even a fraction of what she claims they will. “But give some to Kol. That’s why I went out there. To get it for him.”

  Noni tells me to wad up a few leaves and press them between Kol’s teeth. I whisper to him, telling him to bite down on it, and though his eyes stay pressed shut, he does as I say. I ration the remaining supply of leaves, setting some aside to dress Noni’s wound again later.

  I listen for any sound that might suggest someone is nearby, planning to attack. I hear nothing but waves below the cliff and the wind rustling the leaves. “The person who did this—you saw nothing at all? You didn’t hear a voice?”

  “Nothing.” She sighs, but pain tears at the edges of the sound. Her breath rattles, and when it stops, something else rattles, too. A crunch, like a foot on the ground. Noni’s eyes move to my face. Her head nods. She’s heard it, too. I pick up the spear, stretch to my full height, and turn in place, searching for any movement beyond the trees.

  I pause, holding still and silent, and listen again. My attention catches on another rustling sound, like footsteps coming through the trees. Noni looks up too, and this time, so does Black Dog.

  My imagination might play tricks on me—Noni’s might play tricks on her—but I trust the dog’s senses. Lees’s spear rolls in my hand, my grip ready, as I turn in the direction of the sound.

  I see nothing . . . nothing . . . until all at once a dark shape is hurtling toward me. . . . A person running, a spear raised over her shoulder. In the pale light of the dying day, I see her face. Anki. She slows, and I see her eyes. Her gaze locks on my face as she cocks her arm back at the elbow and throws.

  But her aim is compromised. The clutter of trees and the tricks of the shadows confuse her throw, and her spear bounces off the bent branch of a poplar that twists up through the shade. I don’t know what other weapons she might have, but I know I need to retrieve that spear before she does. I take off toward the place where it lies, not far beyond the circle of ground where Black Dog keeps watch over Noni and Kol.

  I tear over the ground, Anki running hard from the other direction. I am so close, much closer than she is. I reach the spear, trading Lees’s to my other hand in favor of this larger, fiercer weapon. My feet plant, my arm rises over my shoulder, and I measure my aim.

  A violent shudder tears through me, as if my will has torn in two. I ready myself to take a life—something that feels so wrong—while I revel in the privilege of ending the person who ended Chev. The two sides of my heart struggle, wrestling inside me, right up until Anki stops. She pulls a long flint blade from her belt. Black Dog appears at my heels, growling through bared teeth, and Anki aims the knife at the dog. The memory of Chev’s knife clutched in that same hand rushes back, and my resolve hardens.

  The spear flies from my hand and finds its home, deep in Anki’s thigh. I know at the moment the spear pierces the hide of her pants that I’ve hit the mark I sought. Blood runs, pulsing, over her knee and down her calf. Thick, heavy blood, so dark it’s almost black. It won’t take long until she has nothing left to bleed.

  Still she struggles forward, her face a knot of concentration and rage. “You may think that you will win. That I will die and you will have beaten me.” She takes a few stumbling steps, and my eyes move to Noni, vulnerable on the ground.

  Black Dog watches, sniffing the air, as if he recognizes the scent of Anki’s blood.

  “Yes, you may think that you’ve won,” she says. “I certainly won’t last.” She reaches down to press her fingers into the wound. The flow of blood doesn’t slow. It runs out over her hands, painting them red up to her wrists. “But I don’t need to survive to get what I want. I just need to kill you.”

  Even as she threatens me, her legs give out and she collapses, landing in a thicket of thorns that tear small red gashes in her cheeks. She hardly seems to notice. I
nstead she struggles to her knees, grabs the spear with both hands, and pulls it out, leaving a gaping hole in her leg that goes all the way through muscle to bone. “Thank you for returning my spear,” she says. She braces all her weight on it and forces herself to her feet.

  She raises the spear, steadying herself against a tree.

  But there is no strength left in her, and she drops back to the ground, the spear still clasped in her fist.

  For a long stretch of time I stand there, not making a move toward Anki or away. A breeze picks up, swirling the branches above my head. Could it be the movement of her Spirit as it leaves her? As the gust fades, I force myself to slide toward her. We are too short on weapons. I cannot leave this spear—even covered in her blood—cast aside on the ground.

  As I tug it free from Anki’s hand, I think again of my brother’s knife—the one I’d seen her treating like a toy—the one she took from his body when he died. And I think of Dora’s words to her daughter—You know better than to steal from the dead. Does taking this spear make me no better than Anki?

  But then I turn and see Noni and Kol lying side by side on the hard ground. Both of them weak. Both nearly defenseless.

  I grasp the spear. I will return it to her clan when I see them again. I am not stealing from the dead, but for now I am borrowing this spear.

  Back under the trees that overhang Kol and Noni, I slide to the ground.

  “Is she dead?”

  I startle at the sound of Kol’s voice. “You’re awake.”

  “I am.”

  I drag myself to his side. His eyes are open, and in the thin light of the fading day, I see a bit of fire in them. His head is damp with sweat. “Your fever’s coming down.”

  “Maybe the plant is working.”

  I slide over to Noni’s side. Blood still leaks around the feverweed packed around the dart, but after seeing Anki’s leg, this doesn’t scare me nearly as much as it did.

  Kol sits up. “I thought I would die today,” he says. “And do you know what I feared?” He leans forward. Through the deepening shade, I can just barely see the shape of Kol’s mouth, a straight even line with only a hint of a curl at the corners. “I feared that I would never get the chance to marry you. That I would never get the chance to be your husband.”