Umbertouched
Page 21
No, that wouldn’t work. But the crows stick in my mind. Zivah might be hard to spot, but Scrawny, if he’s still alive, spends his days circling the sky, especially if Zivah’s asked him to scout.
I whistle for Slicewing, who takes one look at Walgash and hops out of his reach. “Find Scrawny,” I tell her. Slicewing cocks her head. She’s not used to being asked to find another crow. I repeat the command, and finally she takes off.
“Scrawny’s with Zivah,” I tell Walgash. “Once Slicewing finds him, he’ll be able to lead us to her.”
“How long?” he says.
“An hour at most,” I say glibly.
And then it’s just the two of us. I keep my hands casually by my sides, never far from my swords. Walgash puts his back to a cluster of bamboo and watches me like a burly, murderous eagle. Arxa lies between us. If not for the motion of his chest, I’d think the general was dead.
“We’ll need a stretcher,” I say. Mostly, I just needed to say something to break the tension. I eye a stalk of bamboo that’s the right width for a frame and wonder how hard it would be to chop it down. Walgash growls a warning, and I realize I’d reached absentmindedly for my sword. “Easy,” I say. “I’m just looking for materials.”
Walgash jerks his head toward some debris on the ground. “There’s some dead ones we can use.”
Fair enough. Chopping down that stalk of bamboo would have killed my sword anyway. Walgash rummages through the dead stalks and carries them over. Then he stands back and watches grumpily while I lash them together with what’s left of my cloak.
The silence gets to me. “How does Kosru fare?”
Walgash looks up from tying his cloak to the bamboo frame. “Kosru?”
“The silent giant you’re fond of. Your better half. Remember him?”
“He’s on another mission.” Walgash doesn’t offer any more details.
“And Masista?”
“He took an arrow to the ribs. The general sent him back to the central continent to recover.”
“I’m glad he’s alive.”
“How do I know you didn’t shoot that arrow?”
I take the corner of the stretcher and jiggle it, testing the knots. “I’m a soldier, Walgash. You can’t blame me for fighting.”
Walgash takes two large steps toward me. I go for my sword, but he reaches for the stretcher and snatches it out of my hands. “You think I blame you for fighting? No. If you were a mercenary, I’d respect that. You’d have no loyalties, but you’d wear that plainly. But what you are is a liar.”
He spits out the words with rage, and I feel my own anger bubbling up to meet it. “Damn you, Walgash. I’m done hearing this. That mission took everything from me. Those potions split my soul in two. And then I did such a good job of blending in, I was such a good liar, that my own people turned me out because they feared I’d become an Amparan spy.” I stand up to my full height. Still unimpressive next to Walgash, but I don’t care. “Yes, I’m a traitor many times over. Yes, I’ve spit in Neju’s face with the way I’ve broken the bond of soldiers, but I’ve paid the price. And I’ll tell you something more. Had you been in my place, had you watched your people get slaughtered by Ampara, had you spent months deep in the emperor’s dungeons begging the gods to let you die, you would have done the same thing.”
Walgash’s nostrils flare, and his face turns red. I take a step back, wondering if he’s finally going to attack.
Then it happens again. Walgash’s face blurs, and in its place is Tus.
My heart freezes in place. Tus, the Shidadi I captured and took back to Ampara. The one who died painfully to protect my cover. A choking sound escapes my throat.
“What in Neju’s name are you playing at?” says Tus. But it’s Walgash’s voice at least, and I grasp at it, telling myself that what I see is not real. I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth. By the time I open them, it’s Walgash who stares at me. There’s a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, and I can’t tell if he’s about to move toward me or away.
The knot loosens in my throat, and I cough out the rest. “You have no idea the price I’ve paid.” My knees go soft, and I crumple.
Walgash is still watching me. He says nothing.
“Think what you want,” I say. “I’m done.”
A shadow crosses my vision. At first I think it’s another hallucination, but then Slicewing soars to a landing in front of me, followed by—my heart leaps—Scrawny.
“You found him!”
Slicewing fluffs her feathers as if to say I should never have doubted her. Walgash steps back and watches the crow. I still can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“Scrawny,” I say, trying to keep a rein on my hope. Is Zivah alive? Have we found her? “Take me to Zivah.”
I hold my breath as Scrawny takes to the air. He flies awkwardly, and it takes him just a hair longer than usual to get aloft. Is he hurt? Then he lands a short distance away and looks back at me expectantly. I go light-headed with relief.
“He knows where Zivah is,” I say. “Let’s go.”
There’s the problem of getting Arxa onto the stretcher. I don’t want to jostle him in this state, but there’s no way around it. Finally, Walgash takes his arms and I take his legs. The commander is deadweight as we lift him on.
“You take the front of the stretcher,” Walgash says.
I’m not exactly eager to turn my back to Walgash. It makes me too vulnerable.
“You take the front,” says Walgash. “Or we end the truce. For all I know, Zivah’s not even in this forest.”
“You’ll never find her if you kill me,” I remind him.
“You have nothing to worry about, then.”
I grit my teeth. Fine. If he didn’t kill me in open battle, I’ll trust him not to stab me in the back.
Scrawny’s definitely flying a bit funny, but he doesn’t look distressed. In fact, he seems to be enjoying his newfound importance, leading the way with all of us following. Maybe that’s why he took so readily to Zivah, since before he met her he was always the subordinate crow. One thing the crow’s not good at, though, is picking a good trail for two men carrying a third. It’s rough going over uneven ground. I’m jumpy at every shift of the stretcher, thinking that Walgash is about to pull something. Twice, we almost dump Arxa onto the dirt. But my spirits lift as Scrawny leads us to a granite rock face. Rock means caves, and there Zivah will likely be. It’s getting dark, and soon every shadow looks like her. Finally, we catch up to Scrawny and he doesn’t lift off again.
That’s when I see her.
She’s standing near a stalk of bamboo, looking intently at something within its leaves. A low whistle drifts from where she stands, and the long, supple shadow of a snake bobs an arm’s length above her. Still whistling, Zivah raises her arm to the creature.
It strikes. I swallow a yell.
Zivah clutches her arm where it bit her. For a moment, she doesn’t move. Then, quietly, she whistles again and lifts her arm once more. This time, the snake coils itself around her arm. She holds the creature by the base of its neck, examining its fangs, before carefully returning it to the tree.
Goddess. The word pops into my head, an echo of the rumors I’d heard. And indeed, she does look like a goddess. Not the immaculate deities found in temples—even in the growing twilight I can tell that her clothes are old and torn. Hair has come out of her long braid, and if I go closer, I’ll likely find dirt on her face and arms. But there’s something about her, something that calls of blood and earth, and the sight of her sends shivers across my skin.
A twig breaks under my feet, and Zivah’s head snaps toward the sound. “Who’s there?”
When he says his name, I’m afraid to believe it’s really him. I’m terrified that this is a new manifestation of my fever, a hallucination to tease me. But if it’s a hallucination, it’s painfully real. I recognize his voice: familiar, hopeful, and scared. And though his face is in shadow, I recognize the width of his shoulders, the lines
of his arms, the way he shifts his weight as he walks.
Dineas steps into the light, and my heart goes still. His eyes meet mine, the same eyes that had searched desperately for an anchor as he came out of fever delirium in Sehmar City. The same eyes that had clung to my every move as I left Monyar for the second time.
It’s him. He’s alive.
As he steps closer, I see that he’s carrying a stretcher. Fear shoots through me when I see the Amparan soldier holding the other end, but then I recognize Walgash from Neju’s Guard, and I don’t know whether I should be more or less afraid.
“We bring you a patient,” says Dineas.
A patient, at least, is something I know how to deal with. The man on the litter is motionless and covered with blood. “Bring him into the cave, quickly.” I part the vines covering my cave entrance and make sure the snakes are a safe distance away. Walgash and Dineas have to tilt the stretcher to get it through the crevice. He and Dineas lay the patient down, and that’s when I catch a glimpse of the injured man’s face.
I draw a sharp breath. Arxa’s eyes are closed, he struggles to draw breath, and his face has a grayish cast. When I place my finger on his wrist, I can hardly feel his pulse. “How was he wounded?”
“Sword through the ribs.” From the way Dineas says it, I know it was his sword.
I have other questions. If Dineas wounded Arxa, why didn’t he kill him? Is Walgash a friend or an enemy? But the man on the floor of my cave is dying, and he won’t wait for questions to be answered.
“His lung’s collapsed. He needs treatment, quick,” I say. “Walgash, take him off the stretcher and lay him down. Dineas, there’s a fire pit near the mouth of the cave. Build a fire and throw some rocks in the flames. You’ll find some bamboo segments near the wall that you can use for water.”
I scan my stacks of dried herbs, deciding on the last of my puzta flowers and syeb petals to stabilize the wound, and spineleaf root to seal it. Dineas walks past me with canisters of water as I fill an improvised bamboo bowl with my selections.
I touch his elbow as he goes by. He shudders, even as the feel of him sends a tingle up my arm. “How did you find me?”
“Goddesses don’t stay hidden for long,” he says.
He looks at me like a man who’s found a flower in the dead of winter. If only he knew the extent of my failures.
Walgash clears his throat. Dineas and I jump apart, and I turn back to my herbs. There’s no time to grind them thoroughly, and it doesn’t help that my hands shake when I grasp the grinding stone. I notice Dineas watching me from the fire, and I angle my body so he can’t see my tremors. For a short while, all three of us work silently in our scattered places, guided by the light of the flickering flames. Once I have a rough poultice, I join Walgash where he sits near the general. He’s hunched over, shoulders rounded and tense.
“Do you come as a friend or an enemy?” I ask.
“I come as someone who doesn’t want to see my commander die.”
For the second time in two years, I hold Arxa’s life in my hands. This time he’s more than an unknown patient. He’s the father of my friend, the potential destroyer of my people. “You have my word I’ll do my best to cure him,” I say. “I swore to Mehtap that I wouldn’t harm her father.”
Walgash rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. “What can I do?”
“Remove the bandages around Arxa’s chest,” I say. “There’s warm water if anything sticks.”
“Can I help?” Dineas says at my ear, his voice low and uncertain. I can almost feel his breath on my hair.
“Yes, help me slather the poultice onto bandages.”
The bandages are leaves, actually, that I’ve woven into mats. Dineas stretches them flat for me as I apply the paste. The skin of his hands is rough and windblown from his travels, and his fingers come close to mine as we work. If I stretch out my arm just a little bit, we would touch.
After I finish, Walgash and Dineas steady Arxa as I rewrap his wounds.
“Will he live?” Walgash asks. His expression is stoic, but I hear the fear in his voice.
“The cut leading to his lung collapse was not a large one,” I say, “or he would have been dead before you found me. Now that the cut is sealed, it’s up to the Goddess. Arxa needs rest most of all. It will be many days in the best of circumstances, and I work better without distraction. It’s best if you leave him here with me.”
Walgash doesn’t look surprised at my words, though he fidgets with a patch on his armor as he considers them. He’s a fearsome warrior on the battlefield, but right now he looks like an uncertain youth with his tutor.
“You swear you will do him no harm?” he asks.
“I’ve made vows to my Goddess,” I remind him. “I’m bound to heal.”
He takes a long look at Arxa, then moves reluctantly toward the cave opening. After several steps, though, he turns back. “Tell your people to surrender. You don’t know what our soldiers and our weapons can do.”
When neither of us answers, he heads for the cave entrance again, only to turn and address Dineas. “Did your kinsmen really exile you?”
I look to Dineas in alarm. He nods.
Walgash adjusts the sword at his belt. “If you had a choice between joining their side and ours, what would you choose?”
Dineas’s expression doesn’t change. “I am Shidadi,” he says.
Rather than angry, Walgash looks satisfied. “I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said anything else.”
He leaves. And just like that, Dineas and I are alone with Arxa.
He’s alive.
I can’t stop looking at him. I take in his face, the flecks of gold in his eyes, the curve of his cheekbones. He looks at me with the same hunger as when we last parted, and it causes my stomach to tighten. My fingers are restless with the memory of his skin.
“I thought you were dead,” I say. “I found your mother’s bow.”
He swallows, and it takes him a few attempts to speak. I still get the sense that he’s worried I’ll vanish. “I lost it...the bow. I went down by the beach to scout, and Walgash caught me—”
“You were looking for me.”
“Yes.” Like me, he seems frozen in place.
He’s alive. It’s more than I had dared hope for, but now that he’s here, I’m at a loss. Shouldn’t I be throwing my arms around him? Shedding tears of joy on his shoulder? Telling him how the thought of him dead might have destroyed me, had Scrawny not been there?
“Sarsine’s dead,” I blurt out.
Sorrow crosses his face. “I suspected as much, when I didn’t see her here.”
His words bring a fresh pang of grief. “She died bravely. I’d be dead if not for her.”
“Zenagua guide her soul,” Dineas whispers.
Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but the fire seems to burn more brightly. For a moment, we stand silent, and I send up one last prayer for her. Dineas’s lips move soundlessly as well. The past weeks have been hard on him. His clothes are worn and dirtied, fitting loosely on his frame. He’s thinner now than he was even after we returned from Sehmar.
“Dineas, what did Walgash mean, when he said your kinsmen exiled you?”
A shadow enters his eyes. “There was an ambush, and the leaders thought I was behind it. I’ve been wandering the mountains since.”
“Alone?”
He stares at the cave wall without seeing it.
“Dineas?”
“My ghosts came back,” he says, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
Ghosts? And then I understand. “Your past.”
“My fears. My friends. My enemies.”
“You had visions again. Out in the forest?”
Finally he looks at me, his eyes haunted. “It’s never been that bad before.”
His words usher in a wave of guilt. I take his hands, and he grips me tightly back. “You’ve been through something the gods never intended. I shouldn’t have done this to you.”
Dineas draws a slow breath and continues. “I was so confused when I first came back from Sehmar City with his memories tearing me apart. I didn’t know if I was Amparan or Shidadi. I didn’t know if I could even decide who to fight for. But then I realized it was still me doing the deciding. I simply know more.”
“Is it painful, knowing too much?”
“Sometimes. But it’s better to know. Before our mission, I had ideas of what was good, what was brave, what was cowardly. And all this time, I was wrong. If I hadn’t been forced to forget all that, I would have passed over a beautiful thing. The man I was in Sehmar and the lessons he learned are a part of me now. I wouldn’t give that up.”
A shiver goes up my spine at the mention of his other self. I know I’m not him, he’d said. I remember the resignation in his voice, the silent apology. And I remember the kiss that followed, the vulnerability of it, and I realize how much courage it had taken him.
He’s looking at me now in that same wistful way. “I’ve missed you,” he says.
I would have passed over a beautiful thing.
My heart beats an unsteady rhythm. Though his eyes beg for a reply from me, my lips are frozen.
After an eternity of silence, Dineas lets out a frustrated groan and runs his fingers through his hair. “Zivah...do you think about the morning I sent you off with Sarsine?”
“Yes.” Even now, I feel the phantom brush of his lips against mine.
A flash of hope enters his eyes. “Do you...” He pauses, takes a breath. His voice is raw when he continues. “Do you think back on it fondly?”