by DM Fike
“Tell me what you know,” I said with as much menace as I could muster.
His shoulders shook. At first, I thought he was scared. It didn’t take long, though, for the laughter to reach the corners of his eyes. He didn’t bother to pull away as he erupted into throaty chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” I said between my teeth.
My growl had the opposite effect of what I hoped for. His mirth grew until spittle hit my face.
I let go of him, disgusted.
“I-I’m sorry,” he managed, wiping tears in his lashes. “I mean no offense. You just look so cute, like an angry gopher.”
I’d about had it with this lunatic. He could have been the fox dryant at that moment, and I wouldn’t have cared. I flung my hands at him in dismissal. “Go shove your rodent metaphors down a hole,” I said, turning to leave.
“Wait!” he cried as I stalked away.
I didn’t stop.
The guy had some serious air skills to go along with his water tornado. One minute he was still chortling behind me, the next he landed in a graceful arch in front of me by bursting ahead with an air sigil.
“We got off on the wrong foot. Let’s start again.” He bobbed his head. “I’m Wuaro of the Bitai Wilds.”
“And I’m leaving,” I announced, trying to skirt past him.
“That’s a strange name.” He deftly stepped into my path no matter if I turned left or right. “And I thought you were curious about the fox dryant.”
“Not enough to talk with you.” When his expression crumbled as if I’d genuinely hurt his feelings, I sighed. “Look, you’re right. I’m a Talol Wilds shepherd. I never should have come here. I’m sure I’m in trouble with your people as it is. I should probably go before you report me to someone.”
He tilted his head to the side, sand falling from his hair. “I didn’t report you to anyone before.”
I stilled. “Why?”
“You wandered into my territory for months, chasing every thunderstorm that came this direction. You were interesting.”
I had indeed come out into the desert as often as I could to practice absorbing lightning. At the time, Guntram hadn’t believed it was an element I could manipulate, so I had to practice in secret. The desert was the only place I could think of that Guntram wouldn’t catch me. It never dawned on me a Bitai Wilds shepherd would discover me instead.
“I never saw another person, not once, during those trips.”
He stomped the sand with his left foot. “Bitai survival rule number one: Stay out of the sun whenever possible. It takes too much precious water pith to constantly keep our bodies cool, so we usually bury ourselves during the day. And we never miss a chance to absorb water pith from a storm.”
“Whoa.” I had no idea how different a desert shepherd’s life would be compared to mine, but it did make sense. “You watched me from underground?”
He nodded. “Right up until that fox dryant appeared and tossed you a lightning ball.”
I wished the Oracle could be here now, listening to this shepherd I didn’t know from an entirely different territory claim that he’d seen the fox dryant too. “Did you see which way she went?”
“No. As far as I could tell, she vanished with the storm.”
A dash of pessimism hit me, but I continued. “Did you ever see her again, though? In a different lightning storm, maybe?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, but I only ever saw her the one time with you.”
My whole body slumped. I resisted the urge to fling pith around and destroy a sagebrush in rage. “Then this was all for nothing. She’s still lost.”
Wuaro placed a surprisingly gentle hand on my shoulder. “Don’t take it too hard. I’m sure she’ll show up again. Dryants don’t just disappear.”
“Yeah, well, this dryant does.” I suddenly felt as weary as I had before defeating Rafe. I had no idea how I was going to find the stupid fox.
Wuaro grabbed my chin and forced me to look up into his bright shining eyes. “We’re in for more storms over the next few days. I can feel it in my pithways. Big ones, full of lightning. Just keep your eyes to the east.”
I wanted desperately to believe him. “You think so?”
“Definitely. I wouldn’t lie to you. You’re fascinating. That’s why I gave you water pith the last time.”
“What last time?”
“When you passed out for three days. I pushed extra water into your pithways to keep you alive. Otherwise, you would have suffered from exposure. I’ve seen it enough times before.”
Whoa. “I had no idea you did that for me. I owe you a huge thanks for not letting me die.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “What shepherd would let another die?”
I guess I owed him a proper introduction. “My name’s Ina.”
His smile lit up his entire dirty face. “Keep your eyes to the east, Ina. Thunder is brewing. You may catch your precious fox dryant yet.”
CHAPTER 10
WITH THE DAY all but over, I left the curious Wuaro to his desert homeland. I needed a recharge. I wisp channeled back to Sipho’s homestead. There were no ravens hovering about, meaning Guntram hadn’t returned. Annoyed by his absence, I relaxed in the hot spring, letting the elements cleanse my pithways from top to bottom. After a thorough soak, I trudged back to the lodge to sleep. Light flickered in Sipho’s forge, but I didn’t bother to say hello. I could talk to her in the morning. The straw-filled mattresses inside the lodge weren’t much, but they certainly beat a rock pillow with moss for bedding.
I slept soundly until dawn had fully launched, streaks of light breaking through the high windows. I would have kept snoozing until noon, but a mountain lion’s pitiful cries kept interrupting my dreams. I jammed my head underneath the itchy wool blanket, but the irritating noise only intensified as it drew closer. Finally, I heard frantic scratching at my bedroom door.
“Why can’t I ever sleep in?” I moaned to myself as I dragged myself across the room.
To my surprise, not one, but both of Sipho’s mountain lions yowled as I opened the door. The two tended to keep opposing schedules, the lighter furred Nur preferring daylight while darker Kam roamed at night. They were rarely awake at the same time unless something serious was going on. Their rough pawing at my legs, almost drawing blood, indicated they were stressed out.
This wasn’t like the other day when Kam had woken me up for chores.
“What’s happened?” I asked, but they didn’t bother to wait, already sprinting down the hallway and out the lodge door. I noted the deep claw marks around the handle showing the several attempts it took them to open it with their meaty paws.
They bounded across wide fields, making a beeline for the forge. My heart leaped in my throat as I hurried to keep up with them, but the gap widened between us. They slipped inside the bottom half of the open Dutch doors, indicating they’d been the last ones to leave the forge. I had to push aside the top part to follow.
“Sipho!” I called, but no one occupied the workshop. The cats had disappeared too, but the swaying curtain told me they’d retreated to the back studio. I followed their lead.
The smell of old mushroom soup hit me as my eyes adjusted to the dim room. Dishes and bowls lay scattered around the sink, old broth and vegetables marring the countertops. The pot Sipho had used for the mushroom soup earlier had obviously boiled over, but no one had bothered to clean it. It resembled a procrastinating college kid’s dorm the week before finals.
But more distressing than the state of the kitchen was Sipho, usually bustling about doing chores or crafting new items, huddled toward the wall in her bed. She had piled several thick blankets on top of her, so I could only see the back of her fraying braids. As I approached, a mountain lion flanking on either side, I heard her rasp in long breaths.
“Sipho?” I asked again quietly, sitting on the bed. Sweat pooled around Sipho’s brow, and as I pulled back the covers, she shivered from another layer of it across her roun
ded shoulder.
“C-cold,” she chattered between her teeth.
I almost covered her back up, but a dark stain underneath her body caught my attention. I threw the blankets back and forced her to turn over so I could view the source. Sipho winced, protesting as her injured left leg came into view. Her pants had been slashed at an odd angle. I gasped as I viewed the gash on her skin underneath the flapping cloth, not deep but several inches from her mid-thigh down toward the knee. It had crusted over and turned angry red around mounds of pus. Splotches of dirt indicated she hadn’t bothered to clean it.
“You cut yourself!” I exclaimed.
“It’s—” She paused to breathe deeply. “It’s shallow.”
“Doesn’t matter how shallow if it’s infected,” I scolded. “Why didn’t you heal this in the hot spring?”
“Too busy. Wanted to finish…fertilizing the garden first.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You mean with compost? Do I really need to tell you that you shouldn’t be slathering open wounds with rotting stuff?”
She grimaced at me. “I was almost finished.”
I didn’t point out that poison doesn’t care if you’re on a timetable. “Okay, fine. Then why didn’t you go down to the hot spring afterward to heal before sleeping on it?”
She turned and sank even deeper into the pillows. “So…tired.”
I opened my mouth to point out how stupid that was, but she passed out before I could get another word in.
“Sipho!” I shook her by the shoulders. She sputtered, but her eyelids didn’t crack.
She needed to heal. Now. My mind circled with ideas of how to carry her down to the hot spring, none of them feasible. I might be able to roll her along the earth if I got her outside, but it wouldn’t be particularly gentle, and you had to navigate stone steps down to the pools. I could support her if she stayed awake, which didn’t seem likely.
That left one other risky option.
“Stay here,” I ordered the whimpering cougars. Then I dashed out the door.
Running on adrenaline, it took me less than a minute to reach the hot spring. I knelt next to the nearest edge and whipped my right hand upward, drawing two Vs surrounded by a circle. An orb of blue water floated above my opposite hand, the size of a baseball. I grabbed several more handfuls of hot spring water, letting the orb grow to basketball size. Not daring too much for fear of dropping it on the trip back, I continued to draw circles with my right hand and power-walked back to Sipho’s forge. The orb spun like a globe, droplets falling here and there but mostly staying put.
Once hovering back over Sipho’s prone form, I had to awkwardly push her body with my knees to get the wound fully exposed. Then, with the mountain lions crying beside me, I dumped the orb onto the cut.
I had no idea if this would work. Hot springs heal followers of Nasci because it is a rare natural combination of all four elements: water, air, and earth, of course, but magma provided a source of fire from the goddess’s lifeblood itself. I’d taken the water away from the fire source, making it less potent, but I had no idea how much less as I doused Sipho’s wound.
Fortunately, it accomplished enough. Sipho cried out in pain and sat up straight as the water sizzled around the pus-filled scab. The wound foamed at the edges, causing a tendril of smoke to waft above it.
Sipho cursed but held her leg still. “For the love of Nasci, that smarts.”
“But it’s working. Can you walk?”
“I-I don’t know.” She hissed but managed to swing both legs over the side of the bed.
“Well, you need to try before you pass out again. I’ll support you.”
Sipho nodded, huffing as if she’d just run a marathon. I grabbed her arm and wrapped it around my shoulders. Nur and Kam flanked her other side to keep her from falling. We made a funny-looking parade as we hobbled out of the forge and across the sloping grasses down toward the hot spring. Sipho moaned occasionally, and I worried once or twice I might drop her as she teetered unsteadily, but we made it to the top of the stone steps and down to the top pool without any major incident.
I didn’t bother undressing Sipho, easing her into the hot spring in her dirty sleeveless tunic and pants. Sipho cursed as the waters lapped over her injury, but her protests dimmed into a deep sigh of pleasure as she settled fully. The waters bounced around her collarbone as she sat on a stone ledge built into the side of the pool.
I relaxed as her face lost its angry edge. “Better?”
“Much better.” She slapped more water on her face. “I am fortunate you were around to notice my condition.”
I pulled my legs up cross-legged on the dry brickwork above. “You can thank Kam and Nur.” The cougars demanded pets behind the ears at the sound of their names, nearly plowing me over in their appreciation. Sipho giggled as I drowned in a sea of fur.
Once the cats had gotten their fill, Sipho patted my kneecap. “I owe you a great debt. I acted rashly for short-term gain.”
I dismissed her with a wave. “If anyone understands dumb, impulsive choices, it’s me. Don’t worry about it.”
Sipho withdrew her hand, her eyes filling with worry. “It’s just that maintaining the homestead takes a Herculean amount of effort during harvest time. I have only a narrow window to accomplish everything that must be done before the seasons change.”
I thought of my trip to the northern homestead. “How does Elif do it all? Do a bunch of shepherds help her out all the time?”
Sipho scowled, her sudden anger surprising me. “She makes her forger apprentices do all the work. That’s how she can maintain such an expansive property. They complete the mundane chores so that she can focus on craftwork and hone her magical abilities without getting her hands dirty.”
“Are apprentices like eyases? Like Elif teaches the apprentices how to run their own forges?”
“Hardly. Her apprentices aren’t allowed to rise up the ranks. They instead spend their whole lives under her command. And if one defies her too much, she binds their pithways.”
I gasped. “How can she do that?”
“She’s their teacher. She sets the rules. It’s the reason I left to found this homestead in the south.”
I finally connected the obvious dots. “You were Elif’s apprentice once too.”
“And never again. I will toll from dawn to dusk for the rest of my days before I suffer under her selfish arrogance one more minute.”
Suddenly, Sipho’s push to maintain the harvest made a lot more sense. As an apprentice in the northern homestead, she could only strive to be Elif’s flunky. Here, she did the hard work, yes, but she also crafted magnificent items and had her own accolades as a forger. No wonder she pushed through an injury to see the harvest through. The alternative was to become an indentured servant.
I was really beginning to hate the northern homestead.
Sipho stirred next to me, twisting her body to crawl out of the water. “Hey,” I exclaimed. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I don’t have time to rest,” Sipho said, struggling to stand. “I have too much to finish.”
I glanced down at her wound, an ugly mess of flesh and scab exposed between the ragged cut of Sipho’s pants. “You need to heal first, or you’ll be no good to anyone.”
“I’ll be no good lounging either. Without a decent harvest, we won’t have enough food to last us through winter. And I can’t ask the north for help, especially not now with Guntram barely holding us together.”
I balked, knowing what I had to do. I had less than a week to find an elusive fox dryant before I’d be bound. I simply didn’t have time to play gardener. But I also knew one day of apple picking wasn’t going to cut it this time. Sipho was beyond overworked and needed help, with no one else to turn to.
I swallowed and said, “Tell me what you need me to do.”
CHAPTER 11
IT DOESN’T TAKE much manual labor to realize how privileged your life is. Although I’d help
ed out Sipho before, nothing compared to the day’s work I did in her stead. I spread compost, planted cauliflower and broccoli, harvested rows of zucchini, draped maize with stringed charms to ward off pests, and watered two entire fields. And that was just my morning in the vegetable garden. I could at least cast some earth and water sigils to make the work go faster. My afternoon consisted of more grueling orchard care, carefully pruning cankered limbs from apple trees and hacking away thorny blackberry bushes before they overtook a whole section of the homestead. I discovered weird holes in the raspberries, which Sipho told me meant crown borers had invaded their soil. I removed infested wood and had to crawl underneath and write more special sigils directly into the dirt. All this, while checking on Sipho periodically not only for her health, but to make sure I was doing the right things and not ruining a summer’s worth of effort.
Honestly, the worst part of the whole day was getting stung by a forest scorpion. I removed a rotting log with my bare hands and didn’t notice the purplish gray arachnid underneath. Normally, animals don’t bother us, but I accidentally crushed his body as I turned the wood over, not seeing him in time. Mortally wounded, he lashed out at my nearest digit. I yanked my hand away, and his last act was to release his tail, the stinger remaining in my hand.
My hand hurt, true, but I felt much worse maiming the scorpion. I tried to inject him with earth pith, but it was no use. He curled up his legs in death.
“Sorry,” I said to him as I buried him nearby. I wasn’t some ultra-spiritual monk who would mourn over an insect. Followers of Nasci respect the circle of life and accidents happen. But I still wished I would have been more careful.
When I returned to the forge to get the stinger out of my hand, I found Sipho had limped back to the forge. I caught her tinkering at her workbench. She helped me remove the stinger from my hand, and then I shooed her back for more bed rest. She insisted she could resume all her duties tomorrow, but I wasn’t so sure. I sent Nur and Kam out to see if they could find any other shepherds in the area to help out. I couldn’t play farmhand forever, not with the looming deadline dictated by the Oracle hanging over my head. I also had to keep my mouth shut about it around Sipho because if she knew I was risking my shepherdom by lending a hand, she’d tan my hide.
