by Ann Aguirre
As he got to his feet, so did she. “Don’t follow me. You’ll slow me down.”
She flinched and then sank back before the fire to cradle her staff like a reminder. “Go safely then.”
Szarok snarled, for he hadn’t meant to injure her pride. Only, the night was waning, and she couldn’t move as he did. In the end, he turned and ran, ignoring how small a shape she made in her dejection. He’d already wasted too much precious time going to find her, yet he’d known instinctively that she would be miserable trapped in the tavern all night. What he’d done should be enough. Yet her shadow chased him as he ran, putting space between himself and Port-Mer. He ran along the gentle curve of the coast, and it wasn’t long by his running speed before he encountered the next village, locked in peaceful slumber. Breathing hard, he realized he couldn’t scout in a night, just as she’d said. At best he might see a few sites that were already occupied, but making his way down past the settlements would take time.
Maybe I should stay on Antecost and scout longer.
It would be good to cut the connection that had inexplicably formed between them. Since that move meant not getting back on the hell-boat, it seemed like an ideal solution. Making up his mind, he ran back toward Port-Mer. Now he had the time to say good-bye and to thank her for her friendship. It was halfway to dawn when he returned … and she wasn’t alone in the makeshift camp. Szarok smelled the intruders before he saw them; his claws came up. But when he rounded the last bend, he found Tegan on her feet, staff before her in a warrior’s stance. She didn’t seem frightened or weary, just deliciously angry. He stilled.
“Take another step and I crack both your skulls.”
“Don’t be like that,” an oily voice coaxed.
Both of these humans smelled unclean, beyond rancid. He considered killing them on principle, but so far they’d only offended his sense of smell. Tegan probably wouldn’t thank him for interfering, either. I’ve already angered her once tonight. So he waited silently, just beyond their line of sight, in case she needed him.
The taller one lunged. In an instant she cracked him across the shins, the other in the chest, and followed with a flurry of swings. Each time she connected, someone cursed. Soon they were crawling away in a frenzy of begging. Afterward, he listened long enough to be sure they’d gone, then he ventured into camp, where she sat with her staff propped on her knees.
“Did you find your new home?”
You’re fierce, he wanted to say. But praise made her squirm, and he would mean it that way if he spoke of it. So they both pretended bad men hadn’t stolen her sleep.
“No,” he said. “You were right. But I did find something I’d like to show you.”
“Is it far?”
“I’m not sure. A little?” Humans didn’t move as the People did, so the journey might wear her out. “But I promise you’ll be back before the ship leaves.”
“Very well.”
Tegan stood and brushed off her breeches. She had one set of clothing like human women wore and one similar to what men did. When she held out her hand, he stared at it.
“This is how my people walk,” she said. “When the road is long and dark.”
He cocked his head. At first it didn’t even seem possible, but her delicate fingers threaded through his, neatly avoiding his claws. “This way.”
So joined, it was easier to lead her in the dark, and she stayed close, her feet falling where his trod first. The smell of water drove him away from this place initially, but it was a wonder she would treasure. This must stand as the best farewell gift he could offer. Szarok didn’t speak until they broke from the trees some while later and the roar of a river spilling over jagged rocks sang an audacious tune. She glanced back and forth so the moonlight made of her face a swimming fish, all shimmering light and shadow.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. Letting go of him, she walked a few feet out into the water and bent down to let it trickle through her fingers. “Hard to imagine that the rest of the world is so devastated.”
His hand felt light and empty.
“I won’t be with you after this.” Those were both the wrong words and the right ones.
“You’re staying.”
“This is our best hope. It will serve no purpose for me to continue on.”
She nodded. “It’s close enough to Rosemere that they can send supplies, and the governor said he would assemble a work crew to help you build. Maybe if the weather holds, your people can join you before winter.”
“You think it’s right, too?” For some reason, he’d hoped she would argue.
To wash away that feeling, he knelt and drank. Instead of turning her face away, she watched until he had his fill. He already knew that others thought he did this like an animal, but claws made it difficult to scoop it up as humans did. Not to mention how inefficient that is. Tegan came out of the pool and glanced back toward the horizon as the light rose.
“What am I supposed to say? You don’t need my permission.” The sadness in her soft tone struck him like a cluster of younglings all whimpering at once.
What she’d called homesickness before overwhelmed him, not for a place but for his people, and it was all tangled, for she smelled like him, where their hands had touched. She had hidden him from danger and fear, stood watch while he lay weak and sick. There were no words for this, not in any tongue he knew. Szarok could be sure of only one thing—whatever Tegan was, it must be the opposite of enemy, but none of the human captives had taught him that.
“We should go back.” While he wished they could linger, there was no time.
“Not yet.” She picked a flower blooming near the water. “I want to keep something to remember this place by.”
“A stone would last longer,” he said.
“You’re so practical, it’s tiresome.”
Szarok took the first steps toward town. In the morning, she would get back on that hell-boat. When she sailed, he might never see her ugly face again. The pain startled him to the point that he had to hold on to a nearby tree. “It hurts. Why does it hurt?”
Instinctively, she turned to support him, but she appeared to remember his warning not to touch him. Her hands curled at her sides. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“You did poison me.” It was a ridiculous accusation, and he knew it.
“I don’t understand.” In the dark, at least she couldn’t see that he’d lost his reason.
A long breath steadied him somewhat. “Forget everything. Forget that we were friends.”
“I won’t and you can’t make me.”
Stubbornly, she walked on, evidently immune to whatever illness plagued him. But she couldn’t see well enough to navigate the way back to camp, so he passed her and set the proper course. Other forest animals gave way before him; in silent deference they acknowledged him as a superior predator. If only human girls had half the wisdom of a quiet tree squirrel.
“The men who bothered you tonight, are they from the ship?” His breath singed the back of his throat as he waited for her answer.
She doesn’t need me. She has her staff and that fine word-spinner.
“I think so. There’s no reason for anyone in Port-Mer to look for me. I hardly spoke to anyone at the tavern.”
“But you had a quarrel on board?”
She shrugged, an infuriating gesture. “Maybe.”
That word gnawed at his resolve to sail no farther. This island might solve all his people’s problems, and yet—
“I’ll stay with you until sunrise,” he said.
She seemed puzzled by the offer. “Why? It’s strange. I only saw you briefly before the battle. You spoke to Deuce, not me. And after the fighting, my world was all blood and bodies.”
Her pause gave him a chance to express gratitude, something he should’ve done long since. After the war, he’d taken everyone who could march back to Appleton, but there had been warriors too wounded to walk. “You treated the Uroch the same as human patients
. Some of my people owe you their lives. They came home because of you, and I have not forgotten.”
“Is that why you’re kind to me?” Whatever she had been about to say, she forgot in a peppery burst of outrage. “I don’t need special treatment for doing what I should.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I don’t care,” she muttered.
Tegan stomped ahead, though it was no hardship to catch her. “It’s not why I’m kind to you now,” he finally said.
That got her to stop. “Oh?”
“It is why I offered to travel with you at first. I thought I might be able to repay a small debt if I kept you safe on the road.”
Her brows drew together. “A debt tallied only by you.”
“You wouldn’t dismiss that record if you knew how few names are in it. And that’s exactly why it matters that I keep track.”
“Oh.”
He was coming to like that little sound more than he should. “But that’s not why I find you now.”
If she asked, he didn’t know what he’d say. Tonight he was tired but not hungry, and it seemed the words were speaking themselves. Swallowing hard, he said more in a few low growls, but her silence held like a tree branch bowing beneath considerable weight. Eventually she took a step toward him and flattened her palm over his heart.
Yes, he thought. They’re in the same place, more or less.
Szarok wouldn’t explain that he knew something of human anatomy from the memories handed down through his sire’s line: bloody, gruesome explorations, and he remembered the pleasure of it, so her touch rocked him with a tremendous shudder. The impact resounded in his head like running top speed into a tree.
This time he didn’t say, Don’t handle me; I don’t like it.
His heart said that for him, by racing until he couldn’t breathe. If she had any sense of smell, she’d know—she’d know—and then she’d stop. Except his heart kept beating, and she kept touching, tapping, really, as if she were counting each thud of his heart. When he started, too, he forgot that she was human and about the bizarre pressure of her palm. It was just warm, and he got to one hundred before he realized he wasn’t drowning in the old ones’ memories.
He let out a slow breath. “What are you doing?”
“Learning,” she said.
That was always her answer. Her consistency maddened him yet filled him with sweetness at the same time. Her interest … now it made him feel important, not different. The world was full of things she could study, but she chose him time and again. There was comfort in being known, especially by Tegan of the Staff.
“I won’t tell you to stop.”
“This is the last time anyway.”
Hearing it stated so, he wished he could claw out of his skin and shuck his responsibility. But the People needed him. In taking Appleton, they had secured a foothold in the mainland, but it was a death sentence in the long term. The People were hunters, and they needed room to run. In Appleton they were still forced to wear identifying armbands, and there were hostile encounters on the road, humans with rifles and a long history of hate.
We hate you, too.
But not her.
Trembling, he put his palm over hers. Stay. Scout the island with me. But after that, what then? She couldn’t live among the People for plentiful reasons, and he couldn’t ask her to abandon her dream. This is where our story ends. So he swallowed the words and the sounds if not the feeling. The tiny point of contact said everything; it was brand-new and fragile.
Eventually she let go and he did, too. His feet felt heavy, and his impressions from the surrounding forest seemed to come from far away. All too soon the embers of the fire came into view, along with the lingering stench of the sailors. The horizon was lightening; now he could measure their time together in heartbeats. Soon Port-Mer would wake and everyone ashore must return to the ship.
“It’s almost dawn.” His throat hurt—tight and hot—despite the water he’d downed before.
“I’m glad we traveled together for a while,” she said.
“As am I.” Before they left, he kicked dirt on the smoldering ashes.
Together, they set out for the docks, but before they reached their destination, a clamor rang out from the center of town, screaming like he hadn’t heard since the war. A woman sobbed; the scent of fresh blood rode the wind, great gouts of it. Human. Not animal. A cold chill crawled down his spine as hostile eyes pinned him.
“There’s the beast,” someone shouted.
“Malena … Malena!” The sobbing rose and fell like the waves that sickened him and rocked the boat so that he couldn’t sleep.
“Seize it. Kill it if it fights.”
In a heartbeat, armed men surrounded him and Tegan. Without thinking, he put her behind him, but she shouldered forward and raised her staff. Her glare might scorch them to death.
“What’s going on?” Tegan demanded.
“My daughter…” The woman on the ground had misery in her eyes, rocking a body like the dead girl could get up again with so much blood pooled at her back.
“There was violence under the cover of darkness,” a tall gray-haired man said, addressing Tegan, not him. “You think it’s a coincidence that Captain Advika brought a monster to our doors and now poor Malena’s dead?”
The mob seemed to be growing in size and ire, agitating toward violence. If they attacked, he would defend. And live. No matter how many of them had to die.
Tegan’s cool voice rang out. “Impossible. Szarok was with me all night.”
The Tide Is Rising
Morrow woke with a rotten head and upset stomach; he didn’t even remember crawling off to sleep the ale away. When he came downstairs, he heard shouting, and the taproom was empty, so he went out to investigate. An angry crowd at this hour meant something dreadful must’ve happened. Tegan. He quickened his pace until he was running, arriving just in time to hear her offer an alibi to the Uroch leader. But …
She can’t mean it like it sounds.
Others had plainly taken it that way, however, and now she was receiving scornful looks. He shouldered through the mob toward them, but Captain Advika beat him to it. The tall woman wore a ferocious scowl.
“I’m sorry as hell to hear about Malena, but do you have any proof? You can’t go around accusing my crew willy-nilly.”
A portly man with a handlebar mustache tried to take charge of the situation. “Rutger, fetch a blanket and cover the poor girl. As for the rest of you, if you saw something, come forward. No hearsay, mind, only what you directly witnessed.”
The crowd rumbled, but then one of Advika’s sailors, a short man with a wicked scar on his cheek said, “Are you sure you were with him all night, Doctor?”
From the bruises visible, he guessed the sailor had been part of the tavern brawl the night before. He had a rough look and an unpleasant gleam in his eye.
Plus, Morrow didn’t like that sinister tone. But Tegan held her ground. “I’m certain.”
She seemed to be daring him to call her a liar, but whatever their silent exchange meant, the crewman only let out a nasty snort of a laugh. She stepped closer to Szarok, and though she only came to his shoulder, from where Morrow was standing it seemed clear that she intended to protect the Uroch. That’s my problem, he thought. If the whole world stood against me, she’d probably take my side then. But it was wrong to rail at a life that had given him so many blessings, and he shouldn’t wish for misfortune just because Tegan would try to protect him from it.
The man with the impressive facial hair seemed to be in charge; he sent the girl’s grieving mother home in the company of relatives, and he had two more men carry the victim off to be prepared for burial. From what Morrow had seen of the tears in her bloodstained dress, they could’ve been created by claws or a jagged knife. Nobody seemed to know how to react, but eventually the crowd dispersed, still muttering.
“Will this affect our departure?” Tegan asked Captain Advika.
“That will take a while,” Morrow added, joining them. “It’s my guess that we’ll miss the morning tide.”
Advika sighed, staring at the spot where they’d found Malena. “Rotten luck, poor mite.”
“I’d planned to stay on Antecost,” Szarok said softly.
The local chief came up in time to hear that, and he shook his head. “That’s a poor idea. With tempers high, once your ship leaves, I can’t guarantee your safety. The men don’t seem to believe your friend, and they’re after some rough justice.”
Those words had an ominous ring, but Morrow suspected the Uroch might not know exactly what the chief meant. “That means they’ll come for you in the night and string you up.”
“There are other islands.” Captain Advika clapped Szarok on the back in what was doubtless meant to be a bracing gesture, but the Uroch flinched.
It was impossible not to notice that Szarok didn’t withdraw a moment later when Tegan’s arm brushed his, a gesture likely imperceptible to anyone who didn’t watch with such care; his shoulders relaxed a little, too, so it seemed he took some comfort in her proximity. Despite racking his brain, Morrow couldn’t name a time when Tegan had touched him if he wasn’t sick or injured.
“I should stay,” Szarok said to Tegan, low. “The mission—”
“Will fail regardless if you don’t make it back to Appleton. Staying here is suicide. It’s safer to continue on, try somewhere else.” She glared up at him, not seeming to see Morrow, even in her peripheral vision.
Their conversation seemed almost … intimate. The realization hurt, and Morrow rubbed his chest as the throbbing in his head intensified. I should probably do … something. But he’d rarely been so conscious of how useless he was, and drinking the night before didn’t help. Hazy didn’t begin to describe his head.
Before long, the chief cornered Morrow to interrogate him about the night before. Fortunately, he had been spinning yarns for a full tavern until ridiculously late, and the owner could attest to the fact that he’d crawled upstairs to sleep off the drink in the dormitory. As he wrapped up his account, Millie came sprinting down the road, her skirt flapping.