Eloy's Challenge

by Kara Timmins

  “Why didn’t you do it?” Goodwin asked Eloy. “Kill him, I mean.”

  “Because there’s something else going on with Anso.” Eloy looked at Malatic. “You said there were rumors about Anso, what did you mean?”

  “People like to tell stories, especially about Anso,” Malatic said. “You know how people like to exaggerate.”

  “What did they say?” Eloy pressed.

  “I’ve heard he can hurt a person just by looking at them.” Malatic looked away from Eloy. “There’s a story about a kid, probably not much younger than Goodwin here, who joined up and helped himself to some shiny spoils. He didn’t take much, I heard. Maybe a coin. Not worth dying for. Anso caught him. They say Anso held the kid by the arm and stared at him. And then blood poured out of the kid’s face, and he dropped down dead. But in all my time, I never saw Anso do anything like that. It’s a camp story. I don’t know if I believe it.”

  “I do,” Eloy said. “You should’ve told us about this.”

  Malatic straightened. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “It all matters.” Eloy looked at Goodwin. “I didn’t make the move because there’s more to Anso than there seems. I couldn’t be sure we would all get out.”

  “What do we do now?” Goodwin asked.

  Eloy looked to his right at Neasa. “We need a new plan. Any ideas?”

  Neasa looked off in thought, biting her bottom lip. “I have a lot of questions about erum. Anso seems to think a new batch is coming and that this one won’t be dangerous. I want to know where it’s coming from. This stuff isn’t from anywhere close to Valia, I’m sure. There are plants in the forest that can give energy or make someone see things that aren’t there, but I’ve never heard of this kind of side effect before. There are things that can kill after ingestion, and there are things that can change the way the body senses its surroundings, but nothing that can kill if someone doesn’t get it after having it for a while.”

  “So, it isn’t coming from Nicanor.” Eloy nibbled at the skin next to his fingernail.

  “I highly doubt it,” Neasa said.

  “Definitely not from Nicanor.” Malatic glanced at Neasa. “I would’ve seen something.”

  “What was it the Seer said?” Eloy turned to Neasa. “Something like, ‘Remember that sometimes a sickness can mask the symptoms of a deadly disease.’”

  “I remember,” Neasa said.

  “There’s something else going on,” Eloy said. “Something we’re not seeing. The erum is getting here somehow, and if it isn’t Nicanor, it has to be someone or something else.”

  “What does this have to do with a plan?” Goodwin asked.

  Neasa looked at Goodwin and brought her hand up to her cheek before looking off again, lost in thought. “The erum is part of it. A bit part.” She looked back at Eloy, her eyes lit with an idea. “We steal his erum.”

  “No,” Malatic said. “Didn’t you hear the story?”

  “That’s how I got the idea,” Neasa said. “We won’t do it when Anso is around.”

  “He said there would be more in seven days,” Goodwin said. “Is that long enough to take him down?”

  Eloy nodded. “It would be enough to weaken him.”

  “This is crazy.” Malatic shook his head.

  “You don’t have to help,” Neasa said.

  Neasa and Malatic locked eyes. Eloy and Goodwin looked away, caught in the middle.

  “I said it was crazy. I didn’t say I was going to leave you to do it alone.”

  “Fine, then,” Neasa said.

  A shimmer of a smile played at the corner of Malatic’s mouth. “Fine, then.”

  Eloy cleared his throat. “We’re going to have to do it soon. The longer he’s without erum the better.”

  “We need him to leave his tent,” Neasa said.

  “What if he takes the erum with him?” Goodwin asked.

  Neasa picked at a stray thread on her pants. “He has to leave the tent sometime. That was a pretty big bag. We’d be able to see if he had it on him.”

  “You think we should go in and wait for him to leave the tent?” Eloy asked.

  Neasa shrugged. “It’s not much of a plan, and I don’t know how it would work.”

  Malatic took a drink from his water pouch and handed it to Neasa. “We can’t all go in. It’ll attract too much attention.”

  “I’ll go alone,” Eloy said. “I’ll tell the fighters guarding the barricade I have something to report to Anso.”

  “Then what?” Malatic asked. “Hang around?”

  Eloy thought back to what he had seen walking through the inner camp. “There were shelter overhangs, waist high. A lot of the fighters were resting underneath. I can cover my head like I’m sleeping.”

  “And when you don’t come back?” Goodwin asked. “What will the guards think?”

  “I imagine they’ll think Anso killed me.”

  Goodwin arched an eyebrow and nodded.

  “When?” Neasa asked.

  Eloy scratched at his scalp with both hands, ruffling his dark brown hair. “Like I said, as soon as possible. Tomorrow.”

  “We should come up with a better plan,” Neasa said.

  Eloy looked at her and sighed. “We don’t have time.”

  “In that case, we should probably get some sleep.” Neasa sounded tired. She was good at keeping her emotions leveled, but the stresses of the last few days had taken their toll.

  “Hopefully we can,” Eloy said, his point emphasized by a groan of misery somewhere beyond the tattered fabric of the tent.

  All four gravitated to the middle of the tent, staying close to one another. Goodwin fell asleep first, his mouth open and blowing hot spurts of air on Eloy’s shoulder.

  Many thoughts came to the forefront of Eloy’s mind, threatening his chances of getting sleep, but he saw Corwin’s face in his mind’s eye with every blow of warmth from Goodwin’s sleeping breath. This wasn’t the first time in the journey that Eloy was glad he’d told Corwin to stay with Francena, but it had never been this strong before. Eloy felt a sense of a reprieve from the cold ground and sounds of the dying knowing that Corwin and Francena were in their home, warm and far away from this. Eloy thought about their laughs, and he tried to grab enough of the sound from his memory that he could try to hear it again like a song. He wished he was strong enough to be able to handle Anso on his own. Thoughts of what could happen to Neasa, Goodwin, and even Malatic made the process more precarious and agonizing.

  Then he failed to do what he had been able to do for so long; he thought about Evas.

  There had been a time when sleeping on the ground next to her was the only thing he wanted to do for the rest of his life. The sense of her closeness had imprinted on his mind so completely that he could recall the exact way her salty lips had tasted and how soft her skin had been on her stomach and the muffled gurgling sounds he heard when he pressed his ear to it.

  Every day and every experience took her further away from him. She was out there building a wall made with every day and experience she had without him, and he was doing the same. He wondered if everything she had seen and done since he left on the trader wagon had made her a different person. He wondered if she still slept under the stars, her hair smelling like the sun. He wondered if someone else was resting his head against the soft skin of her stomach.

  Eloy was sure that his experiences had changed him too. Maybe she wouldn’t have the same feelings for him she had before. He squeezed his eyes closed at the idea. Eventually he came to the same thought he always ended up at when thinking of her. Would he ever see her again? He felt a physical sting at the thought that she would only exist to him in his memories for the rest of his life.

  Let her be happy. He mouthed the words like an incantation. Just let her be happy.

  39

 
Eloy woke at daybreak to the sound of someone retching on the other side of the entrance to the tent like a horrific rooster call. The beige tent filtered the morning rays into a sickly light. Eloy picked at the pebbles that had pressed into his forearm during his brief rest.

  To his right, Neasa groaned and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t look any more refreshed than she had the night before. If anything, she looked no better than if she had spent the whole night drinking with her father in Valia. The stress of the situation was in them like a toxin, and Eloy knew he looked just as depleted as she did.

  “You’re still set on this plan?” Neasa asked.

  Eloy stood up, put a hand on his lower back, and leaned backward. “Do you have a better idea?”

  She looked down and shook her head.

  Goodwin, still lying next to Eloy’s feet, yawned and stretched.

  They ate a meager breakfast of dried meat and fruit and left the tent.

  The thick fog of the morning blurred the edges of the horror that existed outside. The uncomfortable disconnect between the harshness of death and the softness of the dew-diffused light made Eloy nauseous. The swirling droplets of mist clung to his skin, making it harder to stave off the chills running through him. The bites of fruit and meat sat like hot pebbles in his nervous stomach. Fear polluted his body. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about the safety of the others in this plan. If he failed, he failed alone.

  Malatic stopped behind a half-fallen tent fifteen or so strides away from the gap in the barricade. “You sure about this?”

  Eloy looked at the two fighters standing at the gap. “If I can take care of this now, it will make our chances of taking him on better.”

  Neasa crouched down behind a sagging swatch of fabric from the tent. “We’ll stay here and look sick. We can’t keep talking like this here. It’s not like back where we were. Not everyone is as sick.”

  “Okay.” Eloy took a breath. “I’m going.”

  “Good luck,” Goodwin whispered.

  40

  Eloy focused on slowing his breath as he walked toward the gap in the barricade. He timed his breath with his footfall.

  Inhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

  By the time he reached fourteen, he was standing in front of the female fighter from the day before. He looked up into her broad and hard face and waited for her to say something. She didn’t. Her stony stare was question enough. The glare said, talk now. Talk fast.

  Another fighter, different from the day before, closed in at her side from Eloy’s right. The girth of the man looked almost wide enough to fill the gap in the barricade. He didn’t speak either, but he did reach for his sword.

  “I have information for Anso,” Eloy managed.

  “You seem to have a lot of information for Anso,” the woman said, unamused.

  “That’s what he’s asked me to do.” Eloy felt himself losing control of the illusion of calm. “Deliver information from my side of the camp if I hear it.”

  The woman shifted her weight toward the man and crossed her arms over her chest. “How about you tell me and I tell Anso myself?”

  Eloy thought of how Malatic had offered up their swords the day before. “Okay. But Anso said he wants this kind of information right away.”

  The two fighters exchanged glances.

  The woman uncrossed her arms and stepped aside. “Fine. Go ahead. Go straight there.”

  “You’re not going to take him?” the other fighter asked.

  “Did I ask you?” she said. “He was there yesterday. What’s he going to do? He’s one lower.”

  Eloy walked through their conversation.

  The woman pressed in on him, a sour burst of heat seeping from her green-tinted mouth. “Where’re your friends?”

  “Sick,” Eloy said.

  She smiled. “Yeah. I bet they are.”

  Eloy held his breath and walked forward on the rocky path that cut through the camp. He passed by rows of tents that shuddered from those moving within. His forehead felt hot and sticky, despite the cold snaking through the mountain. If he had been dropped into the camp without knowing what was going on, he would have described it as lazy. But the muffled sound of heaving and coughing coming from the tents both close and distant gave away the true reason of the subdued essence of the camp.

  One foot in front of the other. Straight down the path. To the right. Don’t look back. Don’t look suspicious. But Eloy couldn’t help himself. As he changed course and moved between two tents to take the right, he looked at the guards at the barricade, now small in the distance. Their attention wasn’t on him. Something had caught their focus on the other side. Eloy kept moving. Just a little farther until he reached Anso’s tent. There were a few branch-thatched shelters to the right of the tent, he remembered. Would they be empty? He shook his head. He couldn’t think of what-ifs. Without a real plan—and, at best, he was moving on hope and desperation propped up by an idea of feather strength—he couldn’t account for what-ifs. He had to keep moving.

  Anso’s tent came into view. Eloy gulped at the burning fluid that bubbled up at the back of his throat. He saw fighters milling around, one walking alone to Eloy’s left, two talking to one another to the left of the tent. And there were the grassy beds with their shelters—one edge on the ground, the other lifted up by a half-buried pole. He saw three beds. Two were empty. He couldn’t see the fighter who occupied the third clearly. The person had a frond of leaves over his or her face. Eloy couldn’t hesitate. He closed the fifteen strides left between him and the beds and slumped into the closest unoccupied one, the taken one a few strides back and to the right. He took the red fabric tie off his head and put leaves over his face just like the other fighter. The beating of his heart consumed his senses. He waited for the fighter next to him to rise, question, accuse. Eloy squeezed his eyes shut.

  I’m sleeping. Just like you. I don’t feel well. Just like you. Don’t get up. Please, don’t get up.

  The fighter rustled around on the bedding. Eloy held his breath, but his companion rolled over and groaned.

  Okay.

  Eloy let out his breath slowly and inhaled to calm his chest. He kept the leaves over his head and rolled over. The leaning overhang of the shelter met the ground between his sight line and Anso’s tent. With care, he wiggled a few of the thatched branches aside and gave himself a slit to see through. If he moved upward, he could see the entrance to the tent. He coughed, hoping the sound would muffle the rustling of his movement, and shifted up. Perfect. He had a direct sight. If Anso left out of the front, Eloy would see.

  And if Anso didn’t leave . . . Eloy would deal with that if it happened.

  He waited, trying to make the huffing sound of his breath mimic that of a sleeping person, and he watched through the gap in the branches, no wider than a little finger, until his eyes burned.

  The morning mist burned away, and the heat of the day warmed the sour smells of the camp. At two different times, a husky bearded fighter went in to Anso’s tent; both times, he emerged ashen and flustered, but Anso didn’t come out.

  Eloy wouldn’t be able to stay much longer. If he had any hope of coming up with an excuse and getting back to the other side of the barricade, something had to happen soon.

  Anso emerged from his tent around midday. A jolt of energy shot through Eloy as soon as he saw the flap move. Even from ten strides away, Eloy could see the sheen of menace in Anso’s eyes. His black hair stuck out in wild oily clumps around the red fabric around his head. Unlike the others, his fabric had an emblem at the front, but Eloy couldn’t make out the image.

  And Anso didn’t have the sack of erum.

  The fighters in the camp jumbled around as if set off by vibration as soon as Anso walked into the sunlight.

  “Get up,” the man who had been sleeping in the other bed said. “He’s ma
king rounds.”

  Act like I know this. Act like this is normal.

  Eloy stood up and looked the fighter in the eye. “Right. Right. Just not feeling so good.”

  The fighter lowered his already robust brow. “I don’t know you.”

  “Been picking off Nicanor’s fighters in the west—way west—for a while now. Just got back.”

  The fighter gave Eloy a suspicious look and shrugged. “Get to where you need to be, then.”

  Eloy didn’t need another opportunity to walk away.

  “Hey,” the man called.

  Eloy stopped. A vein thumped in his neck.

  “Unless you want to die,” the man said. “I would put this back on. What’re you thinking?”

  Eloy turned around to see the man holding up the loop of his red headband.

  “Thought I had it on.” Eloy walked back and grabbed it. “Not feeling well.”

  “You and everyone else.”

  Eloy turned, put the cloth around his head, and walked toward the tent. He put the knot at his forehead. He couldn’t worry about the dangers of being caught wearing it wrong now.

  The man didn’t call him back again.

  A clump of fighters followed Anso down the path away from the tent. He seemed to be assessing—a glimmer of the order he once had.

  Not all the fighters followed. Some moved in the opposite direction. Off to accomplish a task for Anso’s inspection. Eloy moved with them. He closed the gap to the tent and passed it. There had to be a way for him to slip away from the crowd. Going through the front flap would be assured death.