by CW Thomas
Lia didn’t like the sound of that, but Khile appeared to know more about splints than she did. She followed his instructions, untied the fabric, and removed the two braces.
“See that,” he said, pointing to the bump in his shin. “That needs to be pushed down.” He showed her how to position her thumbs against the protruding piece of bone, and then braced himself against the back of the tree. “I’m going to count to three, and then I want you to push down as hard as you can until that bone snaps back. Understand? If I pass out, just put the splint back on like you did before, but make it as tight as you can.”
She forced back the nervous lump in her throat.
Khile started counting. At two he took a deep breath. At three Lia pressed down with all her weight on the piece of bone. She felt it grind back into place as Khile’s entire body tensed and he grit his teeth and growled.
“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
He shook his head, panting. “Well done. Now put the splint back on.”
Again she followed his instructions, but this time he helped her tie the fabric around the splint much tighter. He collapsed against the tree, his face pale and covered in new sweat.
“I don’t know your full name,” Lia said, trying to get her mind to relax.
“Khile Alexander.”
“Pleased to meet you, Khile Alexander.” She emptied her pockets of the many herbs she had collected and offered him some of the chestnuts. She made a conscious decision not to tell him about the giant footprints. “I found some sage. It should help with the swelling. And I found some alfalfa. I’ve never tried it, but Abigail used to say it was good for you.”
Khile smiled, impressed. “Aren’t you the resourceful little scavenger. Who’s Abigail, your tutor?”
Lia thought it offensive that he had already forgotten. “She’s the pregnant woman that was killed by The Raven. Remember?”
Khile’s smile faded. “Right. The man you’re going to kill.”
Lia looked at him, her eyes coming to life with hot fury. “I am going to kill him. Someday I will return to Edhen and I will find him and I will slit his throat just like he slit Abigail’s.”
Khile didn’t look like he believed her. “Very well. But first I think we need to focus on getting off this beach.” He took a moment to look around. “I’m guessing we’re pretty far north, on the western coast of Advala. Have you heard of it?”
“It’s the western most province of Efferous.”
“We need to move inland, or find some place to hide until we can get help. We’ll need water, and it’ll get chilly at night so we’ll need fire.”
Lia pointed to the pile of driftwood she had collected earlier.
“Good work.”
“I can’t get a fire going without flint,” she said.
“Leave that to me. Did you find any water while you were pillaging the countryside?”
She shook her head. “But I saw a road.”
He looked at her skeptically. “Where?”
She pointed southeast. “About a half-day’s walk that way. I should go there tomorrow and see if—”
“No. Stay away from the road.”
“Why?”
Khile looked off toward the ocean. “The way the high king’s men pursued us on Aberdour, it’s not likely they’ll give up the chase so easily. That wasn’t a conquest back there. It was annihilation. And if they’re dead set on finishing the job then they will come with ships of their own. We need to stay away from populated—” he winced as pain stabbed his leg, “—areas.”
Lia looked him over and noticed for the first time how pale and weak he looked. His lips were chapped and his long blond hair lay strewn about his head like the tangled brambles of a tree after a storm.
“You need help,” she said. “I can’t move you anywhere on my own.”
“Just stay away from the road. If anything happens to you—”
“I know how to be careful. I’m not stupid.”
“Like you were careful when that brood came to the cottage?”
Lia’s mind ignited with memories of Thomas and Abigail’s murder, how she had ran out of the barn to their sides and tried to defend them to no avail. The memories made her face flush with anger and she jumped to her feet.
“I was trying to help them,” she snapped.
“Some good it did. You’d be dead right beside them if it wasn’t for me.”
She glared at him, lips taut, wishing for something sharp to say. She came up with nothing, and kicked him in the splint. Khile bellowed and grabbed his leg, falling over onto his side as she stormed away. He called after her, but she ignored him, not wanting him to see the tears streaming down her reddened cheeks.
She wove her way east through the tall grass of the hillsides once again, wondering what someone like him could possibly understand about friendship.
“He’s the one with the shackles on his feet,” she blurted to no one in particular.
She walked until she saw the moon on the horizon, yellow and bulbous. The first stars were pricking through the darkening turquoise vault while the west was draining of its brilliant sunset colors.
Lia stopped, feeling bereft. She wondered how the sunset looked in Aberdour right now, if the sky was as beautiful as it was here. She wondered if her sisters were still there, or if they had been captured. Were they even still alive? Was anyone?
The gentle breeze that had been rustling the grass all day quieted for a moment, just long enough for the sound of trickling water to reach her ears. Newly distracted, Lia worked her way down a small gully of rock until she found a deep rill cutting its way through the hills. She filled the leather canteen and climbed back out.
By the time Lia returned to the shade tree, Khile had a small fire started. She moved toward it, welcoming the warmth that staved off the chill of the oncoming night.
She handed the water pouch to Khile, who slurped gratefully.
Lia sat down across from him. Taking the ripped shirt she had found on the beach, she began tearing it into long, thin strips of fabric with the aid of the dead sailor’s dagger.
Khile set the canteen down and watched her for a moment. “I apologize for what I said. I was insensitive. You’ve been through a lot these last couple days, but you’re strong despite all you’ve lost.”
She didn’t look at him at first, but she couldn’t deny that his words had brought some measure of comfort. When she did look at him, she was struck by how closely he resembled her father. It wasn’t so much a physical quality, though he did carry the same rugged handsomeness that her father did, but something in the way he looked at her. Respect, perhaps.
“I’m sorry I kicked you in the leg,” she said.
He wagged his head. “I deserved it, I suppose.”
“How does it feel?” she asked.
“Like hellfire in a bucket.”
“What can I do?”
He reclined on his elbows, his breathing heavy. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth in pain. “I don’t know. Talk or something.”
“Talk?”
“Yeah, just keep me from thinking about this.” He winced again, baring his teeth. “But, please, no more about how many hacks it takes to behead a man.”
Lia thought for a moment, wondering what there was left that she could talk about.
After a moment, he said, “Tell me about your home. It’s not every day that I get to talk with a princess.”
“What’s there to say? My home was a big piece of rock. Some people called it a castle. To me it was a place where I had to learn a bunch of stuff I didn’t care about and act like someone I didn’t want to be.” She went back to tearing the fabric.
“That’s a strange attitude to have toward a privileged life,” he said.
“You sound like my mother.”
Khile smiled. “I bet there was at least one thing you liked about living in Aberdour’s castle.”
Her mind drifted away as picture memories of A
berdour filled her thoughts—silver tapestries alongside a warm hearth; the smells of supper cooking in the kitchen; her mother’s humming drifting down stone corridors.
“The waterfalls,” she said at last. “I loved the waterfalls.”
Khile sat up a bit, an obvious interest rising in his expression. “Ah, the Falls of Edhen? One of the most marvelous natural wonders in the realm.”
“They towered over the castle. You could see them for leagues and leagues. I used to climb the rocks and go behind them.”
“Caves?”
Lia’s eyes lit up. “Lots of caves! And tunnels, filled with big bats and lizards.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
Lia began weaving some of the fabric pieces together.
Khile pointed to her neck. “What’s that?” he asked.
Lia looked down and noticed that the lapel of her tunic had been torn. The fabric of her collar had pulled away, revealing a pinkish-brown smear along the left side of her collarbone. Reflexively, Lia covered it up. She’d always thought the mark was ugly.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a–a birth mark.” Hoping he wouldn’t detect her evasiveness, she changed the subject. “So what are we going to do?”
Khile reclined onto his back and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s figure that out tomorrow.”
Lia continued tearing the shirt into long strips. “If I can get to the road, I can—”
“No,” Khile said. He sat back up and gave her a quelling frown. “Listen, you are still a princess of Aberdour. Your life is worth more than you know. We’ll get out of here, I know we will, but please stay away from the road. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
He lay down and closed his eyes.
Inside, Lia fumed. Khile might have reminded her of her father, but, ultimately, her father he was not. He had no right to tell her what to do. She saved his life in the storm, paddled them to shore, set his leg, and found herbs to help with his injuries. She knew how to take care of herself, and, in fact, she had already done so, saving the life of another in the process.
As she finished tearing up the shirt, she became more and more determined to prove him wrong. She decided that she would wake before dawn and go and find help before he could protest. Then he’d have nothing to say about it.
Lia took one of the long strips of fabric and used it to secure a few of the thick leaves she’d discovered to the sole of her right foot. She added another strip, and then tied it off around her ankle. The shoe looked ridiculous, but Lia had to admit it was quite the invention. Birch bark worked better, she knew, but her leafy adaptation would have to suffice. Abigail would’ve been proud.
When Lia awoke at the crack of dawn, she winced from the root that had dug into her ribs during the night. Her hair felt matted and gross, and she could still taste salt on her lips. She stood quietly, added some small branches to the campfire, and pocketed some of the alfalfa and remaining strips of fabric.
She took one step away from the campsite to leave when Khile’s voice broke the morning stillness, startling her, “Don’t forget this.”
When she looked at him, she saw his outstretched arm handing her the leather canteen. She took it, noticing that his face looked even whiter.
“Be careful,” he said. “Look for wagons with families, women and children, but stay away from men traveling alone, and any soldiers, be they Efferousians or not.”
Lia assured him she would be careful.
And like a gust of wind she took off, bounding through the grass, delighted to find that her makeshift shoes of fabric and leaves held up quiet well. She snaked her way down hillsides and up through shallow ravines, noticing that the terrain became more difficult the further away from the ocean she got.
Around midday she came across a stream running clear and chill. She followed its outward curve until it widened into a calm pool. There she waded out into its shallow depths and rinsed her glistening face. Above, a light brown morning dove gave a soft, drawn-out lament.
Lia caught her reflection in the water and noticed the torn lapel of her tunic that exposed the birthmark along her left collarbone. She took a strip of fabric out of her pocket and tied it around her neck like a scarf. She couldn’t say the tattered brown strip looked any more attractive than her hideous birthmark, but it seemed to her to be the lesser of two evils.
She forged ahead through the woods, navigating like her father had taught her—pick a landmark straight ahead and walk toward it. Pick another and walk toward it. And so on. Eventually the forest emptied out into an emerald green field cut in half by a dusty dirt trail.
She thought little of encountering trolls or dragons or giant snakes and spiders. At least, she tried to.
For a while Lia stuck close to the perimeter of the forest as she followed the road south. Once the trees thinned and the earthy terrain gave way to steep rocks and sand, she was forced to stop. The road, however, continued south through a rocky pass.
Across the road, beyond a copse of squat, brambly trees, she noticed a trickle of smoke rising into the air. After checking to make sure no other travelers were near she sprinted across.
Lia wove her way through a narrow wood of thick trunked trees and crossed a rocky ford. On the other side, she hunkered herself down low and peered up over a mossy embankment. Stretching out before her was a flat valley of tilled fields occupied by a ramshackle barn. A solid stone farmhouse sat to the left, situated at the lip of a plateau that overlooked a wooded valley.
The trail of smoke she had seen lifted from a pig roasting on a spit. The sight of it suddenly made Lia aware of how painfully hungry she was.
She climbed up over the bank and hurried toward the dilapidated barn where she could smell the pig cooking, an aroma that made her stomach clench and her taste buds salivate. She worked her way toward the roasting meat, keeping a sharp eye on her surroundings. Apart from the crackling of the fire and a few distant birds, she heard nothing.
Lia withdrew the knife she’d taken from the dead sailor and ran up to the pig. She sliced off a handful of meat from a well-cooked portion of thigh and hurried back behind the barn to indulge herself. The pork was thick and juicy, a little overcooked on the outside, but she didn’t care. She downed it in a few gulps, smiling with satisfaction.
It occurred to her just then that she had never stolen food before. She’d swiped a few pastries from the castle’s kitchen once or twice, but never had she taken food that belonged to someone else. It probably would have bothered her more had she not been so desperate.
Lia figured she should slice off a hunk of meat for Khile. Unsheathing the knife, she peaked out around the corner of the barn.
Staring back at her was a crossbow held in the steady grip of an old man with short white hair. He eyed her with the certainty of a marksman and the steady hands of an avid hunter.
He spoke, but his language was that of Efferous, which Lia had never heard before.
He repeated his words, but this time made a motion with his crossbow for her to come out from behind the barn. She stepped forward, making no effort to hide her fear. She lifted her hands and dropped the knife.
The man looked her up and down, appearing puzzled. He relaxed a little, and then said something else while gesturing toward his pig. She gathered that he knew she had stolen some meat. His words, she figured, were a verbal scolding.
Behind him an elderly farmwife appeared from behind the cottage in a long brown dress and a funny white hat that fit snugly over her ears. She said something to the man to which he responded with a word that sounded like, “Bah!” They began to argue.
“I’m sorry,” Lia finally said. “I didn’t want to steal, but I–I was so…” Her voice trailed off when she noticed them staring at her like she had seaweed slipping out of her nose.
The man strode up to her, his expression now one of confusion and anger. “You Edhen?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m from Edhen.”
“Edhen?” the woman repeated. S
he then burst into a rambling tattle of words that made no sense and appeared to have no end. She pointed at Lia, gestured with her arms to the rocky western hills, and grew redder in the face.
The old man looked to the old woman and lifted his hand, pleading with her in a different tongue to be quiet. Once she had calmed, he said to Lia, “You must go.”
Lia shook her head. “Please, sir, I need your help. My friend is hurt. He is—”
“I said go!” the old man said again, but his voice had little conviction. “Edhen is trouble here. We cannot have you.”
“But he’ll die!” Lia said, and in an instant her story rushed out of her. Whether he understood all of her words or not, she didn’t care. She unloaded everything on the old man, the attack on Aberdour, the shipwreck, and Khile’s broken leg. Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke, which embarrassed her, but she ignored them and told the old man about Sir Komor Raven who had killed two people that she loved very much and how her life goal now was to find this man and kill him even if it takes her the rest of her life.
Having exhausted her words, Lia fell silent.
The old woman shook her head in continuing refusal, threw up her hands and stormed off, muttering to the old man in their strange language.
The old man put his hands in the pockets of his brown vest and sighed long and loud. His expression had grown sympathetic, but he still seemed resistant to the idea of helping her.
At last he said to her, “You go now.”
Like a rock, her hope fell from her chest. Lia stood there gaping at him as he strolled away, wondering how anyone could be so cold. She guessed the old man would’ve been more sympathetic to her situation had it not been for his wife. Her disdain for the people of Edhen was evident.
Lia kicked at the ground as she walked away in defeat.
“Wait,” came the voice of the old man.
Lia spun around, her eyes darting to him like hot coals.
He sauntered over to her, chewing his cud. “Your friend. How far?”
Lia’s eyes softened a trifle, and she motioned northwest. “About a half day’s walk that way.”
The old man drew in a slow, pensive breath. When he spoke again, he said, “Follow me.”