Laeren’s fingers intertwined with hers.
“Thank Veshti,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you.” Andie’s head was buzzing, an electric current traveling from his hand and spreading to warm her entire body. It was obvious that Laeren had not forgotten her while he was away.
It was much too short of a time before they reached the shack. Andie stopped at the entrance and squeezed Laeren’s hand.
“I’ll just stay out here awhile longer,” she offered. “You probably have things to discuss with them, and I spend enough time in there as it is.” Laeren nodded and kissed her hand. With a long piercing look, he parted the curtain and continued inside.
Andie sat before the entrance and stared up at the starlit sky, butterflies trembling in her stomach. Laeren had come. She drew up her knees and rested her chin on them and continued to gaze at the stars. Maybe they had carried messages for her after all.
14. Faroi
Laeren’s arrival signaled the end of the waiting time in the squatters’ camp. A new base of sorts had been hastily prepared in the city, and though it would be awhile before the Resistance fully recovered from the loss of equipment during the raid, Laeren had returned with a ship full of supplies to get them started.
Although Andie was eager to escape the camp—first on her list would be a shower—she was dreading the move back into town. Heading back to live in another basement in Croask was no more appetizing than living in a ramshackle shelter with no privacy. Especially since Wassim and one of the other men had moved to the base first, giving her a little more space. The last morning they were to spend in the camp, she had sat morosely at the little table listening to Thane and Brock discuss possible ways to sneak her back into the city without having access to a transport. Laeren had not shown up yet; he spent his nights back on his ship, which was moored at the docks somewhere.
“What if we have her wrap up her entire face except for her eyes and then hire a ground transport?” suggested Brock. “I know people only do that when they are really ill, but it would cover her completely.”
“You want to take a taxi? The girl’s going to look like walking pestilence and you think a driver will actually pick her up?” returned Thane drily. “And how are you planning to get her to an area where the hired transports wait in the first place? Closest one’s probably at the docks.”
“Sick squatters probably walk from the camp to the docks all the time. She wouldn’t stand out.”
“Of course she would stand out,” contributed Laeren, slipping suddenly through the canvas-draped doorway. Andie’s mood abruptly lifted. She sat up and smiled at him. He gave her a warm smile in return and then continued, “Do you think the boats want any kind of disease anywhere near them? They would chase her away, or march her straight to the quarantine office. Jaory Kruunde would love that; with that reward he’s offering he would have her back in his possession within days.” Brock seemed abashed at Laeren’s words but Thane merely grunted. “You’d better have an idea then Laeren, because we are coming up dry. Unless we’re going to take her back through the sewer tunnel again.”
“No thanks,” protested Andie with a grimace. “I’d rather stay here for the next ten years.”
“I do have an idea,” admitted Laeren, “but I need to discuss it with Sirra first.” Thane took the hint immediately and rose. “Come on, Brock. Let’s go take a farewell walk around the camp. You know how much I am going to miss it.” Brock grinned at Thane’s heavy sarcasm and the two men slipped out of the shack. Laeren sat down across the table from Andie. She waited expectantly for his idea, wondering why he didn’t want to propose it in front of the others. Was he going to ask her to do something embarrassing? Or dangerous? Instead of speaking, he merely took her hands in his for a moment. Finally she broke the silence herself.
“So what is this idea of yours? Is it so awful that you can’t bring yourself to even say it out loud? It can’t be worse than crawling back through the sewer,” she pointed out lightly. Laeren laughed uncomfortably. She had never seen him quite so discomposed.
“Morek-Li has given me a new assignment,” Laeren began finally, looking at their hands clasped on the table. “He is sending me to build a base on a tiny island out in the ocean. One of my captains scoped it out for us long ago. Morek-Li has decided we need to be prepared to fight against the King, and he wants a safe place to train people. It would be a place to train the military leaders of the Resistance, I guess. Since I am nearly useless in Roma now, and it is only a matter of time before my face shows up as wanted on this continent, he thinks I might as well help from somewhere a little more hidden.”
Andie listened to this in dismay. If Laeren went off to some island would she ever see him again? How often would he be able to come back, if ever?
“I thought that you might want to come with me,” Laeren finally suggested softly, looking down into her eyes. “I could take you with me on the boat.”
“Really?” Andie’s eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. She didn’t even have to think about it. “Of course I’ll come!” she exclaimed.
“Are you sure?” he said. “You’ll leave behind Jerrapo and my mother?”
“Laeren, they’re my friends, and I care for them deeply, but I’m miserable when you’re gone,” Andie admitted, blushing slightly.
He finally allowed himself a smile. It soon became a grin. “I can’t wait! It will be so much better, I promise. You won’t have to live with the shadow of Jaory looming over you, and best of all, there will be nobody around but trusted Resistance members. You will be able to come out in the open and everything.”
“You mean I would even be able to go outdoors during the day?” she asked eagerly, leaning forward over the table. Laeren nodded.
At this news Andie almost cheered in excitement. Instead she stayed reasonably calm, allowing the thrill to sink in, warming her right down to her toes. It was the best news she had had since she came to Corizen! Finally she might be able to live like a normal person again!
She hadn’t been this excited in ages.
♦
When Thane and Brock returned, Laeren cheerfully announced that he had eliminated the problem of getting Andie back inside the city. Thane was especially relieved. Still, there was the problem of getting Andie on board Laeren’s ship without arousing any alarm or suspicion. In the end, the solution was not a comfortable one for Andie, but it would have to do. When all the arrangements had been made, Thane put his hand on her head. “Take care of yourself, Sirra,” he said softly. She hugged him fiercely, taking him by surprise, and then faced the packing crate that Laeren had laid out on the floor. It was the same wooden crate she had hidden in weeks before. Laeren had lined it with a blanket, hoping to make it a little less uncomfortable, but even still, it was sure to be unpleasant. Summoning her courage again, Andie stepped in the crate and curled up. The crate wasn’t long enough for her to stretch out; her knees would have to be drawn up toward her chest. Laeren squeezed her hand once for reassurance, and then Thane and Brock lowered the crate lid on top of her. They nailed the lid on, the pounding vibrating through the whole box. Andie had a moment of panic, wondering if she would suffocate before forcing herself to take a deep breath. There was plenty of air, coming in through a knot hole not too far from her face. The air smelled faintly resinous but it was not overpowering. Closing her eyes and trying to relax, Andie settled down to wait out the trip. Laeren and Brock carried her out of the squatters’ camp and loaded her onto a flatbed cart, the kind the longshoremen used to move shipping cargo around the waterfront. It was horribly uncomfortable. Luckily Andie had never been plagued with motion sickness or troubled by closed in spaces, but even still, her joints quickly began to ache and her legs, drawn up to her chest, tingled with numbness. The minutes seemed to stretch into hours, even though Laeren had assured her that it would be a short trip. Eventually, she
bit her lip just to keep herself from calling out for reassurance. Surely it would be only a little longer! Just when she had decided the monotonous rumbling of the cart was never going to end, the brakes screeched and the cart stopped. Indistinct voices clamored nearby, and the muffled clangs and occasional ship’s horn told her that they had made it to the docks. Another endless pause passed while she fought to keep herself calm and quiet, even though her muscles were screaming in protest. Finally the crate was being lifted, and Andie found herself in the tricky position of being upside down. She worked her arms above her head and pushed herself away from the splintery crate bottom, trying to ease the pressure on her head. What, what was wrong with these men? she thought irritably. Couldn’t they take better care than that? It only got worse as she was jostled and jarred until she thought her brain must be battered to jelly inside her head. Even crawling through the sewer was better than this.
When at last the crate lid was pried back off, she was fuming. She blinked in the sudden light as Laeren’s face swam into view.
“Are you all right?” he asked with concern, trying to help her out of the crate. She pushed his hands away. “All right?” she grumbled. “After you shook me to death on my head, you mean?” Her legs were an agony of pins and needles. Dragging herself from the crate she tried to stand, but her legs would not cooperate.
“Aw, Miss Sirra, don’t be mad at us,” appealed Brock from behind her. “It wasn’t easy trying to get that box up onto the ship. Master Bruche couldn’t help since he had to distract the dockmaster. I had to ask for the help of a couple longshoremen, and I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Be careful, we’ve got a girl in there.’” Andie was still grumpy, but seeing Laeren’s worried look, she tried to let it go.
“It’s fine,” she muttered. “I’ll feel better soon.” She stomped her feet a bit, trying to get her circulation moving again. Her head ached fiercely, and her arms were red and raw from rubbing against the rough wood over her head.
When Brock left to head to the base a few minutes later, Andie’s legs still felt numb. Laeren gently lifted her against her protests and carried her into a small cabin in the front of the hold. It was a tiny room, but it had a narrow bed with an actual mattress. He gently set her down on the bed and dropped to his knees so he could massage her calves.
“I’m sorry it was so painful,” Laeren apologized. “We just wanted to make sure you were safe from any spying eyes.”
Andie started to recover her good humor in proportion to the feeling coming back to her legs. “I know. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you guys,” she sighed. “Besides, I won’t have to hide much longer, will I?”
Laeren smiled in relief at her happier tone. “No, you will not have to hide much longer. Still, until the ship is fully loaded, stay in this cabin, all right? We will have longshoremen coming aboard that are not part of my crew. When it is safe to come up, I will come get you.”
“OK,” Andie replied contentedly. Laeren stayed for a minute more and then excused himself to go check on the ship’s progress. When he left, he securely locked the door behind him, and Andie lay back on the mattress and stretched all the way out with a small sigh of pleasure. It had been so long since she had been able to rest on a real bed. In only a matter of minutes she drifted to sleep.
Soft knocking woke her sometime later and she bolted upright on the bed, confused and disoriented. For a moment she panicked as she looked around the cramped room before she remembered where she was.
“Andie?” Laeren called softly through the door.
“Come in,” she answered. He unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“You can come out now,” he beckoned. “We’re just leaving the Sound. You can come up on deck and get a last look at the continent of Urok if you like.”
She eagerly followed him up. He had brought her cloak, and she wrapped herself tightly as they stepped out onto the deck of the ship. From the rail she could see that they were just pulling away from a rocky shoreline with miles of blue brush spanning out behind it.
“Is that the Blue Cress?” she asked eagerly. Laeren rolled his eyes.
“Even the Citizen from light years away has heard of our Blue Cress. It’s infamous.”
“What’s so awful about the Blue Cress? I just heard that it’s a pretty blue bush that grows all over your planet.”
“Blue? Yes. Growing all over Corizen? Yes. Pretty? I don’t think so. They are tough, spiny things that can tear your clothing to shreds.”
“Really?” Andie strained her eyes trying to see them better, but they were getting hazy with distance now.
“The Blue Cress used to cover most of the fertile land on Gamba. Gamba was the continent where the original settlers landed. They cleared most of that land for farming, but the Cress grows as well as a weed, and it is just as hard to kill. So when people started migrating to Urok, they inadvertently brought it with them. It practically took over the best areas of the continent. There are a few areas of grassland left, as well as the west desert. And of course the Blue Plains.” He was silent for a moment. Andie glanced at him.
“The same mineral in the soil that tinted our skin blue also colors the Blue Cress,” he continued after a moment. “It is concentrated in such a heavy dose in the clay of the Blue Plains that it keeps anything from growing in it at all.” he added pensively.
“Will it turn my skin blue too?” Andie asked, a little fearfully.
“No,” he laughed. “That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. It takes a long time—it was a couple generations before it showed up with my people.” Andie stifled a sigh of relief, but Laeren caught her anyway. “No, you’ll have to work a little harder than that to achieve the beautiful skin tone of a Denicorizen,” he teased.
Andie was embarrassed, but Laeren wasn’t offended. Over the course of the journey, she quickly learned that one of Laeren’s wonderful qualities was that he was not quick to take offense. It was a valuable trait on a voyage like this. Andie herself had to struggle to contain her irritation on a daily basis, especially with some of the more obnoxious members of Laeren’s crew. They were not used to having women on board, and they had never in their life met a Citizen before. It seemed like they couldn’t help but insult her several times a day without even thinking about it.
She was very relieved when the journey finally came to a close. They drew close to the island in the late morning hours, and Laeren joined her on deck to watch them pull into the bay.
“Is your crew staying here with us?” she asked warily, as the small green smudge of land grew larger.
“No,” Laeren laughed. “They are returning to pick up our first boat of colonists from Roma. I think you will only have to see them periodically from then on when they return with supplies or new people.” Andie silently thanked the stars. There were a few other Resistance members on board that would be joining them, but for the most part they were far politer than the seamen.
“Will there be other women living here, Laeren?” she asked wistfully. She missed Jerrapo and Randa. Living among men for the last several months had gotten old very quickly, and she missed having the companionship of other women.
“There will be a few. Most of the men I will be training do not have families or are coming alone since they will be training to be soldiers. But I imagine there will be some wives and children coming with the colonists.” Andie tried to be content with the promise of future friends. Hopefully she would not have to wait long.
When the ship drew into the bay of the small island, Andie gasped in pleased astonishment. The water was a sparkling jewel blue, lapping against a white sandy shore. The sand stretched right to a forest of vibrant green trees and brush. Near the bay it was relatively flat but then it sloped steeply upward to peak in several hills.
“It’s beautiful!” Andie breathed in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Laeren s
miled broadly. “Welcome to our new home,” he announced.
♦
Building the new base was another radical change in lifestyle for Andie. The Resistance colonists named their new settlement Faroi, which in old Denicorizen meant hope. Farms had to be built and buildings erected. There wasn’t any need for teachers at this new settlement, and a great need to establish their own food supply, so Andie became a farmer. Day after day she helped to clear brush and trees and build the terraced planters. It was backbreaking, muddy work in the humid island climate, and she did not like it at all. Still, she was grateful for her relative freedom. Farming was far preferable to living permanently hidden from sight.
Laeren directed the building of the compound. First they had to clear a large tract of land of the thick tree growth. Then Laeren marked out the dimensions for the main building. They had dug the foundations when two more ships arrived with the construction supplies they would need. They also brought new members of the Resistance and the work started to go faster and faster. Andie watched the walls rise in satisfaction. Until the compound was finished, everybody would be living in tents or makeshift brush shelters.
Though the living conditions left much to be desired, the freedom Andie had was exhilarating. Whenever she had a spare moment she could go outside, wander around, hike in the jungle, or speak to whomever she wished. It was wonderful! Her ashen skin slowly darkened (reddened would be more accurate). Her blistered skin was a constant irritation, but she obstinately refused to give up any of her time in the sun. Even out in the fields it was great just to breathe the fresh air and feel the sunlight. Laeren chided her for her recklessness and somewhere, procured a bottle of skin moisturizer. It felt wonderful and eased the pain a great deal, allowing Andie to continue to spend her waking hours outside.
Although Laeren was busy almost all the time, he still managed to spend some moments with Andie every day. Laeren was the bright spot in her rigorous new life and when he asked her to marry him, she accepted him with delight.
The Legend of Sirra Bruche (Roran Curse Book 1) Page 20