by Inmon, Shawn
Frina-eh pushed a long strand of Werda-ak’s hair off his forehead, which had a sheen of sweat on it. She wiped his face with a cool rag.
“We’ll know in the next twenty-four hours. By tomorrow morning, he will either be awake and recovering, or the poison will have overcome his system.”
Alex and Senta-eh sat down at the adjacent table, watching the rise and fall of the boy’s chest, lending him what strength they had.
After a few hours, the sun rose, but the people of the village did not return to the dining hall. They stayed away out of respect for the young man fighting for his life.
Shortly after dawn, Tokin-ak came to visit. He held his hands out over Werda-ak’s body and chanted, much as Lanta-eh had once done for Alex when he was deathly ill. The chant went on for long minutes as the others sat and watched.
When he finished, Alex looked at him, his question obvious.
“I do not know,” Tokin-ak said. “It is up to him. He will determine his own destiny.”
Soon, Jabril-ak brought loaves of soft bread, the warm oat cereal, and a clay jug of cream for them. The bread was fresh and fragrant and the cereal had been sweetened, but still, Alex and Senta-eh were unable to eat more than a few bites. Not so for Frina-eh, who downed her cereal, gulped her milk, then tore off a large chunk of the bread to sop up the remaining cereal from the bowl. She paused when she realized she was the only one eating, then said, “I’m still growing.”
For the first time in many hours, Alex managed a smile.
By mid-afternoon, Werda-ak’s fever had increased. He became increasingly restless and tossed his head back and forth. Alex and Senta-eh moved to either side of him and laid their hands gently on his shoulders, holding him so he wouldn’t injure himself.
Softly, Alex said, “It’s all right. We’re here. We are here with you. You are going to be all right.” He hoped he could speak that reality into existence. In any case, it helped calm the boy, and he laid still.
This routine continued on for the rest of the day and into the night. Every few hours, Frina-eh changed the bandages and cleaned the wound, sifting more of her powder into it. Jabril-ak brought them food and drink every few hours, and eventually they ate a few bites.
Frina-eh worried about Werda-ak becoming dehydrated, so every few minutes, she dipped a rag in cool water and dripped at least a few drops past his lips.
Alex resolved to stay awake through a second night, but resolve eventually meets the realities of the human body, and sometime after midnight his head fell forward onto his arms and he slept. Senta-eh smiled indulgently at him, but a few minutes later, she too passed out head-first on the table. Frina-eh found a stack of blankets and dropped them over both their shoulders, then once again changed the bandages.
When Alex came awake, it was with a start and he said, “Whaaa?!?!?” loudly before realizing where he was. When he looked at Werda-ak, relief flooded through him. The boy’s eyes were open, and he looked calmly at Alex.
“You’re here!” Alex said in a hoarse whisper.
“Where else would I be?” Werda-ak said.
“The land beyond the living was a real possibility,” Alex noted, but added, “but we would much rather have you on this side with us.” He glanced at Frina-eh, who look exhausted and hollow-eyed herself. “I think you’ve done it. We owe you for his life.”
She didn’t dispute either point. “He will be weak for some days, I would guess, but yes, I think the poison is leaving his body.”
Werda-ak, who was rarely calm or serious, was suddenly both. He reached out and touched Frina-eh’s elbow. “Thank you,” he said simply, “for my life.”
Alex and Senta-eh stayed with Werda-ak that day. He slept most of the day, but it was not the same deep unconsciousness as the day before.
By late afternoon, Frina-eh said it was safe to move him, and they used a stretcher to carry him back to the room they had slept in before the battle.
When they had him tucked away on the bed, Frina-eh said, “He’s going to be weak for quite a few days. I don’t think he’ll be able to put any weight on that leg for at least a week and even then he will be fatigued after only a few steps.”
Alex nodded, then collapsed into a bunk of his own, knowing that was a problem he could deal with after a night’s sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Another Decision
The next morning, Alex awoke before dawn. He emptied his bladder into the chamber pot in the corner, then went for a walk around the village. Wherever he went, people smiled and waved and said, “Gunta.”
He and Monda-ak walked to the dining hall, and were made very welcome there as well.
Kill a couple of beasties and you’re king for the day, I guess.
Nanda-ak waved Alex to come sit at his table, where he and Tokin-ak were eating. “We owe you a great debt. You have ensured our town can continue to live in peaceful prosperity. I am saddened that your young man was injured. It is a wonder that just the three of you were able to do what twenty-two of our men could not.”
“It’s not skill as much as it is training and an ability to have three people work as one.”
Monda-ak woofed a reminder at him.
“Sorry. To have three people and a dog work as one. If you take a few dozen farmers and send them off to fight something they’ve never seen before, their odds are not good. The three of us have lived and fought together for some time now, and I have been trained to handle pressure and emergencies. A good battle plan is helpful, but since most plans don’t survive first contact with the enemy, it’s good to be able to think on your feet, as well.”
“Good enough.” Nanka-ak said. He waved at a man and woman standing off to the side. “These are my tailors. If the two of you will follow them, they will take your measurements and make you warm clothes. I know you eat differently than we do, but we will equip you as best we can. We make dried fruits and vegetables in the summer that you can carry with you. We will be able to finish the clothes in the next day, two at the most. As soon as you’re ready, we will take you and your horses across the water.”
Alex looked at the two tailors. “Can we do the measurements in our hut, where Werda-ak is? That way you can measure all of us at the same time.”
Nanda-ak held up his hand. “As injured as he is, I assumed you would leave him here. We will care for him like one of our own.”
“No.” Alex paused. “No. We are a team. We won’t leave one of ours behind. What I just said—about the reason that we were able to kill those things being teamwork and knowing that we all had each other’s back—that doesn’t end when the crisis has passed. We won’t leave until he’s healthy enough to go with us.”
Nanka-ak gestured at the tailors to follow Alex to their hut. Jabril-ak fell in alongside Alex as they walked.
“So, you’re going to be here for a while.”
“Until Werda-ak is able to ride comfortably, yes.”
“Would you show my friends and I a few things?”
“Things? What kind of things?”
“How to use a weapon, maybe? Or even how to make a weapon to begin with.”
Alex kept walking, thinking. He believed in preparedness. He believed everyone who was physically able should be able to defend themselves. But, he believed even more strongly that people should be able to decide for themselves. In this case, that decision should come from Nanka-ak. If Jabril-ak wanted to learn self-defense, but his father wasn’t comfortable with the idea, he didn’t see how he could do it.
“Let’s do this. I am happy to show a few things to you and your friends. But, the request has to come from your father.”
Jabril-ak hung his head. “He won’t like it.”
“Then I shouldn’t do it,” Alex said, “and I won’t. But, it costs you nothing to ask him.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder and stepped into his hut to be measured.
Werda-ak was awake, and Frina-eh was tending to him. Alex noticed for the first time how pretty she was and how closely Werda-ak
hung on her every word.
He may not want to leave when he’s healthy enough.
Senta-eh caught his eye and smiled, and he thought perhaps she had been thinking the same thing.
The tailors measured the three of them—Werda-ak while he was still stretched out on the bed—and were preparing to leave when the door burst open. Jabril-ak pushed through, an excited smile on his face.
“You won’t believe it! He said that you could train us.”
“Nothing like the sudden appearances of monsters in the doorway to change your way of looking at things,” Alex mused. “Gather your friends up—no weapons needed. You’re not ready for them yet. I’ll meet you in the field at the south end of town.”
Jabril-ak hopped slightly in his excitement, then zipped out the door, neglecting to close it. A chill wind blew into the hut.
“Thank you for making us warm clothes,” Alex said to the tailors. “It looks like we’re going to need them.” For a moment, he let his mind wander back to the beginning of their trek, when they were too warm and looking for ways to cool down. It brought home again how long they had already been gone. Both from Winten-ah and, much worse, Amy. Alex had been gone from her for so long, it was becoming hard for him to picture what she might look like now.
Frina-eh and the tailors hurried outside, closing the door. Alex sat on the bed opposite Werda-ak.
“We thought we’d lost you.”
“It was the strangest thing,” Werda-ak answered. “I didn’t feel it when it scratched me. I was fine, right up until the moment when I felt like I was falling down into a hole. Then, for a long time, I couldn’t find a way to climb up out of that hole, and thought I was going to have to stay down there.” He glanced from Alex to Senta-eh. “I know you guys will need to leave me here.”
“That’s probably what you’d prefer at the moment, isn’t it?” Senta-eh teased. “We both saw the way you looked at Frina-eh.”
Werda-ak flushed, but did not deny it. He could not. It was evident on his face.
Alex leaned forward. “We will not leave you. I don’t care if we have to wait through the winter. We will not leave you.” He said the last five words with deliberate slowness, emphasizing how he felt.
“We are on a mission—” Werda-ak began.
“—We are, and I take it seriously,” Alex interrupted him. “But if we leave you here, how would you ever get home? You are a Winten-ah. The life of Lanta-eh is important. But to me, getting you and Senta-eh home safely is just as important. If we save Lanta-eh but I lose you, I will feel as if I have failed.” He stood and said to Senta-eh, “Now, do you want to come and throw a few enthusiastic young boys all over the field?”
Her eyes lit up. “You know I do!”
FOR THE NEXT TEN DAYS, Alex ignored the changing winds and weather as best he could. He had committed to being on the island until Werda-ak was ready to travel. He wouldn’t consider changing his mind about that. Still, the winter weather setting in told him how much ground he was losing every day. What had once been drizzling rain had evolved into sleet and snow flurries. What had long-ago been a warm breeze had become a cutting wind rolling in off the mountains to the east.
He spent his days training the volunteers Jabril-ak had rounded up. First in the basics of hand-to-hand combat, then the proper use of a few basic weapons and shields. Senta-eh, who was not a weapon-maker, but was at least familiar with the basics, showed several of the young men and women how to make the composite shields of Winten-ah, as well as bow and arrows and short stabbing swords.
Werda-ak, meanwhile, recovered as quickly as a healthy teenage boy could. By the fourth day, he was able to swing his leg out of bed and walk a few steps. After a week, he was taking slow walks around the village, slowly getting his strength back.
On the tenth day, with a last, longing glance at Frina-eh, he announced that he was ready to travel. Quietly, to the girl who had nursed him back to health so ably, he said, “You were too good at your job. Now I can leave.”
“If you ever want to return for me, I will be here. I will train another to take my place.”
“It’s a promise,” he said, and touched her hand lightly. It was one he intended to keep.
They dressed in the warm clothes they had been gifted—cotton undershirts, heavy overshirts, and thick wool coats—then climbed onto their horses, who were by now well-rested and ready to travel.
They rode to a southeast corner of the island, past the battlefield where they had killed the dandra-tas, and onto a large barge. Tokin-ak was the last to board and turned on his alecs-ta. He chanted something that Alex did not recognize, a blessing of some sort, and they pulled away from the shore.
The barge master was the same man who had given them their initial ride to the island. That had been less than two weeks earlier, but it felt like another lifetime.
The barge master used a long pole to push them away from the island, but then he raised a sail and pointed it windward so they sailed right into the wind. To Alex, who had no knowledge of sailing whatsoever, it seemed slightly miraculous, but the others took it in stride.
As soon as the horses and alecs-ta were comfortable on the new vessel, everyone climbed down and moved about the boat. Werda-ak still walked with a noticeable limp, but Frina-eh had said if they waited for that to subside, they might be waiting forever.
He peered over the side of the ship at the water passing by and pulled a long thin line from his pocket with a crude hook attached to the end. He hunted around the boat until he found a bug crawling along, slipped it onto the hook and dropped it overboard. He smiled at Alex. “Their food was good, but my stomach is hungry for some meat.”
Their progress was slow, but steady, and they reached the far eastern shore of the lake by early afternoon. Alex and company rode off the boat, turned and waved their thanks at the shipmaster. He returned the wave and pushed off. As he turned toward the island, he had the wind at his back and moved swiftly away.
Alex turned to Tokin-ak. “How do we get over the mountains?” Alex asked, pointing at the snow-capped peaks they could already see in the distance.
Tokin-ak turned his unseeing eyes toward Alex. It was an unsettling experience, as Alex felt he saw him more clearly than any other person he had ever known.
“Follow me,” the old man said. He clicked his tongue and his alecs-ta plodded away from the lake.
The rest of the caravan followed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hakun-ah
The path away from the lake was wide and seemed well-traveled, but it rose in elevation. It wasn’t a steep, continual climb, but they would climb for an hour or so, then walk along a plateau, then climb again.
Tokin-ak rode his alecs-ta in the lead. He told Alex that the higher they climbed, the less likely they were to run into predators, either human or animal. For humans, there were simply easier and warmer places to lie in wait. As to the animals, Tokin-ak said, “We have agreements with them. We do not bother them, they do not bother us.”
Alex was skeptical that a mountain lion or bear would either make or stick to an agreement like that, but then he remembered the old man communing with the rabbit the night he met them.
As Dan Hadaller once said, ‘For a guy who just stepped through a door into the future, you pick the strangest things not to believe.’
On the afternoon of their first day away from the lake, Alex asked Tokin-ak if he knew of places to stay—caves, or overhangs, or at least easily-defensible positions—on the route.
“We have made shelters for holy men returning from pilgrimages. My memory is not what it once was, but I think we will find them.”
Alex looked at the gloomy skies and the dark, gathering clouds. It was only mid-afternoon and already it was turning to dusk.
“We’ll have to cut our days short, perhaps. We will only have nine or ten hours of good daylight.”
“Everywhere I go, I travel in darkness. We can stop if you need to, or if our young friend lo
ses strength from his injury, but I can lead us the same in dark as I do in light.”
Should have thought of that. It’s hard to remember he’s blind when he seems to see everything so clearly.
Tokin-ak’s mention of Werda-ak’s recovery reminded Alex to check on him more often. He slowed his horse down until Werda-ak caught up to him. Alex didn’t bother to ask how he was feeling. He knew what that answer would be. Instead, he looked him over. No grimace of pain or outward sign of exhaustion, but he didn’t sit as easily on the back of his horse as he had before.
Alex smiled noncommittally and looked away, examining the far mountain peaks, which didn’t seem to be growing closer yet. He waited several long minutes, then glanced at the boy from the periphery of his vision, hoping to catch him unawares. Instead, Werda-ak bugged his eyes out at him comically, then laughed.
“Okay, okay,” Alex said. “So I’m worried about you.” The phrase ‘So sue me,’ popped into his head, but of course there was no equivalent idea in Winten-ah. Even better than Shakespeare’s First, kill all the lawyers, was First, don’t let there be any lawyers.
“I know you’re a brave kid, or you wouldn’t have come on this adventure with me in the first place, and you wouldn’t have fought so hard to get away from that lovely girl we just left behind.”
Alex noticed a flicker of heated heartsickness cross Werda-ak’s face at the mention of her.
“But, if you don’t want me to be checking up on you all the time, you’ve got to be honest with me. If your leg is hurting you, or if you’re just feeling sick, tell me. We’re not in a race any more. I have an idea where we’re heading, so it doesn’t really matter if we get there a few days faster or not.”
Alex spoke confidently, but inside, he still had doubts..
The boy put two fingers to his forehead. “I will. My leg hurts, but I knew it would. I don’t feel sick at all. I think the poison has left my body now. But, I will tell you if anything changes.”