by NS Dolkart
Oh, Ravennis above! Narky thought. Do I really want that spear back? Yet he needed his weapon. What if more came? He took hold of the spear’s end with both hands and pulled. Nothing much happened. He put his foot on the ant’s head and tried again. No, the angle wasn’t right. The ant’s body was too heavy to lift, and the spear would have to come out the same way it went in. There was nothing for it. Narky lay down on the ground, braced both legs against the ant’s head, and pulled with all his might. The spear came out then, faster than expected so that the butt hit him in the upper chest. Oh, that would leave a bruise all right.
The whole spear was sticky with the ant’s blue-gray blood, but Narky held it firmly anyway. Cleanliness could wait for a time when he was no longer in mortal danger. He went to stand once more in the mouth of the cave, gazing up and down the mountainside in search of more ants. Having survived his encounter with one of them, he felt vindicated in his decision not to join the others. He had not been cowardly at all, really, only prudent.
Some shouts from down below called him back into the cave. “She’s down there!” Bandu was shouting. “She’s alive! Oh, Phaedra!”
Narky rushed to the edge of the chasm and looked down to see Hunter pulling Phaedra out of one of the ant tunnels. Even from up here, Narky could tell that she was terribly battered. Hunter lifted her broken body and slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“I’ll be right there,” Criton said, turning back toward the tunnels. He got down on his hands and knees with his head over one of the holes. The great burst of flame that followed turned the tunnel into a halo of light around his head. Even in the midst of Narky’s worries about Phaedra, it was a beautiful sight to behold.
The jutting rock that Hunter called the ‘overhang’ obscured most of the climb from Narky’s vision. Now and then a flash of light from Criton illuminated the cavern walls, but the climbers remained hidden. Narky was forced to wait nervously at the top, watching the mouth of the cave for any more ants and listening for signs of trouble from down below. It was an agonizing wait, and Hunter’s loud grunts were hardly reassuring. But then he felt a tug on the rope, and knew that the ordeal was almost over.
There was some discussion about how to get Phaedra safely over the last hurdle. The girl had apparently lost consciousness during their climb up, and now Hunter, Criton and Bandu set about devising a safe way to tie her to the rope without injuring her. When they were satisfied, Bandu came up to help Narky. Her face was worried. They pulled on the rope silently while Criton climbed beside Phaedra, ready to make adjustments to her fastenings if need be. His help was especially needed when Phaedra reached the overhang and Criton was able to partially lift her on his own to avoid scraping her against the rocks. Finally, they reached the top.
Phaedra looked dead. There was no better way to put it. Her whole body was broken and bloody, her hands torn, her ankle grotesquely swollen. But more than anything, it was her stench that made him sure they would lose her. Her smell sickened him.
He leaned closer to her anyway, to see if she was breathing. Yes, he could feel it, weak though it was. His heart nearly ceased its beating when Phaedra took a shuddering breath and then went still. One second, two, three, four, and Phaedra’s breathing started again. Narky found that he had been holding his own breath, and he let it out slowly. They untied her as delicately as they could, and threw the end of the rope back down for Hunter.
When they were all together once more, they carefully transported Phaedra out of the cave. The sun had already gone down outside, and they lit new torches to guide their way through the twilight. How far would they have to go before they were no longer in danger from the ants’ nest? Further than they could carry Phaedra, no doubt. They found a level spot to lay her down, and kept watches through the night.
During the second watch, Criton woke them up with a gout of flame that roasted an approaching ant. Narky sat terrified during his own turn, clutching his spear in one hand and a torch in the other, but luckily the rest of the night was uneventful.
He awoke the next morning to find Bandu eating the dead ant. She had somehow dismembered it and was cracking its legs with a knife and scooping the meat out with her fingers. Hunter and Criton looked sickened, but neither was brave enough to say anything about it. Narky had no such reservations.
“That’s disgusting,” he said.
She regarded him disdainfully. “I eat, you starve.”
Phaedra did wake up once that day, with some coaxing. She did not speak, but did drink some water, and moaned whenever she moved.
“She can’t walk like this,” Hunter said, “but we need to get out of the mountains. I’m going to go get the packhorse for her to ride.”
“Don’t go yet,” said Narky. “It’s still too steep up here for a horse to climb. We’ll have to get Phaedra at least halfway down before a packhorse will do any good.”
It was a wonder they were able to move Phaedra at all, in her condition. Yet somehow with the help of the rope, their ingenuity, and a double portion of luck, they managed to get her most of the way down the mountain before the sun set that night, to a place the horse would be able to reach. As well as they managed it though, the climb still took a toll on Phaedra. She moaned often, but the worst was when they accidentally dropped her against a rock and she didn’t react at all.
Narky hardly slept that night, for fear that he would wake up to find Phaedra dead. His dreams were full of wriggling ants, and of black birds circling in the sky.
Phaedra did not die that night, though neither did her situation improve. At dawn, they said goodbye to Hunter. The young warrior looked grimmer than ever in his soiled armor, and the heavy scales seemed for the first time like a burden to him rather than a second skin. When Bandu pressed the majority of the remaining food and water on him, he stood in hesitation.
“I can’t take all this,” he said.
“Take it,” Bandu said. “You need strong.”
“But you’ll need food too, while I’m away.”
“We eat,” she reassured him. “I can feed them. They eat with me.”
“Not ants, I hope,” Narky said.
But it was ants that Bandu had in mind, ants and crushed acorns and the furry little melon-like creatures that clambered about the rocks on their comically short legs. Narky had never even noticed them until Bandu brought back a pair of dead ones, but after that he began to see them everywhere. Their bodies were a dull gray color that blended in perfectly with the rocky mountainside, and they had a tendency to lie perfectly still for minutes at a time, with only their occasionally blinking eyes to show that they were alive. Narky had no complaint with this behavior. His complaint was with their taste.
Two days passed slowly while they waited for Hunter to return. Bandu spent much of that time foraging, while Narky and Criton spent it watching over Phaedra and arguing over whether they should do anything to help her heal. Criton insisted that they had to do something besides praying, but Narky was afraid of causing her more pain, especially if she ended up dying anyway. His experience with Four-foot still haunted him. In the end all they could agree to do was to clean her open wounds and keep giving her water. That could do her no harm, at least, though Narky knew it wasn’t enough. Her skin was alarmingly hot to the touch.
Washing her proved to be its own struggle, since Narky had to carefully peel her clothes from her skin to see how badly she was injured. The motion woke Phaedra a few times, but she only babbled and stared unknowingly at him before lapsing back into unconsciousness. Criton was clearly uncomfortable with Narky’s examination, and to be honest, so was Narky. He just had to keep reminding himself that she needed his help, and hoping that she would not be angry with him when she recovered.
To Narky’s great relief, the open wounds on her hands and legs turned out to be the only ones she had, though her entire body was covered in dark bruises. Oddly enough, he found that she had hidden a number of mushrooms in her shirt. He
handed them to Criton to pack carefully away. When her cuts had been washed and dressed to the best of his ability, and he had successfully poured some water down her throat, they were forced to simply sit back and wait.
The waiting was hard on Narky. It seemed he had nothing to do besides worry. Criton, too, spent most of his time brooding. He experimented with his magic, turning his claws to hands and back to claws again. He changed his scales to skin, and then went the other way and turned it all to scales. His hair seemed to melt back into his head, from chin to scalp. It was a frightful look and Narky was glad when Criton went back to his normal hybrid state.
“Is that all you can do?” Narky asked. “That and the fire, I mean?”
Criton sighed. “I can’t heal her, if that’s what you mean. I’d probably kill her, trying.”
“Oh,” Narky said. “I guess that makes sense. It just seems like there has to be more to magic than lighting fires and changing shape.”
“There is,” Criton said, looking annoyed. “But this is what I know how to do.”
“Try doing something else.”
Criton looked down at his hands, and Narky’s eyes followed. “Stop looking at me,” Criton said. “I’m trying to figure something out.”
Narky snorted and looked the other way for a moment, but he did not keep his eyes off Criton for long. The other boy was staring intently into his open claw now, concentrating. It was hard to tell in the daylight, but Narky thought there might be a bright something in Criton’s palm. A little bead of light, like a dewdrop suspended just above the scales. Narky might not even have noticed it, if not for the way it fluoresced in the sunlight. It skittered around in Criton’s palm, blinked a bright pink, and then disappeared. Criton furrowed his brow.
“Practice,” he mumbled. “It’ll get better with practice.”
Hunter returned that night, leading their packhorse. Bandu was roasting another of her melon-creatures, and the flickering light made Hunter’s face appear gaunt and hollowed out.
“What took you so long?” Narky asked.
“It went badly,” Hunter said. “I killed two men.”
“They were hoping the ants would take care of us,” Narky said, and Hunter nodded in confirmation.
“How is Phaedra?”
Criton shook his head. “Bad. She’s been asleep for hours now.”
Hunter knelt by Phaedra’s body and felt her forehead. “Gods above,” he murmured. “She’s burning up.”
Phaedra’s eyes shot open. “He’s watching,” she said, catching hold of Hunter’s arm. He tried to pull gently away, but her grip was clearly too strong.
“Magor’s watching,” she said, “and He wants us dead.”
23
Bandu
Phaedra spent much of the night babbling incoherently, and shivering no matter how they piled their furs on top of her. She looked so frail and cold that Bandu joined her under the furs even though Narky thought it was wrong to touch sick people.
“Fevers can jump from one person to another,” he said, and Criton looked worried.
Phaedra sweated a lot that night, and Bandu woke up almost slippery with it. Phaedra looked a little better than before, but she was definitely not ready to travel. Bandu didn’t know if she would ever be ready. It was not much of a recovery, and it could just as easily get worse again.
“I’m going to die,” Phaedra mumbled, when Criton asked her how she felt.
Narky said that was fever-babble, but Bandu knew it wasn’t. Phaedra’s eyes could see them now.
“You’re not going to die,” Hunter more or less commanded. “You’re going to break this fever, and then we’re going to carry you out of these mountains.”
Phaedra looked dismayed. “I can’t,” she moaned. “I can’t go any farther than this. Moving hurts too much. I’m dying, Hunter.”
“You were strong enough to climb out of there,” he told her. “You can do this too.”
Phaedra sighed, but she did not object again.
“We go today,” Bandu suggested. “Too cold here for you.”
They carried Phaedra down the mountain on Grayleg’s back. Grayleg was slow and careful, but Phaedra still cried out faintly whenever the horse’s movements jostled her too hard. Nobody could blame Grayleg: she was doing her best, but going down the mountain would have been hard enough, even without Phaedra on her back. Anyway, that was not the worst part of their journey. The worst part was when the crows began to follow them again.
“Go away,” Bandu told them. She saw how they looked at Phaedra.
“There is no meal for you here,” she said. “Go, or I will eat you.”
She tried to say it quietly, but Narky heard her. He gave her a very angry look, and apologized to his God. Still, the birds stayed farther off after she threatened them. They knew that she wasn’t joking. Crows were no fools.
They had only one tent now, since Narky had used the other one as a rope. Narky insisted that crowding Phaedra was unhealthy, so tonight Bandu and Criton agreed to sleep outside. At least Bandu was used to it.
Criton had never slept out in the open before. He turned over and over and could not get comfortable, and the whispering wind was not a comfort to him. Bandu pulled him near and laid his head on her chest.
“Do you hear it?” she whispered to him.
“You mean your heart?”
“Yes,” she said. “What it says?”
Criton looked up at her. “It says, ‘I love you.’”
She laughed, her worries momentarily forgotten. “What it really says?”
“That’s all it says!” He was smiling too.
“No,” she told him. “I listen to Four-foot’s heart. You know what it says?”
“No,” he said, half sitting up. “What did it say?”
She took a deep breath. “It says ban-doo. It always says ban-doo.”
She saw his eyes widen with his understanding. “Did you used to have another name?” he asked.
“Maybe. I call myself Two-foot before.”
Criton nodded. “Do you want to listen to my heart?”
When she put her head on Criton’s chest, his heart was beating much faster than Four-foot’s heart ever had. It was pounding in excitement. And it was saying her name.
* * *
They took the long way out of the mountains, so that they would not have to climb as much and Phaedra would not get bumped as badly. The travel was hard on her anyway, and she kept begging them to stop and rest a little while longer. Still, she was getting a little better, Bandu thought. She was awake for longer, anyway.
One afternoon, when they had stopped beside a mountain stream, Phaedra motioned Bandu to come over to her. “Where are the mushrooms?” she whispered.
“Mushrooms?” Bandu asked, confused.
“The ones I found in the farmer ants’ nest,” Phaedra said, her voice fading away almost to nothing. “They were blueglow mushrooms, Bandu! I saved a few for Psander. Are they safe? Did you pack them already?”
Bandu shrugged and checked the saddlebags. Sure enough, someone had stuffed some mushrooms in there. The sight of them enraged her. She even considered throwing them away. She had almost lost Phaedra in that cave – almost lost her! Her injuries might yet kill her. How could Psander still have a hold over her? Bandu wanted to destroy those mushrooms.
But she didn’t. Instead, she packed them back where she had found them and tried to forget that they were there.
That night, Phaedra’s fever finally broke. When they rose in the morning they found her sleeping peacefully under her furs, a smile creeping onto her face despite the beads of sweat that glistened all over her skin. When she awoke, her eyes had lost their glassy look.
It had taken them only two days to reach the mountain called Galadron, but it took two weeks to reach the plains again. Phaedra’s health steadily improved as the days went by. Bandu still watched her carefully, worrying that her cuts would turn colors the way that Four-foot’s had, but Phaedra wa
s lucky. The only thing she still complained about was that she had lost her scrolls when her bag tore. Bandu was secretly glad, though of course she said nothing. Criton had told her that scrolls were just skins covered in old words, but Bandu still did not like them. Dead people should not be able to talk.
When they came out of the mountains, Hunter turned them northward.
“Hold on,” Narky said. “Shouldn’t we go back to Silent Hall?”
“Later,” said Hunter. “First we’re going to Anardis. She said the priests there were healers, and I think a temple library would be a good place for Phaedra to rest right now. Besides,” he added, “I said we could go there after the mountains.”
“Aww,” said Phaedra, a weak smile playing across her lips. “Thanks, Hunter!”
Bandu sighed in relief. The less time they spent in Silent Hall, the better. It was a wicked place.
“I’m glad Phaedra’s doing better,” Criton said that night, when the two of them were alone outside the tent. “I really thought we were going to lose her.”
Bandu nodded. “I know. Don’t talk now.”
“When she came out of there,” he went on, “smelling like death…”
“I don’t want to hear!” she scolded him. “I remember.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have to talk about it. It’s eating me up. I can’t get it off my mind. I thought she was going to–”
She stopped his mouth with a kiss, and when he tried to say something, gave him another. He soon forgot to talk, which was good. There was too much talk. Talking all the time made her feel weak and stupid, when she knew that she was really strong. In silence, they were equals.
She did not expect it to hurt when they mated, but it did. He did not fit as easily as she had thought he would, but he tried anyway, far too hard. She cried for him to stop, and saw his face change: anger and frustration beat down upon her from his eyes. He didn’t understand.