by Finley Aaron
South.
Ram’s route.
Hundreds of miles out of our way.
Adding long hours—maybe even days—to our trip. And for what? I can’t imagine.
But the important thing is, for the first time since my dad dropped me off in Prague, I’m headed home again. So I let that reminder stick in my heart as I settle in to the back seat with Ozzie’s bloodied muzzle warm on my lap, and fall into an exhausted sleep.
*
I awake to angry voices and a sickly gray-green sky. It’s not just Ram and Ion arguing now. There are men outside the window. Men with guns—big guns.
Instinctively I keep my mouth shut and lower my eyelids to slits, open just far enough so I can see out, not that there’s much to see from the back seat. If anybody asks, I’m still asleep.
But just between you and me, I’m watching carefully, wary. Judging by the sky it will be morning soon, but the sun hasn’t quite reached the horizon. I don’t understand the language Ion and the blokes outside his window are arguing in, but I can tell from the sound of their words they’re not getting along very well.
Pretty soon Ion nods, puts the car in gear, and turns us around. The men’s voices fade as he cranks his window shut.
“What’s that all about?” I ask when Ram glances back toward me.
“We can’t go into Romania. Not this way.”
Ion scowls. “We could have gone through Ukraine. I could have gotten us through there.”
“We’ll be fine,” Ram states flatly.
“What are we going to do?” I’m sitting up a little straighter now, and my eyes are all the way open. So are Ozzie’s.
“We’ll go on foot.”
“What?”
“All the roads have border crossings,” Ion explains. “The border agents won’t let us through. The only way into the country is to avoid the border crossing points, which means leaving the road and going through a field or forest on foot, somewhere there’s no one to stop us.”
“You mean on foot just to cross the border, right? Then we’ll find another car, or take a train?”
“We’ll go on foot, cross the border in the woods, out of sight. We’ll walk,” Ram sighs. “As far as we have to.”
I remember him saying we wouldn’t be able to bring the swords on a train or plane, although I wonder how much that’s true. Maybe if we put them in a big duffle bag, or something. But then again, these formerly communist nations are known to be nosy and picky about what makes it into their countries. I don’t want to think about what the blokes with the guns would have done if they’d opened the boot and seen our swords.
“Isn’t there any other way?”
Ion laughs. “We could try crossing into Bosnia.”
He’s laughing because the Bosnians are at war with, I think, themselves, and maybe the Herzegovinians or Croatians, or Serbians, or something. I’ve seen things on the news, usually pictures of burning buildings or bombed out buildings, or people crying because their loved ones were brutally killed.
No, I don’t think we’re going to go through Bosnia, even if they’d let us through, which I’m starting to doubt.
“Can’t we backtrack and go through Russia? I know it’s out of the way now, but that would still be faster than legging it.”
“Russia is not an option.” Ram gives Ion a cold look. Ion is no longer laughing. Something must have passed between them, maybe in the night while I was asleep. I’m curious to know more, but at the same time, I’m picking up a cold vibe and some serious tension between these two, which says now is not the time to probe further.
Ram must know what he’s talking about, but it still sounds barmy to me.
“So we’re walking to Azerbaijan?” I grab the map and consult the legend in the corner of the two-page spread. It’s going to be hundreds, even thousands of miles. I don’t know how many miles these guys can walk in a day. Fifty? Maybe a little more? It will take us weeks, even months if we have to contend with mountains and indirect routes. And we’re going to be hauling backpacks and swords. “Ozzie’s injured. How’s she going to walk?”
“Her face is injured,” Ram says patiently. “She can still walk.”
“But she’s old.” I say it in a whisper. I don’t want to hurt Ozzie’s feelings, but she’s been old the whole time I’ve known her, gray around her muzzle and a little stiff in her joints, especially when it’s cold.
“I know.” Ram whispers, too, his voice resigned. I can hear the echo of all his arguments underpinning those two words—reasons why we shouldn’t leave Prague, why it’s not safe to attempt the journey, why we should stay and wait for my dad.
But it’s too late now for that.
*
My feet hurt.
I was starting to get a blister on my right heel, but Ram put a bandage on it and made me change my socks, which helped the blister, but that doesn’t fix the fact that all the muscles in my feet ache. Did you know the human foot has nineteen different muscles in it? (That’s one of those ‘fun facts’ they loved to teach us at Saint Evangeline’s.) Times two feet, I have thirty-eight muscles that are killing me, and that’s just below my ankles.
Also, my shoulders ache like bruises from hauling my backpack and my swords. I keep trying to shift the weight so it doesn’t dig in so badly, but it just shifts back again and hurts worse.
I really hope these guys know where they’re going. I’ll spare you the details, mostly because I don’t want to think about them, but my day has been a blur of forests and fields, barbed wire fences, and bothersome bugs. Mostly mosquitos, with the occasional biting fly.
We’ve been avoiding villages and farmsteads. For lunch, Ram darted away from me and Ion and Ozzie, and came back a few minutes later with some roasted meat. Even though I don’t know how he had time to do it, I’m pretty sure he killed, skinned, gutted and roasted some kind of animal. I didn’t ask what kind, but it tasted good.
Other than that, we’ve just been walking, walking, walking, as the sun slowly rises, peaks, falls, and starts to set.
The Romanian countryside is arguably lovely, but not when you’re fleeing with heavy bags. Most concerning of all, Ozzie’s having trouble keeping up, and fresh red blood seeps up through her gauze.
I’m afraid this trek is going to be too much for her.
Finally, finally, when my feet are so sore they’re throbbing and I’m starting to trip over dirt and roots and branches because my feet are half numb from exhaustion, we reach a right thick stretch of woods and Ram and Ion announce it’s time to make camp for the night.
I haven’t been camping since I was a kid, when we’d head down toward the sea (which I realize now must have been the Caspian Sea). But even then we had things like tents and sleeping bags, food and other gear, which we don’t have with us now.
So setting up camp consists of finding a flat stretch of earth big enough to lie down on, clearing away the sticks, and heaping up soft leaves like some kind of mattress.
A mattress with bugs living in it.
I want to go back to Prague.
Except the yagi were there.
Okay, maybe, maybe, camping in the Romanian woods is preferable to living at Saint Evangeline’s, but I’m assuming these bugs don’t bite. If creepy crawly things start chewing on me, this could swing the other way in a hurry.
I can’t wait to get off my feet, so as soon as I have a reasonable layer of leaves under me, I sit down and take off my shoes to inspect the damage. Fortunately it looks like the blister on my heel was the only one, and Ram’s bandage kept it from getting any worse.
Ozzie settles down beside me nice and close, and I lean my head against her shoulder. She doesn’t seem to mind.
Then Ram returns with more roasted meat, which is a bit of a surprise because I didn’t even realize he’d stepped away. I thought he was behind my head laying out his leaf bed. We kind of made a triangle—me, Ion, and Ram, with Ion’s feet near my feet, and Ram’s head near my head, and Ram’
s feet near Ion’s head. I didn’t want my head near anybody’s feet because, having smelled my own, there’s just no way I could willfully lie down like that.
The meat is a different kind this time, and I’m thinking I should ask Ram what it is and how he got it, and how he cooked it so quickly, but I’m too busy chewing, and then I’m full and sleepy and more interested in lying down flat and sleeping than in solving the mysteries of my weird companions.
It’s all I can do to stumble to the nearby stream (we’ve sort of been following this stream—I’m assuming it’s a helpful navigational aid in addition to a water source), and I brush my teeth while standing barefoot in the cool water, which is a little numbing but feels absolutely amazing on my thirty-eight sore muscles.
Then I step out and stand on a patch of moss until my feet are dry enough not to track mud back to camp, and I pad back barefoot, and I stretch out on my leaf bed with my Ozzie pillow under my head, and hope none of the unfamiliar noises rustling in the woods are yagi.
Chapter Seven
“Shh, Ilsa, wake up. Don’t say anything. Sit up slowly.” Ion’s voice is a whisper, his face so close to mine I feel his day’s growth of stubble scratching near my ear.
Torn by his words from a troubled dream of shadows and yagi and fear, my heart is pounding so loudly I have to strain to hear his instructions.
“Put your shoes on.” The stubble around his mouth brushes my ear again now that I’ve sat up. “We’re going to go.”
“Go?” I whisper, too, a sound that’s hardly more than a breath.
“Yes. You and me—back to the car. We’ll drive around via Russia. Ram is crazy but I’m not going to fight him. We’ll just sneak away while he’s asleep.”
The moon is a sliver, and the light that penetrates the canopy of branches is meager, but I find my socks and shoes, and pull them on. My feet aren’t so swollen now, but I have no idea what time it is or how long I’ve slept.
Even as my sleepy hands fumble with my shoelaces, I debate whether going with Ion is the right thing to do. Obviously taking the car is better than walking. Backtracking through the night is better than spending two months hiking through unfamiliar mountains with winter fast approaching. And if we leave Ozzie with Ram, she won’t have to endure the journey.
She’ll have time to heal.
That, more than anything, makes up my mind for me. I will leave Ram so he can take care of Ozzie instead of escorting me.
I slip into the jacket I was using for a blanket, and start to strap my daggers to my thighs.
“Don’t bother,” Ion shakes his head, his words mouthed as much as spoken.
I look up at him, blink once, and finish buckling. I’m not sure about leaving Ram. But I am sure I’m not leaving my weapons behind. We might be making the rest of the trip in the safety of Ion’s Skoda, but Ram taught me how to fight for a reason.
And I’m pretty sure this trip is the reason.
Once I have my swords secure at my hips and across my back (under the backpack—they won’t be as easy to pull out if I need them, but otherwise they stick out too far and catch on branches) I nod to Ion.
We step away silently. Ram’s face is nothing but hair and two lenses reflecting the crescent moon to the sky. Ozzie had shifted out from under my head in the night, and now snoozes closer to Ram. Neither of them moves as we sneak away, which rather surprises me because usually Ozzie is a light sleeper. Then again, given her injuries, I’m surprised she didn’t fall asleep on her feet during the trek.
Initially we walk slowly, stealthily, picking our way through the woods so we don’t accidentally snap a stick and awaken Ram or Ozzie. But as we get further away from our campsite, we increase our pace.
I also start to wake up a little more, and realize what I’m doing is not a dream. I’m leaving Ram behind. For real.
My dad told me to trust Ram. But the two of them have been keeping secrets from me, which is so very not cool. And Ion gave me a picture of my mother. Ion wants to bring me home.
This must be the right choice.
I stumble on. It’s difficult in the darkness when there isn’t a clear path. I’m grateful for my jeans, which are thick enough to protect my legs from all but the thickest and pointiest branches.
Ion is moving briskly, almost at a jog. Obviously, if we’re going to stay ahead of Ram (who’s not going to just roll over and go back to sleep if he wakes up and realizes I’m missing) we’re going to have to move fast, at least until we get to the car.
If we can reach the car, there will be no way Ram will be able to catch us. We walked all day. If we run most of the night, it won’t take us that long to get to the car. How many days will it take to drive home through Russia? A few maybe, depending on how much we sleep. I don’t have much experience driving, but driving instruction was part of the curriculum at Saint Evangeline’s, and I have my license. I can take a turn driving so Ion can sleep.
I could be home by the end of the week.
The thought pushes me forward, and I run faster, leaping the smaller branches, pounding through the underbrush, panting hard.
And then I smell it.
At first I assume it’s the odor of a nearby farm with a lot of livestock. Or maybe I’m crunching some odoriferous leaves as I bound through the forest.
But I sniff harder, inhaling specifically through my nose. It’s faint at first, and I think maybe I’m paranoid, or imagining things, but the further we run, the thicker the smell gets, until there’s no denying what it is.
“Ion!” I call out to him, but he doesn’t slow down.
He’s been pulling ahead of me, never mind that I’ve been running faster and faster, until my throat burns with bile, which mixes with the stink of the yagi, so thick I could choke.
Ion doesn’t answer, only runs faster.
I don’t want to yell, or do anything to draw any more attention to myself than I’ve already done by crashing through the dark woods. You know, just in case the yagi haven’t noticed me yet.
Right.
“Ion!” I practically scream his name.
He glances back.
Okay, two weird things. One, he’s finally taken off his sunglasses, which he’d been wearing all night (I guess I sort of figured they were prescription? Honestly, his eyewear has been the least of my concerns) and his eyes are sort of glowing a silvery green, which would be right lovely if it wasn’t completely unnatural.
It’s like they’re lit up from behind, a little like how cat’s eyes glow at night, except more. It’s freaking me out.
The other thing, which only serves to make the first thing a ba-zillion times more freaky, is that he’s grinning.
Not a friendly grin.
More like an evil, mocking, hungry grin.
Yes, hungry.
I see this all in an instant, in way less time than it takes to tell it. At the same time, I’m still running and staring at Ion, so of course you can guess what happens next.
I trip over a branch and stumble forward, skidding along the undergrowth (I really hope there’s no poison ivy here, because I’ve had that before and it was awful) and kind of rolling onto my back as these unnatural clacking noises clatter all around me.
Something is moving toward me through the woods. Moonlight glints off squat, domed heads. I can’t see them terribly well in the darkness, but what I can see looks like bugs walking upright, except they’re taller than I am, and they’re making the most horrendous rasping sound, kind of like they’re clearing their throats preparing to spit.
Yagi.
They’re coming from every direction.
“Ion!” I scream again, this time not so much calling out his name, as just screaming.
The moon is still just a sliver, the light mostly shadow and darkness, but I can see their shiny heads pouring from the trees on all sides, closing in on me. The smell is thick, so thick.
I am completely surrounded.
The rasping sound is seriously freaking me out. I�
��m pretty much just screaming back at them now, a battle for volume I can’t begin to win. Their noise is unearthly, grating, making me clench my teeth together, locking all my joints as I lie frozen on the ground, rendered immobile by that hideous sound.
The simmering moonlight moves in ripples off their heads, highlighting what it had at first camouflaged. Atop their domed heads, what first looked like eyebrows now spring up straight from their heads like spears. Antenna? Horns? The first of the yagi dip their heads toward me, swinging the spears like swords to slice, jab, or impale.
My swords are digging into my back, a sharp, stabbing sensation that pierces my terror and reminds me that I have swords.
I have swords! The reminder is enough to jolt me out of my sound-induced stupor. Leaping to my feet, I grab my two longest and baddest swords, the ones I keep in the double baldrics in an “x” across my back. I’m hoping they’ll do that reassuring singing thing when I pull them out, the resonating hum of metal on metal that ought to send a chill running down the enemy’s spine, and maybe even overpower their unearthly grating hiss.
But they don’t. My backpack is in the way and my arms are weak and trembley from fear and exhaustion (seriously, what time is it, anyway? Shouldn’t the sun come up so I can at least see what I’m doing?). So one sword sort of clatters from its sheath and the other sticks halfway out and I have to give it a couple of extra tugs, during which time the first of the yagi pounce, charging at me like angry insect bulls, horns down, ready to skewer me.
The one free sword is in my left hand, my dominant hand (because I wasn’t weird enough already, I guess) and I swing it fiercely toward the two approaching creatures while I pull the other sword free with a final tug.
Theoretically—and this actually worked a bunch of times when I was fighting beef carcasses, which in addition to standing still and not fighting back, don’t even have skin to resist my blades—the swing of my sword should have decapitated the yagi.
You know, that whole defending-myself-against-my-enemies-with-such-effective-swordwork-my-blade-never-touches-theirs thing that sounded so good in the meat locker.