by Geoff Rodkey
We still had one full skin, but Guts had gone through a fair amount of the second one. I held up the half-empty skin.
“Think we can drink this now?”
Kira nodded, but Millicent looked skeptical. “Rather we wait a bit,” she said.
“What if I run back to that stream and refill it before dark?”
Millicent didn’t like the idea of our splitting up, but it was a straight shot downhill and back, and Kira didn’t have a problem with it, so she reluctantly agreed.
Before I left—and so I wouldn’t feel guilty when I drank it myself—I offered them what was left in the skin. Millicent declined, which seemed crazy to me.
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
“Some. But…”
I watched Kira drink from the skin. “But what?”
“What if it was the water that made him sick?”
That didn’t make sense to me. “Water’s just water,” I said. “And Guts didn’t drink from this until after he got sick.”
Kira finished her drink and offered the skin to Millicent again.
“I’ll wait,” said Millicent.
More for me, I thought as I drained the skin.
I could feel the water slosh in my belly as I trotted down the hill to get more.
I can still remember how delicious that water tasted—clean, crisp, and still cold even though hours had passed since we’d drawn it from the stream.
And I remember laughing to myself at the idea that something so good could possibly hurt me.
I was halfway to the stream and moving at a good clip when my stomach started to feel quivery. I figured it was because I was going too fast with all that water in my belly, so I slowed my pace.
When the quivery feeling didn’t go away, I chalked it up to hunger and tried to take my mind off it by focusing on the forest around me. The sun hadn’t quite sunk over the mountains looming to my right, and scattered shafts of light filtered through the trees, dappling the woods in shimmery white patches. Birds chattered here and there, and if I listened carefully, I could hear the hum of insects.
I didn’t know much of religion, but right then the forest struck me as something more than beautiful. It was almost holy.
The Valley of Ka. The Sun God…
Those shimmery patches were part of the thing Kira worshiped, and they were everywhere, all around me. I marveled at that, thinking it was just possible that Ka really existed, and was watching over us, and that was why we hadn’t come across any Moku, and that only Guts had gotten sick, and when he did, we had just enough of the cure to fix him.
And now he was on the mend, and soon we’d be on our way again, none the worse for wear.
We were blessed. And the forest was a temple, and I was grateful for it, and everything was fine.
Except for the rumbling in my stomach.
But dinner would fix that.
I was close enough to hear the stream below me when the first pains arrived, little needles in my gut that came and went. Then they started coming faster, and staying longer, and the water wasn’t sloshing around in me anymore, so I was sure it must be hunger, and there was nothing to do but wait it out.
By the time I reached the stream, the pain had built to a steady ache in my gut. I figured the best thing was to drown it with the clear water, so I knelt down along the spongy bank and took up a mouthful in my cupped hands.
It was so cold it froze my fingers and made my teeth hurt. I counted the handfuls as I slurped them down. Four…five…six…My hands turned numb from the cold.
Seven…eight…
Then there was a bolt of pain like a hammer to my gut, and it hit me so hard I felt my forehead go clammy.
I’ve got to get back to the others.
I filled the skin with fumbling, cold-stiff fingers and turned back up the hill.
There was another bolt of pain, so bad it stopped me in my tracks. When it faded, I started to run, straight uphill as fast as I could.
Almost from the first step, I was shaky and weak. All the energy had been sucked out of me.
I did my best. I stumbled up the hill.
Then I fell.
I didn’t get back up.
I hadn’t gone far. I could still hear the stream behind me.
The next wave of pain hit me so hard I nearly cried out.
I rolled onto my side and vomited.
Once I started to puke, I couldn’t stop. My stomach squeezed into a knot and tried to force its way out through my teeth.
It went on for a while. My body was strangling itself to get rid of something that wasn’t even there anymore.
I’d been sick before. But never like this. I’d never felt this kind of pain.
Got to get back to the others.
I got up and tried to walk. I didn’t get far.
I curled up on the ground.
Just like Guts…
I wanted to yell out for my friends, but I knew I couldn’t because there might be Moku nearby.
The pain kept coming.
I started to shiver.
I was going to freeze to death.
The light in the forest was fading. The pain was only getting worse.
I prayed I’d pass out so I didn’t have to feel it anymore.
Time seemed to stop. Everything stopped. I might have passed out.
But if I did, the pain followed me.
“SHHH…”
I heard Millicent’s voice in my ear, floating above the fog.
“Shhh…”
I was shivering and wet, and the pain was like a burning rod running through my gut.
I opened my eyes. It was night. I couldn’t see a thing. But I could feel Millicent lying beside me, her body pressed against my back, one arm moving rapidly across my chest, trying to keep me warm.
“Shhh….”
She wanted me to be quiet.
I didn’t even know I’d been making noise.
I shut my eyes again. I just wanted the pain to stop.
I OPENED MY EYES. It was light now. I could hear the sound of the stream.
I was alone. There was a blanket on me. I couldn’t move. Or didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure which.
I was still shivering. The pain was different now. Deeper and heavier. And it was spreading. Like it was swallowing me.
I didn’t want to be alone. I tried to raise my head to look around, but it took too much effort.
In the corner of my eye, there was a tree.
Something big and red was in the tree.
The thing that was red moved.
I tried to shift a little to get a better look at it. It hurt just to move my eyeballs.
The red thing was a bird. Huge and terrible, with a long, sharp yellow beak.
It was staring at me.
Then it swiveled its head away, looking back over its shoulder.
It unfolded its giant wings and flapped off.
I heard footsteps.
They grew louder. Someone dropped to their knees in front of me.
It was Kira. She was holding something green and dank-smelling in front of my nose.
“Can you eat this?”
The smell made me retch.
“Please.”
She held it in front of my mouth. I opened it and let her stuff a piece inside.
I tried to chew. I gagged.
She had more of the stuff. And water in a skin. She gave me both.
I threw it all up.
She stood up fast. Then I felt her pull me from behind, moving me away from the sick I’d left on the ground. It hurt to be moved like that, and right away, the cold shot through me and I started to shiver. I felt her adjust the blanket.
It was so cold.
More footsteps.
“How is he?”
“I gave him this.”
“Ain’t it. Too green. Gotta be more blue.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Nah. Gonna go lower.”
“That way.”
“I should look also. There’s not much time.”
Then they were gone, and I was alone again.
“C’MON!”
“Please!”
“Egg, you’ve got to!”
They were begging me to do something, but I couldn’t understand what. Their voices sounded like they were under water.
Something kept brushing against my lips. I shook it off.
I just wanted to be left alone.
Someone pulled my jaw down, forcing my mouth open. Then they stuffed something inside and pressed my mouth shut.
I wouldn’t chew.
They moved my jaw for me.
I retched.
They held my jaw shut.
“Hold it in. Please!”
“Please, Egg!”
I tried. I even managed to swallow it.
Then I threw it all up.
We did the whole thing over again.
Then again.
Finally, I kept it down.
They gave me water, and I slept.
I woke a little before dawn, just as the forest birds were beginning to stir. The pain was gone and the fever had finally broken—under the blanket, my clothes were damp with sweat, but I wasn’t shivering, or even all that cold.
Lying on my side, I didn’t see anyone in front of me, but I could feel a body through the blanket, nestled against my back. I rolled over. It was Millicent. She was sharing the second blanket with Guts and Kira, who were huddled beside her.
Millicent stirred. She smiled at me, then nodded her head in the direction of a water skin just above my head.
“It’s okay to drink?”
“It is now. You got the cure.”
I got up on my elbows and drank from the skin. She took it from me and drank some herself.
“Did you get sick, too?”
“Just a bit. Not like you and Guts. I took the cure before I had any water.”
“How’d you get it?”
“It grows down in the valley. On the bark of some of the trees. Took some doing to find it.”
She reached out and combed back the hair on my forehead with her fingers. “Try to sleep some more.”
I closed my eyes and drifted off again.
SOMETHING PRODDED ME in the head, startling me awake.
“Da lata.”
It was a man’s voice, deep and rough. I opened my eyes to see a pair of copper-skinned legs right in front of me, the calf muscles thick and ropy. I followed his legs upward with my eyes.
He wore just a loincloth on his lower half. A thin rope circled his waist, a knife dangling from it in a sheath. The rest of him was draped in a jaguar skin, complete with a hood made of the animal’s head, its upper teeth sticking out above his painted face.
The black hole of his rifle barrel looked straight down at me.
He lifted his bare foot and shoved me in the forehead with his heel.
“Da lata!”
I stumbled to my feet along with Guts and the girls. Half a dozen warriors with rifles surrounded us. They’d already taken all our weapons except Guts’s hook.
Soon enough, they had that, too.
MOKU
One of the Moku warriors barked an order.
“Put your hands on your heads,” Kira translated as she raised her arms. We all copied her except Guts. Bright red blood streamed from his mouth, where he’d been clocked with a rifle butt for not giving up his hook fast enough.
“Nuts to that,” he spat, along with a fair amount of blood.
“Don’t be stupid. They’ll shoot you.”
If it had been anyone but Kira telling him, he probably wouldn’t have done it. But he put his arms up, grabbing his stump with his good hand to hold it over his head.
The Moku who must have been their leader—he looked older than the others, had thick scars across both cheeks, and was doing all the talking—gave an order to the man next to him. The man knelt down and began to empty the contents of Kira’s pack onto one of our blankets.
As he did, the leader stepped over to stand in front of Kira.
“Da gi Okalu?” His voice was sharp and cruel.
“Ke, Okalu.” Her voice was flat, but she stared back at him with hate in her eyes.
The leader took a step back and handed his rifle to one of the others.
Then he drew a black stone knife from a sheath at his waist.
My heart started thumping hard in my chest. I turned my shoulders toward Kira, the muscles tensing in my arms and legs. On the other side of her, I saw Guts lower his head like a bull about to charge.
The other warriors raised their rifles a little higher, ready to shoot any of us if we moved to help her.
Just then, the warrior searching Kira’s pack spoke up. Everyone turned to look at him.
He was holding up the firebird necklace.
The leader’s eyes widened in surprise. He lowered the knife.
Then he took the necklace. He held it up in front of Kira as he asked her a question.
She answered. This time—even as he faced her with a knife in his hand—she couldn’t quite get the hate out of her voice.
The leader glared at her for a long moment. Then he lowered his eyes, putting the knife back in its sheath so he could examine the necklace with both hands.
He traded a few words with the man who was searching Kira’s pack.
After that, he asked Kira a series of questions. At first, her voice rose at the end of her sentences, like she didn’t quite understand what he was asking her. But pretty soon, her tone turned flat again.
Finally, the leader reached some kind of conclusion. He carefully put the necklace in a small leather sack that hung from a cord around his waist. Then he issued several orders to his men. Two warriors with machetes headed off into the trees while the others herded us into a tight cluster and sat us down.
Then they ate our food as they kept their rifles trained on us.
“What’s happening?” Millicent whispered to Kira.
Kira shook her head. She looked a little bewildered. “Possibly I don’t understand Moku. But I think he believes we fell from the sky.”
“That’s crazy.” Guts had his mouth pressed to the tail of his shirt, sopping the blood.
“Yes. But it stopped him cutting my heart out. So I think it is better if he believes it.”
The leader barked at us, gesturing with his knife. We didn’t need a translator to understand we had to quit talking.
HALF AN HOUR LATER, the two warriors returned with a ten-foot length of tree trunk, newly cut, its branches hacked off. The Moku stood us up in a line, placed the trunk across our right shoulders, and used long strips cut from one of our blankets to tie us to the trunk by the wrists.
Then they marched us straight downhill. It was a steep slope with a lot of brush, and tied together like that, it was hard going. Guts was in the lead, and I was last, just behind Millicent. Without our hands free to keep our balance, we were constantly pitching over, and whenever someone fell, they dragged the others down with them.
Worse, whenever Guts quickened his pace or leaped over something, the trunk would jerk the rest of us forward, and we’d all topple to the ground face-first.
Even after he got it through his head that he had to keep a steady pace, Guts didn’t seem to understand that if he veered to one side, the trunk swung around and pushed me in the opposite direction, which usually meant I caught a branch to the face.
And whenever I yelled to Guts to be more careful, the Moku bringing up the rear would smash a rifle butt against my back as a warning not to talk.
We were on the hill for a miserable hour or two, and the whole time, it took every bit of my concentration just to keep moving forward. When we finally reached the valley floor, it got easier.
A while after that, we met up with the stone-paved road that we’d avoided back on the pass.
Once we were on the road, it was no trick to keep moving,
although the Moku forced us to double our pace, and it was hot and muggy on the valley floor, so it wasn’t exactly pleasant. Even so, now that I wasn’t preoccupied with just staying on my feet, I had a chance to think things over for the first time since I’d fallen ill with the Clutch.
The situation was bleak. These Moku were different from any other Natives I’d encountered, either in Pella or the wilderness. They were harsh and humorless, both with us and each other—even watching them talk amongst themselves, I hadn’t seen any of them so much as crack a smile or speak in a warm tone of voice. They doled out violence casually and with no warning, in a way that made me think it came as naturally to them as haggling did to the Flut.
I found myself thinking back to what the crew of the Thrush had told us on our first night at sea—that there were Natives who’d cut our hearts out and eat them while they were still beating. With all the other tribes I’d encountered, the idea seemed laughable. But with this bunch, it was all too easy to imagine. Kira’s comment about not getting her heart cut out just confirmed it—and I was terrified that although they’d spared her for the moment, sooner or later that’d be her fate.
It might be true of the rest of us as well.
Even if it wasn’t, I knew enough about the Moku’s recent history to be pretty sure the rifles they were carrying—identical to the flintlocks used by the Rovian soldiers who’d marched on my plantation—had come from Roger Pembroke, or someone connected to him.
The men who were marching us down this road were allies of my enemy.
How often did they speak to him? How much did they know about who we were?
Did they have anything to do with the invasion Millicent said was coming?
And what would be worse—if they knew how valuable the map in my head was, or if they didn’t?
Either way, it wasn’t good.
If I’d only listened to Millicent and hadn’t drunk that water, we wouldn’t have gotten stuck in one place for so long, and the Moku never would have found us. I’d doomed us all by being an idiot.
The afternoon sun was brutal, and the thick air on the valley floor was as stifling as a bad day back on Deadweather. I watched my friends stagger along in front of me, wilting from the heat and the lack of food and water. Tied up like animals.