Umbertouched

by Livia Blackburne

  “And me, what should I decide?”

  She smiles. “You should decide on the world,” she says. “Feel everything. Experience everything while you can. Trust me, I know. I was locked up like a proper lady even before the plague hit me. If I hadn’t stepped out of those walls. I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have met Sisson.” She looks at her palms and spreads her fingers wide. “Rose plague might keep us from living a long life, but it can’t keep us from living a full one.”

  “The Amparans are going to infect the Dara with rose plague,” I say.

  Gatha stares at me. “What are you saying?”

  I don’t blame her for thinking I’ve lost my mind. It all seems crazy to me as well. “When I scouted the Amparan outpost on the western beach, I found catapults on the beach and a tent filled with bags of flour. Why would they have catapults when we have no city walls to breach? And the bags of flour were small, more suited for a household’s use than to feed an army. It was strange, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. Then Zivah told me tainted flour was what Baruva used to infect Arxa’s troops. Thing is, though, the flour doesn’t have to be mixed into food to infect someone. Bags that small can be catapulted into the air and shot so the flour gets dispersed over the people below. I promise you, the battalion’s dragging those things through the mountains now toward the Dara camp.”

  “Are you sure of this?” says Gatha.

  “As sure as I can be. You must decide whether to trust me.”

  Gatha’s quiet a good long while, her chin in her hand as she studies a spot on the ground before her. Finally she looks up at me. “What would we need to stop this attack?”

  “There are roughly a hundred soldiers, probably all umbertouched. If I had to make a wager, I would say they’re all headed there. We need to get to the Dara camp before they do and empty it of everyone inside. And then we need to destroy the catapults and burn all their flour bundles. For that, I’ll need the help of every umbertouched fighter we have.”

  Karu steps forward, a fiery expression on her umbermarked face. “I misjudged you, Dineas, and I won’t do so again,” she says. “I will fight under your command.” I don’t miss the significance of this—a warlord volunteering to follow my orders—and the sharp intakes of breath around me show that others don’t either.

  Gaumit is the next to step out. “I, as well.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  I look around, but the rest of the faces around me are unmarked. Three of us against an entire battalion...Neju help us.

  “You have your umbertouched fighters,” says Gatha, “but I won’t divide our troops after all that’s happened. We all march to the Dara camp, and we’ll all defend the evacuation.”

  Within an hour, every fighter is ready to go. We have less distance than the Amparans to travel, but that means very little since we have no idea when they started. Gatha sets a grueling pace, following the length of a wide valley that gets narrower as we march. Once night falls, the going gets trickier, but we push grimly on, one step in front of the next until the moon sets, and Gatha finally allows us a few hours of rest.

  Dawn brings more marching. Finally the two walls of the valley meet in a half-moon cliff that towers in front of us. It’s hard to spot the camp at first, but eventually I see movement in the bamboo ahead—a flash of tunic, a shifting in the leaves. There are no sounds of fighting, and I breathe a sign of relief.

  A runner comes to greet us as we come down the trail.

  “I need to speak to Tal,” says Gatha. “Right away.”

  “And Kaylah,” I add. Gatha nods.

  As the runner goes off in search of them, villagers gather around us. I see young and old Dara faces, equal parts curious and scared. Though the Dara have never been an extravagant people, it’s clear that they’re living even more simply than before. Everyone wears old, beat-up clothes, and some of the women have given up their aproned dresses for tunics and trousers. Children have unkempt hair and dirt on their faces. I look around for Zivah’s family, but I don’t see them.

  Then the crowd parts, and Tal strides toward us with Kaylah on his heels. “Gatha. What has happened?”

  “We need to speak, alone,” says Gatha.

  Tal raises his eyebrows, but he and Kaylah follow Gatha and me a distance away.

  “I hope that was truly necessary,” says Tal when we stop. “It’s not our custom for the leader to keep secrets from his people.”

  “You’ll tell them soon enough,” says Gatha. “We need to empty this camp. There are Amparans coming, armed with plague-infested weapons.”

  Tal’s mouth drops open.

  Kaylah takes a half step forward. “What kind of weapons?”

  “Tainted flour,” I say. “They plan to lob bags of it into the air and scatter it over the camp.”

  “You’re sure of this?” asks Tal.

  “Sure enough to march our fighters here through the night,” says Gatha.

  Both Tal and Kaylah fall quiet as they digest the news.

  Tal breaks the silence first. “How much time do we have?”

  “We don’t know,” Gatha says. “Act as quickly as possible, and, Kaylah, if there’s anything you and your fellow healers can do to protect us...”

  Kaylah nods, assuming an air of authority. “We need to store food and water in earthen jars, and every jar must be filled and sealed well enough to survive a fire. Everyone should be instructed to ready their heaviest cloaks, gloves, and scarves, to wear if we’re attacked. I’ll consult with my fellow healers as well, but this is where we should start.”

  Tal steps back and starts delivering orders. As Kaylah rushes off, Gatha signals for the Shidadi to gather around. “I need scouts,” she says. “Scouts and crows to go in all directions. We’re looking for a battalion of a hundred or so men with catapults and bundles of flour.” She sends out twenty scouts in groups of two, each with a crow.

  After the Shidadi scatter, I walk through the camp looking for Zivah’s family and trying to get a better sense of the terrain. The residents have taken pains not to leave much of a mark on the forest. Most of the bamboo still stands, though small patches here and there have been cleared for gardens. I wonder what crops they’re planting, given that they never know how long they’ll be able to stay in one place. A few families have strung up mats of leaves between stalks for shelter, though they wouldn’t last long in a hard rain, and wouldn’t provide much cover if plague were to rain down from the sky. As word spreads, I see more and more people frantically packing and setting out clothes.

  Finally, I glimpse a familiar face—Zivah’s sister Leora crouches underneath a mat, folding clothes. Her belly is so large now that I’m convinced the baby could come out this second, and I wonder if she should really be squatting in her state. She sees me coming and stands nervously, putting a hand to her back as she straightens.

  “Zivah is alive,” I say. “And she’s back in Monyar.”

  Relief floods Leora’s face. “Is she well?”

  She’s alone in a cave with a dying Amparan commander, in a forest infested with Amparan soldiers. Even if those soldiers don’t find her, even if she survives this war, she will still die. “As well as can be expected.”

  Nearby, Zivah’s father and a man who I guess is Leora’s husband have untied a large piece of cloth from some stalks of bamboo and spread it out for folding. “Keep that out,” I tell them. “Use it to cover yourselves if there’s an attack.”

  “Dineas!” Alia runs up now. Her braid bounces wildly, and her clothes are covered in patches. “Will we have to fight the Amparans?”

  “Let’s hope not,” I say, remembering my promise to Zivah. “A fight is nothing to wish for.” A flash of annoyance crosses Alia’s face, but a runner comes by before I can give it much thought.

  “Gather in the meeting place for news!” he shouts.

  Leora gives me a questioning look. “So soon? Wouldn’t our time be better spent gathering our belongings?”

&n
bsp; All I can do is shake my head. News that comes so quickly doesn’t bode well. “Where’s the meeting place?” I ask.

  “This way, I’ll take you,” Alia says, and pulls us in the direction the runner had come from. Other bewildered people walk the same way, though most of them pass us because we go at Leora’s pace. We reach a patch of forest that’s less thickly wooded. Dara sit in clusters between the bamboo, whispering among themselves. A handful of Shidadi stand along the perimeter, fingering their weapons and scanning the forest. At the front of the crowd, Tal stands next to Gatha.

  Tal raises his hands for people to quiet down. “I’m sorry to call everyone out here so soon after the order was given to move camp. Our situation changes with every new report from our scouts.”

  Murmurs greet his words. It’s strange to me how open Tal is in sharing information with the village.

  Tal raises his hands for silence. “We learned this morning that a traitor has revealed the location of our camp to the Amparan army. We suspected that an umbertouched battalion of a hundred soldiers was headed toward us, armed with the rose plague. As we’ve prepared to move our camp, Gatha sent out scouts to locate them.”

  The crowd falls into nervous silence.

  “The scouts didn’t find the umbertouched battalion,” says Tal, “but it appears that the main Amparan army, equipped with the traitor’s knowledge, has moved much more quickly than we anticipated. There are ten thousand troops less than a day’s march away, and they have blocked off our path for evacuation.”

  We don’t encounter any Amparan scouts as we near Kiran’s beach. At first I think it’s a stroke of luck to get so close without a warning call from Scrawny, but no one’s fortune is this good.

  “Something’s not right,” I tell Mehtap and Sisson.

  Still, there’s nothing to do but to keep going. When we finally get to the cliff overlooking the water, we realize why we’ve met no scouts.

  “They’re all gone,” says Mehtap.

  Signs of the soldiers are everywhere—rocks have been trampled into the mud, scraps of fabric blow in the wind, and ashes from old campfires are scattered over the sand—but there is not a single person here.

  “You’re sure Baruva was here?” I ask Mehtap.

  “Walgash said he was,” she says. “But the entire battalion must have moved on.”

  An entire umbertouched battalion has begun to march, and the Amparans know where my people are. I feel as if I’ve swallowed a stone.

  “Maybe they left some clues,” I say, and step out onto the trail. It’s rocky and steep. Seagulls hop on the rocks below, picking at the detritus left by the army. We hike down carefully and then spread out to look for clues.

  “There was a large tent set up here,” says Sisson, pointing to a spot where the rocks had been cleared away.

  “It looks the same size as Baruva’s tent at Taof,” I say. I bend down to pick up a length of yarn as long as my finger—the tassel on a fine silk rug. Apparently Baruva’s still fond of his comforts. “Are we sure Baruva left with the battalion? I can’t see him as a battlefield healer.”

  “I’m not sure,” says Mehtap, “but I don’t know where else he might have gone.”

  I suppose she’s right. “Perhaps we can still catch up to them.”

  It’s easy enough to follow the battalion’s path. One hundred men dragging equipment don’t hide their tracks very well. The tracks are fresh and get fresher as we go. As we add our footprints to the ones already there, mud from the churned ground sticks to our shoes and stains the bottom of our trousers. Finally Scrawny calls a warning, and we slow down.

  Sisson volunteers to scout, loping away with the efficient grace of a professional soldier. He returns with a satisfied smile. “He’s set up his tent at the edge of camp. I saw him walking around—not so fond of the soldiers from the expression on his face.”

  “At the edge of camp?” I ask. “Not separate from them?”

  “No,” says Sisson.

  “How many soldiers nearby?”

  “A good twenty right outside his tent,” he says.

  Truth is, getting Baruva away from the soldiers was the one part of the plan I hadn’t figured out.

  “We can go in after it’s dark,” says Sisson. “Sneak into his tent.”

  “We’d have to find a way to subdue him and carry him out without waking anyone,” I say.

  “You could give him a sleeping potion,” says Mehtap.

  “I could, but I don’t have enough darts for all the soldiers around him.”

  We fall silent. Mehtap rubs at her temple. Sisson lays a concerned hand on her shoulder, and she acknowledges it with a pat.

  An idea comes to me. “Sisson, do the soldiers share a group privy?”

  He raises his eyebrows at my question. “I wasn’t looking for one, but general protocol is to dig an open trench a short distance from camp.”

  “And all are required to use it, right?”

  “Yes. Makes the rest of the place a lot more pleasant for everyone.”

  “It’s just a hunch,” I say, “but Baruva doesn’t strike me as the type who will stoop to sharing a privy with a crowd of soldiers. It just might be worth it for him to sneak away without his bodyguards. Let’s watch this area for a few hours. I’ll go west with Scrawny, and you two go east.”

  Mehtap frowns. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s the best way to cover the area. I feel fine, and I’ll have my blowgun.” I try my best to look confident. It’s true, though, that my fever seems to have given me a few hours of respite.

  Sisson wavers for a moment, but simply says, “Send the crow if you run into trouble.”

  The forest is quiet as I head west. There are none of the usual birdcalls in the branches around me. That, along with the abundance of trampled vegetation, makes me believe that there’s a battalion of soldiers nearby. I walk a little ways before ducking behind a thicket. I’m too far to see the camp from my hiding place, but hopefully I’m close enough to intercept anyone that Scrawny sees.

  Scrawny calls twice over the next hour, but it’s for scouts both times, and I duck low as soon as I see their armor through the leaves. Finally, Scrawny calls again. This time, instead of armor, I glimpse a finely woven golden-brown tunic. I feel a twinge of recognition. That outfit still isn’t well suited for hiking the forest, but better than his embroidered robes, I suppose.

  Baruva makes his way gingerly through the bamboo, his nose wrinkled in a permanent expression of distaste as he looks this way and that. I trail him, staying as far back as I can without losing sight of him. Finally, he stops, looks around one more time, and ducks out of view. I speed up now, putting on gloves and getting a dart ready for my blowgun.

  Baruva’s head appears again through the leaves. Stepping slowly, I take aim, though my traitorous arm won’t stay still. I take a breath, hold it, and shoot. The dart goes wide, and I suppress a cry of frustration.

  As I grab for another dart, Baruva looks in my direction, and his eyes open wide. He stands to run.

  No. The thought of him getting away again lends speed to my hands. In one quick movement, I aim and shoot again.

  He slaps the back of his neck with his palm, and then he falls.

  It’s a while before the crowd quiets enough for Tal to give us more details. The camp is built at the base of a half-moon granite cliff facing southeast. The trails that lead up the cliff are steep and narrow, which makes the campsite easier to defend because you can only move in from the south, along the valley. At the same time, we didn’t think the valley was so small as to become a trap. What we’d failed to take into account was the sheer size of the Amparan army, and how close they were able to get without us seeing. With a big enough cover, even the widest of bowls can be turned into a flytrap.

  With escape to the southeast blocked off, our only way out is to climb the trails up the cliff and hike down along the ridge. It’s hard travel, especially for the young and infirm, and people will only be able
to go two or three abreast. It will take many days to get everyone out this way, and we’ll have to hold off the army in the meantime.

  I keep wondering about the scouts’ reports. Why couldn’t they find the umbertouched battalion? Where could the battalion be, if not here? I suppose at this point it doesn’t matter. I’d been so worried about plague weapons, I’d forgotten to worry about anything else, but this is a grim reminder that rank-and-file Amparan troops can leave us just as dead.

  After Tal dismisses the gathering, some of the Dara race back to their campsites, while others huddle and console each other. Leora stands wordless, one hand on her belly.

  Alia looks up at me. “I may have to fight after all.”

  Though I’d been fighting for years at her age, her words make me sad. “We might not need you. We’re not as big as the Amparan army, but we still have several hundred fighters. With a well-planned defense—”

  This time, the anger across her brow is much harder to miss. “That’s not what you said before.”

  Her rage catches me off guard. “What?”

  “You had no problems with me fighting when you were teaching me. Zivah made you promise to keep me safe, didn’t she?”

  I rub at the back of my neck. She knows her sister well. “She’s worried about you.”

  Alia tosses her braid over her shoulder. “So you want to hide me away like some useless bauble? I’ve seen the way you Shidadi look at us. Like we’re a burden, a village full of children to be taken care of.” She stomps her foot. “This is my home too. These are my people.” Before I can reply, she takes Leora’s hand. “Come, Mother and Father will be looking for us.”

  Leora shoots me an apologetic look over her shoulder as they leave. I wonder if I should follow, but Gatha’s here in the middle of a crowd of Shidadi. She acknowledges my approach with a nod as she gives instructions to one of the chief Dara builders.