The Shattered Mountain (fire and thorns)

by Rae Carson

She pokes at a glowing branch with her knife, sending sparks flying. She whispers, “I found him alive.”

  Julio says nothing. Mara feels his eyes on her as he waits patiently. He could draw secrets from a rock this way, by letting the empty silence stretch on until the rock has no choice but to fill it with words. It’s how he got Mara to tell him all the things her pá had done.

  Mara doesn’t mind. Because Julio—unlike everyone else she has ever known—truly wants to listen.

  “He tried to hurt me,” she says finally. “Even though I came back to help. He thought I was stealing. I think he was crazed from smoke, maybe from the duerma leaf I gave him. So I kicked at him to get away, and I . . . I think I killed him. Either way, I left him to die.” She turns a defiant gaze on him. “I know I should feel guilty. But I don’t. Not at all.”

  She watches carefully as the shock on his face fades to acceptance.

  “You’re free of him,” he says finally.

  She nods, unable to speak. Free of him, yes. But she doesn’t feel free. Maybe when Julio recovers. Maybe then.

  With the rustle of dry brush, Adán and Reynaldo return. Adán barrels forward, tears streaming down his face, and drops to his knees beside his brother. He reaches down to hug him, but Mara says, “Easy. Don’t jostle the wound.”

  “Hello, Adán,” Julio breathes. Mara hopes it’s the duerma-leaf tea making him sound even weaker than before. “I hope you’ve been keeping an eye on my girl for me?”

  Adán nods, swiping at his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Even though you’re too ugly for her.”

  “True,” Julio says. “I hope . . .” His voice devolves into a cough. “I hope she likes scars. This one is going to be huge.”

  “I love scars,” Mara says, but her voice trembles. Coughing is a bad, bad sign.

  Her blade glows red. It’s now or never.

  “We’re getting this arrow out. Reynaldo, take his shoulders. Adán, his legs. He’ll try to throw you off. He won’t be able to help himself. You must hold him down. Do you understand?”

  “I can help,” says Carella’s daughter. “I’m a good helper!”

  Mara almost snaps at her to go away, but changes her mind. “Could you . . .” She searches her mind for a task to keep the girl busy and out of her way. “Hold his feet? That would be a big help.”

  The girl nods solemnly. Everyone gets into position.

  Reynaldo reaches for a twisted bundle of mesquite and snaps off a large twig. He slides it into Julio’s mouth and encourages him to bite down. “Don’t want you biting off your own tongue,” he says.

  Mara hesitates. She has treated all sorts of minor wounds, for their village had no doctor. But she has never removed an arrow. What if she makes it worse? “Everyone ready?” she asks, knife poised.

  They nod, eyes wide.

  Mara touches the burning knife to Julio’s back. He hisses as it sizzles his skin, but he doesn’t move. She shoves the blade down alongside the arrow shaft. He screams.

  She works fast, abandoning finesse. There is so much pus, and the flesh is so swollen that it’s hard to see. He grunts horribly, over and over like a hungry pig, and his body thrashes around. “Hold him!” Mara yells.

  Adán squeezes his eyes tight, and tears leak from them as he strains to hold his brother down.

  Mara cuts away dead flesh, sopping up viscous, red-tinged fluid as she goes. Finally she exposes the arrowhead enough to get a grip on it. It’s lodged in his rib. You will not vomit, you will not vomit, you will not vomit.

  She slows down to dig at the bone with the point of her blade. Too much pressure and she’ll crack it. Julio yells one last time and goes limp. She breathes relief.

  Once the arrowhead is loosened a bit, she wraps her hands around it. Before she can think too hard, she gives it a powerful jerk, and it comes free. Blood pours from the wound.

  While her knife reheats in the fire, she cleans the wound as best as she can, using the last of the boiled water. Cleaning helps her see that most of the blood is coming from one tiny spot. So she lays the blade against his flesh and cauterizes it. She gags on the scent. She’s not the only one; Reynaldo lurches to the side of the ravine and vomits into the mesquite.

  Mara sits back on her heels, wiping sweat from her forehead with a sleeve. “It is done,” she says to no one in particular. Her hands are soaked with Julio’s blood.

  “Aren’t you going to stitch it up?” Adán says.

  “I’m going to let it drain,” she says. “Might help the infection.” She’s guessing about that. All she has are guesses—that draining the wound is the right thing to do. That Inviernos won’t patrol the Shattermount’s fault. That there is indeed a secret haven where these children will be safe.

  She feels a hand on her shoulder and turns to find Reynaldo standing above her. His face is pale, but he’s steady now. “We can’t stay here,” he says. “Especially with a fire.”

  Julio shouldn’t be moved. Not for days. But Reynaldo is right. Staying in one place will just bring the Inviernos down on top of them. There is also the small matter of provisions. They will use the last of their food tonight. Nothing but a bread round and a handful of dates shared among eleven people will ensure they all wake with aching, empty bellies.

  “We’ll move at first light,” Mara says. “I’ll strap him to one of the horses if I have to.”

  “I’ll hunt tonight,” Reynaldo says. “Maybe I can turn up a rabbit.”

  Mara nods. “Just be careful. This mountain might be crawling with Invierno scouts.”

  10

  REYNALDO does not find a rabbit. He does, however, encounter a burned-down farmstead with a cellar. In the cellar, he finds three musty turnips, a jar of pomegranate jelly, a side of bacon, and two frightened boys.

  He brings them back to their campsite, and Mara is both delighted and dismayed to see them. Two more survivors. Two more mouths to feed.

  The boys themselves, ten and thirteen, are so happy to see everyone that they burst into tears. Mara hugs them tight, even though they might be a bit old for hugging, and assures them that they are safe.

  When did she become such a liar?

  She gets everyone organized for sleep—small children with older ones, two or three to a blanket—then lies down beside Julio, who still sleeps soundly. She yearns to wrap her arms around him but doesn’t dare jostle the wound. She is chilled, her shoulder aches from the hard ground, and her stomach rumbles with hunger, so it is hours before she finally drifts off into restless sleep.

  In the morning, her first conscious thought is for Julio. She puts a hand on his shoulder, terrified that she won’t feel the rise and fall of his breathing. But she does. It’s steady and even. Almost healthy. The tiny spark of hope inside her burns hot and bright.

  His eyelids flutter at her touch, and when he opens his eyes and sees her, he smiles.

  “How do you feel?” she asks, reaching for his bandages. They are soaked with brownish drainage.

  He winces as she peels them back. “I feel wonderful,” he says. “Like I could fight the Inviernos, carry Adán over my shoulder, and dance a jig all at the same time.”

  Her lips twitch. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Because it turns out we’re running away together to join the rebellion after all.”

  He reaches for her hand and gives it a weak squeeze. “I saw this going differently in my head.”

  She sighs. “Me too. But . . . as long as we’re together, right?”

  He frowns. “No.”

  Something unpleasant curls in her belly. “What do you mean?” she asks carefully.

  He lifts his head. “Mara. Love. Don’t pin all your hopes on me. You are so much more than that. Instead of saying ‘as long as we’re together,’ I’d much rather you say, ‘as long as I’m alive.’”

  She squeezes his hand. “I can’t imagine life without you. I don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want to imagine a life without you either. But I do worry . . . sometimes .
. . that you only think you love me. That you’ve had so little kindness in your life that . . .” His voice breaks off at the horror on her face. “Oh, Mara, I’m not saying this well. That damn arrow has addled my mind. . . .”

  Mara brushes dark hair away from his forehead. “I do love you. And you know it.”

  He lets his head fall back to the earth and closes his eyes. “I just need . . . a little more rest.”

  “Sleep,” Mara orders. “I’ll rouse you when we’re ready to go.”

  He does not respond, and Mara waits to see him breathe before stepping away.

  11

  AFTER a quick breakfast of cold bacon, Mara cleans Julio’s wound and gives him fresh bandages. Not clean bandages, alas. The best she can do is tear a strip from one of the blankets. After letting the wound drain all night, she really should stitch it now. But she has no needle. Tonight, if it has worsened, she’ll have to cauterize the whole thing.

  With Reynaldo’s and Adán’s help, she gets Julio on one of the two packhorses. He can barely hold himself up, preferring to drape against the horse’s neck. They may have to tie him down soon.

  The sun shines bright and warm as they set off, but smoke has diffused into the air, coating the earth with a brownish haze. The thin trickle of water winding through their ravine is nearly dry. It pools in occasional shady puddles, warm and brackish. Mara will let the children drink from the stagnant water as a last resort, but it’s bound to make their bellies ache.

  After a few hours, the tiny girl says, “I’m hungry.”

  At least she’s no longer coughing.

  “Me too,” says one of the new boys.

  Mara sighs. She knew it was coming. But their food is in such short supply that she can’t feed them until they make camp tonight. “Keep an eye out for greens,” she orders the children. “Winter cress, aloe, nopales. We might still find some juniper berries. If you get too hungry, you can chew on white-pine needles.”

  At worst, the task will busy the children enough to keep them from complaining. At best, a few succulents might keep their thirst at bay. Once they leave the mountain to drop into the desert, food will be in even scarcer supply. She decides not to think about that just yet.

  They travel in silence. Mara can’t remember ever seeing such a silent group of children. There is only the sound of their footfalls displacing pebbles, the clop-clop of hooves, the squeal of an occasional raptor. And farther away, hollow and distant, the clap of thunder.

  “Stop! Everyone, stop.” Mara turns in place, neck craning to view the sky. There is not a cloud to be seen. The storm must be on the desert side of the mountain. If so, it would be a rarity. Something that only happens in late fall.

  Of course, it is late fall.

  The sky cracks again, closer this time.

  “That was thunder,” Reynaldo says.

  “I don’t see clouds,” says Adán.

  “What is it?” calls Julio from his horse. “What’s going on?”

  Mara eyes the ravine wall. Steep, but climbable. For her, at least. The littler ones might struggle.

  “If we climb up to the ridge, anyone can see us,” Reynaldo says.

  “If we don’t, we could be caught in a flood,” says Adán.

  “Maybe the storm is far away.”

  “What if it’s not?”

  Mara looks back and forth between them. They’re both right. What should she do? She hates having to be the one to decide.

  “We’ll go a little farther,” she says at last. “Look for a better place to climb up.” Julio and the horses might not make it up the side without an easier incline.

  Thunder rolls again as she beckons them forward. The air temperature takes a sudden drop; it happens so fast that she looks up at the ridge, half expecting to see an animagus who has wrought the change through magic.

  “Everyone look for a place to climb up,” she orders. The wind is gaining strength, and she must shout to be heard. She prays there are no enemy scouts nearby.

  One of the little boys begins to cry. Carella’s daughter sidles over and grabs his hand, and together they wind down the ravine, Mara not far behind.

  “The walls are getting steeper,” Reynaldo observes.

  Her heart sinks. She was hoping that she was imagining it. “Keep moving,” she urges.

  The wind lifts her hair from her neck, and she looks back toward the mountain peaks. Sure enough, blue-black clouds are rumbling toward them, shrouding the mountaintop in darkness. Lightning flashes somewhere inside the cloud bank, turning the edges a sickly green for the briefest moment.

  “Hurry!” Mara says, sweeping up the tiny girl in her arms and darting forward. “Does anyone see a way up? Anything at all?”

  But there is nothing. The walls are nearly sheer now, interrupted by clumps of mesquite. She could climb it. Reynaldo and Adán could too. But the little ones wouldn’t stand a chance, and Julio’s horse would never make it.

  The ground trembles. A jackrabbit bounces across their path, then two more. They fly up the steep bank and disappear into a tiny hole.

  “Did you see that?” Adán calls out.

  Mara’s heart races with the implication. If the animals are fleeing . . .

  “Run!” she screams. “Everybody run! Climb up as soon as you can.”

  The trickle of water they’ve been following widens to a tiny stream, pushing detritus along with it. They splash through, always looking upward toward the ridge, and Mara dreads seeing one of them go down with a sprained ankle.

  “There!” calls out the boy who had been crying only moments before. Mara follows the direction of his pointing finger and doesn’t see anything, but a few more steps forward and she does. It’s a drainage ditch, cutting through the hill—hardly more than a slight seam in the earth. Water pours down it already, into their ravine, but at a gentle enough slope that with some coaxing and pushing, the little ones might make it up.

  “Julio, you go first,” she orders. “Quickly!” It’s steep and uneven, but a good mountain pony should be able to make it.

  Julio clucks to the mare, and she plods forward into the adjoining ravine. His body lists to the right; he’s barely holding his seat. Mara almost steps forward to help him, but she can’t leave the little ones.

  The earth trembles again. “Go! Hurry!” she yells, gesturing the others to follow Julio. Which is when she sees her mistake. By insisting that Julio get to safety first, she has blocked their narrow path. No one can pass the careful mountain pony. No one can hurry.

  “You!” she yells to the nearest boy. “Go whack that horse on the rump. Now!” As he scrambles up the drainage ditch after Julio, Mara looks for a place to deposit the tiny girl—a ledge, a bush with a big enough trunk, anything that might be high enough to avoid the quickly rising water. But there is nothing.

  Mara’s feet are ankle-deep now, and the gusting wind kicks up spray and dust, making it hard to see. Carella’s daughter stands at Mara’s side, helping her direct the others.

  “Now you!” the little girl yells to a much older boy. “Careful of that branch. All right, your turn.” One by one the children climb up into the ditch, until only Mara, Carella’s daughter, and the tiny girl remain. The water reaches Mara’s knees, which means it’s to the girl’s waist. They won’t be able to stand against the current much longer.

  “Go now,” Mara says to Carella’s daughter. “I’ll be right behind you.” Mara hitches the tiny girl higher on her hip. Somehow, she’ll have to make the climb one-handed.

  The girl has barely started to climb when a rumbling noise makes her pause. She and Mara look toward the sound. It’s a wall of churning, muddy water, tumbling down the mountain toward them.

  Mara launches past Carella’s daughter up into the ditch. She scrambles over mud and stones, through skin-ripping branches, still looking for a place to tuck the tiny girl.

  A head peeks down from around a boulder. It’s Reynaldo. “Hand her to me!” he hollers, reaching for her. Mara braces
against the side of the ditch so she can lift the tiny girl with both hands. Reynaldo plucks her from Mara’s grasp, and Mara darts back down the way she came.

  “Mara!” Reynaldo calls.

  Below her, Carella’s daughter has slipped in the mud to her belly, arms and legs splayed. Her wide eyes are a startling white contrast to her muddy face and hair. “Help!” she cries.

  The wall of water is upon them, and Mara has no time to be gentle. She grabs a nearby manzanita branch with one hand; with the other she lunges down, grabs the girl’s cold, slick arm, and gives it a tremendous yank.

  The girl screams, but the sound is cut off by water filling her mouth and nose.

  Mara’s arms threaten to rip from her sockets as water sucks the girl down, but she refuses to let go, pulling with all her might. Gradually, the girl’s soaked head breaks through the whitewater, then her shoulders. One final tug, and the girl’s body is more on the bank than in the water. She lies perfectly still. Blood pours from a gash on the side of her head.

  The water level is still rising. Mara stretches farther, hooks the girl’s armpit, and drags her up even higher, until only her toes trail in the water. One foot is now bare.

  Mara collapses on her back. Her arms are rubbery, and her temples have a sharp, squeezed pain from so much effort. She turns her head to regard the girl beside her, half expecting her to be limp and dead.

  The girl convulses once, hard. Then she coughs, and something that is half floodwater, half vomit dribbles from her mouth.

  Joy surges in Mara’s chest, as brilliant as a rising summer sun. She digs her heels into the mud bank for leverage, then helps the girl sit up. “That’s it,” she murmurs as the girl continues to heave. “Just cough it all out.”

  “Is she all right?” It’s Reynaldo. He lowers himself to their position, using rocks and scrub for purchase.

  “I think so. She has a bad gash on her head. And I may have hurt her when I pulled her out. But . . . I think so.” I saved her. The truth of this marvelous fact fills her limbs with tingling warmth. Maybe she can save them all.