The Azureans

by R Gene Curtis

  Finally, her eyes look alive for a second. Does she understand me?

  “You have to help her!”

  “Let me get some dirt,” Lydia mumbles weakly. I stop running immediately and bend over. Lydia groans as I lower her hand until it touches the trail. Ler catches up, and I hold Lydia’s weight on my knee and swing her hand until it falls onto Somrusee.

  “I got it,” she says quietly, and I start running again.

  We don’t see anyone else until we’re out of Keeper.

  Dynd says some words when he sees us. Probably the words I was looking for earlier, but I don’t have the energy to learn them right now. I don’t say anything. Ler and I keep running down the trail and the others follow.

  I run faster, push harder. This time, Ler keeps up with me. Somrusee is at my hip, just like she always is, but this time she is motionless in Ler’s arms. Hopefully she’s still alive.

  After what seems like forever, we finally arrive back at the path leading away from Keeper and Watch into the valley. I run down the trail for about a hundred yards, and then I stop and set Lydia down. Her eyes are closed.

  I shake her shoulders, and Lydia’s eyes open.

  “How is Somrusee? Is she going to die?” I shout. Tears, hot with anger, run down my cheeks. Anger that I took her into danger. Anger that I didn’t protect her. Anger that I’m helplessly watching as she dies. Ler sets Somrusee gently next to me.

  This is Lydia’s fault, too. We should have never gone after Sharue, whoever she is. Lydia hesitated too long. We didn’t have a plan, and we ran right into danger.

  Lydia doesn’t stir, she doesn’t answer me. She closes her eyes again.

  Somrusee is still breathing.

  Unable to sit, I pace around the women. Lydia’s eyes stay closed. Somrusee lies still. She’s still breathing. She keeps breathing. I’m barely conscious when the others arrive. Mara’s baby is noisy, but his yells barely register. Tran says words about an army passing on the trail above us, but I don’t care. My face is glued to Somrusee’s blood-soaked body and the wounds in her skin that are gradually fading away.

  I can’t imagine waking up tomorrow and not saying good morning to her. I can’t imagine beating Wynn and not having Somrusee there to celebrate with.

  Lydia has to save her!

  Dusk approaches, and Somrusee finally stirs for the first time. When the moon comes out, Lydia finally opens her eyes and pushes the hair off Somrusee’s face.

  Her breathing has steadied. Lydia pulls her tunic around her and loosens the bandages; the wounds are gone.

  “She’ll be okay,” Lydia says wearily.

  I fall to my knees and weep, but these tears aren’t angry. Dynd brings me dinner, for the fourth time, and this time I eat. The others lie on the ground and go to sleep. I stay by Somrusee’s side, watching her chest rise and fall. She’s okay.

  24 Intentions

  Karl

  Pearl holds my hand as we walk along a trail. The rocks around us are brilliant red. Pearl laughs, throwing her head back at something funny I said. I squeeze her hand and step off the trail to look at something.

  I haven’t gone more than three feet when I run into Lydia. “Come with me,” she whispers.

  Pearl is still on the trail. She waves and smiles.

  “Come with me,” Lydia says again.

  I shake my head. “I need to be with my sister.” I turn to walk back.

  A knife flies at Pearl. I see it hit her. She crumples onto the trail.

  I scream and run to her. I look back for Lydia, but she’s gone. Pearl screams hysterically. She’s dying.

  “Karu!” Someone shakes my shoulder.

  “Karu!”

  I open my eyes. Ler’s big blue eyes stare back at me.

  “You’re yelling.” Not anymore; his big hand is over my mouth and I can’t breathe.

  “Dreaming,” I say when he finally decides not to suffocate me.

  The sun is coming up, I’m on the mountainside next to Somrusee. Pearl is still in my world, the one I was born in.

  I abandoned her, Pearl. The girl I grew up with, a woman now. Someone who loves me. I wonder what she thinks happened to me.

  Tears run down my cheeks. I abandoned my family, I ran from my past. Even now, I’m not going back. I have a new family, a new sister, a new world to die saving.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Ler is still sitting next to me. He holds his hand ready to suffocate me at the first sign of yelling.

  I nod, and the leaves crunch as he walks away. I sit up and rub my eyes. We are a sight! Mara and Jarra cuddle together across from me. Jarra barely fits against his mother, who is big with the babies in her. Somrusee is next to me, alive and asleep. Across from me are Tran, Ler, and Dynd. Seven people. This is who we have for our battle against Wynn. And we nearly lost one yesterday to six untrained men who don’t even know they’re working for Wynn.

  I count the bodies sleeping on the ground again. We should have eight. Lydia isn’t here.

  I follow footsteps along the trail down to the valley and find Lydia sitting on the ridge, looking out into the valley forest with her feet hanging over the edge.

  The morning is cool, and frosted leaves crunch under my feet. It won’t be many more days and there won’t be frost on the ground in the mornings. Plants are threatening to poke through the ground.

  “You’re up early.” Lydia kicks her legs. She has her unruly hair pulled up into a pony, off her face and neck. She’s been crying.

  I sit down next to her and let my legs dangle over the ledge as well. “So are you.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  We sit in silence, not speaking, not looking at each other. Her wounds are healed now, but she hasn’t had a chance to bathe. I can still smell the blood on her clothes and mine.

  “I’m really sorry for what happened yesterday,” she suddenly chokes. “I nearly got us killed! If it weren’t for you, we would all be dead right now.”

  “I don’t think it was your fault,” I say awkwardly, lying to make her feel better. “We didn’t know how the city was guarded, and you were acting out of love...”

  “No,” Lydia interrupts. “I wasn’t acting out of love. I was acting like I was invincible.” Her voice catches in her throat, but she holds this sob back. “I wanted to be brave; I wanted to show myself that I could do anything, even rescue a girl who hates me. We almost died, and now she’ll die. Arujan will kill her as soon as he gets to Keeper.”

  She starts crying again. Not sure what to do, I put my arm around her shoulder, but she shrugs it off.

  “We’re okay,” I say.

  She laughs through her tears. “For now.”

  “We just need a little time to regroup and decide what to do.”

  “You don’t think we should go to the Western Hills.”

  I shrug. I’m not ready to commit on that one.

  She nods and looks away. “Why me, Karl? Why am I the Azurean? Why am I here?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same question.”

  “I know, right?” Lydia says mournfully.

  “I meant about myself. Why am I here? Not the part about being an Azurean,” I clarify.

  Lydia laughs, and her face almost shows a smile. “At least you know your connection to this place,” she says. “Kinni.”

  “Kinni the traitor. We’re still paying for his mistakes.” I don’t know how that kind of connection could be a good thing.

  “Maybe you’ll do something to rectify them.” Lydia puts her hand out as if to touch me, but then pulls it back.

  I shrug and look forward. “Or get myself killed.”

  “We could go home, you know.”

  I still don’t look back at Lydia. “I know, but I don’t want to.”

  Lydia doesn’t say anything more. I look back at her, and she stretches and pulls her knees to her chest, hugging her torn tunic to her body to keep herself covered. She’s trying to do the right things. Something like yesterday was bound to h
appen eventually. Things are a mess here, and they’re only worse in the valley.

  Lydia lets out a big sigh. She stops hugging her legs, and lets them fall back over the ridge. She swings her feet, which scrape lightly against the ground. The three-foot smooth ridge stretches off in all directions, our barrier against Wynn, our safety net that keeps the mountains away from him.

  Then Lydia stands up. As she stands, her body pushes against what looks like a shimmering blue plastic, suddenly visible along the ridge, going off as far as we can see. It clings to her face, and then her body, and then, with a loud popping noise, the plastic breaks. Two shimmering lines of blue fly away from us in both directions until they’re out of sight.

  “Did that just...” I start to say, but stop when I see the terror on Lydia’s face.

  “The barrier...” she whispers.

  “You’ve never been off the mountain before?”

  She shakes her head. “I think I just broke it.”

  Our eyes meet, our vulnerability reflected as terror in each other’s expression. “We don’t have time to regroup before we go to the Western Hills.”

  Lydia shakes her head.

  ✽✽✽

  After the others wake, it doesn’t take long to verify that the barrier to the mountains is indeed gone. Somrusee no longer has to tag around with me, and she can jump on and off of the ridge just fine.

  Mara, too, though she can’t do much in the way of jumping. It’s more like an awkward rolling motion. Like one of those giant exercise balls, but with arms and legs.

  We don’t say it out loud, but we all know it. Everything is different now. We no longer have a safe haven. Arujan is of no worth to Wynn anymore. He has passage into the mountains, including to the cave that we raided. His only goal will be to find us and the books we have, and he won’t be blocked by a barrier anymore.

  “For hundreds of years these people have been protected from Wynn,” Dynd says. “Hundreds of years. And this morning you destroyed the one thing keeping them safe. You don’t know how to fix it?”

  Lydia shakes her head and looks down at her hands. “We need to get away from here. This is where Wynn will come first. We need to go west.”

  “You can’t just go waltzing around Wynn’s world,” Somrusee says. “There are too many rules and regulations. If you don’t have papers, you’ll be arrested.”

  “Where do we get papers?” I ask.

  “Impossible,” Somrusee sighs. “Only a few people make them, and they’re all under Wynn’s control. I think this idea of going to the Western Hills is suicide. We should stay here and come up with a plan to fight once Wynn gets here. At least we can die fighting instead of being stabbed in the back while we run away.”

  A small voice comes from the tree where Mara is sitting with Jarra. “My father makes traveling papers.”

  Somrusee isn’t ready to give up. “OK. So, we could forge some papers. But then what? Who’s ever heard of people transferring anywhere but Sattah?”

  “I have,” Mara says. “There were a few couples sent to the Western Hills a few years back.”

  Somrusee raises an eyebrow.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Surely you haven’t heard of seven people being transferred at the same time?”

  Mara doesn’t respond. That is as good as a no.

  “If the Western Hills are like it is here,” I say, “maybe we don’t need papers for everyone. Somrusee and I made it all the way here without being seen. People can hang out in the forest. We can travel at night. Not all of us need to go into the Hills.”

  Dynd nods. “We can fend for ourselves.”

  “It will need to be a couple,” Mara says. “When father sent people to the hills, it was always as a couple.”

  “I’m going,” Lydia says. “Who should come with me?”

  “Karu,” Ler says. “Karu is the one. We all saw the way he kept a level head yesterday, and he has excellent skill with the sword.”

  “No!” Somrusee bristles next to me. I don’t think her objection has anything to do with the job description. “He has a funny accent and glowing eyes.”

  “He’ll manage,” Tran says. “He’s a better fit than any of us.”

  Somrusee glares at Lydia and kicks at the dirt. She’s so upset that I’m almost tempted to argue against myself. But, to be honest, I do want to go with Lydia.

  “Where can we get papers, Mara?” Lydia asks.

  “My village isn’t far from Watch. Someone could sneak into my father’s house. There will be names of towns in the Western Hills there, as well as blank traveling papers.”

  That seems promising, but even if we do make it to the Western Hills, what do we hope to accomplish, and where would we even start?

  ✽✽✽

  I lie on the ground staring at the stars. I should be tired—we spent all day hiking. We’re still a day away from Mara’s town, and several more days away from the hills. I’ll need my energy to make it through the next few weeks.

  But, I’m too anxious to sleep. Wynn must know the barrier is broken. He’ll be coming for us, and I can’t think of a way to defeat him. I lived with the man for months, but I don’t have a clue. Even with an Azurean on my side.

  I sigh and roll over. Everyone else is sleeping, hopefully dreaming of better times and places. Everyone but apparently Ler. His cot is empty.

  I sit up and look around. Where is he? I can’t sleep, so I might as well find him. Quietly, I leave the comfort of my cot and start out into the forest. The moon is full, giving me just enough light to make my way through the trees. I’m careful to keep track of where I’m going, while letting my thoughts bounce around between my budding relationship with Somrusee and how to defeat Wynn.

  It isn’t until I’ve wandered for a while that I hear pounding. I follow the sound, careful to not make noise as I approach.

  It’s Ler. His tunic has been discarded, and his back glistens in the moonlight from sweat. He holds an oddly shaped large rock, and he’s smashing it against a tree. The bark all around the tree’s trunk is shredded on the ground around him. Sporadic strokes hit the tree again and again.

  Pound, pound, pound.

  I don’t move, or breathe. Quietly, I slink through the forest until I can see his face. I’m careful to stay in the shadows.

  Ler’s face is covered in tears.

  Ler, the gentle giant. He isn’t smiling now. Cadah is dead. Ziru is dead. His mountain home is dead.

  Pound, pound, grunt. Pound. He screams, letting the sound echo through the trees. Then he starts pounding again. The tree doesn’t have a chance.

  I stay in the shadows and watch, wincing with each blow. After what feels like an hour, the tree finally groans and succumbs to the pounding. It crashes onto the ground, and Ler collapses onto it and sobs.

  That’s when I retreat back into the forest and make my way back to camp. I’m staring at the stars when Ler returns, still breathing hard. I close my eyes and force myself to breathe deeply.

  He lays down next to me, and I feign sleep.

  Ler’s asleep before I am.

  ✽✽✽

  The next day we reach Mara’s town near nightfall. Mara helps us find an abandoned house on the edge of town where we set up base. I’m nominated to sneak into her father’s house and steal the papers. It wasn’t a hard nomination to get, as I’m one of three who has the esoteric ability to read and write.

  The next morning, I leave the others and watch the house for several hours until Mara’s father leaves for the day. Mara said I should have at least one hour before he returns. I break a window and climb inside the house. It has three rooms: a main room, which has a wooden bench and a small fireplace, a bedroom, and an office.

  My footsteps are soft as I walk into the office. There isn’t a quick exit from here. If Mara’s father comes home, the only place to hide is in a small closet at the back of the room.

  Piles of papers fill the desk. Reports on citizen activity, interviews, and
responsibilities. Transfer papers sending people to Sattah. Economic reports of goods coming and going.

  I shuffle papers, wishing I could read faster, but eventually I find what I’m looking for—transfer papers sending a couple to Juniter, a village in the Western Hills.

  I replace the rest of the papers on the stack and stand up. The front door creaks open, and I freeze, cursing my luck. There’s no way it’s been an hour already. But, there is no denying it. Footsteps are approaching the office. Still without an escape, I leap into the closet and hold my breath. The closet doesn’t seem nearly as good a hiding place as I thought on my initial survey of the room. It’s small. Really small. I stuff the papers inside my tunic to free my hands.

  “The paperwork is back here,” a voice says. Two sets of footsteps enter the room.

  I can’t see into the room without exposing myself, and so I try to stay as quiet as I can and hope whatever the man is looking for isn’t in the closet.

  “You’re sure you have it,” a rough voice says, and I nearly cry out at the sound of it. Goluken. It was not too many nights ago when I interrupted him in his bedroom and put a knife through his foot. He would not be happy to see me again.

  “Yes, yes,” the other man’s voice replies, and I listen to the sound of shuffling papers. He leans over the desk, and I see his face. If he looks sideways into the closet, he will see me. He flips through several stacks of papers—stacks I was looking through just moments ago. “Ah!” he says. “Here it is. A man named Arujan stopped in town two weeks ago. His purpose, it says here, is an errand from Wynn. He had papers. He stayed one night and left in the morning.”

  “Give me that,” Goluken says. There is a pause, and then a laugh. “Wynn must be using Arujan to get into the mountains. The traitor—he was helping me until he disappeared a few years ago.”

  “Helping you with what?” Mara’s father asks. I’m sure it’s him, now that I’ve seen his face and his resemblance to his daughter.

  Goluken chuckles. “I’m not going to tell you that. What I will say is that Arujan’s plans are foiled now that the mountain barrier is broken.”