by G. Deyke
~*~
By the next day my leg has worsened terribly. I can hardly move for pain, even to sit up. Also I have a fever, and I lie sickened while Mel glares at me, much vexed.
“If we must stay here, I am going hunting,” she says. “At least that may have some use. Be sure there is plenty of water when I return.”
Mel has not hunted in days. She wants to be out of the Desert, and she will not tarry for anything. We have been living off of the food that she bought in Saluyah, and I can only hope that it will not run short.
I hope her hunt will be successful.
I can feel no water below me, but I cannot move to find a better spot. I begin to dig away the sand with my right hand, my better hand, but I can't twist my head enough to see what I'm doing on that blind side. I will feel my way. I must.
It goes slowly and poorly. I try and try to call water, and it will not come. It takes an enormous effort to use my nature sense at all, and the hole is still so shallow.
Only when Ty speaks do I remember that he is there, watching me. “Shall I dig for you?”
The question surprises me, so I respond without thinking: “Why?”
“I, too, am thirsty.” He crouches beside me, and begins to dig – I can hear him – but I cannot see him without turning my head, and I will not turn it. It feels too heavy.
The sound of his digging fades in and out of my hearing, and at last it stops completely. “You can't call water, can you?”
I try again, but through the fever I can hardly feel myself trying. I shake my head, very slightly, but enough to be dizzied by the motion.
“I'll be back shortly,” he says. “Try not to be eaten in the meantime.”
I shudder, and shut my eyes, and wait.
He startles me out of a black haze like sleep when he returns, and I blink up at him, trying to see. The day is painfully bright, and he looks nearly black against the sun. He is holding something, over the hole – something falls, glittering – and then he crouches again, and I close my eyes against the sun.
His hand is on my shoulder, and I am too weak to shrug it off. Then he says a soft word I don't understand, and I feel something twist and release inside me, and everything turns black.