Wilderness Untamed

by Butler, J. M.

  He growled. Maybe twenty-two hours given his current strength and the need for precision.

  Amelia twisted in the blanket and kicked him.

  Frowning, he glanced down at her. She was still sleeping, her foot pressed against his thigh. The odd part was that she had scrunched herself back down and brought her shoulders forward to guard her face. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised his wife was a kicker.

  He continued working, his attention divided between the camp and the bracelet. His strength required that he take much lighter strokes than usual, but the effect was good. The overall depiction did not showcase much of the actual detail of the myth, but it included enough.

  Until she kicked him again. A relatively light kick, followed by another. Her brow was creased tight, her lips pinched. Color darkened along her cheeks and her elmis. Nightmares most likely.

  Was it awake inside her? The Ki Valo Nakar? Sinara had been clear that he was not to speak with Amelia about it. Ever. To speak of it was to give it strength, and the bindings would fail within her mind and release it.

  But AaQar was right as well. How long was that likely to last? Especially now that he no longer had the Neyeb to provide counsel and aid.

  Of all the things he had kept from her, this was the only one that truly concerned him. But she was strong. Ferocious in her own way. The problem was that if you were told that there was something evil inside you, then you would be drawn to look at it. What faster way to give in to it than to believe there was no other course? No other path? He'd seen it before. Watched as the presence of that single path had erased all others.

  Other forms of support had to be provided. It was as simple as that.

  Another light kick followed.

  So long as this one had strength and vinegar for blood, he had no doubt she'd fight it. Whether she knew it was there or not. But he wouldn't burden her any more than he already had.

  * * *

  Sleep swallowed her at once. The dreams followed soon after.

  The spectral woman who had no face. The creature with moon eyes and tall caribou-like horns and a single great red slash beneath each eye that ran all the way down to where the chin should have been. The breathing darkness. Screaming children. Blood running down walls. Walls of blood. Casket weavers. Hook-fanged spiders. Tarantulas that become casket weavers and dolmaths that became hook-fanged spiders. Shining claws and burning mantles. Falling into darkness, suffocating in tapestries that unraveled into nooses.

  She woke with a start, her arms flying out and her feet striking something solid and warm.

  "Perhaps you should have put your boots back on to sleep. I almost cut off one of your toes."

  Her foot was plastered against his jaw. He studied her sidelong, his expression one more of amusement than annoyance.

  "I'm sorry." She drew back. "I…" She tucked her foot against her leg. Glancing up into the sky, she sat up. "I think I slept more than three hours."

  "Perhaps. AaQar said you have nightmares."

  She shuddered. The way he asked suggested he would have guessed this without AaQar mentioning anything. Drawing herself into a seated position, she at once missed his warmth. "I always have them."

  "Have they gotten worse?" Genuine concern tinged his voice.

  It was odd. She'd never guessed Naatos would be the sort who would worry about dreams. Kind as that was though, she did not want to relive them. "I suppose some have. It's hard to say. Especially when you take into consideration the fact that dreams are how our minds process the events we go through." Those eyes flashed through her mind once more, and she trembled again. "Actually, let's not talk about them. We have enough crises going on right now. And you agreed that you were going to sleep."

  "Soon." He resumed working on a curved piece of bone. "You know that if something asks you to let it possess you, you say no?"

  "I say no to anything that wants me." She pushed her hair out of her face, scowling at him. "The unfortunate thing is that most of the things that want to do that don't ask. They just do." As she cracked her neck, she winced. "I really don't want to talk about this unless it's important. Or if you really want to get into dream interpretation. They're bad enough in the moment. But bad dreams seem to be going around at the moment."

  "Hmmm." He gave a slight nod of assent as he continued carving. "If you want to sleep more, you can. We have five hours more before evening."

  "Right now, I'm hungry." She crossed over to the fire where more meat had been put to roast. Probably the last of the fresh meat unless Naatos hunted again. But there was more than enough smoked. She placed pieces on two of the wood places and then brought it back to where Naatos sat with his back against the boulder.

  Surprise shaded his features for a moment. He glanced from the plate up to her.

  "It's food," she said, giving the plate a slight shake. "Do you want it or not? You made it. I think."

  "I did," he conceded. A curve tugged at the edges of his lips. "I just didn't expect you to be bringing me food."

  "Don't—"

  "Don't read into it." The smile broadened. "I won't any more than I will the fact that you could have let me die and didn't. Three times just today actually." He studied her, his gaze drifting from her face to her body to her face once more. "Thank you."

  Heat rose to her cheeks. It didn't seem common for him to express gratitude, and she still wasn't sure she understood what she had done herself. It had been an impulse. Instinct. Her instincts had become significantly more compelling in the past week.

  He could have pressed the issue and made it awkward, but thankfully he began eating.

  She ate as well, choosing to read as she did. She went back over the passages she had read earlier, noting the things she could do differently, exercises to practice, methods for strengthening shields and reaching into minds as well as weaving dreams. Not her own. To the best she knew at this point, that was not possible. But if there were other Neyeb out there, they could have woven dreams for her.

  The backdrop of AaQar's, WroOth's, and QueQoa's nightmares rose and fell at intervals. Specific images did not reach her, but the feelings did. Fear, loss, abandonment, terror, horror, confusion, sorrow, grief. She tried speaking to each, whispering gentle words that she hoped might reach them. That sometimes worked, but it did not last. The improvements might even have been coincidence.

  Naatos split his time between working on the bone band he had been carving and tending to his brothers as well as matters around the camp.

  When he wasn't watching, she studied him. He was fading, despite his pretenses to the contrary. He favored his right leg, and he took longer slower breaths. That air of defeat and disappointment had been reeled back. But he was worried.

  At last though he rested. She sat beside him once he had drifted off, opening her book as she returned to studying.

  * * *

  Night came and so did the dolmaths.

  Naatos woke just as they arrived, unable to remember his dreams but aware that they had been present. A cold sheen of sweat chilled him. Striking his arms and shuddering, he regulated his temperature against the coolness.

  Amelia had already moved to the center of the camp. She stood there, arms wrapped tight around herself, elmis flat and covered, waiting as the dolmaths surged around her. After the casket weaver, he wasn't sure whether it was harder or easier. But she took it for as long as she could, even stepping close to intervene when some of the dolmaths tried to drag QueQoa off, straining the straps.

  Then, after a couple hours, she returned to the top of the boulder and remained crouched and watching. Four times she slipped back down to help tend his brothers. Fear twitched through her eyes, and her muscles remained tense. But she did not scream. She just climbed back up on the boulder after three dolmaths tried to cart WroOth and AaQar off. They were insistent little things this night. The straps at least held steady.

  Now that she was back on the boulder, the dark-banded dolmath climbed back up beside her.
Each dolmath had its own pattern in its fur, lines and markings of slightly different shades of blue. But this one's indigo stripe was so distinct it made it easy to recognize even from a distance. It rubbed against her arm like a large cat, purring.

  A half smile formed on his face. "You know it's going to follow us, don't you?"

  She glanced at him, book resting on her knee and one hand on the dolmath. "Follow us where?"

  "Wherever we go. They sometimes bond fairly intensely with sentients. You can't force them to be tame, but when they choose you, well you can't avoid them either."

  "Isn't that dangerous for it though?"

  "Not especially. Dolmaths roam a fair bit. If it comes with us, it will connect to its other kin. They aren't territorial in the slightest. So long as there is a place with dolmaths, it will be welcomed."

  "It needs a name then." A faint smile plucked at her full lips. The tension remained in her posture, but her voice grew a little softer. "I'm naming it Tacky."

  "Tacky? That doesn't seem in line with your usual names."

  "Uncle Joe picked the names of my four tarantulas. The penguin that was different from all the others was named Tacky."

  He nodded slowly, his lips pressed in a contemplative line as he remained near the fire. "I do not understand the connection."

  "It was a children's book. About these six penguins. Uncle Joe used to do sound effects and sing the songs and even do accents. Five of the penguins were just what penguins were supposed to be, and Tacky was not. And Tacky saved them all from trappers one day."

  "Brave trappers to go against penguins," he said. "Especially for Awdawms. Those razor bills can slice an armored human in half. And they prefer to eat their prey alive if possible. You must be especially careful if their nesting site is near spire pits. Natural stone formations where the stones are like spikes. They'll throw prey onto them and then go down to eat at their leisure."

  She raised an eyebrow. "That's not what penguins on Eiram are like."

  "Oh yes." He sighed, then gestured in the air. It was sometimes hard to remember what was present on what world. "The big ones are about so big. They only eat fish."

  "Yes, fish, not souls."

  He laughed.

  In the firelight, it was hard to tell whether she blushed with pleasure at that, but she did drop her gaze to Tacky, continuing to comb its fur. "So Ecekom has penguins."

  "Only in a few places. The ice wyverns keep them in check if the hunters do not. But some years, they are a sight to behold."

  "Wyverns versus penguins?" She blinked, then laughed. "Your world… it is ridiculous. You know this, don't you?"

  "It has a somewhat higher proportion of predators than other worlds." He smiled though, enjoying the sound.

  "A little bit higher," she said as if making some compromise. "Just a little."

  It was good to have company. He continued to work on the bracelet, his strokes a little weaker than before. The only thing that was just as strong was his will. He focused intently upon each line he crafted.

  When morning came though, his limited good humor faded once he realized he could not carry QueQoa to suphrite river on his own as he intended.

  He braced his hands against his thighs, his mind working through this. Fear built.

  QueQoa was too much for him now. The abscess had to be tended or it would expand, destroying more and more of QueQoa's body with each expansion. They just had to get him through until his own healing kicked back in. Dragging him to the suphrite river though risked rupturing the abscess and wounding him still further, especially if it broke inside rather than out.

  His own mind hurt though. There was an obvious answer. His thoughts slodged around it. What was it?

  "Here." Brushing past him, Amelia brought her satchel over and removed a white box with a red cross on it. "I don't know if this will work, but I was thinking, the abscess needs to be drained. Ideally the sac removed if there is one. But your method requires the suphrite and cutting a big deep wound in his shoulder and neck. His healing isn't strong enough for that. And we could pour it on him, but… he's very weak. You were much stronger when you stabbed yourself, and we barely got you out."

  We? He noted that word choice but only nodded, offering no comment.

  "So maybe if it's more precise, we can drain the infection without causing more damage than can heal. And once it's cleaned, we can heal it with the suphrite."

  Yes. It was a simple and obvious solution.

  "Could you fill that up with suphrite?" She pointed to the largest of the unused stone vessels. Already she was arranging the items from the little kit.

  By the time he returned, she had already lanced the wound and started draining it into one of the other vessels. Coming up behind her, he watched.

  He had planned to use the dagger. It would have gotten the job done, but she had used a very small blade to cut only as far as was absolutely needed.

  It wasn't the first time he'd seen someone clean a wound, but there was something remarkable in the simple way she tended QueQoa's neck and shoulder. There was comfort in her movements. A deftness and calm in the way she handled the instruments. How was this Killoth and Salanca's daughter? Had she learned this from the Awdawm guardian? That alone was hard to fathom. He hadn't done such a terrible job as he had expected. "Your movements are more delicate than I expected."

  She smiled but did not look up. "This is the easy part. I've done things that required much more delicacy. I guess surgery isn't a big priority for Vawtrians, is it?"

  "Not what you would consider surgery," he admitted. "If this bite had been on QueQoa's arm alone, we would have just chopped it off and let him heal. But shearing off the shoulder as well as part of his side when he's in a state like this—that's a significant risk."

  She clicked her teeth, her face wrinkling. "That sounds horrible."

  "There's an old Vawtrian saying, 'don't cut more than you can bite.'"

  "Figuratively or literally?"

  "It's not entirely literal."

  "That's a relief."

  "We make exceptions for the thighs and upper arms if it can be a clean slice in a slightly larger form."

  Her eyebrow lifted as she turned to look at him.

  He met her gaze.

  "Don't ever do that to me."

  He offered a crooked grin. "You don't want someone biting your arm off, veskaro? I suppose I'll have to find some other way to surprise you for the traditional one-month anniversary."

  She continued cleaning the wound. "Do Vawtrians celebrate anniversaries?"

  "Yes."

  "Anniversary of the locking?"

  "Yes. And that is also celebrated at the Festival of the Veskaro. So for some couples, it is twice a year. Then there's the anniversary of vestoving."

  Her cheeks brightened as the blush crept over her. "I suppose in our case, it's different. But for most, isn't that the same day as the locking?"

  "It celebrates when a couple has finished learning, or rather finished mastering vestoving, which has its own requirements in techniques." He enjoyed seeing that that did weaken her focus a little. Her hands didn't shake though. So long as she had that scalpel and QueQoa was weak enough that this was the needed method, he probably should refrain from flustering her. "We can talk about that later."

  She shook her head but continued working. "In Indiana where I grew up, they celebrate first dates, first time someone says I love you, engagement, marriage, and other odd things that mean something to the couple. They have different gifts couples are supposed to give one another for reaching certain markers. But it's different in other places." With a tight breath, she switched to the large vessel and poured the suphrite over QueQoa's wound.

  It bubbled and foamed, hissing and popping as the liquid devoured the infection and repaired the wound. QueQoa's breaths grew deeper as the red veins vanished from his shoulder and neck.

  The tension in Naatos's chest eased as well.

  33

  In D
reams

  The next three days passed in relative quiet, a steady rhythm and exchange developing between them. Naatos left twice, both times to gather herbs and flowers to help her with her mindreading. She protested once she knew what he was doing, but he showed his typical stubbornness.

  It wasn't a fight she could win. What startled her more was how much she worried. How relieved she felt each time he returned. How her heart clenched each time she realized he was weakening.

  He tried to hide it. Didn't speak of it.

  But hour by hour, he moved slower, his breaths more labored. In between caring for his brothers, he worked relentlessly at the bone bracelet. When she asked what it was, he responded cryptically. He finished all of the preparations for the colrum serum with her help and sealed it shut, warning her not to open it until the tenth day. After that, a massive coughing fit sent him reeling into his trench, laying him flat for over three hours.

  That night, he was barely able to sit up. His breaths were long, slow, and harsh, as if he struggled to get them to their fullest. He dozed at points but roused again, coughing or cursing, depending on the point. Each time he woke again, he tried working on the bracelet.

  She watched with growing concern, noting that his movements were becoming significantly more disjointed. "Maybe you shouldn't be working on that now."

  "Did I ask for your opinion?" he demanded in what he almost certainly intended as a stern manner. The uneven breaths and wet cough that interrupted him undercut that significantly.

  Pressing Tacky aside, she slipped down off the boulder. His hands were actually shaking now, and sweat rolled down his forehead.

  The dolmaths clustered around her, Tacky pushing closest. Without a word, she picked up the empty vessel and went to fill it with suphrite. Naatos was so absorbed in his carving, he didn't seem to notice that she had gone, even as she returned.