Ewa sighs in frustration, and Dayo sighs because he knows he causes hers. Like a babe, he stumbles as he hops through the forest, falling over roots and cursing out loud. His hands and legs are scraped and bleeding.
They break through a line of trees and see a small stream flowing to the south, away from the wall. Dayo tries to limp forward, but Ewa stops him, keeping her eyes scanning the area. She tries to see between the trees looking for soldiers waiting to ambush recruits.
When all seems clear, she lets go of Dayo, and he limps to the water. Ewa follows behind him, stopping at the stream to fill up a small flask she made. Dayo dunks his entire head in the water. He comes up for air and smiles at her.
"Come sit down," she says, pointing to a rock, "I will wrap your wounds."
He does as he's told, sighing as he relaxes. They both needed the rest. Ewa the most, since she had to backtrack to wash Dayo's blood off the forest ground.
It has been four days of practically walking through the forest, slowed down by Dayo falling over his feet and constantly hiding from trainees running through the forest and the soldiers chasing them. They hadn't come across anyone strong enough to join them, but Ewa expected that.
Now they rested for the first time in days, but they couldn't stay long since anyone trying to survive a week in the forest would come looking for a water source.
"How's your ankle?"
Ewa looks down at the makeshift bandage around her foot. "My ankle? The one that got hurt when you fell on me when you tried to step over a root?
Dayo sighs again.
"I can only give you the same answer that I've been giving you the last six times you asked. I'm fine."
"I'm sorry."
"Stop. Apologizing," she growls, and squats in front of him. She extends his leg to look at it, and he lets her.
"I'm sor—"
Dayo smashes his mouth together as Ewa presses down on the wound. "No more talking," she says. He just nods past the pain as she releases his leg.
"Off with your shirt—we need it to wrap your leg," she says quickly as he stares at her. She tries not to look at the sweat flowing down his tan flat stomach as he takes his shirt off.
Ewa looks at how much darker his skin has gotten from days of being in the Forest even with little sun. If he made it alive from the Wall, he'd go back home as dark as some from the most southern part of the Bearing Village.
She tears his shirt into strips and ties it tightly to the few places that are still bleeding heavily. When she's done, there's only a strip of his shirt left.
"Drink as much water as you can now," Ewa says, standing and turning away from him. "We should reach the wall by nightfall, and then we need to just last three days to win."
"I'm hungry," Dayo complains.
"We'll find some more plants to eat on the way."
"I'm hungry for meat—"
"If you want to catch a hare and eat it raw, then fine, but we can't light a fire to cook it, that's like sending a signal for them to find us. And I'm not taking the time to cut it up and clean it for you. Or do you know how?"
Dayo ignores her and stands, testing his weight against his scraped leg.
Ewa walks to the stream and gulps a couple of handfuls of water. Then she splashes some on her face and neck, scrubbing away the sweat and dirt. "Hurry and drink some more and fill your flask. We need to get away from the water," Ewa sighs, "and make our way to the wall."
After Dayo gets his fill, they check their weapons first, and then their surroundings to make sure no sign of them or where they're going is left, and then they walk back through the trees. Dayo gently clears his throat.
"I came here to prove to my father that I can do it—lead. Fight. To be a man."
"Your death will prove that to your father? You came to the Wall, not a post where they raise you to move up in the ranks. You're an idiot." Ewa sucks her teeth while scanning her eyes across the forest in front of them.
"Why did you choose this post?"
"Like I had a choice."
"Don't you?"
"Are you kidding me?" Ewa stops in her tracks, forcing herself to keep her voice down. "People from the Southern Village don't get to choose. We take whatever we can to take care of our families, and that's always the scrapes. We don't get choices, and if you don't know that, then you chose not to know. How can you lead, if you don't know this country?"
"I'm sorry—that's why I'm here, to learn." Dayo trips over a root and grunts as he falls on his sore palms.
Ewa let her anger dissipate at the sight of him. She grabs a soft bit of moss from the tree next to them. Gently she tears it apart and when Dayo stands, she uses it to cover the signs of his fall.
"You're like a baby, learning how to walk."
"I'm sorry—." Dayo holds up his hands as a silent apology.
She can see the dirt smeared across his scratched palms and she nods to him.
"Take your time and pay attention to your surroundings. We're almost to the wall."
He gives her a small smile and when she walks; he follows behind, matching her footsteps.
The forest is quiet around them, just the distant sound of singing birds to keep them company. Ewa focuses on the distant forest until Dayo stops her in her tracks.
"You're a Sold Girl?" He asks.
"I'm going to assume that even a northern boy like you knows what a Sold Girl is." She keeps walking forward, hurrying to get closer to the wall or further away from the conversation.
"The gist of it. It wasn't really brought up in everyday conversation. From what I heard…. There's an exorbitant price. Money that a person could live off of for the rest of their lives."
"Are you trying to ask why I'm in the King's Army if I'm a Sold Girl, or why I'm a Sold girl in the first place? Or, is there some other personal question you'd like to ask?"
"All the above, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to."
Ewa stops again and points in front of her. Dayo's eyes follow her hand to see the gray side of the wall poking through the trees.
"We'll get a little closer and then we'll make camp. We won't sleep at the Wall but lose enough that no one will come this way," Ewa says, staring in that direction, avoiding Dayo's eyes as he looks back at her.
"Okay," Dayo says. He walks ahead of her, but she holds him back by his arm.
"Southerners don't have a lot of money or resources. Less than the Bearing Village, and far less than the Market Village. So when situations are dire, you join the King's Army because even if you die, you still make money for your family."
"But you became a Sold Girl first." It wasn't a question, but a statement, as he stared into Ewa's brown eyes. She forces herself to hold his gaze.
"The price of a Southern's life to be a soldier wasn't enough for my situation."
"But the price of your virginity was?"
Ewa looks at the ground behind them, pretending to study the dirt for tracks they might have missed.
"It was at first."
Silence fills up between them until Dayo clears his throat again. "Thank you for telling me. I don't know if it'll mean much, but… I'll gladly fight alongside you."
Ewa nods her head as acceptance and then swings her head towards the wall for him to get moving. But before Dayo can take a step, something enormous lands in front of them, shaking the earth and knocking them off their feet.
The world finally stops shaking as Ewa tries to see what jumped out, and she can feel hot puffs of air assaulting her face as she looks up at the snout of an immense beast.
Like a bear but ten times bigger than one she's ever seen, it smells like it's rotting. Black ooze is sliding off flanks of skin hanging off of its body, exposing meat and bone.
"It came from over the wall," Dayo Whispers.
Slowly, as the beast's yellow eyes stare at them, Ewa reaches for her Obe daggers. She clasps them tight, dragging them out of their sheaths as she gets up on her haunches. She gets her body ready to fight or run, as she prays that this isn't their last moment.