Cries of a man shrieking in pain filled the forest behind me, silencing everything around us, and we all turned to see what happened.
Behind Rock, Renou was on the ground, still screaming in blood-curdling agony—his right foot was buried in a hole in the ground halfway to his knee. He cried loud and hard, "OH GODS! OH GODS! AHH!"
Borel slapped the back of his head, "get up, man! Just stand up! Come on!"
He tried to lift it out, then shrieked again. Gino and Jame each took one shoulder and tried to pull him up, but he shrieked even harder, screaming out as no man I'd ever heard before.
"STOP!" I shouted, then ran over for a closer look.
Borel stood with his arms crossed. "It's just a mud hole, man, what's going on?"
But there was blood.
Malchuk then waved his arms at the whole group and spoke forcefully, "it's a trap! Everyone, make a perimeter!"
Davod nodded, then directed men around us in a circle, facing outward with bows drawn.
As for Renou, he sat down in the mud with his right leg caught in the hole and tears cascading down his cheeks, still whimpering hard. There were tufts of moss around, and when I moved those out of the way, I saw it. Buried in the ground was a wooden box the size of a human foot. A large knife had stuck upwards through the center of his boot, and blood was oozing out to make a slurry with the mud beneath. At the sides of the box were three more blades angled down, each of which had dug into the leather of his boot, each letting more blood and keeping his foot trapped.
Davod turned from the jungle to face me. "How bad is it?"
I breathed out slowly and tried to figure out the best way to go about the situation. "It's bad. This is going to take some time."
"We don't have time. We have to move. Now."
I looked up at Davod. "He can't move. There's knives everywhere dug into him, this big one is barbed, we're stuck here. I can get him out, but this is going to be a while."
Davod swallowed. "This is the tactic, Caleb. Trap one man, he screams, now they know our position. We stay to look after him, they sneak up and kill us all. We have to move."
I shook my head. "I told you, Renou can't move. I need time…"
"There's no time! We have to go, now!"
"And what about Renou?"
Davod blinked a few times and swallowed. Then with a deep breath, "we have to leave him." He turned to Renou, who was so buried in pain that he scarcely heard what was being said. "I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. I have to look out…"
I nearly shouted, "are you out of your bloody mind, man? We can't just…"
Borel stepped beside Davod, "we can, and we bloody will. I'm not sticking around to get ambushed. Let's go." He took Jame's arm and they started to walk off.
Davod nearly shouted after him, "anyone who separates from the group is dead!"
Geraln shook his head and closed his eyes. Then with a deep breath, he knelt and put a hand on Renou's shoulder. "I'm sorry, man, but Davod is right. We stick around, we're all dead."
I glared at Geraln, "if it were your foot caught in the trap?"
Davod slapped my shoulder, "we don't have time for this, man!"
I didn't feel like looking at him. "I'm not leaving him."
Davod insisted, "you have to."
"Do what you must. I'm not leaving him."
At that his eyes popped and he pulled his face back. His voice was hollowed out with terror. "You're going to get killed."
Borel crossed his arms, "he's going to get us all killed! He wants to stay, let's go!"
Renou rested his hand on mine and spoke softly though I could see the pain he was in. "It's OK…"
"Be quiet," I told him.
Borel mocked, "even the dead guy gets it. Come on!"
I took hold of Renou's hand and looked deep into his eyes. "I'm not leaving you."
Davod shook his head vigorously, "Caleb, man, I get it. I understand, but this is more than you. This is bigger. I can't let these men get slaughtered. We have to go!"
"Go, then."
He leaned in, "you have to come with us!"
"I'm not leaving him."
"You're gonna get KILLED, man! Anyone who stays is DEAD!" He looked around at the forest in all directions. "They're probably almost here already!"
"I'm not leaving him."
Faren stood beside Borel. "Think about Miyani, man; that girl loves the hell out of you."
I shrugged. "She's a woman."
Gino stepped up to me and knelt low, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't throw your life away, man. God has a plan for you!"
I smirked. "He's going to need me alive for that, won't he?"
In truth, I shook. My whole body trembled and I felt like I was about to break. How far the ambush party was, I didn't know. How long it would take for them to get here, I didn't know. How many of them there were, whether they would find taking me captive and chopping off my hand more profitable than killing me, I didn't know. But in my heart I knew I couldn't abandon Renou.
Davod tried one last time, "I order you."
I furrowed my brow.
"Get up and let's go. That is a direct order. As your commander, I order you."
I took a deep breath. "Next time you see me, put me in the sling."
Jezi looked around and leaned in close to Davod, worry painted all over his alabaster face. "We have no time for this!"
At that, the men began to file down the road. Malchuk stepped up to me and crouched down, resting his forehead on mine. "God keep you, friend. All according to His plan. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Amen."
I opened my eyes and looked up at him. "Amen."
Davod was the last to go. He stood, still looking at me, and a tear meandered down his cheek. His hands shook. Geraln called back, "come on!"
I looked up at him. Inside my body thundered and wailed, but I tried to pretend calm. "You're responsible to those men. Get them to Tower One."
His lip quivered, and more tears streamed down his cheek. He whimpered, "Falcon watches over you!"
And with that, I died. The logistics of that didn't matter. Perhaps an arrow would come out of nowhere and punch through my head. Perhaps some wild animals would come by and eat me. Either way, I was already dead, and the rest was merely a formality.
The road from Ulum had been cold. I remembered standing with Davod overlooking a green basin below us while high mountains reached up from dirty snow drifts. His nose was red and his cheeks were flush, and his long hair danced in the freezing wind while a frantic creek rushed over rocks somewhere nearby. I don't want to fade away thinking I shoulda made love to that girl.
I looked at Renou and smiled. "Just us, now."
He was still. His eyes were open, though I could tell there was a layer of agony just beneath the surface. "Why did you do that?"
"Why not?" I smiled. I knelt low to examine the trap closely.
Renou spoke almost to himself. "I'm not worth saving."
"What?" I glanced at him.
His eyes were off to the side, looking over a small bush with bright red leaves being overtaken by a young vine with tiny black berries.
I asked, "why would you say that?"
He shrugged, then winced.
"Try not to move." I looked back down into the trap. The three side blades had all snagged on his boot and buried into his skin beneath. They all had some kind of rivet that I couldn't get a blade under, but likely had some kind of fastener on the outside of the box. I felt around beside his foot and tried to get an idea of how difficult it would be to lift up the box entirely.
"I'm nobody," he said. "I've never been anybody, and I never will. I don't mean anything to anyone," he cried a tear, then wiped it clean.
I sat up a moment. "Who says?"
He huffed. "Everyone says so. My whole life."
"Listen. No one's qualified to make that kind of judgment. Not Borel, not Davod, not your mum, not your dad, no teacher, no priest, not me, and not even you."
He laughed lightly at that. "Not even me, huh?"
"No," I said. "You're not. You don't have clairvoyance into how everything fits together—you can never truly grasp the impact you have on this world. This forest," I looked around. "Every rock, every bush, every vine, every tree, no matter how small, or ugly, or gangly, or whatever, plays a role. And it's an important role. Humans don't like mosquitoes, but you know what? That doesn't make mosquitoes meaningless; it simply means humans don't like them. Are you less than a mosquito?"
He shrugged.
"I went through a bit of that myself."
He tilted his head and nearly laughed. "You?"
I laughed as well. "Yeah, man. Look, no one can predict the future. You play a role. I don't know what it is, and neither do you. You're going to let these guys tell you otherwise like they know a thing. Trust me, they don't know anything. We're all just as scared as you, and that includes myself. Help me dig this out."
We set about trying to unearth the box. The dirt around it was soft with only a handful of feathery roots reaching fine tendrils into the wood. As we got towards the bottom, we found some wide paddles that stuck out from the frame to help anchor it in the ground. We continued to work on that, then tried to lift. The paddles snagged on some dirt, jarring it about, and Renou winced hard as more blood seeped out from the blade dug into his ankle. Then he leaned his head back and sucked in through his teeth. I tried to hold it steady, but there was no helping the matter.
We set it down. I found the rivets on the outside holding the side blades in place—they looked like they should break off easy, so I took my knife and popped the first one off. When I pulled the first blade out of him, he let out a cry of anguished relief, and a generous trickle of blood spilled out from the spot.
Then I paused before looking at the next one. "I almost forgot." I went into my medical kit and took out a pouch of gebu'i powder, then opened my canteen and poured it in, swirling it around. "You need to drink this. It tastes horrible, but you might get to keep your foot."
He smiled, "if we don't get ambushed, you mean?"
I smiled, too. "Well, we're already dead, so whatever."
He laughed at that.
The next blade thrust downwards and into the back of his leg just beneath the calf. I broke the rivets off that one and pulled it out as well. Renou held his breath, then groaned. Then with a deep breath he said, "I've never been with a girl… a woman, sorry."
"Neither have I."
He furrowed his brow and looked at me wide-eyed. "What? I thought you were with that scout?"
"I'm Daenma. Chastity is a religious edict I follow."
He nodded, "Oh, I see. Well at least you have options; I've never even kissed a girl." He shook his head, "woman."
"So?" I said. "You'll get there. Stick around in Carthia—there are way too many ladies there for you to keep on like that. You just need to believe in yourself."
"That's hard to do. It's easy when you have something to draw confidence from, but what do I even have? I have nothing. I'm not good at anything."
I looked at him. "Just find your niche, man. Find a place to bloom and you'll get there.."
Renou shook with laughter, then winced at the pain.
"Hold still while I pull this one."
After I got the last one on the side, I tore off the rivets holding the box together and wiped away the blood-soaked dirt until it was just the bottom panel with the big, barbed knife thrust through his boot to come out the top of his foot. I broke off the rivets and removed the wood, and the knife had a flat plane at the bottom where it had been fastened to the box that prevented me from pushing it the rest of the way through.
The barbs were a problem. I had to pull the knife out the way it had gone in, but several barbs promised to snag on a nerve, a tendon, anything that might catch. I rummaged through the medical kit in search of a solution and found a pair of heavy forceps that may or may not have been strong enough to snap the barbs from the rest of the metal. Dr. Zuggi would likely issue the pointy-finger of shame at me for abusing her equipment like this, but I had to try something.
Renou took another swig of the drink. "Gods, this stuff is disgusting!"
I pulled hard at one of the barbs, hoping it worked, and Renou winced from the pain.
"Sorry," I said.
He took a deep breath, then nodded me to continue. Then, holding the knife as still as I could at the bottom end, I snapped the first barb off leaving jagged metal behind. It would cut bad on its way out, but at least it wouldn't rip his whole foot apart. Easy enough. I snapped the next one off.
"You know this is going to leave a scar, right?"
He chuckled. "We're already dead, so what difference does it make?"
"That's the spirit!" I smiled and pulled the knife slowly out, using the heel of his boot to stabilize it. As it came, it brought another ooze of blood, and I used my own knife to carve his boot off completely. I then took his canteen and washed the whole foot off with water. Two lacerations decorated his ankle on both sides with a third digging into his achilles. The main wound left a hole at the top of his foot with an exit through the center of his arch at the bottom, and on each of them blood continued to leak out. "zokedɪ."
He watched me work, resting his hands at his sides. "What's that mean?"
"It means memory, but it also means scar. I was confused because the subject doesn't work. I thought zokedɪsedu translates as you remember me, but no, it means I remember you. That's because it literally means you scar me. Speaking of which, Na'uhui women love a good scar. They think it's sexy."
Renou's eyes perked up. "Really?"
"Yeah," I couldn't help but chuckle. "So you drink some more of that nasty stuff, and if we make it back alive, when this heals up, you'll have to walk around barefoot so that all the women can see it." I had a small bottle of grain alcohol I used to dab at the wounds and wipe away any excess dirt.
"Caleb?"
I was rummaging for some gauze.
"B… behind you!"
It was a scout, but she wasn't one of ours.
Her vita'o was black all over and peered at me through one opaline-white eye with a black slit running vertically down the center, and held its mouth open to display those teeth. The woman had her bow drawn back full and pointed an arrow directly at my face.
I froze.
She froze.
Renou froze.
I tried to look around. I didn't see anyone else. That black vita'o lizard raised its face up and brought it close enough to mine that I could touch my nose to it just by getting tired. Its white eye shimmered in the green light of the forest, and it held itself there. And still, the woman held her aim at me close enough that had she shot, I'd have had a spike through my skull before the shaft left the bow.
I took a deep breath and tried to settle from the shock.
Renou waved his hand with a friendly smile, "zawa!"
I nodded in turn, "zawa."
Still she didn't flinch. Renou looked desperately at me and whispered, "what do we do?"
I held my hands still and resisted the urge to shrug or look remotely guilty of anything. On her left shoulder she had a white tattoo I hadn't seen before—like a coiled snake with its head tilted up. With a deep breath I looked back down. "Well, we're already dead. I'm going to finish bandaging this up and we're going to get you back home. Um…" I looked up at the woman, herself almost as dark as her vita'o. The broadhead she aimed at my face didn't look one bit like a pleasant experience. "Yeah."
I went back to Renou's foot. I put some woven cotton over the lacerations and held them there while I wrapped it in linen. Once they were in place I looked back, and she was gone.
And so I hoisted him up and held his arm over my shoulder, and with that we were able to walk. We studied the road as it led off in two directions—one way to Tower One while the other back to Carthia. "Uh…"
"pʊ ʒʊʃedɪwe!" that scout appeared again, pointing down the road back to Carthia.
Renou pointed. "I think we should go that way."
And so we hobbled. We passed by that old, vine-covered building. I nodded towards it, "I wonder what's inside there?"
Renou thought about it. "It's probably just trees and stuff. Maybe some broken roots or whatever."
"Na," I said with a smile. "I bet there's a secret lair there. I bet there's gold, so much gold you could hardly see the floor. And it's watched over by a sadirac."
Renou looked up. "What's that?"
I looked at him with a smile. "It's an old Falcon legend. There was this doom, and it was held in a box. And if anyone opened the doom, the whole world would become filled with poison. Bear was so angry at seeing Cougar get the last acorn that he broke open the doom. That's how evil entered the world, of course. Naveris saw this and she created the sadirac, these ghost-like etherial creatures that can move in and out of worlds at will, so if you tried to strike them, they would shift into the etherium. Then they would shift back in to strike you. Of course they can fly and move through walls and all that. Anyway, she made a law that whenever someone does evil, the price tag is to be tied around their neck for the rest of their lives. Anyone who refuses has to face the sadirac. So yeah, that's what that is. It's a secret sadirac lair."
Renou shook his head as we hobbled beyond view of the place. "I don't think that's what it is."
"Oh?" my eyes perked up. "What is it, then?"
He looked around. "Shouldn't we be quiet?"
I sucked my teeth. "We're already dead, so no, you can't get out of it so easily. You have to tell me what's in there?"
He bobbed his head about. "It's not about what's in there now, but what was in there."
That brought a smile to my face. "Of course these things are not mutually exclusive!"
"Hmm," he smiled, then nodded. "OK, I think we can do that. So there was this old couple. Very, very old, and they were sitting beside the fire on the… does it even get cold here?"
I offered, "they were cooking something!"
"Yes!" he nodded. "They were cooking their favorite meal. It was the meal they had the day they both realized they were in love. They'd known each other before, but this was the moment. This was the moment when he looked at her and she looked at him, and they both… knew. They just knew, and that was it. And they were cooking the thing they had for dinner that night way back when they were young."
"What was it?" I asked.
He looked up. "Uh… let's go with something… oh, yes! They were making jaloopa."
My eyes perked up at the memory. "Oh God! Oh my God, I miss that stuff!"
"Oh yeah!" he smiled. "So they were making it because they knew that this was likely going to be the last time they'll ever have to share jaloopa together."
"They were dying."
"Oh?"
Renou smiled wide. "They did something. Long, long ago, and that price tag was getting heavy, so they knew their time was at an end. So they're making jaloopa. And she made it perfect, too. Onions sauteed in butter until they're the perfect brown, and you dump in a quart of white wine with mushrooms and rosemary, and then simmer that down. Then you add your rice and heavy cream…"
I nearly laughed.
We'd hobbled our way through the trough carved through chopped vines piled three feet high towards the embankment when we saw that scout again. She had her bow drawn and pointed at me at first, then relaxed her arm and urged her vita'o towards us. The creature… it was a she, came close and sniffed me over. She frantically brought her lizard nose all up and down me, paying close attention to my cheeks and to the wound on my wrist. Then she croaked and chirped, then let out a gargle followed by a click.
The woman then leaned down and brought her face to within inches from mine, passing her yellow eyes all over me and smiling wide. "ʃʌkæsa mɪyaŋi! Hehehehe!"
She giggled hard, then a fraction of a second later she jerked up and looked at something, darted off towards it, and disappeared behind another tree.
I looked, but didn't see anything. We kept walking, and I couldn't help but ponder about that. "She knows Miyani."
Renou broke out laughing. "She knows you're fucking Miyani! Er… thinks anyway."
I smirked. "So you did understand that."
He chuckled, "come on! That's the first word anybody learns."
"Ahh," I bowed low and thought about it. "But if I heard her correctly, she said -sa, not -se. That would make me the object and her the subject, so Miyani is fucking me. Same thing, I guess."
"I don't know," Renou pondered for a moment. "Can we logically deduce from her fucking you that you're fucking her?"
That made me laugh. "I would make that assumption!"
"Well, let's see here," he scratched his chin. "The hypothesis claims the statement is bidirectional, meaning that if person A is fucking person B, then person B is fucking person A. How can we prove that?"
I shook my head and laughed, "I hated proofs! God, I hated that crap!"
Renou assured me, "This one's easy. Let's start with can we disprove it? Can you think of a counterexample?"
I looked up. "Well, let's see here. Um… rape?"
He winced and tried to shake off the shock of the word. "OK!" he tried to smile it off. "So that would be a counterexample. That proves the underlying assumption false. It would be incorrect to translate that as you're fucking Miyani, but that Miyani is fucking you. These things are not the same."
I laughed. "That is exactly the kind of bullshit that made me hate those lessons!"
Renou laughed hard, but checked himself and looked around the forest. Then he nodded. "But it's true, though."
I winced. "I know it's true! That was the problem. It twisted my brain in knots for no reason. And I don't think that's fair. I should have got something for it."
Renou laughed. We hobbled past the tree with the berries and kept going past the hedge with the massive, rolled-up leaves. Renou spoke next, but his tone grew sober. "My dad used to beat the shit out of me if I got one bad mark in school."
I answered. "Davod's dad was like that. Not even over school, but anything. Anything at all set that man off. One time he hurt Davod really bad. Neighbor caught him in the vegetable garden with this girl we grew up with, and his dad bashes him in the head with a shovel. Like, he's out. Hit him so bad he's unconscious. He wakes up later, Mother Searnie is there, I'm with her, and he wakes up. His dad starts eating into him all this bullshit about pure Herali blood. Can't spare one second for a 'hi son, glad you're still alive.'"
"He sounds like a nice guy."
"Yeah," I nodded.
As we approached the causeway through the swamp, my mind set about figuring out a way to convince the hungry dinosaurs we didn't look delicious, when she appeared again.
The woman looked over the causeway, then looked at us, paying close attention to Renou's bandaged foot dangling just above the ground between us. She then held up her hand and looked again before stepping down from her mount. Then she took up her necklace and sorted through the giant beads before settling on one of them. She then opened a panel and pulled out a strap of sorts. On the end of her bow, she pushed something into the knife bracket so that the strap hung down from there. Then she reached into a leather pouch at her side and pulled a small stone from it. She set it in the strap and pulled back, then slingshotted a middle-sized alligator who'd taken up residence along the path. The beast jerked away, splashed into the water, and vanished. She looked back at me, "pʊ xeŋise."
We followed her, and her vita'o crossed the causeway behind us. She slingshotted another one. It bellowed out in protest then lurched away and dipped beneath the water. Behind me, I heard a splash. We turned, and her vita'o's head was beneath the water. A second later, she had a six-foot alligator's neck in her mouth. The poor thing's jaws opened and closed, then locked open as she wiggled her head back and forth. Then she tossed it up, flipped it over, and caught it in her jaws once more.
As we hobbled across the causeway, my eyes landed on the enemy scout before us. She had a small round scar on the side of her hip, and by the hang of her breasts she was probably around Ahmi's age. From behind, however… "they all look like that. God, I love this place!"
Renou giggled and allowed his eyes to pass up and down her back side as well. He nodded, "the things you allow your eyes to see when you're dead!"
I continued. "It's just… I've never seen women so… built. I grew up, I'd always liked fit girls, but damn!"
She shot another alligator who had its giant head just beneath the water. It quietly slinked away. Then she turned around briefly and glared at us, passing her eyes back and forth between us.
I smiled. Renou smiled at her, "zawa!"
I leaned in to whisper, "don't get any ideas; she's married!"
Once we were across the swamp, she re-mounted the big, black lizard and disappeared into the forest.
Renou and I hobbled over the stone bridge and made our way up the incline that seemed a lot steeper going up than it had been going down. "What did you mean about what you said earlier?"
I thought about it. "Which part?"
"You said you went through times when you doubted yourself?"
I shook my head and smiled. "OK, well first off, I'm required to tell you that I find peace in God's grace."
"What?"
I laughed. "As a Daenma, I'm required to tell you that."
Renou smiled. "It's in the contract?"
I smiled back. "It's in the contract! But there are days, man. Sometimes I just don't see it. But anyway, yeah. From before I can remember. One of my first and oldest memories was wondering what was wrong with me that my parents didn't want me around.
"But there's this guy, he's the chief of one of the highland clans way, way up in the mountains around Gath. He's the same guy who gave Father Yewan this bow, in fact. Anyway he used to talk about how shameful it was for a true Falcon boy to grow up in a foreign church, and he would invite me to spend time with his clan. He always said it was to make sure I learned the proper truth of our ancestors, but there was one thing he taught that always stuck with me.
"He said that your haters have a job, and it's a very important job. He said their job is to put you down, to mock you, to try and make you feel low. He said it's important that they do that because it challenges you. Makes you stronger. Reminds you of your humanity, forces you to examine your worth in this world. Then," I laughed at the thought of it even now, "he said it's very important that you don't do their job for them because then they get lazy. And we mustn't let our haters get lazy else they won't do a proper job. So don't do their job for them!" I looked at Renou, who despite the exhaustion of having hopped every step for miles, was beaming.
We made it around the bend beneath the tree with the giant leaves, when she emerged from the shade of a mango tree. She had an alligator's tail rubbed in salt and tied up at the side of the saddle she sat upon, and her eyes darted about frantically..
She looked back over her shoulder, then turned to me quickly and pointed at my side, "beŋæ baxaŋasedu!"
"Wait," I searched my mind for the word. "Give?"
"beŋæ!" she shouted, pointing at my side, once again looking over her shoulder while her vita'o paced the ground, also turning her face to check behind them.
She then reached out and grabbed at my medical kit. I looked at it and tried. "dowa-se… uh…"
She yanked at it, once again checking over her shoulder. I lifted the strap over my head, and she snatched it from me, then darted off behind the trees once more.
It wasn't a minute later when I heard a squawk to my right. The old woman scout rode up on her own vita'o with an arrow nocked, looking at us.