Alaysha was pretty certain her hunger and thirst had made her delirious. Yes. Seven days across the burnt lands with barely any water—rationing what they did have, baking in the unyielding sun, worrying about accidentally killing those of her companions that she loved. All of those things had sent her over the edge into full blown sun sickness.
It had to be so. Bodicca did not lie at her feet, covered in sores from some horrible burning. She wasn't there lying alone without Yenic whom she herself had taken captive from Sarum in retaliation for Aislin's kidnapping of Saxon. She did not lie there, a massively huge woman at the feet of the strangest beast Alaysha had ever seen, letting Theron do his best to tend to her pains when she knew, just knew, that the man she'd saved was dead. And that she was to blame.
No. It was the sun. It had to be. She was certain of it when the ground trembled beneath her feet, nearly imperceptible at first, but when her soles vibrated, she was sure of it. Sun sickness. It made sense.
She stared mutely at Gael for a moment, wondering if he was sharing the delirium.
He twitched his shoulder helplessly. “I'm sorry, Alaysha. I know it's true.”
Bodicca groaned quietly and Theron began babbling again in his nonsensical way as he crouched over her. Alaysha didn't understand half of what he said, but then, she rarely did.
“It can't be true.” She toed the woman's skin closest to her. “She wouldn't have left Yenic there.”
Theron slapped her foot away. “This warrior would have had no choice. No. Not this one.” He looked at Alaysha, glaring with unexpected vehemence. “She earned this pain long ago.” He ran his hands over the length of her back, never touching the skin, only sweeping the sheerest bit of air currents toward her feet. “You earned it, did you not, warrior?”
Before she could ask what he meant, Aedus crept up next to her and pressed the water skin into her hand. Alaysha glanced down at the dear ferret-like face with its tiny black eyes, and hair in ratty strings of caked and dried mud. She couldn't help a smile.
“You drink, little one,” she told her.
Aedus shook her head and Gael shuffled closer. “The girl is right,” he said. “You need to drink your fill.”
Alaysha's mouth twisted in self-loathing. “Why, because I'm more important?” She thought of the shaman's confession before they'd started this cursed journey that she must be the goddess Liliah.
“No, because I'd rather not end up as a pair of rolling eyeballs on this cracked earth.”
"Some humour then, to lighten the load, Gael?"
He shrugged. “I guess you don't know me.” Gael grinned and squeezed her shoulder. “No,” he admitted. “Because you're more dangerous this thirsty.”
“Ah,” she said with a sigh. “Lest I drain you all of your life-giving fluid to save my pitiful self.” She upended the skin and gulped greedily, forcing herself to pause every now and then so she didn't get sick and waste the fluid. “Barruch,” she gasped at last, holding the skin out.
Aedus took the skin from her. “Barruch is already doing better.”
Alaysha nodded. “Good.” She sighed, loving the feeling of sloshing that took over her belly. She glanced again to the horizon. “We've passed the zenith,” she said.
Gael nodded in agreement. “It will get easier for a while.” He turned his attention to where Edulph was still sitting, his hands bound in his lap. “Did you water him, Aedus?”
She toed the dirt. “Not enough.”
“Come then,” Gael said, reaching for the girl's arm. “I'll protect you while that particular beast drinks his fill.”
Alaysha watched them go then reached to feel Barruch's neck beneath her palm “Well, old man,” she said. “We live another day.”
He snorted at her and shoved his nose beneath her chin. His breath felt hot, but no longer dry and smothering. She gave his nose a pat on the white patch. “I wouldn't have let them do it, you know.”
He brought his nose hard against her cheek, bumping it a little more than a loving touch would be.
“Maybe if you were more of a gentle mount I wouldn't have even considered it.”
He gave her a baleful stare that made her sigh. He was in a temper. And rightfully so.
“Nothing a few peaches won't cure, old man,” she whispered before kissing his white spot, then she turned to the sight she least wanted to face.
“How is she, Theron?”
Without stopping his strange ministrations, he made veiled comment as usual.
“She thought she'd escape it then, but they don't forget. Oh no.”
“Forget what?” Alaysha asked him. “Theron?” Alaysha eased closer and dropped to a squat. She still felt light-headed, but the heat didn't feel so brutal anymore. “Theron?”
He swept his palm over the warrior's back without being close enough to disturb even a hair. “They will remember us if they remember her, surely.” He trailed off mumbling about herbs and broths and twins. None of it made sense to Alaysha, but she did catch one word that made sense: Youngblood.
“Youngblood, Theron? Who is that?” She thought it must mean Yenic, especially when the words around the name seemed to talk of battles and burning flames.
“Do you think she left Yenic to those warriors? Do you really think they'll kill him?” She could barely say the words.
“We have time,” he said without looking at her.
“We?” she asked. “Do you mean we or you?” Damn the man and his muddled speech.
He glared up at her, pausing in his movements that seemed to only brush air away from Bodicca's body and no more.
“The moon gives us all time,” he said. “But when it meets itself on the other side, he will die.”
“No,” she heard herself say, not sure what he meant, but sure of one thing. “She can take us there.” She looked down at the ravaged warrior, so haughty before, when Alaysha knew her as Yuri's most dedicated warrior, so helpless now as she moaned in what had to be fever. Alaysha knew even as she spoke that the woman was of no use.
She looked over her shoulder at the three others. They sat stretched out on the ground. Bodicca's strange beast rested on its knees beside them. She stole a glance at Barruch, whose belly was twitching in an effort to acclimate the heat. Bodicca was of no use, no. And Theron, deities help him, was needed by the warrior more than with the band.
But the beast. If it had brought Bodicca this far, could it make it back? Would it know the way?
She reached for Theron's hand. “Can you magic a cool place in the earth for her?” They'd been interrupted in the possibility before, but it seemed prudent to ask it again.
He looked at her, confused, and she had to explain.
“Can you create a deep enough hole to escape the heat, to find water?”
“Such magic needs blood; we told you that,” he said and put his palm on the back of Bodicca's neck. She moaned, but not in pain this time. The shaman smiled. “The air steals the pain.” He rose and shook his hands. “It is all a poor Clay Arm can do. Yes, sadly, yes it is.”
“Theron,” she said again. “Can you?”
He quirked his head. “We need blood.”
Alaysha said nothing, merely glanced at Edulph as he sat sullen, and the shaman seemed to catch her meaning as he followed her gaze. “That madman may have secrets we need to hear,” he said.
“You mean like this madman?” Alaysha asked, touching Theron's chest.
He sighed. “Our witch had that power. Our witch could build monuments with stone. This madman has only residual power; who knows how much left since we lost her. We doubt we can make a hole wide enough to hide in from the sun.”
Alaysha huffed. “Then just dig a small hole, far, far down till you reach water.” It was desperate, she knew, because if water was within a kubit deep, she'd have been able to draw it. But maybe she'd just been too far gone with fear to try.
“Such magic takes much blood.”
She quirked her brow at him.
Gael came forward, overhearing. He looked back over his shoulder at Edulph as he sat sullenly on the ground. “Then take it from that one,” he said.
“That madman -” he began and Gael interrupted him.
“That madman is good as dead eventually anyway.”
Alaysha squeezed her eyes shut. This couldn't be happening. Not after they'd made it this far.
Theron groaned, frustrated. “The blood from such a madman is useless,” he sighed sadly.
“Then what, Theron,” Gael commanded. “What blood will do?” He stuck out his forearm, poised beneath a blade in his other hand so quickly Alaysha hadn't seen it move.
Again, the shaman shook his head. “If warrior blood was enough for us, we'd bleed the useless one.” He eyed Bodicca as she lay in delirium.
Alaysha already knew what blood worked best even before Gael guessed it, his face altering to a storm of fierce rage. She put her hand on the outstretched arm, feeling the hot pulse beneath her palm.
“He means a witch's blood, Gael,” she said. "Mine."