Chapter 56

 

When the day cooled enough to move, Rhia wrote up her theory about the Matriarch’s moons. At sunset the clouds finally released their rain, a few drops, then a pounding torrent, as violent as any rain-year storm at home. When full darkness fell Etyan got up and walked out. Rhia tensed, but he stopped just outside the cave and turned his face to the sky, then opened his mouth. After a moment’s hesitation Rhia joined him. Very little water actually went down her throat and though the rain was warm she soon began to shiver. “Let’s get back inside,” she suggested. He shrugged but complied.

They were soaked through and Rhia insisted they wrung their clothes out. As she got the worst of the water out of her skirt she said, “I suggest we don’t try and go to the stream in this weather.”

“Fine by me.”

The rain eased off and the Moons rose behind the clouds.

When the rain finally stopped they dressed in their wet clothes, for protection against the local wildlife.

With the Moons and stars hidden behind cloud, the night pressed in. Far from helping her see, the patchy skyland glow confused Rhia’s night sight, and damp vegetation dragged at her sodden skirt. Etyan reached the stream before her.

He also finished drinking before her. She raised her head from the water to see him already scrambling back up the side of the ravine. He was probably enjoying being able to evade her, if only for a while, but they needed to stick together out here. She called softly, “Wait for me, I’m just coming.”

Hearing her voice, he turned.

Darkness fell on him.

The screech was deafening, more so for coming from nowhere. But Rhia recognized the carrion stench. She jumped up.

Etyan’s scream joined the nightwing’s cry. He batted at the dark mass whirling round his head, then tottered and half fell, stumbling down the slope, limbs flailing.

The dark cloud flowed after him.

Rhia ran towards the nightwing. It was smaller than the one she had met on the plateau, not much bigger than Etyan himself. But it could still kill him. She met it halfway but misjudged its location, dark on dark, and only brushed the edge of its oily darkness. Membranes slapped her palms, stinging like wasps. Then it was past her.

She turned and staggered downslope, after the creature. At the same moment, she heard a scream and a splash.

The stream butted close to the edge of the ravine here, with a small rocky ledge fringing a deep pool. Etyan, out of control, had tumbled over the ledge and into the water.

Rhia ran faster, tripping in her haste to outpace the nightwing. She threw herself into the pool after her brother.

Cold water stole her breath. Her legs found rock, straightened, pushed her up to stand. The water came up to her chest. All she could see of Etyan was thrashing limbs and wild spray.

The nightwing hovered overhead, sending tendrils of darkness down towards the water. But not into it.

Rhia remembered the skykin seeing off the nightwing on the plateau, the bone sword and firebrand. No sword or fire here–

She gulped a breath and threw herself over Etyan, clapping a hand across his mouth and nose. Something sharp whipped the back of her neck as both of them went under. He struggled but she held him tight and close. She willed him to understand what she was trying to do, to cooperate; to save himself. The water overhead frothed. Her knees and one elbow bumped the bottom. Would they float? Whatever her instincts, they had to stay under.

Etyan’s struggles grew feebler. Was she drowning him? Her own chest began to ache. His lips pressed against her palm: he was still trying to scream.

Overhead, the commotion in the water was easing off.

Her lungs began to burn. Etyan went limp in her grasp.

Enough. That had to be enough. She pushed off the rocky bottom, pulling Etyan with her. His head broke the surface a moment after hers. She tensed, expecting stinging darkness, but there was only cold night air.

She drew a huge, sobbing breath and released her hold on Etyan’s face. He gasped, coughed, then moaned.

“There, it’s gone now, it’s gone.”

“What… what…” his voice was a strained whimper.

“Nightwing. Small one. Doesn’t like water. Stay quiet, in case it’s still around.” She risked a glance up, and saw a deeper darkness far overhead, receding against the clouds.

“Can’t, can’t feel…” he sobbed, words breaking down.

“We need to get out of the water.” For all she knew something equally unpleasant lived there. “Can you stand?”

“No…” it was a low, pathetic groan.

“Then I’ll support you.” Even in the bad light she could see the dark spots on his skin – on hers too, where her hands had brushed the nightwing. Given the stinging numbness emanating from these patches, and given how many more Etyan had, no wonder he was moaning. “Lean on me.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded dumbly, the whites of his eyes clear in the night.

He got one leg under himself with her support, then squealed. “My knee!”

“All right. I’m going to pull you out. Hold onto the rock here.”

Once he had a grip on the rocky ledge she waded past him and pulled herself out, somewhat surprised at how easy it was. Some enquirer had written about that, how mothers saved their babies with impossible feats in the face of sudden danger. Apparently it worked with little brothers too.

Lying flat on the rock, she leant down and grasped his upper arms, ignoring how the nightwing stings burned. “You have to help me, Etyan. Push off with your good leg.”

He nodded. Then, half climbing up her, half being pulled by her, he hauled himself out of the pool. For a few moments they lay side by side on the rocky ledge, dripping and panting. Then Rhia sat up.

Etyan’s panting was becoming more pained. “Can’t breathe…” he gasped.

Nightwings had paralyzing poison. They had no mouth, no teeth; they were many small parts yet all one creature. Sting; paralyze and numb; dissolve and digest. That was how they hunted.

“No one’s going to digest you if I can help it.”

She did not realize she had spoken aloud until Etyan frowned up at her. “You have to sit up. Sit up and keep breathing!” She pulled him upright; the manic strength still infected her. Compared to this, seeing off intruders in her study was nothing.

His breath became more laboured. It couldn’t end like this! His eyes closed. She held him, not tight enough to constrict his breathing, and muttered, “First of the Universe, I don’t generally have much time for you, and I’m sorry about that, but please don’t let my brother die. Please save him. Just save him. Please.”

Her arms had gone numb, though how much was from the nightwing’s poison and how much from supporting Etyan she could not say.

His breathing weakened, and she feared to breathe herself. But it didn’t catch, didn’t stop. “That’s right,” she murmured, “hold on.” For what, though. Dawn? But dawn would kill him. She looked down his body. His left knee was swollen. Even without the nightwing poison, she wasn’t sure he could get back to the cave.

“Ree?” She barely heard his whisper over the rush of the stream.

“Yes, Etyan!”

His eyes were closed but his mouth worked again. She bent down to put her ear close.

Etyan murmured, “You want to know what happened?”

“What happened when? Oh.” He meant Derry. “You don’t have to tell me now if you don’t want to. You can just lie here.” And not die. Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

“I’m scared, Ree.”

“I’m here.”

She thought he had changed his mind about speaking, or perhaps lost the ability to, when he said, “I can’t… I have to tell you. Before… before I go.”

“All right. If… whatever you want, Etyan. Whatever you need to do.”

“Wanted to say before but… wasn’t sure you’d understand.”

“I’ll try, now.”

“That morning. Found her like that.”

“I believe you!” Why hadn’t he just said that in the first place?

“But I knew her. Who she was. The reason I went back was… to pay her family off. Because of what we did.”

Rhia’s heart slowed. “When you say ‘we’?”

“Me, Phillum and Aspel. I was so out of it… ’s no excuse. She was out late, dressed up, we thought she was a… y’know. She was scared. But they said she was playing and… that made it more exciting. I shouldn’t have… they wanted me to prove myself.”

I don’t want to hear this. But she had to.

“Let us be clear, Etyan. Are you saying you… attacked that poor girl?” She couldn’t use the word she was thinking of. Her little brother would never do that.

“Yes. While they watched. I hate myself.”

How could you? She pulled away. She didn’t want to touch him.

He groaned.

He was dying. She had to stay. She said, “Don’t hate yourself.” She wanted to say I hate that you could do that but if this was it, if he was dying, she couldn’t let him die hating himself. She searched for some consolation, something to focus on other than what he had done. Like what he had not done. “You didn’t kill her. Remember that.”

“No, but…” Etyan drew a long rasping breath. “They said… if I blabbed they’d say… all my idea, treating her like that… Felt so shitty. When I went back in the morning… to say sorry, make amends…” His voice was dying away, “… saw her just lying there, in the dyers’ pool. All that blood. I ran. Kept running.”

“Oh Etyan.”

His eyelids fluttered and he whispered, “Maybe I deserve this.”

“You don’t!” Some twisted, dark part of her thought maybe he did, but she knew what he needed to hear right now. “I understand. And I forgive you, Etyan.”

“Thank you, Ree.”

He was thanking her for the last comfortable lie she would ever tell him.

She felt his lips move against her cheek. “You have to go. Save yourself.”

“No. I’m not leaving you.” She wanted to hold him tight forever, to save him, despite what he’d done.

“Sun’ll kill you.”

For once, his logic beat hers. He couldn’t move: she could. One of them could survive. Tears pricked her eyes. “I love you, little brother.” She couldn’t remember the last time she had told him that.

His murmured, “Love you too, sis,” was barely audible.

His breathing slowed. She held him, waiting, dreading the final breath. His chest was barely moving when the sky began to lighten, and she prayed again, because if he woke up now, if the poison wore off, she might still get him to safety before the Sun rose. But he didn’t wake up.

Finally, with dawn creeping up the sky, she kissed his forehead, stood, and lurched back up the slope.