13. Keep Walking

28th of Nima

"I'm sorry," I whispered, staring at the coals in the fire pit. They weren't even smoking anymore. 

Arramy's jaw tightened. Then he dropped the leaves that the extra fish had been wrapped in and got to his feet. "We'll just have to hope we find forage. Come on. The sun's already cleared the horizon." 

I glanced around. The fog was still lying thick and pale among the trees and over the river, heavy enough that it blotted out nearly everything beyond a few meters. How he could tell where the sun was, I couldn't guess, but it certainly was light enough to be morning. Yet another stroke to add to my tally of failures for the day. Not only would we have to travel hungry, we had already lost valuable time – time we might have had to spear another fish and make another fire.

With a sigh I reached for my stolen boots and pulled them on, then got up and went in search of a place to attend to the necessaries. 

When I came back, Arramy had finished burying the ashes in wet sand. 

I made sure the binder and the journal were still tied firmly to my waist, and then we started walking, following the water south. 

~~~ 

The river snaked along between broad gravel beds for several miles, and we made good time, even though breakfast was nothing but a few handfuls of rakii pods Arramy found. 

The sun quickly turned the fog into a damp broil of humidity that had both of us dripping with sweat. As if that was what drew them, the bloodsuckers began to swarm, and the swatting began. 

Arramy spotted a deposit of white clay in the riverbed, stripped off his boots, waded out to it, scooped up a glob and rubbed it all over himself – even through his hair – which made him look like a big, dirty grey ghost. He swore it discouraged the biting insects and kept a person cool, though, so after only a brief hesitation, I allowed him to hand me some when he came back onto the bank. 

Arramy took one look at me trying to daub it on my cheeks, muttered, "City girl," came to stand in front of me, bent down to my level, and proceeded to slime my whole face with a thicker layer. "You gotta get it all over or they'll find you." 

Startled, I stared up at him, my breath snagging painfully in my chest as his fingertips slipped cool and wet along the line of my nose, then traced the contours of my cheekbones before spearing up into my hair. His touch was firm and efficient, which was quite possibly the only reason I didn't flinch. I didn't have time to start remembering another man's hands or the smell of stale beer and sweat. The situation was so vastly different that it rooted me squarely in the present, where there was only the splash of running water and the smooth glide of soft river clay on my skin.

Frowning and squinting while he worked, Arramy finished on the top of my face and brought his thumbs down to paint my chin. Instead, his hands stilled, loosely framing my jaw, his fingers cradling my head, his gaze zeroed in on my lips.

My heartbeat rocketed into my throat.

He blinked, and his attention shifted, drifting to the high, lacy collar of my blouse – and the ugly lines of bruises only half-hidden beneath it. A muscle flickered in his jaw. Abruptly, he let go, and went stalking up the riverbank. 

Dizzy, I stood where he had left me, my pulse still racing, my legs and arms weak. After a second, I let out a long, shaky breath, feeling suddenly ill. I had almost forgotten about them for a moment, but now that ring of bruises hung from me more heavily than ever, branding me as damaged. Breakable and small. Dirty, somehow. A little bruised mouse that hadn't been able to save itself.

Angry, I set my mouth in a firm, defiant line, and finished slathering my arms and neck with clay. I was not a mouse, and I was alive. Still, it took too much effort to stiffen my spine and make my feet move again. 

~~~

My stomach was gnawing loudly on my spine and I was daydreaming about arrensconne with honey and cold Praidani, when we came up a small rise, broke through a laurel thicket, and found ourselves at the top of a small, rounded bluff overlooking the valley. Even for me and my directionally impaired self, it was clear that the river we had been following south was about to double back in a wide, undulating curve to the north. 

Arramy lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he surveyed the valley bottom, his mouth set in a grim line. Then he glanced down at his own shadow on the ground. 

"What's the matter?" I asked, coming to stand next to him.

He nodded toward the stretch of marshland across the river. "NaVarre's plantation is over that way somewhere." He rubbed the back of his neck. Then, with a weary sigh, he turned around and started down the way we had come. "We have to cross." 

I swallowed. This day was just getting better and better.

~~~

I stood on a big, flat rock at the top of the bank and gave the tree-dappled turquoise-green of the river a hopeful study, but the water didn't miraculously bring forth a bridge. Not even steppingstones. There was nothing for it. "I should probably mention that I can't swim." 

Arramy was quiet for several long, agonizing seconds – during which I didn't look at him, the better to avoid seeing his disgust after what had happened with the fish that morning. Then he rotated on his heels and limped off, heading for a large tangle of driftwood that had collected on a spur of boulders a little way down the shore. He took hold of a good-sized tree trunk and dragged it clear. "Come here," he called, pulling the thing down the bank one-handed. 

I moved to help him. "What are we doing?" 

"Give me the stuff from the Vault," he barked, pain shortening his temper. 

I stopped helping and looked at him, wide-eyed. 

My distrust must have been plain on my face, because he quit yanking on the driftwood and shot a glare at me. "Put it on top of the log. We need to keep it dry."

I swallowed. It wouldn't take much at all for him to steal the binder and leave me to rot in the wilderness. He could just as easily have done that yesterday, or when I was asleep. He could have taken them whenever he wanted, really. We were alone. No one would have heard me scream. But he hadn't, and the binder did need to stay dry. I bit my lip, then stepped back and turned around, hiking that awful orange skirt up over what was left of my petticoat. The pocket was there, where it had been since the damsels' den, resting on my right thigh. 

I was untying it when Arramy said, loudly, "Take off your shoes and your clothes while you're at it." 

Incredulous, I gaped at him. 

He had turned to face the other way. "Less weight pulling you down, and you'll have something dry on the other side," he said over his shoulder. 

When I opened my mouth to object, he added a gruff, "And no, I'm not going to look. You're not my type." 

I closed my mouth with a snap. Then raised an eyebrow at the tug of disappointment that followed the 'you're not my type.' Who wanted to be Arramy's type, anyway? For a moment I balked, but I already had too many marks against me. I was not about to give him any more reasons to glare at me if I could help it. My cheeks flaming a million shades of pink, I did as ordered and stripped out of my blouse, skirt, shoes and petticoat. Then, telling myself I wasn't actually naked in my short-chemise and small-clothes, I shuffled down the bank. 

Arramy didn't say anything. He just took the heap of linen from me, wadded it into a ball and stuffed it into the gnarled branches that jutted from one end of the log. His boots were already there. I tied the pocket to one of those same branches, and then we began wading out into the current. 

~~~

The crossing wasn't physically difficult once I discovered that I could float while holding onto the driftwood. Arramy showed me how to kick my legs to push the log forward, and then we were on our way. 

The worst part was crossing the main channel of the river. The water flowed smooth and lazy, pleasantly caressing my overheated, bug-bitten skin, but there didn't seem to be a bottom. I had to close my eyes and repeat to myself that this wasn't the ocean, and the other bank was only a few dozen meters away. 

The instant my feet touched something solid beneath me, I sprang up out of the water like a pop-along and went splashing for shore, leaving Arramy, log, binder and all, behind. I collapsed once I reached the rocky strip of gravel above the waterline, my chest heaving for air, my knees wobbling. Apparently, I hadn't taken a proper breath while I was trying not to imagine myself sinking into murky green oblivion. 

Arramy pushed the driftwood closer before he got his feet under him and stood. Then he grabbed the pocket full of documents, his boots, and my clothes, and slogged his way up the bank, his movements sluggish. He sat down next to me, breathing hard, listing slightly to the right, soggy and dripping. 

My gaze landed on the damp stones behind him. They were splattered pink. Then the pink was spotted with scarlet. 

"You're bleeding again," I said quietly, scooting over to kneel next to him. I was glad I had listened and taken off my petticoat; now it was dry. I took it from him, suddenly not caring what he could or couldn't see of me as I began tearing the last ruffle off of it. 

He didn't say anything. He just sat still and let me unbuckle his vest, his only response to hiss through his teeth when I got the sodden leathers off of him and began peeling the old, soaked dressings away. 

The clean-through on his shoulder was wet and oozing a little, but it didn't actually look too bad. 

The one below his ribs was more concerning. The edges were a dark, angry red, and the skin around it was tight and tinged with yellow. Worse, as I drew the ruined bandage off, the clot came with it, and fresh blood began dribbling down his back. 

Working quickly, I made a new pad, pressing it into the wound hard for several minutes before bandaging him back up. 

He grunted when I finished tying off the one on his shoulder, then he stirred, holding out my skirt and the pocket. "Get your things back on. We need to keep going."

~~~

A few meters off the animal trail we were following, a drift of airy white flowers nodded in a patch of warm sunlight. With a relieved smile, I took a quick detour, picking several stems of the large, round, rubbery leaves growing beneath the flowers, adding them to the berries and the bulbs of wild onion knotted into a flounce of my skirt. 

"What's that?" Arramy asked when I rejoined him. 

"Ancuicui. My aunt brought some back from an expedition once and grows it in her arboretum. Her guides used to harvest it and take it with them into the mountains. It's high in vitamins and minerals, and the leaves retain water for a long time... I'm just surprised to find it growing here. It's native to Carak."

Arramy regarded me for a second, then shook his head and started walking again. Or hobbling, really, his left leg barely taking any weight. He had slowed considerably the longer we went on, and I wished for the millionth time that I could get that bullet out of him. Almost as if that thought had been some sort of cue, Arramy stumbled over a rock and reached out a hand to steady himself against a tree. Then he stayed that way, just standing there, breathing slowly through his teeth.

Without a word I caught up and slid my arm around his waist, just like I had the day before. 

Arramy closed his eyes for an instant, then started moving. I wasn't sure whether to be glad or worried that he had accepted my help so easily. 

~~~ 

We had been making our way along that animal trail for a little more than an hour when I noticed the silence for the first time. Arramy was leaning on me, his arm across my shoulders, my arm around his waist. We were both too tired to carry on much of a conversation, so it wasn't too hard to notice when the forest stopped talking. Not just a few, but all of the birds fell quiet at once. The monkeys and rodents that lived in the trees even stopped screeching at us, and the frogs and insects quit their droning.

Curious, I came to a halt, wondering where all the wildlife had gone in such a hurry, but Arramy kept going, his grip tightening on my shoulder. "Don't stop. Not here." 

I frowned. "Why not?" 

"We're being stalked," he said. Calmly. As if he were explaining the rules of a card game. 

"Stalked! By what?" I gasped, instantly trying to crane around to peer over his elbow. 

"No idea. Don't look back," he rasped. "Whatever it is, it's just following us—" 

"What?" 

"Shhh... My guess... It's not hungry, so it's still deciding whether we're worth the trouble. If we look back and it thinks we've seen it, it might decide to take us down before we have a chance to run. Just keep walking. We need to find a place to build a decent shelter."

"Oh," I managed, nodding as if I understood. "Right. Keep walking... You couldn't have just said it was the wind?" 

Arramy gave me a sidelong glance, brow raised. "Would you have believed me?" 

"Yes!" 

"It's the wind." 

I gave his right side a pinch. "Liar." 

A faint snort of amusement had me glaring up at him. He looked at me, the traces of a smirk tugging at his lips. "Walk. We'll be fine."

"I think you're enjoying this," I muttered, but shouldered his arm a little more firmly and kept shuffling my feet. 

Around us, the silence trailed like an invisible banner.

~~~

Ancuicui: ANN-coo-EE-coo-ee.