14. Keep Talking

28th of Nima, Continued

We walked for several more miles with that unearthly quiet hanging over us. At first every little sigh of a breeze, every rustle of a leaf, every scratch of a twig had my heart leaping into thunder in my chest, and the urge to bolt was nearly overpowering. It did wonders for the nerves, constantly wondering if the next step, the next thought, the next breath would be my last, but after a while, when nothing happened, it became easier to act like I didn't care. 

Shortly before the sun began dropping toward the horizon, the trail opened into a wide clearing. At the far end of the clearing was a small hill, with a copse of shaggy oak at the top, their thick boles standing in a rough semi-circle. 

Arramy took one look at those trees and announced that we could stop. Then he found a large stick, handed it to me, told me to stay close and keep my eyes peeled for anything coming at us, and began dragging dead branches and fallen logs out of the woods and up to the top of the hill. I had to stand watch once more while Arramy laced the smaller branches together between the trunks of the oaks until a sort of roof had taken shape. He covered that with leafy branches and dead ferns. The walls were next. He used the biggest branches for those, propping them up lengthwise on the edge of the roof wherever there wasn't a tree trunk. Then we both gathered long grass from the clearing for bedding, sticks and branches for a fire, and stones from the river for a burn pit. 

When we were done, it was nearly sundown, but we had a tiny, relatively sturdy hut with a narrow opening, and a long pit of stones in front. Arramy laid a fire large enough to discourage anything from coming at us, and we settled down behind it.

For the moment, anyway, we were as safe as we were going to get. I eased my aching body onto the floor in the doorway of the hut and untied the knot in my skirt, cradling my collection of berries, onions, and leaves between my knees. 

Arramy finished feeding the fire and sat down next to me, then let his head fall back against the tree trunk behind him and closed his eyes. His shoulders bowed as he let all of his breath leave his chest.

For several seconds he was so still I almost thought he was going to drift off right there, and panic began needling at my stomach. 

Then, abruptly, he brought his right hand up and scrubbed it over his face, shaking his head quickly as if he could rid himself of exhaustion like a dog shedding water. With a grunt he dragged his eyelids open. "Ask me a question, kid. Something. Talk to me. We gotta stay awake."

I glanced out into the freakish stillness of the clearing and tried to concentrate. Right. Questions. I can ask questions. "So... Where did you learn to fish like that? With the spear?"

Arramy didn't respond, and I looked at him, thinking he had fallen asleep after all.

He was staring at the fire. Then he sneered slightly. "My father." 

I picked the bristles off one of the ancuicui leaves, peeled the leathery skin apart, and took a bite of the juicy insides. It didn't taste like much, but it wasn't unpleasant, and it soothed the thirst I had worked up since we left the river. "You didn't appreciate it?" I prompted. 

"It wasn't the lesson I didn't appreciate so much as the teaching method." He picked up a pebble, fiddling with it before tossing it into the flames.

"And you grew up in North Altyr?" I asked around another mouthful. 

Arramy nodded. "Aye... My father was head mechanic in a mining stadz called Aggos... married a tavern wench from the next stadz over. They had four boys."

"That sounds nice," I whispered, gazing up through the fire-gilded oak branches at the spangle of stars high above us, trying not to wonder how many of the shadows might have teeth.

"'Nice' isn't the word I'd use..." Arramy said, his expression distant. To my surprise he kept going. "My father was a hard man. Hard on himself, hard on his wife, hard on his children... Hard to love, harder to live with... He couldn't stand a lot of things. The heat in summer. Waiting on supper. A wife who asked questions. Useless mouths to feed. He did love the old ways, though, so when I was young, three or four summers, maybe, he taught me to fish in the stream behind our kraish."

Arramy took up a handful of pebbles and began sifting them through his fingers. "If I didn't catch anything, I wasn't allowed to eat. He taught me to hunt the same way." He quirked a brow, his mouth curving into a hard grin. "Said it would make me understand the value of things. He died when I was thirteen... And that hardness was what kept us alive. We already knew how to live on nothing." Arramy threw another pebble at the fire with a vicious flick of his wrist, sending up a little shower of sparks. "In the end, I guess I have to thank the blighter."

I looked at him, unsure what to say, and only able to think: Well... that explains a few things.

"Alright. My turn," Arramy announced, reaching over and taking a few berries from my lap. "Do you have any hobbies?"

The quick-change in topic caught me off guard, and I gaped at him for a beat too long before managing to say, "Yes. Um. I do. Or I... did." I made a face. "Sort of. I collected words when I was little. I had this treasure box full of things I cut out of my father's periodicals. He used to say there was a paper pyxxe living under the couch in his office, coming out to steal scraps of paper at night, and for years I thought he really believed it... " I bit my lip as that familiar hollow ache started up in my chest. I forced a smile. "I've never told anyone this, but when I was five, I stole a page from a brand-new edition of Physter's Crime Almanac in the Garding bookshop. It had the word 'escapee' across the top in big, shiny red letters, and my five-year-old self thought that was the funniest word I'd ever seen. Um... I also drew pictures of old sailors. The wrinklier the better." 

I stopped talking and peeled another ancuicui leaf, offering it to Arramy, fully aware of how very different our stories were. "How did you wind up in the navy?"

He sucked on the ancuicui pulp, then scratched absently at the three-day stubble on his chin. "I think my mother needed rent money. The Coalition was drumming for volunteers, offering an enlistment bonus for signing up. It was only a silver half-mark, but it meant Ma and the boys could have a roof over their heads for another month, and the wages for a seaman's apprentice were more than I could make down the mine. I was always tall for my age, and the recruiting officer must have been nearsighted. I walked in, said I was twenty, and he handed me my service papers."

His choice of words had me tilting my head to look at him. "How old were you?" 

"Fifteen," he said, sending another pebble into the fire. "And if you tell the enlistment bureau, I'll deny having ever met you."

I had no trouble believing the man had been breaking the rules all the way back...When? My curiosity got the best of me. "So how long have you served?"

"Would have been twenty years next spring," he said dryly.

Ahah! He's roughly... thirty-five... My cheeks went warm as that thought was followed immediately by: Huh. He really is younger than he looks... And he has been in the navy since I was four. Five. I'll say five... What am I doing?

"I was going to retire," he went on, a rueful grin tugging at his mouth. "Claim all my prize money. Live in my cottage on Laggosh. Chase the neighbor's children out of my yard... Get a dog..."

A chuckle found its way out in spite of my best efforts to hold it in. The image of Arramy puttering about a seaside cottage in a quaint island town was too hard to wrap my mind around. How would he be able to resist blowing something up? 

"What?" Arramy asked, his grin growing. 

I shot a quick sideways glance at him, still picturing that cottage: masts on the roof, sails billowing from the windows... A big, silver hound sitting at full attention on the porch... Arramy planting cannon balls in strict lines in the kitchen garden... Maybe there would be a Mrs. Arramy, and they would patrol their extremely tidy boat-shaped yard, brandishing short swords at innocent passersby... "Nothing," I said. My voice came out funny and I cleared my throat. 

Arramy narrowed his eyes to a suspicious squint, then closed them all the way and tipped his head back against the tree again. 

Worry jerked at me. His face was haggard, and there was a sheen to his skin in spite of the chill stealing through the evening air. 

His throat bobbed, and he shifted his weight. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

I looked away. "No. My mother died when I was six and my father never remarried... You have brothers?"

He nodded slightly. Then his brows lowered, and lines appeared at the corners of his mouth. "Three. They..." He stopped, a muscle flickering in his jaw. "It's just me and the youngest, now." He took a breath, then grunted as he shifted his weight a second time. "You... ah... You went to school?" 

"Kingsbridge," I whispered. "I finished with honors in language studies." 

He stopped moving and gave me a wry once over, as if to say he had already guessed as much. "What were you going to do with that?"

"Travel," I muttered. "See the world."

That actually made him laugh, which then made him wince as he rasped out, "Well, I'd say you've seen it." He pressed his hand to his side and ground his teeth, then swore under his breath and sagged against the tree. "Your turn."

My eyes stung as I watched him. He had always seemed too strong and stubborn to die, but even a strong man eventually runs out of time. The pang of worry I had been carrying around promptly sickened to a heavy ball of dread in the pit of my stomach. 

With a jerk, I turned to the fire, dragging in a shuddering breath. "Um! Is there... Is there anyone... special waiting for you back home?" I managed to ask. Then I sat there, telling myself I wanted him to say 'yes' so I could stick this strange new reaction to him in a bin marked Irrelevant. 

"Once." 

My heart pitched, first because that wasn't exactly a 'yes,' and second because it wasn't a 'no' either, and my stupid brain had already supplied a picture of him kissing a tall, willowy girl, those lean fingers threading through her hair. Blonde. She would have been blonde, and absurdly pretty. Jealousy? Really? I shoved that helpful image back where it had come from, rested my elbow on my knee, supported my chin on my palm, and looked at him. 

He was watching me from beneath half-closed lids. 

I raised my eyebrows. Then helpfully pointed out, "You can't just say that. You have to tell."

He glanced out at the clearing. It was faint, but I caught a spark of emotion in those quicksilver eyes before he shuttered it up behind a stony wall. "It's not the sort of thing I usually... talk about..." his words trailed off, his gaze sharpening on something in the shadows beyond the firelight.

"What is it?" I blurted, looking in that direction. "Did you see something?" 

"No." His voice was firm, but his expression didn't change, and there was a new tension in his muscles. 

"You saw something."

He shook his head and sat up a little straighter. "Nai, kid. What about you? Do you have someone waiting for you?" 

He was lying. I wasn't sure if I should be insulted that he thought I couldn't handle the truth, or if I should just go along with it because he was trying to keep me from being frightened. I didn't want to seem like a scared, rattlebrained ninny, so I just answered his question while searching the clearing. "No. Not in a romantic capacity."

"Huh." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Nothing," he said vaguely. "Ever get close?" 

I nodded. "Oh yes. I fell in love with a farmer from Aylebridge. It was a torrid affair. Made the gossip column in three counties. His parents wanted him to wed a milking maid from Lennerth, but he wouldn't have anyone but me. We were going to elope to Inkeros but... Tragedy has kept us apart." 

"Sounds like the plot to The Plainsland Queen." 

In spite of the terror looming in the dark as night fell and the shadows deepened, I almost burst out laughing. "So you've read Roven's novellas too."

"Who, me? Never. Like I said. You don't have to jump into the sewer to —"

"Know it stinks," I finished with him. "Right... Is it still there?" 

Arramy glanced at me, taking my measure. Then, quietly, he said, "Just keep talking. We'll be fine."

~~~

Kraish: (craysh) a traditional Altyran dwelling often found among the indigenous northern tribes still living in the Obyr mountains; a roundhouse made of logs set upright in the ground and caulked with mud, clay, or rope soaked in tar. The peaked roof is thatched or shingled, depending on the availability of the necessary resources.