Escape (7 page)

Luka snatched the jug and drank, gulping the water down but careful not to spill a drop. Just because the source was right there didn't mean the soldier—Kosos was the name on his uniform—would give him more.

When the soldier decided ten minutes were up, he got to his feet, grabbed his rucksack, and told Luka to do the same.

“Please. Just leave me here.”

Kosos turned and leveled a grave look at Luka.

“I'm injured. I won't be able to keep up.”

“I'm not leaving you here alive. So quit whining and get up.”

They topped off the three containers with water, and headed out. Kosos set a brisk pace over the difficult terrain. Weak from the beating, the hunger and lack of decent rest, his ribs still hurting, Luka struggled to keep up, terrified Kosos would be as likely to kill him and leave him slumped among the outcroppings of rock as he was to waste his breath telling him to move faster. When the sun was at its zenith and it felt like they'd been walking for three or four hours without a break, he tried asking where they were going.

“If you have breath to spare for a chat, I can stop worrying I'm making you walk too fast.” Kosos picked up the pace, and Luka regretted opening his stupid mouth. Even if he hadn't been a wreck, how did the soldier expect him to be able to match the stride of his long legs? About an hour later, Kosos tossed his bag down against the trunk of a maple. “We'll rest for thirty.”

Before he realized Kosos was undoing his fly, he had his cock out and a massive gush of urine splashed into the weeds. Luka turned his back and fished the jug of water out of his bag. If he drank enough, maybe the hunger pangs would go away. Would he ever need to pee again? Or would his body keep absorbing every drop he drank?

“Here.” The soldier held out a good-sized chunk of cured beef. “Take it. I'm not carrying you if you faint from hunger.”

Luka took the meat. “Thank you.”

It was tough and hard to chew and maybe the most delicious thing Luka had ever tasted. He forced himself to eat slowly, taking small bites and chewing a long time, sucking the flavor from the meat, imagining each swallow of savory saliva was a real bite of food, tripling the size of the meal in his imagination, hoping it would trick his stomach.

The soldier wolfed his down in four or five bites, barely seeming to chew, jaw hidden under his thick, dark beard, then laid back, crossed his arms over his broad chest and closed his eyes. Less than a minute later, he snored. The handle of the knife in a sleeve on his belt jutted out from his hip. It looked easy to grab. All Luka had to do was unsnap the narrow leather strap, and gently pull it free.

Then what? Kill him in his sleep? Run away? And if the soldier woke up?

Better to just run. Now. Maybe Kosos would sleep another hour or two, and by the time he woke up, Luka would be five or ten kilometers away. Maybe if he veered off ninety degrees from the direction they'd been going, he'd be too much trouble to hunt down, and Kosos would just resume his bearings and forget him.

“You've been so docile.”

Luka startled, and shifted his gaze from the hilt of the knife, to the bearded menace's hazel eyes, locked on his.

“Don't start being a pain in the ass now.”

“I'm just going to go pee.”

“Then you can leave the bag.”

“I thought maybe I'd see a stream and we could refill the jugs.”

“No streams around here. Water's all under this lid of limestone. If you can pick up the pace, we'll have water before it gets dark.”

Dejected, Luka set his bag down and walked off.

“That's far enough. Stay where I can see you.”

“I need to take a shit.”

“Congratulations. That's still far enough.”

Luka hovered near a jutting monolith of stone, trapped between his terror of aggravating the soldier, and dread of being watched. He made a show of undoing his pants, then squatted down so Kosos could still see him, but his privates were screened from sight. Waiting a minute to sustain his pretense of relieving himself, he did himself up and went back and followed the soldier into the woods, wondering if Kosos knew something about that area he didn't. Maybe there was a platoon from the Bokan army stationed nearby. Or even the Eršban army. The idea made his stomach roll. Would they just shoot him on sight? Or would they take him prisoner and question him? Torture him? Maybe that was why Kosos hadn't let him go—he was taking him to his superiors.

But what was Kosos doing roaming around by himself? Had he deserted? Or gotten separated by accident, like Luka had pretended to be? Maybe there'd been a battle. Or he'd been on a mission, and a landmine had blown up his vehicle and the other soldiers.

It was still light when they came within hearing, and then within sight of water. Luka had never seen anything like it. Ahead, the terrain of natural cobblestones like hardened blobs of gray dough gradually melded and merged into an even sheet, its more lenient irregularities the result of fine layers chipping away like bark. As they got closer to the water—an impossibly rich viridian—the even terrain dropped away in a succession of sharp but shallow drops. A wide, craggy set of steps, as if nature had built an enormous public bath. From the sound, Luka had expected a river, but the water in the basin was nearly still, except at the point where it gushed out, turbulent and white, from under a mossy ledge of stone where the steps ended.

When they reached it, Kosos threw his bag to the ground and stripped out of his shirt. “Get undressed.”

A sudden, vague terror took hold of Luka's intestines.

“Strip down, wash yourself. And wash your clothes.”

Luka turned away as Kosos undid his fly and shucked off the rest of his clothes. “I don't have anything else to wear.”

“Kid, you reek of piss and fear and a week's worth of stale sweat. Clean yourself up so I can enjoy my dinner without fighting my gag reflex.”

When he heard Kosos moving away, Luka glanced out of the corner of his eye, and saw him wading naked into the shallow water, his own clothes bundled under his arm. He didn't know what was making him feel so sick to his stomach—fear, or shame. Trying to ignore the soldier's naked body, his dark genitals and black hair in stark contrast to his amber skin, smooth and lustrous, Luka made his way along the perimeter, to a cluster of molten lumps that rose up as high as his chest. Screened by the rock, he hurriedly stripped out of his things and washed them out as best he could in the cold water, then squatted down and washed himself, struggling to get water up under his arms, to clean his hair, matted against his sweaty scalp.

Knowing how ridiculous it was, he took the empty jug out of the bag the old man had given him, and tied the canvas bag handle around his waist, fashioning a kind of loincloth. Then he filled the jug and trudged back. Kosos was dressed in dry clothes and already had a fire going, and was hanging his own wet clothes from branches he'd braced together near the heat of the flames.

When he saw Luka, Kosos grinned. “You can hang your things up with mine, Tarzan. They'll be dry in a couple hours.”

The familiar urge to hide, to disappear swallowed Luka. Even his body felt like it was shrinking, folding in on itself to escape the presence of the soldier's strong, wiry body. Trying to keep hidden in case Kosos looked over, he struggled to get his things wrung out and hung by the fire. When Kosos stood, Luka's heart turned to stone and sank in his chest, but Kosos went to his bag and was rooting through it, his back to him. Luka took the chance to perch on a stone by the fire so he'd feel a little less exposed.

“Here.” Kosos handed him a coat. “Go ahead. Put it on.”

Luka didn't know why he was close to tears as he pulled on the coat, ridiculously big on him. It hung so low it almost covered the bag he'd tied in front of his groin.

“Those bruises. They really worked you over.” Kosos settled back on his perch in front of the fire. “Any blood in your piss?”

“No.”

“In your shit?”

“No.”

“You'll live, then.”

Luka laughed, but it sounded like a sob.

“I'm not going to kill you for sport, kid. Just keep being the good pupil, and everything'll be fine.”

“Until you find your platoon.” Why the fuck couldn't he keep his dumb mouth shut?

“Yeah? Then what am I gonna do?”

Luka shrugged. “Give me to them.”

Kosos laughed. “What the hell would they want with you?”

He shrugged again. It didn't matter what the soldier said, anyway. He'd say whatever he thought would keep Luka docile. Whatever was going to happen, would happen. Like always.

When they'd eaten another meager ration of the soldier's provisions, Kosos said, “Time to get to sleep. We're off again at dawn. Have a piss and drink up, if you're thirsty.”

“I'm okay.”

“Take a leak, kid. If you wake me up in the middle of the night, you'll be more sorry than I will.”

Fear beat shyness into the dirt. Luka slunk off a few feet, taking cover in the shadows thrown by a few spindly saplings—tenuously grasping at their stony bed, roots straining through the cracks for the water beneath—between spears of firelight, furtively pulled the soldier's coat and the pathetic, makeshift loincloth out of the way and waited for the pressure in his bladder to overcome his anxiety. Finally the ache in his abdomen blossomed in sweetly uncomfortable release and a portion of the liters of water he'd guzzled since they'd made camp went gushing onto the whitish stone at his feet.

As Luka turned to go back, a massive black form loomed between him and the campfire. Kosos. With the bright flames behind him, the soldier's face was a mask of shadows, his wild hair and black beard giving him the aspect of a cursed man-beast from a fairy tale. One of Bosch's hell demons.

“Find yourself a comfortable spot to sleep.” A strained note of tension stretching through the soldier's voice alarmed Luka. Not the sharp-edged timbre of his orders and interrogation in the cave. He thought of the neighbors' dog back in Bijeljina, who had had one growl for every person who came too close to the porch, and a faster, higher-pitched growl that would bubble through bared, yellow fangs jutting from pink and black gums when he was about to lurch up and hurl himself onto an enemy dog. “Go on, kid.”

All his muscles going tight, Luka moved toward the fire. Maybe close to its heat, he wouldn't freeze, with his bare legs and no sleeping bag. With his boot, he cleared a few rocks from a patch of fairly smooth stone.

“Sit down.”

Every syllable out of the soldier's mouth released another pulse of cold adrenaline into Luka's thrumming bloodstream. He sank down, the ground hard and cool and slightly damp against his hot skin.

“Put your hands out.” Now, looming above Luka, one side of his face lit by the fire, one eye a dark mirror flickering the flames' reflection, the bearded menace was back, madness peering out from behind his dark mane.

Why was he asking him to do that?

“Stop making me say everything twice.” The soldier's deep voice was cold and sharp.

Luka held out his shaking hands.

“This is just so I can sleep through the night without wondering if you're running off, or reaching for my knife.”

Before he saw it, Luka felt a noose of rough cord slip over his hand and cinch closed on his forearm, tightening over the sleeve of the coat the soldier had made him wear. Cold panic exploded in his chest.

“Calm down.” The bearded menace grasped Luka's arm in his powerful hand when he flailed and jerked, trying to slip free of the rope.

“Don't. Please don't.”

Futile struggle, yanking back against the soldier's vice grip. Caught, Luka kicked and
jerked
, scrabbling, stone scraping his bare skin as he tried to claw and crawl away. A massive weight fell onto him, crushing him down on the hard ground. Mounted astride Luka's hips, the soldier caught his other hand and lashed it to the first, loops of cord binding his wrists together in front of him.

Luka thrashed, gasping. Chest cramping. No air. “Please. Please. Please don't.” The syllables were cracked shards.

For a few seconds, the soldier stilled, staring down at him. Confusion spilled, muddying Luka's panic as a gleam of something like fear or revulsion played in his captor's dark eyes. “All I want is a decent night's rest, kid. I'm no fucking pervert.” One hand slipped from Luka's arm, disappeared into the darkness, then reappeared, firelight glancing off the blade of his knife. With a quick jerk of his hand the soldier sliced through the cord, shearing off the extra length. Hands bound, Luka was helpless as his kidnapper lashed his ankles together.

The bearded menace got to his feet. “That's it, kid. Try to get some sleep. We've got another long march tomorrow.” He lumbered off a few feet to his pack, and flung down his sleeping bag.

Luka's heart was still thumping hard when the soldier started to snore.

*

The next day was another exhausting forced march, but they were following the water as it submerged under the table of rock, then reappeared, a shallow, tranquil pool here, a trickling stream further on, so there was plenty to drink, and Kosos kept sharing his food. He also kept looking at Luka with a pale echo of the revulsion he'd seen in the soldier's dark gaze the night before as Luka had thrashed and begged. Down in the shadowy abyss Luka never let himself really look into was a vague awareness of what that look meant. What the soldier supposed Luka was imagining as he'd pleaded and pathetically tried to writhe free of grasping hands and binding rope. Even keeping himself far back from the edge of that chasm, his blood rushed hot up his throat and face. His jaw went tight in a spasm of anger. He wasn't the one dragging someone across the country against his will. He was the captive. The one who'd been threatened with a knife and pinned down and tied up. Why the hell was he the one feeling ashamed?