Lakhoni (14 page)

He
lay on his back in the middle of a sunny clearing. He could hear the daily
noise from his village, somewhere just beyond his sight. Laughter, sharp
voices, the noise of someone chopping wood. The warmth felt so good, as if it
were a friend he had not seen for years. Or like his bed after a long day
hunting with his father and Lamorun.

He
tried to push himself up to go and join his village, but he couldn’t move. It
was not so much that he was paralyzed, but that his limbs were too heavy for
him to lift.

That
was okay, it was warm here and he was comfortable.

But
his family. He hadn’t seen them in a long time. They needed him home. Perhaps
for dinner. He had to go to dinner.

He
still couldn’t move, although his stomach twisted tightly.

He
had to get up. Had to see his mother and father. Lamorun and Alronna.

No,
Lamorun had died in one of the king’s useless wars on the Usurpers.

At
the thought of the Usurpers, an image came to him of a footprint outside of his
family’s hut. What did that mean?

He
struggled to make connections. If only he could stand, he could walk to the
village and someone there would help him.

His
body refused to move. The ground held him in a tight embrace. He was frozen,
unable to stand.

Frozen.

Consciousness
invaded.
A dream.
As he thought the word, he became instantly aware of
the frigid temperature that wanted to absorb him and the tiny nugget of warmth
in his middle. He had fallen asleep under the tree.

He
had to move. Had to get up.

Groaning
in pain, he forced himself to roll off his side onto his knees. When he put his
hands down on the ground to steady himself, pain lanced through his fingers.
His fingers and hands were pale in the dim morning light that filtered through
the canopy of pine branches.
At least I can still feel them.

Pain
means I’m not dead yet.
But
one more night like this last one and Lakhoni wasn’t certain he would make it
through.

“I
have to make it,” he grunted as he dragged his things with him. He pushed his
body to a standing position. Aches and stiffness forced him to try several
times to straighten his back. “It can’t be that far.” He reached down to pick
up his bag and bow. His movements were slow like an old man.

Pale,
lifeless silence spread across the world. The sun shone brightly over the
mountains. Where was its heat? The frigid wind had died too; perhaps the clouds
had taken it with them as they departed.

He
leaned toward the sun, willing his legs to catch him before he fell. Shudders
coursed through him with every step. He caught his cloak tighter around his
body—or at least as tightly as it would go now that he had to carry his bow
tucked under his arm. As he walked, he tried to jamb his hands under his arms
while still holding the cloak. He angled his breathing alternately up and down,
first into his leather face mask and then down into his tunic. The moment of
warmth each respiration gave fled too quickly in the face of the cold.

Every
few minutes, he would say it aloud again. “It can’t be that far.”

The
morning passed slowly and quickly. Each step lasted an hour or more, but when
he looked up into the sky, the sun was behind him already.

Hunger
pangs struck hard as afternoon dimmed into the evening.

He
had been scouring the terrain as he walked, moving between patches of forest
and open ground. He had seen no sign of any other living thing or anything
edible.

Darkness
fell quickly. Only minutes before the sun’s glow faded completely, Lakhoni
found another sheltering tree. Branches large and small littered the bed of
brown needles under the tree.

After
several tries, he had smoke coming from a pile of needles. Blowing gently, he
added small twigs, then branches.

The
fire’s heat and warm glow kindled greater hunger in him. How long had it been?
Two days? Three? If only he could eat leather.

He
held still, trying to catch a stray thought. Eat leather. Leather came from a
deer.

He
searched the ground and found a rock that was about as wide around as his hand
was long. It was flat on one side, but had a shallow cavity in it. He found
another rock and started scraping at the cavity in the first rock, hoping to
make the cavity deeper.

Stupid
. He would make no difference.

He
put the cupped rock right next to the fire, then sidled to the right, leaning
out far enough to pick up two handfuls of snow. He placed the snow in the
cavity of the rock. The snow melted almost immediately.

Lakhoni
pulled his knife from its sheath and carefully cut a tiny chunk of his cloak
off. This he placed in the water in the cavity of the rock.

He
sat for as long as he could, feeding the fire. One side of the small amount of
water began to bubble after a while. He left it for a few minutes longer, then
used his cloak to protect his hands as he eased the rock away from the fire to
cool down.

Taking
the rock in leather-wrapped hands, he lifted it to his mouth, slurping the hot
liquid up. A faint hint of deer meat filled his mouth. He chewed the cloak
leather. It was tough, but he could almost believe he was chewing on a very
tough, overcooked piece of venison. His stomach rumbling, he chewed, praying
that even this small bit of nourishment would keep him alive. His eyelids grew
heavy.

Shaking
his head, he repeated the process of making leather cloak soup. As he did, his
thoughts turned to the buck he had tried to take . . .
How
long ago was that? Was that yesterday?

He
didn’t know how deer did it. They managed winters fine. He thought back to the
buck pushing its nose through the snow, seeking food. They ate winter moss
throughout the season, but was that all they ate?

Winter
moss. If it could feed a deer, could he eat it too?

Lakhoni
pushed himself away from his small fire. He scrabbled out from under the
branches of the pine tree and, with the darkness nearly complete but for the
stars and a rising moon, searched the woods for a tree without needles or
leaves. It didn’t take him long. Finding one, he fell to his knees and dug
through the snow at the base of the tree with leather-cloaked hands.

Moonlight
illuminated the winter moss, making it pale and ghostly. Lakhoni pulled some
and brought it to his nose. The smell of green things filled him, sending images
of spring into his mind. He touched his tongue to the moss. No flavor. He took
a bite. It was rich and heavy, like he was chewing earth. Not the flavor of a
poisonous plant. Lakhoni broke the moss into tiny bits and added it to the
already hot water in the cavity of the rock.

Lakhoni
snapped a thin branch and fed it to the fire. Waiting for his leather moss
soup, he looked inward for the rage that had filled him so many months
before—the anger that had fueled him.

Alronna
had been taken from the village, along with something else that came from under
his mother’s sleeping mat. Something about the size of a new baby—if that baby
were in a square container of some kind. His village was gone, his people
murdered.

He
could not find it. No storm roiled in his soul anymore. Instead, he found a
banked fire, its heat and glow nearly gone. He couldn’t call it rage or fury.
He didn’t know what to call it, but it felt like the gently glowing coals of
this fire were not wood coals but were something stronger, harder, and hotter.
Like they were stones heated by a mighty force and made to glow in darkness,
lighting the way through a journey.

He
reached for his miniscule amount of soup and brought it to his mouth. The
rock’s heat penetrated his leather-covered hands, sending tendrils of warmth up
his arms. The soup’s flavor was stronger this time. Leather moss soup was not
delicious, but it was better than nothing.

As
he lowered the rock, the heat gave him another idea. He found more rocks under
the tree and put them all just on the edges of his mid-sized fire. Then he sat
there, chewing leather, feeding the fire and resisting the urge to make more
leather moss soup. If he wasn’t careful, he would eat his entire cloak.

Just
before sleep took him, Lakhoni arranged the warm rocks along his body, curling
around them. His stomach still rumbled. His toes still felt as if they were
steadily freezing. But a feeling of relief filled him, as if he had
successfully crossed some kind of horrible chasm.

He
wasn’t finished yet.
Not going to die under this tree either.

***

Lakhoni
came to a stream early the next morning. Ice and snow covered it. With a hook
and line or a net, he might catch a fish. Shrugging, Lakhoni walked several
paces to the right and crossed the stream. Orienting himself on the sun again,
he left the stream behind.

What
did it feel like to not be walking?

Nothing
mattered beyond each step. If he could beat the winter with leather moss soup,
nothing could stop him. And if winter won the day, so be it. All that mattered
was that he still breathed and would fight for each breath. Another step. His
foot slipped on something hidden by snow. He fell to all fours. The
snow-covered earth called to him, coaxing him to rest.

He
stood. Pain. There was pain and his chest rising and falling. That was all.

He
looked to the crisp blue sky and found the sun. Tucking his bow under his arm
and his cloak tighter around his shaking body, Lakhoni took a step forward.

A
spasm of coughing burst out of him. He took another step.

He
breathed in, holding the air in until it warmed, then blew out, first into his
mask, then his tunic. Another step.

He
found himself in a wide pasture of rolling mounds of snow. The forest had
ended.

Another
step. Another one.

No
more than an hour had passed when he saw the glint of fire and the shadows it
threw on a circle of stone huts.

All
he saw were the flames dancing. The orange-gold-red, like living spears, swept
up to the sky nearly as high as he was tall. He imagined the heat before he
felt it.

Bumping
into the stone of a hut, he stumbled into the light cast by the fire. He heard
noises, saw movement to both sides, but paid them no heed. The fire, huge and
powerful, drew him in. At its edge, Lakhoni dropped his bow. He pried his hands
off of his cloak and stretched them forward.

Perhaps
he had died and this was the world of spirits. Some said the world of spirits
was paradise and others said it was for the damned. He didn’t care which one he
was in. The entire front of his body melted into the glowing heat of the fire.
When his hands could move well enough, he reached up and pulled his cloak off
his head, and untied the leather mask from around his face, letting them both
drop to the ground. He wished he could remove all of his clothing and bathe in
the flame.

As
his face thawed, Lakhoni began to understand the noises around him. Voices
raised in question and anger. A baby crying. Deep voices. Dogs barking. He
turned to allow his back to get some heat.

A
man, shorter than Lakhoni and with narrow, muscular shoulders stood in front of
him. “Who are you?” His voice carried anger and suspicion. “Why do you invade
our circle?”

Lakhoni
opened his mouth to answer. He tried to speak, but his throat burned as if he
had swallowed a live coal from the fire behind him. A cough tore through him.
He tried to speak again and failed.

“By
the Sword and Guide, speak or be cast out!” The man took a small step forward.
He was certainly smaller than Lakhoni, but his sloped shoulders belied the
strength that was evident in the man’s chest and the rest of his body.

Lakhoni
coughed again. “I—” he said, trying to swallow to create space in his throat.

Another
man’s voice, sharp like a knife, cut through the darkness. “Mibli! This boy is
clearly sick!” Scuffling sounds followed.

Lakhoni
blinked. He was surrounded by people. Men, women, children, even some dogs were
there. And they all stared at him.

“He
must answer!” the slope-shouldered man, who must have been Mibli, said. His
protective posture didn’t change.

“Let
me through, curse your ancestors!” the second voice protested. “He is sick!” A
bear pushed two people aside and entered the circle of firelight.

Lakhoni
wanted to turn back to the fire to work on his hands again, but realized this
might be a rude thing to do.

“And
he is probably hungry! Can’t you see he’s nearly dead?” The bear was actually a
hugely thick man, his body covered entirely by a bear pelt.

Mibli
glowered at the enormous man. “This is not your place.”

“This
is exactly my place,” the other said. He turned from Mibli and faced Lakhoni.

A
shudder slammed through Lakhoni. The warmth of the fire at his back reminded
his body how frigid the air around him was.

“Boy.
Can you speak?” The bear man’s eyes glowed with the gold of the fire.

Lakhoni
opened his mouth, but knew nothing would come out. He shook his head. Another
spasm of coughing tore out of his chest.

“Get
some soup!” The bear man’s voice carried through the strange haze that had
begun to settle over Lakhoni. Soup was food. Lakhoni wanted to listen, to
understand what more the bear man had to say, but the haze grew thicker.

He
blinked slowly and found himself lying on the frozen ground. His bow was pinned
under him.

He
laughed through his nose, more of a snort, at the contrast between his front
and back. His back side cooked while his front froze again.

Darkness
consumed him.

He
opened his eyes when the first hot splash touched his chin. A shape moved above
him, making some kind of noise.

Lakhoni
tried hard to focus. He lay on his back, something soft between him and what
was probably a dirt floor. A bundle of something that was also soft held his
head up somewhat. The roof above him was mostly in shadow, but it looked like
it was made of reed and river clay tiles. Like Salno’s house back in his
village.

“Please,
drink this.”

Lakhoni
turned his attention to the shape—a young woman—that was leaning over him.

“My
father says you must have this or you will die,” the young woman said. Her skin
was the color of cured deer hide, her hair a glistening black that glowed in
the light of a small fire behind her. He couldn’t see her face very well
through the shadows.

“I—”
The croak that came out sounded like an animal of some kind. He tried again,
this time with worse results. His throat felt scraped and raw.

“Just
open your mouth and I’ll pour it in,” the woman said.

Lakhoni
complied, licking his lips. The thin soup, or whatever it was, tasted of meat,
some kind of sharp, earthy root, and many vegetables. It was good, but unusual
and strangely spicy. Not in a way that hurt though. He opened his mouth for
another sip. No, the spiced flavor soothed his throat somehow.

“It
won’t really fill you, but he said it should help you fight off the winter
sickness.”

He
wanted to answer, to thank her or something, but he didn’t want to kindle the
coal in his throat again.

“You
have to drink it all.”

He
nodded. She lowered the clay bowl to his lips again. He felt ridiculous, as if
he were a baby being fed by its mother. He tried to reach up to take the bowl,
but the motion caused violent twinges of pain all over his body. His vision
spun.

“That
was stupid. Don’t move.”

He
tried to stop the spinning in his head.

“You
lie there and I give you soup,” the woman—or was she just a girl?—said. “It’s
simple.”

In
response, he opened his mouth.

As
she fed him his awareness expanded. He found he was covered in several heavy
blankets or pelts. He wished he could curl into a ball.

“That’s
all,” she said.

Forgetting,
he tried to reach for the bowl to tell her he was still hungry, but nausea
stopped him.

“No,
that’s all. More later.” She turned. “Sleep now.”

Urgency
to move toward Alronna, to find her, prodded Lakhoni, but he could not deny the
weakness and pain in his body. Alronna probably thought everyone in the village
was dead. She was alone.
Had she known about whatever it was beneath our
mother’s bed?

Lakhoni
lay there, knowing the hunger growling in his stomach would not let sleep come.

Sunlight
streaming through cracks in the doorway told him he had been wrong. He didn’t
even remember closing his eyes. No dreams of his village had come. No dreams of
a terrible funeral pyre had assaulted him. No dreams, but plenty of hunger.

Sweat
poured off his burning body, sliding down his neck, over his shoulders and
dropping onto the mat he lay on. A shudder passed through him, bringing pain
and hunger.

He
groaned, trying to turn onto one side and curl up.

Now
cold struck, making him shiver.

A
soft noise came from the doorway. Carefully keeping his head still, Lakhoni
glanced in that direction. Someone came in, a blinding flash of light behind
them obscuring their features. Lakhoni blinked rapidly and regretted it. His
head pounded and he suddenly was very thirsty.

“Good,
you need more soup.” The same voice from the previous night.

He
watched as the young woman approached and knelt at his side. She was beautiful.
Her long black hair framed an oval face with even, perfectly shaped features.
Eyes the shape of an elm leaf, a straight and strong nose, and a kind mouth.
Lakhoni knew he was staring and didn’t feel inclined to stop.

“Just
keep your mouth open,” she said.

“Y—”
he still couldn’t speak. All that came out was a noise that he wouldn’t have
believed he could make if he hadn’t just heard it.

“No,
don’t talk. Give it time.”

Lakhoni
didn’t want to blink. She looked like a messenger from the First Fathers.

“By
the stones! You have to swallow!”

The
moisture running down his chin and neck brought him back to the present. He
closed his mouth, swallowing the small amount of spicy soup that hadn’t
dribbled out.

“There,”
she said. “Father says you must drink it all again, so let’s go.”

Beautiful
woman or no, he had to get back on his feet.

Looking
up at the young woman, he found his eyes getting tired. They felt strained and
dry. He dropped his eyes to her hands. That was better. He and the girl quickly
found a rhythm and only minutes had passed by the time the clay bowl was empty.

“Okay.
Now sleep.”

It
cost him a moment of dizziness, but Lakhoni forced his hand to move. He tried
to grab her wrist, but succeeded in only brushing it with his fingertips. Fingertips
that he only just now noticed were wrapped in soft cloth. He had to get up, get
moving again.

The
girl’s eyes flashed for a moment. She gritted her teeth. Seeing him open his
mouth to talk, she said, swift anger in her voice, “No. Don’t try to talk. Just
rest. We will make you better.”

Frustration
welled up in him.

The
anger in the girl’s eyes dissipated. She unclenched her jaw with a visible
effort. “Listen. You are very sick. We don’t know where you’ve come from, but
we have traditions that we must obey.” Her reddish-brown eyes met his. “So
we’ll make you better. We have questions, but you can’t answer them so we will
wait. You wait too.”

The
girl sighed, glancing around the hut. Something in her face looked pained.
Lakhoni instinctively followed her gaze as it traveled the walls. The home
looked almost exactly like those of his village. Stone walls, sleeping mats, a
small table, wooden shelves with trinkets, hooks sunk into some of the rocks of
the wall. It was all the same, except for the tile roof. Like Salno’s, because
Salno had been important in the village.

“I’m
sure this is hard. But we will help you get better. I can’t promise Mibli won’t
throw you out or do something awful to you once you’re better, but my father
has claimed a duty to you.”

Her
hand rested briefly on his arm. A shock, both cold and hot, went through him at
the spot she touched. “My father is Neas. He is the healer of our village.” The
girl stood. “We will bring you more soup soon. As your throat heals, you can
eat other things. But you have to rest now.”

Lakhoni
blinked, wary of moving his head.

She
turned to the small fire in the middle of the hut. She fed a small log to the
flames.

“Soon
you’ll be able to tell us your name, and your story. For now, I’ll be your
healer. My name’s Simra.” She turned and left the hut.

Simra.

On
his back, sweat pouring from his skin, the sight of deep brown tiles not far
above him, Lakhoni thought back to the cavern of the Separated.

First
Fathers, please don’t let this be the same,
he thought. The memory of his journey through the
frigid winter, the wind sharp as swords, was still fresh, but it felt as if
someone else had experienced it. Images of Gimno and Mother and Corzon flitted
behind his eyes.

They
had cared for him and treated his injuries too. Were Simra’s people going to
try to keep him captive?

His
bones ached with exhaustion; his muscles still trembled. He wondered if he was
even close to Zyronilxa.

I’m
free from the Living Dead. And I’m alive.

That
means I’m closer.