Her words cut me like razors. I had thought I had been saving them all when I cut myself adrift. Instead I had not only plunged them into danger and torment, but then abandoned them all to take care of themselves. I did not deceive myself that I could have been of great use to them, but it seemed cowardly that I was not there at all. Most troubling to me was Amzil’s anger and the behavior it prompted. I could not blame her for it. How must it be for her, to see walking on the streets the men who would have raped her, even to death? I wished she would flee to a safer place, but not if it meant leaving Epiny pregnant and without the comfort of another woman near. It was all too horrible to contemplate. I tried to reach my hands toward Epiny, but they were not mine to control, not even in a dream. I focused all my will on trying to say even one word to her.
That was a mistake. For while I devoted my strength to that, Soldier’s Boy tore us free of Epiny’s dream and fled with me. I looked back as we took flight, and saw Epiny looking up after us. She dwindled in the distance until she was gone.
“They should just go away.” Soldier’s Boy was speaking to me, but the words echoed and I knew that in the other world, he raved in his fever. If I reached, I could be aware of that body, burning inside and yet shivering with cold in the dank cave. I heard people whispering. Perhaps it was Olikea and Likari. Their voices sounded wavery and frightening.
“A death. Or a life. Which do you owe me, Nevare? Which will you give me, Nevare?”
An immense croaker bird confronted us. The carrion bird was black and white, with brilliant red wattles around his beak. The wattles were thick and fat and somehow disgusting and threatening at the same time. He opened his beak wide and I saw how strangely his tongue was fastened into it, and how sharp his tongue looked.
“I am not Nevare! I am Soldier’s Boy of the People. I owe you nothing.”
The bird opened his beak wide with amusement. He rattled his wing plumes, resettling them, and a sickening wave of carrion stench wafted against me. “Neither debts nor names are so easily shed, Nevare. You are who you are and you owe me what you owe me. Denying it does not change it.”
“Nevare is not my name.”
Could a bird grin? “Nevare is a soldier’s boy, a soldier’s son. The name that you use was given to you only because you are Nevare, and the son of a soldier. And a soldier son. And that is as true as that you owe me a death. Or a life. However you wish to name it, it is what you owe to me.”
“I owe you nothing!” Soldier’s Boy shouted at him and his words echoed in a distant cave. He was braver than I was. His hands darted out to seize two great handfuls of the croaker bird’s plumage. He gripped the bird and shook him, shouting, “I owe you nothing! Not a life, not a death! I owe you nothing!”
Far away, someone shrieked and then the croaker bird took flight, laughing like a mad thing.
Cold water splashed Soldier’s Boy’s face. It was a shock, and with a shudder he opened our shared eyes. He blinked, trying to focus, and lifted a shaky hand to wipe at his eyes. Olikea was angrily untangling her hair from his fingers. A water skin on the ground beside him gurgled out its contents. It took a moment for him to make sense of it, and then the unjustness of it broke his heart. “You threw water on me,” he wailed accusingly, and he sounded like a weepy child. His voice shook with weakness.
“You ripped out my hair when I was trying to give you a drink! And if you think you owe me nothing, then consider that I owe you less than nothing!”
I could barely make out her features. The fire had subsided to a dim red glow. The body was cold and ached badly. Olikea looked tired and haggard. I became aware that strands of her hair were still tangled in my fingers. I’d ripped them out of her head. “I’m sorry,” I said, aghast, and then was shocked when the words actually came out of my mouth.
“Olikea!” I began, but abruptly lost the power to speak. I could feel Soldier’s Boy’s anger at me thrumming through his body. He was weak and ill and tired. His strength was barely enough to confine me. I stopped struggling against him. I was listening to Olikea’s words.
“We are out of food, and there is scarcely any firewood to be found. We must go on to the Wintering Place. Can you walk?”
It was hard for him even to think about it, his head ached so. “I can’t quick-walk. Give me water.”
She picked up the slack water skin and held it for him. He drank, and was surprised at how thirsty he was. It cleared the thickness from his mouth and throat. He felt more alive. “You are right,” he said when she took the water away. “We need to move on from here. Even if I cannot quick-walk, we should try to move on.”
