Chapter 11: Leavetaking Is Never Easy

Content warning: this chapter contains a scene of horror

He had to fight Tavi as they went. The boy’s protests were confused and half-hearted, and he kept clutching at the band of swollen flesh around his neck as they stumbled through the trees. It took nearly two hundred heartbeats to get even as far through the trees as their own house, where Tarek stopped.

He had meant to dash inside by himself, but Tavi was still struggling. He knew the second he released his brother’s arm he’d bolt back to the clearing. “Tavi, stop. Stop!”

Tavi glared, eyes unfocused. “Let me go,” he growled hoarsely.

“If we stay, we die. You see that, don’t you?”

“Tata is hurt. They’ll hang mamah again!” he protested.

“Is four of us dying better than two? Because that’s the choice you’re asking me to make.”

Tavi sagged, the cruel words deflating the bladder of his anger like a knife. Tarek left him in the muddy water and ran up into the house. He snatched up the stave of rockwood he’d set out to dry for a new bow, his good knife, Tavi’s sling, and his bag of journey meal. The bag went over his shoulder, the sling and blade inside it, and the bowstaff he strapped to his back with a long, loose bowstring. He wracked his mind for anything else of vital importance to take. It’ll take too long to pull the family canoe down from the rafters. They’ll catch us if we stay any longer. He kept getting distracted by the dried blood on the floor and the fouled, crumpled mess of Yaretzi’s veil lying in the midst of it. It looked like a dead thing, ripped and bloodstained. His heart ached nearly as fiercely as his head, and he ducked back out into the rain.

He took Tavi’s hands and pulled him to his feet. “Now we have to run,” he warned the boy. “It’s that or hang again.”

For more than a fingerspan they ran as best they could in water to their knees, nothing but the sounds of their own harsh breathing and the hiss of rain keeping them company. Tarek could feel his thundering heartbeat in the crushed flesh of his neck and longed to slow down, but fear lent him speed. He’d accepted the thought of his own death for a few heartbeats while bound and facing the noose, but once the chance at life had shown itself, his heart had latched onto survival without hesitation. Knowing that his brother depended on him served as even more of a thorn in the flesh, pushing him harder and fiercer than he would have for his own sake.

He kept seeing the spear slide from his father’s ribs and his mother throwing herself without thought into the fray. They’re going to die. They might have killed them both already. The thought ate at his heart, and he wished he could weep, but instead numbness crept in on him. Don’t think about it. Save Tavi. There’s nothing else you can do. So much had been taken in so short a time that he felt like one of the warriors in Ryki’s stories, still struggling on while his life’s blood poured from mortal wounds unaware. He knew he should be raging, should be curled around his younger brother in desperate sorrow, but instead he felt this curious detachment.

He wasn’t surprised when Tavi stumbled and fell in the water. The boy had been sobbing quietly for a while now. He’s gone through nearly everything I have, and through no fault of his own. He knelt beside Tavi and put a hand on his back. “Come on, little elder.”

Tavi only wept harder.

“I know it’s awful, but we have to go. Please. Get up.”

Tavi shook his head.

Tarek wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear distant shouts. The hunters would be organizing to track them. Tarek thought it through with the curious mental stillness that gripped him. They were still close enough to the village that if they didn’t move on now, the hunters would likely find them. There was no time for a young boy’s grief.

So he pulled his brother’s hands down from his face and slapped him hard. Tavi gave a shocked squeak and stared at him in betrayed fear.

“Get up or I’ll do it again,” he said woodenly, hauling the limp boy to his feet by one arm. “You can be sad later. We’re going to run, and we’re not stopping until we hit the river. Understand?”

He didn’t wait for Tavi to respond, but instead pushed him into a ragged run. His brother made a sound of protest but let himself be prodded forward.

* * *

Tarek knew time had passed, but he couldn’t tell how long. One handspan? Two? He steered them around a group of angry dewdrop monkeys flinging nuts from the upper branches of a tree, a behemoth python twining through the water, and countless rats clinging to tree trunks or whatever underbrush remained above the waterline. Tarek was just glad that none of the great caiman had wandered inland from the river yet.

He couldn’t get Tavi to move as fast as he should. No matter how he pulled, threatened, or pled, the boy simply gave him a dull glare and a grunt, never varying from the plodding wade-jog he’d settled into some unknowable time before. He kept humming snatches of the Song, but it didn’t seem to comfort him at all. Tarek wanted to be patient, but the numbness had faded and now his mind lurched between anger, despair, and grief. He wanted to shake Tavi until his teeth rattled. He wanted to scream at him and then cry. He wanted to taste his blood. No! Not that. Never him.

There was no time for any of it. Tarek kept hearing the warbler’s trill the hunters used, often enough that there was no wondering if it was a trick of the rain. We have to move faster. He’d learned how to hide his own trail and move silently, but all his hard-earned stealthcraft was useless in the flood waters. Tarek had known they were in trouble as soon as he stopped hearing the hunters’ shouts through the downpour. That meant they were no longer casting about aimlessly. The forest had Sung the boys’ location and the others were hunting silently, in earnest. It was only a matter of time until they were caught.

Shad would be the one leading this hunt. No matter how kindly the man had thought of him in times past, Tarek had seen nothing but disgust in the hunter’s gaze as he’d helped to string them all up from the trees. If Shad caught sight of them, he’d fill Tarek and his brother full of arrows without a second thought, as would any of the others.

So Tarek swallowed his pity and his grief both, though they threatened to choke him, and yanked his brother into a faster trot, ignoring the boy’s dull and formless anger. He can scream at me all he likes once we’re safe. Let him curse me, hit me, blame me for everything. I deserve it. So long as he’s alive to do it, I’ll be glad.

Wisdom dictated a slower pace when they were wading through unfamiliar water and couldn’t see their feet, but Tarek could not afford to be wise. He had to weigh the possibility of breaking a toe on a hidden root against the certainty of being caught by the Catori. If we can just get to the river, then we can escape. Shad won’t risk crossing into Yura territory. We’ll be safe once we cross the Ix. He tried not to think too hard about how they would cross the mighty Ix River, because that would only lead to despair. Xochil said I could come find his house. He’ll take us in. A part of him wanted to blame everything that had happened on the story the old man had told at the fire, but he knew that was wishful, childish thinking. The reality was that they had nowhere else to go.

The trees began to thin out. Another half a handspan until they reached the river. I haven’t heard the hunters whistle for a while now. Are they close enough to see us? He kept looking over his shoulder, but all the tribes of the Lost could have been gathered a stone’s throw away and he’d have never known it – the rain was simply too heavy to see through. That helps us at least as much as it helps them. Looking ahead, Tarek saw an unexpected sight: a stretch of bare ground some forty paces wide and perhaps twenty long.

“Look, Tav! Land!” The hummock barely peeked out above the waist-high water. Some kind of hill! Strange, the ground usually slopes down as we get closer to the river. Nevertheless, he renewed his efforts, pulling anew at Tavi’s resistant hand, anxious to get out of the water for at least a moment. He imagined fighting the hunters from the high ground, fending them off with his bowstaff and Tavi’s sling. He had no illusions that they would last very long, but it was something.

Suddenly Tavi pulled back, showing life for the first time since Tarek had slapped him. “This isn’t right.”

“What? Come on, we can’t stop. It’s right there.” Another fifteen paces and they’d be on it. Tarek was surprised the ground under his feet hadn’t started to slope up yet.

“No! I can’t feel it, Tarek. It’s not there.”

Tarek looked from his brother to the red-brown, crumbling earth ahead and back again, gesturing wordlessly.

“I’m telling you,” Tavi said stubbornly. “There’s nothing singing in that spot, and even bare ground has some green buried in it. There’s nothing there.”

Tarek took two steps closer, peering at the suddenly untrustworthy island. He wondered why the ground looked soft and loamy instead of muddy. The rain hadn’t stopped for a moment since before they rose that morning. Is there something moving in the dirt?

Then his eyes suddenly shifted and he saw that same subtle movement all over the hilltop. His guts clenched and he hissed out through his teeth. There wasn’t something in the dirt moving, the dirt itself was moving.

“It’s ants,” he breathed, backing up. “Flesh-eater ants all holding on and floating together.” Now that he knew what he was looking at, it was obvious. They had the black heads and dull red bellies that marked the kind that could strip a full-grown capybara to the bones in a handspan. Some grew to be as long as Tarek’s thumb. And I was about to wade into the middle of them.

“We have to go around.” Tavi sounded scared.

“Tarek!” someone shouted behind them.

A canoe emerged from the rain. Shad was sitting in front, and he had his bow drawn. The string thrummed, and Tarek froze, waiting for his life to end.

The arrow dimpled the water two paces shy of Tarek, and he breathed again. The rain was wreaking havoc on the hunters’ bowstrings. No point in standing still for them.

“Take a deep breath,” he told Tavi. “The deepest. We’re swimming under.”

Tavi’s eyes were wide, but he nodded. Three more gasping breaths apiece, during which two more arrows fell nearby, and Tarek ducked underwater, pushing off with his feet as best he could. He desperately wanted to hold on to Tavi’s hand, but he knew if he did, neither of them would clear the raft of ants.

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He stroked powerfully through the water, glad Tenoch had forced them both to be proficient swimmers. How far have we gone? Not far enough. I hope Tav got a good breath. He looked panicked. What if he comes up in the middle? He’ll be swarmed in a heartbeat.

Even as his thoughts spun, fear and despair clawed at him. Shad and the others were in a canoe. Even going around the ants, they’d catch them both wading through the water soon enough. I have to slow them down. Stop them!

He had an idea. As soon as it occurred to him, he acted. If he pondered any longer, he knew, he’d start thinking about how incredibly stupid it was. Opening his eyes underwater, he turned himself back around, being careful not to let himself rise too close to the underside of the island of ants. Through the murk he could just see where the surface grew lighter. There. Not too far from the edge of the float. They’ll be close now. He kicked and pulled at the water with his arms, lungs burning, crushed throat convulsing. Not yet, not yet!

He reached the lighter water and grabbed at a root jutting from the soil to keep himself from surfacing. His chest screamed at him for air, but he knew if he mis-timed this, he’d die very quickly. Black spots were dancing in his vision. Where? Where? Ones Beneath, where? …There!

Tarek saw the knife’s edge of the canoe keel drifting toward him. It moved with agonizing slowness, wooden paddles turning in elaborate figure-eight corkscrews as the hunters held themselves near the ant-raft and waited for their prey to reemerge. Close enough. If he waited any longer, he’d black out.

When the nearest paddle dipped down near his head, he shot up from the water, latching onto the haft just above the wide paddlehead and pulling hard as he gasped in a lungful of air. The hunters cried in surprise, and Kirima, who had been holding the paddle, pitched over backwards in the canoe.

The writhing mass of ants was only an arm’s length away. Shad turned to Tarek, an arrow still on his bowstring. The man was made of granite – he hadn’t even flinched. He drew on his bow, swinging it toward Tarek’s face. At this distance he couldn’t miss.

Tarek dug the paddle’s end into the thick crust of flesh-eater ants and heaved a sloppy splash of water and insects into the hunters’ faces.

The men shrieked, batting at their own faces and arms as the flesh-eaters lived up to their name. Shad’s arrow flew wide, and the canoe rocked back and forth as its riders flailed about. Tarek dropped the paddle before the ants clinging to it could reach his hands. He waded to the rear of the canoe and took a firm hold of it.

“Forgive me,” he said.

He pushed the canoe hard into the center of the raft of ants.

The insects swarmed up the sides of the canoe in heartbeats, and the hunters’ cries of pain quickly took on a panicked edge. The rocking grew more pronounced as the men beat their hands and paddles against the sides of the canoe, trying desperately to stem the flow of countless biting invaders into their laps. Shad stood up in the prow, looking directly back at Tarek. Ants were climbing all over his torso and arms. His face was twisted in rage and disbelief.

“Monster!” he screamed.

Then the canoe tipped over near the center of the float, and Tarek had to look away. The men’s screams were growing hideous as they thrashed through the ant-choked water, and he didn’t want to see what happened. He cast about for Tavi, and there he was on the far side, watching the scene in horror, locked in place.

Tarek waded around the ant-island as quickly as he could, the hunters’ screams pushing at him. How could I do such a thing? Does a worse death exist than the one I’ve just given them? I should have let them hang me.

But Tavi needed him, and the thing was done, so he slogged on, trying to ignore the piteous, strangled cries that were quickly growing weak among the splashing. He reached his brother’s side and pulled him away.

“Don’t look. We have to go.”

“I could see the bones in his hands already. I wasn’t even sure who it was.”

“Don’t look.”

They struggled on, the floodwater rising to their chests as the trees thinned and the land beneath their feet dropped toward the river. The water around them grew colder, and Tarek could already feel the pull of the current. The Ix was enormous, a full three or four times as wide as an arrow’s flight, and at this distance they could feel its grumble deep in their bones. Its currents were treacherous even during the dry season, but no one ventured onto its waters during the flood. To do so was sure death. And we have to cross.

Tarek stopped when the screams behind them fell silent. Great tangles of branches had collected in the line of trees nearest the riverbank as the flood waters pulled deadwood and young shoots free of their moorings. He pointed to a likely pile.

“Think we could find anything in there big enough to make a raft out of?”

Tavi was looking back the way they had come, and it took a moment for the words to penetrate his thoughts. When they did, he swung toward Tarek with an incredulous look. With his black hair plastered to his head instead of sticking up like thatch, he looked older than usual.

“Are you mad? Did touching the blood make you mad?”

“I’m trying to save us,” Tarek said, stung. “If you’ve got a better idea…”

“I should have hit you in the head with something and let them take you.”

“They’d have killed you too.”

Tavi shook his head. “I know, but… those men. How could you do that?”

Tarek poked at the proud band of bruised flesh at Tavi’s throat, and the boy jerked back, hissing.

“How’s that feel? They hanged you, Tav.”

“They’re our tribe!” he protested.

“Not anymore. You think that was the only canoe out looking for us? We need to cross. Stop fighting me and help get us over there.” Tarek pointed to the Yura side of the river. Even on a clear day the green of the far bank would have been a distant sight, but now all they could see was gray sky and gray water.

Tavi threw up his hands, water flinging in all directions. “It’d take at least six logs as wide as your hand to hold our weight. How will we lash them together? How long will that take? And how do we paddle all the way across the Ix before it pulls us out to the mists?”

Tarek thought hard, but only one idea came to him. “We could go back for the canoe.”

Tavi blanched. “But the ants!”

“We saw it tip over. It will have sunk to the bottom, and they’ll leave it alone. That clump will drift away as the currents spread further from the river. By the time we get back they might be gone already.”

Tavi stared at the water. “What about the bodies?”

Tarek didn’t get a chance to answer as something buzzed past his ear and dimpled the water two body lengths away. Clapping his hand to his head, he came away with a small smear of red spreading in the wetness on his hand. Whirling about, he saw a man standing back in the trees.

“Tarek!” the man husked.

It wasn’t until the hunter spoke that Tarek recognized Shad. Most of his skin was gone, and he streamed red into the water all around him. Only a few hanks of hair remained on his scalp, and Tarek could see the white of bone along his jawline and brow. Ants still dotted the flesh of his half-eaten torso, and he wavered as he struggled to fit another arrow to his drooping bowstring. Tarek’s gorge rose even as his mouth salivated at the sight of blood. I can’t believe he’s upright. The pain must be incredible.

“They’re over here!” the man shrieked. Distant shouts answered him.

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