Chapter 28: Under a Wide Sky

Tarek healed slowly as time passed and they moved northward. Within two hands’ worth of days he could wear his stolen shirt without wincing as his flayed flesh scabbed over and began to heal. Pahtl no longer had to lick his wounds and was bitterly disappointed that taking more of Tarek’s blood had not allowed him to fly. Bachi, emboldened by his accidental success in drawing Iktaka blood, began to range farther out as they walked, humming along in the Song and reappearing at odd intervals, telling them how he’d plucked a hawk’s feather before it knew he was there or patted the head of a tree viper without getting bitten. His excitement was equally endearing and annoying, but Tarek figured that an increase in confidence on the lad’s part was all to the good. They would need Bachi to feel capable in his special Song abilities when they reached the other tribes.

Then came the day they’d all been waiting for without realizing it: the first break in the rains. It was midday, nearly a fortnight after they’d fled the Iktakan village, when they reached the top of a small rise and stopped dead. The trees in this part of the Land were short, stubby, and increasingly sparse, exposing uncomfortably large swathes of gray sky, but just ahead of them, the ever-present pall of clouds broke apart, opening a portal into the shockingly blue sky beyond. Bright, honeyed light streamed through the gap in the clouds, painting the earth in gold. Tavi laughed in delight, and Tarek and Bachi grinned at each other like fools.

“I don’t think I’ve felt a rain drop for half a handspan,” Bachi said.

Tavi said nothing, but simply bolted for the sun-streaked patch ahead of them. The others wasted no time in following. Stepping into the sun eased some muscle within Tarek that he hadn’t even known was clenched. He closed his eyes and bathed in the heat of it, feeling warmth in his fingertips for the first time since he’d left home.

“I never want it to rain ever again,” Bachi groaned, sinking into a stand of soft grass and splaying himself on the ground.

“You would die of thirst very soon,” Pahtl said, curling up against the boy’s flank. Within moments all of them were stretched out on the ground in an interlinked pile, each using another’s arm or belly as a headrest. They said nothing beyond the occasional groan of satisfaction, warmed into a drunken stupor by the long-lost sun.

The break in the clouds closed after no more than a fingerspan, and Tarek sighed wistfully as the baked-coals feel of sun on his skin disappeared.

“Nothing good lasts,” Tavi said, hauling himself to his feet.

“I do,” Pahtl said. “I am good, and I will last forever.”

They forged northward, reenergized by their brief interlude in the sun and the knowledge that the flood rains were, at long last, behind them. The next time they saw a stretch of blue overhead, rather than being amazed, Tarek realized that the sight made him a little uncomfortable.

“The sky is too wide,” is how Tavi described it, and Tarek could only agree. He’d never realized how empty the blueness above them was; at home it had always been framed by a green crown that masked its discomfiting breadth and depth. The further they went, though, the more unfamiliar both Land and sky became. When they bedded down at night and the clouds cleared, the expanse of stars very nearly screamed at them in its profusion. The earth began to bunch itself into tall hills, and with fewer trees, they could see those hills clearly. Shrubs and vines disappeared altogether, and Tarek and the others found themselves wading through wide swathes of chest-high grass. Pahtl was particularly upset by this and demanded repeatedly to be carried on someone’s shoulders so he could see. Tarek was exempted from the request given the still-tender scabs on his upper back, and neither Tavi nor Bachi had the strength to heft the man-length otter for more than a few steps at a time. The creature resigned himself instead to running ahead of them, hiding in the thick grass, and lunging at their ankles as they passed.

Soon Tarek could bear the inactivity no longer and wove a bowstring out of the long, tough grass, fitting it to the bow staff he’d carried all this way, determined to bring down some game. The terrain was strange but the principles of stalking, waiting, and watching remained the same. A little searching led him to the burrow of some unknown animal, and within a handspan he caught sight of the residents. They looked like capybara but were no longer than his forearm. Several of them came and went, and finally he found a good angle to attack from when the odd little creatures popped their heads out of the mound of dirt.

The first pull of the bowstring felt like stretching after a long night’s sleep. The scab on his back folded and bunched painfully, and there was a dull throb underneath his arm, but he could hold the pull. He let out his breath and let the string slip past his fingertips, praying to no one in particular that he hadn’t lost all his meager skills as a hunter since fleeing home. His arrow took the creature through the neck, and he hauled it out of the mouth of the hole, feeling better about himself than he had in many days.

He brought down three more of the burrow-dwellers and one white-crested hawk that day, and the companions ate their fill of meat for the first time since he’d been wounded. At the brothers’ urging, Bachi sang one of the Wobanu’s songs about the old hero Pahtl. The story was so radically different as to be unrecognizable, but Bachi’s voice was clear, sweet, and strong, and he tugged his mustaches in pride when the others praised him. Their otter companion seemed confused by the references to the man he’d been named for and protested that he hadn’t done any of those things, though he could have if he wished.

Soon the bare bones of the earth began to poke out from underneath the dirt of the hills, and the terrain grew rougher and rockier. It was strange to see the stark grays and blacks of bedrock jutting up like teeth. Large, fierce-looking lizards the length of Tarek’s leg came out to sun themselves on the bare rocks, and Pahtl couldn’t resist creeping up on them to startle them from their perches. On the first attempt, the otter ended up being the one startled, as the offended lizard unfolded a pair of leathery wings from its back and launched into the sky to escape. Pahtl watched the creature soar with eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Water people should have wings,” he said.

Tarek shot one of the lizards and cooked it, but the meat was rank and sour. They ended up tossing the carcass into a stream so they wouldn’t have to smell it. Whenever Tavi started to get snide and condescending from that point forward, Tarek threatened to hold him down and make him eat more flying lizard.

Eventually, the dreams of being strung up in front of the bloodthirsty Iktaka children began to fade, and Tarek started to feel mostly human again.

Bachi started to sense a large group of people in the distance that had to be the Shinsok tribe on the same day they reached the Tamarok River. What they saw was not what they expected: the river lay at the bottom of a steep, rocky gorge so deep that when Tarek tossed a stone off the edge, he was able to count slowly to six before the rock disappeared into the churning rapids far, far below. Scrubby trees and hardy grasses jutted out from crevices and lined narrow shelves at various heights along the perilously steep sides. Bachi looked over the edge, sucked in a deep breath, and took a long step back.

“My head swims just looking at it,” he complained.

Tarek didn’t feel anything like that as he considered the Tamarok, but the thought of traversing the impossible gorge was daunting. “Maybe there’s another spot to cross where the cliffs are lower or there’s a slope down to the water,” he said.

“I don’t think we need to cross,” Bachi said, pointing east, parallel to the gorge. “The people I feel are directly that way. They must live along the river.”

“Do they tie ropes to all their children?” Tavi muttered, looking over the edge. “Living next to this thing sounds like a sure way to die.”

Pahtl peered down at the river. “Fish,” he said mournfully. “Right there.”

It had been days since they’d last found a stream large enough to hold fish of any size, and the otter had let them know at length and at volume that he was in imminent danger of perishing despite the meat, greens, and berries they shared with him.

“Soon,” Tarek promised him.

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“I could get down there,” Pahtl said. “I could.”

“Please don’t try. You’re not a climber, remember? I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m sure the Shinsok have a way down to the water. We’ll find it when we get to the village.”

Pahtl gave a long-suffering sigh and trailed after the humans as they turned, putting the cliffs on their left.

Tarek pressed the group to travel longer and farther each day, feeling the mounting anxiety of time slipping away from him. It would soon be three moons since they’d first met Xochil, and the majority of the tribes still lay ahead of them. It’s been so long already. How will I get to the rest of the tribes before the equinox? And if I do, will Yaretzi still want me when I return, even if I’m free of the blood magic? It might be half a year before I return. That’s a long time for a woman who could have her pick of men. An image of Yar wrapped in Kanga’s embrace sprang to mind unbidden, and his insides clenched in protest. I should have gone back for her. No, that’s stupid. There’s no life for us until I’m clean. Besides, how could I have even gotten back across the Ix to reach her?

Bachi had said the village was close, and the moon was bright, so Tarek had pressed the others to keep going well past dark. He was so wrapped up in his worries that he nearly missed the bridge in the dark. Bachi kept urging them away from the cliff’s edge, and as the night wore on the small group trended further away from the gorge, taking comfort in the presence of the nearby fringe of stunted trees. Had it not been for Tavi’s tendency to meander from one side to the other as they walked, the structure would have gone unremarked.

Instead, they saw Tavi’s loping, directionless steps come to a halt as he peered into the moonlit distance. “Do you see that?” he asked.

Tarek snapped to attention, pulling the bow from his back. It seemed unlikely that they’d find anyone wandering outside the village during the middle of the night, but after the Iktaka, he was inclined to be more cautious than necessary.

Tavi, however, went right to the gorge’s edge, entirely lacking the kind of caution that Tarek would expect if he’d spotted a stranger. Instead, he caught sight of ropes reflecting the moonlight. Still holding his bow at the ready, Tarek approached, unsure of what he was seeing until he got closer.

The ropes were twice as thick as his thumbs and lashed securely to a pair of old tree stumps at waist height while a third was fastened to a rock jutting from the cliff’s edge, below and between the others. The three lines formed a vee shape as they vaulted out over the empty air, smaller ropes twining back and forth between them like vines, holding the shape steady. Tarek let his bow fall to his side as he imagined crossing the fragile structure, balancing on the one narrow rope underfoot while hanging on to the upper ones with both hands. It was a queasy-making thought. The span had to be more than a hundred paces across. The ropes sagged perilously in the middle of the yawning gorge.

“Eugh,” said Bachi as he drew close. “That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”

Pahtl snorted. “It is rope. That is not terrifying.”

“You’re supposed to walk on them,” Bachi pointed out.

Pahtl looked from one human face to the next, his big black eyes inscrutable. Then he looked back out at the ropes. “The fat one is lying. Yes?”

“I’m afraid not,” Tarek said.

“How are slick-skins not all dead? This is the stupidest thing I have heard yet, and you have all said many deeply stupid things.”

“I’m not crossing that!” Bachi said fervently.

“That is less stupid,” Pahtl allowed. “This is good.”

The brightness of the moon broke from behind a scudding bank of clouds overhead, illuminating the gorge fully, and Tavi caught his breath. “Look!” he said, pointing down into the gorge.

They were on top of the Shinsok village. Literally on top of it. Narrow, sloping paths led down from the far clifftop toward dark, shadowed doorways and windows that looked out from the rock of the steep slope itself. The houses were burrowed into the stone, and the patches of green that Tarek had taken for shrubs and grass in the darkness were in fact rooftop gardens. The cliff’s wall was honeycombed with dwellings, each connected to the others by pathways that looked no wider than a couple of handspans. Other, narrower rope bridges connected the far side with the near one at various intervals down the great vertical stretch toward the rushing waters below. Tarek peered down the cliff face at his feet and saw the same stretches of green that indicated homes on this side as well, though from his vantage point he couldn’t see any openings. He thought of Tavi’s earlier words and wondered how the villagers kept their children from falling to their deaths at every opportunity. Each step in this place looked more treacherous than the last.

Bachi moaned. “What kind of monsters are these people?”

“I think it’s pretty,” Tavi said. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Jaguars are pretty. Do you want to sit on one?”

“It’s not that bad.” Tavi sat on the cliff’s edge and dangled his legs in the empty air. “You’d just have to watch your step.”

Bachi goggled at him. “I would rather sleep on that ridiculous rope bridge for a fortnight than set a single foot on one of those deathtrap walkways. Look at that one. Look! If that’s more than a handspan wide may I never Sing again.”

Tarek clapped a hand on Bachi’s shoulder. “I have some bad news for you, Finder.”

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