Obsidian and Stars (Ivory and Bone #2)(55)

In reply, Morsk simply nods. I see him swallow hard.

“This dart. It was thrown by someone here on the island. I never saw who it was, but they are here. They are already here, and they will kill to get her back.” He chokes again, gasping for air. His eyes meet Noni’s one last time. “Be careful. Be careful.”

He lies back against the sand. For a moment his breathing comes in a rough pant, and then it stops. His chest stills, and the hand clenched around Noni’s wrist slides to the ground.

He is dead.

“I’m so sorry, Noni,” Morsk says. I notice a knot in his throat as he speaks.

She leans over and kisses her uncle on the brow. “He was my mother’s favorite. Now he’s going to her.” Tears spill from her eyes and she turns her face away.

“The dart was thrown by someone here on this island,” I repeat aloud to myself.

“So her father is already here?” Morsk sets a hand on the dart, rocks Noni’s uncle forward, and tugs hard to pull it loose. With it out, the dead man’s body is able to lie flat against the sand.

Noni slumps against his chest. “That’s better,” she sobs.

Something about the dart is familiar to me. I take it from Morsk’s hand. His eyes stay on it, too. “You’ve seen darts like this before, haven’t you?” He nods. We grew up in the same clan. “Noni, does your clan use darts?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you carve them from?”

“Bone.”

I hold up the dart to the light. “This is spruce,” I say. “I know the design. This is Bosha made.”

We leave Noni’s uncle at the base of the cliff and rejoin the group. They’ve shared some food, but they’ve also stood at the edge of the cliff. They are anxious to ask about the man who died.

“So the Bosha are not far,” Pek says.

“But why would they want to kill my uncle?” Noni asks, passing me her pack so I can try to get some food into Kol.

“I don’t think they knew who he was,” I answer. “They probably thought he was one of us.”

Kol is awake, but very weak. He accepts a sliver of dried mammoth, but takes only a small bite. “You should let me go look for feverweed,” Noni says. But I can’t let her go now, even though I know Kol needs it.

“Soon,” I say. “When I can go with you.”

“So the Bosha are close, armed, and ready to kill,” Pek says. “And Noni’s father’s clan is coming, too.”

“We need to go—to get down the cliff and to the boats before the Bosha find us and before the Tama attack.” I say all this—not as much to let the others know my plan as to clarify it for myself. The sun is sliding toward the sea, and though we still have a long time before dark, we don’t want to push out onto the sea when the day is mostly gone. “But if the Tama come for Noni, I want you to know I will defend her. I will protect her like I would if she were of the Olen clan. But she’s not, so I can’t ask any of you to do the same.”

“I would do the same.” It’s Kol. The first words he’s said since Pek carried him across the ground. “I may not be well enough to defend her. But I would.”

“I would, too,” says Pek.

“We all would, Mya.” Seeri leans forward and clasps my hand. “You aren’t asking us to do anything we don’t want to do.” My gaze moves to Lees, and then to Morsk. They both nod in agreement.

“Who wouldn’t defend a child in danger?” Lees asks.

Chev might not, I think to myself. Not that Chev was cruel or unfeeling, but he lived by the rule of clan first. He might not have defended Noni if he thought it risked the safety of members of his own clan. He may have forbidden others from defending her, too.

Am I already failing in Chev’s place? Or were his rules for leadership all wrong? Right now is not the time to ask these questions. Instead, I look around the group, assessing weapons and skills. “Since we all agree that we will protect each other and Noni, here’s what I think we should do.”

I outline my plan—Lees will stay back with Kol and Noni. She will be left with a spear, an atlatl, and darts, but they will be expected to stay out of sight under these trees. Morsk, Pek, Seeri, and I will climb down the cliff wall and move up the beach to the boats. We will each row back one of the boats so we can get all of us off the island tonight.

Pek is on his feet almost before I stop speaking—one hand reaching for his spear while the other tugs Seeri to her feet. Morsk has yet to sit. His eyes have been locked on the sea the whole time.

“Before you go,” Lees starts, “I have a comment on your plan.”

“We’ll be careful—”

“I think I should go, and you should stay with Kol.”

My back is turned to Lees—I’m leaning over Kol, my hand pressed to his scalding cheek—but when I turn I see something unfamiliar in her eyes. She hands me her spear. “You’ll need this. I’ll take a set of darts and an atlatl instead. But you should stay with Kol. I would want to stay if Roon were the one sick. He needs you.” There’s a heaviness in her voice I’ve never heard before, and I realize the thing in her eyes is concern. Not the childish kind of concern I’ve seen there before, like the look she gets when she fears she’s missing out, but the concern that I am doing the wrong thing by leaving her with Kol.