The Glass Arrow(2)

I will not approach him. I cannot. My heart twists for the boy I have called brother all my life.

Silence. Even the birds are voiceless. Even the stream has stopped.

I must get closer. If he’s alive, I can help him.

I climb down, one painstaking step at a time, crouching low to sneak towards him. As I close in, I feel my blood grow slow and thick.

Bian is dead.

The spear is planted straight through to the earth. There is a wound in his leg where a bullet has pierced his jeans, and another in his chest. Dark blossoms of red are still seeping out across the sweat-dampened fabric. His mouth and his eyes are wide open in shock.

Still ten paces away and sheltered on one side by the thick, tri-split leaves of a wormwood bush, I fall to my knees. I don’t understand why they’ve done this—why he’s been shot and speared. Trackers carry guns, and for their grand prize, use nets. They don’t use the antique weapons of the upper class.

The answer pops into my mind as soon as I ask the question. These Trackers are not bounty hunters out on a slave-catching mission. These Trackers are hired thugs, paid for their services by some rich Magnate businessman looking for hunting fun. A bit of adventure.

It sickens me but I can picture it: The first shot, to Bian’s leg, was meant to slow him down, to fix the game. He’d stumbled, made an easy target for the men pursuing him. The Magnate managed to spear him in the chest, but the wound had not been fatal. So the Tracker had shot him again.

Poor Bian. Poor stupid Bian. Who never heeded his mother’s desperate pleas that he cover his tracks when paying us a visit. I hate him for bringing this upon us. I hate him more for dying.

Enough time has been wasted. There is nothing I can do here.

Find the twins. Find Salma and Metea, I order myself. But though the grief has dried, my feet are clumsier than before.

The woods are unnaturally silent. I doubt the Trackers have taken the Magnate home. They would have returned to collect his spear, and besides that, they haven’t gotten what they’ve come for. The real trophy.

Me.

They’ll want Salma, and Nina too, though she’s still too young for auction. Metea is in real danger. She’s too old to bear children—she was already forty when she had the twins. If she’s caught, they’ll kill her, just like they killed her son, Bian.

But they’ll bring the girls—Salma, Nina, and me—to the city. My ma’s stories flash through my mind, blending with Bian’s, brought back from the civilized world. The Trackers will sell us to a farm, where we’ll be groomed and fattened, and sold at auction to any Magnate who can pay the price.

To be free means to be hunted, and there aren’t many of us left.

I begin to follow one of my hidden hunting trails up a steep embankment towards the cave. I don’t know how long we’ve been under attack; the sun is high now, it must be almost midday. Surely the Magnate will be tiring, slowing atop the show pony that has replaced his electric car as a sign of status. I’m tiring too. My muscles have grown tight, my tongue thick, and there’s less sweat pouring down my face and between my breasts than before.

“Aya!” Metea’s faint cry steals my focus.

I cut sharply left, scaling a large boulder that leaves me momentarily exposed to the sunlight and any roaming eyes. Without delay, I hop down into a small clearing where I see Metea lying on her stomach.

Now I don’t think about consequences. I don’t care if they see me. Metea has been a mother to me since my ma died. It scares me to the core that she is down; she’s fit and able to run. She should be heading for the cave.

“Go, Aya!” she cries, twisting her face up to meet my gaze. “Salma has taken the twins!”

I look at Metea and see Tam’s small nose and Nina’s dark eyes. Bian’s broad shoulders. Her hair has become more salt than pepper these days, and her eyes and mouth bear the marks of too much smiling. But now her face is all twisted up with a pain that makes my whole body hurt.

“Come on, get up!” I say, scanning the trees for movement.

“I can’t. Go, child! The Trackers, they…” She cries out, and the sound is like a pestle grinding my heart into the mortar. I lock my jaw.

Metea had gone into hiding when she learned she was pregnant with the twins. My ma helped her through the birthing. She didn’t cry out once.

“I’m not leaving you!” I say.

I try to force her over onto her back. A groan comes from deep in her throat, and draws a whimper to my lips. Now I’m certain the Trackers have heard us.

I succeed in turning her but can’t hide the gasp, or stop the sick that fills my mouth. There are deep lines scratched into her shins and thighs, and a serpentine gash across her belly, sliced straight through the yellow dress Bian brought her for her birthday. The red blood seems darker next to that bright fabric. When I look closer, I can see the white and purple flesh within the wounds that I recognize from cleaning a kill.

My throat is knotting up. I can heal most cuts, but nothing so deep. Metea will need a hospital. She will need to go into Bian’s village for treatment. I press down on her stomach to stanch the bleeding and to my revulsion, my hands slide away from the slippery surface of her skin.

Metea grasps both of my arms.

“The Trackers have wires!” she sputters, and her eyes are now so wide I can see the perfect white rings around her brown irises.