The Bird King(31)
“All right, all right,” snapped Fatima, sucking on her split fingers. “But if you cup something you shouldn’t, I’ll hit you.”
“I will cup nothing,” promised Vikram with a grin. Fatima held her breath and let go of the ledge. The world tipped. There was a rush of air and a squeak that was probably hers, and then Vikram was setting her on the ground beside him, laughing.
“You’re next,” he called up to Hassan, who was visible as a hemisphere of ballooning green wool overhead, one foot scrambling for purchase on a lichen-covered rock. With a wild yelp, the apparition tumbled down. Vikram caught him as deftly as he had Fatima.
“A shame you don’t have more meat on you,” the creature observed. “You’ll be skin and bone before we’re out of the wilderness. I hope you like rabbit, for there’s very little else to eat between us and the sea at this time of year.”
“I like rabbit fine,” muttered Hassan. He lingered a moment too long before putting his feet down. As Vikram loped ahead, Fatima pinched Hassan’s arm.
“You’re attracted to him,” she hissed accusingly.
“I can’t help it!” whispered Hassan. “He’s very well-formed for a jinn and he isn’t wearing a thread of clothing.”
“Come, children,” called Vikram, without turning. “We must cross the river as swiftly as possible. If you put your feet in clever places, the dogs may lose your scent for a time. Every hour counts now.” He bent down, hunching his shoulders, and ran along on all fours, his feet and hands falling soundlessly on the dry grass. Fatima stumbled after him in her big boots. She felt herself begin to tire. Behind her, Hassan’s breathing was a labored staccato punctuated by the sound of his satchel as it thumped against his shoulder.
“Can’t we slow down?” he complained between huffs.
“Do you want to live or not?” asked Vikram, turning and snapping his teeth at them. “If we don’t cross the Genil, there’s no point to any of this.”
Fatima wiped sweat from her brow with the back of one hand. It hung in droplets from her lashes and the tip of her nose, and she became aware of a smell, not pleasant, emanating from the curdling silk of her tunic where it clung to her body beneath her arms and below her breasts. She pulled at the hem angrily and heard it rip.
“Already rending your garments?” Vikram danced on his toes and cackled.
“I’m too hot,” snapped Fatima. “And I can’t run properly in these ridiculous boots, and I’m so hungry I might faint where I stand.”
“We’re barely out of sight of the palace! What exactly did you think the rest of the world was like, little sister? Cool and clean and well-fed, with songbirds twittering in harmony and merry farm beasts shitting flowers?”
Fatima bent to pick up a pebble and hurled it at Vikram’s head. He ducked and cackled again. The ground rose and then dipped and brought the river into view: milky green and smelling fecund, lined with gorse and thorny scrub alive with the trilling of cicadas. Fatima pushed past Vikram and made her way through the scrub toward the water. It was very low, as was often the case in late summer: a shoal of well-worn rock was visible in midstream and the exposed banks on either side were bone-dry, their skin of mud turned to pale dust.
“Don’t go down to the water,” called Vikram. “You’ll leave a trail through that dust as plain as an invitation.”
Fatima stopped where she was. The green water murmured restlessly to itself, cutting westward across the parched valley. A grid of fields left fallow by war undulated toward the feet of the mountains that surrounded the Vega on three sides, yellow-brown with the remains of untended olive groves and winter wheat choked with weeds. The sky that had been so blue at dawn was growing overcast, hinting at the first of the autumn rains. It reminded Fatima that she was thirsty. She clenched her jaw and felt granules of dust between her teeth.
“Here, little sister.” Vikram bounded up to her, his hands cupped and dripping. “Drink.”
Fatima put her lips against the edge of his palm. The river water was sweet and cold and smelled faintly ripe. She gulped it down in needy mouthfuls, swallowing so fast that she was left gasping.
“Better?”
Fatima nodded, wiping her mouth on the back of one sleeve. Before she could protest, Vikram had thrown her over his shoulder and bounded into the current, depositing her in the knee-deep water with a splash. Fatima shrieked as her feet slid out from underneath her. As soon as she stood up, she collided with Hassan and went down again.
“What was that for?” Hassan sputtered, his hair and beard streaming water. He floated on his back in the current, kicking up his pale feet in an attempt to right himself. Vikram danced on the far bank with Hassan’s satchel and the canvas sack of clothing Fatima had packed, holding each up like a trophy.
“Wash,” he sang. “Scrub off all the sweat and the dirt and yesterday’s perfume. Perhaps we can convince the hounds you smell like a river, at least for a while.”
Fatima dragged herself to her feet. Her boots were waterlogged and her silk tunic clung to her torso in one ruined sheet, the water drizzling from its hem tinted with purple dye.
“Take off the wet things,” instructed Vikram. “Put on the dry ones in this clever sack of yours. Vikram will take the wet clothes a little way off and leave them on a rock to lead the hunters astray.”