Ivory and Bone(60)

“It’s begun,” Lo says.

“What—”

Lo comes up behind me, her fingers wrapping around my wrist. When she answers, her words come from right behind my ear. “They do not have to go far. We know that Chev is in your camp—he and his whole family. The process of reclaiming what is ours has begun.”

I turn quickly, and the twisted sneer on Lo’s lips is like a confession. “It’s too late,” she says. “It’s too late to save them from their destruction.”





TWENTY-FOUR


Her last few words set off a loud ringing in my ears. The room grows dark a moment and then brightens again, lit by an unnatural golden glow independent of the sunlight that bleeds in from outside. Lo’s face, illuminated by this eerie gleam, appears so calm, so lovely. She cannot have said the words I thought I heard.

The ringing in my ears begins to fade, and as it does, the sound of kayaks splashing into the sea rises from the beach, mixing with the calls of gulls, circling, shouting out a warning.

“Where are they going?”

“I told you. The tyranny of a false leader, the wedge dividing a clan—they go to remove these things.” Lo’s voice is oddly changed—controlled, detached, rhythmic, like the voice of Shava’s mother—a storyteller’s voice. “When their orders have been carried out, the so-called Olen clan will be no more. We will again be one clan, and we will again be strong.” There is no conflict in her eyes, no hesitation in her voice.

“Their orders are to remove a false leader?”

“Their orders are to end Chev’s tyranny—to end the tyranny of his entire family.”

“By what means?”

Lo lets out a faint sigh. “I’m sure you already know.”

She smiles at me now, and her eyes invite me to smile back. She wants my complicity. Worse, I can see she thinks she will get it.

“You can’t do that.”

“Of course I can! Death will be repaid with death—it’s what they deserve!” And there it is—a sudden flash like lightning splitting the night sky—the hatred Shava described. The hatred I would not believe in. A bright white flash of rage—fleeting—but in its light everything comes into view. With crisp clarity, the true shapes of things are shown.

I don’t waste time with a reply—I push past her. I’m out the door before she can react, running as fast as my legs will move. The path to the shore is steep and uneven and my feet slide on loose rocks. More than once they nearly go out from under me, but I keep running and never slow down.

I only dare lift my eyes from the ground right in front of my feet a few times, but even so, it doesn’t take long for me to realize my kayak is gone. The spot where I pulled the boat up onto the shore is empty, marked by a telltale rut in the sand leading back to the water’s edge.

Of course they would take it. Without it, I have no way to pursue them across the bay.

Out on the water, I see the black silhouettes of Lo’s followers as they head east toward the sun, toward the eastern shore, toward my own clan’s camp.

The overland route that I hiked with Lo yesterday is to my left. It will take me much longer than the water route, but I have no choice. I scan the edge of the trees that conceal the trail up the mountains. My empty hand twitches—I think of my spear, tucked inside my kayak’s hull.

I allow myself one last glance at the silhouettes receding across the bay before sprinting off toward the trees.

Cloudless, the sky is the clear smooth blue that appears only in summer, somehow closer than the remote gray of winter. The sun throws white light all around, but still, the brightness hinders more than helps. Trees cast splotchy shade on the trail, making it difficult to see roots and other hazards as I run. I make it only to the first bend in the path before the toe of my boot catches on a jagged rock jutting out of the dirt. I find myself sprawled out on the ground before I know what happened, the palms of both hands scraped and dirty.

I sit up and allow myself just one moment to examine my hands, to study the blood soaking into the thin layer of dirt, turning it sticky and black. A moment later I am on my feet, wiping my bloody palms against my pants and running hard again.

I pass the places Lo and I passed yesterday—the fallen tree where Lo sat, the ferns where we stretched out beside each other. My feet move faster and my legs pump harder. The extra effort makes my chest ache, but I welcome the pain.

I try to imagine what will happen when Lo’s people find that you and your family have gone. Will they pursue you to the south? Or will they return to Lo and tell her the opportunity was missed?

And what will she do then?

The higher I climb, the crisper the air around me grows, like I’m climbing backward in time, back into the spring, before leaves sprouted and insects hatched. Turning a blind corner around a cluster of dense trunks and naked, twisted branches, I startle as something small races into the low brush—a hare or maybe a fox. My feet lose their rhythm and my left foot stubs against a root.

I catch myself before I fall, but not before my ankle turns. With the next step, pain shoots up into my knee and down into my foot. Now I fall, clutching the ankle as I roll onto my back.

To the count of ten, I tell myself. You can lie here to the count of ten, but then you have to be up and moving again. By the count of three, I remind myself to breathe. By six, I unclench my jaw. By nine, I rotate my ankle once in the air. At the count of ten I’m upright, testing my weight on my left foot. Painful, but bearable.