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“Try to put weight on it,” Path says.
I lower my right foot and slowly lean away from Gamma, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. As soon as I feel the weight in my knee, my hip screams in pain and I push back in the other direction. Gamma wraps her hand around my left wrist and holds me firmly upright with her other hand.
“Fuck… What’s your diagnosis, Doc?” I ask, looking up from the ground and across the clearing at Path.
“Not a doctor. I have no idea,” he mutters, still thinking. “Gamma, can you carry him?”
“Yes,” Gamma says, without a moment of hesitation.
“Well, wait a second–” I complain, pulling my arm from her grasp before she can lift my feet completely off the ground. “What’s your plan, there, Path? Where are we even going?”
“We can’t stay in the territory,” says Bianca. She’s sitting in front of Dante, looking closely at a deep gash in his bicep. “Timbers will be kill-on-sight with all but the Er’mee. And even with them… I doubt we’re popular.”
Path crosses our small campsite to where they’re sitting and grabs Dante’s PMI off the ground, then comes back and holds it out to me. The dim screen is obscured by the glare of the early morning sunlight.
“What is this?” I ask him.
“The map,” He explains simply. “How are we getting out of here, Paladin?”
“Elder, now,” Dante corrects.
“I didn’t vote for him,” Bianca grumbles back. “Elder he isn’t.”
My eyes follow their voices and then drop back down to the PMI in Path’s hand. I take it and draw it beneath the shade of Gamma’s shoulders, staring down at the lines and letters.
A simple topographical map of Timber territory. It’s a succinct mess of dotted and colored lines, indicating roads and footpaths, the land where the tribes live, and the land where the Timbers live. Waterways and routes marked too dangerous to risk traversing.
Few known roads lead beyond the edge of the territory. It’s been a long time since anyone has found it necessary to leave and we haven’t exactly been inviting people in.
What painful irony that our downfall would come from within.
“Bianca,” I start, looking up from the screen. She’s intensely focused on wrapping Dante’s arm, holding him still as he winces and whines. It takes her a moment to tune back in, and she looks over at me, seeming dazed.
“Yeah. Yeah?”
“This map is totally accurate?” I ask. “You’re 100% sure?”
“Uhm, no-... No. It’s a little out of date,” she says, giving the bandage a small tug. Path clucks his tongue and politely extends his hands to take the task from her. She gratefully moves away and lets him take over. Dante looks relieved, too.
She crosses the campsite to where Gamma is still helping me stand up straight. She jabs a finger at a line down the center of the map. Her hands are painted in smeared dried blood, same as mine.
“That’s different, now. It’s where the Yu’mee and the Chao’mee territories meet,” she says.
Path looks up, as though struck by a eureka moment. “That’s an amazing idea.”
Bianca glances at him, annoyed. “The last few seasons, they’ve been fighting over this space.” She explains, circling a large area down and around the border edge. “Two weeks ago, it became something of a no-man’s-land. The tribe elders agreed to meet and try to solve the problem without further bloodshed, and until then, nobody’s allowed to step foot anywhere near the border.”
I glance up at Path. He’s staring at me, smiling tiredly. “That is an amazing idea,” I agree. “There’s a road that leads right close to it. We can take that, split off to pass through the no-man’s-land, and travel the last few miles out of the region at night.”
“Where are we going?” Dante pipes up again. “You asked Path and Path asked you. So?”
“Reedstown.”
“Reedstown?” Dante hisses. “Are you-”
“Insane?” Path interrupts, already standing up and holding his hand out to tell Dante to be quiet. “Are you saying that you want five injured people to cross the ‘Sippi without a boat?”
“If you have another idea, I’d love to hear it,” I snap at him.
“Talk to the Er’mee,” Bianca says immediately. “We could convince them that this was all a misunderstanding and they would advocate for us to the other tribes.”
“What makes you think they would listen to us, or that the others would listen to them?” Path asks, letting out a nervous and knowing laugh. “The Er’mee, Bianca… There’s a reason things are the way they are with the Er’mee.”
Bianca continues to argue her case, but I tune out, staring down at the PMI, and the circle of residue from Bianca’s finger on the screen, indicating the safest passage beyond Timber borders.
She’s right. We could go to the Er’mee. We could attempt to preserve things as they were before the vernal equinox. But say we’re successful? What of it?
Everyone’s still dead. Our home is still irreversibly broken. I no longer feel at home amongst the tribals that I once called brothers and sisters.
I speak without thinking, interrupting Path in the middle of what must be a very persuasive point.
“We’re going to Reedstown, and that’s final. If you don’t like it, you can stay here,” I say, staring pointedly at Bianca. “I’m not risking the path to speak to the Er’mee, and I don’t want to stay in this place anymore. Our lives here are gone. Nothing we can do here will honor our dead, not for how swiftly our brothers and sisters among the tribes turned their blades on us without warning. I could never see this place as my home, not ever again.”
Bianca stares back, challenging me. I break eye contact without acknowledging it and let out a sigh as I fall gently into Gamma, letting her take my weight off of my good leg before I fall on my own.
Path and Bianca share a glance of unknown meaning, and nobody says anything for a long moment.
Finally, Dante asks, “Should we… Should we check for survivors before we go for good?”
And once again, painful, grieving silence fills the air. Path sits down heavily on the ground beside the pile of ashes that was once the campfire and Bianca turns away, facing out into the forest and leaning her shoulder against a sturdy Maple tree.
Is there any chance that anyone’s still alive? Is there any chance that they’d still be at the ceremony grounds?
“I bet the next place they attacked was HQ,” Path says softly, and I can hear how close his voice is to breaking.
“Mia…!” Dante gasps.
“I’m sorry, Dante,” Path murmurs.
“Yeah,” Bianca says, her voice kinder than I’ve yet heard it. “I’m sorry.”
“God, Mia… Do you really think…? They wouldn’t, right, Lucky? They wouldn’t kill a little girl, would they?”
I purse my lips. My stomach feels like it’s turning in knots. Every time I close my eyes, I see Fields-Of-Jasmine-Weed’s face, mid-warrior-cry. I watch the life melt from her fierce features all over again. Could they really do that to Dante’s little girl?
I go to speak, and I choke instead. I’d been holding my breath, without even realizing it.
His eyes search my face desperately, finding no relief from the horrible possibilities. He buries his face in his hands, hiding from the hopeless looks on our faces.
I take a deep breath and let it out, hoping it’ll make me feel less like I’m made of ice and lead. It doesn’t.
Bianca’s head is low, hanging almost level with her shoulders. She looks as heavy as I feel.
“We’ll look,” I say.
She turns and looks at me, her eyes asking me if I’m crazy.
“We’ll go back to the ceremony grounds and we’ll see if anyone’s alive. We’ll go back to HQ and look there, too. I… I don’t know what we’ll find. But we… owe it to them, don’t we?”
I know it’s crazy. I just… need some hope.
“And… And if we find anyone,” I continue. “We’ll go to the Er’mee.82Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlTDz7iDggY
