Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
It was not much of a plan, as plans go. But it was something, and the current was faster than the soldiers could be.
“Under,” Juniper yelled, hoping that despite Mo’s mistrust in Juniper’s morals and character and overall planning abilities, Mo could at least trust him with that.
Mo did, ducking beneath the rushing waves.
Juniper did, too, his pack dragging him down. That stupid sword, too.
He hung on for dear life as the current carried them farther into the depths of the forest, where the banks were steeper and the trees leaned close over the water. When one particularly poky branch slapped him across the face as he resurfaced, Juniper grabbed on.
“Grab something,” Juniper yelled at Mo.
Mo did, with much more ease than Juniper, who felt a bit like a wet rat clinging for dear life to his tree branch.
Juniper tossed the sword on the bank first, and then his drenched pack, before scrambling up the bank himself. He clambered over toward Mo, who was slowly pulling himself out of the water, wincing as he went.
“Let me help.” Juniper had not sounded so forceful since the Imbolc Fire Incident of their seventh winter.
Surprise flickered on Mo’s face. “All right,” he said. “If you insist.”
Juniper glared at him. “Now, listen here,” he began.
“If you want to be angry at me, be angry at me. If you want to hate me, fine. If you want to have nothing to do with me after all this is done, I’m not going to stop you.
But do not, so help me Divona, ever run off like that again. They would have killed you!”
“Okay.”
“What?” Juniper resisted the urge to shove Mo straight back in the river. Instead, he huffed angrily and took Mo’s arm, helping him to a seat on the ground. “What do you mean ‘okay’?”
“I mean I’m sorry,” Mo said, lowering himself until he was lying on his back, where he let out a faint groan. “I can’t do this without you, and I don’t hate you. I am angry with you. But I won’t be able to rescue Bear alone.”
I don’t hate you yet might have been a more accurate assessment, since Juniper had yet to share that everything was his fault.
“For fuck’s sake,” Juniper said eloquently. “And if you say ‘okay’ to that I will kick your ass, even if your stupid ankle is hurt. Let me look at it.”
The tiniest smile played across Mo’s face, the first Juniper had seen since the prince took Bear. “I’ve never seen you so bossy,” he said wearily, closing his eyes. “I like it.”
Juniper huffed angrily. “You should really argue back,” he said. He squatted down on the moss beside Mo and began carefully unlacing the boot on Mo’s injured ankle. When he had loosened the laces as far as they would go, he pulled the boot off as slowly as he could manage.
Mo gritted his teeth, but it didn’t stop the noise of pain that escaped through.
Juniper shook his head, tsk-ing as he did. “I think it’s probably got a fracture,” he said. The ankle was swollen already, puffy and bruised. “At least a bad sprain.”
“I’ll be fine,” Mo said.
“Sure,” Juniper said. “After I carry you back to Pointe Gan Filleadh to see a healer.”
“I can’t abandon Bear,” Mo said. “I promised her.”
“I’ll get Bear,” Juniper promised, a sinking feeling in his chest as he realized this must be what commitment felt like.
It wasn’t anything like the flair of feelings he felt every time he looked at his best friend.
It was cold and settled and determined, and it scared him a little.
To be that certain he was going to do something.
Mo shook his head, groaning a little as he did. “You don’t even want to be here.”
“We’re here because of me,” Juniper said. “Now shut up and let me take care of you.”
Again, a small smile appeared on Mo’s face beneath the growing beard.
“Wait,” Mo said. “We should…talk. And I should listen this time. And—”
“No,” Juniper said. “I mean yes. Of course. It’s way past time, and I’ve waited, like ten winters, and that makes me a fool, but first.” He shook his finger in Mo’s face for emphasis, which did not look as imposing as he wanted, because Mo just grinned.
“I am going to make a poultice for your ankle, and a fire, and you’re going to drink some water, and Divona help me, you are going to eat some soup. ”
Mo nodded as if too weary to fight. “All right, Junebug,” he said.
“All right.” They had gone quite a ways into the forest—the exact distance, Juniper wasn’t sure of.
But it was so desperately quiet here that Juniper knew the prince and his men were not nearby.
And even if they decided to sway from their quest to kill dragons in the mountains and pursue Mo and Juniper, the forest was so dense here that foot travel, especially with as much gear as they were carrying, would take longer than the expedited river travel had.
Juniper hadn’t built a fire himself since he was small, but he gathered tinder where he could—pine needles, a bit of birch bark—and made do with a sharpened stick and another bit of wood, since his flint and matches were hopelessly wet.
Once, at seven winters, on a particularly cold, snowy day when all the cottages in their village had smoke curling from their chimneys and smelled of warm bread and hot cider and hearty stews, Juniper’s father had forgotten he’d had a son (a common occurrence among fathers, Juniper was sure) and locked him out.
Juniper had knocked once—he only ever bothered to knock once, because he might not have much, but he wasn’t going to beg someone to want him—and then went about his merry way into the forest, where he built a fire just this way. With a sharp stick and a bit of wood.
How had he been more competent at seven than he was now?
Mo watched him struggle with the stick but did not move, a true sign of how badly he was injured.
When it finally lit—and stayed lit—Mo leaned back with a sigh and closed his eyes.
“Juniper,” he said a little later, as Juniper bustled in front of the fire, boiling some water.
He had a few dried vegetables left, though they were a bit mushy from the river—and okay, yes, he had brought a seasoning packet along, because he might be eating, sleeping, and shitting outdoors, but that did not mean he had to eat unseasoned food, too—and if he threw in a bit of the remaining meat, it couldn’t be all bad.
Besides, nothing like broth for an injury and— Was Mo looking feverish?
“Juniper,” Mo repeated.
“Soup,” Juniper told him sternly.
“Of course,” Mo said mildly. “But Juniper, this ankle…I don’t think I’ll be walking on it anytime soon.”
“A poultice!” Juniper said. “A splint! I can do that. I can make you one.”
“That’s not all,” Mo said. “I don’t have my pack. I stowed it in the woods when I went into their camp to get Bear.”
“Did you really have no other plan beyond…going to get Bear?” Juniper asked. “And that’s fine. I have plenty of provisions, and I’m only going to be able to carry one pack out of here, anyway.”
“I only counted seven of them.” Mo shrugged. “I guess I thought I was a little sneakier than I ended up being? How did you get into the camp? And set the prince on fire again?”
“By actually being good at sneaking,” Juniper told him reprovingly. He busied himself putting together a poultice. “You feel feverish. Are you feverish?”
“Mmm,” Mo said.
That was a familiar mmm. It meant Everything will be all right, Juniper. Or maybe Juniper had it all wrong, and it just meant Mo wasn’t going to answer him, so mmm better be enough, because it was going to be all he got.
“Let me see it, then,” Juniper said. As the soup cooked over a low fire, he crouched next to Mo and tilted his ankle slightly to get a better look at it. Then he set to work cleaning mud and a bit of blood from it, letting it rest on his lap as he did so.
They were both soaking wet, and the autumn air was chilly, especially this far north into the forest, but Juniper felt suddenly warm in a way he could not fully attribute to the fire.
His strawberry-wildfire hair was growing longer out here, untamed in the woods, and when it fell into his face, obscuring his view, Mo reached out one large, calloused hand and brushed it aside.
“That’s better,” he said softly.
Unbearable man.
Juniper’s hands trembled, just a little, as he made a poultice out of some herbs from his pouch and then placed it on Mo’s injury, binding it there with a strip of his shirt.
There was a long moment where nobody spoke, the silence broken only by the crisp crackle of flames and the rush of the river in the background.
“I’ll hang our clothes to dry,” Juniper said. “How does your ankle feel?”
“Better,” Mo lied admirably.
“It will,” Juniper promised. “After I finish with the clothes, I’ll make you a splint and find you a solid enough stick to walk on.”
They were far off the path now, and even if Mo could walk on that ankle, it would be slow going to return to Filleadh.
And even when they reached the town, what would happen to them?
The first fire ale cocktail had been bad enough, but at least that Juniper could have explained away.
The second fire ale cocktail he’d…well, he’d claimed that one, hadn’t he?
Juniper was out of deals to make. Or rather, he’d made the wrong deal and now they were far worse off than before.
“Just rest,” he told Mo.
It was his turn to be brave and competent now. Mo had spent long enough doing that for both of them.
Juniper hung his bedroll and blanket, a brisk breeze blowing it. Maybe that, at least, would be dry by the time they needed to sleep. He hung his clothes next, even the pink long underwear he hadn’t wanted Mo to know he brought with.
“You— Um, Mo, I think—you need to be naked,” he said.
It didn’t come out as cool, chill, or nonchalant as he’d intended.
Mo’s complexion darkened just a little. Was he…blushing?
“You want me to be naked?” he asked blankly. “We, uh—Juniper?”
“Oh,” Juniper said quickly. “No, I want you to be clothed. But I need you to be naked. Unfortunately.”