Chapter 28
28
Toorin
I don’t know what woke me first… the first rays of the morning light, my tongue dried to the roof of my mouth, or the wet, sticky strands of slobber that dropped on my forehead.
What the—
I opened my eyes and tapped Marc on the shoulder. “Someone’s here to see you.”
Marc yawned, shifting as he stretched, his arm brushing the side of the camel’s neck. He scrambled out of my arms. “He came back!”
Everyone woke except Bodie, who was already awake, having taken the last watch before dawn. “Why didn’t you tell us he came back?” he asked Bodie.
“I figured everyone needed their sleep. Even him.”
The camel had settled in the sand at our heads, its eyes half closed as he dozed. Marc got to his feet and ran his hands all over the camel, checking for injury. For a man who couldn’t stand the smell of camels, he certainly didn’t mind running his hands through the coarse pelt and getting all smelly.
“He’s fine. No cuts. Nothing.”
With all the commotion, the camel stood. Marc went from leg to leg, confirming that the camel was in one piece.
“I can’t believe he came back,” Juniper said. “I would have been to Mercy by now.”
The camel lipped and slobbered on Marc’s stubbly head.
“Awh,” Lyric said, “The bloke has a thing for you.”
Bodie stood and shook a considerable amount of sand out of his trousers. “Bloody love at first sight, it was.”
Marc laughed and shot him the finger.
“What’s his name?” Lyric asked.
Confusion crossed Marc’s features. “Is that a thing?”
At the same time, Darwin and Lyric said, “It’s a thing.”
“You should name him Boomerang,” Juniper said, “Because he came back.”
Marc glanced at me for approval, maybe. “Suits him.”
“Aye. Boomerang it is.”
With that settled, we broke camp, splitting some of our remaining rations to even out the loads.
Juniper broke out her waterskin, and we passed it around, carefully taking only a few sips even though we all wanted to guzzle the remainder. Without the help of the camels, we were days away from Mercy if we didn’t die of dehydration first.
Everyone looked at the waterskin when I capped it and gave it a shake to see how much was left, even though everyone could tell by the way the sides lay flat that it was near empty. Which left us with one more waterskin of weak mead. Not enough to sustain one person throughout the scorching day, much less six.
Boomerang nosed the waterskin. We hadn’t hit a water hole since we’d left Dry River. I uncapped the waterskin and poured the remains into Marc’s cupped hands. The camel slurped twice, and it was gone.
It nosed Marc’s hand, wanting more. We all did.
Darwin took a tentative bite of his hardtack and then made a noise as if something had occurred to him.
“What?” Lyric asked.
Darwin’s eyes darted to me before glancing away. “Nothing.”
That wasn’t nothing. “Tell me.”
“See what you’ve done,” Lyric said.
“I didn’t mean—”
“ Darwin .” My soft tone shut him up, and he refocused on me.
“Ye fought hard, aye?”
I didn’t know where this was headed and wasn’t convinced I wanted to find out. You never knew with Darwin. “We all did.”
“Aye, but… if ye heart were to give again, don’t you think it would have then?”
I didn’t want to acknowledge that I’d thought the same. Seemed like tempting the stars to say it out loud. “Aye. If my heart survived that fight, maybe Juniper fixed me for good.”
“Toorin,” Marc whispered beside me, though we were close enough that they all heard.
I ignored him. I had my crew to consider. This wasn’t just about me. Everyone’s lives were at risk. “When we get to Mercy, we should rest. Get back on our feet and find another drover to take us back to Dry River. This was pure folly. I shouldn’t have involved any of you.”
Bodie stood so abruptly that he startled Boomerang. “Bugger off with that bullshit.”
“Bodie’s right,” Marc said. “We’re almost there. We’re doing this.”
I leaned into Marc, my lips at his ear when I whispered, “What if I don’t want my heart back?”
I must have managed to whisper quietly enough that the rest of my crew didn’t hear.
Marc paled. Bodie didn’t miss it. “What did he say?”
I didn’t want anyone else to know what I’d been thinking, that I preferred to take my chances with a faulty mechanical heart than to rip mine from Marc.
“Sorry,” Marc ducked his head with the apology, and I cursed, knowing what would come out of his mouth next. “He said, ‘What if I don’t want my heart back?’”
I stood, and Bodie shoved me back a step. “Bloody fool.”
“You have to take it back,” Darwin said. Then he glanced at Marc, one of those apologetic half-grimaces on his face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I came here to return to Toorin what was his. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“ Asshole ,” I said, but that only made Marc grin.
“We all in agreement?” Bodie asked, checking in with each person one by one. “We’re in this to the end?”
A round of resounding ‘Ayes’ went around. I was outvoted, even if I was the captain.
Everyone started packing up. Marc pulled me aside, the expression on his face unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to kiss or slap me.
He gripped my chin. Any other man would have lost a hand doing that, but I wanted to pull him closer.
“Don’t say that again. Aye?” he said.
I moved his hand to my waist, buried my face in the crook of his neck, and kissed the tender skin there. He softened in my arms as the fullness—the love —filled my chest. Deep down, I feared what would happen if we didn’t do this. But it terrified me more to think what would happen if we did. “Aye.”
He released me, and we collected our things, a dark cloud over the joyful mood we’d woken with after finding the camel had returned.
Bodie led the way, with Juniper at his side, quiet for once. Marc and I took the middle, while Lyric and Darwin took the rear. The camel only had a halter with a short length of frayed rope dangling, but he stayed by Marc’s side.
“Should have kept it to yourself,” Lyric admonished Darwin. “Way to bring everyone down.”
“We’re already down. Moon and mars, we’re in the middle of the bloody badlands.”
Marcelis
At our afternoon rest, Toorin passed Juniper the waterskin, giving her the last sip. She took it. Even though I could tell she didn’t want to be the one who polished off the last of our meager mead. I tried not to watch her swallow or salivate at the drop of moisture that remained on her lip. She had as much right to that last sip as any of us.
Bodie capped the waterskin. “That’s the last of it.”
One last swallow wasn’t enough, especially when we’d been rationing the last waterskin for the past two days. The sun beat down on us, heating the sand to scorching temperatures during the day and dropping the temperature to near-freezing levels at night.
Our cracked and chapped lips made it hurt to smile, not that there was a lot of smiling going on. Not when we couldn’t get past the idea that if we’d been on camelback, we would have arrived at Mercy the day before. We had no clue how long we had to walk or who would be the first to collapse and be carried.
Boomerang stood behind me, teasing us with a scant amount of shade. Without any of the ropes and pack frames, we didn’t have a way for him to carry our gear, and with no good way to steer him, no one would risk riding him. So he followed us.
“Don’t look at him like that,” I said to Bodie.
Everyone’s head popped up at the edge in my voice.
“I’m not looking at him like anything.”
Toorin placed a hand at the base of my spine, normally a light, calming touch, but today because I was hungry, exhausted, and nearly willing to fight anyone for a drink, it did nothing.
I turned to Toorin to plead my case. “He’s looking at Boomerang like he’s the answer to our problem.”
“Camels do have a lot of blood,” Darwin said.
Lyric stomped on Darwin’s foot.
“Oi. What was that bloody for?”
“You’re not helping.”
“Have you ever had camel flank steak?” Bodie asked. “I mean—”
“Stop.”
That single word from Toorin had Bodie raising his hands in surrender. “I wouldn’t do anything… unless—”
“There is no ‘unless.’ Are we clear?”
Maybe I was the irrational one. If sacrificing one camel could save our lives…
I scritched my fingers through the woolly tuft atop his head. My heart so low it must have gotten sand on it because it scraped in my chest. “Maybe Bodie’s right.”
“You stubborn mule,” Toorin said to Bodie. “Now look what you’ve done.”
The wind shifted, and the camel raised its head, catching a scent on the incoming breeze. Juniper’s hand went to her blade, and the camel nearly knocked Toorin and me to the ground as it started trotting up the dune.
The trot turned into a canter, then a clumsy gallop that made him look like he had six uncoordinated legs instead of only the four as he disappeared over the other side of the dune.
Bodie and Toorin exchanged glances.
“Could be other camels,” Bodie said.
“Agreed.” Toorin’s nose went up into the air. All I could smell was camel piss and hot sand. “Or it could be water.”
In the badlands, water was as likely to kill us as it was to save us. Juniper was the first to start following Boomerang’s tracks, breaking into a stumbling jog in her haste. We followed seconds behind, too foolish to conserve our energy and too foolish to care.
Juniper scrambled to the top of the far dune and took one look at what was ahead of her before waving her hand for us to hurry. Then she disappeared on the other side.
We tried to keep up, but we’d lost more ground as we crested the dune. Toorin made it to the top first. A laugh ripped from his parched body. It was part stress relief, part amusement, all exhilaration.
“Water,” he said. “It’s bloody water.”
The rest of us reached the top to find Boomerang and Juniper chest-deep in the water, drinking their fill. There were no telltale skeletons in or around the water, and one end of the oasis had a series of muddy footprints from beast and man. A trail led out the back side of the oasis. The first consistent trail we’d seen since Jord left us for dead in the badlands.
“Bloody beautiful,” Darwin said right before he and Lyric ran down, their arms pinwheeling on the way. With Darwin’s sash of a belt tied around Toorin’s head, Darwin’s trousers fell to his ankles. He tripped and rolled and righted himself, shucking his trousers so he could continue to run. Luckily for the rest of us, his long shirt covered the important bits.
Toorin took my hand, and we ran after them. We fell into the shallows, the water stinging the angry cut on my thigh, but I didn’t care. I don’t remember anything feeling as good as the water did. I ducked my head under, washing the grit and grime from my hair and face.
I came up for air, cupped my hands, and drank. I drank until my mouth didn’t feel like a dune, until my throat loosened, until my stomach filled, until my fingers pruned.
After we’d all had our fill, we lay in the shallows, cooling our overheated bodies and thanking the stars for Boomerang.
“I take everything I said about the camel back,” Bodie said.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Marc?” For once, Bodie didn’t say my name like a bloody curse. Bodie waited until I looked at him before continuing. When I did, he said, “I wouldn’t have done it. I know what the animal means to you.”
I tried to play it off. “It’s just a bloody camel.”
“Aye,” Bodie said. “But it’s your bloody camel.”