Chapter 7 Morco #3
“You take an arrow…” She carved a picture, showing a sharp, pointed head attached to a wooden shaft with feathers.
“You can carve a rock into a sharp point and use the feather so it’ll fly farther.
You put it to the string and pull the wood back, creating tension in the string, and then you aim and release.
It launches the arrow with enough force that it can pierce flesh and sometimes impale armor.
I’m surprised you don’t have anything like this down here, but I guess that makes sense since you didn’t have any enemies before the Knives. ”
“We were originally from the surface and may have had such weapons, but perhaps that knowledge died once we were banished, and most of the older generation was killed off in the fall. We lost a lot of our history and our culture. None live now who can tell it.”
Her eyes deepened in pity. “So, none of you knows a sunset, knows the feeling of rain on your skin, the breeze in your hair? It hurts to know such beauty and lose it, but it hurts a lot more to realize you’ve never known it at all.”
I could live without those things, but there was something I couldn’t live without. “I’ve never known peace—and I’m afraid I’ll die without ever experiencing it.”
Her eyes dropped like my words burned her heart.
I pressed my finger to her drawing. “Help me make this.”
“I wasn’t a craftsperson,” she said. “Honestly, I didn’t have any skills because I lived in the castle.”
I disregarded all that. “You’re more capable than you give yourself credit for. If Vulgaris had been the one banished down here, he would have died in the fall. I know you can help me with this. I need you to help me with this.”
The confidence was dead in her eyes, but she had the strength to look at me. “I’ll try my best.”
I’d seen a fragile girl fall into the lake and swim to shore. Had seen a liability, another mouth to feed when we already didn’t have enough to feed ourselves. But now, I saw a whole different woman—a savior. “I know you will.”
I chopped down various branches from the trees on the island, taking a collection of different woods to bring back to the camp.
None of them fit her description in contour and bend, but perhaps we could mold them into shape through carving, heating, and using water.
I dragged back everything I found and dropped it into a pile.
When I looked up to find her, she was examining her garden, which looked like nothing more than a graveyard of soil.
Behind her, Krull sat at one of the tables with a bowl of stew—and pierced her back with his stare. He hadn’t noticed me yet because his eyes were glued to her like a hunter and his prey. He must have eventually felt my stare because his eyes shifted to me.
Then he shifted them away quickly, like we’d never made contact.
My arm continued to ache in pain like it was still boiling, but the burst of anger I felt masked it. I left the pile of branches behind and crossed through the maze of tables to approach him, attracting some stares from the others, as if they could feel the tension in the air.
Krull ate his stew like he didn’t notice my approach.
I dropped onto the bench across from him.
Like a man rather than a coward, he looked up to meet my stare with mutual hostility.
I stared back, my anger doing all the talking.
He didn’t say a word.
Neither did I.
But it was clear I got my point across.
I rose to my feet then slammed my fist down hard into the table, making the bowl of stew shake and him flinch.
Everyone looked over at us.
I left the table, his stew spilled everywhere, and walked back to Hanne.
She quickly looked away and pretended not to have been a witness to the altercation.
I moved back to the pile of wood I had deposited. “Which one?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Krull leave the table and his food behind and head back to the line of cabins.
She hesitated before she came to my side, clearly distraught by the possible repercussions that might come her way. Her mind was elsewhere as she stared at the wood, unable to think at all.
“Look at me.”
It took her a second to obey, to bring those potent blue eyes to mine.
“He’s my problem, not yours.”
She swallowed as her eyes drifted away. Then she gave a slight nod.
I moved one of the logs with my foot. “I need dimensions. What do you think?”
She examined the pile before she squatted down, clearly thinking it through.
She rolled away a few of the logs, like they were disqualified from the selection.
“No knots. No broken branches. No twists.” She finally picked one.
“This is good. And it should be from here to—” She put one hand on the log then scooted down to another part of the log “—about here. We’ll need to carve the center, make the handle in the middle, and then the tips of the bow should be about this far apart.
” She showed me the gap between her fingers.
“Then we’ll need to bend the wings, but I don’t know how to do that.
And make notches in the wood where the string will be secured. It’s a start…”
“It is.” I grabbed the log and carried it to a table so I could get to work.
I’d have to cut to the center where the wood was softer and more malleable and then carve from there.
“I’ll start now.” With every movement, my arm ached more and more, like the pain had seeped into all my muscles under the skin.
But I silenced my own protests and dealt with it.
I must have given some indication of my pain when I picked up the log because she asked, “Have your wounds healed?”
I brushed off the question and grabbed the axe from the ground. “Yes.”
“Can I see?”
I returned to the table and hesitated at the question. Then I looked up and met her gaze. “I said they’ve healed.” The matter was settled, and that was her cue to let it go.
But her eyes flicked back and forth between mine, that grit the fuel to her bravery. “Then show me.”
I stared her down, irritated that she’d called my bluff but also enamored with the thickness of her spine.
I grabbed my left sleeve and hiked it up, showing the slightly pink skin from the bites of the coyotes, mostly healed.
Then I yanked it back down again, concealing my right arm from her in the hope she would drop her interrogation.
She did.
“This will take a while.” I moved to the edge of the table and prepared to hack the edges away.
She stayed. “Can I help?” She moved to the opposite end of the table and gripped the log with both hands, keeping it in place so it wouldn’t roll from side to side.
I could ask one of the guys to assist, but I didn’t. “Hold it still.”