Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
He clears his throat. “We need to cook these rabbits and get on the road. We are days behind where I’d hoped we be.”
“We have no supplies,” I remind him. “Only one horse between us.”
“We’ll hunt and scavenge our way there. Take turns riding Blackwind. Oh, that reminds me. I found some boots I think will
fit you.”
He grabs them from where he set them out to dry by the fire. I put them on over my filthy stockinged feet, refusing to ask
where he got them. The fit is not perfect, but they’ll do.
We have no tent, no coin, no bedrolls. We’ll have to travel hard and fast while sleeping on bare ground and eating intermittently.
But I guess it’s better than drowning in a river or being devoured by a grootslang.
“The grootslang!” I say. “I was readying my magic, hoping to kill it, but a chunk of ferry crashed into my skull. Is it still
out there? What about all the other people on the ferry? Did anyone else . . .”
Titus is shaking his head. “It’s still out there. Bria, it was awful. I saw it eat . . . we weren’t the only boat on the water.”
I remember. There were fishing dinghies, a fruit barge, several pleasure boats.
“The shoreline is a mess of splintered wood and bodies,” he continues, his face suddenly bereft.
“So many wounded. One woman had blood all down her face, covering her blouse. She was wandering around, crying out someone’s name.
I wanted to heal them all. I still do. But I don’t have time. Or food. No way to rest and refuel.”
“Oh, Titus, I’m so sorry.” A healer unable to heal. It must be torture.
“You’ll see some of it when we get on the road.”
“It will be worth it, right?” I say. “When you become a god. Think of all the good you’ll be able to do.”
“Maybe,” he says, but his voice lacks conviction. He moves to saddle Blackwind, who high-steps with excitement about being
on the move again. Titus’s hands pause on the girth strap. “What good is being a god if it means you can’t help the people
around you?”
I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t know anything about being a god.
I ask, “Are you going to heal that gash on your forehead?”
He shrugs. “It’s not that bad. I had other priorities.”
Me, he means.
He continues, “Healing oneself is problematic. You draw on your own life and strength to heal. It’s easy to make a mistake
or exhaust yourself. I mean, it can be done, but this scratch will heal on its own.”
While he saddles Blackwind, I reach for my braids. They feel like a stick-and-daub swallow’s nest, or maybe the straw-clay
mixture Da used to make bricks. It might be a while before I can bathe properly, so I do my best to rebraid it all into slightly
less of a disaster.
The sun is heading noticeably westward by the time we’ve eaten our fill of rabbit meat and wrapped the leftovers in leaves. We stash the extra food next to the gauntlets in our one remaining saddlebag.
“You first,” Titus says, gesturing for me to mount Blackwind. “We’ll take turns riding.”
As I swing a leg over and grab the reins, a question pricks at my mind, needling and needling, but I’m not sure if I should
ask. It might be disrespectful. It might make Titus feel like I don’t believe in him, when I absolutely, utterly do. So I
say nothing.
Titus guides us out of the thicket and down a slope. A road stretches before us, oriented north and south. It’s not a well-maintained
Grimsvolder road, but rather a wide cart track with deep ruts. Still, it will be better than traveling cross-country.
The condition of the road, the muddiness of the terrain, the dampness in the air . . . the river carried us deep into Iola.
We aren’t days behind schedule. More like weeks.
We turn onto the road and head north. High in the northern sky, the moons rise early, Winfry just a fingernail sliver now,
Alwin more than a quarter full. Winfry will catch up soon in the coming days, until they are two giant orbs that appear to
collide. It only happens once per year, on Sunderday.
Titus sets a brisk pace.
The road curves northwest, taking us closer to the river. I hear it before I see it; a sound like a mighty wind through the
trees, though trees are sparse here. We cross a feeder brook and aim downhill and suddenly it’s there, stretching across the
western horizon like an ocean, the late sun making orange flames of the lapping water.
My hand flies to my mouth when dark lumps on the shoreline materialize into huddled humans, wrecked boats, makeshift shelters, a few firepits.
Titus told me what to expect, but it’s even worse than I imagined.
Reeking air hits my face like a slap—rot and human waste.
It’s a refugee camp. Like we’ve been at war.
People have ripped up their clothes to make bandages. They burn driftwood for fuel. A few poorly marked mounds attest to the
death toll. I don’t know why so many of the living remain gathered here. Maybe they’ve nowhere to go. Like us, they’ve lost
everything. Or maybe they’re hoping a loved one will recover. Or reappear.
And it’s as though I’ve thought it into existence, because a wiry man in bedraggled clothing approaches. The clothing was
fancy once. A bit of lace fringe still clings to one wrist cuff.
“Have you seen a woman, about this tall?” he asks, holding his hand at shoulder level. “Thirty years old, hair red as a poppy.
We were out fishing, when—”
“Sorry, no,” Titus says. “But we’ll keep an eye out.”
The man wilts. “Thank you. Gods be with you.”
“And also with you,” Titus answers.
As the man ambles away dejectedly, I whisper to Titus, “We’re the lucky ones.”
“We are.”
If this had happened anywhere near our inn, Ma and Da would have taken them all in. Every single one, even if we had to put
some in the stable or the mill. We’d tend to every soul, administering what aid we could.
Tears prick my eyes. I want to scream at my ineptness, my helplessness to do anything.
Titus and I are silent as we plod north along the road, each lost in sadness. We hear him before we see him.
“Down with the king!”
We round a bend and find a man approaching us. His hair and beard are matted with mud and twigs, and he wears clothes that
don’t fit—probably scavenged. He hoists an approximation of a flag made of driftwood and bloody rags.
“Down with the king!” he yells again, waving the tattered flag.
Titus inches closer to me and Blackwind.
The man’s eyes brighten when he sees us. “King Thalorin of Iola is responsible for this! He should be deposed!”
He awaits our response, eyes wide with fervor.
Titus reaches up and puts a protective hand on my thigh. “Er . . . gods be with you,” Titus says to the man.
“And also with you. But not with the king!”
He moves on, still yelling.
“What was that about?” I ask.
“Folks are saying the grootslang was here because of a blockade down south. The Iolan royal navy has every deepwater passage
in the delta locked tight, with dredgers to keep smugglers from going under.”
I hadn’t heard anything about that. “Is it true?”
Titus shrugs, removing his hand from my thigh. “Grootslangs swim upriver to spawn and either die or return to the sea, but
never at this size. At this age. This was an ancient deep-sea creature.”
I ponder that for a moment. “It’s not here by accident, is it?”
“I fear it is not.”