He shifted, whispered, “Musselwhite?” and lowered a cold hand to her shoulder. “Are you awake?”
“How … long?”
“How long?” he repeated as if uncertain what she meant, then he blurted, “Just a few hands of time! Maybe four. Five at most.”
She might make it, then. If they could stay hidden. If Pondwader could hunt food. If Cottonmouth did not come looking for them. But Diver … oh, Diver … forgive me …
Musselwhite longed to lie in his arms and weep for all the mistakes she had made. Diver would know how to comfort her. She needed him, his gentleness, and strength, the irony in his voice that always teased her out of terror. If she could just look into his eyes, feel his warm touch …
But she could not.
And after today she might never again.
In her worry over Pondwader, she had been careless, failing to watch her back. She could not blame the boy. He was doing the best he could, and she knew that. She had only herself to blame. The burden grew heavier with every breath that entered her lungs. Diver would be waiting for her, knowing she would come—just as she would have known, were the situation reversed, that Diver was hunting for her.
“Water?” she croaked. “Is there water?”
“Yes, let me get it!”
Pondwader rose and ran a short distance, then returned with the gourd he carried in his pack. Very gently, he slipped an arm beneath her neck and lifted her head. The agony of the movement left her trembling all over, but the position allowed her to see the two dead men. Relief went through her.
“Try to drink,” Pondwader said as he tipped the gourd to her lips.
Musselwhite took four swallows. “Enough … .” She had seen too many head blows not to realize what might happen if she drank her fill.
When Pondwader lowered her to the grass again, the world spun, stars becoming silver streaks, branches smearing into black waves. The bitter taste of bile rose into the back of her throat.
Pondwader set the gourd aside and leaned over her, his face frantic. “Better?” he asked.
After a time, she managed to say, “Pondwader?”
“Yes, my wife?”
“Are you all right?”
His gaze searched her face, and he seemed to understand what she meant without forcing her to expend more of her strength on words. “You must think me a weak fool,” he murmured. “But I—I have never killed before.” He wiped his palms on his robe, as though to rid them of blood. “I don’t know how it happened. My hands seemed to act before I knew what they were doing.”
“And?”
“I feel sick.”
Musselwhite filled her lungs with air, letting the cool night take some of the searing heat from her body. “You should. If you did not feel sick … I would think you liked killing. And I would have to … whack you over the head, and leave you for the bears.” She smiled feebly.
Pondwader frowned. “But I thought warriors—”
“No.” She closed her eyes. The waves of nausea had begun. She fought them, trying to keep the water down. “No warrior enjoys killing. It is just necessary … . And when it is necessary, warriors do not think. They do what they must to survive. If you had stopped to think about your actions, you would be dead … and so would I.”
“But two men,” he said in a strained voice. “I killed two men.”
“Would you rather have them alive? And us dead?”
His head fell forward and his long white hair draped around his face. “I would rather that all of us were alive.”
“Did you have a choice?”
“I—I don’t think so.”
It took great effort, but she slid her hand across the ground and touched his knee. He gripped her fingers and held them tightly.
“Oh, my wife, I feel so empty.”
“I know, but I am proud of you, Pondwader. Today, you were a warrior. I owe you my life.”
He kissed her fingers, his lips like ice, and tears coursed down his pale cheeks and fell on her forehead, cool, soothing. She could feel the silent sobs shaking him. Like a lost child, he clung to her hand as though his world might crumble if he let go.
“I thank you, my husband, for my life.”
She tried to squeeze his hand, to ease his fears, and the attempt brought on crashing waves of pain. The agony sucked her into a hot black sea where the winds of nothingness blew her around and around. Utter loneliness and terror lived there, cloaked in the bodies of huge amorphous monsters. They lunged at her, biting and snarling, trying to tear her apart. Faces formed in that blackness, then melted into scenes … villages burned as thatched roofs leaped with flames; an old man she had darted fell, his skeletal body landing face-first in the sand … the corpses of people she loved lay stacked on the beach after Pelican Isle … women grabbed children and ran … raccoons and gulls swarmed over the bodies of five women warriors she had killed for not obeying quickly enough when she ordered them to lay down their weapons. Where … where had that happened? Which village? The screams of a child spun from the blackness, interrupting her search. A little boy. Four summers. Maybe five. He’d sneaked up behind her when she’d been killing his father and plunged his pitiful dart into her shoulder. She’d swung around without thinking, knife in her hand … .