Sequoia seeds will not sprout until they are burnt.
I couldn't shake the image from my mind of her lying dead somewhere in the jungle, trapped under Blue with arrows sticking out from their bodies. That time at Carthia when I lifted her onto the ledge, bringing her to my height. The elation on her face when I kissed her. The ripples throughout my body when she kissed me back.
Those vudu birds filled the air with that terrible, low grinding caw as they fought one another for scraps of the dead. What if they were ripping her and Blue apart at this very moment?
Maybe she was still alive. The first time we'd lost contact with Yumi, it turned out to be some xatʌ about a wedding, and she showed up later that evening like it was nothing.
Maybe Miyani was out having an extremely difficult poop.
I had to hold it together; there were still ten recruits I needed to get back to safety.
Three were killed.
Under my command.
I'd cut the shaft from the arrow in Dannie's gut and pulled it through. From the smell of the wound his entrails hadn't been opened, which was a very promising sign, but he was too weak to walk back to the Lake of Doom without help. "Turic, I need you to carry him."
The big man covered in fatty muscle had spent the fight trembling with his knees to his chest while the rest of us were getting killed. He still hadn't moved.
"I'll carry him," Oma Right Hook reached his unbandaged arm out to Dannie.
"No," I said. "Turic is the only one strong enough."
The others looked at me in confusion. It wasn't true, obviously, but there was something the Baron of Gath had said to me once when I'd brought him yet another keg of wine: people need to feel needed. "Come on, man, we need you."
Turic lifted his evergreen eyes to me and his face shifted as he came back to reality.
"Yeah man," Orel, the pickpocket of Ulum, glanced among the others to gather their support. "You're the only one strong enough to carry him."
Finn's overstuffed backpack held more than Bazen's mum's arse, including enough rope to tie a sling around Turic's meaty shoulders that allowed Dannie Whats-This-Do to hang from him. As for shooters, we still had Bilal, myself, Finn, Kurt, Orel, and Charis. Daemon's fingers shook, but he could still hold a bow, and Ardou still cried over his friend Jenzui, who had two arrows in him.
Among all of us, we only had fifteen broadheads left.
I still can't believe I was stupid enough to wear that silk yithi Tani had given me to go meet her. The scar on my right wrist would never fade. zokedɪ. A scar. A memory. zokedɪsedu I remember you, literally, you scar me. Miyani would always be with me.
Maybe she was still out there.
Like Geraln?
Sarina, I don't need this right now.
You're right. You still have one missing.
"Kurt, Finn, help me track down Siddik. Bilal?"
He nodded. "We'll meet you back at the castle. Orel, Charis, Daemon, Ardou, bows out and arrows nocked. No talking, eyes and ears to the forest at all times."
"I can still shoot." Oma lifted his bow with his wounded arm, nocked an arrow, and drew.
"Don't waste the shot!" Bilal snapped at him and pushed his arm down.
Oma relaxed his draw, grabbed his arm, winced, and sucked in through his teeth.
"I want my bow!" Dannie called after us and grunted in pain.
Below Kurt's hand, Cougar snarled with His claws out, and above, Crane spread His wings and prepared to strike.
Bilal answered. "If you want it back, you'll have to stay alive long enough for him to return it."
"What about Jenzui?" Ardou pleaded. "We can't just leave him."
Bilal answered him. "The Na'uhui give their dead to Jungle. Their Mother god has some kind of arrangement with Orca; something about where the jungle meets the sea. They'll find their way home."
"What about Bear?" Daemon's voice trembled. "Bazen's Rattlesnake clan. What about Rattlesnake?"
I was more than happy to let Bilal handle those questions.
I was selfish; Iyemi was also missing. Iyemi who chided me for ogling a harvester's naked breasts when we first came down from the pass. Iyemi who'd appeared among us while we crouched low listening to the siren bird call attention to Kadelou, acting like she was listening with us. She'd been… vocal… this morning while Ta'o ravaged her body.
Focus.
Siddik Moldslayer, like the others, thrashed his way through the bushes leaving shredded leaves and broken branches in his wake. With the low grinding caw of the vudu birds all around us, we tracked him to a scuff mark on one of the tree-trunk-like roots that ran across the ground. There were fresh handprints and kneeprints in the dirt beneath a cover of blue sawblade leaves, and his trail continued on the other side.
He led us into the warm shade of the deep jungle. The canopy was so dense overhead as to forbid even slivers of sunlight to reach dark-green leaves that climbed over rotted logs. All around us, the trees grew dark enough to cast twilight in the mid-afternoon sun with no hint of anything beyond ten yards.
Still no Miyani, still no Iyemi.
He'd fled in the opposite direction of those enemy warriors, and we saw no sign of them, either. All three of us kept our ears to the deafening jungle, filled with chirps, caws, whistles, and the steady grinding of insects. Something crept away slowly as we approached and disappeared beneath the leaves. Between a span of low trees, remnants of a spider web clung to leaves on both sides. Finn's eyes went wide at a spider the size of a fist with long, spindly legs spreading far enough to straddle a man's face.
A line of shredded underbrush led us to a patch of flattened leaves and broken flowers littered with blood splatters and scraps of flesh, with small, bloody trails leading off in seven different directions.
The trail ended. To one side, a few human rib bones had been gnawed clean and left for the flies.
Finn's eyes gaped and he swallowed. Kurt exhaled slowly through his nose.
Make that four.
What if this was her, and not Siddik?
The day she showed up at Praying Mantis, Blue had leaped over the drawbridge before it could drop down fully and raced over to greet me along with her old friends. My ego was so fragile. I nearly pushed her away for jealousy over that boy. We spent the night talking. I'd never met anyone like her. She was so patient with me.
What if I never saw her again?
Her arms around my body the day after we lost Praying Mantis, squeezing my broken ribs, I just wanted to feel her again.
If I could just take her place.
I couldn't break. I lowered my eyes. "Let's go back."
I pointed in one direction, through thick trees that, as with everywhere else, offered no visibility.
"How do you know which way to go?" Finn asked.
I showed them the fʌɣefiŋaŋa, the small, black, clusters of poofy mushrooms that only grow on the western side of the trees. The day Miyani showed it to me, she'd given me the pendant I wore. The desiccated thing was a shriveled chunk of leather by now, barely recognizable as an ear carved from an enemy she'd killed in battle.
And if some enemy warrior out there now wore Miyani's ear?
My mind was numb. Four men, five if Dannie didn't make it, had lost their lives under my command. Bazen was especially hard. I shouldn't have held him up; his lung was punctured and he'd drowned in his own blood. Every shift, every bump wiggled the broadhead and carved him up from the inside. I shouldn't have tried to hold it. I should have snapped the arrow shaft closer to the entry to minimize movement and held him downward to let him cough it out.
I should have been paying attention to the forest.
A loud squawk called out from the trees beside us, and a brown-orange striped lizard stepped out. Kurt jumped back and raised his bow.
I held my hand out to him, but he'd already relaxed.
It was Dessert, the same one who'd introduced herself to him the day we shot the threader. She passed her snout among each of us for a good sniff, then chirped and clicked. You didn't find Siddik?
"There wasn't much left of him. Any word of Miyani or Iyemi?"
Nothing yet, but that piss-colored rat and its monkey were snooping around earlier…
Chaos. The rest of her words flickered out into unintelligible clicks, chirps, and whistles. She tilted her lizard face at me as if waiting for a reply. But how was I supposed to understand her? After a moment, she nuzzled my cheek and disappeared back into the trees.
Finn squinted at me and his mouth gaped. "You can talk to them?"
It took too long to realize what had just happened. If the wrong people find out, You'll be burned at the stake. "You hang around them long enough, you'll start to pick up a few basic things."
"Basic things!" Kurt chuckled. The two of them glanced at one another, and he continued in his deep baritone. "What the hell did you even say?"
Finn clicked his tongue and whistled. Kurt tried to mimic a squawk and whistled back.
I shrugged. "Maybe I've picked up more from Blue than I realized."
Kurt's eyes lingered on me a moment longer, and we kept walking.
Miyani kept my secret. When I told her what Ranía had said to me, her response wasn't what I expected. You have Ranía's gift? Mother expects much from you! You must learn to use it. I will do anything to help, please tell me.
Surely, the blowjob did help.
I knew I could trust her. Of the people she'd terrified before she switched to our side, some of them never forgave her old hurts. I would not have killed you, she kissed me. I'd have captured you and kept you for sexual entertainment!
Complete and total xayufipiga.
We emerged from the treeline. In the shadow of stone walls rising up from black waters, between the slate road to Carthia and the moat was a herd of about twenty adult bison grazing on the grass. Up on the rampart, twice the normal number of men paced with two at every tower manning the threaders.
We passed across the wooden drawbridge and beneath the stone archway of the main gate. Inside, the courtyard was filled with carts overloaded with goods. Two vita'o had cornered a fat little piglet beneath one cart while children poked at it with sticks. One of the lizards looked up at me and squawked. The piglet seized that opportunity to scurry out and hide beneath another cart. By the time they could get around that one, the snack had disappeared into the storeroom.
Meyisi, the important-looking Na'uhui woman who I owed for the cart I'd destroyed, had lifted a canvas covering one of the carts and wrote something down in a book before moving on to the next one. Three unfamiliar men had hoisted another up and removed a wheel to work on it.
On the other side of the courtyard was our stall. Where I'd first dared to approach her. She had her back to me working on Blue's saddle. He had dinner in his jaws. Her body was sublime. She turned to me, and her face was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I could count on one hand the number of words in her language I learned from her in that fleeting moment, and she wasn't far ahead of me, but the way her white-yellow eyes melted my soul was all the communication I needed.
I felt like my heart was about to collapse.
A woman's voice came from the side, speaking Herali with a thick Na'uhui accent. "What is this xayufipiga about the road being too dangerous?"
"Gods!" Finn looked her up and down with instant desire across his face. "Hello there. I'm Finn of Sutra."
She was maybe an inch or two taller than Miyani if that, and dressed in a white cotton dress that hemmed around her muscular thighs. White hair fell behind her back in a feral mass, and she gazed up at me through bright yellow eyes.
"Ahmi!" I didn't think. She stood beneath the iron lantern outside the medical ward, and I rushed to embrace her. I didn't want to let go. Tears escaped my eyes, and it was all I could do to hold her close.
She laughed lightly and embraced me in kind. "Not the reception I was expecting, but I will take it."
"You gonna introduce us, man?" Finn stood beside me. His eyes wandered up and down her body while Kurt was transfixed on her sharp, angular face.
Miyani's face was soft and round, and when she smiled, every piece of her smiled with her. "Gentlemen, this is Ahmi. Her husband is the cook at Carthia…"
"poke ʃoθisa!" she slapped my arm and glared at me.
I grinned. "When did you get here?"
"If you knew I was married, would you have entered my classroom? You see this is how I get to know the crazy ones."
"I'm not that crazy."
She pursed her lips at me and turned to the shorter, stockier recruit. "So you are Finn. Bilal speaks very highly of you."
She squinted up at the taller one, making note of the bow in his hand. "And you must be Kurt. You don't have the look of a Crane Herali."
Kurt half-smiled. "I've never had a eupin of my own."
"Hmm!" she huffed. "You'd better return it. Your friend is very upset and he wants it back."
While Kurt was leaving, a high chirp filled the courtyard as a lizard with a blue stripe down the length of his body raced across the drawbridge carrying Miyani on his back.
That tiny seed of hope deep within my heart burst forth and filled my body with ripples of energy. As for Blue, he rammed into me, knocking me to the ground and pinned me down, rubbing his face in my cheek and sniffing all over my body.
I laughed and tickled under his forelimbs while Miyani jumped down from his back. Her voice was frantic with cries of joy. "My Caleb! My Caleb! My Caleb!"
She tried to reach in, but Blue hissed at her and rubbed his face in my cheek again. Then he lowered his weight over my chest and allowed me to massage his haunch.
Finn spoke first. "Where's Iyemi?"
Miyani lowered her eyes, and a tear streamed down her cheek. "Chaos kill-ed her." She turned to Ahmi. "I almost got her; I was so close!"
"Gods!" Finn took in a deep breath and let it out. "Ta'o's not going to take this well."
"Miyani," Ahmi cleared her throat and, with a quick glance to Finn, asked her in Herali. "Did you go after Chaos?"
"ti," she dragged me from beneath the big lizard, pulled me to stand, and threw her arms around me. I enfolded her and leaned down to smell the coconut blossom in her hair.
"Are you sure? Are you sure she did not lure you away?"
Miyani pulled away slightly and furrowed her brow at Teacher. "What do you mean?"
Ahmi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I theorize that Chaos lured you away because she pitted seasoned veterans against trainees armed with practice arrows, and she did not want you to interfere. You were there; I was not. Maybe you know if this theory is true?"
Blue squawked and lowered his head with a guttural chirp. Miyani's face broke. Her mouth gaped, her lips quivered, and she glanced at Finn before turning back to me sobbing. "vʌ… vʌde…"
"Who's Chaos?" Finn asked.
"Almost I kill to you!" Miyani pleaded up at me with tears streaming down her cheeks. "I make you kill… no… I sorry! I sorry!"
"Come on," I took her by the arm and led her away from everyone else.
"Caleb," she sobbed, "I don't know! I sorry! Almost I kill to you…"
"It's alright," I spoke low. "Can I just hold you?"
While Blue was content to talk to some of the other vita'o who'd arrived earlier, Miyani and I lay down in the shredded coconut-husk bedding of our stall. Her head on my arm, my hand in the small of her back pressing us close together to where I could feel her breath against me. Her skin on mine, she trembled and sobbed, and it was all I could do to hold her in my arms for an eternity and a half.
And the world turned, and the wheel spun. Bodies moved around the courtyard, the gate closed, exotic spices crept out from the kitchen, and the Terrible Sun ended its reign. Darkening shadows filled the courtyard all around.
Knuckles rapped on wood.
Bilal stood beside the partition next to the empty stall where Kadelou would no longer spend the night with his human. His stubble was gone, and his dark-green hair had begun to show his Goloagi curls. "Ahmi says we're all going back to Carthia. We leave first thing in the morning. We need to meet to decide who we want on our team."
"I can't right now."
He breathed in through his nose and clenched his jaw. "Ta'o and Renou are waiting."
It was her. Bazen of Linud was dead, and it was my fault. Kely of Linud. Also my fault. Siddik, Jenzui, by mere virtue of me being their commanding officer, it was my fault for putting them in that situation. Iyemi was dead, and for the last several hours, I'd thought Miyani was as well. God granted me this mercy, and I could do nothing else but savor her for as long as I would be allowed. "I'm sorry. I can't. Not right now."
He mumbled to himself, "right," and walked off.
"Caleb," she whispered, "I didn't know. I didn't think. I made a mistake. I should have realized…"
I rested my hand in her pixie-cut white hair, tilted her face up to mine, and kissed her sweet lips. My eyes watered at the scent of her skin. "We can talk later; right now I need to hold you. Can I please just hold you?"
Her whole body relaxed into mine, and we stayed there into the night.