Kol lies on the ground, but he does not lie still. He tosses restlessly, like a dreamer caught in a nightmare. Every part of his body is in motion except for his left leg.
From just beyond the edge of this clump of trees, Black Dog howls. I crouch down and slide toward the sound, Lees’s spear balanced on my shoulder. Black Dog howls once more and I am up, running toward the sound.
I see her even before I reach the edge of this meager stand of stunted trees. She lies on her back beside a clump of plants with deeply serrated leaves. Feverweed. Handfuls of stalks yanked straight from the dirt litter the trampled grass. Noni lies still, a dart sticking out of her neck. Black Dog runs in circles around her until he hears my foot on the ground.
I drop down, crawling on hands and knees to the edge of the trees. Noni looks at me, moving just her eyes. She is alert—alert enough to know she is in danger. My gaze sweeps the open space around her, but I see no one. Where did her attackers come from, I wonder, and where did they go? Are they hiding, waiting for me to come out into the open? It doesn’t matter; I have to go to her. With the spear balanced on one shoulder, I slink across the ground to her side.
Blood runs from both wounds in her throat—where the dart went in and where the tip came out. She is bleeding hard. “I had some,” she says, and her chest rises and falls like the sea in a storm. “I dropped it—”
“Shush,” I say. I gather the plants that are scattered on the ground. “I’ve got it.” I scoop her into my arms—she is so light—but I’m exhausted. My steps are slow, and with each one I turn and look over both shoulders.
“I didn’t see anyone,” Noni says. Her voice gurgles, like she’s underwater. As I carry her, Black Dog runs in front, but then stops and lifts his head. He sniffs the air. I hesitate, wondering if he smells the scent of the person who attacked Noni. I don’t move until the dog runs again, returning to Kol’s side.
I lay Noni beside him on the mossy soil. When I brush my fingers across Kol’s forehead, they burn. His fever must be rising. His body has gone still. I think maybe he’s fallen back to sleep, or whatever approximation of sleep his high fever will allow.
I check Noni’s wounds. “I’m going to leave the dart in place,” I say. “It will bleed less.”
“Pack the feverweed all around it.” Even with blood running from an open wound, she still wants to tell me how to use the plant. I’m happy for it—she is still awake, and I so desperately want her to stay that way. “I promise you it will stop the bleeding.” I follow her instructions, hoping these leaves will do even a fraction of what she claims they will. “But give some to Kol. That’s why I went out there. To get it for him.”
Noni tells me to wad up a few leaves and press them between Kol’s teeth. I whisper to him, telling him to bite down on it, and though his eyes stay pressed shut, he does as I say. I ration the remaining supply of leaves, setting some aside to dress Noni’s wound again later.
I listen for any sound that might suggest someone is nearby, planning to attack. I hear nothing but waves below the cliff and the wind rustling the leaves. “The person who did this—you saw nothing at all? You didn’t hear a voice?”
“Nothing.” She sighs, but pain tears at the edges of the sound. Her breath rattles, and when it stops, something else rattles, too. A crunch, like a foot on the ground. Noni’s eyes move to my face. Her head nods. She’s heard it, too. I pick up the spear, stretch to my full height, and turn in place, searching for any movement beyond the trees.
I pause, holding still and silent, and listen again. My attention catches on another rustling sound, like footsteps coming through the trees. Noni looks up too, and this time, so does Black Dog.
My imagination might play tricks on me—Noni’s might play tricks on her—but I trust the dog’s senses. Lees’s spear rolls in my hand, my grip ready, as I turn in the direction of the sound.
I see nothing . . . nothing . . . until all at once a dark shape is hurtling toward me. . . . A person running, a spear raised over her shoulder. In the pale light of the dying day, I see her face. Anki. She slows, and I see her eyes. Her gaze locks on my face as she cocks her arm back at the elbow and throws.
But her aim is compromised. The clutter of trees and the tricks of the shadows confuse her throw, and her spear bounces off the bent branch of a poplar that twists up through the shade. I don’t know what other weapons she might have, but I know I need to retrieve that spear before she does. I take off toward the place where it lies, not far beyond the circle of ground where Black Dog keeps watch over Noni and Kol.
I tear over the ground, Anki running hard from the other direction. I am so close, much closer than she is. I reach the spear, trading Lees’s to my other hand in favor of this larger, fiercer weapon. My feet plant, my arm rises over my shoulder, and I measure my aim.
A violent shudder tears through me, as if my will has torn in two. I ready myself to take a life—something that feels so wrong—while I revel in the privilege of ending the person who ended Chev. The two sides of my heart struggle, wrestling inside me, right up until Anki stops. She pulls a long flint blade from her belt. Black Dog appears at my heels, growling through bared teeth, and Anki aims the knife at the dog. The memory of Chev’s knife clutched in that same hand rushes back, and my resolve hardens.
The spear flies from my hand and finds its home, deep in Anki’s thigh. I know at the moment the spear pierces the hide of her pants that I’ve hit the mark I sought. Blood runs, pulsing, over her knee and down her calf. Thick, heavy blood, so dark it’s almost black. It won’t take long until she has nothing left to bleed.
Still she struggles forward, her face a knot of concentration and rage. “You may think that you will win. That I will die and you will have beaten me.” She takes a few stumbling steps, and my eyes move to Noni, vulnerable on the ground.
Black Dog watches, sniffing the air, as if he recognizes the scent of Anki’s blood.
“Yes, you may think that you’ve won,” she says. “I certainly won’t last.” She reaches down to press her fingers into the wound. The flow of blood doesn’t slow. It runs out over her hands, painting them red up to her wrists. “But I don’t need to survive to get what I want. I just need to kill you.”
Even as she threatens me, her legs give out and she collapses, landing in a thicket of thorns that tear small red gashes in her cheeks. She hardly seems to notice. Instead she struggles to her knees, grabs the spear with both hands, and pulls it out, leaving a gaping hole in her leg that goes all the way through muscle to bone. “Thank you for returning my spear,” she says. She braces all her weight on it and forces herself to her feet.
She raises the spear, steadying herself against a tree.
But there is no strength left in her, and she drops back to the ground, the spear still clasped in her fist.
For a long stretch of time I stand there, not making a move toward Anki or away. A breeze picks up, swirling the branches above my head. Could it be the movement of her Spirit as it leaves her? As the gust fades, I force myself to slide toward her. We are too short on weapons. I cannot leave this spear—even covered in her blood—cast aside on the ground.
As I tug it free from Anki’s hand, I think again of my brother’s knife—the one I’d seen her treating like a toy—the one she took from his body when he died. And I think of Dora’s words to her daughter—You know better than to steal from the dead. Does taking this spear make me no better than Anki?
But then I turn and see Noni and Kol lying side by side on the hard ground. Both of them weak. Both nearly defenseless.
I grasp the spear. I will return it to her clan when I see them again. I am not stealing from the dead, but for now I am borrowing this spear.
Back under the trees that overhang Kol and Noni, I slide to the ground.
“Is she dead?”
I startle at the sound of Kol’s voice. “You’re awake.”
“I am.”
I drag myself to his side. His eyes are open, and in the thin light of the fading day, I see a bit of fire in them. His head is damp with sweat. “Your fever’s coming down.”
“Maybe the plant is working.”
I slide over to Noni’s side. Blood still leaks around the feverweed packed around the dart, but after seeing Anki’s leg, this doesn’t scare me nearly as much as it did.
Kol sits up. “I thought I would die today,” he says. “And do you know what I feared?” He leans forward. Through the deepening shade, I can just barely see the shape of Kol’s mouth, a straight even line with only a hint of a curl at the corners. “I feared that I would never get the chance to marry you. That I would never get the chance to be your husband.”
I flinch at Kol’s words, and I hope he doesn’t see. I’ve feared the same thing today. I’ve feared that we would never marry. But not because Kol would die, but because Chev has died, because Arem has died. I feared our new duties to our clans would tear our betrothal apart. That the need to lead separate, independent clans would mean we would have to stay separate and independent, too.
But Kol hasn’t thought of this. Or if he has, that’s not what he wants to talk about now.
“I wasn’t afraid of you living a long life without me,” he continues. “I wasn’t afraid even that you would forget me. You would marry someone else someday. It would be better if you did forget.
“But I was concerned about one small thing. I was worried I would never get to dance the wedding dance with you.”
The sun has sunk so low that it gives little warmth. Cold seeps up from the hard ground. Yet despite the chill, my body warms. My hips turn, tilting me toward Kol. I lean in, almost close enough to kiss his lips. “We could dance right now,” I say. Heat runs down my spine. I lean closer.
Just as my cool lips press against the heat of Kol’s, a sound snaps my head around.
The sound of a dart sticking into the ground.
I tear myself from Kol and spring to my feet. A spruce dart identical to the one that pierced Noni sticks up at an angle just an arm’s length away. I pivot, searching the darkness that spreads in every direction, broken by only the smallest swaths of light. I see nothing, nothing, nothing . . . but then another dart lands a bit farther from my feet, but a bit closer to Kol. My gaze flicks to the place it came from and I see her—Dora—her bright white hair glowing in the scattered twilight. She is running hard straight for us through the trees.
She must be out of darts. She shoulders a spear, and she is closing in, nearing the distance she needs to make the strike. I lunge for Anki’s spear. The shaft, sticky with blood, feels right in my hand.
I step out, putting distance between me and Kol. I know what she wants. She’s not here to kill Kol; she’s here to kill me. And despite the shadows, despite the trees, despite the way she seems to struggle to get a clear view of me, she is determined to take the shot. So I encourage it. I step out just far enough for the slanting rays of the sun to slash across my face. Her steps slow . . . she takes three sliding steps forward and releases the spear.
Even before it’s out of her hand, I’m diving back into the shade, toward Kol and toward the ground. The shot falls just short, nicking my calf as I fall.
I look up, and my eyes meet Dora’s. She smiles, the same meek smile I first saw when she climbed out of the kayak on the shore of the Manu’s camp, her arms laden with sealskin to help them rebuild the camp her son had tried to destroy.
A smile that is a lie.
Her eyes are on her spear just a few paces from my feet. She has no hope of retrieving it before I can get off a shot. Judging by her smile, she’s out of darts, too.
“You’re making a mistake,” Dora says. “I know you think I came here to kill you, but I didn’t. I came here to stop you from marrying a boy from the clan that killed your mother. She was a friend of mine, and if I have to kill him to honor her memory, that’s what I’ll do.”
Dora stops. Her eyes cast a quick glance over her shoulder. She’s thinking about escape. “Even in your last moments,” I say, “you’re still a liar.” She pauses, hesitates, just long enough for me to raise Anki’s spear. Then she turns and runs back the way she came—back toward the cliff.
As I chase her, I hear her suck in heavy, labored breaths. She’s still winded from the hard climb up the cliff from the beach. The evening air grows colder—the north wind sweeps over the cliff from the sea—and my own lungs burn. My eyes tear and my cheeks sting, but I never slow.
Within ten paces of the cliff wall, I catch up to her. I am well within range. I think of my sisters on the beach heading for the boats, maybe even coming back with them by now. I think of the possibility Dora has her own boat at the base of the cliff, maybe loaded with other weapons. How if I don’t stop her, she could reach the others faster than I could.
And I throw the spear.
It sails true to its target, but she drops to the ground and rolls just in time. It grazes her hip and bounces in the dirt.
From where I stand, I assess the distances. She is closer to the dropped spear than I am. She could be armed before me. She sees it too. Her eyes give away her desperate need to reach it, but her mouth, twisted in pain, gives away the extent of the wound on her hip.
Dora raises herself on one knee, lunging for Anki’s spear. Time slows, and I notice small details—the curl of the grass under the hand of the wind, the shadows of birds flying west toward the sun. I think of those birds—I wonder if they are black shags, flying to their nests out at sea. And I notice a sound, the howl of a dog, and a voice calling my name.
I turn and look back, just a momentary glance over my shoulder. Kol stands, leaning on the shaft of Lees’s spear like a walking stick. “Use this,” he says, and he holds it out to me.
And so I turn and run, knowing that as I run to retrieve Lees’s spear, Dora is retrieving Anki’s.
My feet fly over the ground. I feel like an elk or a deer. I grab the spear and spin. Dora is struggling to rise to her feet. Blood pours from her hip. She moves slowly, getting only to her knees before I am closing the space between us, preparing to take the shot. She wobbles, climbs to her full height, shifts her gaze from me to Anki’s spear and then to the cliff behind her.
She makes her choice and staggers toward the cliff.
I am still chasing her—still closing the distance in hopes of making the shot—when she plunges over the edge and down to the sea below.
I have to look. I have to be sure I see Dora’s body broken on the rocks or floating in the tide.
But the tide has come in. The rocks have disappeared. High water splashes against the base of the cliff wall. I do not see a kayak waiting for her. And I do not see Dora’s body.
I stand looking out at the sea for a long time, but I never see a sign of any living thing.
I don’t find Kol at the edge of the trees where he gave me the spear. Instead I find him back at Noni’s side. He has found Noni’s pack, and he’s searching for something.
“We need to signal them,” Kol says, pulling something small from the pack. “We need to set the signal fire—”
“What you need to do is stay out of sight. Move farther back from the cliff, away from the beach and sea. Take Noni and Black Dog with you—”
“And you will do what?” Kol asks, getting to his feet. He’s shaky and avoids putting weight on his left leg, but he stands. “Give the Bosha the chance to kill you? You agreed to use a signal. It was your idea.”
“He’s right.” It’s Noni’s voice. Her eyes are open. She’s found the feverweed and packed a bit more around her wounds.
I recognize the thing in Kol’s hand—a fire starter. “We’ll find a place near the edge of the trees—a place where the fire will be seen,” Kol says. “Noni says she can walk that far.”
Kol turns, expecting me to follow. But from beyond the ledge a sound rolls up, mixing with the beat of the waves that whip against the cliff. It echoes back again—not the sound of water on water, but rock falling on rock.
Rocks are falling, and I can’t help but worry that someone is making them fall. Maybe Dora survived after all. Maybe it’s Noni’s father.
I stride to the edge of the trees, peering through the eerie glow of twilight. Motion shifts at the ridge where the ground drops away. A silhouette takes shape, climbing to the top of the cliff face and rising up into the slanting light, stretching to the full height of a man.
Thern. He stands and unfolds his arm, and in his hand is an atlatl. He loads a dart. His focus shifts—I wonder if he is searching for me, or Kol, or even Anki or Dora—but then something in his movements strikes me as halting. He lifts his other hand, drawing it over his eyes, and I know he is blinded by the setting sun over my shoulder.
For one small moment—a moment no wider than the breadth of a single hair on my head—I feel relieved. He can’t see to shoot the dart. He doesn’t have a clear view.
But then the moment dissolves like foam on a wave, and Thern takes the shot anyway. The atlatl comes forward and the dart flies straight. He’s luckier than Anki, and nothing deflects his shot. But it flies wide, sailing past the place I stand, landing somewhere in the trees behind me.
I turn. Kol still stands with the fire starter in his hand, but his eyes are on Thern. I wonder if he—like me—is wondering where the others are. Hoping that they are still on the beach with the boats. That nothing has happened to them, and they are still coming.
“Go set the fire,” I say. “Keep this near you.” I toss Lees’s smaller spear onto the ground beside him, but keep Anki’s with me.
Thern loads another dart. His arm cocks back, the dart stabbing the sky as he readies his throw. I hesitate for only a moment, knowing that I will have only one shot. I squat down, hoping I can’t be seen in the undergrowth, and I raise Anki’s spear to my shoulder.
Thern’s attention sweeps left to right, scanning the trees, searching for a target. Is it possible he does not see me? He takes a tentative step into the space between us.
He may not see me yet, but I have only another moment or two before he does.
My hand goes damp with sweat, the heavy shaft of Anki’s spear slipping in my grip. Thern takes a half step closer, then another. With each step, the time I have to prepare my shot contracts, but the chance I have of landing the shot grows. So I wait.
Behind Thern, something moves. Something calls my attention to the ledge that drops to the sea. A shadow that bends and changes—one moment long and flat to the ground, the next crouching, then straightening into a man. Just as Thern did before him.
Morsk.
He hurries to his feet, raises his spear overhead, and locks his eyes on the place where I crouch. Unlike Thern, he sees my hiding place.
And he is running hard right for me.