IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 23
Wednesday,
November 11, 2708 Kurmal's hands and feet have gone pale and cold, though
the rest of him bakes in fever. His
nail-beds each show a spreading spot of plum-color, and he has not urinated
since yesterday morning. His pulse
beneath my finger races fast but faint. I light up a cigarette,
take a few puffs, and then hold it to Kurmal's lips. "Come on, lad. Breathe it in." I don't know if he can understand me in his
delirium, but then his lips flutter around the cigarette, and the tip brightens
red with his breath. The scent of rosehip tea wafts into the room with
Zofia. "What...What are you...?" She stares at me, pale and bewildered. "He's going into toxic shock—his blood pressure has
dropped to dangerous levels. I'm hoping
that the nicotine...um, the essence of tobacco...will raise it enough to help
him fight back." She gives me a flustered smile as she lays the tray
down. "Oh, well, you must know what
you're doing. I just didn't know that
tobacco had any good uses." Neither do I, and I don't know what I'm doing. "It's a long shot," I say. "But I won't give up if you won't." I pull the cigarette back from the half-dead
man and stick it in my mouth. "Pray for
him; we'll see what happens." I can't
budge from his side, now, until he either rallies or dies. (We can't let the army
budge—not till we find Deirdre. So far
I've only found Turin and Dosh, and Dosh keeps kicking himself for losing track
of Nishka. I send Turin Wheelwrong to go
and do what he does best—to every cart in the enemy camp, if he can. When I try to gesture him
forward my forearm works but the upper arm stays put, the elbow frozen at its
angle; it looks weird even to me. So
that's how it's going to be, for the rest of my life. If my father were to meet me, would he recognize
my face as something like his own—or would he just stare at the arm, and not
even see the face? It does no good to
think like that, Tanjin—what is, is, so just get a grip. "You know," Dosh says, not
looking at me, "Guerillas do move on without accounting for every single member
all the time. That's called Guerilla
Tactics. It's what we do." "You want to go on and
fight without Deirdre, you go right ahead and splinter off—I'm not stopping
you." But he doesn't leave, he just
shoves my rifle into the crook of my arm for me where Deirdre'd bent the limb
for no other purpose than to shoot, at my request; it cramps sometimes, but
hey, that's life. He takes up his own
rifle and we nestle in behind these big ol' roots to cover Turin if he runs
into trouble. "If we could dig up some
hoof-mites," Dosh whispers conversationally, "I suppose we could loose them in
the oxen-pen. They can't go far with all
their oxen lame." "Yeah, but how'd we keep
the lil' bugs from infesting every farm for miles around? That's not gonna win us many recruits, my
friend. Besides, we don't have any
hoof-mites." "If we ever find Hekut,
he's practically a hoof-mite." I strangle down laughter
and try to keep my eyes on my sights. "I betcha his daddy was a
hoof-mite." "Watch your mouth," I say,
trying to choke back giggles. "No, really. I can just picture his momma feeling, you
know, just a little tickle down there and thinking, ‘Oh my—what was that?'" "Stop it, Dosh." In his deepest voice he
says, "Little did she know..." "That's enough, Dosh!" "But can't you just
picture..." I kick him, but he just
laughs and kicks me back, so I grab his hair to try and knock some sense into
his head against the roots, but he fights back and the next thing you know
we're tussling in earnest, laughing and swearing and getting dirt in our eyes
and swearing even louder. Gunfire! Oh God forgive a fool! We dive behind the roots as the soldiers
pummel the poor tree with a whole swarm of bullets. We huddle against each other like a single
animal shivering with fear, till suddenly Dosh gets an idea and cuts loose with
a scream like somebody dying in pain—it makes my hair stand on end just to hear
him, even with my arms around him knowing that a bullet didn't touch him
anywhere. Even after he trails off that
scream seems to hang on the air like a ghost, my ears still shudder with it, so
full of fear and hurt and dying young that if I were one of those soldiers I'd
feel ashamed.) "Get
some sleep, Deirdre. My turn to watch." I shake my head, my face burning
with shame to let anyone else shoulder the duty for which I've neglected my
band. I fan Kurmal's sweat till his odor
fills every corner of the room. ("Feign sleep," I whisper
to the others, in the relative dryness of an abandoned public garage. The place still stinks of rancid jojoba and
taroleum, the floor spotted with their oils.
Broken glass rims some of the windows, the door stood ajar when we
arrived, and thieves have taken most of the tools. And why do I find more and more abandoned
structures throughout Vanikke?) "Come
on, sweetie—you're nodding where you sit."
I start at the hands that tug at me, but find them gentle. Zofia puts an arm around me and guides me to
the bed, still warm and rumpled from her recent occupation. The sheets still smell like her, too, faintly
buttery with the friendly odor of a fellow woman. My heart nearly breaks in me that they will
probably never smell like Kurmal. At her
urging I strip off the cumbersome clothes, lie down, and surrender to the
softness. Then she takes the candle with
her, leaving me in shadows, sinking into dreams... (We wait and listen, but no
more bullets fire our way. They think they
did the job. It takes a long time more
before our hearts stop pounding enough to let us move again, or even let us
think. And then we remember. "Oh God," Dosh says. "Turin..." "Maybe he escaped in all
the commotion turned this way. Probably
did—Turin's got a level head." "But he sure couldn't do
his work with the whole camp woke up."
Dosh lays his head on his gun where he lies. "We have to give it up, Tanjin. We can't stall the troop now." "No," I say, surprised at
myself. "No, we aren't giving up anytime
soon." I think almost faster than I can
keep up with, myself, like all the fear in me has turned into greenfire just
like magic. "You're right—the oxen
matter more than the carts. Repairing
carts would only slow them a few hours, not for days. We'll just have to gun ‘em down." "We can't go after the oxen
now! They're all woke up!" I grin, feeling really high
on fear turned into something else.
"Think, Dosh. We got ‘em used to
a pattern. We attack maybe every other night,
or sometimes every night, and now once in awhile by day." "That don't sound much like
a pattern to me." "But just once, Dosh. Every time we attack it's just for once, by
night or day. They might watch for us
tomorrow, but they think we're through for the night, it's all over, they can
go back to bed." Dosh grins, himself. "So all we need to do is just wait a few
hours..." "...Till they've had time
to fall back asleep." He nods. "The deep sleep of people who have nothing
more to fear. I gotcha.") (Our oldest and youngest
really do fall asleep; I can hear the hints of snores. But I can also feel, telepathically, the
alertness of my most martial fellow-travelers. I lie in the dark garage,
waiting, reviewing all that I know of hand-to-hand combat, myself. For some reason sparring sessions with
Deirdre keep surfacing from my memory; she might look like a wide-eyed
innocent, but the dainty thing can dart like a snake. And she wouldn't hesitate to bruise me if it
taught me a lesson, unlike my trainer among the True Tilián, who I now realize
held back, out of deference to my father. Ah well, I can fight quite well without her. I have, in fact, for years. So why do I miss her, lying here in the dark?)
Thursday, November 12, 2708 ("Now, Tanjin?" I listen and listen, but it
sounds safe enough, nothing stirring but the night-birds and crickets. I peer over the root, and see, in the
distance, the backside of the night-guard on his rounds. No tents have lights in them, and haven't for
awhile. The campfire hardly even gives
off any smoke anymore, having fallen into embers long ago. "Okay, now." Rustling as little as possible, we emerge,
crouching, from behind the root, guns in our arms.) (Now I hear the soft tread
of unfamiliar boots. I tense, hand on my
knife within my sleeping-bag, which I have discreetly left unzipped. Closer...wait...closer...wait...closer...NOW! I spring on him—the Twitchy
Man—wrap my limbs around him before he knows what hit him, and bring my knife
to his throat. I shout, "Who are you and
why've you been stalking us?" But he twists out of my
grip, tripping me. I turn the fall into
a roll and spring right back with a head-butt to the belly, but he dodges and
grabs me around the waist before I can straighten, but I flip him over me, but
he lands on his feet. By now, though, Jameel,
Guaril, Apollo, Courtney, Maury, Toni, and Pauline have all piled onto him at
once. He can't fight off so many. As they hold him down, I place my foot upon
his chest, wishing that I still had my high heels. I pull out my nail file and set to work on my
fingertips (the beast made me tear a nail!) while he sputters and jerks. I look coolly down on
him. "Now now, settle down; you'll ruin
my manicure." I sigh. "I really hate to repeat myself, but who are
you, and why are you stalking us?") |
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